FATHER'S DAY - NOVEL - EPISODE FOUR

Hey Blogsphere Folks: Father's Day - the novel - is the source material for the feature film being produced by my production company. Hope you enjoy reading Earl's story.
...And please check out the exciting trailer - starring the amazing John Billlingsley (Star Trek, 2012, Hawaii Five-O) for the film HERE

FATHER’S DAY

Written by: James M. Russell

Copyright 2015© James M. Russell

 
Chapter 26

The two detectives ascended in silence then shot out through the elevator doors the moment they parted. They began impatiently punching their computer keyboards, even before the machines had finished booting. 

Wallish: Five foot what? Seven to ten?”

Mathison: “Yep.”

Wallish: “Eighteen to thirty.”

Mathison: “Yep.”

Wallish: “Hundred and fifty?”

Mathison: “Not a pound over hundred and thirty-five. You must be due for your annual vision test old man? White male, brown hair, no visible tattoos.”

Wallish: “We need more qualifiers or we’re gonna…”

Just then, Detective Wallish pressed the ‘enter’ button on his keyboard.

Mathison:  “Oh wonderful, you’ve narrowed the list of possible suspects down to a manageable five hundred and sixty-three perps.”

Wallish: “Perhaps I was hasty.”

Mathison: “Perhaps you should switch to decaf.”

Wallish: “You’re a laugh-a-minute Zack. So, what about applying a filter for recent releases and…”

Detective Mathison hit another key.

Mathison: “…and with arson related priors.”

The two men leaned back nearly simultaneously into their chairs and stared at their computer screens.

Mathison: “You wanna take A to L?”

Wallish: “Yep. But what about screening for…”

Mathison: “Zack, Timmins. First name Ian. Crappy photo, but it could be our boy.”

Detective Mathison punched his keyboard, then scanned the information on his screen, “Sorta looks like our suspect. But just two days out of lock up. You don’t think he’d be that stupid?”

Wallish: “Hey it wasn’t his superior intellect that got him upstate in the first place. You read the psych analysis top sheet?”

Mathison: “They use too many big words. Gives me a headache. What’s the executive summary of the executive summary?”

Wallish: “Possibility that he will re-offend. Mild to moderate sociopathic tendencies. Possible neurological damage resulting in psycho….

Mathison: “See what I mean…!”

Wallish: “Psychogenic propen…”

Mathison: “Charlie! Stop. You’re killin’ me. So, you wanna have a chat with young Timmins or not?”

Wallish: “Yeah. I guess so.”

Mathison: “We having difficulty making decisions these days, Charlie?”

Wallish: “I don’t know about you, but I’m bushed.”

Mathison: “So we’ve been working long hours. So we haven’t had a day off in three weeks. So it’s late at night.”

Wallish: “Morning actually.”

Mathison: “Thank you for that chronological correction Detective Wallish. Now let’s go talk to Timmins.”

Wallish: “You wanna run this through ViCAP? The Bureau might…”

Mathison: “Talk first.”

Wallish: “You know his parole officer is gonna whine like a little girl if we don’t give him a heads up.”

Mathison: “Let him whine. First, we need to hear what kind of alibi the kid comes up with. Anything on the parents?”

Wallish: “Mother and father are clean.”

Mathison: “Charlie, you’re such a kidder.”

Wallish: “Not even a speeding ticket. Kinda makes you feel sorry for the poor folks.”

Mathison: “Hey, fuck sorry. Their kid’s a convicted felon. Only sorry I can think of is sorry they didn’t kill him at birth.”

Wallish: “Zack, did you remember to take your empathy pills today?”

Mathison: “Forgot to refill the prescription.”

Chapter 27:

The room was dark, still, and silent, but for the excited clatter of the movie projector’s metal gears and the relentless tap – tap – tap of a Super 8 mm film end slapping against the projector’s metal bulb housing.

Tap – tap – tap.

One tap with each revolution of the clear plastic take-up reel.

Earl, dressed in green track pants and a faded, blue sweatshirt, lay asleep in his easy chair. And although his body appeared to be still, his eyes jerked about, perhaps reacting to a home movie memory being replayed in his mind.

From overhead drifted down the gentle sound of footsteps as Wanda descended the stairs, crossed the foyer to the family room door, then stopped. As the door swung open, the harsh white light from the antique brass light fixture mounted in the foyer ceiling cast a tombstone shaped swath of light across the carpeted floor.

Wanda, barefooted and wrapped in her green terry bathrobe, tiptoed in, switched off the projector then covered Earl with a Shetland wool blanket.

“Ian home yet?” he asked, still not fully awake.

Wanda kissed Earl's forehead, lightly, at about where his hairline was ten years ago.

“Not yet, Dear. Not yet.”

But Earl had already drifted back to sleep before she finished her answer so Wanda made another small adjustment to his blanket then crept into the foyer and closed the door softly behind her.

She hadn’t told her husband about the mess Ian left in the kitchen. He would have just gotten upset. And over what? It took her less than thirty seconds to straighten up. Ian was probably just in a hurry she figured. Young people these days always are.

Wanda was about to switch off the foyer light when she noticed the wooden cuckoo looking down on her from its perch atop the clock. And for just an instant, a wave of sadness washed over her. Wanda never thought of herself as being a particularly sentimental person. Still, when she looked at the stranded bird, sitting expectantly on its perch, it made her just a little bit teary.

The spell broke when the doorbell suddenly began playing God Save the Queen.

Wanda scurried to the door and peeked through the viewer at the two men, both dressed in suits, standing on her front porch.

“Who is it?” she called out in a forced whisper then watched as they each pulled back the right side of their suit jackets to reveal identical looking badges clipped to their identical looking belts.

“Police ma'am,” Detective Wallish said.

Wanda undid the deadbolt as quietly as possible then pulled open the door.

“Mrs. Timmins?”

“Yes?”

 “I'm Detective Wallish of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and this is my partner, Detective Mathison.”

Wanda forgot their names as soon as the black man said them; she was more concerned that their voices might wake up Earl.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” she replied, standing straight and unafraid.

Before either detective had a chance to reply, the family room door opened slowly and Earl, his eyes still full of sleep, stepped into the unlit foyer and stood beside his wife.

“What's wrong?” Earl asked.

“Nothing. Mr. Timmins, I assume. We'd just like to talk to your son.”

“About?” Wanda said.

“The fire at the Marina Del….”

But Wanda interrupted him, “Why? You think it was our Ian that hurt that boy?”

“What boy?” Earl asked the officers then when it was clear that they were not going to answer, he redirected his questioning look toward Wanda.

“It was on the news Earl.” She said then spun around toward the detectives.

"But our Ian didn’t have nothin’ to do with it. Nothin,” she shouted.

Detective Wallish locked eyes with Earl. “We’re from homicide, Mr. Timmins. The victim died.”

Wanda's gasp was so sudden, her recovery so quick, that none of the men, not the two cops, not even her husband, noticed.

“Nothin’ to do with...”

“Wanda!” Earl barked, cutting her off.

Wallish and Mathison both retreated a pace, feeling it prudent to put more space between them and the angry mother.

“And who are you to talk anyway? You’re the ones who locked our boy up, in a prison filled with animals.” Wanda’s anger suddenly turned to terror, the terror to fear, and the fear to tears as she repeated in a near sob,"... nothin' but animals."

Earl laid his arm across his wife's shoulder and pulled her close to him.

Wallish and Mathison allowed Earl and Wanda a moment before Wallish felt compelled to ask, in an even, practiced tone, “Mr. Timmins. Is your son home?”

“He is not!” Wanda shouted, with renewed fury.

Detective Wallish reached into the pocket of his badge wallet and pulled out a business card, which he handed to Earl.

“Would you please give us a call if you have any information about your son's whereabouts Mr. Timmins?”

“I will.”

“No, he won't, ‘Cause it's not our Ian. An' you can't prove it is.”

But Wallish and Mathison had already turned and began walking to their car. Earl closed the door abruptly, leaving Wanda shouting at the ceramic Home Sweet Home plaque held by shiny brass screws to the back of the door.

Wanda suddenly wiped the tears from her eyes with her hands then smiled.

“Well, we told them didn't we?”

"Where's Ian, Wanda?"

"I don’t know, I really don’t.”

Earl reached into the foyer closet then pulled out his denim jacket then scooped up his car keys from its bowl beside the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Ian.”

"Find him and what?”

“Bring him home then have him call this detective. We have to get this whole thing cleared up. Ian can't afford to get on the wrong side of the law again.”

Earl waited for Wanda to reply, then slipped on his coat and zipped it up.

“Don't worry Baby. I'll…we'll be home soon.”

And with that, Earl stepped outside into the morning chill. He didn't kiss his wife goodbye; there was no point even trying and he knew it.

High up, the dusty cuckoo watched as Wanda took several steps backward then sat heavily on a step. Her tears began slowly, then poured out in great sorrowful gasps.

And the cuckoo felt her pain.

Chapter 28:

Earl didn’t drive Ole Grand much at night and, if he did, it was only to take Wanda to visit a sick friend or pick up something from the grocery store. He rarely went out this late and never downtown. Not in the last ten years anyway.

When Ian was a kid, Saturday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles was a family ritual. Wanda loved the flea markets and discount clothing stores while father and son played catch in the parkette near the courthouse, or video games at the Brownlea Arcade or window-shopped. That’s why downtown was the first place that Earl thought to look for Ian.

Although Downtown Los Angeles is spread out for miles, most of it sit between the 110 highway on the west, Alameda on the east, the 101 on the north, and East Washington Boulevard on the south.

Earl noted that the turn signals were working again as he exited the 10 at Grand then went west along East Washington and north on Figueroa, a street that would lead him into the heart of the downtown district.  

As he had expected, everything looked different, either newer and cleaner, or older and dirtier. The Staples Center was a new addition. Figueroa, which bordered the gleaming Center, was now one-way and wider. Further along, he noted that his favorite store, Woolworth’s, was dark, its display windows vacant.

All this Earl noticed while scanning the urban landscape, hoping to see his son.

Earl didn't think that Ian had done anything wrong, after all he just got out of jail two days ago, but just having the police thinking their Ian might have done something bad was bad enough. Earl was sure that, once he found his son, he and Wanda and Ian could get all this business cleared up before it got out of hand.

Earl had reached the east end of the downtown core and was waiting for a break in traffic so that he could make a U-turn when he noticed a group of about five men congregated on the sidewalk, most of them with their backs to the street. Earl thought that one of the men looked a bit like Ian. He was about Ian's height, weight and had the same stature; the only difference was that this guy was wearing a hooded sweatshirt instead of Ian's leather jacket. But Earl had to be sure so he steered Ole Grand to the curb, eased her into park and watched the men while wishing that his eyes were twenty years younger.

Earl saw the hooded man and another guy exchange money for something, Earl couldn't tell what, then they began arguing about something. It didn’t take long before one of the men, a little guy with a red baseball cap, glanced out into the street and spotted Earl. It appeared to Earl that the little guy said just one word and the group immediately broke apart and disbursed in wildly different directions. The hooded man turned down the narrow alley between two boarded up stores.

Earl struggled out of Ole Grand and shouted.

“Ian!”

But the Hooded Man responded by breaking into a run and soon disappeared into the bowels of a nearby alley.

Earl stepped out into the street without looking only to be met by the painful blast of a taxi's horn and squealing tires. Checking traffic both ways this time, Earl hurried across the street and plunged into the gloomy alley.

He had traveled only a few yards when he began shuffling his feet along the ground rather than risk tripping over some unseen obstacle. Further and further, he continued into the void, surrounded by a cocoon of silence and uncertainty.

“Ian?”

Earl didn't have time to react as the Hooded Man lunged from the shadows, put Earl in a headlock, and held a pearl handled straight razor to his throat.

“You ain't no cop. So who you working for?”

It took several moments for Earl to understand the Hooded Man's thick southern accent.

“No. I'm not working for anybody.”

“Don’t fuck with me, old man.”

“I'm looking for my son, Ian.”

The Hooded Man paused for a moment to size up Earl’s answer then chuckled.

“So what is it... past his bedtime?”

“No, no...”

Earl shifted his right leg and tried to pull free, but the Hooded Man was much younger and stronger.

“Aww... he ripped you off.”

“No. Look, will you let me go? Please.”

The Hooded Man released Earl's neck, then grabbed a handful of his thinning hair and snapped Earl's head back.

“You know, now I'm kinda curious. Wha' did your fuckin' son do that you gotta come lookin' for him Daddy?”

“That’s none of your busi…”

The Hooded Man gave Earl’s hair another tug then pressed the razor to his throat.

“Wrong answer. Prepare to die old man.”

“No, No. He didn't do anything. The police came to our house. Just to talk to him about something. Ian's not the one they're looking for but he needs to... you know, get all this cleared up.”

