The Butcher's Son (17 page)

One of the nice things about working within the outer fringes of the Rourke camp was that I had a lot more flexibility than most of C.C.’s other workers-in-the-vineyard. I did a couple minor jobs around the office then told the secretary I had to run over to Kevin’s with the materials he’d requested. I timed it to arrive at the shelter around ten-fifteen, knowing that Kevin would not have much time to talk before the eleven o’clock lunch hour.

When we were both seated in his office, he got right to the point.

“I think last night went very well, and Charles seemed quite impressed by your presentation. But something has been bothering me a bit.”

This was the first time we had been alone since the meeting, and I was again wondering if he might allude to what he thought was going on between us.

“What’s that?”

“Well, I believe I told you my father owns this building, and it occurred to me that some people might see a fundraiser for the shelter as something of a conflict of interest. To raise money for improvements on a building he actually owns…”

Wrong again, Hardesty
, I thought.

“You gave me the impression that very few people know your father owns the building. Is it in his name?”

Kevin shook his head.

“No, it’s owned by GenesisCorp, a corporation my parents established many years ago for tax purposes when they began investing in real estate.”

“And does McNearny know about GenesisCorp, or that it owns this building?”

“I don’t think so. Like most things, my parents prefer to keep their business dealings private. But…”

“Well, then, I think to cover the eventuality of someone finding out and raising a fuss, we should make a point of stressing that the fundraiser is strictly for operating expenses, food, et cetera—things that would not in themselves enhance the building’s value. That way, if anyone found out, it wouldn’t matter.”

“Do you think I should bring this up with Charles?”

I thought a minute before answering.

“Maybe you should leave that decision up to your father. If McNearny and his team don’t already know, it’s your father’s choice to tell them or not.”

At this point there was a knock at the office door, and the same skeletal man who had interrupted one of our earlier meetings stood again in the doorway.

“Yes, John?”

“It’s the oven again, Reverend. Sorry to bother you, but…”

“No problem, John. Make sure everything’s shut off, and I’ll be down in just a moment.”

John nodded, turned, and disappeared, wiping his hands on his apron. Kevin looked at me, shrugged, and got up from his chair. I followed suit

“Thanks again, Dick. You don’t know how much it means to have somebody I can talk openly to.”

Once again, I found myself really feeling sorry for the guy.

“Any time, Kev.”

We shook hands, and I followed him down the stairs, noting a very faint odor of gas coming from the kitchen.

*

There was a message from Chris on my machine
when I got home, announcing that he had finally found a furnished apartment he liked and could afford—barely—and that he was moving in the next day and would call me again as soon as he got his phone put in. He added that he loved his new job, and I was happy that he was obviously making the transition smoothly.

Tom had also called, asking if we could meet for dinner Thursday night. I called him back immediately, only to get
his
machine. I assumed from the tone of his voice that he had some news about the Dog Collar investigation and was anxious to talk with him. I suggested we meet around seven at O’Grunion’s Grill, a popular mostly straight but gay-friendly restaurant about halfway between his house and mine, and for him to call me with an alternate place if O’Grunion’s wasn’t convenient.

I made myself a drink, fried up a hamburger patty I’d taken out of the freezer that morning, and fixed a box of macaroni and cheese. It wasn’t the Imperator, but it was home.

*

Dinner with Tom revealed that, while the Dog Collar fire was almost certainly the work of the same arsonist as the other six fires, there were some puzzling differences. The bottle used to hold the gas, for instance, was not a Valley Vineyards Chianti bottle. From what they could determine from the glass fragments and lid they’d managed to find, it had been a gallon-sized mayonnaise or jumbo olive jar commonly used by bars and restaurants—they were trying to determine which.

The jar lid had had a quarter-sized hole drilled or punched in it to hold the cloth wick. The arsonist had apparently wanted to make sure it created the largest possible bang, and it had done just that.

