Norman watched him leave. Fill you in on it if I’m still alive.
Well, he could distract himself for a while preparing dinner. He hadn’t gone to Publix after lunch, as promised. What could he conjure up out of the pantry for a couple of cheeseless, eggless, milk-free vegetarians? He turned the house back on and asked for random Vivaldi, music for vegetarianism.
He studied the orderly array of boxes, cans, and jars on the pantry shelves, and perhaps was inspired by the music: Italian bean pie—a layered terrine of bean purees; red, white, and green. When you sliced it, it looked like the Italian flag.
Taking the three cans from the pantry, he asked the house for the recipe, and it appeared on the screen above the range. “Larger,” he said, not wanting to use his glasses.
He peeled and sliced potatoes and put them on to simmer, and then worked on the three colors of beans, sautéing them variously with onions, garlic, and shallots, and then setting them aside to cool. By then the potatoes were done; he tossed them with herbs Provence, olive oil, and white wine from the grocery-store ball.
He started to pour himself a glass, but then realized this might be the last wine he would taste in this world. He went to the top of the rack and pulled down a ’22 St. Emilion, maybe a week’s salary in a bottle. He pulled the cork and poured a third of the bottle into their largest balloon glass, then carefully preserved the rest of the bottle with nitrogen and knocked the cork back in. The Slidells were pleasant, but they weren’t close enough or important enough for a ‘22 Bordeaux.
Everything had to cool for a while, so he turned off the music and carried the wine into his studio. He tuned the cello and ran through the latest partita he’d been developing for The Coming, but he was too distracted to work on it. He turned on a new book of old European folk dances and sight-read his way through Spain and Portugal, sipping wine between pieces.
The house reminded him when it was 1600. He carefully spooned the layers of the terrine into a loaf pan, then drained the wine and oil from the potatoes and tossed them with a grind of pepper, a sprinkle of vinegar, and a little more herbs Provence. He put it all in the refrigerator and left Rory a note saying he was out; if he was late for dinner, make their traditional lettuce-and-tomato salad, minus the goat cheese, God forbid we should exploit goats.
He put on a jacket against the afternoon cool and locked up, went into the garage, slid the heavy gun into its holster, and pedaled away.
Plenty of time. He dawdled at the park’s exercise trail, watching young and old run and jump and heave and stretch. He should get back into that. Maybe tomorrow, if there is one.
He pedaled slowly along the mile-long green belt, and then picked up speed as the traffic alongside him slowed, grinding into downtown. Contemplating a new life rule: “Never be late for a gunfight.” Noting that Willy Joe and the lawyer would assume he was armed, so would be protected by armored clothing. Get close enough to shoot for the head. Get Willy Joe and then the lawyer, if you live long enough. Was this the wine speaking? Or just the war. Both, probably.
But the gun still felt like a burden. Not a partner, as it had in the desert. You might just pay them off, and save the killing for later, if they came back for more. When. They would be sure of themselves, then, and more vulnerable.
A few blocks from the house, a fire truck screamed by him, then an ambulance, and then another fire truck. There was a wisp of black smoke ahead of him, and then a column.
He stopped at Fourth Avenue, a block from Capra’s house, which was now burning like a bonfire. He took from his bike bag the monocular he used for birds, to verify the address.
Medics and police were moving a small knot of onlookers away, off the sidewalk, to make way for the ambulance gurney. Lying in front of the house, there was a man in a chair, evidently tied up, covered with firefighting foam. They finished cutting him loose, and he stood, shakily, and they eased him onto the gurney.
It was Qabil. They rolled him toward the ambulance.
No meeting tonight, no shoot-out. Norman reversed his bicycle on the sidewalk and sped home.
He got there just minutes before Rory pulled up with her guests. He reluctantly turned off the cube—no news bulletin yet—and met them at the door.
Lamar and Dove Slidell were both astronomers, out in New Mexico now, classmates and pals with Rory from graduate school. Evidently they’d already said all there was to be said about the Coming, and knew that Rory would just as soon talk about anything else. So it was mainly gossip about mutual friends, and job comparisons. The Slidells worked on a mountaintop where you could actually see the stars. In Gainesville, the night sky was bright gray soup.
Norman tried to appear interested, and accepted the compliments for his cooking, and drank somewhat more wine than the others. Finally, his phone rang, and he excused himself to take the call in the kitchen.
It wasn’t the blackmailers. It was Qabil.
“Look, I know you’ve got company. I shouldn’t be recorded coming into your house anyhow. But we have to talk before I go to work in the morning.”
“Where are you?”
“Down on the corner, where the street splits. Blue Westinghouse with silvered windows.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” He pushed “end” and thought for a moment, and then rushed back into the dining room.
