Reiger snorted and pointed across the room. Hannah looked, then gasped involuntarily. Bamblur was unrecognizable. The entire front of the body was a charred mess. The right arm was missing; so was part of the torso on that side. The corpse was in two parts lying close together, severed just below the ribcage; bone poked whitely from the black and red tangle. He'd been flung across the room so viciously that the plasterboard above him was cracked and dented from where he'd hit. The entire mess still steamed. "Bet he didn't even have a chance to say 'Oops!'" Reiger said. Swallowing once, Hannah went over and looked more closely at the remains. She crouched down in front of Ramblur, studying the skeletal, charcoal-black face. The jaw hung open as if in eternal surprise.
"You'd think a pyro with his background and this kind of stockpile would have known What he was doing," she said.
"Maybe he flunked chemistry 101," Reiger said. "Or maybe something slipped."
"Maybe."
Simpson had gone into the bedroom of the apartment. Now he called out. "Hey, Hannah, better take a look over here."
"On my way." She rose, walked across the room, and then stopped at the door.
Simpson was holding an iron bar in one hand, a steel rod exactly like those which had held the doors at the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker. At his feet were two canisters the size of small fire extinguishers. Both of them were a bright, telltale green. There were several gallon and a half drums near the bed. Hannah already knew what they would find in them: jet fuel.
"Congratulations, Ms. Davis," Chief Reiger said, peering into the bedroom behind Hannah. "Looks like you caught your torch."
***
The pool clerk congratulated her like everyone else in the department as he came into her cubicle. Hannah gave him the same tight-lipped smile she'd given the others. "Thanks, Ned. Listen, I have a meeting with Malcolm at three, and I need these tapes and transcripts copied before then. Think you can do it?"
"Sure. Plenty of time. Bet you get a commendation."
"Well see," Hannah said. "The earlier you can get that done ..."
Ned had them back to her at two. Hannah put the copies in a box, sealed it, and walked it down to the mailing department. Then she went and finished typing her report for Malcolm.
The director glanced through the report, riffling the pages without reading, then set it down in front of him. He folded his hands over it and looked up at her. He gave her his best imitation of a smile. "Very good work, Ms. Davis. I'll be drafting a letter for your personal file with my recommendation that you be considered for promotion."
"Malcolm -" Hannah started, then exhaled. "I don't want to close this case. I want to keep working on it."
"Whatever for?" Malcolm blinked. Hannah realized that it was the first time she'd ever seen him do that. "All the evidence is here, Ms. Davis. In fact, it's rare that we have such a clear-out case against a person."
"That's exactly what bothers me, Malcolm. I ... I'm not saying that Ramblur didn't set the fire. He probably did. I already had the paperwork in motion to get a search warrant for his apartment. But it seems awfully convenient that he managed to blow himself to kingdom come just before we moved."
"And just what angle do you wish to pursue in this?"
Hannah hesitated. "I want to go to Saigon and see what I can find on Dr. Faneuil and his nurse. I have the Free Vietnam government's permission to go there, and they're willing to pay my way ..."
Hannah stopped. Malcolm sat behind his desk like a blue-suited statue, his eyes cold. "Let me get this straight," he said, and there was no mistaking the sarcasm in his voice. "We have an air-tight case against the arsonist. We have found not only the history of arson with him and a prejudice against jokers, but also the very materials that were used in the fire: the steel bars, the oxygen canisters, and the jet fuel. Yet you want to pursue a far-fetched conspiracy theory, one that not only takes you out of the city, out of the state, but across the entire Pacific Ocean toa country that half the civilized world has yet to recognize as legal. No, Ms. Davis. Absolutely and emphatically, no. Please do yourself a very large favor and accept the rewards your hard work on this case will undoubtedly garner."
"Malcolm, you have to trust me in this. After all, it's not costing us anything but my time. Not even the plane fare. All I'm asking for is another week or so. If I have to, let me take an unpaid leave. I just ... I just want to be sure."
"Ms. Davis, which is more likely: that a deranged pyromaniac with a grudge against jokers would burn down the church, or that the fire was a deliberate part of some decades-old conspiracy?"
"I know what it sounds like ..."
"Do you? Do you really? Ms. Davis, I am aware that you have gone to the World Health Organization, that you contacted the UN, that you spoke with Free Vietnam's delegation in Washington. I'm telling you now - enough. You will drop this investigation."
"Or?"
His expression didn't change. "I should think that someone with your imagination would be able to figure that out," he said.
Hannah stood. "I don't need to," she told him. "I quit."
She threw her identification and pass down on his desk.
***
David came in while she was packing. He stood in the doorway of their - his, she reminded herself - bedroom and watched her throwing clothes into her suitcases. "Malcolm Coan called me at the office," he said. "I thought I might find you here, but I really didn't think you'd be this crazy, Hannah. What is it with you? Can't you stand having success? You enjoy wrecking everything anyone's done for you?"
Hannah didn't answer him. She continued to fold her blouses, to cram pantyhose into the corners of the suitcase. "So this is it?" David said. "You've walked out on your job, now you're walking out on me, too."
"Yes," she said. "Very observant of you, David. Go to the head of your class."
"Where are you going?"
"To some friends."
"I didn't think you had any friends here. I thought they were all my friends," David suddenly laughed, bitterly. "Oh, I get it. Joker friends. Twisted freak friends. Infected friends. Is he good in bed, Hannah? Did the wild card give him two dicks, or maybe a prehensile tongue?"
Hannah slammed the suitcases shut, clicked the locks closed savagely. "You're sick, David. Listen to yourself." She swung the suitcases from the bed and started to push past him.
He blocked the door with his hand. "Move, David," Hannah said. "Please. I don't hate you; this just isn't working out, and I need to do this. Don't destroy my good memories of you with something we'll both regret."
David glared at her. Hannah thought that he might actually strike, but at last his hand dropped from the door jamb and she moved past him into the living room. He stayed where he was, staring at her as she moved to the door to the apartment and opened it.
"The jokers aren't worth this," he called after her. "Nothing touched by that damn virus is worth it -"
She shut the door. Quietly.
And she wondered.
***
"Father Squid? Quasiman?"
Hannah knocked again on the door of the apartment a few blocks from the ruins of the church - the address Father Squid had given them when he left the hospital. She heard footsteps beyond the door. A chain rattled, and the door opened to reveal the priest standing there. Quasiman was standing in the middle of the shabby living room behind him, looking like a mishappen statue. Hannah backed up a step. "Ms. Davis?" He looked at the suitcases.