The Worm in Every Heart

I RENT A BASEMENT apartment in Chinatown. That was one of the terms of my contract. With my kind of hours—8:00 PM to 6:00 or so the next morning—I need a place to sleep undisturbed, insulated from noise or light. My bedroom is a sweaty concrete box with a single, carefully bricked-up window. On those rare occasions when I wake before sunset, I lie there and watch the tiny chinks between mortar and stone widen as the draft leaks in off Spadina, making the dust motes dance. I hear my landlord, Mr. Pang, open his refrigerator door to check that none of the eggs has hatched while he was out. Outside, a crazy woman sorts garbage and sings.

Eventually, I get up. And go to work.

* * *

Sometimes I dream. Then the walls melt in a rush of sand and sickening heat: Dar es ‘alaf, 1991. A radio blares Megadeath as we turn and run, choking on equal parts nerve gas and dope fumes. Screams rise, and crunching, while we tear at the wall of corpses around us with our bare hands, desperate to escape—

—the wave.

A wave of flame. Twenty, thirty, fifty feet high and tiger-bright, guttering milk-blank smoke. It sweeps down, implacable. Over and around and through us. Until we’re nothing but ash on the desert wind, blown high and wide, up into an endless sky.

It’s always the same.

In the dream, I am never afraid.

In the dream, I am the fire.

* * *

At 8:30 PM this evening, the telephone hissed. I caught it up.

“Yes.”

“Where you been?” Battaglia whined.

I assumed it was a rhetorical question. “You know my schedule.”

“Yeah, well—Charlie wants to see you.”

I snagged one black boot, scanning the room for its mate. “That much is obvious.” Rummaging underneath the lip of my bed, I felt the edge of something vinyl, and dragged it free: Success. “When?”

“Right now.”

“Then tell him I’ll be late,” I said, and hung up.

Five minutes to change my underwear and wriggle into my bodysuit, five more to the garage, three more on top of that to load my belt and kick-start my bike. Twenty-five minutes later, I braked in front of Myczyk Trash Removal.

Charlie was already inside, waiting for me.

* * *

I opened Charlie’s office door without knocking, and found him in his usual spot—behind the desk. Battaglia leant against the left-hand corner, smoking nervously. I gave that game up ten years ago, myself, and have never regretted it since. A filthy habit.

Not to mention dangerous.

“Myczyk.”

“Vosloo.”

We looked each other over. A study in not unpleasant contrasts—big Polish-Italian gangster, little Korean-South African arsonist: Our cultural mosaic at work. And pretty nicely, in his case, except for that scar creasing the left corner of his mouth into a permanent sneer . . .

As if I really had time for that sort of thing, anyway.

“The Spiro job, Vosloo,” Charlie said. “Been some complications.”

Spiro Garments, corner of Church and Queen. Last night. Simple torch job.

“Such as?”