by Arjay Lewis
I moved into a kitchen. It was a very modern design with a large island that contained a range and refrigerator, ovens, and microwave, all state-of-the-art.
The jig is up. I might as well go in.
I walked through the kitchen and stopped at a wall that separated it from the rest of the apartment. I peeked around it and caught a glimpse of the spectacular living room. It was decorated tastefully, with large leather sofas and a desk in the corner, a computer on top. There were large clay pots, artfully painted, sitting on top of several short columns that were placed around the room.
There were also multiple sculptures with metal blades that stuck up in the air. I think they were supposed to represent a fern or some kind of plant. They rose like bayonets, adding to the sterile, threatening nature of the chamber.
From my vantage point, I couldn’t see the entire room, but I could glimpse windows on two walls. They were tinted so the room wasn’t nearly as bright as it should be. The view of the town of Mountainview below was indeed spectacular.
“Give it up, Gingold. The police are on their way,” I said, my back against the wall.
“Do come in, Doctor,” he repeated in his mocking tone. “If you’re going to arrest me, at least you should face me.”
I took a deep breath and thought, Cold, nothing but cold before stepping into the room.
He stood leaning against the wall, as usual, wearing nothing but black. A black turtleneck, black jacket, pants, and soft-soled shoes. His hand drummed the door of a large, closed vault.
Like the one at Scudder House, but larger… burst through my brain. I looked at the metal door a second time, trying to note each detail.
“Where is Jenny Baines? What have you done with her?” I asked, watching his face, his sunglasses reflecting like the eyes of an insect.
“Right here,” he said as he tapped the metal door. Then he turned and walked over to his desk and turned the flat screen monitor to face him. “And I don’t believe that your friends the police are coming. I would have seen them enter the vestibule downstairs.”
I cringed. Cameras had been there, but hidden. He’d seen me a mile away and watched me the entire time.
“If you’ve hurt Jenny…” I said, just as I realized how hollow my threat sounded.
“You’ll what? Thrash me within an inch of my life?” Gingold said, the smirk evident. “You’ll make me rue the day I was born? Please, Doctor, let’s not fall into clichés, shall we?” He stepped away from the desk and gazed at the town below him. “Besides, your bitchy friend—or is she your lover? She hasn’t awakened from her little trip to dreamland, and it’s no fun to play with someone who is asleep.”
I exhaled, suddenly aware I’d been holding my breath. I’d arrived in time.
“Now, please,” Gingold went on, his smile pleasant. “Don’t start to tell me that this is between the two of us, and to let her go because ‘it’ll be easier on you in court.’ Just don’t waste my time.” The smile was gone, and his mouth became a hard line. “I’m in charge here, and you have invaded my home. I am perfectly justified in killing you.”
“You can’t get away clean. I’ve made the police wise to you,” I said, as I attempted to stall, to keep him talking.
The smile returned. “And they’ll arrest me for what? Wishing for buildings to burn down? Sending bad thoughts to people I don’t like?”
“Arson is one thing, but murder? They’ll hunt you down. And Mishan wasn’t the first person you killed. There were Wendy’s parents…”
“My, my, you’ve been busy. Yes, I did take care of them, a little fire in their car on the way home. That one was tricky. I had to make sure their tank was full.”
I nodded. “So you could ignite the gasoline.”
He sat behind his desk and opened a drawer. “It’s a lot easier to set off something with a low flash point.”
“But Mishan was different. Was he the first one you performed the spontaneous combustion routine on?”
“No, actually, the first was a wino in a building I was planning to burn.” His eyes closed for a moment as if to savor the memory. “I was wandering about, trying to find the perfect place to start the fire, deep enough in but close enough to the door so I could escape. And I walked right into this old fellow. He asked me for money.” A smile appeared on his face. “I told him I had something for him and handed him five dollars. He looked up to me with such gratitude.” He began to chuckle. “It was quite a sight. You should have heard his screams—he sounded like a little girl once he started to burn.”
I couldn’t see his eyes behind the glasses, but his hand rummaged in the drawer. “I needed to rest for two days after that, but I made sure to keep practicing. Mostly on the homeless. After all, who could they complain to?”
“What did Mishan do?” I asked as I carefully moved toward the vault. If I could get in and get Jenny out, there was still a chance.
“Mishan didn’t follow orders. I told him I wanted to waste the nosey firebug…”
“Lonny the Match?”
“Hmm. It appears you are familiar with the cast of characters,” he said, almost with good humor. “But I’m not surprised. The Super Psychic of Scudder House the papers in California called you.”
My eyes must have widened in shock, which pleased Gingold.
“I can do research as well,” he said with a smug smile. “But enough of that! Yes, I wanted him to kill Lonny, but Mishan insisted on paying him off, getting the files he’d found with that detective. I agreed if he’d give them to me without reading them.”
“His only fault was reading the files?”
“That would have been enough. And Doctor—the vault is securely locked, so don’t bother.”
I backed away from the door.
“Mishan’s fault was that he tried to use the files to blackmail me,” Gingold said, shaking his head sadly. “Can you believe it? The utter gall.”