“How old's your kid?”

“Well, he'll be twenty-three in…”

The Hooded Man suddenly released Earl’s hair then shoved him aside in disgust.

“What the fuck! Look old man let me give you some free advice. Butt outta his life. You ain't the cops and you ain't his mommy.”

Earl stood upright and straightened his clothes.

"He's about your height, and weight and he usually wears a black leather… ."

 “Are you out of your mind fool? Get outta my neighborhood. It's dangerous down here. Some crack head might jus’ grab you in a dark alley and cut your fuckin' throat. Go home Vigilante Man!”

“…leather jacket and a baseball…”

Earl's voiced trailed off as he began shuffling backward, putting more and more distance between him and his attacker. Eventually, he turned and began walking back toward the street. High atop a concrete pole, a light blazed, it was not bright enough or close enough to pierce the shadowy walls but it managed nevertheless to give the dew soaked asphalt a faint glean, making it easier for him to negotiate his way around the trash that littered the ground.

Earl's heart pounded relentlessly, but he kept moving, he had to get back to his car, back to the safety and security of his old friend. But he seemed not to be making any progress as the brightly lit street raced further into the distance. It was only after Earl broke into a run, his feet shuffling noisily on the grit covered concrete, that he eventually won the race. But as he lowered himself into the driver's seat, then slammed the door shut, his hands continued to shake so violently that it took several tries before he managed to lock the door. There was a slight pause, less than a moment while Earl struggled to focus quell his fear and slow his racing thoughts, but instead Earl Timmins suddenly exploded in anger and frustration, punching the steering wheel once, then again. The second time his knuckles missed and his fingers crashed into the dashboard. Earl winced from the pain then cradled his injured hand, waiting for the agony to subside.  He hated himself for getting so angry. He hated himself for breaking his promise  The promise he made twenty-five years ago, the day that a thief stole Wanda's purse. Twenty-five years ago but it seemed like yesterday.

----------

Wanda had thought it would be a wonderful idea to spend part of the Labor Day weekend at the San Diego Zoo. Well, evidently many other people had the same great idea because the place was packed, or at least the parking lot was. Earl and Wanda finally found a spot to park Ole Grand, but only after circling around for nearly half an hour. By that time, it was 11:48, so they unpacked the lunch stuff, found a strip of grass on the outer border of the parking lot and had their picnic.

That was the first time that they really discussed the subject.

“Earl, you think there’s something wrong with me?”

Earl was always amazed at his wife's ability to make great leaps of subject matter. One minute they’re talking about tomatoes and the next minute it’s ‘family planning.’ Earl’s brain wasn't built that way. He’d work through a topic until it was finished then, and only then, did he move onto something new.

“What do you mean?”

“You know.”

Earl took up his wife’s hand and caressed it.

“Not necessarily your pipes that need fixin’. Could be mine.”

------------

The lives together started just as they had planned. Married a year after they graduated from high school. Lived with his parents until they could save up enough money for first and last months rent on an apartment. Saved until they had the down payment for their house.

But the plans kind of stalled with it came to the next item, ‘have kids.’

“So you think we both should go to the doctor?”

“You know how I feel about that profession.”

“We’ve just about tried everything else.”

“What about doing it in an airplane? I heard that the altitude is good for the little fishies and eggies.”

And then both of them, husband and wife, lovers, friends, and companions, started to laugh and laugh until they were nearly too exhausted to breathe. It was nearly one o’clock by the time they finished eating and cleaned up. The crowds had thinned a bit so the line of people that snaked from each of the four admission booths wasn’t more than twenty or thirty deep. Earl and Wanda were about three-quarters of the way to the front when it happened.

Pickpockets have used the same, time-honored technique for years – distract and extract. In this case, the distraction was a group of three well-behaved teenagers, one of whom suddenly, and inexplicably, tripped and fell as she was walking past the line. As Earl and Wanda reached out to help the flustered teen, a second teen, out of their field of vision, slipped Earl’s wallet from his back pocket and already had her hand in Wanda’s purse when somebody, a sharp-eyed person in one of the other lines, shouted “Lady! Your purse!”

Wanda reached back immediately. So fast that her hand brushed the pickpocket’s as the thief was withdrawing Wanda’s red beaded wallet. Earl grabbed the left arm of the pickpocket just above the elbow and even though the kid was a quarter of Earl’s age and full of speed and energy he couldn’t break Earl’s construction worker grip. The more the kid struggled to break free the tighter Earl squeezed until the kid finally cried out in pain.

“Earl!”

But Earl’s anger was so deep that he neither heard his wife nor recognized the kid’s agony. Finally, Wanda reached out and laid her hand on her husband muscle-tensed arm. He released the pickpocket immediately and the young thief disappeared into the crowd.

Earl staggered then leaned against a nearby lamp pole. His face was bright red, his body shook uncontrollably. Wanda was afraid he was going to have a heart attack or stroke or some kind of seizure. Earl looked up and saw the look of terror in his wife’s face.

“I’m OK, Babes.”

But Earl wasn’t OK, and it took nearly an hour of sitting in the zoo’s first aid office before his pulse and blood pressure returned to normal.

----------

Sitting in the silent interior of Ole Grand, Earl’s pulse finally slowed and his vision cleared to the point that he could read the street signs. He knew that Wanda would be worried so he started the engine and steered Ole Grand toward home. There wasn’t much more he could do. Ian was probably home anyway and all of this was a waste of time. Still, Earl worried. Worried about whether his son would fit in with the guys at work. Worried about whether his parole officer would be fair and give the kid a chance. Like Wanda said, Ian didn’t have anything to do with the terrible death of that young man. Ian went to a movie. No way that he could have been involved. Ian had learned his lesson and was sorry, said so right there in court. Said it to the man’s wife. The judge heard Ian say he was sorry. Everybody heard.

Ian was a different person now.

Older.

Wiser.

More settled.

Earl was certain of it.

The light at Broadway and 7th turned red and Earl slowed to a stop. He stared in wonder at his still trembling hands. Earl was no scrapper, but he was no coward either; so he couldn’t understand why he was so scared back there in the alley.

Really scared.

And angry.

Angry at himself.

----------

Ian cut down the Terrainian Death Fighters with ease, so he wasn’t surprised when the video game screen flashed “winner”, just pumped for the next round and determined to better his all-time best score in Galactic Challenge. As the next wave of enemy fighters swooped from behind the Martian moon, Ian stood ready to meet the challenge, so ready and so focused that he didn't notice the 1985 Grand Marquis that pulled to a stop outside the arcade's front window. Nor did he notice the frightened old man sitting in the driver's seat, staring at his hands.

Chapter 29:

MDRPD headquarters, or ‘the warehouse’ as it was known in the department, is located on the third floor of a five storey office building directly above the Ralph’s Grocery Store on Lincoln. In keeping with the department’s ‘open communications’ directive, all the interior walls had been removed.

Detectives Wallish and Mathison’s modular workspaces were separated by some high-tech material designed to deaden sound transmission.

It was 4:30 in the morning by the time the two detectives returned to The Warehouse from interviewing a couple of people about a different case. They separated as they entered The Warehouse's lobby, with Mathison waiting for the elevator while his partner took the fire stairs.

Wallish was the first to reach their floor and immediately noticed the silence. Normally the noise level on floor five was deafening, but the caffeine-powered morning shift wasn’t due to arrive for another hour and the red-eyed souls of the night shift had been reduced by exhaustion to moving at a languid pace and speaking only when necessary.

Mathison stepped out of the elevator carrying two trophies from the second floor vending machine, a French vanilla coffee and a maple-glazed donut sheathed in cellophane.

Wallish noticed.

“Thought the doctor told you to cut back on the trans-fats.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

Detectives Wallish and Mathison had just entered the fourteenth hour of their eight-hour shift, but there was no way they could claim for anything past their regular eight. Overtime for Homicide had been suspended until the new budget, now in the process of being cut to rat shit by the politicians, was approved. So, for the past six hours, Wallish and Mathison had been working pro bono, a frequent practice that drove the union reps into rabid fits.

Wallish dropped into his chair, booted up his PC then stared at the blank screen.

“Any messages?” his partner said.

“Yea. Jesus called from his cell phone -- he’s on his way to the east coast, Jack the Ripper just touched base to let us know that he was still alive and well, and Janet Jackson called to cancel the lunch date that the two of you had for tomorrow.”

“Guess that means no messages.”

 “Piece of crap is still booting.”

Detective Wallish had his right hand in the air, ready to slap his monitor when the screen flashed to life, but it was Detective Mathison’s PC that provided the answer.

“E-mail from Patty in forensics.”

“And?”

“The lab guys…”

“Technicians Zack. Technicians”

“Patty! Says! That her fuckin’ lab ‘whatevers!’ got a partial print off a piece of the bottle.”

“Enough to get a match?”

“Maybe, maybe not. She sent it to Charlie for a database search."

Wallish sighed deeply before he spoke.  "It’s the Timmins kid.”

“What about Lester Philips, Charles Glass, and that moron…”

“Intellectually-challenged suspect.”

“… in Fullerton, the one who got busted for setting those fires three years ago.”

“The guy we saw looked just like Timmins. The Gonsalves woman’s description sounded just like Timmins. M.O. fits. The psych profile fits. Timmins is our perp.”

“So all we need to do is find young Mr. Timmi…”

“Those parents of his were lyin’. Bet ya he’s home.”

“Absolutely. Right now he’s sittin’ on the family sofa watching a re-run of Friends. Just waitin’ for us to cuff him.”

“You remember that criminal psychology seminar last year? The one you slept through.”

 “I was just restin’ my eyes.”

“For seven hours? Anyway, the shrink...

“…psychologist.”

“The shrink said that perps like the Timmins kid don’t tend to stray far from home.”

“And on the subject of ‘home’, I say we put his name and description out over NCIC then go to ours.”

“I say we put him up on NCIC then grab a couple stale sandwiches from the vending machine and fill up our thermos at Winchell’s.”

“A stake out?  You suffering from early Alzheimer’s Charlie? Lieutenant Frederick ‘El Mondo Cheapo’ Russell will never go for it.”

“Fairy tales can come true. It can happen to you. If you’re young at heart.”

Wallish sang like a toad but his partner got the idea.

“OK partner but it’s your funeral.”

Wallish shut off his PC then struggled out of his chair.

“Mind if I wait here?” Mathison said as he leaned back in his chair and set his feet on the desk. “Over the years I’ve kind of grown fond of you ole man so I’d rather not have to witness your sudden and violent death.”

Chapter 30:

Arlington Avenue, as it travels through Torrance, is short and undistinguished. The street actually begins just north of the train tracks then travels south in a zigzag pattern past Sepulveda and into the city of Lomita where it meets its final, rather ignoble end at Lomita Boulevard.

At its beginnings in the early 1900s, California was a rough and tumble state, full of gold diggers, real estate developers, and entrepreneurs, all hoping to make a quick buck. A hundred years later that description still holds true.

It was those developers, nearly all of them from the east coast, who started the housing boom. In Malibu, they built sturdy ranch houses and in Beverly Hill, sprawling estates, but in Torrance they threw up mostly-adequate plaster and wood structures for the growing legions of blue-collar workers. Adequate, that is, as long as Mother Nature, in the form of termites and earthquakes, was kind.

Earl and Wanda, then, twenty-four and twenty-three respectively, bought 2451 Arlington Avenue in 1970. The two-bedroom bungalow wasn't new, of course, even back then. A man and woman owned it before. Some said they were husband and wife, and some said they were brother and sister. Most of the neighbors agreed that he was an electrician, she, a dressmaker, and that they kept pretty much to themselves. The original owners lived in 2451 for more than forty years before they decided that they'd had enough of California and headed back to the peace and quiet of Elk City, Oklahoma.

The total selling price of the house was $12,450. Of course, Earl and Wanda didn’t have that kind of money but they had saved half and Earl’s father, lent them the other half. After all the papers were signed and the checks made out at closing, Earl and Wanda were left with $5.36 in their savings account.

Moving day had been quite a challenge. Earl and Ken made four round trips in their green, open bed truck. The last trip was to Sears and Roebucks to pick up a new, blue-and-white-striped sofa that Wanda had bought using her sister's employee discount. If she had taken the time to measure the front door of their new home, she never would have bought such a large piece of furniture. Fortunately, a couple of the neighbors pitched in and helped Ken and Earl squeeze it into the house, but only after Earl removed the front door from its hinges.

All the neighbors paid a visit to welcome them to the neighborhood. Some brought homemade cakes or cookies, some brought fruit baskets, others just came to snoop. Earl and Wanda called it quits around eleven o'clock that first night. With the help of their new neighbours the furniture had all been put in place and most of the boxes unpacked. So, while Earl washed two coffee cups, Wanda set some milk to heat up on the white enamel Admiral range. Midnight found them sitting hand in hand on the front steps of their new home, sipping hot chocolate and listening to the crickets.

