Dean got off without a hitch the next morning, and I called Setsuko as soon as the office opened.
I apologized for asking her whether she could babysit at the last minute, but she was really great about it—telling me she was glad I needed her that night, as she was taking a couple of vacation days to go skiing the next morning.
And then I asked her if she could connect me to Cary, who practically begged me to bring him to the arson meeting.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, it’s going to be listening to people talk about fires and shit. I thought you didn’t like fires and shit.”
“Madeline, I hate fires and shit. Which is why I want to avoid having an arsonist wandering around in my neighborhood. This seems like a good way to find out how, you know?”
“Well, okay then. And I’d love company.”
He offered to drive me there, but I figured I’d rather walk, relishing the relative freedom of not having to drag the wagon behind me for once.
After that I tried to clean the house, thoroughly, over the course of the day—not wanting to scare poor Setsuko.
She arrived early and got settled in with the girls before shooing me out the door for the meeting.
“Go,” she said, smiling at me. “Enjoy yourself, Madeline. It’s beautiful out and we’ll be fine.”
And it was beautiful out—the light only just going softly gold.
The mountain peaks above me looked ancient and wise and close enough to touch. The spring air was dew-soft to breathe, fragrant with green promise. The houses sat companionably close on their modest lots. There were porch swings and knee-high picket fences and tabby cats sunning themselves and irises everywhere, begging to be picked by the armful.
Approaching strangers wished me “good evening,” as I did them, and we all really meant it.
I felt suffused with this fizzy, feathery luminosity of gratitude. Poignant, ephemeral.
If there’d been a pay phone, Information would, I’m certain, have magically parted with Spalding Gray’s home number in Manhattan to my perfect-stranger self just so I could call him up and say, “Dude, you totally don’t know me, but I’m having a Perfect Moment right goddamn now and I wouldn’t even have known that’s what it was if you hadn’t made Swimming to Cambodia. So thank you.”
Cary was waiting for me outside the church. We were both a little early. Me because hey, I actually had an excuse to leave my house unencumbered with offspring for once, tra la, at Setsuko’s behest, and him for no good reason I could think of.
“Want to go inside, get a front-row seat while they last?” he asked, when I’d come within reasonable hailing distance.
“It’s so gorgeous out,” I said. “I just want to marinate in all this outdoorsy freedom for a little longer, you know?”
“It’s Boulder,” he said, amused. “Isn’t outdoorsy freedom kind of a given?”
A pack of Rollerbladers whizzed down the street past us, as if to underscore his point.
“It feels so different when I’m not pulling a wagonload of children, though.” I spread my arms wide, tempted to break into a little dance step on the sidewalk. “Like, all the way here, I kept having this odd sensation that I was breaking the law or something. It felt too good, walking through the neighborhood. And then I realized it was just being alone. This is like… recess.”
Cary laughed. “Four-square and monkey bars?”
“Exactly. And I should probably wait for my pal Mimi. I want to introduce you guys before things get officially under way.”
People started drifting into the church in twos and threes as we stood there, chatting.
A big red official Boulder FD car pulled up. Its driver put on his dress-uniform hat before he got out.
I didn’t catch his full name from the tag on his chest, but it was prefaced with the word CAPT.
Mimi backed her truck into a spot across the street. I raised my arm in greeting.
She waved back and jogged across to us, once a couple of cars had passed.
“The best way you can help us right now is to be aware of who’s in your neighborhood, and to check the perimeters of your houses and places of business regularly,” the captain was saying.
Cary, Mimi, and I had gotten seats together, third pew from the front.
“Captain’s name is Buzz Rainer,” she whispered. “Good guy.”
“Clear away any brush that you can,” Rainer continued. “And keep trash to a minimum. Especially in the alleyways, and around outbuildings like garages or sheds.”
I’d had a notebook open on my knee for ten minutes, but that was the first thing I wrote down.
“Arson can be a crime of opportunity,” he continued. “We’ll be passing out padlocks for residential garbage cans and commercial Dumpsters to anyone who wants them, following the meeting tonight. I know that might sound like a hassle, having to unlock something every time you take out a bag of trash, but you don’t want to provide this guy with the tools of the trade. A number of recent fires were started with bits of burning cardboard, shoved under a rear door. A pizza box, in one instance.”