What was most puzzling and disturbing to the arson investigators was that in the previous six bombings the arsonist had taken great care to assure no one would be hurt. Those fires had been carefully timed for after closing when no one was around. With the Dog Collar, there was not the slightest doubt the bomb was meant to kill, and to kill as many as possible.

Tom suspected the arsonist was familiar with the Dog Collar’s layout, which opened up the unthinkable but unavoidable possibility it might be someone from the community. The police, of course, liked this idea a lot—they could shift their focus from hate groups to the chief’s “jealous boyfriend” scenario and give them a good reason to hassle the fire’s survivors.

The Dog Collar’s office was directly to one side of the rear entrance and had a window facing the alley. Although barred, it could have been used to pour gas onto the inside wall as had been done in previous fires. Instead, the arsonist had risked being seen by opening the back door—which was, Tom noted, a fire door with an interior bar release that could not be opened from the outside. He speculated the arsonist had been waiting in the alley for someone to come out then slipped some sort of a wedge in the door to keep it from closing all the way.

The stairway down to the dungeon was just inside the rear door and was the only way in or out of the basement. Using the door rather than the office window guaranteed that anyone there would be trapped. The fifteen bodies burned beyond recognition had all been found in the dungeon.

The six previous fires had merely been arson. The Dog Collar was, clearly, calculated mass murder.

*

Friday morning C.C. summoned me to his office.

“There will be a fundraiser for the Salvation’s Door homeless shelter a week from Sunday,” he announced.

No shit, Dick Tracy!

“Ostensibly,” C.C. continued in his best Sermon on the Mount voice, “it will be to raise money for the shelter, but its primary purpose is to show the chief as a caring, concerned citizen supporting his son.

“We’ll play up the ‘man of the people’ angle to the hilt—hold the fundraiser right in the shelter, show the chief eating the same food they serve the bums. I just hope he doesn’t gag on it.

“Charles McNearny and I will be working together on the details, but it’s up to me to whip the whole thing into shape.”

Uh-huh.

“Sunday afternoon’s a piss-poor time to have a fundraiser from the point of maximizing press coverage, but it’s the only time of day the place won’t be crawling with bums and winos. As it is, it’ll have to be crammed in between their regular meals, and it’ll take some pretty fancy footwork.’

Let me guess whose feet.

“Now, the chief’s kid thinks the fundraiser should be only for food and supplies, but from what I hear the place is a total dump and needs a complete renovation. The chief should thank his lucky stars I’m in charge of public relations and not his kid—he can’t see beyond the end of his nose. No concept of the big picture.

“So, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to have your buddy Kevin call R-and-D Contractors… Are you listening to me, Hardesty?” he demanded.

Oh, I was listening, all right.

“R-and-D Contractors,” I repeated.

“Right.” He reached into his thermidor for a zucchini. Ignoring me completely as he went through his lighting ritual, he continued. “So, you’re going to tell your buddy Kevin that R-and-D contractors have volunteered to fix up…whatever room the media will be in. They’ll only do the back wall and about six feet of the ones on either side in time for the fundraiser, but the kid doesn’t have to know that.

“What I want is for the TV cameras to get a night-and-day difference between how things should be and how they are, so that when the chief is called up to say a few words, he’ll be delivering one hell of a powerful subliminal message. Here’s the chief, in front of a neat, clean wall, surrounded by filth and squalor! The chief and the future of the state surrounded by its present. It’s perfect! I’d imagine even
you
can see that.”

“Gee, I think so,” I said, “But what if the contractors are able to get more—or less—done than you envision?”

C.C. looked at me with that expression of total contempt I’d grown so accustomed to seeing on his face when addressing anyone over whom he felt he had control.

“Christ, Hardesty, does your mother dress you in the morning? Not that it’s any of your business, but R-and-D Contractors just happens to be run by my wife’s second cousin. He’ll know exactly how much to get done by the fundraiser, and he’ll do it. Do I have to spell it out for you?”

