assistance.
“And why not?” Annabelle Winston’ s voice might have been a whisper, except that a whisper would have carried farther.
“Not mentally capable,” Dr. Schultz interposed, and Annabelle Winston’s head came up. “No long-term cognitive processes left. He was told he could earn ten dollars if he followed the fireworks around and gave the fennel to Mr. Grist here. That’s about the limit of his, uh, capability.” Schultz obviously wished he could have found another word.
She nodded, gazing at Schultz. She seemed to be very far away.
“And then, of course, there are the others,” Finch said, talking like someone who had just had his wisdom teeth extracted.
“Yes, the others,” Annabelle Winston said. She turned toward her meticulously buttoned lawyer. “You know, Fred. The ones who got burned last night, after the police shot Mr. Thorpe. The man.”
No one said anything. She waited. Thirty seconds later, no one had said anything. Hammond had a bandage on his jaw. I had a puffy right hand.
“And the woman,” Annabelle Winston finished, in a voice that would have withered a hedge. “Twelve people,” Annabelle Winston said absently to Fred the lawyer, as though it were the last thing on her mind. “Plus one man in critical condition. Of course, we can’t blame the Incinerator for Dennis Thorpe. The LAPD shot him.”
“That’s enough of that,” Finch said thickly.
“Is it,” Annabelle Winston said without looking at him. “I had understood that Mr. Grist was to give the orders. As opposed to the LAPD, I mean.”
Hammond glanced at me and then looked away. We hadn’t exchanged a word since I’d knocked him facedown into Dennis Thorpe’s blood.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Annabelle Winston said, to her ring this time, “but it was my understanding that Mr. Grist agreed to risk his life in the belief that the Incinerator would not actually meet him, and that he’d been guaranteed that the police would stay out of sight unless he called for help.”
“We misunderstood the signal,” Finch said. “Grist said ‘Wait.’ He said ‘Stop.’ He sounded panicked. We thought his life was in danger.”
“Then isn’t it interesting,” Annabelle Winston said, “that you were able to get all those cars into the parking lot so quickly? I listened to the tapes. Mr. Grist said ‘Wait’ and ‘Stop’ only a few seconds before poor Mr. Thorpe opened the door. Your officers must have driven very fast.”
“They did-” Finch began.
“And they must have been very close,” Annabelle Winston continued in a low alto with an edge like a slap. “Much closer than Mr. Grist had requested that they be, isn’t that right, Mr. Grist?”
“I wanted them in Texas,” I said, still looking at Hammond.
“His life was in danger,” Finch said. I half expected him to spit.
She still didn’t look at him. “No one went into the building. If he’d been a police officer, you’d have had ten men in there the moment he said ‘Wait.’” She looked around the table finally including Captain Finch in her gaze. “But that isn’t the point, is it?” she asked conversationally. “The point is that Mr. Grist thought, and told you that he thought, that the meeting would be a fake. A way for the Incinerator to prove to himself that he could trust Mr. Grist. That Mr. Grist, in short, might be a friend.”
“The psychology of the man,” Schultz said, trying for momentum.
“Dr. Schultz-is that your name?” Annabelle Winston interrupted.
Schultz nodded. He’d forgotten he was smiling, and it made him look like a man between photographs.
“You’re the one with all the degrees in psychology. Mr. Grist is the one who said that the man wouldn’t be there. Cutting through all the condescension of modern medicine, Dr. Schultz, who was right? The psychologist who was sitting comfortably on the other end of the transmitter or the untutored private detective who actually walked into that Doopermart or whatever it was called to test his hypothesis with his life?” She raised both eyebrows on my behalf. “Was the Incinerator there?”
“No,” Schultz said stubbornly, “but he might have been.”
“Who was right?” she demanded, drumming the nails- Chinese red today-on the tabletop. It was the first display of emotion.
“Dennis Thorpe could have been the Incinerator,” Schultz maintained stoutly.
“He still might be,” she said. “Except that the miracle of modern psychology tells us he’s not. And then, of course, there’s the man. And the woman.”
What does she need a lawyer for? I thought.
“You know,” she said, “a million dollars isn’t much to me. I think maybe Bobby should hold his press conference.”
All hell broke loose. Finch slapped his hands on the table, Hammond grunted, Schultz said a sentence that contained many polysyllabic words. Cops conferred.
“Hold it,” I said. To my amazement, everybody held it.
“Um,” I said into the silence.
“He’s being polite,” Fred the lawyer cut in. “You’ll all go home tonight and tuck in your wives and children,” he said into the silence, “and Mr. Grist will go home and wonder where the fire is going to come from. Gentlemen,” Fred the lawyer said, leaning forward against the mass of his buttons, “why shouldn’t my client offer the reward and also offer Mr. Grist the security of anonymity? Surely he’s earned it.”
“It’s not just me,” I said, and Schultz said over me, “He’s the thread.”
“It’s not just me,” I said again. I looked at Hammond, who was still avoiding my eyes. “He sent me a timetable of my movements. He knows,” I said, “where I’ve been and who I’ve seen. It’s possible that he knows who I love.” Hammond turned his wristwatch down toward his palm with a violent gesture, but he didn’t look at me.
“I’m vulnerable,” I said to the room at large, “unless she’s safe.”
“Can you make her safe?” Annabelle Winston said to Finch, giving me a glance I didn’t quite understand, “As safe as he was?”
“We’ll put five men on her,” Finch said. Nobody said anything. “Six,” he said, budgeting into the silence.
“Satisfy Mr. Grist,” Annabelle Winston said, turning away from me at last, “or it’s the press conference and the reward.”
“I don’t know,” I said, “satisfied or not, I don’t know. And I may not decide today. Tell me about the messenger who brought the dance card.” I felt very old and very tired.
“Zip,” Finch said. “A loose call, not a regular account. Paid cash. Told the dispatcher to pick up at Hollywood and Vine.”
“Description?” I asked.
“Street person,” Finch said. “A woman wearing plastic trash bags. A cutout.”
“Did she describe him?” Finch wasn’t going to volunteer much of anything.
“Yeah,” Finch said grudgingly. “She said he looked like an angel. Said he had wonderful manners.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Finch said. He touched a stubby finger to his temple. “Nothing there,” he said.
“The special effects in the building,” I said. “In fact, the building.”
Schultz stepped in. “It hasn’t been used for years,” he said smoothly. “No surveillance. The strings touched off timing devices, rather sophisticated, actually. Stopwatches and cute little mercury fuses. Everything timed to the split second.”
“Mercury fuses?” I asked.
Schultz spread his hands apologetically. “Boy’s had education,” he said.
“So have I, but I don’t know anything about mercury fuses.”
“You said it last time around,” Schultz said. “This freak knows everything there is to know about fire.” He’d been the one who said it, but he was being a psychologist.
“You know,” I said to him, “if you and I could ever wind up on the same side, you might be useful.”
“We are on the same side,” he said, treating me to a forced version of the amber grin.
“I think we can dispense with etiquette,” I said. Schultz fiddled with an unopened pack of Dunhills and looked longingly at Annabelle Winston.
