The Reincarnationist Papers Page 20

  "Paid by whom?"

  "The building's owner, Martin Shelby."

  "How much did he pay you?"

  "Five thousand dollars."

  "How did you encounter him initially?"

  "He was referred to me."

  "By whom," he asked impatiently.

  "A former client named Tom Preston."

  Silence.

  "So may we assume by this that you're a professional arsonist?"

  "It is what I do for money, yes."

  "How many fires have you started?"

  "That I've been paid for?"

  "How many fires have you started?"

  I took a smoke from the pack on the table and primed my lighter. The tiny sprite flared as the cigarette started to burn. "Hundreds," I said, closing the lid on the flame.

  Silence again.

  "How did you first get started doing it professionally?"

  I chuckled to myself. "It's funny the way it got started. I was caught by the police, more specifically one cop, a crooked one. He caught me leaving an abandoned apartment building in Watts. He cuffed me and put me in the back of his squad car while he ran my I.D. for warrants. He didn't know then that I'd set a fire in one of the interior apartments. I had planned on watching the fire from across the street, but ended up watching it from the back seat of a police car.

  "I fidgeted in nervous anticipation as wisps of smoke started to escape between small fissures in the plywood covering the windows. He checked his computer in vain; I was clean. But that didn't stop him from keeping me there while he grilled me about coming out of an abandoned building at 2:00 a.m. He turned sideways in his seat to look at me and it took every bit of concentration I could muster to make up a story and not be distracted by the smoke that was now billowing out of the second story windows behind him. I remember I told him I was scouting the site for a photography shoot. By the time I was near the end of my story, flickering flashes of yellow were creeping toward the open front door. I knew that as soon as I stopped talking he would turn around and I'd be done for. So I kept talking. Flames began to lick at the upstairs windows, and I kept talking. I was so nervous and excited I thought I would wet my pants. I never looked away from his eyes, even when the flames completely silhouetted his balding head. And still, I kept talking. My story had started to come apart minutes before but I had no choice, but to keep talking. I guess I thought I could keep his attention until the whole building burned to the ground behind him. He must have seen the reflection of yellow flashes in my face or been onto my story about being Rolling Stone's ace photographer and shooting Bruce Springsteen there next week, because he broke away from me and turned around slowly in his seat until the burning building was in full view.

  "'Holy shit!' the cop exclaimed as he threw the car into reverse. He called in the address to the fire department once he had backed half a block away. 'Photographer my ass,' he said, looking at me in the rear view mirror. 'You were starting a fire in there.'

  "'You don't know that,' I said.

  "'I don't have to know.'

  "'Come on man, they were just gonna tear it down anyway, hell I saved the city money. Do me a favor mister. Let me go.'

  "He looked back at the fire for a full minute. 'Do you a favor,' he said, laughing as he put the car in drive and took off. 'You've got that part backwards.'

  "He made it pretty plain really, burn down his house for him and I got to walk away. It took me about two seconds to make up my mind and we made the plans right there in the squad car. He told me he was in the process of a divorce and that his wife was getting the house. The judge had determined that they would split the sixty thousand dollars worth of equity evenly, but his wife couldn't dole out his half all at once without selling the house, which she wouldn't do. She was ordered to pay him a meager hundred dollars a month for twenty five years, without interest. I remember the cop getting really pissed off just telling me the situation. But if his house were destroyed, 'by an accidental fire, for instance,' he would get his thirty thousand dollars in a lump sum from the insurance company, and his wife would have nowhere to stay and no clothes. He smiled at me in the rear view mirror when he said this. At that point I'd have done it for nothing. He took a key off his key ring and gave it to me along with a hand written address.

  "'You get this back tomorrow night in exchange for the key, if the place is burned,' he said, holding up my I.D. 'otherwise I find it on the ground next to the building back there. Do we have an understanding?' I nodded. 'By the way, my wife leaves for work at 8:30 a.m. and she has a bad habit of leaving the iron on.

