“We’ll call a lawyer.”
“There’s no bankruptcy protection for fraud, Jason.”
Now he really, truly wanted to pop her.
“I’m not gonna waste time saying I’m sorry, because time’s what we haven’t got. But money buys time. I mean it, I don’t need the whole amount. But I need something. We do.”
Nice touch, he thought, hating her. “No way I can pony up even a fraction of that kinda money.”
She studied her glass, like the gin might speak. “Then I need to hear some ideas, hon. Like, now.”
“What’s this?”
The cocktail was in a bucket glass, bits of savaged orange and cherry floating in shaved ice. Smell of whiskey but something else, something medicinal.
Eddie beamed, leaning forward. “I call it a Dirty Rotten Secret.” He looked like the kid at the birthday party everybody’s scared of.
“I thought you were making a Crown Royal old fashioned.”
“I did. More or less. Just added a Benedictine floater, plus some of this stuff.” He held up a bottle of something called Fernet.
Glendon wagged a finger. “I told you he liked to improvise.”
“Made from a blend of rhubarb, chamomile, ginseng,” Eddie recited, reading from the label, “and a secret combination of herbs.”
Bernardo stirred the cocktail so the weird liqueurs blended a bit better with the whiskey. He needed something, his nerves were a mess. If this was it, bottom’s up. “Thanks,” he said, and drank. It tasted like something worked up by his little league buddies after a raid of the parental liquor cabinet. He tried not to wince.
“I’m still working on the right proportions,” Eddie admitted.
“It’s fine.” Bernardo resisted an urge to spit. “Might think about easing back a touch on the rhubarb.”
“Work in progress,” Eddie said.
“Isn’t everything.”
Looking back, he would wonder at how even bad love reasserts itself, insinuates itself into the gentler regions of memory, sweet-talks your conscience, reminding two people that despite all the resentment, the unanswered want, the squandered hope, they’re still bound together. All it takes is a threat from outside—the messy, cruel, indifferent world—to re-knot the ropes, lash you together tighter than ever. No love was perfect, nor needed to be. What family he had was her. You could talk it through with anyone you wanted—lawyer, shrink, priest, the ER nurse you met at a fundraiser who dragged you back to her place—it was all just that, talk. Better to stand pat with the unhappy past then stagger blind into the shapeless future.
And once he agreed to help, Leeanne did soften a bit.
He was assistant treasurer for his local, and as such served as the hands-on man. They were gearing up for elections across the county—mayor and council races in five key cities, all trying to arm-twist concessions in pensions, benefits, wages, staffing—and the war chests were flush. They had five PACs, two held jointly with the police union, one with the IBEW, and were constantly shuffling money around to fund this candidate or that, and make the money trail hard to figure. The state lacked the manpower to audit, and the self-reporting was farcical. Thousands routinely tumbled out of one fund, suddenly materialized in another, the amounts rarely if ever matching up. If that ever became a problem they’d hang their heads and admit to being sloppy—hey, they were heroes, not abacus jockeys.
But the PAC accounts afforded at best seventy grand, and that had to be plucked from several different places after a lot of sleight-of-hand, phantom transfers of varying amounts, a head-scratching smokescreen. If he pilfered any more than that it’d stand out as a fistful of missing change even to a bunch of lunks.
That meant he had to turn to the operating accounts—non-interest bearing money funds for day-to-day operations held by various local banks. He mocked up work orders for station-house repairs and renovations, shoved them in a file he buried in a cabinet, buying in to Leeanne’s theory that all they needed was time.
The thing about thievery, he discovered, is that once you make a few moves and don’t get caught, you get a bit more bold, which is to say clever, otherwise known as reckless. He managed to scratch up just shy of three-hundred-fifty grand, more than he’d ever thought he could realistically bring to the table. Leeanne seemed pleased, and showed it with a bit more wag in her tail, as it were.
