The rat on fire

24

Fein got home just after seven-thirty. Pauline Fein was waiting for him in the living room. She rose up from the turquoise couch with the gold-finish trim as soon as he opened the white panelled door. She stood on the yellow shag rug in her bare feet and her cover-up that she put on the minute she emerged from her nude swim in the pool secluded in the back yard.

“Jerry,” she said, “the police are on the way.”

“The police,” he said. “Would you mind telling me why the police are coming? What’d they do, get a kid to climb the fence so they could tell you had any clothes on in the pool? You got a perfect right to swim naked in your own back yard. I told you that before. You want to swim bare-ass, swim bare-ass. They can’t do anything about that.”

“I didn’t know where you were,” she said.

“That’s not police business either,” he said. “I changed my mind, going down the street. I gave Lois the day off today when we left the office last night, she’s tryin’ to get this camper for her husband and it’s been drivin’ her nuts. So and all right, and then it occurs to me, if Lois isn’t going to be in, I’m going to end up spending the whole day answering the goddamned telephone. And I am therefore not going to get a chance to do any of my own work. And besides, why should I? I work hard all the time. I deserve a day off to play golf for once during the week when it isn’t crowded and you don’t have to stand in line, every tee.”

“I didn’t know where you were,” she said again.

“Last night,” Fein said, “last night you told me, when we went to bed, you were working at the thrift shop this morning and then you and Stephanie were having lunch at the Colonnade. I didn’t want to wake you up, I got to the club, and by the time I figured you’d be up, I was on the third tee. I wasn’t going to go back to the clubhouse then to call you, and besides, if I’d had’ve you’d’ve gone to the thrift shop by the time I got to the clubhouse phone. And when I finished the first round and I was having lunch, you were having lunch.”

“We went to La Patisserie,” she said. “Stephanie’s on another one of her diets.”

“Which is exactly what I figured,” he said. “You never go to the Colonnade for lunch when you go to the Colonnade for lunch with Stephanie. Stephanie decides she wants Greek food, or you get a yen for Italian food, or Sharon shows up and she wants to go to Nick’s or the Fifty-seven or someplace else. I never know where you’re having lunch when you’re having lunch at the Colonnade, and I know I don’t, so I don’t even bother trying there. Besides, I was just playing golf. There wasn’t any harm in it. The cops can’t get me for playing golf, I don’t think.”

“It isn’t what you did,” she said. “There’s been a fire.”

“Whaddaya mean, there’s been a fire?” he said. “Where’s the fucking fire? You all right? What burned, for Christ sake? The hell’d you let me go on for anyway? Where the hell was the fire?”

“It was in one of our buildings on Bristol Road,” she said. “I don’t know which one.”

Fein went over to the off-white stuffed chair and sat down heavily. “Oh, for Christ sake,” he said. “Those fucking niggers.”

“Nobody got hurt,” she said. “That’s good, at least.”

“Hurt?” he said. “Hurt? I wished one of the bastards would get hurt. Honest to God. They got bored with tearing the place down piece by piece so they’re gonna take the quick way and burn it.”

“You don’t know that, Jerry,” she said.

“Get me a straight vodka on ice, will you?” he said. “I do know it. I know it just as sure as I’m sitting here. Those fucking niggers that won’t pay their rent decided they’ll forget about tearing the plumbing out and knocking holes in the walls, and they’ll set the place on fire. Jesus Christ. I knew they didn’t give a shit about my property, but now they’re getting ready to burn their own with it. Not that they got any, of course. Holy shit.”

“You can’t be sure of that, Jerry,” she said, bringing the drink from the crescent-shaped white marble bar. “You don’t know it was that. It could’ve been an accident. Something went wrong with the heater or something.”

“Bullshit, I can’t be sure,” Fein said. “If there was a fire in that building, it was set. There’s nothing wrong with the furnace and there’s nothing wrong with the boiler or anything else. Why the hell do you think the cops’re coming, huh? You think the cops just automatically visit anybody that owns property when there’s a fire in it? The cops? Cops direct traffic and tag cars and stop guys from speeding, and now and then by accident they catch a crook. Firemen go to fires. When the cops come about a fire, it’s because they know damned well that somebody set it. And I know it just as well as they do. They aren’t telling me a single fuckin’ thing that I don’t know. I take a day off to play golf, and one of my lovely tenants puts a match to my building. Well, good luck to the cocksuckers. I’m out the first five hundred for repairs, but the hell with that. I hope they burn the place fuckin’ flat, and with them in it.”