The Rat On Fire Part 9

"As for secretaries," Jerry Fein said, "let me give you the benefit of a secret which I learned a long time ago, and that is when they have got something on their minds that is such that they cannot concentrate on anything else at the same time, the sensible thing to do is say to them like I did to Lois Reynolds last night when she was howling about this Winnebago she wants to get for her husband and does not seem to be able to so that she is on the telephone all day about it and is not getting any work done, that the sensible thing to do is to say to Lois like I did last night, 'All right. You will take tomorrow off and go and settle this matter once and for all, and have a nice time at it, so that when you come back day after tomorrow, you will have finished your business and you will be in a much better mood.'

"Then she will say," Fein said, "that she cannot possibly do this because it will leave you, which is me, all alone with n.o.body to answer the phone and when she comes back tomorrow I will have spent the whole day answering my phone and talking to people that I refuse under all circ.u.mstances to talk to when she is there and answering the phone, and consequently she will come in tomorrow and have to put up with me in a worse mood than she was in yesterday, because she knows how I get when she's been out sick or we don't happen to take the same lunch hour or something.

"I tell her," Fein said, "that this is not going to be the case. This is because it is summer and I have not had any vacation to speak of and the business's been going pretty good and I am going to reward myself with a day on the links so that I will not be there today either and the G.o.dd.a.m.ned phone can ring its a.s.s off if it wants without bothering me at all. Besides, I am spending all of my waking hours worrying about whether Mabel and the Golden Throats have got them breaking down the doors at Simmy's in Taunton. And also whether Foxy Flaherty is satisfied in Lowell with the fine comic routines of Happy Morris, the Poor Man's Zero Mostel, who has been known to do the same thing in his dressing room at intermission as the customers are doing at the bar out front. Only he does as much of it in twenty minutes or a half an hour as all of them together do all evening, so he sometimes has trouble making the second show and more than once has missed the third show entirely or else done the material he is supposed to save for the reunions they have when some guy gets back to the old neighborhood after he finishes doing twenty years for armed robbery, if you get my meaning.

"All day every day I worry about such things, and today I decide that I am going to worry about whether I can finally get a par on the eighth and maybe hold myself down to a double bogey on the fifteenth, because I have worked hard and I have earned it, and that is what I did all day. See? That way, n.o.body has to worry about the phone, because Lois is off buying Winnebagos and I am off playing golf and except for you and the guy that serves the breakfast and the guy that serves the drinks and the lunch and the kid that brought me this drink and the one I had before that, the only person in the world besides Lois who knows where I am is Ralphie, my caddy, that I spent the whole day with having a nice conversation about the economy and gasoline and whether I should use a seven iron or a five iron on a particular approach shot. I like Ralphie. He is a fine young boy and he does not hesitate to say when he thinks you are not maybe using enough club. I tipped him ten bucks."

"I only tip him three," Max said.

"That is not wise," Fein said. "Ralphie is an ambitious boy and he wants to go to medical school when he finishes college. If you only tip him three bucks, he will not remember you in the same favorable light that he remembers me, and he will not tell you when he thinks you are not using the right club. Whereas Ralphie is very fond of his old buddy, Jerry Fein, and is always glad to see me when I come here, and turns down people like Max Winch.e.l.l so he can caddy for me and I will slip him ten at the end even though it is against the rules. Ralphie remembers Jerry Fein very well, and it is worth ten bucks for his help and a.s.sistance in putting together a decent round of golf."

"What'd you shoot?" Winch.e.l.l said.

"One-oh-three, this morning," Fein said. "One-oh-five this after. But I had a very relaxing day with Ralphie, and it was very good to get away from the office and the telephone for a change. I enjoyed it."

FEIN GOT HOME just after seven-thirty. Pauline Fein was waiting for him in the living room. She rose up from the turquoise couch with the gold-finish trim as soon as he opened the white paneled door. She stood on the yellow s.h.a.g rug in her bare feet and her cover-up that she put on the minute she emerged from her nude swim in the pool secluded in the back yard.

"Jerry," she said, "the police are on the way."

"The police," he said. "Would you mind telling me why the police are coming? What'd they do, get a kid to climb the fence so they could tell you had any clothes on in the pool? You got a perfect right to swim naked in your own back yard. I told you that before. You want to swim bare-a.s.s, swim bare-a.s.s. They can't do anything about that."

"I didn't know where you were," she said.

"That's not police business either," he said. "I changed my mind, going down the street. I gave Lois the day off today when we left the office last night, she's tryin' to get this camper for her husband and it's been drivin' her nuts. So and all right, and then it occurs to me, if Lois isn't going to be in, I'm going to end up spending the whole day answering the G.o.dd.a.m.ned telephone. And I am therefore not going to get a chance to do any of my own work. And besides, why should I? I work hard all the time. I deserve a day off to play golf for once during the week when it isn't crowded and you don't have to stand in line, every tee."