I jotted down locks, pizza box, door. Then opportunity, underlined.
“Yes, sir.” Rainer pointed to someone behind us. “You have a question?”
I swiveled my head. A youngish man with a goatee was on his feet, near the rear pews.
“I’ve been camping out in my store for the past week, just in case,” he said. “It’s… well, my stock seems so flammable. Antique furniture. Do you have specific recommendations for fire extinguishers?”
“Of course fire extinguishers are a great idea, and the more the better,” answered Rainer. “But I want to urge business owners not to take up residence in their establishments. If you’re in a commercial building outside normal hours of operation, my people aren’t going to know you’re there. We’ve been tremendously lucky so far that the damage has been limited to property—I’d like us all to do everything we can to keep it that way. We’d be happy to help you set up a neighborhood-watch rotation instead. You’ll be a lot more effective as a deterrent outside your store, and we’ll both sleep better.”
Mimi said “damn right” under her breath, beside me.
The goatee-antiques guy thanked Rainer and took his seat.
When everyone started swiveling their heads back toward the dais, I caught sight of Bittler’s face about ten rows back.
Awesome. My lucky night.
“Fucking Bittler’s here,” I whispered to Cary. “Let’s make sure we duck out the back way when this is over.”
“Or just demand sanctuary,” he whispered back.
Mimi gave me a gentle nudge in the ribs. “Am I going to have to separate you two?”
She was kidding, but I concentrated on my note-taking thereafter.
Most of the questions were low-key until this ponytailed Baby Boomer in a Jah Guide T-shirt interrupted Rainer’s explanation of sprinkler-system regulations.
“All well and good,” the guy whined, “you trying to put the onus of this crap on us. Why can’t you people take some responsibility here? If you were doing your damn job, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I don’t see how padlocks and citizen patrols can make up for your department’s professional incompetence.”
I heard clapping and turned to look: two more graying hippies with AARP cards and an outsized sense of entitlement.
“Sir,” said Rainer, “I agree with you. I could tell you about limitations of our manpower or equipment or funding, but the fact is that we’re failing to catch this person. All I can do is ask my teams to do their best, and ask all of you for your help—we need your eyes and ears, your attention to detail.”
“Well what the hell have you found out about this creep?” Jah Guide dude yelled. “Anything? What are we supposed to be looking for, while you’re asleep at the wheel?”
Oh for fuck’s sake, would my parents’ generation never grow the fuck up?
“There are some details of the investigation that we don’t want to make public, of course,” said Rainer. “But here’s what I’d like you to know: The fires have been set at all different hours, so we’re probably looking for someone who doesn’t have a regular job. While we can say with some certainty that the arsons have been the work of one individual, to date—based on evidence I can’t get into in a public forum—there has been some variation in his method. He’s employed sophisticated techniques on several occasions that lead us to believe he’s not a first-time offender, though he may be new to this area.”
“Pretty damn vague,” the heckler shot back.
I thought I heard Mimi’s teeth gnashing.
“Sir,” said Rainer, getting a little pissed now, “would you prefer that I give everyone in this room a tutorial on the specifics of do-it-yourself arson, step by step?”
“Of course not,” the man harrumphed, “but isn’t it true that most of these people turn out to be firefighters themselves, in the end? Firebugs who get into the business to play with what obsesses them in the first place, and then make themselves out to be heroes?”
Rainer took that shot head-on. “There have been cases of that, I’m very sorry to say.”
“That man in California… wasn’t he a chief or something?”
“Sir,” said Rainer, “let’s stick with the case at hand. We’re doing everything we can to stop these crimes—interagency cooperation, investigative work, you name it, using all the resources we have. But we need to work together as a community. Stop this guy before he does more damage, before anyone gets hurt. I wish we could do it alone. I wish I could do it alone—”
“Well, damn it, then why don’t you—”
“Please let me finish, sir. Please. I’m willing to admit to you that I’m failing at my job right now. Failing you, failing myself, failing everyone in this room by not performing as well as I want to be performing, on behalf of our community. But we—myself and every firefighter in this county—are not asleep at the wheel. It’s just an overwhelmingly large wheel.”
Rainer got some enthusiastic applause for that. Much deserved.
