There Will Be Fire

by Mark Von Kyling

  “Man, this place really has changed,” Howie said, lighting up a cigarette.

  “It’s true. I can’t believe it either and I see it everyday.”

  It was true. The downtown revival of the city waterfront had drastically changed things from when they had lived there when they were younger. It was said at that time, in the late eighties and early nineties, that after six o’clock in the evening, one could stand in the middle of downtown and shoot a gun down the street and not hit a single person. It was that abandoned. Sure there were still businesses there that operated during the day, but after business hours were over, only homeless people, pimps, prostitutes and criminals could be found. Occasionally one could see the rare cop or the wayward punks and skinheads who lived in the abandoned warehouses, but that was it. It was truly a desolate town. This desolation had begun a few decades earlier with the rise of the suburbs which led to the white flight from the downtown area. In the beginning, the downtown nightlife had been taken over by the emergence of discos and sex shops, but eventually even those had moved away and while Howie and Parminter were in high school, the place had finally died. However a few years after they had left, a miracle started occurring. The place had started coming to life. Loads of money was pumped into the place and soon shops and bars and tourist areas had popped up. It wasn’t long after that that it became the ideal on which many downtowns modeled themselves. To anyone who had seen it earlier, this kind of adulation was a real headscratcher. But it had happened because the proof was in front of them. There were now people and businesses everywhere.

  Even though he had some business to attend to later in the day, it was actually a welcome diversion for Parminter to drive Howie around. Since he made the majority of his money as a stock trader, Parminter typically had a lot of free time and didn’t really get to hang out with a lot of people.

  “You still writing?” Howie asked as they drove up the mountain and past the legendary space ship house.

  “No, I gave that up when I left California.”

  Even though some might have interpreted his leaving Los Angeles as a failure, Parminter was actually glad to out of there. He was glad to be out of all that traffic and smog and away from most of the jealous scumbag friends he had accumulated there.

  He had moved out there immediately after his divorce. While it had pained him to be separated from his daughters, he had expected so much and had gotten so little out of the experience that he had come to actively despise the place. In eight years of trying to be a screenwriter, he had only been able to sell one thing which had subsequently been turned into a soft-porn Cinemax film. He had been proud of it, nonetheless, even though it had gotten him labeled as a “dirty bird” back home.

  But he had had such dreams when he had gone out there. Dreams that had ultimately come to nothing. The more he had written the more he had come to understand that unless he could actually sell something that was big enough to actually make him a humongous wad of cash, he would always be in the position of having to bow and scrape for the movie industry. He was only as good as his next sale and after a while, it had just gotten to him.

  But on the bright side, at least he had been able to make a living with his writing unlike most of the other people he knew who were also attempting that same impossible dream. He made his money freelancing for whatever publication that would buy anything from him. He would write about any subject imaginable, tailoring it to whatever magazine or newspaper he was trying to sell to. He wrote about dogs, finance, drugs, porn. You name it, he wrote it. Because of this he became a sort of polymath. He knew a lot about a lot of stuff. This had also been a good thing that had come from it.

  Regardless of whatever sale he made, in reality, he knew that it wasn’t his writing that sold his story even though it was better than passable. It was his name that had sustained him. In fact, it was what had gotten him into writing to begin with. When he had been a freshman in college, his advisor had taken one look at it and had asked him if he had ever thought about being a writer.

  Parminter had answered that while he did enjoy the subject, he had never really thought much about it.

  The advisor had said that a name like John Parminter would look great on a book or a byline. He would be stupid not to take advantage of it.

  So, he had begun writing. He was good enough not to starve but not good enough to make it big. However, because of his having learned so much about so many subjects, he was particularly attuned to much of what was happening in the world at any given time. The stock market crash was no exception. In a rare sense of clarity, he had taken the money he had gotten from the sale of his soft-core script and had invested it heavily after the market had fallen and held on until it somewhat came back later. Following the universal law of buy low and sell high, he had made a killing and was not only able to begin to live easily, but also see that he was completely wasting his time and money attempting to be a screenwriter. He realized that he was much better as a casual stock trader than he ever was a writer. He had been thinking about buying in much sooner than he did, but was lucky that he had been too lazy to set up his trading account. Otherwise he would have been like all the other suckers out there who had lost everything.

  “But I thought writing was supposed to be glamorous and interesting job,” Howie said.

  “That depends on what you’re writing,” Parminter replied matter of factly. He didn’t try to explain. Everyone he had ever talked to that wasn’t also a writer was under this misconception.

  Soon they rolled up to the gated community. Howie explained to the guard who he was and they were allowed in. As the XJ6 glided through the winding streets, they were unsure of where the house was. Neither of them had been there before. It was like an expensive maze with all the nice homes and expensive cars. A person could easily get lost and arrested for trespassing in a place like this.

  “Just follow the smoke,” Howie said chuckling.

