Melody Burning (6 page)

F
rank waited miserably in Mr. Szatson’s big office in his magnificent home. He wasn’t precisely sure why he’d been called to come here, but it couldn’t be good, that was certain.

He stared out through the glass wall toward the beautiful swimming pool. A woman sat beside it under an umbrella, reading a book in the sun and listening to music that was too faint to make out.

“My wife,” Szatson said sarcastically as he came hurrying into the room. He threw his athletic form down behind the huge desk and fixed his dark, quick eyes on Frank.

Frank knew perfectly well that Mr. Szatson had hired him to do fires. So, probably that’s what this meeting was about. Some Szatson development somewhere was being stalled by some jerk refusing to move, and he needed to be burned out.

Szatson looked at him for so long that it became uncomfortable, and Frank had to look away. It was an intimidation technique, he supposed. If so, it wasn’t going to work. He was going to need more than his pitiful super’s salary to do a fire.

“What’s our present vacancy status?”

Frank blinked with surprise. He wasn’t often wrong about people, but this was not the question he had expected. “I’ve seen a steady stream of move-outs, sir.”

“What’s the complaint log look like?”

“Not a lot. The rents need to come down—that’s our problem.”

“Frank, I want to tell you something. The move-outs don’t matter.”

That made no sense, but he was the boss. “Uh, okay.”

“In fact, I want you to encourage more of them. Hassle people a little. Nothing illegal, of course, don’t go that far. But you can cut back air-conditioning, drop hot water pressure. You can do that sort of thing.”

“Sure, but why?”

Again, Luther Szatson’s eyes met his. “Frank, Frank, Frank.” He chuckled. “Have you learned the building?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then you know how it all works, the power systems, the air, the steam, all of that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how much fuel oil does it carry, Frank, at any given time?”

Frank was so astonished that he almost couldn’t reply, because that question told him instantly where this was going. But no—
no
. The Beresford was too big. It was—oh, God, it would be the fire of the century. He swallowed hard and fought to gather enough spit to talk. “We generally have about twenty thousand gallons on hand. More in the winter. The capacity is thirty thousand gallons.”

“And where is that?”

“Where is the fuel oil stored?”

“Exactly.”

“In the storage tanks. There are three of them under the machinery floor.” Szatson must be quizzing him to make sure he knew his stuff. Okay, he’d pass this quiz.

“And where is the elevator shaft in relation to this storage area?”

“Uh, the shafts come down—the service cars bottom on the tank floor.”

“The elevator shaft is actually open all the way from the top of the building to the bottom, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, of course.”

“That would be a major violation, Frank.”

“Yeah, but the doors down there are code doors. Fire doors. So any problem is gonna be contained, if that’s what you’re worried about, Mr. Szatson.”

Szatson’s eyes smiled, but his words were spat right in Frank’s face. “It’s none of your business what I’m worried about.”

Frank would sooner have been watched by a cobra. He needed some kind of clarification. Because if Mr. Szatson was going to torch a fifty-story apartment building full of people, Frank was not his man. No way.

“You’re saying I need to do everything I can to increase vacancies, Mr. Szatson? Because I’m not quite sure, here.”

“Let me ask you this. If something happened in the basement, if there was a fuel fire, how well protected are we?”

The words hung in the air. People would be killed. With his record, the cops would be all over him. If he got convicted, he’d get the needle.

“Frank, are we protected? Or do I need to do something about that shaft?”

“Well, those fire doors would close. If it was a straight flamer, no problem. The sprinklers would take care of it before the fire department even got there. The thing is, though, if the fuel tanks went up, they’d blow the doors off, and then you’d see that shaft work like a chimney. You’d have fire all the way to the top of the structure in a matter of seconds.”

Then he thought an incredible, chilling thought: Was this
why
the elevator shaft went down to the fuel storage tanks? Had Szatson always planned to torch the Beresford?

But why hadn’t the insurance company seen it? One reason and one only: Mr. Szatson was in the insurance business, too. You could be sure, though, when the Beresford burned, it wouldn’t be his money that would come out of the insurance trust to pay the gigantic claim. No, that would be the money of innocent investors.

How much would he collect? Easily half a billion dollars and probably more. There would be lawsuits galore, of course, from the survivors and the families of the dead—for there would be many dead—but the suits would also be covered by liability insurance.

Instead of making a small monthly profit on the Beresford, Szatson was going to cash out in what was bound to be one of the most spectacular fires in Los Angeles history.

“Is it doable?” Szatson asked. His voice was very quiet. “I mean, could it happen? A fire like that?”

“I don’t think those fuel tanks are that dangerous. That oil takes special treatment to burn—that’s why you’ve got blowers on the fireboxes.”

“Well, good. Then I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it.” He went to a drawer and removed a file. “I got a variance from the city for that shaft. They let me off the hook, thank God. It was an honest mistake.”

Frank knew that he had to have paid plenty for that variance. No honest inspector would let a violation that dangerous go unrepaired.

“So, Frank, are we together on this?”

Frank knew he was the best torch in the game, and Luther Szatson had reached out for him.

He took a deep breath and spoke. “I want you to know that I understand very clearly, Mr. Szatson.” He would not say that he would do it, though. He would not do it. First, it was too dangerous. Second, he’d never killed anyone. He did arson, not murder.

Szatson strolled to the glass wall that overlooked the pool.

Frank interpreted this as a signal that the meeting was over and started to get up.

“No, no,” Szatson said, “we’re not quite finished here.” He opened the folder on his desk. “I’m looking at a complaint here.”

“About me? From a tenant?”

“It’s from a tenant’s lawyer. The singer on fifty.”