----------

Detective Wallish’s request for overtime did not prompt Lieutenant Cheapo to fly into a fit of homicidal rage. In fact, El Cheapo didn’t even raise his voice. Instead the Lieutenant simply mumbled, “Yes” without looking up from the file he was reading.

Without another word being spoken, Wallish backed out of the Lieutenant’s office as sheepishly as he had entered.

What Wallish didn’t know was that less than ten minutes ago the Chief, who was calling from home, had ripped the Lieutenant a new asshole because, two minutes before, the mayor did the same to him, over, you guess it, his handling of the Molotov Murder case.

----------

“Don't hear crickets very often in L.A.”

Mathison really didn’t feel like talking about bugs so he kept his answer as short as possible.

“Nope.”

The two men were thirty minutes into their stakeout and although the street outside 2451 Arlington Avenue was still laden with a blanket of night, the eastern sky was beginning to glow gently in shades of candy orange and baby blue.

Mathison was slouched so far down in his seat that if he went any lower the dashboard would have blocked his view of the Timmins’s house. Wallish maintained perfect posture as he sat behind the wheel. Doctor's orders.

Even though they were both Detectives First Class, Wallish made $75.20 per hour – regular time; his partner, who had less seniority with the department, only made $68.

“I used to listen to them for hours when I was a kid. You know how they make that sound?”

Detective Matheson wasn’t the least interested, but he knew that his partner was going to tell him anyway.

“It’s just the male crickets. They only do it to attract the female. The sound, which comes from them rubbing their forewings together, averages between eighty and one hundred decibels.”

“Very interesting.”

Mathison knew that once his partner got started on one of trivia rants nothing, short of a miracle, or major calamity would silence him until his stockpile of irrelevant information, and his suffering audience, had been exhausted.

“You know where the word cricket comes from?”

“We should probably check in with the dispatcher just so…”

 “It comes from the word criquet which is Old French for 'to creak'.”

Wallish’s lecture continued for nineteen minutes and thirty-four seconds. Mathison knew because he timed it.

-----------

Ian hadn't noticed the midnight blue Crown Vic parked across the street from the Peters’s house. Nor did he see the two men sitting in its dark interior. However, he did see the green watch light flash on then off.

He should have been pissed. After all, it was late, and he was tired and wanted to sleep in his own bed. But he wasn't angry; in fact, he smiled broadly then chuckled. This was his chance to show the cops who was smarter, and have some fun doing it.

Ian didn’t have to backtrack far down Arlington until he found a rag caught in the metal grate of a rain sewer. The sun was starting to rise so he had to be careful. He couldn’t take a chance that the cops might see him in the rear or side mirrors. Fortunately, a Dodge pickup truck was parked directly behind the Crown Vic, allowing Ian to creep up to the cops by crawling under the truck. He wasn't in the best of shape for traveling on all fours but he found that if he stayed on his left side, where there were no deep cuts or bruises, it didn’t hurt too much. And, at least he was out of sight.

It took him less than fifteen seconds to stuff the rag up the Crown Vic’s tailpipe.

“Try to start your fuckin’ car now you fuckin’ stupid cops!” he said in a whisper before crawling back under the Dodge, hurrying down Arlington, and disappearing into the morning.

Chapter 31:

If you drive west on Wilshire, the crest shaped sign on the north-west corner of San Vicente reads Beverly Hills, but it’s impossible to really appreciate the opulence that begins at that boundary until you veer off the main drag and cruise the side streets. The multi-million dollar homes sitting on park-sized lots are monuments to the economic excesses of what America so self-servingly refers to as the fruits of free enterprise.

To get to the Ferguson's neo-colonial, six bedroom, three bath, fourteen thousand square foot home, you have to drive north on San Ysidro, then right on Beth to Beverly Village: a gated community nestled in the foothills overlooking Los Angeles.

There are only three ways into Beverly Village: one at the north end, one at the south, and one on the west. The Beverly Village Neighborhood Patrol, or BVNP as the private cops are called, screen all visitors attempting to enter. Once the reason for their visit has been validated, typically with a phone call, the officers escort the visitors to their destination, just so they don’t get lost on Beverly Village’s one main road, or three side streets. The BVNP wear finely tailored uniforms, drive the latest model cars and have the best equipment. New applicants are required to exceed the physical and educational requirements of even the prestigious Beverly Hills Sheriff Department, who require a minimum of sixty credits at a recognized community college, while  a lowly high school diploma is all you need for acceptance to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Inside number twelve Beverly Village, Samuel and Heather Ferguson and their two children, Sara-Ann and Anthony lived a quiet, orderly life. At least they did until six hours ago.

Mr. Ferguson was still dressed in the track suit he wore to the hospital as he sat reading at an elegant double pedestal desk which sat on a circular, blood red and sandstone grey Turkish carpet, which was itself set in the middle of a cavernous room. On the west wall, books, mostly the works of great thinkers, artists and writers, filled an oak shelving unit that reached from floor to ceiling, beginning with a picture book of the works of the Italian pre-Impressionist Guiseppe Abbati and ending, on the right side of the bottom shelf, with the autobiography of the German spy Gertrud Margaret Zelle. The east wall, punctuated by two crystalline windows, was covered with framed photos, certificates, awards, ribbons, kindergarten art and other treasured mementos of lives lived, of successes immortalized, of times relished.

Mr. Ferguson lowered his wife’s timeworn Bible to the desktop and rubbed his eyes. He had always thought of himself as a religious man but reading the Lord's words on this sorry morning brought him no peace. He was already half way through 1st Peter and had found nothing.

No revelation to deaden his pain.

No profundity to fill his heart with forgiveness.

No inspirational words to still his racing mind and allow his exhausted body to sleep. 

Mr. Ferguson was staring without joy at the warm morning sun as it streamed through the arched window on the east side of the study when the cuckoo clock in the foyer chimed six times. On a normal day Mr. Ferguson, a corporate relations specialist at Prologue Communications, would rise at five, exercise for thirty minutes, shower and shave. By six he’d be sitting at this very desk, staring at this very computer screen, reviewing the tasks for the day and checking his e-mail, but this was anything other than a normal day.

Mr. Ferguson lifted the screen of his Dell laptop more out of habit than purposefully. The screen, as usual, flashed on then settled into a familiar look, but instead of checking his e-mail Mr. Ferguson went to Google.com and typed the word revenge into the search field window. The screen blinked then returned four million, two hundred and eighty thousand hits in .55 seconds.

The first URL, a Bible site, listed sixteen verses that contained the word revenge or dealt with a related subject. Three of the verses caught his eye so Mr. Ferguson picked up his Montblanc fountain pen and began to write on his yellow legal pad. And when he had copied those three he clicked on another site and another and another. Eventually, Mr. Ferguson’s fingers grew tired and he stopped, capped his pen and set it on the desktop. He reviewed all that he had written, pausing on every word. Pondering the lesson contained in each verse.

But Mr. Ferguson wasn’t looking for truth or depth of understanding, he wanted permission and it wasn’t until he stumbled across a bible school website that he found it in Deuteronomy 32:35. Mr. Ferguson wrote out the verse in a series of careful lines and gentile curves then picked up his wife’s Bible and went directly to the passage and read it again and again. Each pass both quieted his conscience and inflamed the hatred in his heart until a soft knock on the closed double door distracted him from his rage. “Come in,” he said although he would have much preferred “go away!”

Heather Moore, or HM as all but Mrs. Ferguson called her to keep from getting the two Heathers confused, was the Fergusons’ housekeeper or Home Assistant as the agency called them. HM had been with the Fergusons nearly eighteen months now and though she'd rather be back home in Lionel Town, Jamaica raising her two young daughters, she had long ago resigned herself to the career path that found her caring for other people's children instead. The two hundred dollars that she sent home every month was the only money her unemployed husband had to pay the bills and feed their children. She didn’t mind the Fergusons. The house, though large, was easy to keep clean, and on the few occasions that she had slept over, she hadn’t felt compelled to lock her bedroom door. HM’s previous employer was a nasty woman who couldn’t keep her hands to herself.

“Sorry to bother you sir. But the Times has arrived.”

Mr. Ferguson stared at the newspaper that HM held in her rough hands. From somewhere in the house, the sound of a woman sobbing drifted in through the open door.

“Yes, I'll take it thank you.”

HM stepped lightly across the expensive carpet and set the newspaper, folded width wise, with the masthead up, in front of Mr. Ferguson. She noted the open Bible with particular interest since she had never thought of her employer as a religious man. Mrs. Ferguson, yes, but not him. Of course, it was not unusual for people to turn to the Lord’s words in time of great sorrow and this was certainly one of those times. So it was not the presence of the bible that sparked her curiosity but the passage he had chosen.  HM so wanted to share the word of The Lord with Mr. Ferguson but she was a professional and a professional needed to always be respectful of the employer-employee boundaries of acceptable subject-matter. HM knew full well that ‘religion’ fell well outside those boundaries.

“Can I get you anything, sir?” she asked in a near whisper and without looking at Mr. Ferguson.

“My son,” he murmured, and although HM heard him clearly enough she didn't quite know how to respond.

“Sir?”

Mr. Ferguson forced a smile then opened the newspaper and laid it out in front of him.

“No, nothing HM, thank you.”

  

HM was half way to the door when she could no longer hold her tongue.

“You’re reading Deuteronomy Sir?”

“Yes, are you familiar with it?”

HM allowed herself a casual smile, her first ever in the presence of Mr. Ferguson.

“Yes sir, I know the Lord’s words backward and forwards. Have from a very early age.”

Mr. Ferguson picked up the Bible with his left hand and held it with scholarly regard, as would a teacher in conducting his class.

“Then you must know 32:35.”

The blood drained from HM's face and her heart sank. Slowly she raised her eyes until they fully engaged those of her employer, something she rarely did.

“Yes, Sir. I know it but…”

“But what HM?”

“Sir, those are the Lord’s words..”

“Yes?”

“They're only for the Lord.”

“And what are the words HM?”

“I have to go, Sir. I have Mrs. Ferguson’s tea brewing."

“What are the words HM?”

“Ring if you need anything sir,” she murmured before turning sharply and bolting through the open door. The sound of her hurried footsteps played a staccato beat as she made her escape down the hall and into the kitchen.

Mr. Ferguson set the bible softly to one side of his desk while he fought back the tears that flooded his eyes transforming the clean crisp newsprint into a pool of coagulating blacks and greys.

It took a few minutes but his vision eventually cleared and he continued scanning the morning’s LA Times. He found the article he was looking for on page three.

“Molotov Killer Strikes LA Teen”

Mr. Ferguson read the entire article, pausing only once when he used his fountain pen to circle the phrase “no arrests have been made, but the police are continuing their investigation.” The five hundred word article appeared on the bottom left hand corner of the page, next to a small box listing the names of the Los Angeles Times owners and the phone numbers of the news desk, advertising, home delivery and photo sales.

Mr. Ferguson used a pair of stainless steel scissors to cut out the report of his son's death then stared at it while he tossed the remainder of the newspaper into the oval trash basket beside his desk. Samuel Ferguson wondered if that was the sum total of how the world would be informed of the passing of his son, those few words on an inside page of a newspaper printed on recycled wood fiber. As Mr. Ferguson stared at the article, he noticed its symmetry. The justified borders, the way the k in killer sat directly above the upper case L.A. How the writing credit “by Hugo Alvarez, Times Staff Writer” was placed one line below the article and flush left to imply completion. So ordered and efficient.

Mr. Ferguson used the back of his hand to wipe the rivulets of tears from his cheeks then closed his eyes for a few moments as he often did when he needed to focus on a difficult task. When he opened his eyes again, he looked directly at what he had written on the sheet of yellow legal sized paper.

“It is mine to avenge; I will repay…it is mine to avenge: I will repay.” Over and over he re-read the passage until the fury inherent in those eight words, the weight of a father’s grief, and the tyranny of his rage silenced the voice of goodness and reason within.

Mr. Ferguson opened Microsoft Outlook and clicked on Contacts. Under the A tab he found Lucius Adams; punched a number into the keypad of his cell and listened as it rang once, then again.

A voice, which moments before had probably embraced blissful slumber, answered weakly, “Hello?”

“Lucius? It's Sam. Sam Ferguson. Sorry to bother you so early...”

“Jesus Sam! I heard last night. Jesus! What a terrible… How is he?”

Mr. Ferguson answered matter-of-factly, “Tony succumbed to his injuries Lucius.”

“Jesus Sam. Helen and I are so sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“How’s Heather?”

