When he reached the half-upright log imbedded in the soil at the creek’s edge, he stopped and peered across to the opposite side. He could see the wall there, a solid black line atop the bank, and he nodded once and began to pick his way gingerly across the bed. It was littered with leaves and twigs and mud and various bits and pieces of garbage carried and deposited by the accelerated rain water. The footing was treacherous, but he reached the opposite bank without incident.
He began to work his way upward along its surface. The contours of the stone-and-mortar wall became evident to him, and then he was standing before it, with his left hand steadying his body on the cold, moist stone. He could not see over the top of the wall from that point. He went to a build-up of silt on a higher section of ground near the far end of the wall. From there he was able to peer cautiously over the top at what lay beyond it.
An elongation of pale light spilled out through a glass-enclosed archway in the house across the interior patio; it gave substance to the shapes within the patio. So Green was still up and about, the limping man thought. Well, all right. Better if he was asleep, but not really that important; he could come back later of course, but he was here now, and there was really no need in taking unnecessary chances.
Carefully, he placed the shopping bag on the flat top of the wall. He swung himself up by utilizing the power in his wrists and forearms, favoring his game leg; he was an agilely poised black shadow for an instant atop the wall, and then he dropped inside the patio, crouching on one of the macetas, listening. There was no discernible sound from within the house. He straightened momentarily to lift the shopping bag down, and after a few seconds he began to make his way slowly, silently, across the stone floor of the patio. He paused at the fountain in its center, by one of the stunted Joshua trees, unhurried now, moving with care, with precision.
He reached the wall beside the glassed archway and flattened himself against the damp stucco. His ears strained, and voices—faint, but comprehensible—filtered through the glass.
“...are you going to do, Larry?”
Woman’s voice. Green had company. Well, maybe she would leave, but he couldn’t wait very long. If she was still in there when the time came, then that was too bad for her. Damned whore anyway, what did it matter? He couldn’t afford to be humane, not now, not now.
“... expect me to do?” Green’s voice, harsh and cold.
“Marry me, Larry. That’s what I expect you to do.”
“Marry you?” Laughter, without humor. “Jesus! I told you to take the goddamned pill, didn’t I? Is it my fault you’re too stupid to do it?”
Silence. And then: “You . . . never loved me at all, did you? You only said the words, lied to me, to . . . to...”
“To get into your pants, sweetheart.” Viciously, with contempt. “The only thing I ever cared about, baby, was that hot little fanny of yours. So there it is, all out in the open at last. Now are you going to get out of here, or would you like me to tell you some more? Like what a really lousy lay you are. And how I was thinking about other girls the whole time, even when I was—”
“No! Oh God, Larry, stop it! Stop it!”
“Then get out!”
Vague weeping sounds. Footsteps, rapid, retreating. Door slamming. Silence.
Now.
The limping man squatted and placed the shopping bag on the wet stone at his feet. He lifted out the gallon jug which had once contained apple cider, but which now contained the high-octane gasoline he had purchased at a Chevron station in Belmont forty-five minutes earlier. He removed the protective section of cellophane food wrap from the top and felt the strips of cotton sheeting which were stuffed into the bottle’s neck. Dry. All right.
He got the windproof butane lighter from his overcoat pocket and straightened up, bringing the gallon jug with him, crooked in his left arm, and he held the lighter poised in his right. He flipped the cap down and his gloved thumb rasped the flint wheel. A thin, high jet of flame shot up. He held it to the sheet strips, watching them flare and begin to bum brightly, and then he stepped out to stand directly in front of the glassed archway, the jug held chest-high like a basketball about to be passed, and Green was there, with his back to him, ten feet away and moving, and almost casually then, the limping man thrust forward, releasing and stepping back, and the flaming container shattered the archway glass and shattered the stillness and shattered itself on the floor inside in a great, rushing, mushrooming sweep of heat and fire and destruction . . .
The sound of the archway glass breaking sends Larry Drexel whirling about, his eyes bulging wide in surprise and sudden fear, and there is in that moment an intense, bursting. undulating vortex of flame that sends him stumbling backward, trying to get his arm up to protect his eyes, but it is too late for that, too late, and the heat singes away his eyebrows and his eyelashes and blisters the skin of his face like a strip of paint under a blowtorch.
He goes to his knees with a scream erupting from his throat, high and shrill and containing every decibel of mortal terror. The flames spread with insane rapidity, licking at the walls, the furniture, the rug and the floor, consuming the scrolled desk, consuming the religious mural and the blue velvet nude, crackling, thundering, brilliant red-orange billowing smoke, searing heat. Drexel tries to stand, and the flames reach out for him, catch him, hold him, set his sleek black hair ablaze, and his shirt and jacket and trousers ablaze, and in the pain thing that is his brain:
Oh God the heat the heat the heat I’m on fire I’m on fire help me Jesus Christ help me I’m on fire
He screams again, and again, and again, he can’t stop screaming, and then he is on his feet and running, running toward the hallway and into it, running for the door, getting it open somehow, trailing fire, running outside, running blind, seeing nothing, feeling nothing but the heat and the pain, a human torch, screaming, dying . . .
The first thing Steve Kilduff saw was the orange glow flickering through the windows of the house.
He hand just turned onto the Five-Hundred block of San Amaron Drive, and when he perceived the glow at two hundred yards he knew that the house was on fire. Intuitively, he sensed that it was Drexel’s house, that it was Number 547, even though he was still too far away to read the number and to determine accurately the make and color of the sports car parked in the drive. His foot came off the accelerator and touched the brake, and the long conical beams of his headlights picked up the outline of a car parked in front of the house and picked up, too, the figure of a girl in a plastic raincoat standing immobile on the sidewalk, looking back.
And that was when the front door burst open and the man on fire came hurtling out.
Kilduff. thought: My God, my God, my God! He knew that it was Drexel, knew with that same intuitive certainty that it was Drexel and that Helgerman had been responsible, had gotten to Number Five. He saw the burning man, Drexel, veer to the left, stumbling over the land scaped front yard, through bottle brush and barrel cactus and Joshua trees, across the drive at the rear of the sports car—and his foot came crashing down hard on the brake. The machine slewed violently sideways, the rear end coming around on the rain-slick macadam street, the front wheels skipping up over the low curb. Kilduff was out of the car before it had rocked to a full stop, out and running after Drexel, no indecision, no weighing and considering, he wasn’t thinking at all; he was reacting, reflex, instinct, military training, pulling off his overcoat as he ran along the sidewalk, past the girl in the plastic raincoat. She was screaming, hysterical; and fifty yards away, bulling through a low thin hedge, Drexel was screaming with a different kind of hysteria. The night was alive with vibrating nightmare sounds.