'Oh, Jesus, what happened? What blew up? Oh, God, now what!'
'I hate to tell you.'
'What? What happened?'
'There's a hole in the back porch screen, and there's broken glass on the porch floor. It looks as if it was done deliberately with a Molotov cocktail.'
He fell against the doorsill. 'Oh, God. I did it. Now I really did it!'
'It looks that way.'
The smoke alarms were still wailing and I got up on a chair to disengage the one in the kitchen. I was about to head upstairs to shut off the alarm there when sirens sounded out on the street. I thought of something and sped back out to the porch and snatched up Rutka's hot revolver with a towel and handed them both to him to hide. He flung them into the oven and slammed the door shut as I went on up to disengage the second-floor alarm. When I came back, a police cruiser was parked outside, lights flashing, and Rutka was opening the front door for a Handbag patrolman who looked dimly familiar. He caught my glance and blinked. Then a fire engine roared up in a manner that might have successfully intimidated a small blaze into extinction. As the rescuers barged in, Rutka directed them to the rear of the house.
To me, Rutka said, 'Maybe you'd better lock the attic door.'
He passed me the keys and I moved up the stairs quickly. I secured the attic and was headed back down when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror at the end of the hall. My face was sooty and my hair was a tropical rainforest. I dashed into the not-so-fastidiously-kept bathroom and washed the grime off my face as well as I could, drying off with one of the rancid towels heaped on the floor by the shower. I dumped the stale water from a grimy glass on a shelf by the sink and gulped tapwater from it, salve for my dehydrated throat and insides.
Back downstairs, the firefighters had declared the blaze extinguished, but for safety's sake they were wetting down the smoky and charred area of the porch with a fluid from their own canister. Rutka was speaking with the fireman in charge and explaining what had happened.
'That's what it looks like to me,' the fireman said disgustedly. 'I'm going out to call the fire marshal right now. Don't touch anything out there. They'll need to check the place out for what they can find.'
'I won't touch it.'
'You can air the place out-set up some fans. Nobody saw it happen?'
'We were upstairs,' Rutka said. 'We heard the bang and my friend here ran down and put the fire out. I've got a wounded foot.'
The fireman looked down and shook his head. 'You were lucky. You were just darn lucky somebody was here.'
Rutka looked at his foot and said, 'I know.'
'You ought to call your insurance man,' the fireman said. 'The damage should be covered.'
The Handbag police patrolman who had come flying up Elmwood Place just ahead of the fire engine had been entering and exiting the house busily throughout the activities of the past fifteen minutes, and now he returned and was listening intently to our conversation. 'OCTAVIO T. REED,' read the nametag on his uniform. He had slicked- back dark hair, and liquid brown eyes in a broad face that was bunched up now in a kind of quizzical squint. His shoulders were slumped forward almost disconsolately, it seemed. I remembered now where I knew him from: we'd met at the Watering Hole and spent half a night together at my Morton Avenue apartment in 1975 or '76, after which, I thought I recalled, he said he had to get back to his recent bride in Handbag.
While the fireman went on talking to Rutka about insurance and cleanup matters, Reed beckoned and I followed him outside.
'Long time no see,' I said.
He glanced around nervously. 'I don't go out anymore. I've got kids in school and I'm a police officer and-you know.'
'How long has it been?'
'It was July of nineteen seventy-six,' he said. 'You're one of the ones I like to remember.'
'It's pretty clear to me, too. I don't go out anymore either. I've got a boyfriend. I met him not long after I met you.'
He looked at me wistfully. 'All that time.'
'Are you still married?'
'Sure.'
'Is it a good marriage? I mean otherwise.'
'Yeah,' he said. 'That's the trouble.'
The firemen were coming out now and starting to pack up their pumper. Reed looked around and said, 'Are you still a P.I.? I've seen your name in the paper.'
'I am.'
His look darkened. 'You're not working for this Rutka, are you?'
'As of today, I am. On account of what happened last night-the shooting. He hired me.'
'Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this, but I hate to see you get involved with this guy. I was just out going around the neighborhood trying to turn up anybody who saw anything at the time the fire started, and I got one. There's an old lady over on Maplewood Place whose bathroom window looks out on Rutka's backyard here. She says she saw somebody go through the backyard and up behind Rutka's garage before the alarm sounded and the fire department got here. She says it was Eddie Sandifer.'
'She saw him herself? She's sure it was Sandifer?'
'That's what she says.'
'Interesting.' 'Be careful of those two.'
'I've been being careful of them, but maybe not careful enough.' end user
6
Reed got into his cruiser and rode away, and I went back into the house and looked up the Kopy-King number. I checked my watch-11:57 A.M., about half an hour since the fire started-and dialed. Sandifer answered.
'Hi, Eddie, this is Don Strachey. Do you know what's happened out here? I'm at the house in Handbag.'
'What happened? What do you mean?'
'There's been a fire. It's okay, it was put out without much damage, but somebody threw a firebomb onto the back porch. It looks like another attack on John and it was sort of a close call.'
I could hear his breathing quicken. 'Is John all right?'
'For now. Later I'll try to get him to a safer place.'
'I've got my lunch break,' Sandifer said. 'I'm coming out. Don't leave till I get there, okay?'
'How long does it take to drive out here?' I said.
'Twenty minutes. I'm leaving right now.'
'See you soon.'
Rutka was seated at the big mahogany table in the dining room looking morose and going through some papers he'd taken out of a drawer in the sideboard. 'I guess I'd better call the insurance agency. Even though those people are such a hassle.'
I said, 'I phoned Eddie. He's driving out.'
'I know. I heard you.'
'He's concerned about you, he says.'
He continued to peruse the documents. 'If he wants to come out, fine. Though you're here now.' He looked up. 'You're not crapping out on me, are you? Now that I'm relying on you more than ever?'
I looked at him but didn't answer.
'I don't have any friends in this town,' he said.
'You do have enemies. That I believe.'
Now he looked worried. 'Is there something you don't believe?'