“I have to run out for a bit, student emergency. Kid’s got an audition tomorrow, broke an A string. Sounds like he might need some serious hand-holding, too.”
“Which student?” Rory asked.
“Qabil. Just down the street.” She nodded, wordlessly, and forced a smile.
Norman got a string from his study and said “back in a minute,” and went out the door and down the street.
The passenger door opened as he approached. He slid in and closed it.
One side of Qabil’s face was blistered, covered with a transparent gel. His right hand was bandaged.
“What happened?” Norman said.
“I’ll get to that. First would you tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“The basics … Willy Joe Capra was going to blackmail me. About you and me.”
“That much I know. He told me in some detail, after he kidnapped me from my own goddamned driveway. Then that Tampa thug Solo, you broke his hand?”
“In a way, yes.” Crickets loud in the darkness. “I held a gun on him and he did it himself.”
“A gun. You’ve been leading an interesting life, since we parted.”
Parted. Norman tried to keep emotion out of his voice. “What did those bastards do to you?”
“Do to me? What the hell did you do to them?”
“Me? Nothing. Just the hand.”
“Norm, you can tell me. If you can trust anybody in the world with this, it’s me.”
“I was supposed to meet them at five. I talked to the lawyer, Moore; he said they had something to show me.”
“Yours truly, Exhibit A. So what the hell did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. I got to about a block away and saw that the place was burning to the ground. I saw the medics cut you loose from the chair, saw you could walk, and got away as fast as I could.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I got you into this. I don’t suppose there’s any way to cover it up now.”
“Wait. Before we talk about covering up. You didn’t kill those shits?”
“I didn’t kill anybody. I was ready to, but … the fire. I saw you and figured it was a police thing.”
“No … whatever that thing was, the police don’t have it. I’m getting debriefed tomorrow, and I’m not sure what to say. You didn’t do it?”
“What was it? Some kind of firebomb?”
Qabil touched his face gingerly. “The three guys just blew up. I saw it happen. I haven’t said anything to anybody, just that there was a fire. But I saw it all.”
“They blew up?”
“A window broke, a window behind me. The Tampa scumbag, Solo, raised his gun—it was already in his left hand—and started to stand. Then he just burst into flames.”
“Jesus. Like a flamethrower?” Norman had seen them in use, and he still had dreams about it.
“No—it was like he exploded from the inside out. Not his clothes, his flesh. Then the other two. One, two, three. Staggering around like something out of a movie. Then their clothes started to burn. Capra had a gun in a holster in the small of his back, and the rounds cooked off.
“He fell into the drapes, and they went up like tinder. Some of the furniture was smoldering. Then fire running out of their bodies like burning oil. I was able to half stand up, tied to the chair, and had to kick my way through the front door, fell down the steps, and knocked myself silly. Some civilian sprayed me with a fire extinguisher, maybe saved my life.”
“What the hell could do that? Make people burst into flame like that?”
“I was hoping you could straighten that out. Some new military weapon or something.”
“Come on, Qabil. I haven’t held a military weapon in thirty years.”
Qabil nodded and then had a coughing spasm that ended with a stifled retch. “The smell was disgusting. You know I’m forbidden pork. When human flesh—”
“I remember, Qabil.” He shook his head hard. “It must have been a Mafia thing. Or a gang thing.”
“Well, the gangs …” He cleared his throat. “The gangs don’t have any reason to love him. But they run more to baseball bats and knives. If they had burst-into-flames ray guns, we’d all be in real trouble.
“I thought about the Mafia. But why would a hit man kill three hoods and leave a live policeman as a witness?”
“Maybe he didn’t know you were a—”
“I was still in uniform. But maybe, maybe that was the point. Maybe they want us to know they have this ungodly weapon. Willy Joe was not some godfather type they had to assassinate in a dramatic way. Just a bagman with delusions of grandeur.”
They listened to the crickets for a minute. “What can make a body burn up?” Norman asked. “We’re mostly water, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. Crematoriums need a really hot fire to get things going. But we’ve both seen what napalm does.”
“That’s adding fuel. You said these guys just started to burn from the inside out.”
“I saw that clearly. Their clothes weren’t even on fire, not initially. Then everything was on fire.”
“There’ve been cases of spontaneous human combustion.”
Qabil laughed one “hum” and touched his cheek. “That always turns out to be nothing. Some old person or drunk, or drunk old person, falls asleep smoking. They die without noticing they’ve died. After they’ve smoldered awhile, fat starts to drip out. They burn like a candle then. Like an oil lamp.”
“What about the water, then?”
“I guess it’s like the water in a green stick of wood. If it’s hot enough, the wood burns anyhow.” He scratched his head. “But this was nothing like that. They didn’t smolder or anything. They just ignited, like they were made out of gunpowder.”