“Look,” he continued, “arson is a huge problem in this country. Anybody have any idea what it costs us nationally, over the course of a year?”
He looked around the audience, side to side. “Anyone?”
Silence.
“Let’s start with property,” said Rainer. “Last year alone, our communities sustained roughly three point six billion dollars in property damage—during the course of an estimated five hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred separate instances of arson.”
Heckler dude didn’t have a comeback to that.
The captain’s hands were clenched now. “But the property damage isn’t what keeps me up nights, sir. What keeps me up at night is that five hundred sixty people died in those fires. And I’m doing my damnedest to make sure we don’t have any fatalities in Boulder.”
Someone called out “hear, hear!” from the back of the room.
Rainer leaned forward, over his podium. “And let me tell you that my damnedest means asking all of you for help. Yourself included, sir.”
“Well,” said the heckler, “if you put it that way—”
“I’ll put it any way I have to, to get you on board.”
“Sign me up,” the man responded, before sitting heavily down amidst general applause.
“What, you think I’m taking advantage?” I asked Cary.
He, Mimi, and I had adjourned to a microbrewery on Pearl Street: Sunshine, Rainbow, whatever.
“Not exactly,” he said.
I squinted at him. “Then what? I mean, she offered to babysit, and I needed a babysitter. But if you think it’s inappropriate… Like, what, she feels pressured because my husband is kind of her boss…?”
“Maddie,” said Cary, “look, it’s just that—”
“Oh, my God, that is what you think!” I said, suddenly horrified with myself.
“Who are we talking about?” asked Mimi.
“This really nice chick Dean and Cary work with,” I said. “Setsuko. Cary, seriously, am I a total asshole? It didn’t occur to me that she… I mean, shit. I figured she could use the money.”
“She’s not going to let you pay her,” he said.
“That’s even worse. Like I think she’s a serf or something. Cary… help me. Should we leave right now?”
“Finish your beer,” said Mimi. “And then have another. Make a night of it.”
“It’s fine, Maddie,” added Cary. “Just, Setsuko’s got a lot on her plate right now.”
“Anything I should know other than that they want to deport her and stuff?”
Cary sighed.
“It’s not Bittler, is it?” I asked. “Oh, God. I mean, he’s hard enough on you—I’d hate to have to deal with him as a chick.”
“Bittler?” said Mimi.
“The butthead guy we wanted to duck out of the church quickly to avoid,” I said. “And thank you for sneaking us out the back door, by the way.”
She looked at Cary. “So ‘the butthead guy’ is harassing this Set-Sue person?”
“No,” he said. “Not like that… it’s just that she’s been working her ass off, and she’s supposed to be leaving on vacation tomorrow, and…”
He stopped and looked away. Exhaled.
“And what?” I asked, touching his wrist.
“Nothing. Really.” He still wouldn’t look at me.
“And I’m totally exploiting her, on top of that, but you’re too nice to say so?” I said. “Excellent.”
Cary shook his head. “It’s fine, Maddie. You didn’t take advantage. Setsuko just has a hard time not feeling obligated. She’s always on the verge of volunteering herself beyond the capacity of any single person. She needs a break.”
“Dude,” I said. “You’re not helping me in the guilt department, here. At all.”
“Drink your damn beer,” said Mimi. “And then I’m going to go get you both another pint.”
So we did. And she got up to keep her end of the bargain.
But I still felt like there was something more Cary wanted to say to me.
“Dude,” I said, “I’m totally feeling like there’s something more you want to say to me. Spill.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just really distracted.”
“By what?”
“Everything I was talking about with you and Dean, before. Bittler, and the warehouse crap. The whole situation is getting under my skin, worse and worse.”
“Look, if he is embezzling, or whatever, he’s only going to fuck himself up in the end, right? Come on… could be the best possible way to get rid of him.”
“I have this crazy feeling that he’s going to set me up.”
“Oh, come on… Bittler? He’s a pompous little low-rent petty-Napoleon shitbag, not a criminal mastermind.”
He just looked at me, and I swear to God I thought he was going to burst into tears or something.
“Cary, you’re really scared of him, aren’t you?”
He took the last sip of his beer.
