Warren Murphy: Firing Line

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"Smitty," said Remo, "this is important. Do you have anything in your computers about arson?"

"Can I take this to mean you're coming back to work?"

"Please, Smitty, don't bargain with me. What about arson?"

There was a quality in Remo's voice that prompted Smith to say, "What kind of arson? Anything special? Any characteristics?"

"I don't know," Remo said. "Maybe multiple fires started in one building. No signs of fuel or incendiary devices."

Smith said, "Wait." He put Remo on hold. Remo could picture him putting down the telephone and pressing the button that raised the television console and computer keyboard on his desk. He could see Smith carefully punching into the machine the information he wanted, then sitting back to wait for CURE's giant memory banks to strip themselves, to try to match up what they knew with what Smith requested.

Smith was back on the telephone ninety seconds later.

"There have been five fires like that in the last two months," he said. "First two up in Westchester County. Near here. Then three in North Jersey."

"Make it four now," Remo said. "Any idea who's doing it?"

"No. No witnesses. No clues. Nothing. Why? Why is this so important to you?"

"Because I owe it to somebody," Remo said coldly. "Thanks, Smitty. I'll be in touch."

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?" Smith asked.

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"Yeah. Don't worry about Ruby anymore. You can call off your bloodhounds."

"I don't understand," Smith said. "What is this all about?"

"Don't worry about it," Remo said. "We're just doing a favor for a friend."

"Remo," said Smith.

"Yeah?"

"We have no friends," the CURE director said.

"Now we've got one less than that," Remo said.

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CHAPTER FIVE

"How long, Lord, how long?"

"How long?" the congregation shouted back.

"How long, Lord, you going to visit this oppression upon us poor black people? Say how long?"

"How long?" the congregation complied.

The Reverend Dr. Horatius Q. Witherspool stood high up in the pulpit overlooking the congregation of 120 persons, 100 women and 20 men past the age of 65. His arms were raised dramatically over his head, his bright white cuffs shooting out from under the sleeves of his black mohair jacket, his gold and diamond cufflinks glittering in the Sunday morning sunlight like day-old junk jewelry.

"We have lost another," he said.

"Amen," said the congregation.

"Fire has again struck and taken one of us away," the Reverend Dr. Witherspool said.

"Taken away," the congregation chanted.

"We do not know who." He paused. "We do not know how. And we have to ask ourselves, was this person ready to meet her maker? Was she ready?"

"Was she ready?" the congregation echoed.

"When they find out who she was, will they find out that she thought of those she left behind?" He

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looked around and folded his hands together on the edge of the rostrum. He looked over his congregation with his sincere look, which involved tilting his head to the right and slightly squinting his eyes.

"Or will they find that this poor woman left this mortal coil to be with the Great Lord and all she-left behind for those who loved her were debts and bills and the eternal footsteps of the creditor? Is that what we will find?" He looked around.

"We must always remember. When God calls, we want to be ready to meet Him. But we leave others behind. We want to go and meet that Lord, and we want to be able to smile and look that great Lord right in that great Lord's eye, and say, 'Oh, Lord, I has done right by those I left behind. I has left them with the things they need to get on. I has left them with money from the insurance, and when they goes to bury me, they aren't gonna have to sell the furniture or like that, but they will just cash in that insurance policy and they will find the means . . .'" He paused. "The means," his congregation said. "'And the wherewithall,'" Witherspool said. He pronounced each syllable very precisely. "Wherewith-all."

"Wherewithall," his congregation said. " 'To bury me. And even the church I love, the First Evangelical Abyssinian Apostolic Church of the Good Deal, the Reverend Doctor Horatius Q. Witherspool, Pastor, was remembered in my insurance policy, and they will be able to go right on doing your work, Lord.' "

He looked around again. "And the good Lord is going to say, "Why, bless you, Sister, and come on

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right in, because truly you has done my work and shown your kindness and your goodness, and I only wish that everyone would do that, so we could all live together up here in eternity. . . .'"

"In eternity," the congregation chanted.

"In happiness," Witherspool said.

"In happiness," came the echo.

"And with paid-up premiums, to protect our family and our church,' " said Witherspool.

"To protect us, Lord," said the congregation.

"Amen," said Witherspool.

He met his congregation at the back door of the church as they left, pumping their hands with his right hand, and with bis left, slipping into their pocket or purse a flyer from the Safety-First Grandslam Insurance Company, explaining how, for a mere seventy cents a day, without medical examination, they could buy $5,000 worth of term insurance on their lives. The flyer also included an application blank, already partially filled out, earmarking $2,500 of the insurance proceeds to the Reverend Dr. Horatius Q. Witherspool, pastor of the First Evangelical Abyssinian Apostolic Church of the Good Deal.

When the last parishioner had left, Witherspool closed the doors and walked back down the aisle of the small church, whistling "We Are Family."

He stopped short in the doorway of tie small room behind the altar of the church. There was a white man sitting at the table, looking at the sports section of the New York News, where the Reverend Dr. Witherspool had circled the baseball teams he was betting on that day.

The white man looked up. "I wouldn't take the Red Sox," he said. "They're about ready to start

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their mid-year fold, and laying nine to win five doesn't sound very good."

"Who are you?" Witherspool demanded. He wondered if the white man was from the city's anti-gambling police squad.

"I know how interested you are in insurance," the white man said.

'"I don't know what you mean," Witherspool said. He leaned back slightly in the doorway.

The white man stood up and continued talking as if he had not even heard the minister.

"And I represent the 'This Is Your Last Chance, Sucker Insurance Company,' and I have an amazing policy that, for no cash premium at all, guarantees you're going to live."

Witherspool squinted his eyes. He had never heard of an insurance policy like that. "Live?" he asked. "For how long?"

"Long enough to see if those cufflinks tarnish," Remo said. "And the only premium you've got to pay is to tell me who you paid to torch that building down the street."

He smiled. Witherspool did not.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. The man was an insurance investigator. He was sure of it.

He insisted he didn't know what the man was talking about. He was still insisting it when he was stuffed into the trunk of a rented car, and even though he was sure the driver could not hear him, he kept shouting that he knew nothing about it for a twenty-minute car ride, until he heard the car pull off the main highway and pass onto a gravel road.

He didn't know what this lunatic was up to, but

for God's sakes, didn't he know that mohair wrinkled? And if he got grease on this suit, it was ruined. Five hundred dollars shot to hell. He was going to kick this honkey's ass as soon as he got out of this trunk.

When the lid opened, he blinked once at the noon sun, crawled out of the trunk, and threw an overhand right at the thin white man's head. It missed and he felt himself yanked around and dragged by the collar of his suit, along the ground behind the man.