Adrian McKinty - Hidden River

“We had two people killed. They were both murdered in their own apartments, people broke in and killed them, as brazen as that, one of them was in broad daylight. Mexicans. I think they must all be part of a gang or something.”

“So what, did they steal their stuff?”

“I think that was the reason, burglary, it was awful, if anyone robbed me, I’d just tell them to take everything, you know, there’s no point in dying over a purse or something,” she said, and shivered.

“Yeah.”

“It’s this town, you never know which are the good neighborhoods and which are the bad. They all look the same, don’t they? Vulgar, tedious place in many ways. I never really go out anywhere and I exercise at the gym.”

“I see a good bit of the city, it seems ok,” I say.

“I don’t care for it. Any break we have, we go to Vail. I’ll bet you know more about Denver than I do and I’ve lived here three years,” she says, sucks down some more of her coffee and plays with the melted cheese on her plate. It’s kind of sexy. But then everything she does is kind of sexy.

“What time is it?” she asks.

“A quarter to ten, we don’t have to go over there for a while yet.”

“Do you want to split another slice?” she asks.

“Ok,” I say.

She gets up and goes over to get one. The first slice was hard enough going down, but I want her to be happy. She comes back and plonks the half a slice on my plate.

“It’s very good pizza for the sticks,” she says.

“What was the Irish girl’s name, it’s a small world, I might know her?” I ask.

“Victoria something, she wasn’t really Irish-Irish, she was Indian, you know, from India, it was a difficult name to pronounce, I met her once, I think, she was nice, she was born in Ireland, but her parents were from India.”

“Well, I can’t say that I knew any girls like that, our school was pretty white. I don’t think we had any immigrants, not even from Scotland or anywhere,” I say.

“You would have liked her, she was nice.”

“I know this is a grisly topic, but who was the other person that died?”

“Oh, Hans was a vice president in charge of mass mailing. He was a bit of a drinker, no one’s quite sure what happened. He fell off his balcony. They saw him arguing with two Mexican men or something. The police shot at them, still looking for them. The whole business is just awful. You’re hardly touching your pizza,” she says.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not that hungry.”

“You said you would split a slice.”

“I only said that because I knew you really wanted one,” I say, giving her a big grin.

She laughs and wrinkles up her nose in mock rage.

“Well, I am tricked and angry,” she says.

“Apologies,” I say. “Look, why don’t you have it?”

She thinks about it for a second or two.

“You’re not eating it?”

“Nope.”

She grabs the pizza and bites into it.

“No sense food going to waste,” she says.

I really enjoy watching her eat. She finishes the slice with obvious delight and wipes her hands.

“What do they eat in Ireland? Corned beef and cabbage?” she asks.

“Actually, no, I’d never heard of that till I came here. But the diet is just awful, anyway. Fried everything. Fried sausage, bacon, eggs, potato bread for breakfast, chips for lunch, fish and chips for dinner. Lot of butter, lot of cream. Blood pudding, ice cream. Beer. Belfast is like Logan’s Run, no one’s alive over thirty, they all have heart attacks.”

She laughs a little.

“Maybe the Catholic guilt kills them,” she says.

“Well, not us, my parents were hippies, they were Jewish, but we didn’t get any religion at all.”

“Is O’Neill a Jewish name?”

“Grandfather a convert,” I say.

“Really,” she says, looking intrigued. “Didn’t you get teased in school?”

“Not really, no one paid me any attention at school, I did well in my subjects, flew under the radar, everyone thought I was just a bit of a weirdo goof-off.”

“Well, we like weirdo goof-offs in America,” she says charmingly.

“I hope so,” I say.

“We do,” she says, reaches across the table and pats my cheek.

She’s being ironic, but the gesture is so intimate, it takes me aback for a second or two. Her fingers are sticky.

“I got cheese on you,” she says, grabs a napkin, wipes it off.

“Thanks.”

“Oh my God, Alexander, a long, horrible, freezing night, huh? Every goddamn door was worse than the one before,” she says, giggling. A lovely sound, the opposite of her brother-in-law’s guffaw. Hers is like a string quartet improvising on a theme by Mozart.

“I know,” I say.

“I don’t normally do the doors, I usually sit in the van with Charles to keep him company. Please tell me people aren’t that eccentric.”

“I had a guy with a gun open the door the other night,” I say.

“No?” she says, appalled.

“Yes,” I insist.

“What did you do?”

“I played it cool, he thought he was James Bond. Bit bloody frightening.”

“My God, did you tell Charles?”

“No, it was my very first night, I didn’t want to sound highly strung, you know?”

“If it had happened to me, I think I would have resigned on the spot,” she says, laughing. I sit in my chair and she plays with the cheese, stringing it from the plate to her mouth, completely unself-consciously.

“Ten o’clock, we better get back to the others and their tales of woe,” Amber says.

I go outside as she dashes to the bathroom. I watch her through the window. On the way out, she flashes her smile at the pizza man and he grins at her and comes around the counter to open the door. In the moment when he’s obscured by a pillar she deftly puts her hand in the tip jar, takes out half the notes, and puts them in her pocket.

“Thank you,” she says breezily, as she leaves.

We had walked nearly the whole way back to the rendezvous point when Amber noticed black spirals of smoke coming from the stoner kids’ house.

“That’s not pot, is it?” Amber asked.

“No, it’s not, their fucking house is on fire,” I said, and began to run.

We got to the house in seconds, but now the fire had taken hold. Sheets of flame coming from underneath the front door, a side window buckling from the heat — all the neighbors bloody oblivious.

“Amber, go to the closest house, call nine-nine-nine,” I said.

“What’s nine-nine-nine?” Amber asked.

“Jesus, whatever it is in this country, the fire brigade, call the bloody fire brigade.”

“Nine-one-one,” Amber said in a daze.

“Yes, just fucking go.”

I had to physically shove her in the direction of the house next door.

It looked bad. The wind and the open windows had really stoked the fire and as I got to the front step I was hit by a wall of heat. I staggered back, put my jacket over my arm and head. I pulled my shirtsleeve down over my fingers and pulled the screen door. The front door was unlocked, the handle searingly hot. I pushed it open.

A horrible sight.

The kitchen was on fire at the back of the house and the walls and carpet were burning. Jets of orange flame shooting up the stairs.

The living room was in to the right. Stairs to the left. Impossible to breathe. I ran down the hall, got about two feet, dropped to a crawl, fumbled for the handle, and shoved my way into the living room. My lungs aching, sparks falling on my back and hair.

Both kids lying on the living room floor, unconscious. The room wasn’t on fire yet, but thick black smoke poured in from a door to the kitchen. I stayed down on my knees, breathing. Behind me a huge tube of fire came hurtling down the hall, and I slammed the door. Something crashed down in the back room.