But if the money bought them time, that was all it bought. A developer Coughlin knew supposedly hoped to muscle the lenders into a package deal for a majority share of the enclave, but if such a maneuver was ever real it quickly turned to myth. After that, isolated buyers appeared and vanished like trick-or-treaters, and what money they offered was always a joke. Not even the hard money boys were stepping up; they knew all they had to do was wait.
Meanwhile, a citizens group was crowing for accountability in the union PAC funds. Then out of the blue the assistant chief wanted a work-up on a new roof for Station House 5, including funds on hand. And the FBI, of course, lurked in the wings.
I need to hear some ideas. Which was how Jason the Firefighter came up with Plan B.
“Real estate,” Glendon said, like it was the name of a despised aunt. He sat with his arms twined across his paunch. “Not to beat a dead horse, Jason, but I gotta tell ya, you just don’t fit my picture.”
Bernardo took another sip of Eddie’s concoction. God help me, he thought, getting used to the taste. “Not sure I can do much about that, Glendon.” Sensing that this might seem snide, he added, “I like to work out.”
“Real estate mucks I know,” Glendon said, “how should I put this. Fat boys and fairies.”
Eddie, looking up at the TV, nodded. “Pussies, not to put too fine a point on it.”
The crawl at the bottom of the screen reported that the entire Black Diamond enclave had been evacuated. Every property on the perimeter was now involved, total losses. Bernardo knew he should feel relieved, but instead the weariness just burrowed deeper.
“A cleansing fire.” It was Glendon, arms still wrapped across his belly, eyes glued to the TV screen.
Eddie said, “That’d be the bible, right?”
“The bible, or something like it.” Glendon tapped out another cigarette, lipped it, struck a flame from his lighter. “And God shall come as a cleansing fire, not to consume the creature, but what the creature hath built—of wood, of hay and chaff.”
“Damn straight.” Eddie set his chin on his arms, still peering at the screen.
“Everything you need to know about property,” Glendon said, pointing at the TV with his cigarette, “you can learn from watching that right there.”
Bernardo reached for his cocktail but couldn’t quite bring himself to drink.
“And the people who work in real estate,” Glendon went on, “they don’t make nothing, they don’t fix nothing, they just keep selling the same chunk of dirt and wood over and over so they can take a bigger cut. They don’t add value, just add cost. And who ends up having to pay for that? Not them. Never them. Biggest racket there is. People need a place to live, a home for themselves and their families, but what they get, day after day after god damn day, is cheated.”
“Brought down the whole damn economy,” Eddie said, “bankers and real estate people. Politicians in their pocket.”
Bernardo, now regretting his lie, considered telling them what he really did for the bulk of his money, but he wasn’t sure at this point what difference it would make. He felt like he’d walked in on an argument that had started long before he’d arrived, and would continue long after he’d left, if he was given that chance. A quick glance for weapons discovered only the paring knife behind the bar—no truncheon near the cash register, no pistol or shotgun that he could see. He told himself to relax.
“Like I say, don’t mean nothing personal, Jason. But people are angry. Right, left, middle, they’re pissed. They k
now the treasure is gone. And they know who took it.”
Bernardo realized silence was no longer an option, but neither was ass-kissing agreement. “Look,” he began, “the economy’s not simple. It’s like the weather. More factors than you can think of, so many unknowns. The tiniest thing can have the strangest consequences.” He felt his heart ticking inside his chest, his hands felt hot. “Know how many supercomputers the National Weather Service uses? Any idea how massive the system of differential equations is they need to predict whether it’s sunshine tomorrow or rain? The answer they come up with, it’s just an approximation, it’s guesswork. But that doesn’t make it random. Any more than the wind is random. There’s answers, is what I mean, even if we don’t always like what they are.”
Stop talking, he told himself. Say thanks for the drink, put down some money if they ask for it, get up and walk out. Something inside him, though, cautioned that a little more defraying of the tension might be wise before he made a move for the door.
The two men studied him, their faces blank. Smoke from Glendon’s cigarette curled upward.
“You guys ever hear of the Diablo winds?”
