by Cleo Coyle
“NO! I WANT TO KNOW—WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO? START ANOTHER FIRE?”
I blanched, looked to Val. What did that mean?
Val mouthed something, but I didn’t understand her. Then we watched Michael rise from the bar, take Josie by the elbow, and calmly escort her to the pub’s front door. He caught my eye as he past our booth, but I couldn’t read him.
Ryan trailed behind the two. He also made fleeting eye contact with us and, brother, did he look miserable.
“What a job that guy has,” Val said when they were gone. “Now I really need a smoke. You want to come?”
“Sure.”
We crossed the crowded room and stepped out the back door, leaving the warm, golden light for the dark, quiet patio. The hulking outline of a large Dumpster sat a few yards away, but the prevailing smell on this dim square of concrete was stale tar. A carpet of butts had been crushed into the ground below my low-heeled boots, and I considered for a moment the hundreds of conversations (drunken and sober) that must have preceded those ends.
A laughing couple rose from a weathered, wrought iron bench, nodding a greeting as they headed inside.
Now Val and I were alone.
She dug into her bag, put a cig between her lips, and snapped her disposable lighter three times. When the tricolored flame kissed the cylinder’s tip, she glanced my way.
“Want one?”
I was running on a serious caffeine deficit, so I was sorely tempted. But I’d given up nicotine once in my life, and (like my addiction to a certain ex-husband) I had no intention of fighting that battle again. I thanked her for the offer then said, “So tell me. What did Mrs. Fairfield mean when she shouted that stuff about—”
“Starting another fire?”
I nodded.
Val moved to the wrought iron bench and sat down, took long silent drags. “Oh, man, I needed that.”
I pulled up a battered garden chair, checked for beer spills, and sat down opposite her. The metal was freezing and the cold seeped through my blue jeans to the backs of my thighs. I ignored it, along with an increasingly edgy feeling that I simply attributed to a creeping jonesing for my own drug of choice.
“So?” I pressed. “Josie Fairfield is an arsonist?”
“I always thought that story was just a story. Guess we know the truth—I mean, given her little drunken confession in there. But it’s not unheard of, right?”
“What?”
“Come on, Clare, haven’t you heard of that game the occasional whacked-out New York female plays? Setting a fire to meet a fireman?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
Val released a delicate but toxic plume of white into the black night. “James says it probably happens a few times a year.”
“And that’s how Mrs. Fairfield met Michael?”
“They met when her apartment’s kitchen caught fire. That’s all I knew . . . before tonight, I mean—”
A muffled ring tone sounded in Val’s bag: You spin me right round, baby, right round . . .
Val instantly brightened. She hastily dug into her handbag again then silenced the tinny eighties tune as she brought the phone to her ear.
“Hey, what’s up?”
As Val chatted, I noticed she was careful not to say the name of the caller. It didn’t matter. I already knew she’d set that ring tone for one very special friend.
“Hold on a second,” she told Dean Tassos and turned to me. “I’m going to take this in the ladies’. Then I’m heading home. Would you give me a ride, Clare? James obviously isn’t showing.”
“Of course.”
With unexpected relief I watched the shapely outline of Valerie’s suit move into the glow of the open doorway. My wool sweater wasn’t thick enough for the March night, but I liked the solitude of this smokers’ patio so I folded my arms close, leaned back in the battered metal chair, and closed my eyes.
Inside the crowded pub, the band was starting up again. I had no desire to join the party. So much had happened tonight, let alone in the past ten days, that I just wanted a few minutes peace. Too bad I never got it.
“Hello, Clare.”
My eyes immediately opened. A wide-shouldered silhouette loomed in the doorway, blocking most of the pub’s golden light. Shifting shadows veiled the giant’s face but not his identity.
“Hello, Michael.”
THIRTY-ONE
“I hadn’t pegged you for a smoker.”
“I’m not. I was just leaving.” I rose from the chair.
“Don’t go. I want to talk to you.”
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
“Why not? Is my cousin around? I didn’t see him.”
“He had to work.”
“When doesn’t he?”
“Like I said, I should go—”
Michael folded his arms, leaned against the doorframe, effectively blocking my exit.
The closer I stepped toward the man, the more he came out of shadow. His pasty complexion appeared to have more color now, flushed from drink or that little drama queen act with Josie or both.
“That was quite a scene in there,” I said.
Michael shrugged. “Josie can’t take no for answer. She never could.”
“You have zero interest in her, I take it?”
“Let’s just say the woman’s well-cushioned life hasn’t brought out the best in her character.”
“I see. Well, I should go back inside . . .” I tried to step around him.
“I saw you at Bigsie’s funeral,” he said. “It was nice, you comin’. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to say hello to you at the church.”
“You were comforting the man’s family. I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry for you loss . . .”
He gestured to the empty bench. “Won’t you sit down with me? Just for a minute?”
I glanced over his shoulder into the crowded pub. “Val’s coming back.”
I folded my arms. “What’s the matter, dove?” His crow’s feet crinkled. “You think I’d stoop to ravishin’ you in a bar’s back alley?”