“And Wendy? I thought you loved her.”
He shrugged. “As much as a god can love any woman,” he said. It appeared that his hand had located the object of his search in the drawer. “We shared some very nice times. You should have seen her with Denise.”
“Denise Haskell?”
“Oh, yes, they were quite lovely to watch once they got into the thick of it. And they did, right in that room where Mrs. Baines is now locked.” He sighed. “We did have some fun times.”
“But you killed her. Because of me?”
His face turned stony. “After I’d shared my generosity, she insisted it all had to stop.” The relaxed smile returned. “I believe some of my particular desires were a bit too esoteric for dear Wendy.”
Or a bit too painful… flashed through my mind.
“But she was still dear to me. A precious, pretty thing. Mishan chose jewelry, but I truly have the eye for pretty things.” He reached into the desk drawer and extracted a handgun—small, silver, and sleek.
“Like this pretty thing. So lovely and yet so deadly,” he said as he inserted a clip of bullets in the bottom of the handle. He pulled back the slide catch, which loaded the chamber. Then he raised it toward me. “My dear Wendy, and you came along and soiled her—there was nothing left to do.”
“You’ve been sloppy, Gingold. You’ve left too high a body count. If you’d stopped at Mishan…”
“You might be correct, Doctor,” he said as he moved from the desk in one fluid motion. “But I have to play it as it’s dealt.” He glanced down at the monitor. “And look, no police. I might have a few minutes to play before I leave for Bermuda.”
“What about the money? Your man Hallman is under arrest. The police have his Nova Corporation files.”
“I have other lawyers and other corporations, with other insurance policies,” he shrugged.
Only fire policies… ran through my mind.
�
��Perhaps it is time to cut my losses,” he said. “Then again, if I go to collect through another attorney, perhaps the insurance company will be more willing to work with me. That is if your Mrs. Baines isn’t there to stand in my way.”
“You want to kill her? Why, when you might never get the money? They’re on to you, and the insurance company will never pay,” I exclaimed, surprised by the forceful tone of my voice.
“The bitch was rude to me!” Gingold shouted. He lowered his voice and went on, “Bad form, Doctor, falling in love with a married woman.”
I could feel heat on my face and was sure I turned beet red. “She’s a friend,” I stated, in a tone that was unconvincing even to my own ear.
The smile flickered again. “It’s a shame about you. You have abilities. I can feel them, even now. But nothing like mine. I am a god of fire!” He walked around the desk, the pistol aimed at my chest. “I don’t have to take the little annoyances of day-to-day living like the sheep out there on the street.”
My gaze went to the silver weapon in his hand, which appeared to gleam evilly. “So why does a god of fire need a gun?”
The smile returned. “I’m not stupid. You’re different. I don’t know what you can and can’t do. Consider it insurance. You do know how much I like insurance.”
“I know, Jack. But you’re wrong. You are stupid. You’ve let your ego and your temper tantrums run the show. That’s why you botched the whole thing. You could’ve killed Mishan and gotten away with it. But you couldn’t let Wendy or even Roswell Norris continue living for nothing more than the simple fact that they annoyed you.”
His mouth became a hard line. “I’m afraid you are no longer amusing, Doctor.” He approached and waved the gun. “Step away from the door, and believe me, I have no compunction about putting a bullet in you.”
“What’s one more body?” I said, watching the light reflect off his sunglasses. They were for more than just protecting his eyes. With them on, I couldn’t make a connection with his mind. I thought of what to do to touch his mind like I’d done with the officer. It might be the one way to save my life as well as Jenny’s.
I shifted away as he walked to the door of the vault. He stood at an angle where he could watch me as he dialed the combination.
I thought about jumping him, but if I did and succeeded, could I get Jenny out? What if there was a limited amount of air inside? I had to wait until the door was open before I could risk a move.
The image ran through my head again of James Bond and the villain spilling his whole plan. And I realized this wasn’t my fantasy; it was his. He wanted to extol his genius, no doubt while wearing a tuxedo.
I stood my ground, leaning heavily on my cane, as he finished with the dial and pulled opened the latch. There was a resounding click, and the door creaked on ancient hinges.
“After you, Doctor,” he said, waving me forward with the gun.
He stood behind the open door and moved the pistol into his left hand as he opened the vault. Though he could still shoot me, I doubted his left hand was as practiced with the weapon as his right.
I leaned heavily on my cane with my right hand, as if I needed it far more than I truly did. I approached slowly, focusing my thoughts on my meditation mantra. If he could reach into my mind, I didn’t want to tip my hand.
I stepped toward the door, and as I came close, I slipped on my cane and fell against the door, which pushed him back. The gun raised but didn’t fire, and in one quick move, I transferred the cane to my left hand, grabbed the tip with the right, and pivoted, so the heavy, brass snake head swung up. The stick revolved in a perfect arc, and the heavy metal smashed against his hand, which knocked the pistol from his grip.
He yelled out in pain as the weapon tumbled and slid on the polished oak floors across the room and came to rest near one of the large, smoked-glass windows.
