Jeffery Deaver - Hell's Kitchen

Sonny got a half-block away and couldn’t help himself. He paused and turned to watch the chaos. He was at first disappointed that the main tank didn’t go up but then he grew philosophical and simply enjoyed the fire for what it was.

Thinking:

Fire is not energy but a creature that lives and grows and reproduces; it’s born and it dies. It can out-think anyone.

Fire is the messenger of change.

The sun is fire and the sun is not even particularly hot.

Fire eats the dirt of men. Fire is the most blind justice.

Fire points toward God.

“Hey, mister, you got yourself a famous lawyer working for you. He sued the Port Authority and won. You ever hear of anybody suing the city and winning?”

The man sitting at Louis Bailey’s desk rose the instant Pellam entered the room. It was the green-jacket handicapper from yesterday. The man with a lock.

“Cleg, please,” Bailey said, self-effacing.

“And tell him about the time you sued Rockefeller.”

“Cleg.”

The skinny guy seemed to have forgiven Pellam for not taking his tip about the horses. He said, “Rockefeller stole this guy’s invention and Louis took him to court. He caved too. Louis scared the bejeebers out of him. Hey, sir, you look like a cowboy. Anybody ever tell you that? You ever ride broncos? What is that exactly, bronco? I just know about the O.J. one. The white truck, I mean.”

“It’s an untamed horse,” Pellam said.

“Well, how ’bout that,” Cleg said, astonished – a handicapper who’d just discovered a different kind of horse. He took more gear-greasing envelopes from Bailey and left the office.

“He’s quite a fellow” was all that Pellam could offer.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Bailey said ambiguously. Then he opened that morning’s paper. Slapped it. “Look at this.” The front page story was about a fire at a gas station in the Village. “That’s our boy.”

“The pyro?” Pellam asked.

“They’re pretty sure. Almost got him but he got away. Seriously injured two cops and three pedestrians. Almost a million dollars in damage.”

Pellam examined the picture of the devastation.

Bailey swallowed a mouthful of wine. “This is turning into a nightmare. There’s a public uproar. The Police Department and the Attorney General are under incredible pressure to get this guy. They think that he’s gone nuts. Like Ettie switched him on and he won’t shut off now. It’s become a citywide crusade to stop him.”

Pellam bent wearily over the paper. There was a sidebar that included a map of Hell’s Kitchen. Tiny drawings of flames marked the spots of the fires. They were in a pattern, it seemed – a semicircular shape north of Ettie’s building.

Bailey found a slip of paper, handed it to Pellam. “That’s the insurance agency where Ettie got the policy. The woman who sold it is a Florence Epstein.”

“What’d she say?”

Bailey looked at Pellam with a significance that escaped him completely.

“I’m sorry?” Pellam tried.

“I can’t talk to her. I’m Ettie’s attorney of record.”

“Oh, I get it. But I can.”

Bailey sighed. “Well, yes, but…”

“But what?”

“You know, sometimes… well, with that black outfit of yours, you look a little intimidating. And you don’t smile a lot.”

“I’ll be charm itself,” Pellam said. “As long as she’s not lying.”

“If there’s any hint of intimidation…”

“Do I look like the sort who intimidates?”

Bailey was suddenly very uncomfortable and he changed the subject. “Here. I went to the library.” He set some clippings down in front of Pellam.

“You went yourself? You didn’t bribe some librarian to bring them to you?”

“Ha.” Bailey was too busy wrestling the seal off a new wine bottle to smile. “Some back-grounders about Roger McKennah.”

Pellam shuffled through the clippings.

Business Week offered:

The best part of the prior decade for McKennah was the late eighties – when the market cindered, the boom went bust and careers ‘Chappaquidicked’ (a popular McKennahism) throughout Wall Street. Yet that was when he had shone the brightest.

New York magazine:

… Roger McKennah, the self-confessed megalomaniac, marched into third-world sections of the New York metro area and strewed them with affordable (and profitable) housing projects. He is also credited with revitalizing real estate investment trusts and with prying a good portion of midtown out of foreign hands and returning it to local developers. Notable for his wit as well as his lifestyle and business acumen, it was McKennah who coined the term “vulturing” – spotting deals going bad and grabbing them out from under receivers and trustees.

From baroquely metaphorical People :

Anyone – a Trump, a Zeckendorf, a Helmsley – could ride the crest of prosperity. But only a genius like Roger McKennah dared answer the call of ‘surf’s up’ when the only place to hang ten was in the tunnel of the wave.

Pellam put the articles aside.

“Makes him greedy and smart but hardly an arsonist,” Bailey commented.

“Then I better tell you about my date last night.”

“The party at his place?”

“The caviar was a bit too warm. But I had champagne with his wife.”

Bailey was delighted. Fraternizing with the enemy was probably an important technique for gear-cloggers. “And?”

“She wants to sink him like the Titanic .”

Pellam told the lawyer about McKennah’s clandestine meetings and the calls to and from the law firm.

“Pillsbury, Millbank?” Bailey asked.

“I’m pretty sure that’s what she said.

Bailey pulled a huge volume of Martindale Hubbell Lawyers Directory off his shelf and flipped it open. He found a listing of the firm. He read carefully, nodding. “I think I can get to somebody there.”

Can get.

Pellam was reaching for his wallet.

“Not this time. I’ve got another idea. Oh, and I’ve got more good news. Something I forgot to tell you. A friend of mine has a friend who plays cards with a senior fire marshal. There’s a poker game tonight and my buddy’s going to get his buddy to lose big and pour a bottle of Macallan scotch very freely. We’ll get some inside dope on the case.”

“How old?”

“How old what?” Bailey asked.

“Is the Macallan?”

“I don’t know. Twelve years probably. Maybe older.”

“I’m thinking, Louis,” Pellam said. “Maybe I’ll do a documentary about you. I’ll call it Greasing Gears . Say, did you really sue Rockefeller?”

“Oh, well, yes, I did,” Bailey gazed modestly down at his desk. Then he shrugged. “But it wasn’t one of the Rockefellers.”

The footsteps were close behind him and moving in closer.

Pellam spun around, his hand slipping into the small of his back, where the Colt rested, heavy and hot, against his spine.

He looked down.

“Yo, cuz. Where you been?” Ismail was grinning, hands on his scrawny hips. Sweating furious but still in his beloved African National Congress windbreaker.

“Around, and you?”

“Yo, you got a gun. You carryin’!”

“No I’m not.”

“Yo. You be! You was reaching for yo’ piece. Lemme see it, Pellam. Whatchu got? You got a Glock, you got a Brownin’? A trey five-seven? Man, I want a Desert Eagle. Blow yo’ ass to kingdom come. Fucker be fifty caliber.”

“I was reaching for my wallet. I figured you were a mugger.”

“I ain’t jack you, cuz.” Ismail looked genuinely hurt.

“Where’ve you been?” Pellam asked him.