“When anything involves you, Michael, I don’t know what to think.”
“You can trust me.” He crossed his heart with two fingers—the good Boy Scout. “Promise.”
“I don’t know. Seems to me your promises leave something to be desired.”
“Maybe they do. But I need to talk to you about something important . . . About the way Bigs died.”
Okay, that I didn’t expect. “What can you tell me?”
He leaned down, his breath heavy with the smell of alcohol. “He was murdered.”
“That’s what James said.”
Michael straightened. “James shouldn’t have shot off his mouth.”
“Please,” I whispered, “talk to me. Who’s responsible?”
“It’s complicated . . .”
Somewhere over our heads, an unsettling thunder began. The Number 7 line was just a block away from where we stood. In midtown Manhattan the tracks were buried deep underground, but here in Queens, the subway train was elevated, periodically roaring over neighborhood streets, making quiet talk impossible. (Then again, in my experience, whenever any previously buried thing was brought out into the open, polite talk became impossible.)
The captain untangled his arms as he moved around me. With unsteady steps, he went to the bench, sunk heavily down. When the deafening noise finally died out, he spoke again.
“I got the evidence today, put it in a package addressed to you.”
“Me?” I sat down next to him on the bench.
“I would have sent the thing to Mike, but one look at the return address and he’d surely toss it in the bin. I want you to give the package to my cousin, explain why it’s important. You’ll know once you look it over. Mike will listen to you. And after you’re done convincin’ him, you two call me and we can get this whole thing handled right.”
“You want Mike’s help?”
“Mikey and I
have had our differences. But I know he’s a good cop. To a fault maybe, but he’s still my blood—and he’s the only government official in this town I trust.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never let the fire get behind you, darlin’, that’s what it means.”
“English?”
“I can’t give the evidence to any of the brass above me. Someone may have been paid off. There’s no way I can know . . .”
“What’s in the package? Can’t you tell me?”
“Not here. Not now.” He glanced at the doorway again. Shadows moved past, but none materialized. “I shouldn’t even be talkin’ to you. But I noticed you came here alone tonight. And you were lookin’ my way an awful lot this evening . . . and I thought maybe . . .”
His eyes held mine. As I waited for him to complete his sentence, an icy breeze touched my hair. I tried not to shiver. “Well?”
“I thought maybe you were havin’ second thoughts about my offer.”
“You mean Atlantic City?”
“I mean me, Clare. You and me.”
Oh brother. “There is no you and me. Is there even a package? Or are you playing me again?”
“What I told you in my office, Clare, that was true. I’ve never met a woman quite like you.”
“Stop it. You’re still trying to get back at Mike.”
“Not this time.”
“Listen to me: I’ve got your number. Mike told me the truth about what happened with your little brother, Kevin. The whole truth. You left out enough of the story to make Mike look like a cold-hearted monster. You told me that story to make me doubt him.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Yes! I know you’ve been through terrible things in your life, Michael, terrible things . . . and I’m sorry for that. But it doesn’t excuse your treatment of your cousin.”
“My little brother would have been my brother in the FDNY if it wasn’t for my cousin—”
“Mike had nothing to do with what happened to Kevin! Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“Your little brother self-destructed right before he was supposed to enter the fire academy because he was afraid.”
“Afraid? Of who?”
“Of you, Michael. I’m a mother! I know!”
He just gawked at me, looking confused.
I sighed. To me it was clear as sunlit glass. Kevin and Lucia had been on the very same unhappy ride, driven by father figures who wanted them to be something they just didn’t want to be.
“Kevin didn’t want to join the FDNY, but he didn’t want to risk your disappointment. He was terrified you’d turn your back on him. So he screwed up royally by driving drunk. He blamed the police, Mike, anyone but himself—and you bought right into it.”
“If my little brother had come to me, told me how he felt, I would have understood. I’d never turn my back on my own flesh and blood.”
“You turned on your own cousin, didn’t you? You’ve been treating Mike like the enemy, but he isn’t. All you did for all these years was twist the real story until it fit into a bogus ‘truth’ you could live with.”
Michael blinked. He suddenly looked less sure of himself. I could only hope it was because a thin wedge of insight was finally penetrating his thick cranium.
“Come on. Don’t you think it’s time that you two buried the hatchet?”
“Aw, darlin’ . . .” He exhaled hard, rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s too much bad blood between us. Years of it. Too much we did to each other. I’d like to be on level ground with my cousin again . . . I would. But Mike won’t want to bury the hatchet with me—not unless it’s in my skull.”
“How can you say that?”
“You don’t know everything.” He parted his lips, pointed. “You see this gold tooth? That was Mike’s right hook . . .”
“What don’t I know? Tell me.”
“No . . .” He held my eyes. “You tell me. Tell me why you’re still sitting here now, talking to me . . . You must feel what’s between us, Clare, because I can feel it . . .”
I began to answer, but somewhere above, the Number 7 train was approaching again, the insistent machinery growing louder, drowning out my words.