  And that’s what Parminter did and it wasn’t long before they found it. It had been days since the fire but it almost seemed like the place was still steaming. Most likely, though, it was just the slight breeze blowing ash into the air.

  They parked on the street across from the property and got out of the car. Apart from the nearby residents, there were no other people around. This was a testament to how quickly people move from one tragedy to the next because just a few days earlier the street had been packed with gawkers.

  As they looked at the wreckage, Parminter couldn’t help but note that the complete destruction of the house was devasating. The fire must have gotten really hot for the place to be so destroyed. All that was left of the place was a burnt out skeleton. Even the landscaping was scorched and wilted. The burnt building materials smelled toxic. It almost transcended a simple fire in its ruin. It was almost symbolic of something else that Parminter couldn’t quite put his finger on. A collapse of a dream? An arrogant comeuppance? He wasn’t quite sure. It was certainly a morbidly grandiose spectacle, though.

  “Yep, the crowd’s finally died down.”

  Parminter and Howie turned suddenly. A man had walked over from the next door lot. He was a stately looking gentleman whose skin was so tan and leathery, it looked almost like he was made of shoe leather. Or spent a lot of time in Florida.

  “I suppose, Parminter said.

  “I tried to tell everyone that that house was nothing but trouble but no one would listen to me. It just was too big. It didn’t belong here. It stuck out like a sore thumb.”

  Parminter and Howie looked at each other.

  “Oh, I’m Charles Abercrombie,” he said, extending his hand. “I live next door.”

  Parminter shook it, as did Howie. Suddenly, Parminter remembered him.

  “You’re the one…”

  “Yep, that’s me. I was the one who tried to keep him from building it. The others were with me in the beginning, but he was able to win them over with his cocktail parties and whatnot. I never fell for it though. I
could see right through him.”

  “So I guess you’re happy it’s gone?” Howie asked a little too eagerly Parminter thought.

  Abercrombie shrugged. “Well, it’s bad what happened to the man, but God usually has a way of take care of things that don’t belong.”

  Parminter didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t believe that this man was speaking as openly about the Goldman tragedy as he was. It seemed as though he was smugly telling them that he had been proven right in his dislike of the house.

  “Well, nice talking to you. I’ve got to make a phone call,” Abercrombie said after a few awkward seconds. With that, he walked back over towards his house.

  Parminter and howie looked at each other for a second but didn’t say anything. Even though no words were exhanged, Parminter could have almost sworn that Howie was trying not to smile.

  As they stood outside the police tape looking in, Parminter could imagine just how frightened Goldman must have been as he was trapped in the burning house. It would have bee terrifying. He started to say something about this but before he could, Howie turned to him.

  “I hope the bastard really suffered.”

  3

  After they had surveyed the damage, they went back down the mountain and into the city. Along the way, Parminter was informed by Howie that they were to meet another one of their old high school acquaintances, Ken Ratledge, at Samir’s Deli downtown. Parminter wasn’t really that pleased with this since Ratledge wasn’t exactly on his list of favorite people. He knew that he wasn’t on Ratledge’s either. Ratledge was a successful financial advisor in town and through the years had been somewhat of an irritation for Parminter. Howie, of course, knew this and that’s precisely why he had invited him.

  It wasn’t a personal situation between the two men, but rather a difference of opinion.Of their group in school, Parminter had been considered to be the one with the brightest future. Ratledge had been a close second. For some reason, this rivalry had always irked Ratledge and he had always held the notion that people considered him to be second-best against Parminter, who for the most part never even acknowledged the rivalry. Parminter was not from the right family, the right neighborhood and didn’t even have the right last name to be successful in a town like theirs. He was just smart and that was not enough to earn the proper respect, Ratledge thought. However, after Parminter decided to become a writer after college, it became clear, at least to Ratledge, who was going to win this race. Ratledge went on to glory at a local bank and then rapidly worked his way up the ladder into management and then branched off and started his own financial services agency. Parminter, on the other hand, struggled out in Hollywood barely making it selling articles to whoever would buy them. Ratledge never missed a chance to let his triumph over his old imagined adversary shine. Anyone who had asked him about his old high school friends would get an answer that usually started with “John is trying to make it as a writer.” The schadenfreude was very obvious with him.

  However after Parminter had hit it big in the stock market, it was another story entirely. Ratledge became so furious that he couldn’t stand it. The fact that Parminter had done it as a stock trader only made Parminter’s success that much harder to bear. Casual stock traders like him were scum as far as he was concerned. They were climbers and the only thing they were good for was screwing the market and people like him out of commissions. He hated do-it-yourselfers, especially ones who succeeded. His clients were the types of people who had so much money that they allowed him to use his own judgment about how to invest it and then sat back and read the statements. He was respectable and they were respectable. They were rich and he was rich. He had always taken pride in the fact that he was richer and more successful than any of his high school friends. Parminter’s success hadn’t changed this, but he really didn’t like the fact that his old high school rival wasn’t so broke any more. Parminter knew this, or at least suspected this, so he was always a little uneasy around Ratledge. Jealousy could always bring qualities out in people that even they did not know they had.