“Dude, come on—big tough guy like you? You could, like, break that pathetic windbag in half over your knee without increasing your heart rate by a single rpm. And here you are, acting like he’s Vlad the fucking Impaler and you’re fresh out of garlic. Don’t be such a pussy. I could kick his ass.”
“I need to get into that warehouse,” he said.
“Crazy talk.”
“I need to know what’s going on before he fucks me completely. I don’t want to just stand around waiting for the goddamn anvil to drop on my head, you know?”
“So, what, you’re Wile E. Coyote and he’s going to launch you off a cliff with some Rube Goldberg Acme rocket? Pshaw. Take a fucking Ativan.”
“Madeline, I am absolutely serious.”
“Pussy,” I said. “You are absolutely, seriously pussified.”
“Madeline, for chrissake.”
“Big, fat, pink—”
“Damn it—”
“Hairy—”
“Fuck off.”
“Genitalia,” I said. “Of the female persuasion.”
“You’re not funny.”
“Bullshit. I am hysterically funny.”
“Which is why I’m laughing. So hard.”
I poked him in the solar plexus. “You are totally laughing. In here.”
He crossed his arms.
“And blushing.”
Okay, that part was true.
“Like a little girl,” I said.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m trying to distract you.”
“From what?”
“See? It worked.”
“Oh, for God’s sake…”
“Okay, look… as your friend, I feel it is my duty to distract you from breaking into a fucking warehouse that belongs to your employers, you idiot. Because that’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. And I happen to be the queen of stupid ideas, most days: the imam. The hierophant. The empress of stupid. So I’ll have you know I speak with some authority, because me and dumb-assery,” I held up two fingers, pressed tightly together, “we’re like this.”
“How the hell is it stupid to want to figure out what the fuck my corrupt sadist of a boss is up to, before he pins whatever it is on me?”
“He’s got the only set of keys to the place?”
“Yes.”
“So how are you getting in?”
“I don’t know. Crowbar.”
“You planning to wear gloves?”
“I guess… even though I’ve been in the place before and my fingerprints are probably on stuff already.”
“They have an alarm system?”
He didn’t answer.
“Security cameras?”
Silence.
“So for all you know,” I said, “there’s going to be video of you breaking into a warehouse with a fucking crowbar, while wearing latex gloves. Whereupon whatever alarm system they have is probably going to, like, light up a goddamn jukebox-slash-calliope’s worth of bells and whistles down at the nearest cop station.”
Cary’s mouth had contracted to the size of a sesame seed.
“And Bittler’s been keeping tabs on you for how long, now? Your résumés, your general dissatisfaction with the company… Got any cover letters to potential employers saved on your hard drive at work?”
“Not to mention you’ve been a little hard up for cash lately. Because they’ll look at your bank records, too. Been carrying much of a balance in your checking account, these past few months? Oh, that’s right… you’re basically flatlined, except for the money you had to borrow from your father to make last month’s rent.”
I rattled my fingernails along the side of my beer glass in four-four time. Sounded like a very tiny horse, galloping away.
“Yup, I gotta hand it to you,” I said, looking up at the ceiling. “That’s a genius plan—start to finish. You might as well wear a Hamburgler costume and a fuchsia T-shirt that reads, I YEARN TO BE ASS-RAPED IN THE STATE PEN FOR THE REST OF MY NATURAL-BORN DAYS across the back, in sparkly six-inch-high letters.”
“ ‘Made it, Ma. Top o’ the world,’ ” said Cary, utterly deflated.
“Hey, at least you know enough not to misquote Cagney.”
“Fat lot of good that’s doing me.”
“Exactly,” I said. “So let’s come up with a different plan, shall we?”
“Like what?”
“Damned if I know. I’m the empress of stupid ideas, remember?”
“I am so fucked, Madeline,” said Cary, looking ready to weep. “So so so fucked.”
Mimi came sauntering back, juggling three pints of Fat Tire. “What the hell happened? I leave you alone for five minutes, and the pair of you look like you just got out of chemo.”
“Madeline,” said Cary, grim about the mouth, “has just explained to me the multitude of ways in which I am utterly fucking irredeemably fucked, right now.”
“Join the club,” she said, slopping two fat paisleys of beer across the table as she brought our glasses to rest.