Walt climbed out and shut Bentley’s door, then edged along behind the crowd, standing on tiptoe on the curb in order to see up the dead-end alley. Bentley elbowed his way to the front, apologizing left and right, until he stood among the press of firemen and paramedics that hid the scene from the street. There was the awful and unmistakable smell of burnt bone on the air, along with something more—a smell like an electrical short, like charred wire and insulation mixed up with burnt sulphur.
“What happened?” Walt asked, glancing at the man next to him.
“They tell me somebody burned up,” he said, shrugging. “I got here at the end of it. Lawyer, apparently. From the offices right here on the corner. Chemical fire, I guess. Burned him to a cinder just like the fire the other day. Same damned thing, except this didn’t touch his clothes. Don’t ask me how.”
Bentley turned around just then and surveyed the onlookers hastily, spotting Walt and waving him forward. “Excuse me,” Walt said to two women in front of him. “Investigation Division.” They smiled and stepped aside for him, and he said the same thing to the man in front of them, who scooted out of the way in order to let him pass.
Bentley stepped forward and took his elbow, shaking his head darkly. “Take a look,” he said. “This is what I’ve been talking about.”
Walt bent forward, looking past the shoulder of a fireman, down past the edge of the brick building. Immediately he wished he hadn’t, and he looked away again, thinking suddenly of Simms’s body at the base of the bell tower. A human skeleton lay huddled against the wall of the alley, its skull tilted downward so that its eye sockets stared at the asphalt, its fingers splayed out as if the dying man had tried to push himself to his feet.
The skeleton was fully clothed. It was wearing a three-piece suit, light blue.
Walt looked again, despite the horror of it. From what he could see—the hand and wrist bones, the skull and first vertebra—the man’s flesh had been almost entirely consumed by the fire, and yet, except for the charred collar, the suit itself was unburned.
And draped across the back of the coat, just below the collar, as if it had been flung around by the force of the body falling, was a laminated card on a chain, the plastic lamination clean and smooth, as if to illustrate Sidney Vest’s promise that the card was fireproof, “ready for takeoff.”
A man in a tie and shirtsleeves snapped a picture of the corpse, and firemen moved in around it again, hiding it from Walt’s view.
He realized that Bentley was staring at him. “Now that you’ve seen, you believe, eh? No more doubting Thomas?”
“Believe what?” Walt asked.
“This was no chemical fire.”
Walt shrugged. “That’s what they’re saying.”
“Who the hell are they? The police? What they’re saying doesn’t matter. They might as well say he was burned up by his own cigar. As for me, I know this man.” Bentley moved off now, angling through the crowd toward where Henry still sat in the car, staring straight ahead, lost in thought.
“Let me guess,” Walt said, following along. “This was another of your men, your diabolists?”
“George Nelson.”
“Nelson?” Walt said. “Well, I’ll be damned. It’s a small world.”
“You knew him?”
Walt nearly laughed out loud, suddenly recalling Sidney Vest’s nonsense yesterday at Coco’s. He could picture the newspaper headline: “Thirty-eight Vice Presidents Broiled In Alley.”
“He was one of the First Captains, wasn’t he?” Walt asked, repeating Vest’s ridiculous phrase.
Bentley stopped dead, his face pale. “What do you know about the Captains?” he asked.
“Nothing. A man named Sidney Vest used the phrase yesterday. I bought him lunch over at Coco’s, and he tried to rope Henry and me into going to some kind of investment meeting.”
“Vest,” Bentley said, nearly spitting out the name. “Don’t have anything to do with the man.”
“No, I won’t. I don’t believe in getting rich quick.”
Bentley looked at him. “This is no damned joke,” he said. “Get that into your head.” He set out toward the car again, his face suddenly angry. But he hadn’t taken two steps when, casting a glance at the Plaza, he suddenly darted forward, straight through the open door of the Continental Cafe, where he disappeared among the tables.
What the hell … ? Walt wondered, stepping to the door and glancing inside. Bentley sat at a table at the rear of the cafe, pretending to read a menu. His back was to the door, and he watched the street in one of the big mirrors on the wall. He caught Walt’s eye and gestured emphatically, shaking his head.
