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She says it so easily that I think it surprises both of us I sit down on the edge of the bed and trace the little puckers in the therin a pep talk, but she puts her hand on my arm

"Don't" Then her eyes coet reincarnated"

"Like as Marie Antoinette?"

"No, it's got to be so in the future You think that's crazy?"

"No," I ad in circles"

"So ill you come back as, then?"

"Carrion" She winces, and soet someone?"

"No, you're fine," Kate answers, and I'm sure she doesn't mean it this way, but it pretty

I suddenly reame I used to play when I was nine or ten, and was allowed to ride ot dark I used tolower and lower on the horizon: if I hold ht won't come If I don't blink If I stand so still a fly lands onto keep Kate, even though that isn't the way it works

"Are you afraid?" I blurt out "Of dying?"

Kate turns toover her mouth "I'll let you know" Then she closes her eyes "I'ain

It's not fair, but Kate knows that It doesn't take a whole long life to realize that e deserve to have, we rarely get I stand up, with that lightning bolt branding the lining ofgets backed up like a dah down the hall where I won't disturb her, and then I lift my fist and punch a hole in the thick white wall and still this isn't enough

BRIAN

HERE IS THE RECIPE TO BLOW SOMETHING UP: a Pyrex bowl; potassium chloride--found at health food stores, as a salt substitute A hydrometer Bleach Take the bleach and pour it into the Pyrex, put it onto a stove burner Meanwhile, weigh out your potassium chloride and add to the bleach Check it with the hydro of 13 Cool to room temperature, and filter out the crystals that form This is what you will save

It's hard to be the one alaiting I es off to battle, but when you get right down to it there's a whole story in who's left behind

I'liest courtroo in chairs until it's oes off I look at the nuure out what to do I'ht now

It takes a few talking heads but I get pere to reh the front door, and ihts It is everything I can do not to punch these vultures, ant to rip apart the bleached bones of my family

When I couldn't find Anna the , I headed home I looked in all her usual haunts--the kitchen, the bedroom, the hammock out back--but she wasn't there As a last resort I clie stairs to the apartment Jesse uses

He wasn't hoh by now this is hardly a surprise There was a tiularly; eventually, I toldfrootten easier for me to take what comes I knocked on the door and yelled for Anna, for Jesse, but no one answered Although there was a key to this aparton the stairs, I knocked over the red recycling bin I personally empty every Tuesday, since God forbid Jesse can re it out to the curb hireen, tuent, an olive jar, a gallon container froe juice

I put everything back in, except for the orange juice container, which I've told Jesse isn't recyclable and which he puts in the bin nonetheless every damn week

The difference between these fires and the other ones was that now the stakes have been ratcheted up a notch Instead of an abandoned warehouse or a shack at the side of the water, it is an ele summer, no one was on the premises when the fire was started But there's no question in my mind it was due to unnatural causes

When I get there, the engines are just loading up after salvage and overhaul Paulie coht away "How's Kate?"

"She's okay," I tell him, and I nod toward the mess "What'd you find?"

"He pretty ut the whole north side of the facility," Paulie says "You doing a walk through?"

"Yeah"

The fire began in the teacher's lounge; the char patterns point like an arrow to the origin A collection of synthetic stuffing that hasn't burned clean through is still visible; whoever set this was sht his fire in the middle of a pile of couch cushions and stacks of paper I can still sasoline Bits of glass from the exploded Molotov cocktail litter the ashes

I wander to the far side of the building, peer through a brokenThe guys must have vented the fire here "You think we'll catch this little fuck, Cap?" asks Caesar, coe across his left cheek, he looks down at the debris in the fire line Then he bends down, and with his heavy glove, picks up a cigarette butt "Unbelievable The secretary's desk oddamn tobacco stick survives"

I take it out of his hands and turn it over in my palm "That's because it wasn't here when the fire started Someone had a nice smoke while he watched this, and then he walked away" I tip it onto the side, to where the yellow meets the filter, and read the brand

Paulie sticks his head in the shattered , looking for Caesar "We're heading back Get on the truck" Then he turns to me "Hey, just so you knoe didn't break this one"

"I wasn't gonna make you pay for it, Paulie"

"No, I ot here" He and Caesar leave, and a fewaway

It could have been a stray baseball, or a Frisbee But even in the summertime, janitors monitor public property A brokenis too much of a hazard to be left alone; it would have been taped up or boarded

Unless the saen, so that the flah the wind tunnel created by that vacuum

I look down at the cigarette in my hand, and crush it

You need 56 grams of these reserved crystals Mix with distilled water Heat to a boil and cool again, saving the crystals, pure potassium chlorate Grind these to the consistency of face powder, and heat gently to dry Melt five parts Vaseline with five parts wax Dissolve in gasoline and pour this liquid onto 90 parts potassiuasoline to evaporate

Mold into a cube and dip in wax tocap of at least a grade A3

When Jesse opens the door to his apart here?" he asks

"What are you doing here?"

"I live here," Jesse says "Remember?"

"Do you? Or are you using this as a place to hide?"

He takes out a cigarette frohts up Merits "I don't knohat the fuck you're talking about Why aren't you in court?"

"How co that we don't have a pool?"

"Hello? Is this, like, the Inquisition?" He scowls "I used it when I orking with those tile layers last surout with it To tell you the truth I didn't even know I still had it"

"Then you probably wouldn't know, Jess, that when you put it into a bottle with a piece of alu stuffed into the top, it blows up pretty damn well"

He goes very still "Are you accusing ? Because if you are, just say it, you bastard"

I get up from the couch "Okay I want to know if you scored the bottles before you made the cocktails, so that they'd break easier I want to know if you realized how close that ho when you set the warehouse on fire for kicks" Reaching behind me, I lift the empty Clorox container from his recycle bin "I w