Cold Fire Read Free Page B

experiences with interviewees of both sexes. Though she still hoped to meet the right man, get married, have children, and enjoy a fulfilling domestic life, she wondered if anyone nice, sane, intelligent, and genuinely interesting would ever enter her life.
    Probably not.
    And if someone like that miraculously crossed her path one day, his pleasant demeanor would no doubt prove to be a mask, and under the mask would be a leering serial killer with a chainsaw fetish.

3
    Outside the terminal at Portland International Airport, Jim Ironheart got into a taxi operated by something called the New Rose City Cab Company, which sounded like a corporate stepchild of the long-forgotten hippie era, born in the age of love beads and flower power. But the cabbie—Frazier Tooley, according to his displayed license—explained that Portland was called the City of Roses, which bloomed there in multitudes and were meant to be symbols of renewal and growth. “The same way,” he said, “that street beggars are symbols of decay and collapse in New York,” displaying a curiously charming smugness that Jim sensed was shared by many Portlanders.
    Tooley, who looked like an Italian operatic tenor cast from the same mold as Luciano Pavarotti, was not sure he had understood Jim's instructions. “You just want me to drive around for a while?”
    “Yeah. I'd like to see some of the city before I check into the hotel. I've never been here before.”
    The truth was, he didn't know at which hotel he should stay or whether he would be required to do the job soon, tonight, or maybe tomorrow. He hoped that he would learn what was expected of him if he just tried to relax and waited for enlightenment.
    Tooley was happy to oblige—not with enlightenment but with a tour of Portland—because a large fare would tick up on the meter, but also because he clearly enjoyed showing off his city. In fact, it was exceptionally attractive. Historic brick structures and nineteenth-century cast-iron-front buildings were carefully preserved among modern glass high rises. Parks full of fountains and trees were so numerous that it sometimes seemed the city was in a forest, and roses were everywhere, not as many blooms as earlier in the summer but radiantly colorful.
    After less than half an hour, Jim suddenly was overcome by the feeling that time was running out. He sat forward on the rear seat and heard himself say: “Do you know the McAlbury School?”
    “Sure,” Tooley said.
    “What is it?” '
    “The way you asked, I thought you knew. Private elementary school over on the west side.”
    Jim's heart was beating hard and fast. “Take me there.”
    Frowning at him in the rearview mirror, Tooley said, “Something wrong?”
    “I have to be there.”
    Tooley braked at a red traffic light. He looked over his shoulder. “What's wrong?”
    “I just have to be there,” Jim said sharply, frustratedly.
    “Sure, no sweat.”
    Fear had rippled through Jim ever since he had spoken the words “life line” to the woman in the supermarket more than four hours ago. Now those ripples swelled into dark waves that carried him toward McAlbury School. With an overwhelming sense of urgency that he could not explain, he said, “I have to be there in fifteen minutes!”
    “Why didn't you mention it earlier?”
    He wanted to say, I didn't know earlier. Instead he said, “Can you get me there in time?”
    “It'll be tight.”
    “I'll pay triple the meter.”
    “Triple?”
    “If you make it in time,” he said, withdrawing his wallet from his pocket. He extracted a hundred-dollar bill and thrust it at Tooley. “Take this in advance.”
    “It's that important?”
    “It's life and death.”
    Tooley gave him a look that said: What—are you nuts?
    “The light just changed,” Jim told him. “Let's move!”
    Although Tooley's skeptical frown deepened, he faced front again, hung a left turn at the intersection, and tramped on the accelerator.
    Jim kept glancing at his watch