George Higgins - The rat on fire

“Walter,” Mack said, “Alfred is a very troublesome son. He is a hateful child. He is mean and he is vicious and he is a liar. When I say the fee is ten grand, it is five for the case, which I will surely lose and he will go to jail again and that will be a damned good thing for almost everybody, and five for putting up with that little cocksucker and his antics. Ten grand.”

“Mavis is on her way to the courthouse,” Scott said. “Alfred is going to be brought in one hour and twenty minutes from now.”

“Have her get him a Public Defender,” Mack said.

“Mavis does not want a Public Defender,” Scott said, ‘any more than you would want a pauper’s funeral, and for just about the same reason. Those guys’re good, but they are overworked.”

“On this case,” Mack said, “it probably wouldn’t make much difference. There isn’t any way to win it.”

“That doesn’t matter to Mavis,” Scott said. “She wants you to represent him.”

“Ten grand,” Mack said.

“Okay,” Scott said. “The Elks’re going to be sorry to hear you took this attitude.”

“What do you mean?” Mack said.

“Just what I said,” Scott said. “Comes around primary time, Senator Mack is up for reelection, the Elks’ll still be sorrowful.”

“Uh-huh,” Mack said.

“There is nothing worse’n a sorrowful Elk,” Scott said.

“You made your point,” Mack said. “I’ll be in court. What time?”

“Ten,” Scott said. “I knew I could count on you to take care of a good friend.”

There were two kids in the alley at Bristol Road when Proctor and Dannaher pulled up in the van. The kids at once ran away.

“Little bastards,” Dannaher said. “Oughta be in school.”

“They are in school,” Proctor said. “Breaking and Entering School. We just interrupted their practice, is all.”

“They could recognise us,” Dannaher said.

“Right,” Proctor said, “they could recognise us. Those guys took off like we was the heat. Come on, will ya? You worry too much.” He parked the van, got out and opened the rear doors. He removed a large toolbox which did not clank very much. He went around to the passenger side of the van. “I said, ‘Come on, will ya?’” he said. “You deaf or something? For Christ sake, Jimma, you want the fuckin’ money or not?”

“Those kids saw us,” Dannaher said from the passenger seat.

“Which is why they ran, of course,” Proctor said. “They’re scared shitless of us.”

“They could’ve took the license number,” Dannaher said.

“They could’ve,” Proctor said. “Lemme ask you somethin’, all right, Jimma? You ever get up inna middle the night, take a piss?”

“Of course I did,” Dannaher said. “Only thing there is good about being in the slammer-toilet’s right there. ‘Course there was one guy that I was in the cell with, and it didn’t matter how you peed down the side of the bowl there, he would wake up and pretend he was still sleepin’ and grab your cock while you were still going at it. But yeah, I remember.”

“Okay,” Proctor said. “Now, when you were busy trying to take a leak, you had your mind on doing that, right? Nothing else.”

“Yeah,” Dannaher said.

“Same thing with those kids,” Proctor said. “They had their mind on going in some window and swiping somebody’s colour TV that they could sell for thirty bucks and get themselves some drugs. And then they see this truck come around the corner and they beat it because they figure we’re gonna recognise them. You get a look at their faces?”

“No,” Dannaher said.

“Damned right you didn’t,” Proctor said. “You got a look at their faces, there is a good possibility you might be able, identify them in some line-up or something. Which does not interest them. So they beat it. You got eyes, the back of your head?”

“You’re an asshole,” Dannaher said.

“I haven’t, either,” Proctor said. “That’s why I don’t think two kids takin’ off down an alley probably got a license number off a truck. Now will you get the fuck out of there and carry the stuff with me, or are you gonna sit there and have your fuckin’ period again?”

“Leo,” Dannaher said.

“’Leo’ nothin’,” Proctor said. “We been all through this before. You’re gonna get outta the fuckin’ truck and you’re gonna help me and we are gonna do what we came here to do and then we are gonna leave. Otherwise you are not gonna get no money.”

Dannaher got out of the truck. He took a toolbox. They walked down the alley, Proctor in front.

Proctor and Dannaher walked down the alley and turned right, into the back yard. They descended the stone steps to the basement, opened the wooden door and went in. Proctor switched on the three-cell flashlight.

“Over there,” Proctor whispered, “next to all that junk in the coal bin. The thing that used to be the coal bin.”

Proctor and Dannaher opened the toolboxes and removed rags soaked in paint thinner and kerosene. They piled them in a pyramid next to the wooden wall of the coal bin. Proctor took a bottle cap from his pocket. From his toolbox he removed a length of string four feet long.

“Whaddaya gonna do with that?” Dannaher said.

“Just what I soaked it in the chemicals for,” Proctor said. “It’s a fuse. This is eight minutes of time. Burns half a foot a minute. Gimme that rubbing alcohol in your box.”

Dannaher handed Proctor the isopropyl alcohol. Proctor filled the bottle cap with alcohol and handed the bottle back to Dannaher. Dannaher capped it and returned it to the toolbox. Proctor lifted one edge of the rags and placed the bottle cap under it. He draped the string across the top of the bottle cap.

“Ready to leave?” Proctor said.

“Been ready since before I came in here,” Dannaher said.

Proctor took out a plastic throwaway lighter and ignited the string. It glowed instead of burning with flame. He watched it glow for about fifteen seconds.” ‘Kay,” he said, “let’s go.”

Jerry Fein left the house in his sport coat, tie and slacks that morning without telling his wife that he was going to play golf. He went directly to the Bay State Country Club, changed, and was off the first tee by nine-thirty. He played eighteen holes, had a vodka and tonic and a club sandwich on the terrace, returned to the first tee and began another round.

When he finished he had two vodka tonics on the terrace with his friend, Max Winchell, who had left his insurance business early to get in nine holes before dinner. Max said he wished he had gone to law school so that he could also forget about the office on a nice summer day and spend it playing golf and having a good time for himself. He said that if he took a whole day off in the middle of the week like that, his business would go straight to hell and pretty soon he would not be able to pay the dues and the greens fees and the bar chits and the restaurant charges at the Bay State Country Club in Newton, Massachusetts.

Max said his secretary would have him paged at the golf course every time he teed up a shot and he would not be able to keep his mind on the game anyway. He said that Gloria was about as bright as coleslaw or maybe potato salad, and that she would call him up at every tee to see if it was all right to open an envelope that came in the mail and then call him again to see if he minded if she sealed an envelope to go out in the mail. Max said that Gloria was in the process of getting a divorce and that he was therefore in the process of Gloria getting her divorce, because the whole thing was making a young girl who wasn’t too bright to begin with into some kind of a daffy basket case who spent all day talking about her divorce case and no time at all doing work for Max Winchell and Company that was paying her.