“Except that he was carrying the cheque?”
“Right. And various documents linking him to the family. The police called them. They panicked and said they knew nothing about Willy. He had to be an impostor and all the documents must be faked. After a night in the cells, he was charged with obtaining money by deception and brought before the magistrate at Bow Street. They put him on bail, pending further investigation. Only it never came to trial.”
“Why?”
“The secret service intervened to avert the scandal. If it had ever got to court it would have destroyed a prime minister’s reputation. They decided the best way to deal with it was for Willy to jump bail and go into hiding. No attempt was made to find him and the matter was dropped. The family cashed the cheque, Willy got his commission, and the good name of a great prime minister was saved from disgrace. That’s why you and I are locked in here and Willy Plumridge is sitting in the Nag’s Head enjoying his vodka and tonic. He did the decent thing and jumped for England.”
Copyright © 2005 by Peter Lovesey.
Firebug
by Annie Reed
Annie Reed lives in northern Nevada with her husband and daughter. Her short story “The Beginning” was published in Strange New Worlds VI (Pocket/June 2003). She is a graduate of the 2002 Oregon Coast Short Story Workshop, taught by writers Kristine Kathryn Rusch (herself an EQMM contributor) and Gardner Dozois. She is also a recipient of a Nevada literary arts fellowship.
Me and Bobby, we started a fire yesterday in that empty house on Colfax, the one with the ugly puke-green Realty Masters For Sale sign in the front yard. We got in through the patio door, real easy-like. The guys working on the inside, fixing up the place, they don’t always lock up when they leave. I guess they think no-body notices, but I do. Even I know better than to leave a house open like that. Just asking for trouble.
We were outside the AM-PM on Fourth and Garnett, hanging out in the shade, when I came up with the idea. Me and Bobby, we went to AM-PM for drinks like we always do. I had a Mountain Dew with lots of ice. I like lots of ice in the summer, crunch it between my teeth like candy. Bobby was sucking down AM-Pm’s lame-ass version of a sour-berry Slurpee. He stuck out his tongue every now and then just to gross me out, like a blue tongue is all that gross. I’ve seen grosser.
I’d slipped a lighter in my jeans pocket when the AM-PM cashier wasn’t looking. The lighter was clear orange plastic, the kind where you can see the fluid inside sloshing all around. I almost forgot about it until I did that little jump-skip thing I do over cracks in the sidewalk and I felt the lighter poking hard against my hip.
“Wanna see something cool?” I asked.
I took the lighter out of my pocket and showed it to Bobby, and all of a sudden, just like that, I had the idea.
Kinda funny when I think about it, how ideas come to me. I didn’t really want the lighter, hadn’t planned on swiping it. It was just so easy to take.
It’s part of the game, to see what I can get away with. People look at me and expect me to be nice. Bobby says it’s my face, the way I can make it look all sweet and innocent. I think he’s jealous because he can’t. People look at Bobby and just expect him to do something bad.
Like that stupid AM-PM cashier. She was this old lady with rotten teeth and frizzy bleached-out hair and a loser job. She watched Bobby the whole time he was in the store like he was going to stuff his Slurpee in his shirt instead of pay for it, or maybe she thought he’d pull a gun on her and rob her. Just because of how he looks, like he can help it. So I smiled my sweet, innocent smile and paid for my Mountain Dew, and when she went back to watching Bobby’s every move, I grabbed the lighter off the display next to the counter. Serves her right. I hope they make her pay for it.
Bobby didn’t want to do the fire at first. He’s always so scared of getting caught.
“Roberto, man, c’mon, we gotta do this,” I said, and because I know he hates his real name, I said it again, drew it out singsong. “Ro-berrrrr-to.”
He took a swing at me, but I’m faster than him and I ducked out of the way without spilling any of my drink. I could have hit him back, but he’s my friend so I didn’t.
“Don’t call me that,” Bobby said. He looked like he wanted to try to hit me again. “You know I ain’t that freaking name.”
Yeah, I know, but saying it makes Bobby mad enough to do what I want him to. I know it, and he knows I know it, but that doesn’t change things. Bobby’ll do almost anything to prove he’s not Roberto, not some worthless piece of shit like his old man.
“Listen,” I said. “I been inside already. There’s all sorts of stuff in there that’ll burn.”
“Yeah? Then why don’t you go do it? You’re the one who’s got a hard-on about it.”
Hard-on. That’s funny.
Bobby sucked down some more of his drink and pretended to ignore me. But I saw the glint in his eye, and I could tell he was coming around to the idea. That’s one of the reasons he hangs with me. I come up with all the best ideas.
We stood there for a while, finishing off our drinks and watching the traffic on Garnett. Wasting time, but it was Saturday and we had no place special to be. I didn’t want to go home, not yet. There was nothing to do there anyway. There never is.
An eighteen-wheeler roared by, belching nasty-smelling diesel over its rusted trailer. Garnett has a No Trucks sign, but nobody pays any attention. There’s a park across the street from AM-PM, lots of grass, a couple of basketball courts, and a playground with swings and a slide and a little-kid merry-go-round. I guess somebody figured trucks driving by a park where a bunch of kids hang out wasn’t a good thing. Too bad nobody cares. I flipped the truck driver off even though I knew he couldn’t see me, and Bobby laughed.
“This is lame,” I said, tired of just standing around. “Let’s go.”
I tossed the rest of my drink toward the trash. It hit the rim and bounced back on the sidewalk, spilling ice on the hot concrete. Bobby picked up the cup and threw it with his into the trash can.
“What are you, the garbage man?” I asked as I headed off down Garnett. Colfax was four blocks away, the empty house three blocks up.
“Rebound Man,” Bobby said. “He shoots, he scores!”
He did an air-ball jump shot and then started walking with me, and just like that I knew he’d decided to do it.
Never a doubt. Bobby’s my friend.
Seven blocks can take forever when you’re walking someplace you don’t want to go. Your feet drag and the hot sidewalk burns through your shoes until the bottoms of your feet feel like they’re on fire. The sun zaps all your energy, and it’s all you can do to keep on walking.
The seven blocks to the empty house on Colfax wasn’t like that at all. The sun still fried my head and the sidewalk, but my feet didn’t feel the heat. A few cars drove past, but nobody else was out on the streets but me and Bobby. No kids jumping rope or throwing ball. No dads mowing half-dried-out lawns or washing cars in the driveway, no moms pulling weeds in front-yard flowerbeds. Even the dogs that normally yapped their heads off while they chased along after me inside chain-link-fenced yards only barked a couple of times and stayed in the shade.
Lazy, hot Saturday afternoon, and I was so jazzed I could hardly keep from running. I get like that when I’m playing the game.
“Burgers,” Bobby said, his nose in the air, sniffing like a dog.
I smelled barbecue, too. Somebody was in their backyard grilling lunch or maybe an early dinner. Probably sucking down a beer or two and listening to the Giants game on the radio. My stomach rumbled. Barbecue was one of the best things about summer.