Legacies

1.

"So, did you hear about Benny the Torch?"

Abe's offhanded question stopped Jack in midbite.

He'd dropped by the shop with some bagels and Philly—the cream cheese was for Abe; Jack ate his dry. Abe supplied the coffee.

"No," Jack said as a premonition started a slow crawl up his back. "What about him?"

But Abe's attention had turned to Parabellum, perched on his left shoulder this time. The parakeet was pecking away at the piece of bagel Abe held up to him.

"Look at the little fellow! He loves bagels. A kosher parakeet."

"I think it's sesame seeds he likes," Jack said. "And that one's coated with them. But what about Benny?"

"Found him dead early this morning under a ramp to the Manhattan Bridge."

"He fell?"

"No, he burned. To a crisp, I'm told. With his own accelerant."

The piece of poppy seed bagel Jack was swallowing paused halfway down as his esophagus tightened.

"How'd he manage to do that?"

"Oh, I doubt he had much to do with it. Somebody burned the word 'firebug' in the ground next to him."

"Jeez."

"And word is he was still alive when he burned."

Jack shuddered. Benny was a lowlife… but burned alive…

"Oy, Parabellum," Abe said. "This is the way you show appreciation?"

Jack looked up and saw that the parakeet had dropped a load on Abe's shoulder. From the look of the stains up there, it wasn't the first.

"What goes in, must come out," Jack said. "And look at it this way. You only had stains on the front of your shirts before. Now you've got them on the shoulders as well."

"I know, I know," Abe said, wiping at the glob with a paper towel. "But I think this little fellow's got a condition. Colitis, maybe. Hey, you buy that stock I told you about?"

"You know I can't buy stock."

"Not can't—won't. You're missing out on a lot of easy money. Such a broker I've got. Puts me in these IPOs. I'm out before I know I'm in. A thousand shares, it goes up two bucks, we sell. Money for nothing. All you've got to—" He stopped and stared at Jack. "That face. You're making that 'when-will-you-drop-it-Abe' face."

"Who me?" Jack said, wishing Abe would drop it.

"Yes, you. And I should be making my 'when-will-Jack-wise-up' face."

"Jeez, if it isn't you, it's Gia."

"I'm not telling you to quit. You're too good a customer. I'm telling you to get your money out of those fahkaktah gold coins and put it to work for you."

"You need a social security number to open a brokerage account, Abe."

"So? You've got all those false identities, and I know some of them have social security numbers."

"Dead folks' numbers."

"Fine. You convert some of those ducats and Krugerrands into dollars. You use a dead man's number to open an account with my broker. You let him make trades for you. He makes you twenty percent a year."

"No thanks."

"Jack! How can you say no thanks to doubling your money in less than four years?"

"Because I'd have to pay taxes on those profits."

"Yes, but—" .

"No buts. I'd have to. And sitting back and letting them take their cut is saying it's okay. And saying it's okay…"

Jack couldn't do that. Once he crossed that line, even under another identity, he'd… belong. He'd have joined them. And they'd know him.

"But you wouldn't be saying okay. It'd be the fake guy with the dead man's Social Security number."

"Same thing, Abe."

Abe stared at him a moment, then sighed. "I don't understand you, Jack."

Jack smiled. "Yes, you do. And Parabellum just ejected another casing."

"Oy!"

As he watched Abe wipe the glob away, he said, "Any word on who might've done Benny?"

Abe shook his head. "Nothing. But if you should want my opinion, and I'm sure you do, I say it looks to me like Benny might've tried to set a match to the wrong building."

Jack had a sinking feeling he knew what building that might have been.

He remembered Alicia telling him how two people she'd hired to get involved in her will problems had wound up dead. Did Benny the Torch raise the tally to three?

Only one way to find out.