“He was burning cats when he was ten,” she said. She finished with the knot and looked back up at me. “You a cop?”
“If I were a cop,” I said, “there’d be ten of me.”
“It was his father,” she said cryptically. “So what’s your interest?” She and her reflection crossed their fine ankles in perfect unison. “Oh, Jesus,” she said flatly. “You’re that private detective, the one in the papers.”
“So now you know. Your turn.”
“My turn for what? Give and get, remember? What do I get out of this?”
“What do you want?”
“Anonymity,” she said promptly.
“Can’t do.”
“Then get out of here.” She stood.
“You get,” I improvised, “the satisfaction of knowing that your son won’t burn any more people.”
“What do I care about that?” She was still standing. “At this point, what the hell do I care about that?”
“You’re Mommy,” I said, feeling like I was shouting into the wind. “He’s still a few shy of being America’s number-one mass murderer, but he’s got a good shot at it. Is that a medal you’d like to win?”
She turned to regard herself in the mirror. She looked at her reflection as though it belonged to someone else.
“You’re beautiful, too,” I said. “That’s a really terrible combination.”
She was still looking deeply into her own eyes. I counted five before she turned away from the mirror and sat. “He’s a genetic accident,” she said.
“Explain to the National Expose,” I said, dredging up two words of print from Edna Vercini’s desk. “They’ll love the way you look.”
She tightened her lips, and fine vertical lines appeared above them. Even Swiss blood exchanges couldn’t vanquish those lines. “You know who he is,” she said, biting and chewing the words. “Why do you need me?”
“Because I don’t know why he is. Listen, Mrs. Lewis, I’m the bait. If I make a mistake, I’m the barbecue.”
“May you make a lovely light,” she said. Her eyes were as clear and white as the arctic circle.
“Or maybe you’re the barbecue,” I snapped, suddenly furious. “The best psychologist in these matters,” I said, promoting Schultz, “thinks that all he’s done so far is just an avoidance mechanism. What he really wants to burn is you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, but she’d already sat up straight.
“This house would go like a matchbox,” I said.
“It was his father,” she said again.
“You asked me what you were going to get. Well, maybe you’re going to get to die of old age, as opposed to being Mommy flambe.”
She gave the bathrobe another yank. The lines above her mouth were vertical rivulets. “He was here two weeks ago,” she said. “He wanted money.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“Eddie did. About five K.”
“For what?” I asked. The answer popped into my mind. “Forget it. For a new car.” Her eyes widened momentarily. “What do you mean, it’s his father?”
“He was a fireman,” Alice Lewis said. “How’d you know about the car?”
“Skip it. And?”
“And Wilton hated him.”
I pulled my chair closer to her. It was easy; luckily for me, in my state, the chair didn’t weigh much. “Why?”
“How do I know why? Because I lived there. Because Wilton, that’s Daddy Wilton, not Son Wilton, didn’t like the kid.”
“Didn’t like him?”
“And vice versa. Little Wilton hated the shit out of Big Wilton. Poured hot fat over his feet once.”
“Where’d he get the hot fat?”
“Off the stove, where do you think?”
“What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened? His father blistered the kid’s hide and went to work with only one shoe on. He had socks on, you see, when the fat got poured. By the time we got the socks off, the right foot was bigger than a football.” She shifted in her chair. “Wait, he didn’t only tan little Wilton’s hide. He sent him to school with only one shoe. Daddy has one shoe, Junior has one shoe.”
“Which shoe?”
“Which one do you think?”
I closed my eyes and saw it. “He sent Wilton to school without the shoe on his clubfoot?”
“Kid had to learn,” she said. I opened my eyes and found her watching me. “So it was rough. Little jerk,” she said. “House always stunk of smoke. His daddy’s smoke, smoke Daddy brought home from the fires where he made such a big hero of himself. It was a little house, just a one-bedroom stucco box stuck up on some dinky little lot in Reseda. The smoke filled the whole thing.”
“And where’s Wilton, Sr.?”
She looked over her shoulder as though she were checking for an escape route. “Dead,” she said. “After my baby and I left him.”
“When was that?”
“A year or so later. Wilton was burning cats by then, and Big Wilton appointed himself the Cats’ Avenger. He was always saving something. So he saved cats.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wilton was burning cats. Big Wilton burned Little Wilton.”
“Nonsense,” I said without thinking.
“Oh, but he did. Burned Wilton’s fingers. Did it twice.”
“What did you do about it?”
She shrugged. “What could I do? Eventually, I left.”
“Did he use a cigarette?” We were sitting there in that calm room, talking about the deepest pits of the soul.
“What do you mean?” She used the lapel of her bathrobe to mop her neck.
“To burn Little Wilton’s fingers.”
“No,” she said. She looked directly into my eyes. “He used matches.”
“Wooden matches.”
She stopped mopping. “You do seem to know a lot about this.”
“Why wooden matches?” It seemed to be the twentieth time I’d asked the question.
“They were handy. We used them to light the stove. And don’t say anything. Yes, the stove he took the fat from to pour it on his father’s feet.”
“He’s using kitchen matches now,” I said, just to see if I could get a reaction out of her.
“Makes sense,” she said placidly.
“Are you saving your face up?” I asked. “Do you think it can only wrinkle so many times before they stick?”
“So I left him,” she said, ignoring the nastiness. “And I met Eddie.”
“Classy guy.”
“I can still tell you to get out of here,” she said. “This is a security community. One minute on the phone, and you’ll be on your ass on the asphalt.”
“How’d Wilton like Eddie?” I asked, remembering how fastidious Wilton had been.
“Hated his guts,” she said. “Well, tough shit. Eddie killed himself to make friends with the kid. Bought him stuff, got him therapy-that was a laugh-took him places, took him to the track, for Christ’s sake. Eddie never even took me to the track. But Eddie likes junk, you know? You saw the house. He likes to surround himself with expensive things and then shit all over them to show it doesn’t mean anything. But his expensive things are junk.
