George Higgins - The rat on fire

“Apparently everybody else left the building, too,” Mack said.

“Sure,” Scott said. “The people who do this kind of thing make a few plans at least. They know it’s one thing to torch a building, but it’s quite another thing to burn somebody to death. Insurance fraud is fairly minor, next to murder. The trouble is, they had too much faith in the regularity of Alfred’s habits. Alfred wasn’t regular in anything. If they’d only called me up, I could’ve filled them in.”

“Was he badly burned?” Mack said.

“He was scarcely burned at all,” Scott said. “Apparently when the fire started, the smoke and the noise and the heat woke him up. He got out of bed, pulled on a pair of pants, and went to the door. He opened it, but the flames were in the hallway by then. I say this because his jeans were scorched on the front and he had some minor burns on his stomach. He didn’t have a shirt on.

“He went to the kitchen window on the fire escape,” Scott said. “Now there were people who saw this, because they’d already sounded two alarms and the third was going off. The people on the ground, the firemen and the cops and the news people, saw him at the window. Until that instant they thought there was nobody in the building, because they’d gone through it pretty well, banging on doors and getting no answers. When Alfred slept one off, he slept well.

“Alfred got the window open. Even if he’d had the presence of mind to shut the door to the hall, the door had burned through, because there were flames in back of him. The people on the ground said he got the window open and got out on the fire escape and the fire came right after him.”

“There must have been a draft by then,” Mack said.

“Of course,” Scott said. “The people said the whole damned thing was just a sheet of flame. Alfred got on the fire escape. The bolts let go – I suppose it hadn’t been tested in fifty years, which would not surprise me – and down he went, fire escape and all. It was the fall that killed him.”

“Three stories is not a bad drop,” Mack said.

“It is if you’re the guy that’s dropping,” Scott said. “Anyway, that’s all I know. Except that for the next couple nights, Alfred will be at the Scott Funeral Home.”

“Poor Mavis,” Mack said.

“Poor Mavis, hell,” Scott said. “She’s had a hard life before this. She’ll make it through this one. What I want to know is what you’re going to do.”

“I’ve already done it,” Mack said. “The Attorney General said he appreciated my call, and that the investigation was already well under way.”

Detective Lieutenant Inspector John Roscommon entered the green-painted interrogation room and closed the door – deliberately behind him. Carbone and Sweeney watched the back of his blue blazer, and Dannaher stared at the floor. Roscommon shut the door so that the latch did not click. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling, under the textured Plexiglas, hissed every so often.

When the door was closed, Roscommon turned around and leaned his back against it. He rocked back upon his heels and clasped his hands at his crotch.

Sweeney got up. “You can have my chair, Loot,” he said.

Roscommon did not look at him. He looked at Dannaher, who had two days’ grizzle of beard and wore a dirty shirt and continued to gaze at the grey metal table and the floor. “Don’t want it, Mike, thanks.”

“Well, Jimma,” Roscommon said. “Good tah see ya again.”

Dannaher did not say anything.

“Your old pal, Jimma, Roscommon. Remember me?”

Dannaher continued to study the table and the floor.

“Sure you do,” Roscommon said. “You remember your old pal, John Roscommon. We known each other for years. Aren’t you gonna say hello to your old pal, John Roscommon?”

Dannaher shook his head. Roscommon rocked on his heels twice. “Jimma, Jimma,” he said, “this is no way to greet an old friend that you met long ago when he put you in jail for the first time. Wasn’t I decent to you, Jimma? Didn’t I tell you, when I collared you, your next step was going to be the place where they’re so concerned about whether you get nightmares that they keep guards around all night, make sure the bears don’t get you? Didn’t I tell you that, Jimma?

And wasn’t I right? Didn’t you get a nice room and all that protection from the bears because of me? Tell the truth now, Jimma. Isn’t that so?”

Dannaher mumbled, “I know my rights. I don’t have to say nothin’.”

“Ahh, Jimma, Jimma,” Roscommon said. “See what happens when you get out someplace where there’s nobody to protect you from the bears and you start in to drinking with Clinker Carroll again? See what happens when you’re left on your own? You’ve been down to Danny’s all day, I bet, drinking a ball and a beer with Clinker and talkin’ about the old times. You’re half in the bag, Jimma. You need somebody to take care of you, protect you from the bears.”

“Isn’t,” Dannaher said, “isn’t no crime, I can have a few drinks.”

“’Course it isn’t,” Roscommon said. “You can have a few drinks with the Clinker and you can drink some coffee with Leo. No crime in that.”

“I don’t have to say nothin’,” Dannaher said. “I want my lawyer. I wanna see Tiger Mike Fogarty.”

“Sure,” Roscommon said, “and I bet you want to see him in private, too. With nobody listening.”

Dannaher nodded.

“And you’re gonna,” Roscommon said. “You are gonna see a lot of Tiger Mike in private, for a while. Then you are probably gonna see him in public for a week or two. See him while he’s tryin’, get you off on murder one.”

Dannaher looked up, fast. “I didn’t kill nobody,” he said.

Roscommon said, “Jimma, Jimma, you know the law. Accessory before the fact? Charged as a principal? You helped Leo Proctor burn down Fein’s apartment house. Charged as a principal. Kid died as a result of that fire. You’re going, Jimma. You’re going away, and you’re going away a long time.”

“I didn’t have nothing to do with that fire,” Dannaher said. “Leo did that. I stayed completely away from Leo. I dunno what Leo did.”

“You know some of the things Leo did,” Roscommon said. “You know a lot of the things Leo did. You had some long conversations with him.”

“I did not,” Dannaher said.

“You want some Danish down at the Scandinavian, Jimma?” Roscommon said. “These guys can get it for you. They know right where it is, from tailing you and Leo so many nights and listening to what you had to say. Ask Sweeney and Carbone, they don’t know about the Danish.”

“I got a right to remain silent,” Dannaher said.

“You bet you have,” Roscommon said. “You also got a right to remain out of circulation for fifteen or sixteen years of a life sentence for murder. But that comes after Tiger Mike goes through his regular performance of trying to win a hopeless case, and that won’t be for a while yet. So right now we’ll just give you your right to remain silent, and alone, and you can go down to the holding room and call Fogarty and tell his secretary you got to see him right off, and she will tell you that she’ll have him come over here as soon as he finishes in Middlesex today, and that all will give you some time to think. About Murder One. Sweeney, cart him down. Carbone, come with me.”

“Aw right,” Roscommon said to Carbone in Roscommon’s office, “what the goddamned fuck happened? Didn’t I tell you to keep the cocksucker Proctor under surveillance?”

“Yessir,” Carbone said.

“And you didn’t,” Roscommon said.

“Nosir,” Carbone said.