"Here at Mother's," Nicky answers.
Then Nicky says, "You mentioned a third coverage."
"Coverage D," Jack says. "Additional Living Expenses. That's for any expenses you incur while you're out of your home. Rent, restaurant bills, that sort of thing, until you get settled. I can also write drafts from that coverage to give you an advance on your personal property so you can buy clothes… toys for the kids…"
"How thoughtful," Nicky says.
"You have plenty of insurance," Jack says.
Mother says, "Nicky and the children will be staying here until the house is rebuilt."
"That's great," Jack says.
"I'm charging them $2,000 a month in room and board."
Those deep blues look at him like it's a challenge, like she's daring him to say something. Something along the order, Jack thinks, of what kind of mother charges rent to her widowed son and her homeless grandchildren?
Jack says, "Actually, $2,000 is a little low. For instance, if Nicky were to rent an equivalent home, we would pay for that."
"Daziatnik is staying here," she says.
"Of course he can stay where he wants," Jack says. "I'm just saying that wherever he decides to stay, we'll pay the rent."
She says, "After all, why should I subsidize the insurance company?"
"No reason," Jack says. "In fact, I can issue an advance of $25,000 on your Coverage D," Jack says.
"When?" Nicky asks.
"Now."
(Another Billyism: Get an advance in their hands. Pronto. People been burned out of their home, get some clothes on their backs. Kids lose their home, at least they can get some goddamn toys to play with. They feel better.)
And if they lose their mom, Billy?
Well, I can bring them their dog.
Silence. Mother has just figured out that she's lost face by winning a battle she didn't need to fight, and she doesn't like it.
So while she's pissed off anyway, Jack says, "I'm going to need to get a recorded statement. It doesn't have to be today."
"A recorded statement?" Nicky asks. "Why?"
"Routine with any fire," Jack says.
One of Goddamn Billy's rules in this cynical world: Take a statement as soon as you can. Get their story on the record so they can't walk away from it. If they're not involved with the fire, it doesn't matter; if they are… well, Billy's right again. Get a statement. Get it in detail. Get it early.
(Another Billyism: If you're planning on getting in a fight with someone, it's a good idea to first get their feet stuck in concrete.)
Nicky's looking at him with his charming smile.
"Did you bring a tape recorder?" he asks.
You bet.
20
"This is Jack Wade from California Fire and Life," Jack says into the tape recorder. "The date is August 28, 1997. The time is 1:15 p.m. I am taking a recorded statement from Mr. Nicky Vale and his mother, Mrs. Valeshin. I am making this record with the full knowledge and permission of both Mr. Vale and Mrs. Valeshin. Is that correct?"
"That is correct," Nicky says.
"Correct."
"And will you validate the date and time for me?"
"It is correct as stated," Nicky says.
"Then we can proceed," Jack says. "If at any time I turn off the tape, I will make a note for the record of the time we go off record and the time we resume. Now, could you each state and spell your full legal names for me?"
It's a delicate thing, taking a recorded statement. On the one hand, you have to observe the formalities so you get a useful record that will stand up in court. On the other hand, it's not a sworn statement or a legal proceeding, so you have to walk a fine line between the formal and the casual. So after they state and spell their names, Jack flips back into talk show mode and says, "Mr. Vale-"
"Nicky."
"Nicky, why don't you start by giving me a little background on yourself?"
Because Jack knows that the first thing you do is get the subject talking. About anything, it doesn't matter. The idea is to get them into the habit of responding to your questions and just plain talking. Also you learn something right off the bat: if your guy balks at talking about himself, he's going to balk at everything else and then you have to wonder what he's protecting.
There's a more cynical reason. Jack knows it like every other investigator knows it – the more a subject talks, the more chance he has to lie. To fuck up, give inconsistencies, lie on the record. Get his feet stuck in the concrete.
Most people hang themselves.
It's a basic truth that Jack knows: if you're dragged out of your bed by the cops at four in the morning and they want to talk to you about the Kennedy assassination, the Lindbergh kidnapping, or aiding and abetting freaking Pontius Pilate, what you do is you keep your fucking mouth shut. Doesn't matter if they ask you your height, your favorite color, or what you had for breakfast that morning, you keep your fucking mouth shut. If they ask you if night is darker than day, or whether up is higher than down, you keep your fucking mouth shut.
There are four words, and only four words, you can say.
I want my lawyer.
When your lawyer gets there he'll give you some sage advice.
He'll tell you to keep your fucking mouth shut.
And if you do that, if you follow that sage advice, you will in all probability leave the police station a free man.
There are usually three reasons people talk.
One, they're scared.
Nicky Vale isn't scared.
Two, they're stupid.
Nicky Vale isn't stupid.
Three, they're arrogant.
Bingo.
Nicky Vale starts talking about himself.
He was born in St. Petersburg, which was Leningrad when he was born but now is St. Petersburg again. This name thing matters like shit to Nicky Vale, because it wasn't any more giggles being a Jew in Leningrad than it was being a Jew in St. Petersburg.
You can change your name as often as you want ("I should know, right?" Nicky adds), but you can't change your spots, and those Bolshevik bastards are the same and will always be the same. Czarist, Bolshevik, Stalinist, or glasnostnik, it's all the same because they're still and always anti-Semites.
"We have served," Nicky observes, "as an indispensable factor knitting the Russian social fabric. We have done them an enormous favor: over the centuries of conflict we have provided a unifying focus of hatred."
So Nicky grows up as an outsider. Excluded from sports clubs, social clubs, and the Young Communist League, young Nicky lives in a physical and social ghetto.
"What we had," Nicky says, "is what those Bolshevik bastards will never have: a legitimate culture. We had God, we had literature, we had music, we had art. We had an immutable past, Jack, that could not change and did not change with the tides of political purges and the shifting sands of doctrine. What makes a Jew is the Jewish past. So they excluded us. Excluded us from what?"
Well, not the army.
Nicky gets drafted. Greetings, Jewboy, here's hoping you get smacked.
So if you think it's fun being Jewish in Leningrad, try being a Russian Jew in Afghanistan. They hate you twice. They can't figure out if they hate you more for being a Russian or for being a Jew. It's like hatred squared or cubed or something.
Nicky doesn't help matters.
"I was stupid," Nicky says. "I wore a Star of David on a chain around my neck. For what? So in case I'm captured they can torture me twice as long? But when you're young…"
Nicky survives his tour in mullah-land.
Comes home to what?
The same old crap.
So what he wants is out.
"Glasnost comes," Nicky says, "and the bastards try to curry favor by opening the gates to release people they don't want in the first place."
The hypocrisy is stunning to Nicky but all right with him. While the gate is open he's determined to walk through it. Mother wants to go to Israel but Nicky…