Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [71]
This was the rig that ran him down last night.
He wondered how he was going to report this to the police without getting arrested for breaking and entering. The only windows in this part of the building were thirty feet off the ground, so he couldn’t say he’d seen it through the window.
He was pawing through the drawers of the tool box when his pager went off, a full response to Eighteen Avenue Northeast, a residential neighborhood just a few blocks north of the University of Washington.
“Air Twenty-six responding,” Finney said, after the dispatcher asked for confirmation.
The first unit was already on scene, reporting heavy smoke from the basement of a two-story house. The fire had started in the kitchen in a basement apartment and spread through heating vents. Nobody was hurt, but they lost most of the basement, along with several rooms on the first floor.
Ninety minutes later, when he was released from the scene, Finney drove Air 26 to Robert Kub’s house on South Ferdinand Street. A shiny black BMW with custom wheels stood in the driveway next to a battered gray Ford Tempo. Finney didn’t recognize the Ford, but the BMW was Kub’s.
36. OH, IT’S GOOD ALL RIGHT
“This damn well better be good,” Kub said, as he climbed into Air 26.
“Trust me.”
He had no hypothesis, just the splash of excitement that told him he was on the fringe of something big. The phony engine must have cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars, to think nothing of the incalculable trouble somebody had gone to in replicating Engine 10 down to the last detail.
“Drag me outta my home, away from a woman I been thinking about for two years. Sweet Jesus. She better be there when I get back. Lavernia. You see her?”
“This is important.”
“At least tell me where we’re going.”
“Just down the hill here. I’ll have you back in twenty minutes.”
“Before she gained some of that weight, Lavernia was in Jet magazine. I got close to poking her once, but she started thinking about the Lord and feeling guilty. This’ll probably be just enough time to get her feeling guilty again. You probably read about her husband. A Baptist minister, one of those righteous political activists who keeps Jesus in his back pocket.” Kub smiled, his teeth gleaming in the light from the dash. “Know what’s going on tonight? She caught him playing around. Guess what I am. The revenge fuck.”
“I’m going to need advice. This place I’m taking you to . . .”
“I get back and she’s gone, I’m going to be pissed. I never been a revenge fuck before.”
“I know,” Finney said, stopping on Eighth Avenue.
It was almost midnight and cold. Finney went through the ritual with the Knox box while Kub watched. “Come on, Robert.” Finney pushed the front door open with his fingertips.
“Not unless you own this place.”
“I hear an alarm. Let’s go investigate.”
“There’s no alarm. No way.”
“We’re on a street that probably won’t see another vehicle until seven in the morning. There’s something in here you have to see to believe.”
“What?”
“Like I said, you have to see it.” Clad in slacks, a dress shirt he’d hastily buttoned, loafers, and no socks, Kub was shivering. He glanced up the vacant street in both directions.
“What the hell!” He hopped up the four concrete steps and followed Finney inside and across the expanse of unlit, empty warehouse floor to the portable screen. “This better be good,” he said, cantering along several paces behind the beam from Finney’s flashlight.
“Voilà!” Finney said, stepping around the tall screen and raising his light.
Kub poked his head around. “What?”
They were gone—the engine, the newspapers, the tool chest, even the paint cans. Finney had been away only two hours.
“Okay, John. Quit dickin’ around.”
“It was here.”
“What the hell you talkin’ about?”
“They must know I found it. That’s the only explanation. Come on. Let’s talk outside.”
“Not until you tell me what we’re supposed to be looking at.”
“It was a mock-up of Engine Ten.”
“Say what?”