Walt turned away, heading for the car again, just as Robert Argyle’s Mercedes Benz pulled into an adjacent stall. Bentley must have seen the car coming round the other side of the Plaza. Argyle looked hard at Walt, squinting his eyes, clearly full of doubt, seeing him downtown at a time like this. He climbed out and nodded. Walt nodded back, leaning against one of the pine trees at the curb.
“Looks like another fire,” Argyle said to him, locking up the Mercedes with some kind of remote device.
“Another case of spontaneous human combustion, apparently,” Walt said, just for effect. The words hit Argyle like a blow. He licked his lips, as if he wanted to say something but the effort was too much. Seeing the reaction, Walt said, “Whoever it was went up like a torch, just like Murray LeRoy.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ve got a hunch I know what’s going on, too.”
“What are you talking about?” Argyle said now, looking at him incredulously. His voice was creaky with strain.
“Devil worship,” Walt whispered, winking at him. “I hear that George Nelson, this dead lawyer, made a pact with the Devil The news is all over town. Now he’s been burned up by the eternal fires. The Devil came for him and took him straight to Hell—nothing left but calcinated bones and a three-piece suit, the poor sap. Must have hurt like nobody’s business, burning up like that….”
He quit talking, suddenly afraid that Argyle was having a stroke. Or worse, that he was set to burst into flame right there on the spot. Argyle’s face was red as a crab leg, and the tendons in his neck stuck out like ropes. His eyes stared at Walt, jumping in their sockets. His mouth twitched, and he made a noise, but no words came out, so he clamped his teeth shut with what was apparently a tremendous effort. Slowly he turned around and walked away toward the alley, saying nothing. There was a clearing through the crowd now, and Walt could see that they had the corpse on a stretcher. Argyle stopped and stared at it, standing ramrod straight, like a wooden dummy.
Walt was aware suddenly that Bentley was gesturing at him from the doorway of the cafe, jerking his thumb toward the corner. Walt nodded, hurrying away, rounding the corner without looking back. He waited in front of an antiques shop, and in a moment Bentley’s car pulled around and whipped into the red zone. Walt climbed in, and Bentley motored away up Glassell Street, turning the corner and heading west toward Olive.
“I thought Argyle didn’t know you,” Walt said. “Why all this secrecy?”
“He doesn’t know me. Not in that capacity. But I had a little run-in with a couple of friends of his night before last, out at Murray LeRoy’s. I don’t want to be turning up too often—not yet, anyway. Did he speak to you?”
“Not really,” Walt said. “Just small talk.”
42
MRS. BIGGS LIVED in a Spanish-style rental, a small, flat-roofed house with a big garage and an unkempt lawn that clearly hadn’t been mowed or raked since summer. There was an old Buick sitting in the driveway. The curtains were pulled across the windows, and Walt found himself hoping that she wouldn’t be home, that she had walked down to Satellite Market or to the Spic ‘n’ Span Cleaners and they’d have to come back tomorrow.
They sat at the curb for a moment, none of them making a move to get out. “We’re petrified, aren’t we?” Walt asked finally. “Mrs. Biggs is going to work us over.”
“
I’m afraid you’re right,” Henry said. “I didn’t offer her money, exactly….”
“Money!” Bentley said. “Not a penny of it! We’ll go straight to the police!”
“Good Lord, no!” Henry said. “I don’t mean real money. Just a little something … to make amends.” “Like a gift,” Walt said, taking out his wallet. “I’m afraid I’m a little short right at the moment,” Henry said. ‘Jinx is the banker these days, and she’s a little tight with it. I’ll cover any losses, though.”
Walt had four twenties in his wallet along with a couple of ones. That ought to about cover it. He opened the door and got out.
“Maybe I’d better stay here for the moment,” Henry said. “What do you think?”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Walt said through the window. “Let us run interference for you. You don’t have a twenty, do you?” he asked Bentley. “That would give us an even hundred, just in case we need it.”
