“Can I see her?” Pellam asked.

“Now that she’s in detention we can work that out, sure. I’ve talked to the A.D.A.”

“The…?”

“Assistant District Attorney. The prosecutor. Lois Koepel’s her name. She’s not bad, not good. She’s got an attitude. Jewish thing, I think. Or woman’s thing. Or a young thing. I don’t know which is worse. I threatened her with an order to show cause, they don’t take better care of Ettie – make sure she gets pain pills, change her bandages. But they couldn’t care less, of course.”

“Guess not.”

Over Pellam’s sour coffee and Bailey’s martini the lawyer gave his assessment of the case. Pellam was trying to gauge the man’s competence. From the man’s mouth came no statutes, case citations or court rules. Pellam reached a vague conclusion that he’d have preferred someone more outraged and, if not smarter, t least chronologically closer to law school.

Bailey sipped the drink and said, “What’s this film of yours about?”

“An oral history on Hell’s Kitchen. Ettie’s my best source.”

“The woman can tell her stories, that’s for sure.”

Pellam folded his hands around the hot mug. The bar was freezing. A bitter wind shot from a sputtering air conditioner above the door. “Why’d they arrest her? Lomax wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Yeah, well, I gotta tell you, they’ve found some stuff.”

“Stuff.”

“And it’s not good. A witness saw her entering the basement just before the fire. It started down there, next to the boiler. She’s got a key to the back door.”

“Don’t all the tenants?”

“Some do. But she was the one seen opening the door five minutes before the fire started.”

“I met somebody at the building yesterday,” Pellam said. “She told me she saw some people in the alley. Just before the fire. Three or four men. She couldn’t describe them any better than that.”

Bailey nodded and jotted a few sentences in a battered leather notebook embossed with initials not his own.

“She couldn’t have done it,” Pellam said. “I was there. She was on the stairs above me when it started.”

“Oh, they don’t think she actually started the fire. They think she opened the basement door and let a pyro in.”

“A professional arsonist?”

“A pro, yeah. But a psycho too. A guy’s been working in the city for a few years. The M.O.’s that he mixes gas with fuel oil. Just the right proportion. He knows what he’s doing. See, gas alone’s too unstable so he adds oil. The fire takes a little longer to get going but it burns hotter. Then – get this – he also adds dish detergent to the mix. So the stuff sticks to clothes and skin. Like napalm. Burning-for-bucks guys, I mean, pure for-hire stuff, they wouldn’t do that. And they don’t set fires when there’re people around. They don’t want anybody to get hurt. This guy likes it… The fire marshals and the cops’re worried. He’s getting crazier. There’s pressure on ’em from above to get him.”

“So Lomax thinks she hired him,” Pellam mused. “What about the fact that she was almost killed too?”

“The A.D.A.’s speculating she tried to get to her apartment so she’d have an alibi. There was a fire escape outside her window. Only the timing got screwed up. They also think she planned it when you were coming over so you could confirm she was there.”

Pellam scoffed. “She wouldn’t hurt me.”

“But you were early, weren’t you?”

Pellam finally said, “A few minutes, yeah.” Then: “But everybody’s missing one thing. What’s her motive supposed to be?”

“Ah, yes. The motive.” As he’d done several times before Bailey paused and organized his thoughts. He drained his martini and ordered another. “Full jigger this time, Rosie O’Grady. Don’t let those massive olives lure you into cheating. Last week Ettie bought a tenant’s insurance policy for twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Pellam sipped from the cup then pushed it away from him. The vile taste in his mouth was only partly the coffee. “Keep going.”

“It’s a declared-value policy. Ever hear of that? It means she pays a high premium but if the apartment is destroyed the insurer pays off whether she’s got Chippendale furniture or orange crates inside.”

“Pretty damn obvious. Buying a policy then burning the building the next month.”

“Ah, but the police love obvious crimes, Mr. Pellam. So do juries. New Yorkers don’t do well with subtleties. That’s why clever bad guys get away with murder.” The martini arrived and Bailey hovered over the glass, like a child eyeing a present on Christmas morning. “On top of that, women are prime suspects in insurance fraud and welfare scams. See, if you’re a welfare mom and your place burns down you get moved to the top of the list for a nicer place. Happens everyday. The fire marshal saw a woman, an insurance policy and a suspicious fire. Bingo, his job’s done.”

“Somebody’s setting her up. Hell, if it was insurance, why burn the whole building? Why not just her own apartment?”

“Less suspicious. Anyway, this pyro goes for the most damage he can. She just happened to hire him. Probably didn’t even know what he was going to do.”

Pellam, a former independent filmmaker and script writer, often thought of life as a series of storylines. There seemed to be some holes in this one. “Okay, they must’ve sent the insurance policy to her. What did Ettie say when she saw it?”

“The agency claims she picked up the application, filled it out, mailed it back. They forwarded it to the home office. Her approved copy of the policy’d just been mailed from the headquarters the day before the fire so she never received it.”

“Then the agent or clerk could testify that it wasn’t Ettie,” Pellam pointed out.

“The clerk identified her picture as the woman who picked up the application.”

Pellam, long suspicious of conspiracy theories, felt a plot worthy of an Oliver Stone movie at work. “What about the premium check?”

“Paid in cash.”

“And Ettie says?” Pellam asked.

“She denies it all, of course,” Bailey said, dismissingly, as if a denial were as foremsically useful as the fly walking on the bar beside them. “Now, let’s talk practicalities. The arraignment is scheduled for tomorrow. The A.D.A.’s making rumblings about a postponement. You know what the arraignment is? That’s where-”

“I know what it is,” Pellam said. “What’s the bail situation?”

“I don’t think it’ll be too high. I’ll talk to some bailbondsmen I know. She’s a good risk, not being very mobile. And it’s not a homicide.”

“Mr. Bailey,” Pellam began.

The lawyer held up a hand. “Louis, please.” Louie. Bailey growled the name and for a moment he became the Damon Runyon character he aspired to be.

“You’ve done this before?” Pellam asked. “Cases like this?”

“Ah.” Bailey leaned his head back, touched a flabby jowl and caught Pellam’s gaze with eyes suddenly clear and focused. “I’ve seen you studying me. My bargain-cellar tie. My frayed cuffs. My Men’s Shack suit. Notice the plaid’s a bit mismatched? I wore out the original pants a year ago and got the closest I could find. And you’ve been gentlemanly enough not to mention my liquid brunch.”

He pointed to his right hand – an otherwise dramatic gesture he managed to underplay. “This’s a class ring from New York Law School. That’s not NYU, by the way. Big difference. And I went at night while I served process during the day. And graduated somewhere to the left of the middle of my class.”

“I’m sure you’re a fine lawyer.”

“Oh, of course I’m not,” Bailey snorted a laugh. “But so what? This isn’t an Upper East Side case. It’s not a SoHo or Westchester case. For those, you need a good lawyer. This is a Hell’s Kitchen case. Ettie’s poor, she’s black, the facts are against her and the jury’ll’ve found her guilty before they’re even empaneled. The law’s irrelevant.”

“What is relevant?”