Cold Fire

piece.
    “Louise,” she said, “in light of what you've told me, I think you're the most natural person I've ever met.”
    Louise didn't get it. Perceiving a compliment instead of a slight, she beamed at Holly.
    “Trees are sisters to us,” Louise said, eager to reveal another facet of her philosophy, evidently having forgotten that human beings were lice, not trees. “Would you cut off the limbs of your sister, cruelly section her flesh, and build your house with pieces of her corpse?”
    “No, I wouldn't,” Holly said sincerely. “Besides, the city, probably wouldn't approve a building permit for such an unconventional structure.”
    Holly was safe: Louise had no sense of humor—therefore, no capacity to be offended by the wisecrack.
    While the woman prattled on, Holly leaned into the picnic table, feigning interest, and did a fast-backward, scan of her entire adult life. She decided that she had spent all of that precious time in the company of idiots, fools, and crooks, listening to their harebrained or sociopathic plans and dreams, searching fruitlessly for nuggets of wisdom and interest in their boobish or psychotic stories.
    Increasingly miserable, she began to brood about her personal life. She had made no effort to develop close women friends in Portland, perhaps because in her heart she felt that Portland was only one more stop on herperipatetic journalistic journey. Her experiences with men were, if anything, even more disheartening than her professional 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