“No.”
“Set place on fire next ten minutes,” Jak said, his ruby eyes opening wider as he started to grin. “Course. Fire cover chilling.” He handed the food to Doc. “Go back and help fire.”
“Have a look out the front door,” Ryan told J.B. “Anyone looks like they’re coming in here, either put them off or put them away. Whatever’s needful.”
“Ryan!” Mildred exclaimed. “You can’t just kill someone because they happen to want to come eat at Ma’s Place. It’s plain murder.”
He looked at the woman, surprised at her comment. “You been with us long enough to know which way the needle pricks. We get caught in here and the whole ville could turn into an instant wasps’ nest, with us caught smack in the middle. Better by far we walk away clean.”
“The girl might tell,” Dean said.
Ryan nodded. “I thought on that. Decided she was probably too frightened to tell anyone anything.”
“Otherwise she’d have been dead,” Mildred said.
Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Otherwise I’d have gunned her down where she stood. If that had been the only choice to keep the rest of us living.”
“Fat’s ready to blow,” Jak said, appearing in the bat-wing doors. “Back opens into alley. Walk along out of sight. Then past row ruined houses. Come out by broken bridge over Colorado. Best we go now.”
The dirty kitchen stank of the simmering fat that sat in a large iron pot, with a haze of dark smoke wreathing above it. Jak had placed some old clothes near the stove, as well as a pile of kindling. The wood-framed building would go up in minutes once the fire started.
Ryan led the way through, holding the back door open for everyone, pausing to watch and make sure the fat was going to do the business for them.
The smoke thickened like a living serpent, roiling over the ceiling, lapping toward him. There was a dull whomp and Ryan ducked, closing the door behind him as the inferno of dark yellow flames erupted.
He ran quickly along the alley, past the rusted ruins of a predark automobile and a battered bicycle frame. The stores to his left were all derelict, and the houses that sloped away from him on the right were all clearly long-abandoned.
There was no sign of life.
“Wait.” Ryan peered around the corner of the street, looking toward the desolate broken bridge and the silent rail lines. “Let’s move it.”
They moved across the makeshift bridge that had been thrown together parallel to the old crossing, deciding that it would be wise to be as far off as possible once the fire started in earnest. The companions walked together on the north side, along the redbrick ruins of the old hot springs.
“Stop looking around, Dean,” the Armorer snapped.
“Mebbe the fire hasn’t worked. It’s got to be an hour since we left the place.”
“It’s six minutes,” J.B. said, checking the time on his wrist chron. “There. Don’t look around!”
Ryan stopped and stretched theatrically, glancing over his shoulder, across the weed-grown interstate toward the row of stores. He saw the darkness of smoke and the brightness of flame, heard the faint distant shouts as the locals of the ville became aware of the growing inferno in their midst.
“Burning like a paper house,” he said. “Guess we can all look at it now.”
It was spectacular.
Even as they all turned to stare, the fire cascaded through the shingle roof, sending the flaming wooden tiles floating into the still air.
Already a few men were trying to organize a bucket brigade from the river.
“Might as well piss on Mount Vesuvius,” Doc said. “I rather think that the wretches will be exceedingly lucky to save anything out of the entire block.”
“It was all empty buildings,” Ryan said.
“Not that it would have made any difference if they hadn’t been,” Mildred said bitterly. “It wouldn’t have changed your plan, would it?”
“Yeah, mebbe it would,” Ryan replied, stung by her criticism. “If there’d been folks living close by, I’d have raised the warning myself to give them time to get clear.”
She applauded him ironically. “Well, hurrah for you, Ryan Cawdor. Winner of the Nobel prize for humanitarian of the year. Children spared while you wait. Bar mitzvahs a specialty. Discount for groups.”