Bentley scowled at him and shook his head. “It’s wrong,” he said, hitching up his pants.
Walt saw the window curtains move. Mrs. Biggs had been watching them. She opened the door when he and Bentley were halfway up the walk. She was wearing a muumuu and an orange wig with a flip like an ocean wave on the side of it. Somehow the wig made her head look small. She was pretty clearly assessing them, wondering whether she should parlay with them or send them packing. Suddenly she stepped aside and swung the door wide open.
“Step right in, boys,” she said, dusting off her hands. She shut the door. And then, making a show of it, she yanked the curtains open, revealing the interior of the house to the street, as if to warn them against trying anything fancy. “Which one of you is the lawyer?” she asked.
“Neither of us is a lawyer,” Bentley said. “I’m a minister, Lorimer Bentley.” He put his hand out.
“A reverend?” She gaped at him, taking his hand for a moment and then letting it fall. “Well, he needs one, the old fraud. You know that he took unfair advantage of me?” “He fell for you pretty hard,” Walt said, deciding to play the vanity angle. “That morning when he saw you at the All-Niter—that brought back a lot of memories. He told me that you hadn’t changed in … How long had it been? Forty years? That threw him for a loop, seeing you there, an attractive woman from his past. He was like a teenager.”
“Well …” She smiled at Walt. “Still, he’s a married man, isn’t he? He ought to know better than to give a poor old woman the business. And a lie is a lie, isn’t it?”
Walt shrugged. There was no use arguing with her. It was better to jolly her along, to give her what she wanted—up to a point, anyway.
She gazed at the rug for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts. “Something happened to a friend of mine once,” she said, sitting down on the couch. She gestured at a couple of doily-draped armchairs, and Walt and Bentley sat down too. “Her name was Velma Krane—with a K. She lived in Waikiki. This was in the days when there was nothing on the beach but the Royal Hawaiian and a few palm trees, not the tourist mess it is today. Today it’s too much noise and buses and cheap T-shirts.”
“I hear it was beautiful back then,” Walt said.
“Nothing on the wind but plumeria blossoms and the smell of the ocean.” She gazed at the street, remembering. “It was truly paradise.” She seemed to have lost the thread.
“Look here,” Bentley said, looking at his wristwatch. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. What you’ve threatened Henry with is simply not …”
“Hold on, Reverend,” Walt said, waving him silent. “Mrs. Biggs has a story to tell, and I think we ought to listen. What about your friend Velma Krane? You were illustrating your point, I think.”
“Thank you,” she said to Walt. “It’s rare to find simple politeness these days. I appreciate a man who can listen—really listen.” She looked at Bentley pretty hard for a moment before going on. “I guess you could say that Velma was just too … kind for her own good. She befriended a man, took him in, fed him. And purely out of the kindness of her heart, too. He wasn’t a rich man.”
Bentley sighed heavily and drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch. He looked at his watch again.
“I’m afraid your friend is impatient,” Mrs. Biggs said to Walt.
“Oh, no,” Bentley said. “I just fail to see how …”
“I think that if we listen we’ll discover how,” Walt said to him. “Go on, ma’am.”
“Well, to make a long story short, a romance developed, and I’m afraid that she, that Velma …” Mrs. Biggs shook her head and looked at the carpet again. “She was taken advantage of. Against my advice. Make no mistake about that—I warned her against him. I saw him for what he was. I said, ‘Velma, that man is a no-good Lothario.’ But she didn’t listen. How could she? She was listening to her heart.” Mrs. Biggs wiped her eye.
“And he left her cold?” Walt asked. “This Lothario?” She nodded. “He was gone in the morning. He didn’t take her money, but he took something more valuable by far….” She paused, looking from Bentley to Walt. “What was that?” Bentley asked.
“Her dignity,” she said to him, squinting hard to make it hit home.
Bentley had a fixed expression on his face now. His head swiveled slightly, and he glanced at Walt. Walt winked at him.
“And do you know what I told Velma?”
Walt shook his head.
“I said, ‘Velma, you’ve got to be compensated.’ That’s just what I said. Those were my very words. Compensated.”