  Still, when it came to the people in his life, Parminter had always hoped that some of them could have outgrown their old pettiness and that they could all simply be friends—without all the baggage and underlying currents. But deep down, he knew that rarely do people change and if they do, it’s usually for the worse. He had finally come to the understanding he had to give up this hope. If not, he would never be happy. In order to move forward, he had to stop expecting the impossible. It’s like when a kid stops believing in Santa Claus. Sure, it’s okay as long as his parents continue putting the presents under the tree, but what happens when they stop? If a person continues to believe, he’ll only be disappointed. And he won’t have any presents.

  Parminter parked the Jag on the street in front of Samir’s and they went in. He was glad to get out of the car. It was good to get his aching leg into a different position.

  Ratledge was waiting for them inside.

  “Hello!” he exclaimed, embracing the both of them. “It’s good to see you again!”

  He was wearing a dark blue business suit and Parminter couldn’t help but notice that he had put on even more weight since he had last seen him. His face was red and puffy and his hair was slicked back like a TV preacher’s. He smelled of cologne and was obviously on his lunch break. Probably for the second time that day, Parminter couldn’t resist thinking.

  “It’s good to see you too, Ken,” Parminter said.

  “I’m so sorry to hear about Raoul,” Ratledge said automatically and shook Howie’s hand.

  “I’m sure you are! I bet you haven’t been off the phone since the fire!” Howie joked.

  Ratledge looked uneasy but didn’t say anything. It was true that was no secret that he had long envied Goldman’s success and had been inquiring behind the scenes regarding his more lucrative clients. He didn’t mention this though. He just tried to smile and let the moment pass.

  They walked over the counter and ordered and then sat down in a booth.

  “This is just like old times, right, fellas?” Howie said slapping Parminter on the back.

  “I guess it is,” he said, wincing.

  “So, I suppose you’re handling Goldman’s death pretty well, then, I take it,” Ratledge said.

  “Just sad it didn’t happen sooner. I mean I feel bad for his wife, but he really was an asshole. Did you know that he even tried to cheat me out of my inheritance from my mother?”

  Of course they all knew this. Anyone who spoke to Howie for any length of time knew it because he always brought it up. Of course, Goldman had been unsuccessful in his attempt to cut Howie out of his mother’s will, but Howie never forgot it or any of the other stuff that Goldman had done to him.

  “I know he sure was mean to you. I remember that time he locked you in the garden shed,” Parminter said.

  “I know! It was over a hundred degrees in there and he left me in there for six hours. I could’ve died!”

  Parminter nodded. Howie was once again needlessly establishing that Goldman was a real bastard.

  “Even though I’m glad that he did suffer a horrible death, there is one thing that is really bothering me about the situtation. It’s the fact that everybody is talking about how great he is. How much he gave to charity. How he helped the poor. Why can’t they see that he was just doing this to promote himself? That he didn’t really care about anybody but himself?” Howie was getting more and more worked up.

  At this Ratledge looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening.

  “You know you’re not the only one that’s happy that he’s dead.”

  “Really?” Howie asked, his interest piquing.

  “Yeah, there have been some rumors going around that he was involved in some really shady stuff. That his guaranteed twenty-five percent return was complete bullshit and that some of the people he was screwing over were starting to find out.”

  “Actually, I had heard something a
bout it. I just figured that it was people who were upset about losing money due to the recession,” Parminter added while fiddling with a ketchup bottle.

  “That’s partially true. I’ve been hearing the same thing. All financial advisors are hearing it about the recession. Why didn’t we see it coming? Why didn’t we do something and on and on. It’s all we hear. The thing is that Raoul didn’t really have those kinds of clients. He had a lot of celebrities and old money types. You know people with real money. People with so much money they didn’t even know how much they had or were losing.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  Ratledge looked over his shoulder again. “What I’m saying is that there’s a rumor that he was taking advantage of the fact that these people didn’t even know how much money they had. He was moving money from account to account and stealing from others to make up for the losses.”

  “And what does that mean?” Howie asked, growing more and more intrigued.

  Ratledge took a breath. “Let’s face it. Many wealthy people, especially ones that use financial advisors, don’t really have an idea of just how much money they have. This is especially true of people who inherit old money. It would be very easy for an unscupulous person to take advantage of their ignorance.”

  “Do you ever do this?” Parminter asked, trying to press Ratledge’s buttons.

  “Of course not!” Ratledge snapped. It was true. He didn’t. Even though he had often thought about how easy it would be.

  “But you’re saying that dear stepbrother did, right?” Howie said.