“Our family doctor gave her a sedative. She's resting.”

“Jesus Christ. If anybody ever did something like that to my family, I’d rip out his heart with my bare fuckin’ hands.”

“Lucius, remember that newspaper guy we met at the Network party last year? Wasn't he an editor at the L.A. Times?”

“Yeah, sports, I'm pretty sure.”

“You remember his name?”

 “No, I don’t…Wait a minute….Wasn’t it Damien somebody? Call Sheila. He was her date.”

“Our Sheila? In HR?”

“Yeah. That's the one.”

“Thanks, Lucius. Sorry I woke you up.”

“No problem. Alarm was about to go off anyway. Listen Sam, if there's anything Helen or I can do. Anything.”

“Nothing right now but thanks Lucius. Have to go.”

“Well keep us posted.”

“Will do. Bye.”

Mr. Ferguson pressed the end button on his phone then clicked on the M tab and Sheila Murray's contact information appeared on the screen. He dialed the number with deliberate stabs of his index finger then waited as the phone rang.

“Hello!” the annoyed woman answered.

“Sheila? Sam Ferguson.”

------------

Felix Sims hadn't been in a good mood even before that barely literate, wannabe jock Damien called and added yet another item to Felix’s already overflowing to-do list. Felix slammed down the telephone then belched, releasing yet another fiery blast of acid reflux.

“Fran!”

Fran Rogers, a twenty-three year old, fresh-faced woman scurried across the newsroom floor and stopped beside Felix’s overburdened desk.

“Fran, my dear, I need you to go to the library and search the files back, say ten…no, make it fifteen years. I’m doing a story on firebugs and need incidents, locations, suspects, any convictions, etc. The usual background stuff. You can put in a little overtime on this if you have to...OK?”

“Who have you designated to receive the research data?”

Felix paused while he summoned all the patience that his fifty-eight years on this earth had brought him, before slowly replying.

“I’m doing the story, so I get all the stuff. Just me. OK?”

“Understood."

“Fran, let’s keep a lid on this. Loose lips sink ships.”

Fran brought her lanky frame to an awkward stop then turned toward Felix.

“Was that more of your sexist bullshit, Felix?”

Felix sighed heavily then stabbed the space bar on his keyboard and reapplied himself to the grammatical correctness of the next day’s front page.

“Names and dates, Fran. Names and dates.”

Fran, never one to miss a chance to pat herself on the back, smiled victoriously then hurried toward the library. Felix waited until Fran was out of sight then downed a mouthful of Pepto-Bismol.

Chapter 32:

Her adolescent lips, overly painted and pierced with a silver stud, turned to a pout when the unseen news reporter thrust the foam-capped microphone into her face and gushed, “What exactly did you see?”

At first, the stout, auburn-haired girl refused to speak but eventually she opened her mouth and the words spilled out in an excited burst.

“It was like the worse thing I ever saw. Tony didn't scream or nothin'. He struggled for a couple seconds, tryin' to get outta his car. Then he quit moving and just sat there. I had to like move back 'cause the flames were so hot.”

The leading edge of Earl's Lazy Boy wasn't designed to conform to a human’s butt so Wanda had to shift her weight frequently to ease the discomfort. All the stations,  KCKA, KCET, KCAL, KABC, had just about the same interviews with the police, the same helicopter aerials of the fire scene, the same excited commentary from fresh-faced kids. Wanda rocked forward and punched the channel up button several times until she was back where she started.

The auburn-haired girl reminded Wanda of Caroline, her sister's daughter. Vince Mendez, KCKA’s bow-tied reporter at the scene suddenly jerked his microphone away from the mouth of the teenage girl and stepped between her and the camera. Behind the bow-tied reporter stood a group of young people. Cyrus Fuller, a lanky, pony-tailed twenty-four-year-old, was among that group.

“We just had word that KCKA has been able to obtain exclusive amateur footage of the victim's car actually burning, taken minutes before the fire crews arrived. The voice you are about to hear is of West Hollywood resident Lennox Hanes describing the scene as he filmed it with his digital video camera.”

Wanda rocked forward, tapped the volume-up button then returned to the edge of the Lazy Boy.

-----------

Earl pulled Ole Grand to a stop in the driveway and shut off the engine. He glanced at his watch. It read 6:23. Earl needed to take a minute to gather his strength for the journey from the driveway to the front door so he slouched down in his seat and stared at his watch. During difficult times in the past, the watch had given him comfort and comfort was what he needed.

-----------

Earl had inherited the Gruen Precision watch from his father's estate. It wasn't expensive. Probably cost thirty or forty dollars new, but it had sentimental value. Eddie, Earl's older brother, had only ever gotten an occasional glance at the Gruen when his father was alive so he figured that it was a Rolex Day Date, a fine Swiss timepiece that cost ten thousand dollars or more. So Eddie had been mad as hell when the probate attorney read the will and found out that their dad left Earl “all his jewelry and watches.”

Earl, Wanda, Eddie, and his wife Phyllis, were still sitting in the lawyer’s office after the reading of the will when Earl opened the 8x11 manila envelope that contained “all” of his father’s jewelry and watches.

Out of the stiff, Manila colored container slid two pairs of gold plated cufflinks and the Gruen. Earl handed the cufflinks to Wanda then slipped his dad's watch onto his wrist. It was only then that Eddie bothered to read the name Gruen, not Rolex, on the watch's face and chuckled.

Earl hadn’t paid much attention to his brother since Eddie turned forty and completed his transformation from occasional asshole to full-time jerk, so Earl paid no attention to Eddie’s disrespectful laugh.

Earl loved his father, and Earl loved that watch.

-----------

The instant Earl tried to swing his feet from the driver’s seat, he was surprised how stiff his legs were. Still, he managed to climb out of Ole Grand but didn't fully shut the driver's door, which might have woken up the neighbors. Instead, he simply closed it enough to extinguish the interior light.

The baby blue sky was even and pure, the Sunday morning air, damp and cool, as Earl walked the thirty feet from the driveway to the front door of his house. He entered quietly, not wanting to wake up his wife, but as soon as the door swung open, he heard the television blaring.

Earl slipped off his coat, hung it in the closet then walked to the family room and leaned against the doorframe while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the brightly lit room. Wanda was so focused on the TV screen and the shaky video footage of the burning car that she never heard him enter. After a few more seconds, Wanda glanced up at the mantle clock then switched channels.

Connie Wang sat alone in a newsroom that consisted of an oval desk and a painted picture of the Los Angeles skyline.

“Good Morning, I’m Connie Wang, KCKA, it is 6:30 a.m. in Los Angeles and this is the news.”

Connie turned to face another camera and then shuffled the papers in her hand for dramatic effect.

“The Molotov Murderer may have struck again as Los Angeles County reels from a second deadly firebomb incident last night. With more, here's KCKA crime reporter Vic Shannon, reporting live from police headquarters. Vic, what's the latest in this grisly murder?”

Vic, an impeccably dressed middle-aged man whose waist showed the effects of too many awards dinners, stood outside the fenced-in police paddock as a flatbed truck backed in through the open, chain-link fence. Atop the flatbed was Tony's blackened Miata. Vic clutched a silver microphone in his beefy left hand, talking while looking directly into the camera. "As you can tell from the activity behind me, the victim's burned car has just arrived here for forensic testing. Technicians will now begin poring over the vehicle for clues in this latest ghastly murder by incineration. The victim, believed to be a male in his late teens or early twent…"

Earl’s legs began to buckle as what remained of his energy suddenly evaporated and a wave of nausea rose from his stomach.

“Babe?” he whispered.

Wanda suddenly leaped from her chair and slapped the on/off button, plunging the television screen into darkness. She wiped the tears from her face then turned.

“My God Earl. You were gone so long. I didn't know if anything... I was afraid that something might have happened to you... did you find Ian?”

Earl shook his head then staggered toward his chair, but she took his arm, draped it over her shoulder, and turned him toward the foyer.

“No, Baby. Let's get you into bed where you'll be more comfortable.”

Earl, leaning heavily on Wanda, shuffled to the bottom of the stairs that led to the second floor, then paused.

“Has he called?”

“No, but I'm sure he will. You think you have the energy to make it to the top?”

“I'm fine. Fit as a fiddle.”

 “OK fiddle, one at a time.”

As Earl set his foot on the first step, Wanda smiled and began to sing softly.

“You put your left foot in…”

Earl smiled with amusement as he lifted his foot and set it on the second step.

“You put your left foot out,” she sang.

And so they continued toward the second floor, with Wanda singing the cheery song and with Earl doubting that he had the energy to climb another step but climbing anyway.

“You put your left foot in and you shake it all about. You do the Hokey Pokey and turn yourself around. That's what it's all about.”

When they were nearly to the top Earl stopped and began to totter.

“Come on Earl. Five more steps.”

And together they resumed climbing.

Two friends.

One step at a time.

------------

Earl, now in his pajamas, lay on his back on the queen-sized bed. The green floral sheet and the white duvet were pulled up to just below his chin. A deep hollow in the feather pillow cradled his head. Earl's eyes were closed, but he was not asleep.

Wanda hurried into the room carrying half a dozen tablets in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She sat on the bed then struggled to lift him.

“Come on. Sit up.”

Earl raised his upper body then, two by two, swallowed his pills, washing each pair down with a quick gulp of water.

“Doctor Wong would have a heart attack if he found out you're stayin' up all hours of the night.”

Earl downed the last duo of pills then fell back heavily onto his pillow.

“I thought I’d found Ian. But it was somebody else. He hasn't called?”

“You get some sleep.”

Wanda switched off Earl's night table lamp then climbed onto her side of the bed, and lay fully clothed atop the duvet.

“It wasn't Ian that hurt that young fella. I’m sure of it.”

“Of course not,” Wanda whispered.

“I hope the police catch whoever did it. That poor boy, he was just a child. Imagine how his parents must feel.”

Wanda stroked Earl's hair.

“Sleep my love.”

“How could someone do such a terrible thing, Wan..?” Earl asked, his voice trailing off into a long overdue slumber.

Wanda stared at Earl's placid face while she continued to stroke his head.

“I don't know my love. I really don't.”

And Wanda truly didn't.

Chapter 33:

It was just past eight in the morning and the desert sun streamed through the east window. The study and the house beyond the closed double doors were silent. Samuel Ferguson lay asleep on the couch, his body curled into a fetal position.

It was his ringing phone that dragged him back to consciousness, and although it took a moment for his brain to remind him that his son was dead, it took no time at all for the heartache to return.

“Hello?…Yes. This is Samuel Ferguson…Hello, Mr. Sims. Were you able…? Yes. I do.”

Mr. Ferguson glanced at his fax machine.

“Thank you. You have my fax number? That’s correct. Thanks again...Goodbye.”

Mr. Ferguson hung up the phone, winced at the harsh sunlight then drew the curtains, plunging the room into darkness. He cleared the entire top of his four by one-and-a-half foot desktop then wrote the words no, maybe, and yes on three separate sticky notes and pushed them onto to the polished surface at roughly one-foot intervals. His fax line rang once then again before the machine sprang to life.

The first page was covered, edge-to-edge, with grey text. The headline read, Four Die in Gangland Firebombing. Mr. Ferguson snatched the fax from the tray, glanced at it briefly then placed it directly below the no sticky.

The second, third and fourth pages contained articles about: a young kids playing with matches; a woman who set her husband on fire while he lay asleep in bed; and the torching of a Jewish synagogue. Mr. Ferguson set the first two on the no pile and the third he assigned to the maybe pile.

The next fax contained a small, six-line article set in the middle of the page and surrounded by a wide expanse of white within which was handwritten, August 4, 1982. The bolded title read: Alarms at Fern Ave. School. Mr. Ferguson read the article once, then paused and read it again. There was nothing of real substance. It was a straightforward report of three garbage can fires that broke out, in quick succession, at Fern Avenue Elementary School. That the janitorial staff put out the flames before the Torrance Fire Department arrived. That the fires were under investigation. No names. No quotes. No indication if there had been similar fires at the school in the past.

Nevertheless, Mr. Ferguson laid it on the maybe pile.

Over the next thirty minutes, twelve more faxes spit out of the machine.

Mr. Ferguson scanned each with a trained eye then set them, one at a time, on the reject pile. The thirteenth article took longer for the fax machine to print possibly because it was lengthier than the others and the headline, larger and blacker.

Last of Firebomb Teens Sentenced.

Scrawled in a corner of the clipping was the date, January 3, 1986. As with any newspaper article that caught his interest, Mr. Ferguson’s first read through was quick, his eyes racing along the lines of text, digesting every second or third word until he reached the end. Then he read the whole article again, this time using a highlighter to isolate the important details. It was a technique that he learned in college and had used ever since.