“I fully agree,” Walt said.
“Somehow I knew you would. I could see it in your face.” She stood up and patted him on the hand. “I’ll just put on the teakettle,” she said, and stepped across the living room, through the arched doorway that led to the kitchen.
“This is an outrage!” Bentley hissed at him. “She means to take us straight to the cleaners.”
“I’ll mollify her,” Walt said. “It won’t be much of a cleaners.” He went into the kitchen, drawing two of the twenties out of his wallet. Mrs Biggs fussed at the stove, an old O’Keefe and Merritt. There was the formaldehyde smell of gas on the air, and she waved a lit match at the burner, dropping it suddenly on the stovetop and shaking her hand.
“Pilot won’t work?”
“It hasn’t worked in ages.”
“Let me take a look.” He lifted the griddle in the center of the stovetop. The pilot was burning fine. It was probably the pipes clogged with grease or dust. “I think I can finagle this if you have a rat-tail brush—like for cleaning out a turkey baster.”
“I have just the thing,” she said, opening a drawer.
“Henry said something about owing you a few dollars,” Walt said to her. “I don’t know what for—something he borrowed, I guess. He likes to pay his debts. Will this cover it?” He held out the two twenties. She took them out of his hand without answering and folded them into the pocket of her muumuu.
“When you’re living on a fixed income …” She shook her head sadly. “Velma had a little one-bedroom walkup. I guess I should feel lucky.”
She found the brush and handed it to Walt, who pulled apart the pipes in the stove. There was nothing very complicated about the plumbing in an old gas stove. A couple of minutes of sweeping out the dust was all it usually took, just to get the crumbs out….
43
BENTLEY CAME IN and stood in the doorway. “Henry’s still in the car,” he said to Walt, nodding back over his shoulder.
“This won’t take a second.” Walt laid the tube that ran to the pilot back into its slot and cranked the knob. Nothing happened. He fiddled with it, but after a moment there was the smell of gas again, and he twisted the knob back off. Something else was wrong. “Let me check one more thing,” he said.
“You might as well make yourself useful too, Reverend,” Mrs. Biggs said to Bentley. “Have you ever emptied a trash bucket before, or do you just do the soul’s work?”
“Of course I’ve emptied a trash bucket. Empt
ying trash buckets is the soul’s work.”
“Then you’re in luck,” she said, and she swung open the cupboard beneath the sink and gestured at the red plastic trash bucket. “The cans are out behind the garage. Separate the recycle!”
Bentley hesitated for a moment, then moved into the room and pulled the bucket out from its cupboard. She opened the back door for him, and he went out. Walt took the stove top apart, piece by piece, setting it around on the floor, only then noticing that the undersides of the chrome top pieces were slick with dirty grease. “Any newspaper?” he asked.
“Might as well wash it all up, now that you’ve gone and pulled it apart.” She put a stopper in the drain, cranked on the hot water, and found a box of Brillo Pads under the sink. Walt picked up the cast-iron burner grills and put them into the hot water.
Bentley came back in just then, carrying the empty bucket. He didn’t look happy.
“Look there,” Mrs. Biggs said, pointing at the linoleum floor. There was a litter of muddy dirt on the tiles. Bentley looked at the sole of one of his shoes, which was caked with mud from the backyard. “Now your work’s cut out for you,” she said. “Broom and dustpan’s in the pantry. And take your shoes off first! Put them out on the stoop.”
Bentley stood staring at her. “Henry’s in …” he started to say.
“In the car,” she said. “We all know he’s in the car. Let him sit there. It’s the best place for him. As long as he’s in the car he’s not out wrecking the lives of half the women in the neighborhood. He won’t get heatstroke, not on a day like this.”
Bentley set the trash bucket down, turned around slowly, and went back out through the door, where he slipped his shoes off.
“These preachers,” Mrs. Biggs whispered to Walt. “Too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work.” She shook her head.
“He’s just out of practice,” Walt said. “Do you have any kind of degreaser? Something in a spray bottle?”
All the Bells on Earth Page 24
