THE PARAMEDICS BUNDLED LEO off to the hospital, just as he regained full consciousness and started to ask me questions. They wanted to take Luce. She wouldn’t go without me. They wanted to take me, too. They were very insistent. But we were both standing and answering their questions cogently, and eventually I told them to screw off.
One of them tossed us a handful of gauze pads as he left. I held one to the laceration on the side of my head, and Luce held one to her ear, and we watched the firefighters do what they could.
The explosion had shredded the side of the house and blown out every window in the front room. That was only the start. The flames in the fireplace hadn’t been snuffed out by the concussion, and the old wood skeleton of the house made excellent fuel.
Two soaring arcs of water flew up and into the second story, the firefighters working the hoses back and forth. At this point their efforts were more about saving the nearby homes. The front of Dono’s house was gutted. The back was invisible behind black smoke and spray. Whatever personal papers I had owned were ashes by now. Along with Dono’s books. My mother’s St. Christopher medal. Everything else.
A uniformed cop came over with his partner and questioned us. When he got to the part about whether I knew anyone who might have wanted to do this, I said no. I’d already told Guerin about T. X. Broch. Laying his name on the uniform would just lead to an entire night of repeating the same information, on the record this time.
Luce knew what I was leaving out, of course. Her face stayed neutral. But I could feel her vibe.
The cop told me detectives would be in touch. He was partly right. When people started throwing explosives around, the FBI took an interest, too. Maybe even Homeland, depending on who they thought was doing the throwing. It wouldn’t escape anyone’s notice that I’d received a lot of training in demolitions myself.
Local news vans had arrived five minutes after the fire engines. They had raced to get their people in the optimal spot to pose with the fire in the background. The photogenic part of the blaze was over. One shellacked mannequin hurried over with his cameraman the moment the cop was finished to ask us for an interview. I told him no, in much less polite language than I’d used with the medics.
Luce watched the firemen knock down a smoking wall to keep it from falling outward. “This wasn’t Willard,” she said.
I nodded agreement. “He may want to grind a couple of my bones to make his bread, but no. He wouldn’t do this. It has to be Broch.”
“Trying harder, after those two assholes yesterday.”
I’d underestimated Broch. Fogh and Guerin had both warned me that the loan shark was violent beyond reason, and I’d still played defense. Dumb. Luce was right to be angry.
My phone rang, a 253 number.
“Mr. Shaw? Arthur Ostrander.” Maurice Haymes’s attorney.
“It’s a bad time, Mr. Ostrander.”
“I’m aware. You’re on the television right now.”
The news vans. Interview or no, their cameras would have at least filmed us from a distance. Luce was too good-looking not to wind up on the live feed.
“It’s best that we talk immediately,” he said. “I’m at my club downtown. May I send a car for you?”
“No,” I said. I wanted to check on Leo.
“It’s very urgent, Mr. Shaw. Or I wouldn’t be calling at such a time.”
Luce could hear what was being said. She gave me a puzzled look. I shrugged, almost as perplexed as she was. I had to give Ostrander credit for sparking our curiosity.
“If it’s that important,” I said. “Meet me at Swedish Hospital on First Hill in an hour. Emergency entrance.” I hung up.
“That’s Maurice Haymes’s lawyer?” Luce said.
“And the family fixer, from what I can tell.”
The flames in the house were slacking. We watched the firefighters work the hoses closer and tighter on the blaze. Luce reached out and took my arm with one hand. A temporary truce. The cut on her ear had clotted.
“Leo saved us both,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Because he was prepared.”
Luce shook her head no. “That was just chance. Our good luck.”
“Maybe it was good that Leo’s brain is stuck in the suck. But I should have been ready.”
“I’d say you can’t fix this yourself,” she said, “but those words would just wave a red flag in front of you. You shouldn’t.”
“Somebody tried to kill us tonight.”
Luce laughed, without any mirth. “Uncle Albie used to tell me that laundering Dono’s stolen cash through the bar was just to help us make ends meet. That we wouldn’t survive without it. Maybe that was true. But Albie didn’t do it just for the money.”
She turned back to the house. The smoke coming from the smoldering walls was a translucent white, in the glare of the searchlights.
“He did it because he missed the thrill,” Luce said.