Gingold backed up to put distance between my cane and himself. He cradled his left hand, which now bore a large red mark.
“You bastard!” he spat. “That hurt!”
“It hurt a lot less than burning to death!” I said. I approached him, swinging my cane by the tip wildly to keep him from going for the gun. “Or is pain only real when it happens to you?”
He looked at his hand, and I could almost see tears behind his glasses.
“Not much of a god now, are you?” I taunted.
His mouth set in a firm line. “You should fall down and pray. Pray that I’ll make your death easy.”
He raised his undamaged hand and pulled off his sunglasses with one quick yank.
I almost expected his eyes to be glowing red, no pupils, no irises, just a red light, as I’d seen him in my vision days earlier. But the eyes that peered at me were light blue—so light, they were almost white.
I tried to reach out, touch his mind, and take control.
Don’t look, danger…
I didn’t quite understand this, but I’d learned not to question that voice in my head. I averted my eyes and stepped behind the open vault door.
“Look at me, you bastard!” he bellowed, angry that I wasn’t going to play along. I could feel the air in the room growing warmer, as if sunlight poured in and heated every corner.
That was it! I finally knew the one part of the process Gingold needed to kill his victims.
Eye contact!
It needed to be established just like when I touched other people’s minds. It made sense. Mishan had turned to look at him through the window when his clothes started smoking, Wendy stared right at him from the porch, and Norris must have met his eyes as well when Gingold approached his car.
The other times he’d ignited objects, he’d used things that could burn easily. In Norris’s building, he’d used an accelerant in the office one floor below. When he killed Wendy’s parents, he’d set off the gasoline in their car. Even Wendy’s house must have had hidden accelerants, a plan for the day he might need to be rid of her. The trick with the candles didn’t really require much ability. I could already do one candle.
But what had the coroner said? That Wendy’s body was burned from the inside. That meant he’d reached into them to burn them to death. I had to avoid his eyes at all costs.
Cold, I thought, nothing but cold.
I was trying to reach out to the very air and change the atmosphere of the room, like at Scudder House. I could not only remember the cold in that place, I could sense a deep cold within myself that I’d carried with me since, and I focused on that feeling and pushed it out all around me.
I peeked around the door. Gingold did not look happy. He stared in my direction, but I wove in and out behind the door so he couldn’t get a fix on me or reach into my mind with his fire. I held my cane at the ready to belt him again if he approached.
Instead, he decided that winning was more important than valor, and he made break for the gun that lay near the window. I was right after him, and I fell forward, hooking my cane between his feet. He stumbled, went flying, and fell at least two feet short of his intended goal with a resounding whack.
He turned to face me, his pale blue eyes flashing with rage. I held my hand out to block my eyes but far enough away so that I could see what the rest of his body was doing.
The room around me grew hot again. I could actually feel the very air, hot and dry, as I breathed it in, like in a desert at high noon.
I had to keep him off balance, break his concentration. Even without eye contact, he had the ability to produce heat or fire. In this enclosed space, that might be more than I could handle.
Cold, nothing but cold...
I pulled myself up from the floor and swung my cane at him to chase him away from the gun.
He scuttled along the floor away from me.
So far, he hadn’t been able to make me burst into flames, and I did hold a weapon. I needed to eliminate the gun as one of
his choices.
I spun around, and with a move that reminded me of how I once played hockey as a kid, I used my cane like a hockey stick and whacked the gun in one tight move.
It slid along the floor, rattling as it passed through the open vault door.
Goal!
I turned back to Gingold.
He was bleeding from his mouth, a small trickle caused by his fall. His left hand wore a red mark, but he was able to use it. Holding my hand up to shield my eyes from his, I backed away toward the vault door.
I thought it was a good plan: get into the vault, get the girl, get the gun. Then I realized that if I was in the vault, Gingold could lock me in and set the building on fire. Even if the vault was lined with metal, it would get so hot, Jenny and I would be cooked like Christmas turkeys.
I inadvertently backed against one of the standing columns with a pot on top and glanced back to make sure I hadn’t bumped into an assailant or that I’d knocked the pot over.
In the moment that I looked at it, a burst of fire shot out the top of the pot. It was an odd fire, dazzlingly bright like a photographer’s strobe, and at the same time, the air filled with sparks as if it was a flash-pot used in a rock-and-roll stage show.
I dove forward to the floor and almost eviscerated myself on one of those sculpted ferns with the leaves like knives. I rolled as I kept my legs straight. I’d wondered about the large pots stationed throughout the room—the faux-art look of them. I now knew their function. Booby traps containing chemicals that he could set off with little effort.
I jumped clumsily to my feet, feeling the adrenaline rush through my body as a combination of anger and fear that could easily become panic went through me.
I saw only a huge pink ball everywhere I looked, my retinas dazzled by the explosion that went off so close to me. I waved my cane blindly and tried to strike anything I could.
Don’t panic…
The buzz wasn’t much help. But I had to focus my mind if I was to succeed. My vision rapidly cleared, but now the room had started to fill with smoke, which made my eyes water. The pot merrily burned away.