"I didn't know where you were," she said again.

"Last night," Fein said, "last night you told me, when we went to bed, you were working at the thrift shop this morning and then you and Stephanie were having lunch at the Colonnade. I didn't want to wake you up, I got to the club, and by the time I figured you'd be up, I was on the third tee. I wasn't going to go back to the clubhouse then to call you, and besides, if I'd had've you'd've gone to the thrift shop by the time I got to the clubhouse phone. And when I finished the first round and I was having lunch, you were having lunch."

"We went to La Patisserie," she said. "Stephanie's on another one of her diets."

"Which is exactly what I figured," he said. "You never go to the Colonnade for lunch when you go to the Colonnade for lunch with Stephanie. Stephanie decides she wants Greek food, or you get a yen for Italian food, or Sharon shows up and she wants to go to Nick's or the Fifty-seven or someplace else. I never know where you're having lunch when you're having lunch at the Colonnade, and I know I don't, so I don't even bother trying there. Besides, I was just playing golf. There wasn't any harm in it. The cops can't get me for playing golf, I don't think."

"It isn't what you did," she said. "There's been a fire."

"Whaddaya mean, there's been a fire?" he said. "Where's the f.u.c.king fire? You all right? What burned, for Christ sake? The h.e.l.l'd you let me go on for anyway? Where the h.e.l.l was the fire?"

"It was in one of our buildings on Bristol Road," she said. "I don't know which one."

Fein went over to the off-white stuffed chair and sat down heavily. "Oh, for Christ sake," he said. "Those f.u.c.king n.i.g.g.e.rs."

"n.o.body got hurt," she said. "That's good, at least."

"Hurt?" he said. "Hurt? I wished one of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds would get hurt. Honest to G.o.d. They got bored with tearing the place down piece by piece so they're gonna take the quick way and burn it."

"You don't know that, Jerry," she said.

"Get me a straight vodka on ice, will you?" he said. "I do know it. I know it just as sure as I'm sitting here. Those f.u.c.king n.i.g.g.e.rs that won't pay their rent decided they'll forget about tearing the plumbing out and knocking holes in the walls, and they'll set the place on fire. Jesus Christ. I knew they didn't give a s.h.i.t about my property, but now they're getting ready to burn their own with it. Not that they got any, of course. Holy s.h.i.t."

"You can't be sure of that, Jerry," she said, bringing the drink from the crescent-shaped white marble bar. "You don't know it was that. It could've been an accident. Something went wrong with the heater or something."

"Bulls.h.i.t, I can't be sure," Fein said. "If there was a fire in that building, it was set. There's nothing wrong with the furnace and there's nothing wrong with the boiler or anything else. Why the h.e.l.l do you think the cops're coming, huh? You think the cops just automatically visit anybody that owns property when there's a fire in it? The cops? Cops direct traffic and tag cars and stop guys from speeding, and now and then by accident they catch a crook. Firemen go to fires. When the cops come about a fire, it's because they know d.a.m.ned well that somebody set it. And I know it just as well as they do. They aren't telling me a single f.u.c.kin' thing that I don't know. I take a day off to play golf, and one of my lovely tenants puts a match to my building. Well, good luck to the c.o.c.ksuckers. I'm out the first five hundred for repairs, but the h.e.l.l with that. I hope they burn the place f.u.c.kin' flat, and with them in it."

MAVIS DAVIS SAT in Wilfrid Mack's office at 8:45 p.m. and looked worried. "I hate to bother you, Mister Mack," she said.

"It's no bother," he said. "I'm out of here most of the day. If I'm not in court, I'm in the State House. I expect to be here at night. It's the only time I can see people, and after all, this job wasn't forced on me. It's just that I do have to tell you that I can't represent Alfred unless I get a fee, and it's going to have to be a substantial one."

"Mister Mack," she said, "Alfred hasn't got any money and I sure don't."

"Look," Mack said, "I know that. I know Alfred hasn't any money and I know the trouble you had coming up with my fee a good many years ago, when everything was cheaper. But you have to understand: I don't have any money either. I have to make a living too. If I don't charge Alfred and everybody else I represent, I won't be able to stay in business. I filed my appearance for him this morning for purposes of arraignment only because I can't afford to go around taking cases for clients who can't pay me anything. I just can't do it, If Alfred wants me to try his case for him in court, Alfred is going to have to come up with a lot of money. Otherwise I am not going to be able to do it. And I won't do it, either. Not that it's going to matter much."