The highlighter moved quickly, his eyes even quicker and by the time he was finished the words: one of three Torrance men; set fire to a homeless man; crude Molotov Cocktail, died of his injuries; Vince Cummings, Ian Timmins, and Daniel Girard; ringleader Timmins of Arlington Avenue; sentenced to eight years in prison; apologized to the family of the deceased man; two other teens sentenced to twelve and eighteen months respectively, all bore the green stain of his broad-tipped highlighter.

There was nothing to tie the last two articles together until Mr. Ferguson used GoogleMaps to discover that Arlington was located mere blocks from Fern Avenue Elementary School.

Mr. Ferguson noted the date of the article again then began a silent calculation.

“1986.”

“Eight years.”

“Minus a year possibly, eighteen months pre-trial time served. Leaves seven or six.”

 “Are you out of jail Timmins? And if so, did you murder my son?” Mr. Ferguson whispered in a calm, even tone, then stapled the two faxed articles together and opened the Yellow Pages directory, eventually finding the page he was looking for. Methodically, he ran his finger down a column before stopping at one of the entries. He was about to dial a number when his fax machine suddenly sprang to life and began printing yet another sheet of paper. Mr. Ferguson watched its progress with keen interest then turned away when he saw the headline, Arsonist Blamed for Three Foothills Brush Fires but he didn’t even take the time to place it on the reject pile.

The first number Mr. Ferguson dialed rang six times before he pressed the disconnect button, made a note beside the entry then slid his finger down to the next listing and dialed. Again no answer so he dialed the next number.

“Burroughs Private Investigation office.” 

“May I speak to Mr. Burroughs, please?"

“You got him.”

Ferguson took a moment to jot the man’s name on his yellow legal pad.

“Mr. Burroughs, my name is Samuel Ferguson. I am in need of some information that only a private investigator could provide. I wonder if I might speak with you? In about an hour? Your office?”

“Don't usually book appointments before breakfast, and never on Sundays.”

“I'll make it worth your while.”

“Consultations are two hundred dollars per hour, whether I agree to take the job or not. Payment in cash, no checks.”

“Two hundred cash. In one hour? Thirty-three Main. Suite 501?”

“Affirmative.”

“See you in one hour.”

Mr. Ferguson hung up then made another note on his pad just as someone knocked meekly on the study door.

“Yes?”

The door swung open to reveal Sara-Ann, who was standing straight and stiff. Her golden hair was still in pigtails, her lanky frame still draped in the same white flannel nightgown she wore last night, her eyes, lifeless  

“Daddy? Dr. Jans wants to talk to you about Mommy.”

“Coming Baby.”

Sara-Ann withdrew from the doorway. The sound of her departing footsteps was barely perceptible on the thick carpet that blanketed the foyer floor.

Mr. Ferguson closed the telephone directory atop his desk then stood. He had never felt so stiff and tired, so weary of life and limb, so determined to do what he knew he must do.

----------

The downtown office of Burrough's Private Investigation was on the fifth floor of what used to be the Woolworth Building. And although Mr. Woolworth's name remained chiseled into the façade, the famed entrepreneur, and his once prosperous store were both casualties of time. Edward Burroughs worked out of a twelve-by-fifteen office on the east side of the building. On a good day, he could see nearly to Anaheim. But the perennial L.A. smog ensured that there weren't too many good days.

     Mr. Ferguson knocked on Burrough’s door at not a minute more or less than they had agreed. There was the brief sound of footsteps before the PI jerked open the door so fast that he created a short-lived vortex of floor dust that swirled around Mr. Ferguson’s Cap-Toe Oxfords.

“He’s short,” was his first thought. Only because Mr. Ferguson had expected a tall, man of beefy stature. Someone more consistent with the booming baritone voice he had heard on the telephone. Mr. Ferguson wasn’t disappointed or off-put; instead he was reminded of his father’s favorite maxims, “Size doesn’t matter in anything that matters in life.”

 “Good Morning Mr. Ferguson please come in. Have a seat.”

Burroughs’s handshake was firm and dry. His office, neat and functional.

There were no other doors that might have led to other offices so it was unlikely that Burroughs had a secretary or receptionist. Nor did Burroughs have a great personal credit rating, R5 according to Equifax.

Mr. Ferguson had checked.

    Even though he had further to travel, and Mr. Ferguson had a head start, Burroughs was surprisingly quick on his feet and managed to circle behind his desk and plop his muscular frame into his high back executive chair even before Mr. Ferguson sat down. Burroughs wore a cheap blue suit, white shirt and a bright red tie. It was the back-up ensemble that he kept in the closet for clothing emergencies or unexpected client visits like this one. Admittedly, the suit could have used a good pressing but it was still better than the dark green tracksuit that he had just changed out of.

    Burroughs leaned forward and pried the top off a clear glass jar, half-full of cherry-red candies and tipped the jar forward.

    “Wine Gum?”

----------

    Mr. Ferguson began his study as he always did by working from large to small, from the overall picture to the smallest detail. Burroughs’s face was square, denoting a stable, well-balanced character, one used to making decisions. His forehead was high and narrow and revealed an ability to carry out ideas and possibly a certain amount of egocentricity.

It was Burrough’s eyes that caused Mr. Ferguson to give pause; they were large, which indicated a combative nature and one given to frantic activity. Burroughs’s nose was, not surprisingly, squashed, possibly as the result of a fall or sports injury. By birth or accident, the shape indicated insecurity and superficiality so Mr. Ferguson noted that he needed to be extra vigilant with the man.

Lastly, Mr. Ferguson noted that Burroughs’s ears were set high on his head, well above the eyebrow line. Ears such as his were characteristic of a simple character, yet one endowed with remarkable common sense and instinct.

Physiognomy had served Mr. Ferguson well over the years, and although it resulted in perhaps a half dozen instances of him assigning or withholding trust in error, he attributed those mistakes not to a flaw in the science but to errors in his technique. And so, Mr. Ferguson decided that he could trust Burroughs with this task.

-----------

 “No thank you.”

Burroughs dug two Wine Gums out of the jar, tossed then into his mouth and leaned back into his chair.

    “Well, Mr. Ferguson what can I do for you on this fine southern California morning?”

    Mr. Ferguson noticed Burroughs’s neck muscles tighten and his eyes narrow as Mr. Ferguson reached into his left coat pocket to retrieve the fax. The detective obviously had a few enemies, perhaps an adulterous spouse who didn’t appreciate the detective’s zeal, or an embezzler who had done prison time thanks to the PI's digging, or maybe a bitter ex-wife or two.

    Regardless, Mr. Ferguson didn’t want to give the man any reason to fear for his life so he slowed his hand and pulled the pair of neatly folded faxes from his pocket and handed them to Burroughs in a fluid non-threatening motion.

    Burroughs began to read the top sheet immediately.

“I need to know if either or all of the three gentlemen mentioned in that article might have been in Marina Del Rey last night, especially…”

“Mr. Timmins,” Burroughs said with a matter-of-fact tone, then, with a Shakespearian flair he pursed his lips and sighed.

“Could be a big job.”

“Yes, it may well be but, nevertheless, I need to know.”

It was then that Burroughs flipped the page and began reading the second fax.

“Why’d you staple these together.”

“I suspected that the trash can incident might have been the work of Ian Timmins.

“You know this Timmins fellow?”

“No.”

Burroughs studied the two articles again.

“Probably still in jail.”

“Possibly. You have a way of checking?”

    Burroughs didn’t answer, but instead, laid the fax on his desk, tossed two more Wine Gums into his mouth then gestured toward the jar.

    “Change your mind about the Wine Gum?”

    “Do you need any further information from me?”

    Burroughs chewed enthusiastically until a thought froze his jaw.

    “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the Molotov Murderer?”

    Although Mr. Ferguson was sure that he could trust Burroughs with the task, he did not intend to share the truth with him. Nor did he feel like playing evasive word games with the man. He didn’t have the time, the pawn shops downtown kept abbreviated hours on Sunday.

 “I brought cash. When can you get started?”

Chapter 34:

Earl still lay on his back, where Wanda had left him nearly five hours ago. His skin color was better, his breathing relaxed and regular. It was unusual to find Earl Timmins in bed past eight in the morning, even on weekends. But Earl was a troubled man whose mind and body needed rest. So, as the 3 1/2 x 5 photograph of Wanda, Earl and nine-year-old Ian stared down at him from its hand-made, varnished pine frame sitting atop the night table, Earl Timmins slept.

The new sun had reached its apex and the Irish green and beige striped window curtains were beginning to radiate heat into the darkened bedroom. Earl suddenly grabbed the duvet that covered him and pushed it down to his waist, then used one foot to send it off the end of the bed and onto the shiny hardwood floor. While Earl clutched the cool top sheet and waited for sleep to reclaim his body, Caroline Pyette crept into his thoughts.

----------

“Los Angeles was built on top of a desert. A lot of people don’t know that. Deserts get blazing hot in the day and pretty darn cold at night.”

It was late on a cool November evening, ten, maybe twelve years ago that Earl found himself explaining the laws of physics to Wanda’s niece, seven-year-old Caroline. The adults, Wanda, Enny, her husband Jack and Earl, were downstairs playing Scrabble when Caroline called "Mommy!" from the upstairs guest bedroom. Wanda was thumbing through the Oxford English Minidictionary, trying to confirm that pixel was, in fact, al' as she had spelled it on the board and not el' as Earl had insisted. Enny and Jack were struggling to make words out of the seven letters they held and since Earl was pretty much between moves, he volunteered to check on Caroline.

Earl found the little girl in bed, curled up into a tight ball.

“It's cold Uncle Earl.”

“I've got just the thing for that.” Earl pulled a red, white, green, and blue striped Hudson’s Bay blanket from the guest closet and spread it over the shivering girl.

“How's that?”

“I don't even need this many blankets back home in Wisconsin. I thought this was the desert?”

And so Earl explained about the hot days and cold nights. There was a short period of silence, which Earl attributed to Caroline's need to process the information that he had just given her, but, true to Wanda's side of the family, instead, her mind simply jumped to a different topic.

“Uncle Earl. Why is Cousin Ian so weird?”

Earl sat on the edge of Caroline's bed and gently tucked the blanket under her chin.

“What do you mean ‘weird’?” Earl asked in as neutral a voice as he could muster.

“I don't know, just weird.”

‘Weird how?”

“I don't know. Just weird.”

“Go back to sleep Oh My Darlin' Caroline.”

“Uncle Earl, why do you call me that?”

“It's from a song. I'll sing it to you tomorrow. Night.”

“Night Uncle Earl.”

Earl stood slowly, straightened the blanket needlessly then walked to the door and stepped into the semi-dark hall, lit only by a single nightlight.

He hadn't intended to check on Ian but since Earl was passing the door to his son's room, he didn't see the harm.

Three months ago, on his twelfth birthday, Ian had decided that he was going to become a firefighter and had set about redecorating. Tearing down the posters of Formula One cars, his previous career aspiration, and taping up photos of fire trucks, fire fighters, raging fires and even Dalmatians. It was the photo of the momma and papa and their litter of three puppies that the hallway light hit first.

Earl had always wanted to get Ian a dog, but Wanda was dead against it. Guess she figured that the novelty would soon wear off and she would be stuck with the feeding, washing, and walking duties.

And she was probably right.

Still, Earl thought, a boy, especially an only child, ought to have a dog or at least a pet, but Wanda is Wanda, and that was that. She was, however, excited about their son’s new choice of careers.

Earl couldn't really see Ian as a fireman. For one thing, he didn't have a very high tolerance for discomfort. Vaccinations and blood tests required a team of three nurses just to hold Ian still. Fortunately, he'd never had a cavity. In school, he was fine at sports as long as the activity didn't become too tiring or the weather too hot. While sleeping he kept the duvet positioned at his waist, half on and half off his body so that he wouldn't be too hot or too cold.

Earl kinda hoped that Ian would become a carpenter, but Wanda felt compelled on several occasions to remind Earl that not everyone was cut out for a career in construction. And, although Earl recognized the wisdom of what Wanda said, Earl's grandfather had been a footing carpenter and his son, Earl's father, a trim carpenter; and Earl, a framing carpenter, so Earl hoped that the ‘firefighter’ thing was just a phase that his son was going through. 

Looking at Ian's sleeping face, full of peace and serenity, Earl was thankful that his son turned out to be a good kid, in spite of all the bad things there were out there to tempt a young man of his age. Drugs, gangs, alcohol, television violence. Earl was amazed that any kid growing up these days could turn out OK with all that nastiness around them.

He didn't know why Caroline would think that her cousin Ian was weird. But she was nine and Ian twelve, so Earl figured that it was just a ‘generational thing.’ Except for that trash can incident, Ian had never done anything ‘weird,’ at school or anywhere else.