Norman sat straight up. “Oh, hell. It’s obvious.”
“Enlighten me.”
“It’s a police weapon. They knew you were—”
“No, hold it. We don’t have anything remotely like that.”
“Not that you know of. But let me finish. If the whole story came out, if any one of those three lived, there would be hell to pay. A homosexual policeman, a faggot’s wife bribing a cop, the Mafia involved—hell, they’d use atomic weapons to keep that under wraps.”
“But nobody knows. It’s buried so deep—”
“Willy Joe found out.”
Qabil shook his head hard. “If the department knew, I’d have been eased out a long time ago. Believe me; I’ve seen it happen. We use administrative procedures long before we resort to supernatural weapons.”
“You once told me there was no such thing as ‘supernatural.’ If something happened, it was part of Allah’s design, and therefore natural.”
“Touché. And mystery is part of that design.” He shook his head, smiling at the thought. “So think of this as a murder mystery. Weapon, motive, opportunity.
“The weapon, table that. Except to note that the person using it probably knew he was in no danger from his targets, once he pulled the trigger.
“The motive. Well, Capra probably has more people in this town willing to kill him than anyone else but the mayor. Right now you’re the prime suspect, but I’m the only one who knows that, and if you say you didn’t do it, that’s enough for me. Who else? Did Rory know you were headed for a meeting with Capra?”
“No; I didn’t want to involve her.” Jesus! It was Pepe! “Besides, she was on camera all afternoon. Perfect alibi.”
“And nobody else knew.”
“No, of course not,” he lied. Could Pepe’s research have some kind of weapons application? Something developed from those gamma-ray bursters? Norman didn’t know much about it. Maybe a burst of gamma rays could catch someone on fire.
“So what about opportunity? Usually linked to motive and weapon. If this is just a criminals-killing-criminals thing, the timing of it has to be explained.”
“Because it’s so propitious?”
He nodded. “And risky. In broad daylight, in a neighborhood full of criminal activity, someone sneaks around behind a house, breaks a window and kills three people inside, setting the house on fire, and walks away.”
“There will have been witnesses.”
“Most likely, but not models of good citizenship. And they probably don’t want to get on the wrong side of whoever did this. Would you?”
“But wait. There’s going to be a record of your having come to my house and catching this guy, Solo, Willy Joe’s right-hand man. Then you wind up in a house with both of them dead.”
“True. Except, as far as I know, there’s nothing in police records linking the two. That would have been a real red flag. He was ID’ed as an out-of-towner.” He breathed out, a loud puff. “We may get lucky. That fire was so intense it probably didn’t leave anything useful, DNA or skeletal remains.”
“Which might in itself be suspicious.”
“It happens. They had all kinds of weapons in the war that made it impossible to identify remains. Usually intense heat and chemical action.” He tapped his lower teeth with a thumbnail. “It’s an angle. A possible angle.”
“That someone in the military wanted to get rid of Capra?”
“Or someone with access to sophisticated weapons. I mean, suppose I just tell the truth, the part of it having to do with the weapon. Make the military connection, if no one else does.”
“But then what puts you there, watching it all? Tied to a chair? Why did he kidnap you?”
“I’ve already got that part worked out. Fortunately, my partner and I are part of an observation team tracking drug distribution, designer drugs, inside the city limits. Capra was in it up to his elbows.
“I already told the patrolman at the hospital that’s what happened: they’d followed me home and snatched me, and once it was dark they planned to kill me in a dramatic way. That much is true. But it wasn’t for being on the drug task force.”
“Yeah.” Norman touched his hand. “Sorry I got you into all of this.”
He said something in Arabic. “What will be will be. This is not something either of us had any say in. And the evil are punished, for a change.”
“Funny attitude for a cop.”
He smiled and nodded. “You better get back. I’ll be in touch if anything happens.”
Norman couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t a variant of “I hope I don’t hear from you,” so he just shook hands and headed back toward the house.
Should he confront Pepe with what he knew? Or just leave well enough alone. Curiosity versus gratitude, with a sprinkling of fear.
When he came back into the dining room, they were clearing away dessert.
“He didn’t need the string?” Dove Slidell asked.
“What?” Norman was still holding his prop. “Oh, no—he’d found one by the time I got there. We just tuned up and went through a few difficult passages.”
“Is he going to be all right?” Rory asked, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice.
“He’ll be fine. I think he can go the rest of the way alone.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes on his. “We’re going to pick up some coffee at Nick’s and go check the observatory. I won’t even ask. You need your beauty sleep.”
“Actually, I have to work for a bit. Started a new direction on the second partita.”
“Well … party away.” They said their good-byes.