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Mrs. Davis," Mack said, "Alfred jumped a cop and tried to whap him around with a tire iron. As usual, Alfred was careful to make sure that there was another witness around. Another cop, to be exact. Not to mention his sister and probably some other folks that I don't know about yet, but who know Alfred and could pick him out of a two-hundred-man line-up."

"Selene," she said, "they can't make Selene testify."

"Unfortunately," Mack said, "they can make Selene testify. They maybe can't make her tell the truth, but they can make her testify. If they choose to do so. Which I can't imagine why they would want to, since if I ever heard of a case that was ironclad, airtight, gone for sure and over with, this is it. But if they decide that they want to hammer her, they can do it, and if she lies about recognizing her brother or her boyfriend, they will be in a position to do something to Selene. If they want to. Nope, they can haul her in. They have got the Davis family in a very tight corner."

"Mister Mack," she said, "we had a fire at Bristol Road today."

"Oh, my G.o.d," Mack said. "Was anybody hurt?"

"n.o.body was hurt," she said. "The only person in the building apparently was Alfred, and he was sleeping after he got home from court, but it was just smoke and stuff and he got out all right.

"Alfred," she said, "Alfred was up all night. He didn't get no sleep after they arrested him and he was scared and he just went home and he went to bed and he was sleeping."

"Alfred was sleeping," Mack said.

"Yes, he was," she said. "He was sleeping. He told me he was sleeping so he'd be able to go to work tonight and help me get that money back that I paid for his bail there, and I believe him."

"You believe him," Mack said.

"He was all hurt, Mister Mack," she said. "They beat on him something fearful, them cops. He was sore and he was hurt and he didn't have any medical down at the jail there. Yeah, I believe him."

"I don't," Mack said.

"Senator," she said, "the h.e.l.l you mean by that?"

"Mrs. Davis," he said, "I have talked with Alfred. I have represented Alfred. Alfred is the most difficult client I ever had in my entire professional career. Alfred does not lie all the time, which I guess is to his credit. But Alfred does not tell the truth all the time, either, and I never know what or which time it is when Alfred is talking to me.

"You're in a different position," Mack said. "You are Alfred's mother. This is a terrible burden that was put on you, but I guess probably the Lord Jesus has His reasons for doing things like this to perfectly decent people. I suppose when Alfred says something, such as that he was sleeping, you are more or less obliged to believe it, for that reason.

"I am not Alfred's mother," Mack said. "There are some things in my life I would change if G.o.d gave me half a chance, but that is not one of them. I am very grateful that I am not Alfred's mother. I would rather have a good case of malaria than anything that put me in a position where I was probably obliged to believe what Alfred said."

"Mister Mack," she said.

"No," he said. "No, I won't listen to it. You have to listen to Alfred, but I do not. I listened to Alfred today, when he had a bad case against a cop, and I spent the morning wasting my time in court because Alfred tried to do something about his dislike for that cop. Alfred did not pay me any money. I listened to Alfred the other day and then I listened to you, and as a result of doing that, I went to see Mister Fein and I talked to him about rats and things. I did not get any money for that, either. I did it because I wanted Alfred to calm down.

"I got Alfred out of jail this morning," Mack said, "and from what you tell me-and I do believe you-Alfred went home. This is good. Alfred safely at home is a situation which is not likely to complicate my life the way my life gets complicated when Alfred gets out on the street and brings a tire iron and jumps a cop.

"Or so I would think anyway," Mack said. "Now you tell me that Alfred tells you that he was asleep and a fire started in your building. And this is after Alfred and some other people have told me how n.o.body is very happy with anything that goes on there.

"Now," Mack said, "I do not know what went on in that building today, while Alfred was supposedly sleeping in it. I am not saying that I do. But I am suspicious, and I will tell you that quite candidly."

"Mister Mack," she said, "that fire was set."

"That is what I suspected," Mack said. "Just keep in mind that you are the one who said it first. It was not I who said it first."

"It was," she said. "Somebody was in that bas.e.m.e.nt and they set off a whole bunch oily rags, and the smoke just filled that house and it's a wonder Alfred didn't suffocate. My curtains're ruined and so're all my bed linens and everything else. That smoke just came right up the stairs and it got into every single one of the apartments and it ruined everything we own, practically. Our clothes and everything."

"And Alfred was in there," Mack said.

"Mister Mack," she said, "Alfred did not set no fire. I would stake my life on that."

"You may be doing just that," Mack said.

DON ENTERED the Scandinavian Pastry Shop less than a minute behind Proctor. Proctor was sitting by himself in a booth. He was drinking coffee and eating a cheese Danish. It was another hot night and the moths collided regularly with the outside of the shop windows.