  "'Meet me at the California Cafe next to the Coliseum at midnight tomorrow night. Sit at the counter.' He uncuffed me, let me out of the car and drove off into the night.

  "I did the job and met him just as we'd agreed. Everything was normal until about a week later when I got a visitor at my hotel. The stranger explained that the 'boys in blue' said I could help him and handed me an envelope containing an address and two thousand dollars. I had no idea what was up on the cop’s end, but I took the money and did the job just the same. The first seven or eight jobs came like that. Later on, my name just got around town I guess because I've been doing it ever since."

  "When was this?" the Egyptian asked.

  "1989."

  "How many jobs have you done since then?"

  "This last one, the one she spoke of, was my nineteenth."

  "What was the officer's name?"

  "Shirer."

  "Did you ever see him again?"

  "No. Not after that night in the diner when I got my I.D. back."

  "What was the name of the hotel where the first man referred by Shirer came to meet you."

  "The Altmore. I lived there until a year ago when I moved to the Ohio Hotel."

  The Egyptian shuffled with his notes. I leaned back and stretched.

  "How long have we been down here tonight?" I asked Poppy in a whisper.

  "Only two or three hours probably. Are you getting tired?"

  "No. I'm fine. I feel good. I've never shared most of these facts before. It's rather cathartic." She winked at me.

  Nadya leaned over and whispered to the old man. They conferred for a minute before she straightened and fixed her pale eyes on me. "Mr. Michaels, I'd like to go back and cover the time you said you spent in the Bulgarian Army during the Great War. Please be as specific and detailed as possible," she said in that familiar Slavic accent. "When were you pressed into service?"

  "1915, right after the attack on Rumania. I was a stocky young man and was assigned to an artillery company as an ordnance handler."

  "Did your unit ever see any action?" Nadya asked.

  "Yes but not until the last week of the war. But I saw enough in one night to last me a lifetime."

  "Where did you see action?"

  I was about to respond when I felt Poppy place her hand on my arm. She leaned over and whispered close to my ear. "That one that is asking about the war,"

  "Nadya you mean?" I whispered back.

  "No." She shook her head. "Not Nadya. That's Ramsay, the one I told you about in France. I think Ramsay was very active in that war so answer carefully. Part of the trick to being verifiable is your ability to tell the stories of your lives with uncanny detail and accuracy down to the slightest point."

  I turned back to the panel. She was still looking at me, waiting for a response. "I fought against the French and the Serbs in the Vardar River valley in the autumn of 1918, but only for a short time, as I said earlier. The entire front collapsed very quickly for us. I was only involved in one battle."

  "Who was your commanding officer?"

  "Captain Eumen Hoxa."

  A look of astonishment came over her face. "Tell me about Hoxa, tell me about the battle, tell me everything."

  "It was a fluke. We shouldn't even have been there, which is probably the only reason why we surprised them and why we survived. When it happened, on September 18th and 19th, 1918, the whole of the
Bulgarian front had been in full retreat for three weeks[23]...

  13

  When it happened, on September 18th and 19th, 1918, the whole of the Bulgarian front had been in full retreat for three weeks. Vasili wasn't a military strategist, but it didn't take one to realize the small triangle of land formed where the Cherna river flowed into the Vardar made a poor spot to make a stand, even if only for one night.

  Vasili labored in the autumn sun, stacking the 75 pound, two foot long artillery shells in long rows three deep next to the gun emplacement. The five Krupp 77 mm howitzers stood a menacing vigil, looking south toward Greece and the two French divisions that lingered somewhere on the horizon. Vasili set down a shell to talk to the passing Captain.

  "How many rounds do you want to bring out of the wagon sir?"

  Captain Hoxa twirled at the ends of his thick handlebar mustache as he surveyed the surrounding Macedonian countryside. "Better bring them all out soldier, just in case. And go help 1st squad when you're done," he said, walking down to the river.