I shook my head slowly.

“I have to hand it to you, Mr. Carlson! I
never
would have thought of that subliminal thing. I’ll bet Chief Rourke was impressed.”

C.C. took a long puff on his cigar.

“He will be. I’m running the PR end of this show, and I don’t have to bother the chief with every little detail in advance. That’s why he has an expert team of professionals like me to smooth the path for him. I told McNearny about it, and that’s all I need to cover my ass.” He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Well, what the hell are you standing there for? You know what you have to do. So, go do it.”

I did.

*

Kevin was, of course, thrilled to think that the shelter’s
dining room might be getting a badly needed renovation, and said he’d call R&D immediately. It apparently never occurred to him there might be a direct link between the offer and the conflict-of-interest issue. I felt rather guilty not letting him in on the other details, but C.C. was doing a great job of digging himself such a nice deep hole I didn’t want to do anything to keep him from burying himself in it.

I recognized, while driving home that evening, that I was really pretty ambivalent in my feelings—if that’s not too strong a word—about Kevin. On the one hand, I readily admitted I was attracted to the guy, and the little episode at the SAPC meeting didn’t exactly detract from that. I hardly had visions of us settling down together and living happily ever after, but good sex is good sex. And nearly every time I started thinking about him, I felt sorry for the guy. Just to be able to survive in that unimaginably dysfunctional family was cause for grudging respect.

On the other side of the coin, of course, there was the whole issue of the hypocrisy of his allowing himself to be manipulated into a marriage I suspected was largely a showcase, to not have the guts Patrick, however screwed-up he undoubtedly was, had somehow found to get out. On the religion, I figured it wasn’t my place to fault him—he quite obviously did care about helping others, and if it took the form of borderline zealotry to enable him to survive and do what he had to do, so be it.

Bob called shortly after I got home to ask if I could come up to his apartment a little later in the evening. He’d mentioned several days before that he was planning to get together with the owners of the other burned-out bars to see if they could do something together with the Bar Guild to try to shake the insurance companies off the fence, and they were coming over to his place around nine. Since what little information I had been able to get on his behalf was apparently considerably more than any of them had managed to get as individuals, he thought they might like to hear it directly from me.

I told him I’d be glad to.

A quick dinner and some TV, and it was time to head upstairs to Bob’s.

The owners of six of the burned-out bars were there; the Dog Collar’s owner was still in jail, unable to make the million-dollar bail. Some of them I knew, some I didn’t.

I told them everything I could without mentioning Tom or betraying my promise to him. When I’d finished, Mark Graser, owner of Hype, the first bar to have burned and the apparent spokesman for the group, looked around at the others, who nodded as though in agreement to something I wasn’t aware of.

“Dick,” he said, “Bob told us everything you’ve done for him, and, needless to say, he thinks pretty highly of you. You’ve been able to find out more than any of us has, and what we need most is to all be on the same page when it comes to dealing with our insurance companies.

“We’re all pretty financially strapped right now, but we were wondering if there might be some way we could hire you to act on our behalf in finding out who’s behind these fires. We know if we sit and wait for the police to do it, it’ll be a long, long wait. And if we had one reliable source of information, it would save us a hell of a lot of time and duplication of effort. It would mean a lot to all of us.”

I looked around at the group.

“I really appreciate your offer, Mark…and guys…but you don’t have to hire me to do anything. I’ll be more than happy to pass on anything I can find out. Bob’s probably told you I’ve got a really awkward job working with the PR firm hired to get Chief Rourke elected governor, and I just can’t afford to give it up right now.

“However, because of this job, I just might be able to learn some things I couldn’t have found out otherwise. When this campaign is over, I know damned well I’m going to be out of a job, and I might have to come knocking on your doors, but by that time I hope they’ll have nailed the guy behind the fires and you won’t need me.”

“Well, we’ll sure as hell owe you,” Mark said.

I made a mental note of that for future reference.