Michael leaned closer, his breath so saturated with whiskey I could almost feel the burn of the shot. Before I knew what was happening, the man’s iron band of an arm was behind my back, crushing me close.
“Michael, no!”
He was half drunk and fumbling, more sad than dangerous. The rough brush of his handlebar mustache moved over my mouth first then down my cheek. I felt his lips at my jaw line, my neck, a hand groping my breast. I squirmed and struggled.
“Stop it right now! Stop!”
The captain froze, finally hearing me above the subway’s deafening thunder. His lips moved off of my neck, his hand was no longer groping. He lifted his head and was just beginning to release me when—
“You son of a bitch!”
It was Mike—my Mike—standing at the pub’s back door. He’d come to Saints and Sinners after all, his shout of outrage half swallowed by the unrelenting movement of the elevated subway. Before I could say a word, he launched, hauling back and punching his cousin in the side of the head.
“Mike, don’t!”
The fire captain reeled, and Mike punched him again, this time in the gut. The captain’s arms remained at his sides. He took the blows, like he knew he had it coming. Michael wasn’t even trying to defend himself!
“Stop!” I shouted. “Your cousin’s drunk! He didn’t mean it!”
Another punch to the face.
“You’ll kill him! Stop!”
But Mike just kept pummeling his cousin.
I ran to the pub’s doorway. “HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!”
A mob of firefighters rushed out and pulled the cousins apart. A few swings landed on Mike for payback.
“Leave him be,” Michael shouted, wiping blood from his nose.
The men complied.
Mike stood there, scowling with fury. The mechanized storm had finally subsided, and the night went deadly quiet as his gaze found mine. We locked eyes—a split second in hell.
“This isn’t what it looks like.” My voice was raspy and far too weak. “You have to let me explain . . .”
Mike exhaled, glanced at the defensive line of firefighters, most of them his cousin’s men. It was the last place he’d want to hear an explanation, and I couldn’t blame him. Without a word, he turned and strode down the alley, toward the street.
“Don’t leave, Mike. Come back!”
I moved to run after him, but someone caught my arm, held it firm. I turned. It was Val.
“Let him go, Clare. Let him cool off . . .”
I wheeled again, back toward Mike, but he was gone, swallowed up by the city’s darkness.
THIRTY-TWO
“EVER heard of a fire triangle, Clare?”
“Fire triangle?” I said, turning up the car’s heater—to little effect.
Val waved her lit cigarette in the air. She’d opened her window to keep the interior from filling up, but the night had gotten colder and my clunker hadn’t gotten any newer.
“Fire needs three elements to exist: fuel for it to consume; oxygen for it to breath; and heat to ignite the other two in a chain reaction—”
“Oh, right, I do know this,” I said, recalling Captain Michael’s little lecture the night Caffè Lucia went up.
“Well, you, my friend are in a fire triangle.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fuel and oxygen in a room together don’t do squat. But introduce heat and . . . whammo.”
“I am not heat. And that wasn’t supposed to happen back there. Michael and I were just talking.”
Val took a drag. “Timing’s like that. You can’t always control it. Just like fire . . . or men.”
Tell me about it. I’d already tried reaching Mike by cell phone—ten tries in a row. I’d gotten voice mail
every time (and I’d left multiple messages). He hadn’t bothered to return even one, and my sympathy for the man was slowly turning to impatience. In another hour, it would be full-fledged anger.
“I could understand Mike being upset,” I told Val, “but he should have trusted me better than that. He should have waited for an explanation instead of charging in and busting up his cousin!” I struck the steering wheel. “At least Michael didn’t fight back. I have to give the man credit for that . . .”
After that one-way boxing match, the captain’s men had helped him back inside the pub, where they began to clean him up. That’s when Val hustled me outside, saying it was better if I got clear of the place. I didn’t argue, and I knew Val’s husband would be in much better shape than Michael to discuss Bigsby Brewer’s death.
Now I was driving east on Roosevelt, toward the nearby neighborhood of Jackson Heights where Val shared a home with James.
The trip from Saints and Sinners wasn’t long, only a few miles. When we turned onto Val’s street, she pointed out her address, a redbrick row house three stories high. At the first open spot along the curb, I swerved and parked.
“You have the whole house?” I asked, impressed with the size.
“Just the first two floors,” she said. “It’s a rental, but we’ve got a lot of square footage for the money, which is good because I’m probably about four weeks away from losing my job.”
“You are?”
“We have a separate garage in back, too. Come on . . .”
As I locked up the car, Val went to the front door. There was still half a cigarette left, but she snuffed it out in the base of a dying potted plant.
“James!” Val called as she strode across the tiled foyer and into the carpeted living room. The lights were blazing all over the house and somewhere a radio was barking the play-by-play of a basketball game.
“James!”
No answer.
“Sit down, Clare, relax. He’s probably in the upstairs bathroom. The one down here isn’t working.”
As Val climbed the stairs, I considered sitting down, then reconsidered. I really needed a caffeine hit now, and if I knew James, he had a decent supply of Arabica beans in his cupboards.