  Vasili arched his back and sighed before reaching back into the horse drawn wagon for more shells. Two hours later he left his six neat rows and walked the twenty five feet down to the next gun. The loader and breech operator shoveled dirt around the large steel spoke wheels of the gun, bracing it. The first squad's ordnance man had unloaded only half of his wagon. His rounds lay in loose rows that leaned precariously.

  "Thanks for helping," the ordnance man said as Vasili started handing shells down to him from the wagon. "Hoxa's been busting my balls all afternoon."

  "Don't worry, we'll get it straight. But I'll tell you something, I don't like setting up here one bit."

  "You know if we didn't have to hump these shells in and out every goddamn day we'd be in Skopie by now where we belong," said the smaller first squad man straining to keep up with Vasili's pace. "Hopefully he'll decide to use some of these rounds so we won't have to reload so many tomorrow morning. Besides, I've been dying to shoot some of these babies off in anger."

  "You just might get your chance tonight soldier," Captain Hoxa said, stepping around the wagon. "Now get your lazy ass back to work!

  "Alright ladies, here's the drill," Hoxa shouted loud enough for all five crews to hear. "Have your positions and camps ready in one hour. Tie all the horses off next to the river. There will be only one fire tonight, the one that Verga is using to cook, and that will be snuffed before dark. We've got two full strength frog divisions sleeping in this valley with us tonight, so be careful."

  Vasili peered over the rim of his cup at the worried faces surrounding him. The sound of twenty two tired, dirty men sipping thin barley soup from metal cups reverberated as one continuous fifteen minute slurp. The sun dropped quickly behind the hills on the west wall of the valley. To the south, the remaining sunset exploded beautifully along the leading edge of a storm approaching off the Gulf of Salonika.

  "What do you think Captain?" asked a lonely voice at the edge of the circle.

  "I think it's going to rain. Brace yourself for a miserable night. Everyone keep a sharp eye for fires. The French won't be nearly as apprehensive or worried about us as we are about them."

  "With a fire they'll be much more comfortable though," someone shouted, trying to break the tension.

  "You know the French. They don't go anywhere if they can't go comfortably," came another voice from the circle.

  "I hear they even have whores that travel with them, but only for the officers of course," a young soldier said, looking at his commander.

  "I think we should form a raiding party and plunder their camp of wine and women."

  "A raiding party? Why not just attack them head on! A Bulgar is a match for twenty Frenchmen. If he's fighting for the right cause." The anonymous voice was met with boisterous laughter.

  "Enough!" barked Captain Hoxa. "This isn't some church social. Be quiet and keep watch."

  Hoxa climbed on top of the center howitzer and straddled the end of the barrel. He kept a firm grip on the muzzle as the operator cranked on the elevator control, raising the barrel toward the night sky. He scanned the horizon with his binoculars.

  "Somebody saddle my horse," he said coolly from his perch.

  "Do you see anything?" asked the corporal

  The Captain shook his head yes[24]. "Lower the pitch so I can get off."

  Captain Eumen Hoxa was a legend in Bulgaria. He won the Order of Bravery-First Class, Bulgaria's highest military combat honor[25], in the first week of the war. He single handedly, and without authorization, took his company and outflanked a large, broken Rumanian column in retreat from Petrila. He moved seventy men and ten artillery pieces thirty miles in one day and night. The Cannae maneuver he executed was a masterpiece. His company opened up at first light and cut the column to ribbons, capturing four Generals of the Rumanian High Command in the process. His courage was only outstripped by his detestation for rear area commanders, which is why he never advanced above the rank of Captain. His reward for unshakable bravery and initiative was to be placed at the very front, facing a confident fresh army.

  He jumped down off the end of the gun barrel mumbling to himself as he walked to his readied horse. "Don't do anything until I get back," he shouted. He rode across the shallow, swift running Cherna river toward the second and third artillery companies dug in over a mile farther north. Five silent minutes passed before the corporal jumped up and straddled the gun the way Hoxa had done.

