by Irwin Shaw
“I don’t understand,” Alex said hurriedly, putting on his coat and going down the stairs between Flanagan and Sam, leaving his door unlocked. “I don’t understand at all.”
Sam drove the car through the empty night streets, and Alex and Flanagan sat in the back seat.
“I did everything very careful,” Alex said in a troubled voice. “I soaked the whole goddamn house with naphtha. I didn’t forget a single thing. You know me, Flanagan, I know how to do a job …”
“Yeah,” Flanagan said. “The efficiency expert. Alexander. The Greek general. Only the house didn’t burn. That’s all.”
“I honestly don’t understand it.” Alex shook his head in puzzlement. “I put a fuse into a pile of rags that had enough naphtha on it to wash a elephant. I swear to God.”
“Only the house didn’t burn,” Flanagan said stubbornly. “Everything was dandy, only the house didn’t burn. I would like to kick you in the belly.”
“Now, lissen, Flanagan,” Alex protested, “what would you want to do that for? Lissen, I meant well. Sam,” he appealed to the driver, “you know me, ain’t I got a reputation …?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, flatly, not taking his eyes off the traffic ahead of him.
“Jesus, Flanagan, why would I want to run out? Answer me that, what’s there in it for me if I run out? I ask you that simple question.”
“You give me a pain in the belly,” Flanagan said. “A terrible pain. Alexander.” He took out a cigarette and lit it, without offering one to Alex, and looked moodily out at the policeman who was taking their toll money at the Holland Tunnel entrance.
They rode in silence through the tunnel until Sam said, “This is some tunnel. It’s an achievement of engineering. Look, they got a cop every hundred yards.”
“You give me a pain in the belly, too,” Flanagan said to Sam. So they rode in silence until they came to the skyway. The open starlit sky seemed to loosen Flanagan up a little. He took off his derby and ran his fingers through his sandy hair with a nervous unhappy motion.
“I had to get mixed up with you,” he said to Alex. “A simple little thing like burning down a house and you gum it up like flypaper. Twenty-five thousand dollars hanging by a thread. Christ!” he said bitterly. “Maybe I ought to shoot you.”
“I don’t understand it,” Alex said miserably. “That fuse shoulda reached the naphtha in two hours. It shoulda burned like a gas stove.”
“You Greek general.”
“Lissen, Flanagan,” Alex said, tough and businesslike. “I don’t like the way you talk. You talk like I threw the job away on purpose. Lissen, do you think I’d throw five thousand bucks out the window like that?”
“I don’t know what you’d do,” Flanagan said, lighting another cigarette. “I don’t think you got enough brains to come in outa the rain. That’s my honest opinion.”
“Five thousand bucks is five thousand bucks,” Alex insisted. “With money like that I could open a poolroom and be a gentleman for the rest of my life.” He looked up at the ceiling of the car and spoke softly. “I always wanted to operate a poolroom.” Then, harshly, to Flanagan, “You think I’d give up a chance like that? What do you think—I’m crazy?”
“I don’t think nothing,” Flanagan said stubbornly. “All I know is the house didn’t burn. That’s all I know.”
He looked stonily out his window and there was quiet in the car as it raced across the Jersey meadows through the stockyard, fertilizer, glue-factory smells, and turned off on the fork to Orangeburg. Two miles out of the town they stopped at an intersection and McCracken came out from behind a tree and got into the car. Sam started the car again even before McCracken was seated. McCracken was not in uniform and there was a harried frown on his face. “This is the nuts,” McCracken said even before he got the car door closed. “This is wonderful. This is a beautiful kettle of fish.”
“If you just come to cry,” Flanagan said bluntly, “you can get right out now.”
“I have been sitting around in the police station,” McCracken wailed, “and I have been going crazy.”
“All right. All right!” Flanagan said.
“Everything worked just like we planned,” McCracken went right on, pounding his hand on his knee. “Ten minutes before eleven o’clock an alarm was turned in from the other end of town and the whole damned fire department went charging out to put out a brush fire in a vacant lot. I waited and waited and for two hours there was no sign of a fire from the Littleworth house. Twenty-five thousand bucks!” He rocked back and forth in misery. “Then I called you. What’re you doing, playing a game?”
