Free The Rat on Fire by George V. Higgins Page A

her again. I go back to the rats.
    “Leo,” Fein said, “it was
fucking awful
. Now, you are sitting there and you are telling me that I got rats in that place. I suspected this, but I liked suspecting it a helluva lot better’n I like having somebody tell me it. And you are sitting there and you are telling me that this is good news, that I have these animals running around with all the other animals that I already knew were living in that house, that don’t pay their rent neither. And therefore I would like you to be so good as to tell me why I should be happy, I have rats in my building, considering that it was rats among other things that drove my mother outta Mattapan and I have to pay the fuckin’ rent in Brookline and in addition to which, I have to drag Gallagher over for Kaddish. You want to tell me that?”
    “Sure,” Proctor said. “You know what rats do?”
    “I am intimately acquainted with rats,” Fein said, “for the reasons which I already told you, all right? I know from rats. Speak to me.”
    “Rats run up inside walls,” Proctor said.
    “No shit, Dick Tracy,” Fein said. “Rats run up inside walls, huh? I didn’t know this. I thought probably the rats were on the third floor because God put them there and it was a punishment. Or maybe there was one rat tall enough to push the elevator button in a building where there was an elevator, and he invited all his friends up. ‘View’s much nicer on the third floor, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll all go upthere. Folks on the third floor eat nothing but pork chops.’ Are you shittin’ me?”
    “No,” Proctor said. “I am trying to tell you something and you don’t seem to wanna listen to me.”
    “I am listening,” Fein said. “I already told you. Speak.”
    “Rats’re not the only thing which runs up inside the walls,” Proctor said. “There is also plumbing and heating and wiring.”
    “Right,” Fein said. “And, the sun comes up in the east and goes down in the west and when you get a lot of clouds it is often gonna rain. Except in winter, when it snows. What else you have for me?”
    “Plumbing does not start fires,” Proctor said.
    “Not so far as I know,” Fein said.
    “Heating can start fires, but it don’t happen very often,” Proctor said.
    “Not that I know about,” Fein said.
    “Wiring can start fires,” Proctor said.
    “Right,” Fein said.
    “Wiring is in the walls,” Proctor said, “and rats’re in the walls.”
    “Yeah,” Fein said.
    “There is no safe way to make a wire start a fire, as far as cops’re concerned. There’s too many things you got to do to get at it,” Proctor said.
    “This is true,” Fein said.
    “There is very little you have to do to get at a rat and have him start the fire,” Proctor said.
    “Back up a little bit,” Fein said. “How do you get a rat to set a fire?”
    “Very simple,” Proctor said. “You catch the rat. Just to be on the safe side, you catch maybe a dozen rats. This is not very hard. You just go down the fuckin’ dump and catch a few rats and you put them inna cage. Then you take thecage fulla rats to the place that’s got rats and you put the cage down onna floor and you take a can of gasoline and you pour it all over the rats while they’re in the cage.
    “They don’t like it,” Proctor said. “Makes their skin sting or something. And they start to go nuts. Then you take the fuckin’ cage over to where the wallboard starts, and you open it up, and them rats’re all running around in there and they’re looking for a place to run away to, and you just give it to them. Except just as they’re starting out, what you do is drop this here lighted match in there, in that cage, and all of a sudden those rats’ve got more’n stinging skin to look out for, because they are on fire.”
    “Ah,” Fein said.
    “And those rats that’re on fire go running right up inside all those walls where the wiring is, and they set the building on fire,”