Cold Fire

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 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 McAlbery 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, frustratingly.

"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. those ripples swelled into dark waves that carried him toward McAlbery 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 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. " 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, took a left turn at the intersection, and tramped on the accelerator.

Jim kept glancing at his watch all the way, and they arrived at the school with only three minutes to spare. He tossed another bill at Tooley paying even more than three times the meter, pulled open the door, scrambled out with his suitcase.

Tooley leaned through his open window. "You want me to wait?" Slamming the door, Jim said, "No. No, thanks. You can go.”

He turned away and heard the taxi drive off as he anxiously studied the front of McAlbery School. The building was actually a rambling colonial house with a deep front porch, onto which had been added two three-story wings to provide more classrooms. It was shaded by Douglas and huge old sycamores. With its lawn and playground, it occupied the entire length of that short block.

In the house part of the structure directly in front of him, kids were coming out of the double doors, onto the porch, and down the steps.

Laughing and chattering, carrying books and large drawing tablets and bright lunchboxes decorated with cartoon characters, they approached Jim along the school walk, passed through the open gate in the spearpoint iron fence, and turned either uphill or down, moving away from him in both directions.

Two minutes left. He didn't have to look at his watch. His heart was pounding two beats for every second, and he knew the time as surely as if he had been a clock.

Sunshine, filtered through the interstices of the arching trees, fell in delicate patterns across the scene and the people in it, as if everything had been draped over with an enormous piece of gossamer lace work stitched from golden thread. That netlike ornamental fabric of light seemed to shimmer in time to the rising and falling music of the children's shouts and laughter, and the moment should have been peaceful, idyllic.

But Death was coming.

Suddenly he knew that Death was coming for one of the children, not for any of the three teachers standing on the porch, just for one child. Not a big catastrophe, not an explosion or fire or a falling airplane that would wipe out a dozen of them. Just one, a small tragedy. But which one? Jim refocused his attention from the scene to the players in it, studying the children as they approached him, seeking the mark of imminent death on one of their fresh young faces. But they all looked as if they would live forever.

"Which one?" he said aloud, speaking neither to himself nor to the children but to. Well, he supposed he was speaking to God. "Which one?" Some kids went uphill toward the crosswalks at that intersection, and others headed downhill toward the opposite end of the block. In both directions, women crossing guards in bright-orange safety vests, holding big red paddlelike "stop" signs, had begun to shepherd their charges across the streets in small groups. No moving cars or trucks were in sight, so even without the crossing guards there seemed to be little threat from traffic.