According to Their Deeds

by Paul Robertson

  “Can you help us identify it?”

  Charles walked away. The man went to Dorothy, but she was crying. Charles took her away and the man waited.

  Charles and Dorothy stood and looked at the smoke and black window holes and the black door hole. A fireman stepped up to it and looked in.

  “I want to get to the basement,” Charles said to a fireman.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Now!” Charles pushed him away. “I’m going in. Are you coming with me?”

  They did come. Three of the four firemen still there came. Charles crossed the threshold into the black gaping hole.

  The fire still raged inside, but a fire of silence and blackness and an unbreathable sopping smoky stench. It was much worse than the fire of heat and light.

  He didn’t stop. He didn’t stare at the charred walls and open ceiling or anything else the flashlights touched. It was too different from what it had been to possibly be the same room. The floor held.

  He hurried to where the stairs had been. The upper stairs had fallen but the stairs down were still passable.

  “Watch out!”

  But he didn’t care. He had to get to the bottom. The steps held.

  The lights fell onto the door. The knob wouldn’t turn. The walls and door weren’t burned. He used his key and the knob was free, but the door still wouldn’t open.

  He pushed but it did not yield. The bottom landing was filled with water, over his shoes.

  He was pulled back and stronger shoulders went against the door.

  It moved a little and then an axe came down on it and it cracked and fell inward.

  Heavy, evil smoke roiled out. The lights could not penetrate. They fell back from Hadean gate coughing and daunted and the smoke came and came, darkness itself.

  Charles abandoned hope. Without hope, he still went on.

  He dropped to his knees and crawled under the smoke. He felt it running over his back like sand. His eyes were closed. His face was just over the face of the waters and sometimes dipped into them.

  His head rammed into something hard as above him came a cracking and then a heavy, rigid weight came down on his back, forcing him down and submerging his face. He pushed up against it, choking and drowning.

  The weight was pulled off. He sputtered, forcing water out of his lungs but filling them only with poison air, and he was still blind.

  He found what he had run into. A chair, against the door. He pushed it aside and the broken door that had fallen on him, and crawled on, faster now.

  The lights were behind him, just dim, dull spears into the Cerberus of smoke.

  He reached the desk. A portion of the black air had drained out and clear air had begun to fill in, up to a foot now above the level of the water; but still no light could pierce the smoke.

  He felt his way around the desk. He could sense the other men behind him.

  Finally a shaft of white cut through the clear air between water and smoke and found the wall.

  “Look at that,” a voice said, a voice that sounded like sound through smoke.

  Like light through smoke, only faintly more than shadows, a dim row of ghostly books stood silent above the ruin of the room.

  “I don’t believe it,” said another voice.

  But Charles didn’t care. The chair was all important. It meant more than all the books.

  His hand in the water touched something else solid, but not hard.

  “Here!” Then he coughed again from breathing in enough air to speak. “Down here!”

  The lights found him and what he was holding up out of the water, a hand.

  Movement became urgent. He pulled the hand, and arm, and he saw black hair. Angelo’s black hair.

  Angelo’s black hair. Angelo’s black hair. Charles touched the hair.

  Stronger arms and shoulders again took hold, and he slid through the water, getting out of the way. His back found the desk and he sat against it. There was only one more thing.

  Pulling and lifting, the men drove, burdened, toward the door and stairs. For one moment a light passed over the black hair and closed eyes and white teeth, and the jaw convulsed and choked in the wicked air.

  He was alive. That was the one thing.

  The men staggered away up the stairs, and the room went black and still.

  Then Charles rested. The water was cold and he was soaked. The air was foul but could be breathed. Slowly his eyes could see thin gray light from the doorway, from the street or the beginning of morning. Even here, the night was not absolute always.

  The light touched the walls and the books, or Charles could see them without light. They had also survived for a while longer, even if nothing would last forever, and what a story they must have seen played out in the smoke.

  “Hey! Buddy! You still down there?”

  The lights came back and the air was clear.

  “I’m here,” Charles said.

  “You all right?”

  “I will be.”

  “Your wife’s throwing a fit up there.”

  They helped him stand but he wouldn’t leave yet. Through the weird girders of light, he grabbed a book and then the package he’d left last night. Only then they slogged through the debris and murk and up into the world of the living.

  Charles walked slowly out into the open air and light, gray from ash and dawn. Dorothy ran to him.

  “Charles.” She buried her head in his soaked, sooted shoulder. “They have Angelo.”

  “He was in the basement.”

  He put his arms around her and they fell onto the front steps to sit and weep together. They sat alone together and ignored the ruins behind them.

  But not for long. In the street, still blocked by barricades, two paramedics were kneeling and Charles stumbled over beside them. Angelo was propped between them, breathing at least, a living man.

  “How is he?” Charles asked.

  “Okay, maybe,” one said. “Smoke, but that’s probably all.”

  “Could we just take him to my house? It’s very close.”

  “He should go to the hospital.”

  “I want to take him to my house,” Charles said to the driver. “It’s just three blocks.”

