Hell's Kitchen

Shaking hands, sweaty face.

And tears. He was so frustrated and frightened that once or twice on the way over here, wheeling the drum up Ninth Avenue from his apartment, he’d found himself crying.

Walking into the office and parking the drum beside the lawyer’s desk. The young man then sat down in the swivel chair. Fake leather, he thought disdainfully. Agent Scullery – a bit shorter and a lot deader than she’d been when she looked down at him like a squirrel – had had much better taste in interior designs. Still, the office pleased him. There was plenty of paper. He’d never burned a lawyer’s office and he thought that it would go up very fast because there was sooo much paper.

So

The book drooped in his hand…

Yes, he remembered. It was a true story. About the Ringling Brothers circus fire in Hartford in 1944. More than a hundred and fifty people were killed when the big top burned in a matter of minutes. The bandleader played Stars and Stripes Forever – the traditional circus disaster march – to warn all the performers and workers of the blaze but they hadn’t been able to save that many people. So

Why, So

He stopped brooding and returned to his task.

On the desk he noticed Pellam’s name and phone number written on a piece of yellow paper. The Midnight Cowboy Joe Buck faggot Antichrist… So

Stop it stop it stopit stopstopstop itttttt!

He had to pause for a moment until he calmed. Get to work. Keep busy. He unscrewed the lightbulb from the old lawyer’s desk lamp and carefully opened his knapsack, taking out one of his special light bulbs, heavy and fat with the slick, milky juice. He rested it carefully on the desk and then turned to the oil drum and took his wrench from his overall pocket. He began to work the lid off.

TWENTY-TWO

Sparks flew high above his head, cascading off the top of McKe

Thinking about Carol Wyandotte, remembering how he’d seen this same astonishing building on his way to her apartment, the night he’d stayed over.

He’d just returned from the Youth Outreach Center, looking for her. But she’d already left for the night. Her assistant said that Carole had been in court all day. One of the kids staying at the YOC there had pulled a knife on an undercover cop during a buy-and-bust operation and Carole had spent six hours with the A.D.A. trying to convince them that he’d just been scared, he hadn’t really intended to murder the officer.

It hadn’t been a good day for her and she’d been pretty upset, the assistant told him. She’d left no message for Pellam at the YOC. And there’d been none on his machine at home.

Pellam was returning to Louis Bailey’s office, to meet the lawyer as pla

He was, however, less impressed with this than he was with the facts that weren’t quite so public, the facts Louis Bailey had told him: the labyrinthine deals McKe

Maybe someday he’d do a documentary on a highrise like this.

Skyscraper would be the title.

Buy the companion book.

Pellam turned away from the Tower and walked into Louis Bailey’s building. He was surprised to find the door unlocked and partway open – the rooms inside, he could see, were dark. Pellam squinted and saw Bailey’s form hunched over the desk. The lawyer’s head was resting on a law book and Pellam thought, Hell, passed out drunk. He smelled wine.

And something else. What? Cleanser? Something strong and chemical.

“Hey, Louis,” Pellam called, “rise and shine. How ’bout a little light?”

He flipped up the wall switch.

The explosion was very soft, not much more than the pop of a plastic bag, but the sphere of liquid flame that leapt out of the lamp was huge.

Jesus!

The fiery liquid splashed over the desk and enveloped the lawyer, who jerked back in a hideous, writhing gesture. His face and chest were masses of white flame, and from his throat came an animal’s desperate scream. He fell behind the desk and began to thrash, his heels making loud thuds on the floor as his hands tried manically to beat the flames away.

Looking for a blanket or towel to beat out the flames, Pellam ran into the bedroom. By the time he found an old quilt smoke had completely filled the office, thick vile smoke, burnt-meat smoke.

“Louis!” Pellam flung the blanket over the lawyer but it ignited immediately and just added to the growing mass of fire. Pellam grabbed the phone and hit 911. But the line went dead; the flames had melted the cord. Pellam dropped the set and ran into the hallway, hit the fire alarm on the wall and grabbed the old-fashioned canister extinguisher. He charged back into the office and turned the tank upside down, firing a hissing stream of water at the flames.

As he stood dousing the fire ghastly smoke encircled him, slipped into Pellam’s lungs. He began choking and his vision filled with black pebbles. He kept blasting away with the extinguisher, covering the black mass of Bailey’s quivering body with the gray water.

The desk and a bookcase were still on fire and Pellam turned the extinguisher toward them. The flames were shrinking. But the room continued to grow black with the thick smoke.

Pellam spit the black crud from his mouth, dropped the empty extinguisher and staggered back toward the door to find another one. Outside, a dozen people were fleeing the building. He tried to call out to them but he couldn’t. He felt himself starting to suffocate. He fell to the floor. The air was a little better down here but it was still filled with smoke and the stench of broiling death.

His lungs began to give out. He turned, stumbled toward the door. A fireman appeared.

“In here,” Pellam said. And passed out on the floor.