Flood

could have been there to see them. The papers said eleven people died. No people died. They weren’t people. It could have been eleven hundred for all we cared.

“Then Sadie and I went to this flophouse. We paid for the room with what was left of the panhandling money and walked right upstairs carrying one of the cans with a little gasoline left in it. In that room, we kept our promises to each other. We took off our clothes and we laid down on our stomachs and we poured gasoline over each other’s bottoms. We had the sheets all soaked in water, like a swamp. We said that we loved each other. We knew we couldn’t make any noise or it wouldn’t work. I kissed her. We were crying, but we did it. We put some of the wet sheets in our mouths, and we held hands and we lit the matches and put them on ourselves. We said we would count to ten before we rolled over onto the sheets. Sadie tried, but she pulled away before I got to three in my head. I held onto her like I promised-she fought me, but I held on. We rolled onto the sheets and spit the mess out of our mouths and it was okay to scream then. The cops got us when they came to the flophouse. They said we were too young to be tried as adults. We knew that before, but it wouldn’t have made any difference.

“The ambulance man was this big fat black guy. He looked so fierce, but he cried when he saw me and Sadie. After we got out of the hospital we went to some court and they put us away like they had before. I had a lawyer- some young kid. He asked me why we killed those devils and I told him, and he said if I pleaded insanity maybe they’d send me to a state hospital instead of the institution. I tried to get at him too, and they kept me handcuffed after that.

“We were good in the institution. Nobody bothered us anymore, not the other girls, not the matrons. Nobody. Everybody’s afraid of fire-everybody has respect for revenge. And they all knew we were stand-up people-I told the judge the whole thing was my idea and I made Sadie do it, but she told them the same thing, it was only her, so we both went to jail. We always said that when we got out we would never come back-we would do things. Sadie was so smart, so charming, even after the fire. I wanted to be a gymnast. Sadie read books all the time. They let us out when I was twenty-one. She was older than me but she stayed so we could leave together.

“We got an apartment and jobs. Sadie went to college. I met someone who began to teach me the martial arts. Sadie got married, she was going to teach school when she graduated. I lived with her and her husband, saving my money to go to Japan. My teacher said there was nothing more for me to learn here-I had to go to the East to finish my studies.”

“Sadie had a daughter. She sent me pictures in Japan. The baby was named Flower because that was the only part of my Japanese name she could translate into English-the other part means fire. She and her husband were doing so good-only he had cancer and they didn’t know it. I was with Sadie and Flower when he went. She was strong. She still had her child and she had her work. I helped her cry it out and then I went back.

“She found a daycare center for Flower, at a church that was active in all kinds of stuff-gay rights, peace marches, welfare reform. There was a man, a Vietnam vet, who worked in the center. He was a very violent man, but gentle with children, they said. A man damaged by the war, but good inside. This man also did babysitting for some of the church members when they wanted to go out.

“One day the police came looking for this man. He had sodomized some of the children he was supposed to be caring for-they got him when he tried to sell some of the pictures he had taken of the children. He wasn’t at the daycare center that day, he was taking care of Sadie’s child. He must have known the police were getting close to him. Later they said he was under great psychological pressure. Sure. While the police were looking for him, he raped Flower and he choked her to death.

“Sadie sent me a wire, but she was dead before it arrived-a car crash-nothing to do with Flower. The man who raped and tortured Flower to death gave the district attorney a lot of good information about the child pornography business. At least that’s what I was told. He was found incompetent or something. He never went to trial. He went into some hospital for a year and he’s supposed to get outpatient therapy. He doesn’t talk about how he sodomizes children, but he does talk about his military skills and how he expects to hook up with a mercenary outfit and fight in Africa.

“His name is Martin Howard Wilson.”

9

FLOOD DIDN’T SEEM to have anything more to say. By then it was so dark in her place that all I could see was her outline, the highlights from her hair, and the glint from her eyes. She must have been breathing but you wouldn’t know it from looking at her chest. She sat like someone waiting, but waiting without expectations. Like when you’re in the joint and it’s years to parole.

It was a lot of information to absorb. I needed time to think, so I said, “You said I could ask questions.” She nodded. I lit another cigarette. It wasn’t nervousness-they always taste better after a jolt of adrenalin, which is my own particular euphemism for fear. “I need to know how you know some of the things you said.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to rely on information that might be no good.”

“All right. What do you want me to tell you?”

“You said that he was a Vietnam vet, that he made a deal with the D.A.’s office, that he was in a hospital, and that he wants to hook up with a mercenary outfit, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, who told you all that?”

“One of the other women at this church group. She said she knew Sadie, so she told me what she knew.”

“You believed her?”

“I knew she was telling me the truth because I told her I would come back and see her if she did.”

“That doesn’t make any sense to me. I could understand if you told her you’d come back to see her if she didn’t, but-”

“She saw a different side of me than you have, Mr. Burke.”

“You mean she never saw you crack people’s skulls?”

“I mean she was a lesbian.”

“And you?”

“I said I would come back to see her-a promise that I will keep. That’s the only promise that I made.”

“But maybe she didn’t see it like that.”

Flood shrugged her shoulders so slightly that her breasts didn’t even move. “I don’t know what she saw. Some people wouldn’t see a shark in their own swimming pool.”

“How did this woman know about the court stuff?”

“The mother of one of the other children-another child that this devil raped-she was planning to sue the church for negligence or something. She hired a lawyer and this lawyer did an investigation. He paid some money to a detective, and the detective paid someone in the court, and they put all this together.”

“The lawyer took a case like this on spec?”

“On spec?”

“Without any money up-front-you know, like in a contingency arrangement where he doesn’t get anything unless he wins-like with a car accident or something.”

“Oh. Yes, he apparently did.”

“It doesn’t add up. A case like that’s awful hard to prove in court. Besides, those churches never carry any decent insurance. Now if it was the archdiocese…”

“The lawyer just said he wanted to help this woman.” Flood shrugged her shoulders again, just the way she did before. I was beginning to understand what it meant.

“So this clown thought he was going to have a very grateful lady on his hands?”

“Yes, I think he did.”

“But you found out about it through this woman who was a friend of hers, who told you because she liked you.”

“Yes.”