“Earl. It's your turn.” Wanda called from the family room.

Earl backed out of his son's room and silently closed the door. They'd only been playing for half an hour and Earl, the House Champion, was already a hundred and thirty-one points ahead of Enny, the second place challenger.

----------

As the sun heated the bedroom, Earl’s body made its return journey further and further into the waking world until he became aware of the television announcer’s voice droning in the distance. Slowly he raised himself into a sitting position then paused to get his bearings.

The clock radio on Wanda's night table read 11:20.

He rubbed the sleep from his face with his callused hands then swung his legs off the bed and onto the cool floor. Standing slowly, he then unhooked his green terry bathrobe from its home behind the bedroom door and exited while pulling the soft cloth over his pajamas.

Once in the hallway Earl could clearly hear the television announcer.

“Over to you, Jim.” 

“Thanks Erin, Our KCKA crew is here in front of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau where just minutes ago, Jerry Miller, the self-proclaimed ‘Molotov Murderer’ turned himself into the Sheriff’s Department in full view of a dozen reporters and photographers.”

Earl hurried down the stairs, using the banister for support.

Wanda stood beside Earl's chair. In her hand, a coffee cup, containing only a dry, unused bag of English Breakfast tea. From the kitchen, the kettle whistled impatiently. Wanda turned the moment Earl reached the doorway.

“Earl, look!”

A burly man with thick glasses and thinning hair pushed his way through the media scrum and entered the police station.

Jim Taber, a pretty boy with an athletic build and tanning salon glow, stepped into the frame holding a microphone in one hand and a notepad in the other.

“As you can tell Erin, Jerry Miller refused to speak to the media but we are hoping that some official statement will be forthcoming from a MDRPD spokesperson. Homicide detectives are, at this very moment, inside questioning Mr. Miller, reportedly a truck driver who resides in Glendale.”

Wanda dashed to the TV, slapped the off button, then turned triumphantly.

“We told them. Didn’t we? Those two detectives. We told them. Now we can relax thank goodness. Go get cleaned up. How about a late breakfast? Buttermilk pancakes and a little of that low-calorie maple syrup we picked up at the health food store? I think we’ve earned it.”

     Wanda rushed from the family room and disappeared into the kitchen. Soon after, the kettle fell silent.

Earl stared at the slate grey television screen for a moment then sighed with relief.

Chapter 35:

Burroughs ran Timmin’s name through his list of buddies, acquaintances, and snitches and came up lucky. Ian Timmins, according to his friend in the Department of Corrections, was released from Moslow just two days ago and returned to Torrance to live with his parents. Of the rest of ‘possibles’ on his list, two had moved out of state and one was now deceased, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles. So it was looking as if Burroughs had hit ‘paydirt’ with Timmins.

Burroughs decided to use the panel van, even though it was low on gas and the Check Engine light had been lit since last week. Burroughs knew where the cleaning staff in his building kept the tools of their trade so it was pretty easy to put together a decent collection of mops, brooms and a pail or two. Especially since the utility closet door was never locked.

Beat up panel van.

Man in tattered overalls carrying cleaning paraphernalia.

Even if someone did notice him entering the school, they would figure it was just a new janitor.

    Mr. Ferguson was a better class of customer than Burroughs was used to. To start with, he didn't want dirt on his wife or business partner; he didn't want photos of people fornicating; in fact, Mr. Ferguson didn't want Burroughs to do anything illegal other than simply break and enter and possibly steal a few documents. Misdemeanors even if he did get caught, and he didn’t plan to. The other thing that made Ferguson a prized customer was that he was willing to pay full price -- $1000 a day, cash. Burroughs hadn't had one of those customers since that old bank guy wanted him to get photographic proof that his darling wife was bangin' one of her piano students.

    Torrance High School had been around forever. Since the twenties anyway. Burroughs went there once, maybe twice, for official police business, but he worked out of West Hollywood Division, so Torrance wasn’t part of his turf.

    It was nearly one-thirty when Burroughs hit the merge lane of the I-110. You would think that with fewer cars on the streets and freeways on a weekend the smog would give L.A. a break, but it didn't happen that way. In fact, sometimes the stinging, brown soot was worse on Saturday and Sundays because of the lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and gas barbeques.

After about ten minutes, Burroughs exited the 110 at Carson. From there, it was about two miles more and he was there. The whole trip, office to school, took maybe thirty-five minutes.

“Gotta love those L.A. freeways,” he thought, “On Sundays anyway.”

The school occupied the whole block. And after circling it once, Burroughs decided on a frontal approach.

    Burroughs pulled his Ford E150 Econoline van into the staff parking lot and since there was no space marked Reserved-Private Investigator, he parked in the principal's spot, beside a graffiti-covered tree. Burroughs wrestled the chromed gear lever into park then shut off the ignition. The engine ran on for a few seconds then sputtered and died. The burning smell he’d first noticed about a month ago was stronger than ever.

    His drive around the block told him that the school grounds were deserted. Examining the main building, he would say that it was uninhabited as well. Burroughs thrust his hand into his right pocket, just to make sure that he had his lock picking kit, then opened the driver's door and peeled his sweat-soaked back away from the cheap vinyl seat. It must have been eighty-five or ninety in the white, unrelenting sun and not much cooler in the little shade that could be found at that time of the day.

Burroughs walked around to the back of his van and, at first, just grabbed the mop and pail but then he figured “What the hell” and picked up the broom and second bucket as well.

    The front door was old and wooden. The three-tumbler lock was straight out of the fifties and would probably take him about two seconds to open, but first he had to get past the steel mesh security gate with the Schlage, Series D, six pin, model 606 Athens, lever design lock. Burroughs hated Germans. Everything they made had to be so fuckin' perfect. Their government, their beer, their stereos, their locks. And even though Walter Schlage’s devices had been made in the good ole U.S.A. for the past eighty or so years, they were still as German as they come, and a bitch to open if you weren’t fortunate enough to have the key.

    Burroughs set his cleaning stuff on the ground, then, without glancing about, because that would have been a dead giveaway, he matter-of-factly reached into his pocket and pretended that he had the key in his hand.

In fact, all he held was Marty “the Mark” Stuart's locking picking tool.

Marty was a real wiz around the tool bench so early in his career he modified a Swiss Army knife to contain all the picks, files and other tools that he would ever need to open any keyed lock. Marty ‘donated’ the tool to Burroughs after Marty accidentally got caught up in a drug bust that Burroughs, a detective at the time, was running in Korea Town. Burroughs wasn't interested in Marty, who at the time of the bust just happened to be breaking into Kim il Song's girlfriend's apartment to relieve her of some of the antique Chinese vases that her drug lord sugar daddy had bought her. Burroughs did take a liking to Marty's Swiss Army knife, however, so they made a deal: Burroughs got the knife, and Marty slipped out the back door, and nobody was the wiser. Burroughs thought of buying up a bunch of Swiss Army knives, copying Marty's design, then selling them on the street, but he figured that he would have a hard time explaining the additional income if Internal Affairs ever picked him for one of their random audits.

    Burroughs managed to nail the first and third tumblers, but two, four, and six were giving him a hard time. If it were night, he would have just taken a sledgehammer to the fuckin' thing, but it was broad daylight.

    “You the janitor?” the young voice asked from somewhere behind and to Burroughs’s left.

    Burroughs shoved Marty's tool in his pocket then turned, only to find the knobby tire of a mountain bike wedged nearly between his legs and a black kid, maybe eight or nine years old, perched on the bike seat.

“Yeah I'm the janitor. What can I do for you, young man?”

“Our Frisbee went over the fence at the side. Can you toss it back to us?”

“Sure, but give me ten minutes. I have some paperwork that I have to do first or the boss will kill me.”

The black kid appeared unmoved by the urgency of Burroughs’s administrative duties.

“Thanks. It's yellow and blue. Think it landed in the basketball court.”

“You got it. Ten minutes or so.”

The black kid backed up then rode south on Fern Avenue. Burroughs watched him until he disappeared from sight then tried Marty’s tool again. The Schlage opened this time with very little trouble, the front door lock, with even less. Burroughs gathered all his cleaning supplies and walked into the school like he owned the place.

All the lights were on, which worried him, but he didn't see anyone or hear any activity in the silent halls, so he figured that the last one out just forgot to turn them off. The main office was directly ahead of him but from his experience they usually kept the old yearbooks in the library. There were three directions he could have gone; Burroughs picked the left hallway then started walking. His crepe soles squeaked loudly on the freshly waxed floor, but short of going barefooted or walking on his hands there was nothing that he could do about it.

He should have picked option two, the hallway straight ahead because he ended up walking three or four minutes in a circuitous route that led him to within eyesight of where he started. The next part was easy. A small, handwritten sign attached to one of the shelves behind the reference desk read, ‘Past Yearbooks’.

Based on the article about his conviction, Burroughs guessed that the Timmins kid began attending high school in 82 or 83 so he started with those yearbooks. 

Pyros like the Timmins kid were a dime a dozen, Burroughs knew that. Some set fires for the insurance money, others did it to get even with some person or company, and some did it just because they liked to watch the flames.

Gave them a hard-on.

Burroughs also knew that psychos like the Timmins kid were made, not born.  Something set the kid off. It could have been a concussion or fetal alcohol syndrome. Or maybe mom snorted coke when she was pregnant, or dad drained the bottle for breakfast then beat the shit outta the kid at lunch.

Or all of the above.

It was always something.

Thirty-three years of being a cop gave a guy a real understanding of the world.

If the Timmins kid was somehow involved in the Molotov Murders, then Burroughs figured that those dick heads down at the MDRPD already had this kid in their sights. But maybe his client didn't trust the Marina cops to do their jobs, or maybe his rich client was out for revenge or was just an enterprising lawyer gathering information for a lawsuit.

Burroughs didn't know, didn’t ask, and frankly, didn’t give a flying fuck.

The 2001 yearbook listed Ian Timmins but there was just a grey rectangle where his photo should have been. So he figured that the kid didn’t show up for his appointment with the school photographer.

If Timmins had been smart, he would have skipped this 1983 appointment as well, but he didn’t so Burroughs had the photo he needed.

Both copying machines in the library had crudely drawn ‘Not In Service’ signs stuck to them, so Burroughs picked up the yearbook and headed for the main office. He heard the rattling sound as soon as he shut the library door. Burroughs froze then scanned the area for movement. The way the hallways bounced sound, it was hard for Burroughs to pinpoint where the rattling had come from. After a few minutes of silence, he continued walking, dismissing the noise as nothing more than mice in the lockers.

Burroughs entered the main office and walked past the hard, wooden benches that the innocent and guilty sat on while awaiting their fate. He switched on the photocopy machine set strategically in the middle of the office then noted that the LCD panel read ‘Warming up…Please wait’.

The first PC he booted up went straight to a password screen, so he shoved the CD containing his nephew’s program into the optical drive slot and pressed Control-Alt-Delete. From the safe mode screen, he pulled up the student record database and typed in Ian's first and last name. His last known address and phone number came up immediately. Burroughs scribbled the information into his police issued notebook, then removed his disk from the drive bay and shut off the PC. Burroughs glanced casually at his watch and smiled. He had only been in the school sixteen minutes, and he was already half done.

The copy machine was finally, according to the display screen, ‘Ready’. Burroughs slapped the hardbound yearbook face down on the glass, switched the magnification to two hundred percent and pressed the large green button. The first copy turned out a little dark, so Burroughs adjusted the brightness scale and made two more, one for his files, and one for his client. Perfect.

He couldn't be bothered to return the yearbook to the library so Burroughs just shoved it under a stack of papers on a nearby desk then strolled to the front door and jerked it open.

"Who the fuck are you?" the unshaven man in the tattered, grey overalls demanded. Thirty seconds more and Burroughs would have made a clean get away. Now Phil, as the embroidered name on his City of Torrance School System overalls read, was probably going to be an asshole about the whole thing.

“Who the fuck are you?” Burroughs shot back indignantly.

“Phil, the head janitor.”

“Phil? Phil? They told me you was sick. I'm the replacement guy.”

“Replacin’ who? I never called in sick. Who sent you?”

“I don't know. I just got a call and they said that Phil the head janitor booked off sick and did I wanna pick up some hours.”

“How'd you get in?”

“I still had a set of the keys from when I filled in last year. Remember? You took vacation or something.”

“Bereavement leave.”

“Yeah, that was it. Bereavement leave. I know I shoulda turned in the key, but I forgot. Shoot me if you want, but it was an honest mistake. Which is more than I can say about this whole incident. Assholes wasted my fuckin' time. I could've gone to the movies with my kid or broke in my new gas barbeque. Anyway, I'll return the keys to the office tomorrow. You have a good day Phil. Gotta admit, you look good for a guy who’s supposed to be sick.”

