of us, poking the roof with his Halligan tool. Then all hell broke loose. There was a blast, and a chunk of the roof flew into the air. It was like a volcano of fire that suddenly just blew.”
James paused, gulped at his double.
“The fire marshals said the basement had an illegal conversion. That’s what funneled the fire so fast from the coffeehouse to the office building next door. And the second floor of that office structure was undergoing some kind of unlicensed renovation. There were combustibles all over the place. So when the first floor started cooking the second, everything went up without warning.”
James drained his cup dry. “We hit the same fire escape we came up on. Dino and Ronny were long gone when I realized Bigs wasn’t behind me.”
He crushed the paper cup in his fist.
“I went back up. The roof was still partially intact. There wasn’t much smoke, but the heat and fire were unreal. I could see Bigs on the other side of that burning hole. There was no way he could make it back to the fire escape, but he was ready.”
“Ready?”
“Bigs had already found a heavy rafter and pounded down his roof spike. He’d hooked the safety line to the spindle, and he was about to jump over the side—”
“Roof spike?” I interrupted. “That’s the same tool Bigs had me holding the night I came by the firehouse, right?”
“Yeah,” James said.
“So what happened next?”
“Bigs saw me through the flames and he kind of waved. He was even laughing, looking forward to testing out the spike, I think. Then he jumped over the side. That’s when the secondary hit—”
“Sorry. What’s a secondary?”
“A second explosion. Almost as big as the first. Flames shot up from the lower floors and knocked me on my ass. I hit the fire escape and didn’t stop until I kissed the ground.”
“Was it the second blast that caused Bigs to fall?”
James stared straight ahead. “That’s what Oat said. But that’s not the way I see it. I think Bigs was murdered, Ms. Cosi, just like someone shot him with a gun.”
I thought I understood. “Don’t worry, James. The authorities will catch this arsonist—”
“It wasn’t the arsonist.” His whisper sounded more like a hiss. “It’s worse than that—”
He suddenly stopped talking and his entire body tensed. I followed his stare and realized for the first time that we had an audience. Not far away, Lieutenant Oat Crowley was watching us.
Now I was tensing, too. I noticed Oat take a cigar out of his jacket and light it. Every smoker I knew used lighters. Not Oat. He’d just lit his cigar with a wooden match.
Oat wasn’t standing alone. Another man was conversing with him—and doing most of the talking. With Oat’s gaze still on James and me, he slipped the box of matches back into his hip pocket.
My mind was racing now, but I refocused on James and something significant he’d said: “What did you mean when you said Bigs was murdered? If not by the arsonist, then by whom?”
James had been staring at his lieutenant. With my question, he lowered his eyes. “Forget it, Ms. Cosi. I didn’t say a thing, all right?”
“I can’t forget it, James. You helped me once, now I want to—”
“Forget it,” he repeated.
Oat and the other man were now approaching us. The stranger had a friendly, lopsided smile under shaggy, wheat-colored hair. A crooked line of freckles sprinkled his pug nose and his ears seemed comically large for his head. The awkward boyishness was not without charm, however, and the addition of small round glasses and laugh lines had him coming off more as an absentminded professor than a stand-in for Alfred E. Newman.
Cigar clenched between his teeth, Lieutenant Crowley wore his usual scowl. Blue smoke floated almost satanically around his head. The aroma washed over us. Not the crisp, woody scent of fine tobacco, but the sharp, rank stench of cheap stogies like the ones my bookie father used to hand out to winners, along with their pay out.
I stifled a cough as I rose to greet them.
“What are you two gossiping about?” Oat said around his cigar. The hostility radiating from the lieutenant was nothing new, but there was also suspicion.
The boyish bespectacled stranger picked up on the tension and stepped in fast to pump James’s hand. “You’re Noonan, right? We’ve met, haven’t we? I’m Ryan Lane,” he said, flashing a warm smile.
“Hello.”
“Oat told me about your loss. I’m really sorry. Brewer was a