George Higgins - The rat on fire

“No,” he said. “No, I won’t listen to it. You have to listen to Alfred, but I do not. I listened to Alfred today, when he had a bad case against a cop, and I spent the morning wasting my time in court because Alfred tried to do something about his dislike for that cop. Alfred did not pay me any money. I listened to Alfred the other day and then I listened to you, and as a result of doing that, I went to see Mister Fein and I talked to him about rats and things. I did not get any money for that, either. I did it because I wanted Alfred to calm down.

“I got Alfred out of jail this morning,” Mack said, “and from what you tell me – and I do believe you – Alfred went home. This is good. Alfred safely at home is a situation which is not likely to complicate my life the way my life gets complicated when Alfred gets out on the street and brings a tire iron and jumps a cop.

“Or so I would think anyway,” Mack said. “Now you tell me that Alfred tells you that he was asleep and a fire started in your building. And this is after Alfred and some other people have told me how nobody is very happy with anything that goes on there.

“Now,” Mack said, “I do not know what went on in that building today, while Alfred was supposedly sleeping in it. I am not saying that I do. But I am suspicious, and I will tell you that quite candidly.”

“Mister Mack,” she said, “that fire was set.”

“That is what I suspected,” Mack said. “Just keep in mind that you are the one who said it first. It was not I who said it first.”

“It was,” she said. “Somebody was in that basement and they set off a whole bunch oily rags, and the smoke just filled that house and it’s a wonder Alfred didn’t suffocate. My curtains’re ruined and so’re all my bed linens and everything else. That smoke just came right up the stairs and it got into every single one of the apartments and it ruined everything we own, practically. Our clothes and everything.”

“And Alfred was in there,” Mack said.

“Mister Mack,” she said, “Alfred did not set no fire. I would stake my life on that.”

“You may be doing just that,” Mack said.

Don entered the Scandinavian Pastry Shop less than a minute behind Proctor. Proctor was sitting by himself in a booth. He was drinking coffee and eating a cheese Danish. It was another hot night and the moths collided regularly with the outside of the shop windows.

“Lemme have coffee and a cheese Danish,” Don said to the waitress, who was studying the bugs.

“Haven’t got any more Danish,” she said. “How ya want ya coffee?”

“Guy over there’s eating Danish,” Don said.

“Got the last one,” she said. “Told ya, haven’t got no more Danish. Don’t gimme a hard time, all right?”

“Got any soup, or something?” Don said.

“Mister,” she said, snapping her gum, “you been in here before, right? You can probably read the sign and everything. Says it’s a pastry shop, you know? Means we sell the baked goods. We sell the doughnuts and the Danish and we sell the bismarcks and stuff with the whipped cream in them. We sell baked goods, mister. Soup and salads and sandwiches, you got to go somewhere else, you wanna get them.”

“How much coffee you bake?” Don said.

“We don’t bake no coffee, mister,” she said. “Ya don’t have to be a wise guy, you know. We brew the coffee, you know?”

“How much Coke you bake?” Don said. “You sell Coke and root beer and stuff like that, don’t you?”

“Mister,” she said, “you’re givin’ me a big pain. I mean, I hate to say it and everything, but you’re giving me a big pain.”

“Where?” he said.

“In the ass,” she said.

Proctor turned around. “Hey,” he said, “why’ncha leave the kid alone again, all right, Mac?”

“Mind your own goddamned business,” Don said. “Gimme a regular coffee and forget the lecture about how it isn’t cream, all right?”

Mickey came in from the parking lot and sat down next to Don. He ordered coffee.

Malatesta came in right after Mickey and joined Proctor in the booth. He ordered coffee. He looked at Proctor’s Danish and ordered a cheese Danish. “Haven’t got no Danish left, mister,” the waitress said. “Outta Danish. You’re too late. You want the Danish, you should come in here early. You been in here before. You oughta know that. How ya want ya coffee?”

“Jee-zuss,” Malatesta said. “What the hell did I do?”

“I had a hard day,” the waitress said.

“So’d a lot of people,” Malatesta said. “Just give me the coffee and I already know it isn’t cream. Regular.”

“I was down in Providence,” Mickey said. “Where’d you go?”

“Took a container up to Ludlow,” Don said. “Machine parts, said on it. Yugoslavia. I didn’t know we were getting stuff from them.”

“Oh, sure,” Mickey said. “All them Commie countries. Tools, cars, everything.”

“So,” Malatesta said to Proctor, “how’d it go? You hear?”

“Guys fell out of bed, got hurt less,” Proctor said. “Talked to Fein this morning. Happy as a pig in shit. ‘Guys fell out of bed and got hurt less,’ he says. That kid you sent over, see him? What’s his name, some corporal.”

“Grogan,” Malatesta said. “Well, I sent Caprio too, but I’m not sure Caprio can talk.”

“It was perfect,” Proctor said. “Whoever it was, it was perfect. Fein told me he just sat there and yelled about those niggers for about an hour, and the two guys sit there taking notes and then they thank him very much and they get up and leave and that is the end of it.”

“So he stuck to it,” Malatesta said.

“Sure,” Proctor said. “Fein’s a big asshole, but once he gets his story down, he tells it and tells it and tells it. See, they started looking for him when the rags went up, only he’s smart enough, he knows they’re gonna start looking for him, the rags go up, so he gives his secretary the day off and he goes out and runs around in the weeds all day, playing golf, and then he gets home and there’s his wife, all upset because there’s a fire in their building, and he puts on this great song and dance and she ends up helping him convince the corporals they been having all this trouble with the niggers that don’t pay their rent.”

“Good,” Malatesta said.

“Good?” Proctor said. “It was perfect, is what it was. Those two clowns told him he was lucky there was only one tenant in the building and he’s not usually there because he goes off somewhere before lunch.”

“He’d better not be in there when you do it,” Malatesta said.

“I heard you before, Billy,” Proctor said. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“When?” Malatesta said.

“It’s better,” Proctor said, “you don’t know too much. You know the address. Just sit tight.”

“I haven’t seen any money yet,” Malatesta said.

Proctor took three one-hundred-dollar bills from his pocket. “On account,” he said. “Just sit tight.”

Cahbone opened the discussion with Roscommon, Sweeney nodding affirmations as he talked.

“It’s Fein, all right,” Carbone said.

“Well,” Roscommon said, “you thought it was. That’s not news.

“Not quite fair, sir,” Sweeney said. “We suspected it was one of Fein’s buildings, but we weren’t sure. Proctor’s got his own property, too. A lot of what he said, he could’ve been planning to light off one of those and he was just shooting the shit with Malatesta about Fein, confusing him.”

“Yeah,” Roscommon said.

“Thing of it is,” Carbone said, “we nagged every file that Malatesta’s handled, and the one they were talking about was that smoker over on Bristol that went up yesterday. So it’s one of Fein’s buildings, because he’s the guy that owns it.”