Page 13 of Slow Burn

“We see things like this all the time,” commented Ralph DeLawrence, spokesman for the Dallas County Volunteer Firefighters Association. “People are careless, and people get killed. They’re just lucky that the fire was small, and the hotel’s sprinkler system put it out.”

The Adolphus issued a statement saying that today’s incident is the first fire-related fatality in its sixty-eight-year history, and that the hotel’s evacuation and safety procedures worked “like a charm.”

The identity of the victim is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Big D Gazette, December 14, 1994

MAN SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTS IN FRONT OF HUNDREDS OF WITNESSES! EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS OF THE EERIE SCENE!

“I never seen nothing like it,” wailed Irene Perez, maid at Dallas’s historic Adolphus Hotel. “It’s just him that’s burned, not the room. It’s like they say, he just burned up!”

Irene Perez and hundreds of eye witnesses say that Burt Marshall, 47, owner of Marshall Dry Cleaners of Oak Lawn, “just burst into flames” after checking into his hotel room at 3:00 P.M. with a mysterious blond beauty. Hotel security found Mr. Marshall lying mortally wounded in his room, burned over ninety percent of his body, after responding to a fire alarm. He died on the way to Parkland Hospital.

“They’re trying to cover this up,” say informed sources at the Dallas County Fire Department. “Things like this happen all the time, and they pass it off as bad wiring or cigarettes or arson. That guy spontaneously combusted, and everybody knows it.”

Dr. Nils Hansen, noted expert at the Swedish Institute for Combustion Research, agrees.

“Yah, it happens,” he responded in an interview with this reporter. “We do not want to cause a panic, but there is no denying it, it happens all the time.”

There is no official ongoing investigation, although an unofficial search continues for the mysterious blond woman with Marshall at the time of the combustion. Anyone with information is urged to report it immediately to the Big D Spontaneous Combustion Hotline, at 1-900-555-FIRE.

Chapter Five

Velvet

Wherever the hell she was, it was dark, and she had to throw up. Velvet stumbled, fell over something on the floor, and laid there with her face in the still-slightly-damp ruin of her mink until the world stopped bobbing around her.

“Oh, Christ,” she moaned. She wasn’t sure if she meant it as prayer, but there was a first for anything. One thing she was sure about—she wasn’t going to ralph on the mink. Not if she could help it. She got her tingling arms and legs under her, and crab-crawled off of the silky fur and onto ratty coarse carpet. Her hand found a cool smooth wall.

She had to stand to reach the light switch. The sudden glare drove a nail through her head, but at least she could identify the room—hers—the trail of clothes—not hers, but the ones she’d been wearing—and, gloriously, the bathroom.

She was on her way there when a hand fell on her shoulder, a big hand, male. She spun around and flattened herself against the wall, all urge to vomit forgotten in the need to scream. The hand slapped over her mouth hard enough to raise bruises and spark pain in the cut on her chin.

Paolo. Oh Jesus, Jesus, she’d forgotten about Ming again. She should have called or something. Paolo was Ming’s leg-breaker, the size of a refrigerator; he had a face like a two-year-old slice of meatloaf, and the dull glitter of his eyes didn’t tell her a thing about how much trouble she was really in.

“Ming.wants to see you,” he said, and took his hand off her mouth to fasten it around her wrist. “Let’s go.”

“But—I need to—”

“Later.”

Ming Lee Fong had never gotten over being the star of the Kiss The Whip Club. She still had a fondness for studs and leather, the outfit today was sleek black, edged in silver spikes that looked as if they might be able to slice skin. Her hair was a long waterfall of black silk, her eyes dead, quiet. Ming accessorized well.

Velvet swallowed hard and waited for Ming to say something. She radiated cold, like the big room, the icy wood floor; it made Velvet feel even sicker. The world was a turntable on 33 1/3, geared down from the fast 45 it had been in the limousine with Paolo. She’d managed not to puke all over the expensive upholstery, at least. He’d allowed her to throw up on the side of the freeway.

“But I got the money,” Velvet said forlornly, and shifted on her chair. All of Ming’s chairs were uncomfortable.

“Yes, I know,” Ming said; she had a soothing voice, low and smooth. Her eyes reminded Velvet of a meat-eating Bambi. “Tell me how it happened.”

“I just—I was just starting, you know, hadn’t even got his clothes off, and he just—” She stopped and swallowed. Scotch. Jesus, she’d never get the taste of Scotch out of her mouth again, no matter how much vodka she drank.Or the taste of Burt.The thought almost made her heave. “He just burned up. I don’t know how it happened, Ming, swear I don’t. It just-happened.Whoosh.”

“You know what they’ll say.” Ming got up and walked over to the window; it looked out on a blank wall. Velvet looked around, saw Paolo leaning in the corner’s shadows, next to some leather contraption that looked uncomfortably like a harness. Black and red leather hoods hung on the wall like severed heads, with black tails of whips between. He pulled on something, and the leather swayed uneasily. “They’ll blame you. Bad for business.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Was he smoking?”

“Well, sure, I mean, you know, he was on fire—”

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