Cold Fire

"He's a good man," Viola said with genuine affection. "I'd have liked nothing better than to've had a son like him. He comes around now and then for dinner, not as often as he used to, and I cook for him, mother him I can't tell you how much pleasure that gives me." A wistful expression had settled on her, and she was silent a moment. "Anyway.

you couldn't have asked for a better brother, dear.

He's one of the nicest people I've ever known, a dedicated teacher, so gentle and kind and patient.”

Holly thought of Norman Rink, the psychopath who had killed a clerk and two customers in that Atlanta convenience store last May, and who had been killed in turn by gentle, kind Jim Ironheart. Eight rounds from a shotgun at point-blank range. Four rounds fired into the corpse after Rink was obviously dead. Viola Moreno might know the man well, but she clearly had no concept of the rage that he could tap when he needed it.

"I've known good teachers in my time, but none as concerned about his students as Jim Ironheart was. He sincerely cared about them, as if they were his own kids." She leaned back in her chair and shook her head remembering. "He gave so much to them, wanted so much to make their lives better, and all but the worst-case misfits responded to him.

He had a rapport with his students that other teachers would sell their souls for, yet he didn't have to surrender a proper student-teacher relationship to get it.

So many of them try to be pals with their students, you see, and that never really works.”

"Why did he quit teaching?" Viola hesitated, smile fading. "Partly, it was the lottery.”

"What lottery?" "You don't know about that?" Holly frowned and shook her head.

Viola said, "He won six million dollars in January.”

"Holy smoke!" "The first time he ever bought a ticket.”

Allowing her initial surprise to metamorphose into a look of worry, Holly said, "Oh, God, now he's going to think I only came around because he's suddenly rich.”

"No, no," Viola hastened to assure her. "Jim would never think the worst of anyone.”

"I've done well myself," Holly lied. "I don't need his money, I wouldn't take it if he tried to give it to me. My adoptive parents are doctors, not wealthy but well-to-do, and I'm an attorney with a nice practice.”

Okay, okay, you really don't want his money, Holly thought with self disgust as caustic as acid, but you're still a mean little lying bitch with a frightening talent for invented detail, and you'll spend eternity standing hip-deep in dung, polishing Satan's boots.

Her mood changing, Viola pushed her chair back from the table, got up, and stepped to the edge of the patio. She plucked a weed from a large terra-cotta pot full of begonias, baby's breath, and copper-yellow marigolds. Absentmindedly rolling the slender weed into a ball between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, she stared thoughtfully out at the park-like grounds.

The woman was silent for a long time.

Holly worried that she had said something wrong, unwittingly revealing her duplicity. Second by second, she became more nervous, and she found herself wanting to blurt out an apology for all the lies she'd told.

Squirrels capered on the grass. A butterfly swooped under the patio cover, perched on the edge of the lemonade pitcher for a moment, then flew away.

Finally, with a tremor in her voice that was real this time, Holly said, "Mrs. Moreno? Is something wrong?" Viola flicked the balled-up weed out onto the grass. "I'm just having trouble deciding how to put this.”

"Put what?" Holly asked nervously.

Turning to her again, approaching the table, Viola said, "You asked me why Jim. why your brother quit teaching. I said it was because he won the lottery, but that really isn't true. If he'd still loved teaching as much as he did a few years ago or even one year ago, he would've kept working even if he'd won a hundred million.”

Holly almost breathed a sigh of relief that her cover had not been penetrated. "What soured him on it?" "He lost a student.”

"Lost?" "An eighth-grader named Larry Kakonis. A very bright boy with a good heart-but disturbed. From a troubled family. His father beat his mother, had been beating her as long as Larry could remember, and Larry felt as if he should be able to stop it, but he couldn't. He felt responsible, though he shouldn't have. That was the kind of kid he was, a real strong sense of responsibility.”

Viola picked up her glass of lemonade, returned to the edge of the patio, and stared out at the greensward again. She was silent once more.

Holly waited.

Eventually the woman said, "The mother was a co-dependent type, a victim of the father but a collaborator in her own victimization. As troubled in her own way as the father. Larry couldn't reconcile his love for his mother and his respect for her with his growing understanding that, on some level, she liked and needed to be beaten.”

Suddenly Holly knew where this was going, and she did not want to hear the rest of it. However, she had no choice but to listen.