A Passing Curse (2011) (47 page)

He was still chipping away, silently cussing himself for hurting Rusty, when the stone began to move.

He backed up, grabbed the shotgun, and pushed the safety to fire. The stone opened, revealing a black hole. He fired.

A blossom of red hit the wall, the smell of burning milk. He jacked the slide. He fired again, bucking from the recoil, and kept firing until the magazine was empty.

He grabbed the Mag-lite. He checked the wall but saw no blood. He coughed from the cordite. He’d seen blood a second earlier but now there was none. The wall was clean.

The stone had been pushed into the room and there was now a good sized hole in the wall, leaving a crawl space. He shined the light down the hole but saw nothing. How long before the cops came about the gunshots and found him holding a shotgun and dressed like a priest?

Something hit him from behind. A punch glanced off his left shoulder and he turned. Whoever it was looked big and was bunching-up for another punch. Reese stepped out of the way and hit the kidney with the a straight shot from the butt stock. The light hit the floor and rolled flashing against the wall. The room filled with the smell of garbage left in the sun.

The figure was dressed in a black jogging suit and ski mask. Reese was about to blow his head off when the jogger grabbed the shotgun and pulled it from him like taking candy from a child.

The jogger was trying to break the shotgun over his knee when Reese kicked him in the chest. The jogger dropped the shotgun and Reese scrambled for it. The jogger kicked him in the head and Reese saw lights and more lights until he madly grabbed for the shotgun and got off a shot as the jogger fled down the crawlspace.

Reese breathed heavy to clear his head. He heard scratching. He put the barrel inside the crawl space and pulled the trigger. Click. He fumbled through the robe for extra shells. They kept dropping on the floor. His fingers felt like logs. He had three shells in when he saw the nozzle.

There was a rush of air and drops cold-wet on his leg, the smell of gasoline. He was nearly behind the door when the igniter snapped and the fireball hit the door, throwing him into the hall.

He crawled, keeping low, heading for the steps, turning to see napalm, sheets of it, boiling into the hallway. The corner blocks glowing orange. The handrail burning.

The heat forced him down the stairs. The robe was smoking, getting heavier. He smelled sulfur, heard finally the chugging of the empty flamethrower, and kept running.

Ajax watched the growing fire. Even from this distance, he could feel the heat on his face, like a warm heart beating.

He watched the cinders swirl in miniature cyclones. If he was lucky, the Santa Ana winds would blow down the canyons tonight and spread the fire to the beach, taking the town with it. If he was lucky.

But he had already been lucky twice today, lucky he hadn’t been killed by the intrepid policeman, lucky that Penelope hadn’t been hurt.

Lucky that only his jacket had been singed. The room had been damaged slightly, a smoky residue on the walls that Ted had already wiped clean. His sprinkler system had soaked the floors, but the security guards and Ted had dried them with towels. He’d told the suspicious fire chief that a gas heater had exploded. The absurd little man had warned him about proper ventilation and almost issued a citation. Imagine!

Reese was turning out to be more of a rogue than he could have hoped for.

He jumped and clicked his heels thinking about his party tomorrow night. Governor William Smith and his entourage of money men and their wives were always such fun. And now they had a chance to sing for their supper. He suddenly hoped the town didn’t burn. He did not want to reschedule the party or have Mr. Smith distracted by a tour of the smoldering town, gripping hands and grimacing valiantly for the camera.

Reese ran. Two hundred yards from the mission, his shadow trimmed in orange, he turned and watched the flames jump fifty feet. The mission was filled with fire and the figures of robed priests running and shouting as dry roof timbers exploded like mortars, launching sparks into the night.

He watched the priests break open emergency fire stations and unfurl hoses. They were not panicking. He ran backwards, backpedaling, watching the spectacle. They did not need his help and he did not need to answer questions. He had not set the fire.

A meteor arced out of the mission, shot across the sky, and came towards him. He was suddenly very tired. He stood transfixed, watching the fireball lazily fall to earth, strangely hoping it would hit him.

The tree to his right detonated. Blew up. A wave of heat knocked him down.

He slapped his flaming robe, singeing his hand, got up and continued to run. He hiked the robe up to run faster, wondering how silly he looked.