He’d explained it to Coughlin and Leeanne, when it became clear only a disaster could save them. The Diablos, northern California cousins of the Santa Anas, came every spring and fall, the latter season particularly dangerous because of so much buildup through the drought months of fire-ready vegetation—flashy fuel, it was called. The winds developed from high pressure systems to the east, off the sunbaked Great Basin, the air squashed by storms over Nevada and Idaho, with low pressure systems squatting off the coast, pulling like gravity, like an atmospheric sump, dragging the winds west through the Sierra canyons, down the arid foothills and across the scalding central valley—perfect fire weather. Case in point: the Oakland hills disaster.
And the Black Diamond layout was particularly ripe: high parched grass in steep ravines just beyond the enclave, with dense pockets of non-native eucalyptus, ornamental clumps of wooly sage, sawgrass. The place was landscaped in tinder.
They met to talk through the final details at Leeanne’s property, a sprawling four-thousand-foot monument to misbegotten greed: long granite counters and towering cherry cabinets, beveled glasswork and Florizel parquetry with its churchy accents and eerie 3D feel. More to the point, it sat in precisely the right place, at the cul de sac’s tip, right at the mouth of a deep arroyo winnowing east. Stand out there on the patio, the furnace-like wind almost knocked you down.
Coughlin looked like he’d stepped off the back nine, moussed and tan, with hints of work around the eyes, that sandblasted squint. Leeanne wore white—sundress and sandals, a billowing hat—an outfit Bernardo remembered from a garden party at a Livermore vineyard years before. Despite the incongruity, she looked good. She looked happy.
“I’ve been tracking the weather service,” he said. “It’s this week or never. Today’s likely best.”
“Unless I’m missing something,” Coughlin said, a voice honed on cold calls, “you’re leaving a lot up to random chance.”
“Wind’s not random,” Bernardo said, “neither are fires. I don’t believe in luck. There’s planning, and then there’s ignorance and miscalculation. Been plenty of that already, by my reckoning.”
Coughlin started to fire back but Leeanne cut him short with a look. They’d already decided it was Bernardo’s show, no point sniping. He needed to slip money back into the operating fund and PAC accounts, and fast. Leeanne and Coughlin needed to be able to walk away with everyone’s credit intact and nothing to trigger audits on the underlying loans. The houses were insured at replacement value, including contents, and they’d mocked up invoices for furnishings far in excess of what was there. That would be their cushion, their walkaway money. And that meant whatever happened, it had to be a total loss—no salvage, no rebuilding, no sifting through the wreckage by bean counters, arson wonks. It had to be a holocaust. Leeanne and her seven dwarves would slip away, collect a measly couple hundred grand for some made-up finery while the banks and insurance companies squared off over the big money. Let the lawyers hammer away. Can’t foreclose on an ash heap.
Because arson was easier to allege than prove, Bernardo felt certain he could rig things—not perfectly, no such thing—but create enough of a nightmare any foot-dragging would look cruel and venal, justifying a claim of bad faith. The insurers would waive off the bother. To get there he needed to create both interior and exterior points of origin without making it look too obvious what had happened. An accident triggered by a catastrophe—who couldn’t comprehend that? Coughlin assured him the rest of the dunces had signed on. But Bernardo also knew, if things went south, he’d be the one left to hang.
The solution, he decided, was linseed oil, mixed with nitrocellulose, the touchy stuff film stock used to be made of, back in the days of projector room fires. The oil and oxidizer combined to make an unparalleled varnish, but the mix was also insidiously flammable. The One Meridien Plaza fire, caused by spontaneous combustion of rags left piled at the worksite, killed three Philadelphia firefighters. And that risk of fatality, given how hot and fast the fire would spread, would push the engine crews toward containment—they’d let the houses already involved burn out.
“You can’t have the fire start inside the house, not with the loan in arrears the way it is. But if the fire starts outside, moves close, and triggers secondary combustion in here—that’s the way to go.” Bernardo fingered the smooth, elaborate carvings in the cabinetry, an interlocking design with deep relief, a pattern called Portland Scroll—nothing like what he was used to in the houses he rebuilt. “Bad enough we haven’t got time to strip every house, just this one. But if it burns the way it should, the rest are close enough along the cul de sac, all nestled in this little pocket, they all should go up pretty quick.”
