Fires. Essays, Poems, Stories

Berger, who is the fender-and-body man at Frank's Custom Repair where we all work, called me at 6:30 a.m. as I was having a cup of coffee and a cigarette before sitting down to breakfast.
    "Harry's dead," he said just like that, dropping the bomb. "Turn on your radio," he said. "Turn on your TV."
    The police had just left his house after asking Jack a lot of questions about Harry. They'd told him to come down right away and identify the body. Jack said they'd probably come to my place next. Why they went to Jack Berger's place first is a mystery to me since he and Harry weren't what you'd say close. Not as close anyway as Harry and me.
    I couldn't believe it, but I knew it must be true for Jack to call. I felt like I was in shock and forgot all about breakfast. I turned from one news broadcast to another until I had the story. I must have hung around an hour or so listening to the radio and getting more and more upset as I thought about Harry and what the radio was saying. There would be a lot of crummy people who wouldn't be sorry to see Harry dead, would be glad he'd bought it in fact. His wife for one would be glad, though she lived in San Diego and they hadn't seen each other for two or three years. She'd be glad. She's that kind of person, from what Harry had said. She didn't want to give him the divorce for another woman. No divorce, nothing. Now she wouldn't have to worry about it any more. No, she wouldn't be sorry to see Harry dead. But Little Judith, that's another story.
    I left the house after calling in at work to report off. Frank didn't say much, he said he could understand. He felt the same way, he said, but he had to keep the shop open. Harry would have wanted it that way, he said. Frank Klovee. He's the owner and shop foreman rolled into one, and the best man I ever worked for.
    I got in the car and started off in the general direction of the Red Fox, a place where Harry and myself and Gene Smith and Rod Williams and Ned Clark and some of the rest of the gang hung out nights after work. It was 8:30 in the morning by then and the traffic was heavy, so I had to keep my mind on my driving. Still, I couldn't help thinking now and then about poor Harry.
    Harry was an operator. That is to say he always had something going. It was never a drag being around Harry. He was good with women, if you know what I mean, always had money and lived high. He was sharp too and somehow he could always work it around so that in any deal he came out smelling like a rose. The Jag he drove, for instance. It was nearly new, a twenty-thousand-dollar car, but it had been wrecked in a big pileup on 101. Harry bought it for a song from the insurance company and fixed it up himself till it was like new. That's the kind of guy Harry was. Then there's this thirty-two-foot Chris Craft cabin cruiser that Harry's uncle in L.A. had left Harry in his will. Harry'd only had the boat about a month. He'd just gone down to look it over and take it out for a little spin a couple of weeks ago. But there was the problem of Harry's wife who was legally entitled to her share. To keep her from somehow getting her hands on it if she got wind of it—before he'd even laid eyes on the boat in fact—Harry had gone to a lawyer and worked something out so that he signed the thing over lock, stock, and pickle barrel to Little Judith. The two of them had been planning to take it for a trip someplace on Harry's vacation in August. Harry had been all over, I might add. He'd been to Europe when he was in the service and had been to all the capitals and big resort cities. He'd been in a crowd once when someone took a shot at General de Gaulle. He'd been places and done things, Harry had. Now he was dead.

At the Red Fox, which opens early, there was only one guy in the place. He was sitting at the other end of the bar, and he was no one I knew. Jimmy, the bartender, had the television on and nodded at me as I came in. His eyes were red and it came home to
    me hard, Harry's death, when I saw Jimmy. There was an old Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz show just starting and Jimmy took a long stick and turned the channel selector to another station, but there was nothing on right now about Harry.
    "I can't believe it," Jimmy said, shaking his head. "Anybody but Harry."
    "I feel the same way, Jimmy," I said. "Anybody but Harry."
    Jimmy poured us two stiff ones and threw his off without batting an eye. "It hurts as bad as if Harry d been my own brother. It couldn't hurt any