Burroughs was half way to the parking lot when Phil, still standing perplexed at the door, thought of another question, but by then Burroughs was already driving away.

Chapter 36:

It was nearly three in the afternoon. The lunch tray, consisting of a toasted ham on rye sandwich, Mr. Ferguson's favorite, a yellow Golden Delicious apple neatly sectioned into four and a glass of room temperature V8 juice sat untouched on the sofa side table. In the two hours since HM had set it there, the melted ice cubes had formed a clear layer of tepid water atop the blood red liquid. The once pale yellow apple had turned brown and stale.

Mr. Ferguson wasn't hungry, nor was he full, nor tired, nor rested. Mr. Ferguson was simply numb. The last time he remembered feeling like this was the day the music died.

----------

Charles Hardin Holley was born in Lubbock Texas on September 7, 1936. He died when his single-engine plane plowed into an Iowa farmer’s field approximately 5 miles northwest of Mason City Municipal Airport on February 3, 1959. All the passengers, including Buddy and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Arthur Peters, were killed instantly.

Samuel Ferguson of Sammy and the Sandmen, as he and his group called themselves, hoped to go all the way to Nashville. Sammy was thirteen at the time. Sixteen-year-old Hector Sanchez, the group's drummer was the oldest. Benny Cole, the lead guitarist, was the youngest but only because he was born six days before Sammy. The remaining member of the group, fourteen-year-old Lampy, the Lighthouse, Sanchez, played percussion. Lampy was good. So good that his parents got him an audition with the L.A. Symphony Orchestra but Lampy didn’t show up. He figured any job that required him to wear a tux or even a suit was not for him.

Like most guys his age, Sammy idolized Buddy Holley. So much so that he dressed like Buddy, sang like Buddy, combed his hair like Buddy and even stood like Buddy. Sammy even talked his parents into buying him a pair of black, thick-framed glasses, minus the prescription lenses, to complete the look.

    The walls of Sammy’s room were covered with framed photos of Buddy, magazine articles, and newspaper clippings, two Official Buddy Holley Fan Club Collectable Sets, each including a personally autographed photo of Buddy, a Buddy Holley Fan Club gold-edged pendant, a membership card, and a Buddy Holley and the Crickets pen and pencil set mounted in a collector’s box that boasted in the sales material, ‘its own internal lighting fixture’.

    To Samuel Ferguson and millions of other teenagers, Buddy Holley represented everything they wanted to be – cool, famous, talented, rich, and loved by all.

    Sammy and the Sandmen mostly played high school dances in and around Orange County. They made maybe fifty or sixty bucks a night, playing two sets of forty-five minutes. The band members didn't need the money, they all came from families that were pretty well off. They did it because they loved performing, and, of course, to pick up girls.

    Sammy had been sitting in Miss Snider's geography class when they heard the news that Buddy had died. Fenton Barnes, a kid with the attention span of an amoeba, was the first to know. Only because he heard it on the radio, a forbidden device of course, but Fenton hid it in his coat pocket then ran the earphone wire down his sleeve, out through his cuff then by leaning on one elbow, he was able to hold the earpiece in place with the palm of his hand.

Fenton whispered the news to Muriel Lamport, who then told Marilyn Chos who then told someone else.

 The whole class knew within sixty seconds.

Some of the kids, both guys and girls, started crying.

Sammy just sat motionless at his desk. Even after Miss Snider dismissed the class and everyone left.

He couldn’t believe it.

He just couldn’t believe it.

    Sammy and the Sandmen broke up the next week out of respect for Buddy. Mr. Ferguson swore that he’d never perform in public again and, to this day, still refuses to sing in front of an audience.

    Buddy was just twenty-two years old when he died.

Tony Ferguson had been twenty-four.

Mr. Ferguson heard that Buddy died because the inexperienced pilot lost his way. While his son Tony died because some cretin thought that it would be cool to watch a kid burn.

-----------

Mr. Ferguson couldn't remember how long he had been staring at Tony's picture, the one taken of his son and six other counselors at the end of last year's summer camp. Tony was holding a canoe paddle in the photo. Mr. Ferguson shifted in the office chair, once, then again, and finally stood when he had exhausted every possible position.

The view east through the study window showed a placid scene of soothing green and brown pastels. Birds of Paradise formed a solid wall behind a grassy area punctuated by two dwarf lemon trees that he and his wife bought, nearly full-grown when Tony turned eleven. But the floral tapestry brought Mr. Ferguson no peace. It merely served as a comfortable place for him to rest his eyes while his mind raced at full speed.

The doorbell must have rung twice, or more, before the sound entered into Mr. Ferguson's consciousness. He turned and saw HM rush past the open study doorway on her way through the foyer.

The door made a deep whooshing sound as HM pulled it open. Mr. Ferguson felt a draft of hot, dry, air brush across his face.

“Good afternoon, Father. Please come in,” HM said in hushed tones.

There was a moment of silence, interrupted only by the shuffling of feet and quiet breathing. Then the priest appeared at the study door, glanced in and paused.

“God’s thoughts are with you and your family, Samuel.”

Father Phaelon had been at St. Mary's Church since Mr. Ferguson was a boy. The good father had married Heather and Mr. Ferguson, christened Sara-Ann and Tony, and helped the family bury Heather's father when he died two years ago. Father Phaelon was a friend, so it was not surprising that he insisted on giving Father Simon, his understudy, the Sunday afternoon sermon so that he could spend a few hours with the Ferguson family.

Mr. Ferguson and his wife, Heather, had not exchanged as much as two words since he had given her the news that their son was dead. That was over twelve hours ago. Since then she had been pretty drugged up, on the recommendation of Dr. Jans, their family physician, who Mr. Ferguson called when his wife began screaming, and screaming and wouldn't stop. Mr. Ferguson had never heard his wife, or anyone else, scream like that. It frightened him – a lot.

A few hours ago Dr. Jans began cutting back on the medication and suggested that someone stay in the room with Heather, just in case. Mr. Ferguson immediately thought of Father Phaelon. His wife was very religious. Much more so than he. 

 Mr. Ferguson figured that Detective Wallish was also from a strong religious background because at the hospital he made the sign of the cross as he approached the curtain to Tony’s treatment cubicle.

Wallish was also the one who did all the talking when the two detectives came to the door early this terrible morning.

----------

“Samuel Ferguson?” Detective Wallish asked as soon as Mr. Ferguson opened his front door. It must have been around 1:30 in the morning. Both men held up their badges for Mr. Ferguson to see then quickly returned them to their pockets.

Mr. Ferguson had been up because he was working on a client’s newsletter. HM didn’t answer the door; she wasn’t a live-in housekeeper, so she had left hours ago for her two-hour journey home to Leimert Park. The first time the doorbell rang Mr. Ferguson thought that it might have been his imagination. The second time it rang he bolted from his chair.

“Yes?”

“I’m Detective Wallish and this is Detective Mathison, we’re with the Marina De Rey Police Department.”

Mr. Ferguson noticed immediately that Detective Wallish’s partner was one of those people who had difficulty making eye contact. Whereas Detective Wallish’s gaze was steady, and curiously, full of apology.

Both men had rectangular faces and were, therefore, both prone to introspection and, often, aggression. Mr. Ferguson recognized that Detective Mathison’s wide jaw and narrower forehead was one that the Chinese associate with the Earth.

Well defined and unchanging, but also sometimes touchy.

Detective Wallish had a wide forehead and square chin, both denoting intelligence, and determination.  Mr. Ferguson decided that it was Detective Wallish that he would speak to, and not his partner, unless absolutely necessary.

“Good evening, Detecti...”

Mr. Ferguson stopped abruptly when he heard his daughter’s footsteps travel down the second-floor hall to the top of the stairs then continued, but whispering.

“How may I help you?”

Sara-Ann’s voice was soft and full of sleep. “Daddy?”

“It’s OK Baby. The police are just asking some questions about the car registration.”

But, from the two detectives’ mournful expressions and defensive body language, he knew that such a premise was wishful thinking. More likely, the two men carried bad news.

“At this time of night.”

“Go back to bed. Tell you all about it in the morning.”

“Sir…”

Detective Wallish stopped the moment Mr. Ferguson raised his hand to silence him then watched the man as he followed the faint sound of his daughter’s footsteps as she returned to her room.

“Sorry, Detectives.”

“Sir, do you have a son named Tony Ferguson?”

Wallish’s words were efficient, but not abrupt. Mr. Ferguson could tell that he wanted the visit to be over with.

“Yes.”

“Does he drive a red Mazda Miata, Sir?”

“There’s been an accident?” 

“No Sir, we’re from Homicide.

Mr. Ferguson’s vision blurred for a moment and when it cleared the two detectives, and the Maple tree behind them began tilting to the right.

“Sir!” Wallish shouted.

Mr. Ferguson, who then realized that he was falling, managed to redirect his trajectory so that the door jam stopped his sideward descent.

“Yes, Detective?”

“We need you to come with us to identify a body that may or may not be that of…”

“Daddy?”

Mr. Ferguson stood up straight then walked with slow, measured steps to the foot of the staircase and watched as his daughter raced half way down the stairs then stopped.

“Baby, I have to go with these two officers. One of my clients has gotten himself into a legal situation with his... his car registration and needs my help. Would it be OK to leave you alone for an hour or so? Your mother should be home any minute.”

“Daddy!” She said, her tone reeking of that exasperated sarcasm so characteristic of her generation, “I’m sixteen!”

Mr. Ferguson allowed himself a knowing smile then turned. It was only then that Sara-Ann glanced at the door where Wallish and Mathison stood waiting. Her eyes skimmed over Mathison then fixed on his dark-skinned partner.

“Daddy!”

Mr. Ferguson retraced his steps hesitantly, afraid that his daughter may have sensed the truth of the officer’s visit.

Instead, Sara-Ann leaned forward, and never taking her eyes off Detective Wallish, whispered to her father, “Have you checked their identification?”

----------

Wallish was neither surprised nor offended. He knew the Ferguson’s type. None of the folks who lived in their little enclave in the hills were black, or maybe there was one family, just for appearance. None of the ladies Mrs. Ferguson called friends was black; none of the guys Mr. Ferguson hung out with were black. None of the kid’s at teenaged daughter’s school sported more than a beach tan.

Wallish was also certain that none of the Ferguson’s had ever been to Leimert Park, or Watts, or South Central, or probably even Koreatown.

Wallish didn’t blame the Ferguson’s or people like them.

The whole of Los Angeles is a social disaster where innocuous palm-lined streets separated black and white, Spanish and English, Vietnamese and Korean, rich and poor, renters and homeowners.  In America, race, color, language, and money form invisible walls that divide the geography into cultural enclaves where people are defined by the pigment of their skin, the timbre of their speech, the locale of their birth, and the size of their stock portfolio.

It was probably no different in France, England, China or Nigeria, but those were established societies where bad habits had had centuries to become entrenched and where class distinction was a given. America was brand new two hundred years ago, all her citizens, Poles, Irish, Chinese, Spanish, African, were handed a clean slate. They had the chance to build something special and they dropped the ball.

Dropped it big time.

But Wallish wasn’t one to lay blame.

------------

The ride to the hospital seemed long, but Mr. Ferguson couldn’t be sure. He sat in the back seat mostly staring at the painful gash in the back of Wallish’s black vinyl headrest. A dark green rectangular patch had been haphazardly applied to the center of the inch-long horizontal slash. Unfortunately, the patch was too small and left nearly a quarter inch of the wound extending from beneath the patch on both sides.

None of the three men spoke. And, in the dark interior, lit fleetingly by ghastly yellow streetlights, there was nothing Mr. Ferguson dared ask, nothing he wanted to know before he absolutely had to. So, Mr. Ferguson sat in the back seat of the police car, where so many innocent and guilty souls had sat before and stared at the green patch.

-----------

It was now 4:25 in the afternoon; Father Phaelon had been on the job more than twelve hours, which may have explained the sluggishness of his step, the slump of his shoulders, the despondency of his spirit.

Heather was finally asleep, after drifting in and out of wakefulness for the past two hours, so he decided to take his leave. Midway down the stairs his nose detected a musty damp smell rising from his clothes, the same clothes he had worn yesterday, and the day before. The same clothes he put on this morning when the phone call woke him from a sound sleep at 2:37.

-----------

The phone rang nearly four times before being answered.

“Hello?”

“Father Phaelon?”

“Yes. This is he.”

“Father. It’s Samuel. Samuel Ferguson. I’m sorry to wake you up.”

“What is it Samuel? It’s two in the morn…”

“I know Father. I’m sorry…”

And then the line fell silent.

“Samuel? You still there?”

“Yes.”