  “You what? Wait a minute.”

  Now there was a swarm around Angelo, and a stretcher, but Charles pushed in. “Does he need to go to a hospital?”

  The paramedics were talking. “Are you related or anything?”

  “I’m his probation supervisor. I can sign papers.”

  “Let me just check him out.”

  Charles stepped back. But then another voice interrupted.

  “Mr. Beale?”

  “Detective. Yes? I don’t remember your name.”

  “Mondelli. That’s somebody you know?”

  “My employee. He lives in—lived in the top floor.”

  “Anybody else would have been in the house?”

  “No one,” Charles said. “No one should have been.”

  “So, you have any idea who it was? Um, we don’t have a lot left of him to work with.”

  Charles breathed in the clear, cool air. “There is a man named John Borchard.”

  “Spell that?”

  Charles did. “He works at the Justice Department downtown. He lives out in McLean. Or it might be someone else.”

  The detective was staring at the name. “So why would he be in your building?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Mondelli. If it’s him I’ll tell the whole story. But I have to get my wife back home.” He turned away to find a fireman. “Sir. The books in the basement. I have to get them out.”

  “We’ll have an inspector look at it. He’ll tell you if you can get anything out.”

  “They’re rare books. It’s ten million dollars.”

  “Uh, okay, we’ll have the guy here in a couple hours. I’ll get the water pumped out.”

  “Thank you.”

  Angelo had not been moved. A pillow was under his head and Dorothy was
beside him.

  A pillow was under Angelo’s head, and Charles and Dorothy were still beside him. Daybreak pierced the lace curtains.

  “Look at him,” Dorothy said.

  The suspicion and hardness had receded from him and uncovered a tranquility that was natural to his still features. “That’s who I always thought he was.”

  A clock chimed six times.

  The telephone rang.

  “I’m so tired,” Charles said. “And it’s going to be such a long day.” He picked up the telephone. “This is Charles Beale.”

  “Detective Mondelli. Okay, tell me your story.”

  “Mr. Mondelli. Yes. I don’t remember what I said before.”

  “What would this Borchard be doing in your building at three in the morning lighting fires?”

  Charles closed his eyes. He set the receiver on the side table for a moment, then picked it up.

  “Was it John Borchard?”

  “We can’t find him and we’ve got some forensics that match and I have Detective Paisley from Fairfax on the other line who wants to talk to you.”

  “You’ve done quite a lot.”

  “So why was he in your place? And you were at his place Tuesday when the judge blew himself up.”

  Charles spoke slowly and wearily, keeping his words straight. “There are some papers. Important government papers. He didn’t want anyone to see them and he thought I might have them.”

  “Okay, wait. Government papers. What kind of papers?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “Why would you have them?”

  “That’s what we were talking about at his house. He thought a former employee gave them to me.”

  “Okay, we’ll get to that. What about the fire? So what you’re saying is, he would have broken in to your place to what, burn it down just to get rid of these papers?”

  “I don’t know,” Charles said. “I don’t know what he was doing.”

  “You have sprinklers?”

  “We have fire sprinklers and an alarm.”

  “Did any of it go off?”

  “I haven’t heard that it did.”

  “Okay. So he went in to burn the place and he cut off the alarm and water somehow. We’ll get a report from the fire chief, but he already says it was gasoline. Maybe he used too much and the fire was too fast and he got caught. Okay, Mr. Beale, I’m going to need to find out about these papers, but this is enough for now. I need to get a statement.”

  “I’ll be glad to do that a little later, Mr. Mondelli.”

  “That’s okay. I want to talk to your night guy, Acevedo, too.”

  “He’s not awake yet.”

  “Okay. I’ll call this afternoon. You going anywhere?”

  “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Thanks.”

  The rising sun was inches lower on the wall, creeping toward the bed. It touched a shelf, and the John Locke and the wrapped package of money on the shelf. Dorothy lowered a blind.

  An hour had passed and Charles woke, still sitting beside Angelo. Dorothy was gone.

  He found her in the front room, in her chair.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I closed my eyes.”

  “You needed to.”

  She had been crying. He pulled his chair beside hers and held her hands.

  “Here we are.”

  “What will we do now?” she asked.

  “We’re fine. We have insurance. We can salvage a lot from the basement. We’re fine.”

  “It’s all we had.”

  “We have each other.”

  “It’s all you had,” she said.

  “I have you.”

  “Why can’t we ever have anything, Charles? It’s just like losing William. I feel like we can never have anything important.”

  “We can start back up.”

  “There’s nothing I can ever hold on to. You’re everything I have.”

  “Hold on to me.”

  She did, and he held on to her, until they looked toward the stairs and Angelo was watching them.

  “Angelo. Come.” Charles pulled a third chair from the dining room table. “Sit down.”

  He was wearing Charles’s clothes that Dorothy had left for him, loose on his thin frame. His face was closed and shrouded in silence, but something inside was shaken. He sat by them quickly, and his eyes were further open than the narrow slits that usually were the windows between him and the world.