"Lemme have coffee and a cheese Danish," Don said to the waitress, who was studying the bugs.

"Haven't got any more Danish," she said. "How ya want ya coffee?"

"Guy over there's eating Danish," Don said.

"Got the last one," she said. "Told ya, haven't got no more Danish. Don't gimme a hard time, all right?"

"Got any soup, or something?" Don said.

"Mister," she said, snapping her gum, "you been in here before, right? You can probably read the sign and everything. Says it's a pastry shop, you know? Means we sell the baked goods. We sell the doughnuts and the Danish and we sell the bismarcks and stuff with the whipped cream in them. We sell baked goods, mister. Soup and salads and sandwiches, you got to go somewhere else, you wanna get them."

"How much coffee you bake?" Don said.

"We don't bake no coffee, mister," she said. "Ya don't have to be a wise guy, you know. We brew the coffee, you know?"

"How much c.o.ke you bake?" Don said. "You sell c.o.ke and root beer and stuff like that, don't you?"

"Mister," she said, "you're givin' me a big pain. I mean, I hate to say it and everything, but you're giving me a big pain."

"Where?" he said.

"In the a.s.s," she said.

Proctor turned around. "Hey," he said, "why'ncha leave the kid alone again, all right, Mac?"

"Mind your own G.o.dd.a.m.ned business," Don said. "Gimme a regular coffee and forget the lecture about how it isn't cream, all right?"

Mickey came in from the parking lot and sat down next to Don. He ordered coffee.

Malatesta came in right after Mickey and joined Proctor in the booth. He ordered coffee. He looked at Proctor's Danish and ordered a cheese Danish. "Haven't got no Danish left, mister," the waitress said. "Outta Danish. You're too late. You want the Danish, you should come in here early. You been in here before. You oughta know that. How ya want ya coffee?"

"Jee-zuss," Malatesta said. "What the h.e.l.l did I do?"

"I had a hard day," the waitress said.

"So'd a lot of people," Malatesta said. "Just give me the coffee and I already know it isn't cream. Regular."

"I was down in Providence," Mickey said. "Where'd you go?"

"Took a container up to Ludlow," Don said. "Machine parts, said on it. Yugoslavia. I didn't know we were getting stuff from them."

"Oh, sure," Mickey said. "All them Commie countries. Tools, cars, everything."

"So," Malatesta said to Proctor, "how'd it go? You hear?"

"Guys fell out of bed, got hurt less," Proctor said. "Talked to Fein this morning. Happy as a pig in s.h.i.t. 'Guys fell out of bed and got hurt less,' he says. That kid you sent over, see him? What's his name, some corporal."

"Grogan," Malatesta said. "Well, I sent Caprio too, but I'm not sure Caprio can talk."

"It was perfect," Proctor said. "Whoever it was, it was perfect. Fein told me he just sat there and yelled about those n.i.g.g.e.rs for about an hour, and the two guys sit there taking notes and then they thank him very much and they get up and leave and that is the end of it."

"So he stuck to it," Malatesta said.

"Sure," Proctor said. "Fein's a big a.s.shole, but once he gets his story down, he tells it and tells it and tells it. See, they started looking for him when the rags went up, only he's smart enough, he knows they're gonna start looking for him, the rags go up, so he gives his secretary the day off and he goes out and runs around in the weeds all day, playing golf, and then he gets home and there's his wife, all upset because there's a fire in their building, and he puts on this great song and dance and she ends up helping him convince the corporals they been having all this trouble with the n.i.g.g.e.rs that don't pay their rent."

"Good," Malatesta said.

"Good?" Proctor said. "It was perfect, is what it was. Those two clowns told him he was lucky there was only one tenant in the building and he's not usually there because he goes off somewhere before lunch."

"He'd better not be in there when you do it," Malatesta said.

"I heard you before, Billy," Proctor said. "You don't have to remind me."

"When?" Malatesta said.

"It's better," Proctor said, "you don't know too much. You know the address. Just sit tight."

"I haven't seen any money yet," Malatesta said.

Proctor took three one-hundred-dollar bills from his pocket. "On account," he said. "Just sit tight."

CARBONE OPENED the discussion with Roscommon, Sweeney nodding affirmations as he talked.

"It's Fein, all right," Carbone said.

"Well," Roscommon said, "you thought it was. That's not news."

"Not quite fair, sir," Sweeney said. "We suspected it was one of Fein's buildings, but we weren't sure. Proctor's got his own property, too. A lot of what he said, he could've been planning to light off one of those and he was just shooting the s.h.i.t with Malatesta about Fein, confusing him."