Small Town

“It would have taken at least three men to get past Buddha.”

“Or one man with a gun, and is there a law that says every big man with a shaved head has to be called Buddha?”

“His name was Eric, and he was a good person.”

“You knew him?”

“He was my friend.”

“Then I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”

“That’s all right.”

He knew the answer, but asked anyway: “The other bars...”

Cheek, he was told. And someplace farther east that nobody had heard of, Harriman’s, something like that.

He could have corrected them on the name, and told them it wasn’t a gay bar, but why? Why do anything?

He turned away and walked back home.

The firebombings of the three Chelsea bars were immediately gathered into a single case file, and the death toll alone — seventy-three killed, plus twelve so seriously injured they were not expected to recover — ensured the investigation would wind up in the hands of the Major Cases squad. Although it took a few hours for the FDNY investigators to officially label the fires as arson, the cops had it listed that way from the beginning. The eyewitness testimony, confused and contradictory as it was, all agreed on one point: each establishment had been deliberately attacked with explosive and/or incendiary devices.

With 9/11 less than a year old, and with suicide bombings almost a daily occurrence in Israel, there was widespread agreement that terrorism couldn’t be ruled out. Accordingly, FBI investigators coordinated with the team from Major Cases, and the Office of Homeland Security flew up an expert from Washington.

According to one theory, the virtually simultaneous attacks on the three targets bespoke a high degree of organization. Furthermore, at least one witness at Death Row reported that the attackers wore camouflage gear.

In response, others argued that the attacks were by no means simultaneous, and that as much as three-quarters of an hour might have elapsed between the first attack, on Harrigan’s, and the third, at Death Row. Even on foot a perpetrator could easily cover the required distance in that amount of time. As for the camo gear, it turned out to have been worn not by a team of attackers but by two of those in attendance; evidently their garb, complemented by paratrooper boots, had been deemed sufficiently in keeping with the bar’s ambience as to be allowable under the dress code.

Both of the camouflaged individuals, one a fashion photographer during daylight hours, the other a stockroom manager, were in Death Row’s notorious back room at the time of the bombing. Like almost everyone trapped in that cul-de-sac, they died there.

Saturday afternoon, a little more than fourteen hours after the initial assault on Harrigan’s, the cops got a break.

Dennis Hurley lived with his wife and three sons in a detached ranch house (an emotionally detached ranch house, his wife’s smartass brother called it) just over the Queens line in Nassau County, near the Hempstead Turnpike and within walking distance of Belmont Race Track, which would have been handy if he cared for horse racing, but he didn’t. He liked to go out in a bluefish boat when they were running, and he liked to watch sports on television, even golf, and he liked to roast corn and grill steaks and chops in the backyard, which is what he was getting ready to do when his wife came out to tell him Arthur Pender was on the phone.

“Tell him to come on over,” he said.

“Tell him yourself,” she suggested, but when he got on the phone Pender didn’t want to talk about backyard barbecues, or Tiger Woods’s chances of a Grand Slam.

“Those firebombings,” he said. “You hear about them out where you are?”

“I’m less’n a mile from bein’ in Queens,” he said. “The only difference is the schools, and it’s not as much of a difference as we were hoping. Yeah, of course I heard. We get New York One out here, not to mention it was all over CNN this morning.”

“You happen to notice the names of the places got hit?”

“I noticed where they were. A few blocks to the east and they’d be our headache.”

“Be Major Cases either way, but that’s not the point. I’ll give you the names. Harrigan’s, Cheek, and Death Row. Ring any bells?”

“I don’t think so. Gay bars, right? And the last one sounds like it must have been a charmer, but... wait a minute, Arthur.”

“Dingdong, huh?”

“That Polish kid, one we thought linked our case to Charles Street. Except it didn’t, because What’s-his-name was home all night and he could prove it.”

“Creighton.”

“Yeah, and we didn’t like him for it anyway, once we met him. These joints, Death Row and the rest, they were all on his list, weren’t they? Not Creighton’s but the kid’s.”

“Pankow’s his name.”

“Tip of my tongue, Arthur.”

“They weren’t just on his list. They were his list. Went and mopped their floors seven days a week. Only other customers he had were private residences that he went to once a week.”

“Jesus. You know, I heard the names myself, but I was watching TV with half my mind on the sports pages in Newsday. I should have caught it.”