Page 2 of Slow Burn

His shirt burst into flame. White flame. She felt herself moving and knew that she was crawling away from him, but she couldn’t stop watching, and the shirt wasmeltinginto his skin and burning; she saw polyester blisters sizzle and explode on his skin, raw red muscle peel away and turn lacy black. His chest was burning. His arms. His back.

Water, she thought blankly.I’d better get some water.

She didn’t remember going in the bathroom, but when she blinked again, she was standing on cold tile in front of the sink. Burt was making noises, awful sounds like creaking bedsprings. Water. She turned the tap on and stared in panic at the gushing stream. Jesus God, what kind of freak scene was this? There was one cup,goddamnit, just one wrapped in plastic. She grabbed for it and ripped the shrink-wrap off and the thing came apart in her hands in sharp plastic shards, and from the other room Burt was making thosesounds.

“I’m coming!” she yelled, and picked up the ice bucket.

The smoke alarm exploded into a scream, drilled into her head like a white-hot needle and pushed at her in waves on her skin. She put her hands over her ears but that didn’t help; her throat hurt and she realized she was screaming, too, but she couldn’t hear it over the alarm.

I have to get out of here, she thought very clearly.I’ll get the goddamn water and I’m gone. He’ll be all right, the ambulance is on the way.

The ice bucket was too big to fit under the faucet in the sink. Too big for the toilet—no, too small. She ripped the shower curtain away from the tub and stood there panting and clawing at the faucets until a thick stream of water gushed into the ice bucket.

Her chest hurt. She braced herself against the cold tile wall and saw stars.

Right about the time the bucket was halfway full, a cold nasty spray of rusty water came out of the ceiling and drenched her hair. She dropped the bucket and looked up in utter shock at the whirling silver sprinkler.

Okay, okay, it was all over now. She could just get the hell out, he was going to be okay. The sprinklers were on. It couldn’t possibly be as bad as it had looked, everybody thought these things were worse than they really were—

She came around the corner into a thin horrible cloud of smoke, and through it she saw the white fire flicker and die on the thing that lay in a tarry mess of melted carpet.

His eyes were white, like boiled eggs. They leaked.

The alarm hiccuped and stopped. There was some other sound, something high and thin—

Velvet put both hands over her mouth to stop screaming. Her ears felt bruised and full of blood.

She stuffed the bra in her purse and threw the blouse over her shoulders, stuffed her feet into her shoes, wrapped the mink around her. Poor little drowned-rat mink.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she kept whispering, and found her Scotch glass. It was half full; she gagged the liquor down and wiped the glass with the bedspread. She hesitated over the cash on the dresser, then grabbed the wet bills and shoved them into her panty hose. They felt cold and slimy and used.

She thought that he moved, one strange little twitch out of the corner of her eye as she opened the door. No. He couldn’t have.

Jesus. Jesus, she hated hallways.

Chapter Two

Robby

Robby MacReady brushed her fingertips across the top of a brown leather wallet and moved on without taking it. She could tell—almost to the nearest dollar—how much was in it, and that one wasn’t worth the risk.

While the wallet walked away, oblivious, she eyed the crowd and rubbed her itchy fingers. The weight of other people’s money dragged at the lining of her coat—enough money, she thought, but then how much was enough? The hardest part of stealing, like gambling, was knowing when to quit.

Not yet, she promised her itchy fingers.Soon.

An overweight young woman with red hair tied back from a round unmemorable face passed close to her, and Robby twitched her finger as if throwing away a cigarette. Kelly—the red-haired woman-forged ahead. Robby fell in behind her.

Kelly had good hands, if not strictly great; she had a limited feel for marks, rarely got called and never got caught. Robby might have liked her except for her generally sour attitude and endless romantic difficulties—the latest was with Sol, their resident Mafia tax collector. Sol dressed as if someone might be filming him for the next movie of the week.

Ah, Robby thought, and felt a distant tingle. Money coming. She let her eyes go blank and watched faces, watched movements. The woman strolling toward them with the red suit and Gucci bag had the walk of wealth.

Kelly eased in and neatly fished a wallet out of the Gucci bag. Robby judged it a seven of possible ten. The mark, busy checking her diamond-studded watch, never even noticed. Kelly made a quick snapping motion with her fingers, and Robby quickened her walk, brushed by and retrieved the wallet from her. It joined about seven other sweet twins in various Velcro pockets in her jacket.

Robby felt sated and relaxed and—at least for the moment—rich. She waved Kelly off from another pinch and slowed to an amble, enjoying the cool sunshine, the fresh breeze. Kelly hurried away down the street.

A block farther down, Robby, in a celebratory mood, entered O’Donnell’s.

The crowd never seemed to change—broad Irish faces, a few narrow dark ones that might have been Italian, but could have been Welsh. Hookers, thieves, reporters, morticians, lawyers. Though it was in the financial district, well-connected people didn’t find it comfortable to stay in O’Donnell’s; the clientele, to put it bluntly, was made up of losers.

---