Bright headlights picked him up. Men shouted, air brakes whooshed, engines rumbled. Firemen scrambled off the truck. Tools clanked, a hose was rolled out and attached to a hydrant.

“You OK?” someone yelled and water showered the burning tree. Steam rolled off the pavement. “You’re still smoking, Buddy!”

They hit him with a torrent of water that sent him skidding across the pavement, nearly drowning him. He staggered to his feet and a fireman helped him into the passenger seat of a patrol car.

“Take him to the emergency room,” the fireman told the cop in the driver’s seat.

The cop recognized him and confided that if the winds came the whole town could go. They passed more fire trucks coming and the shadow and roar of a borate bomber as it unfurled clouds of reddish, moon-tinted dust onto the mission.

They drove down the moonlit beach road. A hundred yards away, beyond the swells, a helicopter skimmed the ocean, filling a bucket dangling from a cable. He heard the rotors straining as the chopper picked up the load and flew to the fire, the bucket sloshing water on the road as it passed in front of them.

“This time of year the air crews sleep inside their planes,” the cop said. “The helo’s on a five-minute standby.”

Reese said nothing and noticed the cop staring at the soaked robe. A puddle had formed on the floor mat. Reese could smell the napalm and imagined it rising off of him.

The cop said, “I smell gas.”

Reese rolled down the window.

“I meant gasoline.”

“It’s coming from your engine,” Reese said, hoping the cop wouldn’t start thinking about a man running away from a fire, smelling like a gas pump.

“What’re you wearing?”

“I’m a priest,” he said.

“Now you’re a priest?” the cop said and shook his head.

At the small hospital he was rushed to the emergency room, an orderly under each arm. His wet running shoes squeaked on the linoleum. Several firefighters sat in chairs, their hats and jackets piled in the corner, their shoulders slumped, their blue shirts emblazoned with SMFD.

The orderlies helped him onto a gurney, the paper cover crackling beneath him. He propped himself on his elbows. The paper cover quickly soaked through and felt like a sponge.

“Totally gone,” a fireman said with a deep cut on his face. He winced when a nurse swabbed the blood away. “The wind’s still down. I hope we’re lucky.”

“How’d it start?” He heard one fireman with a blistered hand say. He felt stupid wearing the robe. Running shoes sticking out. All he had on underneath was a t-shirt, pistol, and Levis, all soaking wet. He could hear the water dripping on the linoleum. He could no longer smell the napalm. The water had diluted it.

“Probably candles,” a fireman said from a gurney as a nurse wheeled him off. He had a bandage on his ear. He glanced at Reese. “Too many candles.”

An earnest and very young doctor came up to him. The doctor seemed proficient but had no idea what he was looking at. “How do you feel, Father?”

“Shaken,” Reese said.

A nurse came with a pair of trauma shears and cut the robe down the front. “Do you smell gasoline,” she asked the doctor, who looked around, too busy to notice, and shook his head.

The doctor took his wrist and looked at a stopwatch hanging from his neck. The nurse attached a blood pressure cuff. “Any pain?” the doctor asked. “Anything broken? Nausea?” The doctor shined a light in his eyes. “What day is it?”

“It’s the first day of the rest of my life,” Reese said as the nurse laughed and gently rolled him to get the robe off. When the nurse saw the holster, she said, “You’re a priest?”

The doctor, eyes on the pistol, said, “You can’t bring a gun into a hospital, er, Father. It’s really against all regulations. A gun in a hospital? I mean, I’ll have to call security…”

The swinging doors opened and there stood the Chief. “Well, well. If it isn’t Father Tarrant from the order of the goddamn burning of the missions. So this is your idea of going undercover?”

“My cover was blown,” Reese said.

The doctor and the nurse shot him accusing looks. The nurse dropped the robe in a garbage can like it was something dead and started to cut the Levis up the leg. He told her he could undress himself, but she was already halfway up the leg.

The doctor told the Chief, “He’s got a gun.”

The Chief walked over and roughly unbuckled Reese’s shoulder holster. The nurse helped him slide it off. “I’ll just hold onto this while you recuperate.”

Someone shouted behind the Chief, “Any fireman who can still walk come with me. The wind’s getting up.”