They got to work, donning coveralls, sanding off the old finish in three of the rooms, not worrying about completion, just making it look like they’d made a good start. Now and then they practiced aloud the story they’d tell the insurers: Leeanne had decided to upgrade, hoping the improvements would help move the property quicker—high-end demand being, after all, inelastic. When she saw the grass fires barreling toward her from the hills, she’d had no time to store the rags properly, needing to get out while she could. Keep it simple, Bernardo told her. A mistake, especially in the face of danger, doesn’t equal motive. Hold that thought.
Three hours passed. Coughlin was the first to bag. “I’ll leave it to you two to wrap this up.” He combed his hair in the doorway, and Bernardo doubted he’d ever hated anyone more.
Leeanne stepped out of her coveralls as Bernardo arranged the rags. This part was critical—piled too close, they’d lack the air needed to ignite, too loose and they wouldn’t generate sufficient heat. He dragged the containers with the rest of the mixture near, so once the flames hit there’d be no doubt the stuff would catch. The fire outside would follow its natural path, the ravine like a funnel of boiling wind, plus all the sun-shriveled grass and bark and leafage. Once flame reached the house, with the pile of oil-soaked rags inside, it would go up quick, take the neighboring houses with it, and after them the rest of the cul de sac. As for all the other houses up here—well, that was up to the wind. The wind and the fact that, strapped for funds, the county had closed the two nearest firehouses.
He was still in his coveralls finishing up when he felt Leeanne’s hand settle gently on his arm. “Jason, I know I’ve been short in the sorry department, but that’s not because I’m ungrateful.” She straightened the sundress, shouldered her handbag. The broad-rimmed hat rested like a giant lily on a nearby table. “I know this is all on me. Without your help, we’d be screwed. I don’t know how to thank you.”
She eased up on tiptoe, left hand on his shoulder, lips pursed. Despite the stinging oily scent of the varnish, the worry knotted up in his midriff, he readied himself f
or her kiss. They’d regained a little juice the past few weeks, the old slap and tickle. And yet something felt off. Maybe it was the fact her eyes stayed open, maybe it was the fact she’d only balanced herself with the left hand, the right hand free, but when the knife came out of her purse Bernardo had her wrist locked tight almost instantly. He twisted outward, her face contorted in pain. The knife dropped.
She grimaced. “You’re hurting me.”
He let her go, leaned down to pick up the knife, and she was on him with a fury he’d never seen. Hammering with her fists, raging against the sheer injustice of her lousy life. Of course he had to die—the weak link, last man in, the one who didn’t understand that the point was to be free and that meant money. Jason the Firefighter, Mister Fixer-Upper. The fists turned to fingernails, she clawed at his eyes, a mewling growl in her throat that came from some part of her he didn’t know and at last he felt afraid.
The knife went in easily, and he wasn’t even sure at first where his hand was or what he’d done. But she winced as though from a punch, buckled, backed away, holding her side. The blood came quick, bubbling between her fingers—he’d cut an artery—a giant smear on the sundress where she pressed her hand.
He remembered that very first night: dinner at Enoteca, champagne with appetizers, a velvety Barolo with the entrees, Armagnac with espresso and dessert, then speeding in her Beamer ragtop to the condo in Lafayette, her unbuckling and unzipping him, stroking him, gripping him, that distinctly feminine brand of ownership, then almost stumbling up the walkway to her door, his pants slipping to mid-hip, a couple teenagers whisper-giggling around the pool—he pressed her against the door as she worked the key, then the two of them tumbled inside, he lifted her off her feet in the entry, her legs locked tight around his waist as he entered her, a good hard hello, a shot across the bow of love, pushing, pushing as she whispered—yeah, come on, yeah, Jay, yeah, give it to me—and he exploded within her then as the knife did now, for he’d stepped in close to stab, stab again.
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