Flanagan gestured toward Alex with his thumb. “Look at him. There’s the boy. Our efficiency expert. I would like to kick him in the belly.”
“Lissen,” Alex said coolly and reasonably. “Something went wrong. A mistake. All right.”
“What’s all right about it?” McCracken shouted. “You tell me! Lissen, Alex, I get four thousand bucks a year for bein’ Chief of Police of this town, I can’t afford to get mixed up in mistakes.”
“I will do the job over,” Alex said soothingly. “I will do it good this time.”
“You better,” Flanagan said grimly. “You’ll be served up as pie if you make another mistake.”
“That’s no way to talk,” Alex said, hurt.
“That’s the way I talk,” Flanagan said. “Sam, go to the Littleworth house.”
The car barely stopped for Alex to jump out in front of the Littleworth house. “We’ll be back in ten minutes,” Flanagan said as he closed the door. “Find out what went wrong. Alex!” he said with loathing.
Alex shrugged and looked up at the huge pile of the Littleworth house, black against the sky. By all rights it should’ve been just a heap of ashes by now with insurance experts probing in the remains to estimate how much damage was done. Why couldn’t it’ve burned? Alex wept inwardly, why couldn’t it? Five thousand dollars, he thought as he went swiftly and quietly across the dark lawn. A nice comfortable poolroom, with the balls clicking like music and the boys buying Coca-Cola at ten cents a bottle between shots and the cash register ringing again and again. A gentleman’s life. No wondering every time you saw a cop was he looking for you. Why couldn’t it’ve burned?
He slipped silently through the window that he had left open and padded along the thick carpet to the library, his flashlight winking on and off cautiously in the dark hall. He went directly to the pile of rags in the corner, over which still hung the faint odor of naphtha. He played the flashlight on the fuse that he had carefully lighted before slipping out the window. Only ashes remained. The fuse had burned all right. Uncertainly he touched the rags. They were dry as sand. “Nuts,” he said softly in the silent library. “Nuts. Smart guy!” He hit his head with both his hands in irritation. “What a smart guy!” He kicked the pile of rags bitterly and went back along the hall and jumped out the window and walked out across the lawn and waited for Flanagan and Sam behind a tree, smoking a cigarette.
Alex breathed deeply, looking around him. This was the way to live, he thought, peering at the big houses set behind trees and lawns off in the darkness, fresh air and birds and quiet, going off to Palm Beach when you wanted your house burned down and you didn’t want to know anything about it. He sighed, blotting out his cigarette against the tree. A well-run poolroom ought to be good for six, seven thousand dollars a year. You could live very respectable in Flatbush on six, seven thousand dollars a year, there were trees there, all over the place, and squirrels, live squirrels, in the gardens. Like a park, like a real park, that’s how people ought to live …
The car drew up to him and Flanagan opened the door and leaned out.
“Well, general?” Flanagan asked without humor.
“Look, Flanagan,” Alex said seriously, talking in whispers, “something went wrong.”
“No!” Flanagan said with bitter irony. “No! Don’t tell me!”
“Do you want to make jokes?” Alex asked. “Or do yo
u want to hear what happened?”
“For God’s sake,” McCracken whispered, his voice tense and high, “don’t be a comedian, Flanagan. Say what you got to say and let’s get outa here!” He looked anxiously up and down the street. “For all I know a cop’s liable to come walkin’ up this street any minute!”
“Our Chief of Police. Old Iron Nerves,” Flanagan said.
“I’m sorry I ever got into this,” McCracken said hoarsely. “Well, Alex, what the hell happened?”
“It’s very simple,” Alex said. “I set a two-hour fuse and the naphtha evaporated.”
“Evaporated?” Sam said slowly. “What’s that, evaporated?”
“He’s a student, our boy, Alex,” Flanagan said. “He knows big words. Evaporated. You dumb Greek! You efficiency expert! You stupid sonofabitch! Trust you to burn down a house! Evaporated! You ought to be washing dishes! Alexander!” Deliberately Flanagan spit at Alex.