Around midnight, a nurse told him the fire was out. The Santa Ana winds never materialized. The wind came briefly then stopped. The town was safe. So far, no one had been seriously hurt. He did not call Rusty from the hospital. He did not want to be with anyone. He did not want to be with her and her accusing looks. If she was worried, she knew where he’d be. He’d made a mess of things, especially with her, but there would be no more killings at the mission.

He called a cab. The Chief handed him his gun and shoulder holster at the hospital door and told him pointedly to get some rest. The cab came and the driver made a big deal out of opening the door for him, as if he were senile. Over his hospital gown, he wore a blanket under his armpits like a sarong. In the cab he buckled the shoulder holster over the blanket. The cabbie, the same one who’d driven him to Halloran’s, glanced nervously at the gun and chattered about the fire and all the killings.

Once home, he put on fresh shorts and a t-shirt. He sat on the couch and cleaned the pistol. He removed and wiped off each silver bullet. He dried the leather shoulder holster as best he could and hung it from the shower head to dry. After oiling the pistol and reloading it, he slipped it beneath his pillow.

He lay on the bed but kept smelling the gun oil. He went to the couch and nursed a beer. The burn on his leg was first degree, a large blister, nothing more. The nurse had attached a dressing the size of a pillow. He had a smaller bandage on his hand, another burn. All in all, both of his plans to kill Ajax had backfired.

32

The next morning when Reese got to the mission, it was nearly leveled. Smoke hung in the air. The smell was burned wood and paper. He felt strangely drawn to the smoking debris. He felt both invisible and anonymous. There was power in that. Returning to the scene of the crime seemed worth the risk. But he’d committed no crime. Then why feel responsible? He’d nearly killed Rusty but since she was alive and unhurt he was feeling better about that. The mission was gone.

He weaved through fire trucks and police cars, stepping over hoses and smoking bricks of adobe. Puddles of water, like broken mirrors, reflected the deep blue sky, the fog lingering off the beach. Some puddles were dusted crimson from the borate.

Only three structures were identifiable: the bell tower, the cemetery wall, and the stair tower to Ramon’s room, now only a warped steel frame. The adobe walls, mostly mud and dried straw, had exploded, littering the grounds with still-smoking clumps of adobe, some the size of basketballs, some fist-sized. When he kicked one, it disintegrated into ash. Splotches of borate stained the ground.

A fire crew walked around, poking at the smoldering debris with spiked poles. When hot spots were found, the crew stepped back, and a fireman at the pump truck shot an arc of water from a turret, soaking and scattering the remains.

The Chief pulled up in his black and white station wagon. He climbed out shaking his head. The Chief looked worried. He’d had a chance to think things out, Reese guessed. A chance to see how far his ass was sticking out.

“The mission was over two hundred years old,” the Chief lamented. “Every year in April, the city has a festival - Old Spanish Days - this mission was the set piece. It’s a famous event and brings in a lot of tourist dollars.” The Chief shook his head. “But you took care of that.”

“Where are the priests?”

“No one was killed, luckily. No one even got hurt. The priests spent the night at the courthouse. They’re going to Los Angeles today, to the main church. They’re in shock.”

“Bodies?”

“No,” the Chief said.

“He used a flamethrower. Tried to burn me up,” Reese said. “Remember I told you Ajax had picked up a flamethrower at a gun show? Remember our conversation?”

“Ajax?” the Chief asked, a stupid expression on his face, as if he were practicing for his cross-examination on the witness stand. “I killed the only suspect.” No way was the Chief admitting he’d more or less okayed his plan to hide in Ramon’s room, his plan to draw out Ajax. “Can you identify Ajax? Can you put the flamethrower in his hands? Flamethrower? Jesus. It sounds crazy just saying it.”

“Think you can okey-doke your way out of this? Act stupid? It was Ted, Ajax’s chauffeur. He’s the one that came out of the rathole. We grappled. He’s the only guy I’ve seen lately with that size and strength.”

“You’re confused.”

“Your partner and good buddy Ajax Rasmussen sent Ted to burn me up. I can prove it. You’re going to look silly in your own jail wearing orange.”

The Chief shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. I didn’t show up at the hospital dressed like a priest, smelling like an oil tanker.”

“If I go down, you - ”

“Prove it,” the Chief said smugly.