Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

"I'm not lying!"

"And don't whine, either," she says. "It annoys me. What did they say to you, 'Keep your stupid fucking mouth shut'?"

"Something like that," Tony mumbles. "Don't tell Uncle Nguyen."

"Do they know I've been bringing the heat on you?"

"They know," the kid says, resentful. "Everyone knows."

"You're in a tough spot."

"You put me there."

"Yeah, whatever," Letty says. "Come on in. Bring me those guys."

Tony thinks about it for a second. "See how it plays," he says.

"Yeah, see how it plays," Letty says.

The kid already knows how it's going to play. How it's going to play is this gash is about to get whacked, is how it's going to play.

So he says, "Give me a couple of minutes' head start. I don't want to be seen with no cop."

"Out here?" Letty laughs.

There's nothing out here but hills, dry grass and rocks.

"Out anywhere," Tony says. He heads back down the trail.

Letty's mind is racing. She has the Tranh and Do disappearance hooked in with Pamela's death and the fire. She has Nicky Vale connected somehow with ROC. She has a truckload of stuff leaving the Vale house the night of the fire.

She's deep into these thoughts as she walks back.

She has her head down.

She's dead.

Because the hitter is just standing there waiting for her.

She has her head down, she's thinking things through, and the only reason she looks up is that she catches a glint of something metal even though there is nothing metal out there.

She looks up and sees the gun barrel and a glimpse of a face on a body.

She spins to the ground, dropping hard on the dry red dirt. Lands awkwardly and she can feel her shoulder dislocate when she hits. But she has her weapon out and she can see the guy's arm try to follow her down so she aims to the right of the arm and punches out two rounds WHAM WHAM and then two more WHAM WHAM and the first two take him in the chest and the next two in the head, so that guy is over.

But then another figure charges toward her.

Letty yells, "Forget him, he's dead!" and she grips her weapon hard, trying to steady it if she needs to fire her last rounds, but then the horizon starts doing goofy flip-flops and she sees the blue sky and thanks Madre Maria she's alive and then it all goes black.

Last thing she hears is this guy bellowing, "Fuck you, bish!"

But he's running away.

Letty lies in the dirt, her shoulder muscle down around her elbow, and it motherfucking hurts.

But she figures that pain is a good thing, given the alternative.

Jack's watching TV

He's sitting down in front of two monitors hooked to VCRs and running two tapes side by side.

The Vale home movies of Pamela showing off the furniture, and the tape he made of the Vales' burned and blackened bedroom.

Very weird, watching them simultaneously.

Almost like watching Pamela's ghost — beautiful, sexy, alive — walk around the ashes of her bedroom. Watch her point out the chairs, the card table, the desk… the bed. Or where they were. Where she was.

Because he burned them and he burned her.

No, he didn't, Jack thinks.

He sure as hell burned her.

But he wouldn't burn the furniture.

No more than Olivia Hathaway would dump her spoons.

Nobody burns what they love, Jack thinks.

Not while there's a chance that they can still have it.

Except me.

I burn what I love and then scatter the ashes.

What was it I said to Letty? Pintale?

Get out.

What was that bird? A mythical bird that rose from the ashes. The phoenix.

Like Letty and me.

Like Pamela on the tape.

Like Nicky's precious furniture.

Show me, Pam.

Show me how Nicky's precious antique furniture rose from these ashes. Show me what I'm missing, Pamela's ghost.

Pam's trying to tell you something.

The fire is trying to tell you something.

The fire's running smack like, Listen up, dummy. I'm trying to give it to you but you're too stupid to see it. I left it all there for you. You speak fluent fire, right? You're the Dalmatian. You the man.

So read me.

He runs the tapes three times before he sees it.

The heat shadows.

Pam's showing off the cabinet, "a rare bombe-based red-lacquered and japanned bureau-cabinet from about 1730… A very rare piece."

Jack freeze-frames both tapes.

There it is.

He compares where Pam is pointing to the same place on the wall of the fire scene tape.

The heat shadow is the wrong shape.

He rewinds and looks at it again.

No question about it. The paler shape — the "heat shadow" on the wall — is smaller and lower than what it should be if the bureau-cabinet had shielded the wall from the heat.

It's the wrong shadow.

The wrong ghost.

It's the shape of the writing desk.

Jack rewinds to Pam describing the writing desk.

Freeze-frames both tapes.

Again compares what Pam is pointing out to the heat shadow on the wall.

The wrong shape.

It's the shape of the cabinet.

You screwed up, Nicky.

And thank you, Pam.

And thank you, fire.

And thank you, Olivia Hathaway.

First thing he sees is the parrot.

It looks like it's just moving along the top of the hedge and then Jack realizes that it's sitting on the shoulder of Mr. Meissner's white shirt.

"Eliot!" Jack says.

"Eliot. Eliot. Pretty bird."

Meissner stops and looks over the hedge.

"It's the space man," he says. "Where's your space suit today?"

"Jack Wade. California Fire and Life."

"I remember, Mr. Wade."

"Jack."

"Jack," Meissner says. "What can Eliot do for you?"

"Chess pieces," Jack says. "You said something about chess pieces, moving in and moving out. I thought you meant the kids."

"Them, too," Meissner says.

"But you meant something else."

Meissner nods. "The truck. With the chess piece on it. The knight. Stuff coming in and out half the night."

"What stuff?"

"Furniture," Meissner says.

"Did you see who-"

"Two Asian boys, two big white guys, Nicky."

"Pretty bird."

"Yes, you're a pretty bird Eliot," Meissner says. The wind ruffles the bird's feathers and it's digging into Meissner's shoulder to stay on. "Is this important?"

"Could be."

"Something to do with Pamela's death?" Meissner asks.

"I think so."

Meissner looks off toward the water. When he looks back he says, "She was a lovely girl. A sweet girl. With problems, but a sweet girl."

"Yeah."

"If you need me to testify…"

"No," Jack says quickly. "I won't need you to testify. Has anyone else interviewed you about this?"

"No."

"Have you talked to anyone else about it?"

"The parrot," Meissner says. "But I don't think he's listening, do you?"

Jack shrugs.

"Mr. Meissner," he says. "Don't tell anyone what you've told me. Not police, not lawyers, no one. If anyone asks you what you saw that night, all you say is that you heard the dog and you saw the flames. It's very important."

"But I want to help."

"You've helped."

Because now I know just what happened.

Nicky swapped the furniture. Brought in a truck, moved some cheap shit in and took the good stuff out.

But one of his boys screwed up.

Put the desk where the bureau was supposed to be and vice versa.

So Nicky still has his precious furniture.

Half a million bucks on the hoof.

Two million when you count the claim.

Add that to the rest of the claim, you've got the sum total of the money that Nicky paid back to revive his financial standing.

"Thank you, Mr. Meissner."

"For nothing."

"For everything."

Jack walks back toward the car.