“Yeah?”

“The thing is, this lawyer is claiming that somebody is bothering the girl. Somebody is—listen to this—‘utilizing shaftways and crawl spaces to stalk Miss McGrath.’ ”

That damn squatter. Frank held up his hand. “Say no more. It’s taken care of.”

“Wylie said that. Christopher before him. Now you say it.”

“Except I can do it.”

Szatson glared. “Then why haven’t you?” His voice was acid. Frank knew this shadow man could turn out to be a witness, and witnesses were dangerous.

“I’ve confirmed that he’s there. That’s a start.”

“I don’t need a start, I need a finish!”

“He’s good at what he does.”

“Get the job done!”

“I’ll take care of him.”

“If this bastard uses the chases, fine. He can fall.”

Frank knew exactly what those words meant. His boss had just told him to kill the squatter.

“Yes, sir,” he agreed, “he can fall. But then we have a police investigation inside the building.”

“He falls, he disappears.”

Frank could smell the stink of fear in the room, the sharp odor of his own sweat.

“Well,” Szatson said, “I think we’ve reached an understanding. Am I right?”

Frank had just been asked to set a fire that was certain to kill and to murder a squatter. He temporarily froze.

“Frank, you know why you came out of the house early? Why you’re off the parole list?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“It’s the right idea. I did it, and I can undo it. I can make it look like you forged the release documents.
You
, Frank. You’ll go back in.”

And, as Frank knew all too well, this time it would be for good.

So he was being given a choice: kill people and risk being executed, or refuse to do it and spend the rest of his life in prison, convicted of using forged documents to escape.

He sucked breath. Life in prison for certain against the possibility of a death sentence. A certainty against a possibility.

He made his choice.

“You’re gonna get your work done, sir. Just like you want it done.”

Szatson smiled. Somehow the brightness of his teeth made the deal even more terrifying.

Back in his car, Frank sat for a long time. “So what happens to me?” he muttered into the silence. “What happens to me then?”

The answer was, Szatson went on down the road amassing his billions, and a little guy like Frank—well, maybe he got something, and maybe he didn’t.

As he angled his car down into the city streets, he felt the tightness of frustration constricting his throat. Stopping at a light on Franklin, he watched a bunch of kids from Hollywood High School cross the street and head toward Starbucks.

When the light changed, he found that his foot had been pressing the brake so hard that it had cramped in the arch.

He drove on back to the Beresford with one thought in mind: the creep who was using the shafts was about to find out that when you got an unexpected push, the fall was long and the landing hard.

C
HAPTER 8

W
e’re in the middle of a media frenzy, and I’m totally thrown, I have to say. It’s over Alex, of course. I should have expected it, but I didn’t. I woke up this morning thinking only about the creep on the roof, then Lupe, who cleans our place, called to say the doorman wouldn’t let her in because he thought she was with the reporters.

Now I’m gonna have to do a papi walk just to get out of the building. It makes me wish I could fly, and suddenly a new song is in my mind, “Flying on Forever.” Every kid in the world will understand this song, I know it.

I’m still thinking about the unbelievable fight we had. The worst ever, I think.

We meet in the front hall, and the first words out of Mom’s mouth are, “You look
wonderful
.” She’s trying to make up, but I still can’t.

Now the doorbell rings, and Julius is here. The super, Frank, is with him.

“We’re ready to move,” Julius says, and Frank goes, “I’ve got the back entrance open, and we have security in the lobby to make it look like you’re about to come through.”

“We want to go through the lobby,” Mom says.

“
Mom!
” But she’s right. Of course we do.

So I stand in silence as the elevator goes down.

Frank says, “Mrs. McGrath, we have that other situation under control.”

“Thank you.”

I would never tell Mom that I saw him on the roof last night, because she would go totally
insane
if she knew I’d been up there. She’d put armed guards in the stairwell.

I don’t think I wanted to jump. I don’t know. Maybe what I wanted was to fly.

The doors open—and there, in the middle of the hungry crowd, the first thing I see is the grinning face of this tiny woman with huge glasses who says, “Melody, I’m Amber. From
People
?”

Then a papi I don’t know says, “Melody, is it true you do meth, too? That the cops are covering for you?”

“Amber,” Mom says, taking her by the arm as we go through the camera clickathon, “you were supposed to call!”

We’re an entourage now, me and Mom and Julius and Frank and Amber. Not a big entourage, maybe, but enough to make me appear to be the star.

Shouted question: “Melody, is
Swingles
totally dead?”

“Nothing is ever totally dead,” Mom yells back.

“How do you feel about Alex going to jail?”

For a second, I’m thrown. What is this about
jail
?

“Did he rape you, Melody?”

Then we are outside under the marquee and the limo is there. Thank God.

The limo smells like bacon, and I discover that we have a nice breakfast waiting—scrambled eggs and coffee and bacon. I want to love Mom again.

I’m not even chewing a mouthful of food yet when Mom says, “Walker is on guitar, and Mickey is on drums again. So what do you have for them, sweetie?”

Mom is 1,000 percent business, as always.

“I have ‘So Long, Boyfriend’ and ‘Love Without You’ and two new ones.”

“Okay.” She puts out her hand.

“Um, actually, they’re in my head.”

“You do understand that studio time burns fifteen hundred dollars an hour?”

“They’re in my head!”

“They need to be on paper!”

“When I’m in the iso booth, I’ll do them. You can work with the arranger. We’ll put it together as we go.”

“So, basically, we have just the two songs. And that’s it.”

“Mom, we have four songs and probably more, and you have to respect my process! They
will
come out.” I get so mad I just boil over, and right in front of the damn
People
lady, too.