“You oughtn’t to say that,” Alex said, wiping his face. “I did my best.”
“What’re we going to do now?” McCracken wailed. “Somebody tell me what we’re going to do now.”
Flanagan leaned way over and grabbed Alex fiercely by the collar. “Lissen, Alexander,” he said right into Alex’s face, “you’re goin’ back in that house and you’re settin’ fire to that house, and you’re settin’ fire to it good! Hear me?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, his voice trembling. “Sure I hear you, Flanagan. You don’t have to tear my collar off. Say, lissen, Flanagan, this shirt cost me eight bucks …”
“You are setting fire to this house personally now,” Flanagan’s grip tightened on the collar. “You are giving this fire the benefit of your personal attention, see? No fuse, no evaporated, nothing, understand?”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Sure, Flanagan.”
“You will be served up as pie, anything goes wrong,” Flanagan said slowly, his pale mean eyes glaring straight into Alex’s.
“Why don’t you leave go my collar?” Alex said, choking a little. “Lissen, Flanagan, this shirt cost me …”
Flanagan spat into his face again. “I would like to kick you in the belly,” he said. He let go Alex’s collar and pushed Alex’s face with the heel of his hand.
“Say, Flanagan …” Alex protested as he stumbled back.
The car door slammed. “Move, Sam,” Flanagan said, sitting back.
The car spurted down the street. Alex wiped his face with a shaking hand. “Oh, Jesus,” he said to himself as he walked back across the completely dark lawn to the house. He heard a sparrow cheep in the three o’clock morning hush and he nearly cried under the peaceful trees.
Once in the house, though, he became very businesslike. He went upstairs to where he had set out buckets of naphtha and brought them down in pairs. He tore down all the drapes from the ground-floor windows and piled them at the farther end of the long hall that ran along one side of the house. Then he took all the linen covers off the furniture and piled them on top of the drapes. He went down to the cellar and brought up three egg boxes full of excelsior and put the excelsior on top of the piled cloth. It made a heap about seven feet high at the end of the hall. He worked grimly, swiftly, ripping cloth when it wouldn’t give way easily, running up and down steps, sweating in his overcoat, feeling the sweat roll down his neck onto his tight collar. He soaked every piece of furniture with naphtha, then came out and poured ten gallons of naphtha over the pile at the end of the hall. He stepped back, the acrid smell sharp in his nostrils, and surveyed his work with satisfaction. If that didn’t work you couldn’t burn this house down in a blast-oven. When he got through with it, the home of the Littleworths would be hot. No mistake this time. He got a broom and broke off the handle and wrapped it heavily with rags. He soaked the rags with naphtha until the liquid ran out of the saturated cloth to the floor. He whistled comfortably under his breath “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight” as he opened the window wide behind him at the end of the hall that was opposite the huge pile of cloth and excelsior. It was a narrow hall, but long. A distance of thirty-five feet separated him from the pyre at the other end.
“There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight,” he sang under his breath as he took out a match from the dozen he had lying loose in his pocket. He stood next to the open window, prepared to jump swiftly out as he struck the match, put it to his heavy torch. The torch flared up wildly in his hand and he hurled it with all his strength straight down the hall to the pile of naphtha-soaked cloth and excelsior at the other end. It landed squarely on the pile. For a moment nothing happened. Alex stood, ready at the window, his eyes shining in the fierce light of the flaring torch. Alex smiled and kissed his fingers at the other end of the hall.
Then the whole hall exploded. The pile of cloth became a single huge ball of flame and hurtled down the hall like a flaming shell to the open window behind Alex. With a scream sick in his throat, lost in the immense roar of the exploding house, Alex dove to the floor just as the ball of flame shot over him and through the window to the pull of the open air beyond, carrying his hat and his hair, like smoke going up a chimney to the pull of the sky.