  "Can you see anything?"

  "Yes," the corporal replied, "fires, about twenty of them in one bivouac."

  "You don't think he would fire on them do you?" a nervous voice asked.

  "No of course not," the corporal said still atop the howitzer. "He just wants to let the other squad leaders know."

  "How far away are they?"

  "I'd say about two miles."

  "Yeah you're right. He won't attack, but we'll probably have to break camp and move out tonight."

  "And reload all those goddamn shells too," said the 1st squad ordnance man. "What do you think Vasili?"

  "I've got a bad feeling about tonight. I have a weird feeling about this whole spot."

  "But Hoxa's lived through too much shit to try something like this," the first squad ordnance man said, trying to convince himself.

  Vasili reached into the empty munitions cart and pulled out his dirty grey uniform jacket. "That man is capable of anything."

  Hoxa rode back into camp as quickly as he had left. He jumped off his horse, handing the reins to the soldier closest to him. His eyes were ablaze with excitement. "The other companies are ready," he said running up the river bank behind the guns.

  "Ready sir? Ready for what?" asked the corporal.

  "The reckoning."

  "You're not going to attack? I climbed up there. I saw them. There must be at least four-hundred men out there."

  "At least," Hoxa said, getting even more excited.

  "You can't do that Captain. It's sui--"

  The corporal was unable to finish his sentence before Hoxa whipped his revolver from its holster and pointed it at the end of his nose. "We are going to attack, by surprise, when the rain starts, and crush them in their tents. And anyone who has a problem with that order will hear the sound of this pistol." The corporal's eyes were locked on the end of the gun. "Now, everyone in their places. Start with high explosive rounds except for you," he said, pointing to Vasili and the other three men that made up 2nd squad. "You prepare five white phosphorous rounds. We're going to target for the other two companies. They can't see the bivouac, but they'll sure as hell be able to see those shells exploding. We'll wait until their fires almost die out, then when they're asleep, we'll annihilate them."

  Lightning began to flash, lighting up the open south end of the valley behind the French camp.

  Captain Hoxa sat astride the raised #3 gun barrel hour after hour in silence. The air in the valley resonated with the claps of approaching thunder. Fat, cold rain drop
s began to spatter against hard guns and dirty uniforms. Every eye in the company was on Hoxa. The level of apprehension rose in camp each time he made the slightest move.

  "Lower me," he said. He grabbed the end of the barrel for support. "Somebody give me a handful of mud." The members of the third crew looked at each other confused. "Mud. Somebody give me some mud."

  "I know what he wants," the breech operator of Vasili's second squad said. He jogged down to the river bank and brought back two handfuls of wet clay mud. Hoxa reached down from his perch and took a small amount with his fingertips. He shaped it into a thumb sized roll, broke it in two and inserted the mud plugs into his ears. Everyone else immediately imitated.

  "Raise me."

  The breech operator cranked slowly on the control that gently elevated the barrel.

  "Second squad, raise to 23 degrees and load!" Hoxa barked.

  Vasili handed a white phosphorus round to the loader, who carefully inserted it up into the open orifice at the back of the barrel. He withdrew his hand and the breech operator closed and locked the 4 inch thick, round breech door. The trigger man wrapped the cord around his hand twice to take the slack out. "Ready Captain."

  The wind blew strong from the south, running in front of the storm as a wave rises before a steaming ship. The lightning, thunder and rain were directly on top of the French camp, exactly where Hoxa wanted them. "Fire for effect!"

  Vasili covered his ears with gloved hands. The trigger man jerked hard on the cord that tripped the firing pin. A six foot tongue of orange flame jumped out of the barrel into the night sky as the shell screamed toward the dying French fires. The echoes from the violent report had died down when the round impacted two miles away. Everyone in the company watched in awe. The exploding phosphorous ignited as soon as it hit the atmosphere, leaving ghostly white smoke trails as the burning fragments fanned up and out in long graceful arcs like some obscene firework.