“What is this all about? Why are you calling me at…”

“Tony has been killed…murdered.”

Father Phaelon was at the Ferguson’s door within twenty minutes, as fast as his seventy-five year old legs and twenty-year-old Ford Tempo would take him.

----------

As Father Phaelon descended the bottom step and shuffled toward the front door, he glanced into the open study and noticed Samuel’s profile as he stood at the window, fingering something small in his left hand. The manila envelope that Detective Wallish handed him earlier lay open on his desk.

“Heather is resting comfortably,” Father Phaelon whispered in his best soothing intonation. But Mr. Ferguson didn't move, not muscle, and Father thought that was strange.

“Samuel?”

Mr. Ferguson turned and held up the blackened keychain medallion as one would hold a coin for another to see.

“Father, have you ever seen a man who has been burned to death?” Mr. Ferguson said in a strong voice as he continued to stare at the medallion.

 The question caught Father Phaelon off guard, but what surprised him more was the sight of Mr. Ferguson's swollen, blood-encrusted right hand.

“Samuel! What happened to your…”

“Father!” Mr. Ferguson interrupted abruptly then softened with reflection, “Father. Have ever seen a man who has been burned to death?”

“No, and I hope to God that…”

“Tony looked like barbequed…”

“Samuel, for the love of God!”

And hearing those words, Mr. Ferguson placed the medallion to the palm of his hand then turned his back on Father Phaelon. It was nearly a minute before he spoke again.

“Father, if it is wrong to take another's life then why do men pass laws making it legal to kill in wars, in capital punishment, in defense of self and family.”

“Samuel, look at me.”

Mr. Ferguson continued to stare out the window for a moment then turned angrily and locked his gaze on Father Phaelon’s eyes. The priest's body shuddered, his breathing froze with fear. Looking at Samuel, his eyes cold and hard, his face flush with anger, it was almost as if he were staring into the face of Satan himself.

Father Phaelon fought to control his terror then paused as he chose his words with care and caution.

“Nothing that you or I do can bring back Tony. ‘Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the LORD.’  Leviticus, 19:18.”

Mr. Ferguson took a half step to his right and leaned with both hands on his desktop where, beside the Lord’s book lay the yellow legal pad. He read the passage angrily, spitting out many of the words, “I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have never heard. Mic 5:15.”

Father Phaelon, barely able to contain a sudden rush of anger, responded with the indignation of an avenging angel, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

“And perhaps He will Father Phaelon. Perhaps He will. Thank you so much for coming.”

Father Phaelon opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He stood there for a few minutes but, unable to think of one earthly reason for remaining, he turned and walked out the front door, exiting the Ferguson home as meekly as he had entered.

Mr. Ferguson regretted that he had been less than hospitable to Father Phaelon. He had nothing against the man. In fact, he liked the priest's slow smile, his limitless patience, and measured, soothing way of speaking. Mr. Ferguson just didn't see the point of talking to Father. He didn't see the point of talking to anyone. Not about his decision. How could any one of them understand? Was Tony their son? Did they raise him from birth? Had they seen his son's body, twisted and charred, lying on that blood smeared table?

 “It is mine to avenge; I will repay.” He repeated over and over as he stared at the round medallion in his hand. A medallion that read 'Miata', before the lacquer burned off in the inferno, leaving only discolored brass.

It was later that afternoon, The late sun had just broken through the deep green leaves of the lemon tree, flooding Mr. Ferguson’s office with harsh light, when the doorbell rang. Beside Father Phaelon and Doctor Jans, they hadn’t had any other visitors. A few people, mostly relatives and Mr. Ferguson’s business associates, had called to express their condolences. The conversations were short, the silence between words, long. 

Mr. Ferguson listened without interest to HM’s hurried footsteps as she traveled from the kitchen to the front door. The muffled conversation was brief and soon after the front door shut, he heard HM’s footsteps approach.

HM leaned just the upper portion of her body into the study, perhaps wary of intruding into her employer’s space.

“Excuse me, Mr. Ferguson.”

“Yes, HM.”

“A gentleman just delivered this for you. He didn't leave his name, but it’s marked Urgent.”

Mr. Ferguson walked to the study door and slipped the envelope from HM’s hand.

“Thank-you.”

HM lingered a moment after handing Mr. Ferguson the envelope then parted her lips as if she was about to speak but didn’t. Instead, she turned abruptly and hurried toward the kitchen.

The 11x14 manila envelope wasn’t heavy, or thick, and, on examination, Mr. Ferguson found that it contained only one sheet of paper -- a photocopied page from a high school yearbook. Neatly circled in red highlighter was Ian’s photo and, scrawled in the margin, the Timmins’s address and phone number.

Mr. Ferguson resisted the urge to study the boy’s face. The shape of his head, the distance between his eyes, the arc and mass of his nose really didn’t matter. Ian Timmins’s actions had revealed more about his character than could ever be discerned from facial geometry.

Mr. Ferguson glanced at his watch then picked up the remote and switched on the three o’clock news. He was hoping to hear that the police had made an arrest in his son’s murder, but instead there was only the same video clip that had been running every hour since this morning.

Reporter with mike, stunned witness, his son’s smoldering car, police and firefighters milling about. This time, however, one of the witnesses speaking into the report’s mike was Cyrus Fuller.

Mr. Ferguson recognized the Fuller boy in an earlier newscast. Cyrus was standing in the crowd as the reporter interviewed one of the firefighters.

Cyrus Fuller had been to the house a couple times, once for Tony’s nineteenth birthday party and once, during the particularly hot summer last year, to use their pool. Mr. Ferguson didn’t think that Cyrus and Tony were especially close, but they did hang out occasionally. Last night at the Marina was evidently one of those occasions.

The phone had ringed only once before someone answered it.

“Hello?” The voice was female, probably in her early forties and low energy.

“Good morning, Darlene, it’s Samuel Ferguson. We met at the school play in January.”

There was a silence for a few moments,

“Ferguson? Tony! Are you…were you Tony’s father?”

“Yes, but I still am Tony’s father.”

“Oh God, you know what I meant. Oh God, I’m so sorry. We heard not more than ten minutes…”

“Thank you, Darlene. I wonder if I could speak to Cyrus. Is he in?”

“Yes. Just a minute.”

Either Darlene dropped the receiver or she was in the habit of slamming it down because the bang was so loud it assaulted Mr. Ferguson’s ear.

After a few electronic clicks, and the sound of human shuffling, a sleepy voice came on the telephone.

“Hey, Mr. Ferguson, sorry about Tony, real bummer what happened. I just can’t fuckin’ believe it.”

“Thank you. You were there last night. Correct?”

“Yeah, a bunch of us…but there really wasn’t anything we coulda done.”

“I understand that Cyrus. Did you see the person who threw the Molotov into Tony’s car?”

“Well yeah, I got a quick look at the guy. I gave all that info to the cops last night.”

“If I emailed you a photo do you think you could have a look at it?”

“Like a photo of what?”

“Just tell me if the picture I send you looks like the person from last night. Can you do that?”

“Sure. I guess.”

“OK. I’m going to send it now. What’s your e-mail?”

Mr. Ferguson jotted the address down on his yellow legal pad then underlined it.

“It’s on the way. Just e-mail me back with a ‘yes’, it looks like the person that killed Tony or a ‘no’ if it doesn’t. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Thanks, Cyrus, and one more thing: Tony told me that one of his friends hacked into the Kraft Foods website a couple months ago. Do you know who that was?”

“Well yeah, but I really couldn’t…”

“I’m not going to call the authorities; I just need to ask him or her to do me a favor. Just a favour.”

Cyrus lapsed into a thick silence then answered with an almost cavalier tone.

“Yeah, that’s cool, it was Francie. Francine Dube.”

“Do you have her phone number?”

“Ah, yeah, ah, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anybody that…”

“I won’t tell a soul. Promise.” Mr. Ferguson wrote the number on his pad then stood and shifted the receiver to his left hand.

“Thanks, Cyrus. Here comes the e-mail.”

Mr. Ferguson hung up the phone and with his other hand laid the photocopied yearbook page into his scanner and pressed E-mail.

    He waited long enough for Cyrus to receive his e-mail, decide if the Timmins kid was the one, then respond with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but after ten minutes there was still no answer so he moved on to the next item on his to-do list.

    The young woman who answered the telephone on the third ring displayed a fundamental lack of people skills.

    “Yeah!”

    “May I speak to Francie, please?” Mr. Ferguson replied calmly, never surprised by the glut of poor parenting skills that had spawned the current level of discourtesy in today’s society.

    “Who is it?”

    “Samuel Ferguson, Tony Ferguson’s father.”

    “Fuck. Sorry about Tony. Yeah, this is Francie.”

“Francie, I need a favor. The F.B.I. has a nationwide computer system called the National Crime Infor…”

“N.C.I.C.” she interrupted.

“Yes. The police departments across the country use N.C.I.C. to broadcast the names of people they are looking for. Possible crime suspects.”

“Duhhh.”

Mr. Ferguson paused, fighting his urge to drive over to the Dube residence and strangle Francie, an act that her suffering parents would no doubt applaud. But he didn’t and instead took a deep breath and in a thoroughly flat and professional tone asked, “Francie, I was wondering if you could break into N.C.I.C. and find out who the Marina Del Ray Police Department is looking for in the dea…”

“Why?”

“I would just like to know.”

“Why?”

“Francie, do you have the ability to hack into the N.C.I.C. computer or not?”

“That’s illegal.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“Yeah, I might be able to get in. What are you gonna do? Beat the shit out of the guy?”

“Of course not. That’s illegal.”

Just then a voice, coming from Francie’s end of the line, called out impatiently, “Francine! Downstairs now!”

“Fuck!” she muttered.

“Franc…” Mr. Ferguson began, only to be cut off when the girl blurted out, “Ian McCarthy Timmins, 24, last known address 2451 Arlington Avenue, Torrance, California.”

Mr. Ferguson didn’t shock easily but this time he was clearly caught off guard.

“You checked already?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you Francine.”

“Yeah. And give the fucker one for me. Preferably in the nuts.”

Then Mr. Ferguson heard a click and the line went dead.

----------

The M1911A1 .45 caliber pistol is a recoil operated hand weapon. Widely respected for its reliability and lethality, it is the standard handgun issued to American Marines for many decades. Invented by John Moses Browning, the sidearm has seen action in nearly every American conflict from WWI through to Operation Desert Storm.

The 1911 weighs three pounds with a loaded magazine. It fires a 230-grain bullet at a muzzle velocity of 830 feet per second and it fires one round every time the trigger is squeezed. So, once the hammer has been cocked by prior action of the slide or thumb, all one needs to do is keep squeezing, seven times, until the magazine is empty.

The 1911 once sold for as little as sixteen dollars. Mr. Ferguson bought his from Stan’s Downtown Pawnshop for a hundred and twenty dollars plus tax. Although California has a mandatory ten-day cooling-off period, for an extra hundred, the guy behind the counter let Mr. Ferguson take the pistol with him.

Mr. Ferguson had never handled a gun before but he found that loading the magazine wasn’t that difficult. The bullets, which were surprisingly heavy, went down into the magazine through the top. The first bullet he laid against the metal, spring-loaded platform, the next bullet he pressed down on the bullet before. He continued until the magazine was full.

On the advice of the pawnshop salesman, who evidently was a real gun enthusiast, Mr. Ferguson bypassed the usual copper-tipped ammunition for his 1911 and bought a pack of six Maxx Mark II shells instead. The salesman described the Maxxes as ‘show stoppers’ because the Maxes have a cylindrical cavity in its tip that contain a half-dozen, small, round steel pellets. Evidently, on impact the Max penetrates the bad guy’s flesh just like the copper tipped ammo, but as the Maxx plunges through muscle and bone, it deforms, releasing the pellets, which spread, maximizing the destructive force and ensuring that the bad guy absorbs the full force of the gunshot. Copper-tipped bullets, the salesman warned, might, in his words, “pass right through the sucker and either punch a hole in some inanimate object, or worse, nail some poor schnook who happened to be in the wrong fuckin’ place at the wrong fuckin’ time.” Mr. Ferguson recognized that the salesman’s argument, though barely literate, was compelling, so he bought two six-packs of the Maxx Mark II bullets and for target practice, fifty copper tips.

----------

Mr. Ferguson had paused, trying to decide whether it was prudent to insert the now loaded magazine or wait when his laptop suddenly whispered a musical tune. The e-mail was from Cyrus and simply read, “Yes, it looks like him.”

That was good enough for Mr. Ferguson and, after sliding the magazine into the 1911’s grip; he gave the bottom a quick tap with the heel of his hand. The loud click confirmed that the magazine was properly seated. Mr. Ferguson didn’t load a bullet into the chamber. There would be plenty of time to do that later.
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