Hell's Kitchen

Pellam sucked hard on the mask, the dizziness from smoke replaced by the dizziness from pure oxygen.

A dozen emergency lights flashed around him. Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars. Piercing white light. And red and blue.

“You’re okay,” encouraged the EMS attendant, a young man with a faint blond moustache. Bulky medical equipment and supplies dangled from his belt and filled his pockets. “Breathe it in. Come on, big guy. Keep going.”

The technician wrote on a clipboard then looked into Pellam’s eyes with a thin flashlight and took his blood pressure.

“Looking good,” the high voice confirmed.

The memory of the horrible fire returned. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Him? ’Fraid so. Didn’t stand a chance. But it’s a blessing, believe me. I’ve had burn cases before. Better for him to’ve gone fast than deal with sepsis and skin grafts.”

He looked over at the body lying on the ground nearby, a sheet draped over it.

The task of giving the bad news about Louis Bailey to Ettie was looming in his mind when a hand descended to Pellam’s shoulder and a figure crouched beside him.

“How you feeling?” the man asked.

Pellam wiped smoke tears from his eyes. His vision was a blur. Finally the face came into focus. In a shocked whisper he said, “You’re here. You’re okay.”

“Me?” Louis Bailey asked.

“That’s not you. I thought it was you.” Pellam nodded toward the body.”

Bailey said. “It was almost me. But it’s him – the pyro.”

“The arsonist?”

The lawyer nodded. “The fire marshal said he was rigging a trap – to get us both, I’d imagine.”

“I turned the light switch on and set it off,” Pellam whispered. He coughed hard for a moment.

“The son of a bitch should’ve unplugged the lamp first,” a voice growled. It was Lomax. He walked up to the two men. “Pyros eventually get careless. Like serial killers. After a while the lust takes over and they stop worrying about details.” He nodded toward the bag. “He had all the windows in your office closed. There was no ventilation and an open drum of that napalm crap he makes. He passed out from the fumes. Then you got here, Mr. Lucky, and turned on the light. Ka-boom.”

“Who was he?” Pellam asked.

The fire marshal held up a badly scorched wallet in a plastic bag.

“Jonathan Stillipo, Jr. Oh, we heard about him. Goes by the nickname of So

Pellam looked at a scorched map of the city. Circles around Xs marked the sites of the recent fires: the subway on Eighth Avenue, the department store. Two of the Xs weren’t circled and Pellam assumed those were the targets to be. One was Bailey’s building. And the other was the Javits Center.

“My God,” Bailey whispered. The convention hall was New York’s largest.

Lomax said, “There’s a fashion exhibition scheduled for tomorrow. Twenty-two thousand people would’ve been inside. Would have been the worst arson in world history.”

“Well, he’s dead,” Pellam said. He dded, “I guess he won’t be able to testify about who hired him.”

Then he caught the glance that passed between Bailey and the fire marshal.

“What, Louis?” Pellam asked.

Lomax motioned to a uniformed policeman, who walked up and handed him a plastic bag.

“This was in his wallet too.”

The bag contained a sheet of paper. The plastic made a crinkling sound that Pellam found disturbing. It reminded him of the flames he’d just doused. He thought of So

Pellam took the offered bag and read.

Here’s 2 thousand like we agreed. Try and don’t hurt any body. I’ll leave the door open – the one in the back. I’ll give you the rest, after I get the insurance money.

– Ettie.

TWENTY-THREE

Pellam stood uneasily, dropped the oxygen mask onto the sidewalk.

“It’s a forgery,” Pellam said quickly. “It’s all-”

“I’ve already talked to her, Pellam,” Louis Bailey explained. “I’ve been on the phone for ten minutes.”

“With Ettie?”

“She confessed, John,” Bailey said softly.

Pellam couldn’t take his eyes off So

Bailey continued. “She said she never thought anybody’d get hurt. She never wanted anybody to die. I believe her.”

“She confessed?” Pellam whispered. He hawked hard and spit. Coughed for a moment, spit again. Struggled to catch his breath. “I want to see her, Louis.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Pellam said, “They threatened her. Or blackmailed her.” He nodded toward Lomax, standing at the curb, talking to his huge assistant. The fire marshal had overheard Pellam but he said nothing. Why should he? He had his pyro. He had the woman who hired him. Lomax seemed almost embarrassed for Pellam at his desperate words.

Wearily the old lawyer said, “John, there was no coercion.”

“The bank teller? When the money was withdrawn? Let’s find him.”

“The teller identified Ettie’s picture.”

“Did you try the Ella Fitzgerald trick?”

Bailey fell silent.

Pellam asked, “What did you find at City Hall?”

“About the tu

“McKe

“John, it’s over with.”

A blaring horn sounded across the street. Pellam wondered what it signified. The workers paid no attention. There were hundreds of them still on the job. Even at this hour.

“Let her do her time,” Bailey continued. “She’ll be safe. Medium-security prison. Protective seclusion.”

Which meant: solitary confinement. At least that’s what it meant at the Q – San Quentin – according to the California Department of Corrections. Solitary… the hardest time there is. People’s souls die in solitary even if their bodies survive.

“She’ll get out,” Bailey continued, “and it’ll all be over with.”

“Will it?” he asked. “She’s seventy-two. When will she be eligible for parole?”

“Eight years. Probably.”

“Jesus.”

“Pellam,” the lawyer said. “Why don’t you take some time off? Go on a vacation.”

Well, he was certainly going to be doing that – though involuntarily. West of Eighth would never be made now.

“Have you told her daughter?”

Bailey cocked his head. “Whose daughter?”

“Ettie’s… Why you looking at me that way?” Pelham asked.

“Ettie hasn’t heard from Elizabeth for years. She has no idea where the girl is.”

“No, she talked to her a few days ago. She’s in Miami.”

“Pellam…” Bailey rubbed his palms together slowly. “When Ettie’s mother died in the eighties Elizabeth stole the old woman’s jewelry and all of Ettie’s savings. She vanished, took off with some guy from Brooklyn. They were headed for Miami but nobody knows where they ended up. Ettie hasn’t heard from her since.”

“Ettie told me-”

“That Elizabeth owned a bed and breakfast? Or that she was managing a chain of restaurants?”

Pellam watched hard-hatted workers carrying four-by-eight sheets of drywall on their backs walk around to the back of the Tower. The Sheetrock bent up and down like wings. He said to Bailey, “That she was a real estate broker.”