  “How are you?” Dorothy asked.

  “I am okay.”

  “You look all right. Are you hungry? What do you need?”

  “I am okay.”

  “He is,” Charles said. “He’s fine. Angelo. I’m so glad you’re all right.” His hand, which had been holding Dorothy’s before, clamped on to Angelo’s. “I’m so glad.”

  Angelo didn’t answer, but it wasn’t a hard silence. The yearning in his eyes said more than he ever had in words.

  “I don’t know where we’ll put you now,” Dorothy said. “Your room is gone. You’ll have to stay in the guest room.”

  “What room?” Angelo asked.

  “Your room at the shop is gone. You’ll have to stay here,” Dorothy said.

  “I will not leave?” He was frowning, trying to understand.

  “Why would you leave?” Charles said.

  “That judge said there is no more probation.”

  Charles’s mouth dropped. “No! Angelo! That never meant you had to leave! Of course not.” And then seeing the bewilderment in Angelo’s face, he started to laugh. “Is that what you thought? Angelo, if you want to, you can stay forever.”

  “I will stay,” Angelo said, and very firmly.

  “Well good, then. That’s taken care of.” Charles let go of his hand. “But we don’t have a shop anymore. It will be a while before you have anything to do.”

  “Your books?” Angelo asked. “There was fire.”

  “There was fire.” The joy burned away. “Yes. We lost the whole building except the basement. Angelo, tell me what happened.”

  “I was in the basement.”

  “Why were you in the basement?”

  “I went to watch that money.”

  “How did you know it was down there?”

  “You did not take it away in your car.”

  “Why did you go to watch it?”

  “That man following, that was bad. He wanted the money.”

  “What man?” Dorothy asked.

  “We saw someone on the way to New York,” Charles said. “So you were in the basement. Just waiting?”

  “I was waiting. And then the door opened.”

  “The front door?”

  “That door opened and I heard walking up there, then walking on the stairs down.”

  “What about the door?”

  “He tried to open but I had it locked already. But he unlocked it.”

  “He had a key?” Charles asked.

  “That lock, it is too easy,” Angelo said.

  “What happened when he opened the door?”

  “That door didn’t open.”

  “The chair,” Charles said. “You had it against the door?”

  “That man pushed, but I held it closed and the chair held it.”

  Charles stopped. Dorothy was hardly breathing and her face was white.

  “It’s all right,” Charles said. “Angelo is sitting right here with us. Whatever he tells us, he made it through.”

  “It’s terrible,” she said.

  “But it’s over. Go ahead, Angelo. Did he ever get the door open?”

  “No, it didn’t open. Then he went back up the stairs. Then the light went off.”

  “He turned off the electricity.”

  “I locked the door again if he would come back. Then I waited and then I smelled fire.”

  “Did you go up to see?” Charles asked.

  “I looked up the stairs, but it was all fire.”

  “Could you have gotten out?”

 
“That man, he might be waiting for me to come out.”

  “So you went back down.”

  “He would get that money if I went out.”

  “The money isn’t as important to me as you are, Angelo!” Charles shook his head. “You could have died down there.”

  “I think it was a very big fire,” Angelo said. “You say that room doesn’t burn in fires. Then the smoke came.”

  “Maybe it was the better thing to do. You probably wouldn’t have gotten through it. John Borchard didn’t.”

  “That man did the fire?”

  “That’s what the police say. He didn’t get out, Angelo. He died right above you.”

  “He was not a good man. I said be careful.”

  “Yes, you did. We both had to be careful.”

  Angelo’s perils had taken Dorothy’s thoughts from her own. “I think that’s enough,” she said. “Come into the kitchen, both of you. We need to eat. We’ll have a long day. We need to get back over there to get the books out. I’ll call Morgan and Alice.”

  “You get something for Angelo,” Charles said. “Tell Morgan to meet me at the store in twenty minutes, and tell Alice to bring boxes. Have her buy a couple hundred somewhere. And lots of packing.”

  “Don’t you want anything?” she said. “You must be starving.”

  “I need to think what it means. Angelo, are you sure you had the door locked in the basement?”

  “It was locked.”

  “But he still got it open?”

  “That man, he must be good on locks.”

  Charles stared out the window. The sun had gone. In just a few minutes, clouds had covered it.

  In just a few minutes more a car had arrived, loudly. Its door slammed and the doorbell rang, while a voice called through the window.

  “Mr. Beale? Are you in there?”

  Charles jumped to the door. “Congresswoman. Come in. Dorothy, Karen Liu is here.”

  “I just heard,” Karen Liu said. Charles had barely gotten her seated. “My staff got a call that John Borchard was killed in a fire. Then they said it was in a bookstore in Alexandria. Oh, Mr. Beale! I drove right over. The street was closed. I called and found out where you lived.”

  “You found us,” Charles said.

  “I have some coffee,” Dorothy said.

  “Yes, please. What happened? What was he doing?”

  “I don’t know for sure. The police think he was trying to burn down the building and he didn’t get out in time.”