When he came to there was a dusty burned smell in his nostrils. Without surprise he saw that the carpet under his face was quietly afire, burning gently, like coal in a grate. He hit the side of his head three times to put out the fire in what remained of his hair, and sat up dully. Coughing and crying, he dove down to the floor again, escaping the smoke. He crawled along the burning carpet foot by foot, his hands getting black and crisp under him as he slowly made his way to the nearest door. He opened the door and crawled out onto a side porch. Just behind him the hall beams collapsed and a column of flame shot up through the roof, as solid as cement. He sighed and crawled to the edge of the porch and fell off five feet to the loam of a flower bed. The loam was hot and smelled from manure, but he lay there gratefully for a moment, until he realized that something was wrong with his hip. Stiffly he sat up and looked at his hip. Flames were coming out through his overcoat from inside and he could smell his skin broiling. Neatly he unbuttoned his coat and hit at the flames, curling up from the pocket where he had the dozen matches. When he put out the fire on his hip he crawled out to the lawn, shaking his head again and again to clear it, and sat behind a tree. He slid over and went out again, his head on a root.
Far off, far off a bell clanged again and again. Alex opened his eyes, singed of their lashes, and listened. He heard the fire trucks turn into the street. He sighed again and crawled, clinging to the cold ground, around the back of the house and through a bare hedge that cut his swelling hands, and away from the house. He stood up and walked off behind a high hedge just as the first fireman came running down toward the back of the house.
Directly, but slowly, like a man walking in a dream, he went to McCracken’s house. It took forty minutes to walk there, walking deliberately down alleys and back streets in the dark, feeling the burned skin crack on his knees with every step.
He rang the bell and waited. The door opened slowly and McCracken cautiously put his face out.
“My God!” McCracken said and started to slam the door, but Alex had his foot in the way.
“Lemme in,” Alex said in a hoarse broken voice.
“You’re burned,” McCracken said, trying to kick Alex’s foot out of the doorway. “I can’t have nothing to do with you. Get outa here.”
Alex took out his gun and shoved it into McCracken’s ribs. “Lemme in,” he said.
McCracken slowly opened the door. Alex could feel his ribs shaking against the muzzle of the gun. “Take it easy,” McCracken said, his voice high and girlish with fright. “Lissen, Alex, take it easy.”
They stepped inside the hall and McCracken closed the door. McCracken kept holding on to the doorknob to keep from sliding to the floor from terror. “What do you want from me, Alex?” His necktie jumped up and down with the strain of talking. “What can I do for you?”
“I want a
hat,” Alex said, “and I want a coat.”
“Sure, sure, Alex. Anything I can do to help …”
“Also I want for you to drive me to New York.”
McCracken swallowed hard. “Now, look, Alex,” he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand to dry the lips, “let’s be reasonable. It’s impossible for me to drive you to New York. I got a four-thousand-dollar job. I’m Chief of Police. I can’t take chances like …”
Alex started to cry. “I’ll give it to you right in the guts. So help me.”
“All right, Alex, all right,” McCracken said hurriedly. “What’re you crying about?”
“It hurts. I can’t stand it, it hurts so much.” Alex weaved back and forth in the hallway in pain. “I got to get to a doctor before I croak. Come on, you bastard,” he wept, “drive me to the city!”
All the way to Jersey City Alex cried as he sat there, jolting in the front seat, wrapped in a big coat of McCracken’s, an old hat slipping back and forth on his burnt head as the car sped east into the dawn. McCracken gripped the wheel with tight, sweating hands, his face drawn and pale. From time to time he glanced sidewise fearfully at Alex.
“Yeah,” Alex said once when he caught McCracken looking at him. “I’m still here. I ain’t dead yet. Watch where you’re goin’, Chief of Police.”
A block from the Jersey entrance of the Holland Tunnel, McCracken stopped the car.
“Please, Alex,” he pleaded, “don’t make me take you across to New York. I can’t take the chance.”
“I gotta get to a doctor,” Alex said, licking his cracked lips. “I gotta get to a doctor. Nobody’s gonna stop me from getting to a doctor. You’re goin’ to take me through the tunnel and then I’m goin’ to let you have it because you’re a bastard. You’re an Irish bastard. Start this car.” He rocked back and forth in the front seat to help him with the pain. “Start this car!” he shouted.
Shaking so that it was hard for him to control the car, McCracken drove Alex all the way to the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn where Flanagan lived. He stopped the car and sat still, slumped exhausted over the wheel.
