You don't come to terms with it either. How can you? You don't let yourself think about it at all; you don't dare let yourself think about it. Nor do you talk about it. Ever. To anyone, under any circumstances.
It happened, it's over. And you get on with your life.
* * * * *
Blackwell, Thomas. Alias. Other known aliases: Jack King, Thomas Queen, Jack Brown, David Jones, Oliver Thomas, Peter Montana. Real name: Vincent Kenneth Tinney. Born in Brooklyn; 37 years of age. Father, Bertram Tinney (now deceased), was a teamster with loose Mob ties, mostly as a low-level enforcer for the loan sharks.
Juvenile record, beginning at age 15: Car theft, two arrests; breaking and entering, one arrest; malicious mischief, one arrest; arson, one arrest. Two years in a state reformatory on the arson charge: setting fire to a high school gymnasium, for which he was paid fifty dollars by four other youths.
Adult record: Two arrests. Arson One. (Any person who willfully and maliciously sets fire to or burns or causes to be burned or who aids, counsels or procures the burning of any dwelling or house, whether occupied, unoccupied or vacant, or any kitchen, shop, barn, stable or other outhouse that is parcel thereof, or belonging to or adjoining thereto, whether the property of himself or of another, shall be guilty of Arson in the first degree, and upon conviction thereof be sentenced to the penitentiary for not less than two nor more than twenty years.) No convictions in either case; insufficient evidence. In the second of the two, a fire at a factory in the Bronx, two derelicts using a storage room for shelter had died of bums and smoke inhalation.
One arrest. Arson Two. (Any person who willfully and maliciously sets fire to or burns or causes to be burned, or who aids, counsels or procures the burning of any building or structure of whatsoever class or character, whether the property of himself or of another, not included or described in the preceding section, shall be guilty of Arson in the second degree, and upon conviction thereof, be sentenced to the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than ten years.) Conviction in this case; sentenced to five years in Sing Sing prison. Served full term, 1976-1981.
No arrests, state or federal, since his release.
M.O.: Favors chemical combustibles as incendiary mechanism. Potassium chlorate, sugar, and sulfuric acid; or potassium permanganate and glycerine; or metallic potassium and carbide. Favors water-ignition device, usually a condom or other rubber product in which a tiny hole is made with a pin. Also known to have used plastic explosives, traces of which were found by investigators from S.F.F.D.'s Arson Task Force in the remains of Savarese Importing's warehouse.
Psychological profile: Loner with almost fanatical desire for privacy, one reason for his use of numerous aliases. According to prison psychiatrist, a clinical sociopath with repressed psychotic tendencies. Considered to be dangerous in the extreme when cornered or threatened.
Habits: Moves frequently from place to place within a city or area and often from state to state. Prefers to live in small, quiet, moderately expensive hotels. Maintains few underworld contacts and has none of the common underworld vices. Heterosexual; prefers the company of respectable women whose habit patterns approximate his own.
Suspected recent activities: Moved from East Coast to West Coast within two years of his release from Sing Sing. Believed to be the number-one torch for a well-organized, Los Angeles-based arson ring specializing in industrial fires.
Official cause of death: Fracture of the axis or second cervical vertebra—professionally known as the Hangman's Fracture—as a result of a fall at South Valley Gravel Company, San Bernado, Monterey County, California.
Coroner's verdict: Death by accident and misadventure during alleged commission of a felony.
* * * * *
Grady Haas did not react when I revived her on that wind-torn hilltop and told her the man she'd known as Jack King was dead. I said we'd struggled for the gun and he had lost his footing and fallen into the quarry, but I had the feeling she sensed the truth. She let me lead her down out of the hills and back to her father's house, but she would not look at me or speak to me. It was as if I, too, no longer existed for her.
She refused to tell the authorities what had happened between her and her lover to precipitate her flight from San Francisco and his hunt for her. She sang them the same lyrics of self-pity she'd sung for me: It doesn't matter. I don't care. Leave me alone. After a while, because Vincent Kenneth Tinney was dead, and because there was nothing else they could do, they obeyed her wishes—they left her alone.
If they'd worked at it, or if I had, we might have been able to do more than guess at the reasons. But why bother? Tinney was dead, Savarese was dead, Grady might as well be dead. She'd written the lyrics and they were true, with slight variations, to the very end.
It doesn't matter.
Who cares?
Leave it alone.
* * * * *
I stayed in the Salinas Valley for two days, as much to rest my sad old bones as for official reasons, and on both days I visited Arlo Haas in the hospital. That was once more than his daughter went to see him—and I stayed longer than she, both times. The second stroke had not left him permanently paralyzed, as the Vargases had feared. Eventually he would be able to go back to his farm, to continue to fend for himself. But the fending wouldn't last long, I thought. He was a changed man, a hollow man: He had lost his daughter, completely and irrevocably, and he knew it.
He didn't care anymore either.
* * * * *
Grady went home to San Francisco. Back to her apartment, back to her job at Intercoastal Insurance, back to her carefully structured existence. Maybe one day she would begin living again, but I doubted it. Maybe one day she would find the courage—no, the cowardice—to destroy herself. But most likely she would just go on as she was, wearing her pain like widow's weeds, until she was old and withered and it was Father Time that finally did her in.
I didn't care anymore, one way or another.
* * * * *
Eberhardt and Bobbie Jean have patched things up. They're dating again, probably sleeping together again, but neither of them is talking about marriage. Not yet. Kerry thinks they will, soon, and that they'll be man and wife before the end of the year. I hope she's right.
Eb and I have patched things up, too—more or less. But it's still there between us, the things we said to each other that afternoon at his house, the punch in the belly that had ended it. Like a wall that neither of us seems able to tear down. We're cordial to each other at the office but we don't talk like we used to, we don't joke or laugh much; and we don't go out and have a few beers together after work. We don't get together socially at all, even though Kerry and Bobbie Jean are still fast friends.
Kerry says this will change, too, that it's only a temporary situation. She says Eb and I have been friends too long to let a small rift widen into an unbridgeable chasm. She says he needs me and I need him and down deep we both know it and it won't be long before we're compelled to admit it to each other. She says I'll still be best man at his wedding.
I hope she's right.
* * * * *
Vincent Kenneth Tinney's face haunts my sleep.
I see it as it was in those last few seconds, the only time I ever saw it up close—tanned cheeks slick with sweat, lips drawn back, eyes wide and dark and evil. I see the arrogance in it, born of the certainty that I will pull him up, save him, because that's what men like me, the straight arrows, the poor honest fools, believe is the right thing to do. I see the arrogance fade and the terror take its place as he stares into my face, sees what it is I believe. I see his face fall away from me at last, grow smaller while the terror somehow grows larger in my perception, until he is gone.
I see all of that, and I hear him scream.
I will see his face and hear his scream for the rest of my life. But I will also remember the evil, as I remember the look of Kerry lying bloody and unconscious on my closet floor, and what it was like inside that burning warehouse, and
Arlo Haas hollow and alone in his hospital bed—and something Haas said to me about the man who was after his daughter: "I'll serve him up hot to God or the devil, whichever wants him, and take my own chances when the time comes."
I am not sorry for what I did.
If I could relive that day, those hours, that last decisive moment with Vincent Kenneth Tinney—I would serve him up hot again.
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