"Jack, what I've learned – what I think we both have learned – is that you can't walk away from your history.
"But I've made mine work for me and your history can work for you, too, Jack. It can make you rich. It's not too late to turn back from what you've done. We can reinvent ourselves again, Jack. Reinvent this moment. We can't change the past but we can design the future. We can make each other rich. Choose the California life, not the fire, Jack. This doesn't have to end in ashes."
"It already has," Jack says.
Nicky shakes his head. "All you have to do is tell me who, if anyone, you have told. Have you, for instance, told Tom Casey? Letty del Rio? Other police? The newspapers? Answer my fucking questions, Jack!"
"Don't be an asshole, Jack."
"Tell him, Wade."
Nicky is cranked up.
Back on the rant. "You won't be dead when the flames hit you, Jack. We'll start with your feet – you wouldn't believe the pain – the nerves down there. Then you'll want to tell me, then you might still have your life but I wouldn't think about getting on too many surfboards, Jack. This is so unnecessary but I'm desperate, Jack, I'm desperate. I am, as you would say, strung out. Lev is dead, they cut his head off and threw it into my mother's home where my children live. Dani is back there guarding my children because they already took my mother, they're going to kill her, they're going to burn her if this falls through, so I need to know, Jack.
"I will do it, Jack. I'll pour the – what do you like to call it – accelerant all over you and fling a match. You won't die from smoke inhalation, you won't die from carbon monoxide asphyxiation, you'll die from the flames, from the fire swirling around you-"
"Like Pamela?" Jack asks.
"No, not like Pamela'" Nicky says. He looks to Bentley and says, "Open the lid. Let him smell the fumes."
Jack smells them. Hard not to in the closed room.
"I loved her, Jack," Nicky says. "I loved being inside her. I used to drink from her. She was sweetness and sunshine – my children came from inside her, my children. But she was going to take… that bitch was going to take everything from me. She was going to drain me, leave me with nothing. She was going to get up in court and say things about me: Nicky is a womanizer, Nicky is a druggie, Nicky is a crook, Nicky is a gangster. Nicky sleeps with his mother – which is not true, not the way she meant it. She was going to say those things, she told me that. I told her she would never divorce me, she would never take my possessions. My house, my money, my things, my kids, and she said that if she had to she would say all those things before she let my mother get her hands on the kids and fuck them up. That's what she said, quote, flick them up. But no, I didn't burn her alive. I didn't make her dance in flames, writhe on our bed like the bitch used to except this time in flames. I didn't do that, because I loved her. I just made her go to sleep. I made her drink and take pills and when she was asleep in our bed I climbed on top of her. She had the most graceful, whitest neck. I can remember the first time I kissed her neck. I can remember the first time she took me inside her and her black hair against her neck. Can you remember that incredible warmth, the ineffable heat, the first time inside a woman? I used to want her so badly it was like I was on fire, and the bitch knew that, she knew what she was doing. Cockteasing bitch should burn, she deserves it, but I don't do that. I'm on top of her with a pillow – that's amusing now that I recall it because she used to have me put a pillow under her ass so I could go deeper inside – I'm on top of her with the pillow over her mouth, she's unconscious but her hips jerk and strain, her back arches up and then she goes quiet in my arms but I can't finish. Cockteasing bitch to the last, I can't finish, so I get up and then – and only then, Jack – do I pour the kerosene around our marital bed. Around and under and over the bitch. I can't stand to pour it on that beautiful face, just the cockteasing part of her. I poured it there all right. She makes no more children she can fuck up. You cannot walk away from your history, Jack. The fire swirls around you and I have heard the screams echo for miles. Now tell me what I need to know. I'm out of time and out of patience and I will set you on fire, Jack, because I need my money and I need my things and they have my mother for God's sake!!"
He gestures to Bentley.
Bentley raises the gas can.
"I haven't told anyone," Jack says.
Nicky smiles.
"But how can I believe you?" he asks. Turns to Bentley "Do him."
Bentley looks sick but he raises the can again.
"Goddamn it," Billy says.
Takes out his old. 44 and shoots Bentley square in the gut.
The flash ignites the fumes.
Which in turn ignite Bentley.
He's on fire so he drops the can and the gas gurgles onto the floor and he forgets everything he learns in fire school and goes running out the door.
He's a screaming, swirling ball of flame when he crumples onto the dry grass.
Which is how Accidentally Bentley sets the Great South Coast Fire.
Accidentally.
131
Jack doesn't know that.
He's still in the building and it's on fire. The gas pours out of the can, spreading accelerant all over the floor and fumes in the air and the fumes ignite like WHAM and a column of flame shoots upward.
Flame and smoke and darkness and Jack loses sight of Nicky Vale.
All Jack can see is Goddamn Billy heading not for the door but farther into the rec hall, in toward the old kitchen, and Jack's thinking, Get out of here but he's also thinking, Get Billy out of here, too, so he goes after him.
Which is like stupid, Jack tells himself. Which is like dumb because all the old wood is igniting, then the covers on the furniture ignite, and the fucking furniture ignites. The fire is free burning, there are flames everywhere, the place is filling up with smoke and that son of a bitch Billy was going to set you up anyway so why are you going after him?
Because you're a dog and that's what a dog does. A dog doesn't leave.
Jack drops down and stays low, down where the air is, and makes his way after Billy.
Into the kitchen.
The old kitchen where they used to cook up hamburgers and hot dogs and big pots of chili.
And there's Goddamn Billy standing by the old stainless-steel counter.
Lighting a cigarette.
"Come on!" Jack yells. "We can get out of here!"
Maybe.
The ceiling's on fire, the roof's involved.
"We can get out of here!" Jack repeats.
"No," Billy says.
Puts the stick to his lips and takes a long drag.
"Billy, I can get us out of here!" Jack shouts. "If we go now!"
His eyes are starting to tear up. Tear up and burn and he can feel the smoke scorching his throat. Looks behind him and sees the flames. Looks up and sees little tongues of flame start to lick the kitchen ceiling.
"Can't do it, Jack."
Jack starts to cry. Goddamn it, Billy. It could be seconds to flashover. Seconds till the fairies start flying and flashover happens and everything ignites.
We can't wait any longer, Billy.
"I CAN CARRY YOU!"
Screaming because the noise of the fire is unbelievable. The starving alligator in a feeding frenzy, crunching on the old house.
Billy shakes his head. "I CAN'T FACE IT, JACK!"
Tiny balls of flame dance in the air.
The fairies flying.
To hell with arguing, Jack thinks. I'll knock the stubborn old fucker out if I have to.
He starts toward Billy.