The Bourbon Thief(98)

Even when Levi was out of her sight, she could hear the ax at work. Metal splitting wood. Cracking. Levi’s grunts of effort. He’d spent half the summer in the cooperage learning how to make the barrels. Who else was better suited to break them? Levi had made himself into a machine, lean and sleek and molded for this purpose. He brought the ax high in the air and let the weight of it crash into the barrels. They didn’t stand a chance against him. A pool of a thousand drunken nights that would never happen surrounded her. Fights would go unfought. Angry words unsaid. Confessions would remain unconfessed with a little less liquid courage in the world. Children would not be conceived who otherwise might have been. They lay on the floor at Tamara’s feet—the fights, the confessions, the children—all of them. They flowed past her like a river, trickled through the cracks between the floorboards and disappeared.

When the barrels had been broken, enough of them anyway to do the job, Levi came back to her. The ax was in one hand. With his other hand he reached for her.

“Come on,” he said, waving his hand at her, beckoning her to take it.

“Why did you come back to me?” she asked him.

Levi shrugged. “I didn’t know who I was before you. I don’t know who I would be after.” Levi had a beautiful voice, resonant as an oboe. Was this the first time she noticed that? “But while I was with you, I knew myself.”

“We’ll stay together?” she asked.

“We will.”

“Can we bear that?”

“Can we bear being apart?”

No. No, they couldn’t. Who could they love after loving each other? Who could they touch if not each other? They had ruined each other for anyone else. The curse was on them and in them and they must stay together lest they spread the curse to others.

“Will we have to go away and hide?” she asked.

“We can go anywhere we want to go.”

“I want to go home.”

“Then we go home.”

“How did you find me here?”

“I went to Arden to look for you. Your mother told me you’d left, that you thought I’d died. I was on my way out of here when I saw your car in the parking lot. Your mother said to me... She said she was sorry. I think she is.”

“She is. So am I.”

“We should leave,” Levi said. “This smell is something awful.”

“It’ll get worse,” she said.

“Then let’s get it over with.”

She took his hand this time and let him hoist her to her feet. With his arm around her he brought her out of the warehouse. The door was open now and bourbon leaked all the way out to the sidewalk.

“What did you say this was?” Levi asked. “One hundred fifty proof?”

“About that. Maybe more.”

Tamara pulled the book of matches out of her pocket.

“I wish he was still alive,” Levi said. “Just so I could rip out his heart.”

“This was his heart,” she said.

Her hands shook so hard she couldn’t light the match. Levi took the book from her and lit it for her. Then he put the match back between her fingers. He nodded. It was time.

Tamara flicked the match into the warehouse door.

Do gods start fires?

The gods invented fire.





34

Tamara dropped the match into the bourbon, and in less time than it takes to blink, Red Thread had ignited.

Flames skimmed the surface of the alcohol, racing and chasing their way into the warehouse. Levi kicked the door shut and locked it as fast as he could. He grabbed her hand and ran with her fifty yards into the trees that ringed the property. At first not much seemed to be happening. But only at first...

Then smoke sneaked out from under and over and around the door. The windows clouded up white and turned red.

They heard a crack, a clamor. Things falling. In minutes the fire had made it to the top floor and burned its way through the roof.

She heard sounds like bombs going off. The barrels were detonating. Around them the night air turned warm. Then it turned hot.

Levi coughed and so did she. Her eyes burned, her lungs. They pulled back farther away from the warehouse. Tamara wanted to be sick but couldn’t. She had nothing in her to vomit up.

From within the warehouse came new sounds. Crashing. Breaking. Beams catching fire and falling. Floors giving out. A beautiful sound and a terrible smell. They had to pull back even more. The scent of bourbon was everywhere, stinging their eyes, singeing their nostrils. They covered their mouths and their noses with their shirts.

“Let’s go,” Levi yelled over the sound of the fire and the wind.

“Not yet,” she called back. She had to see one more thing. She waited. It wouldn’t take long surely. She waited longer. And yes, there it was. The fire caught the wooden breezeway between the first and second warehouse. It would all go down now. The entire operation. The offices. The bottling plant. The still. From the parking lot to the river, all of it would burn.

Tamara giggled at the sight of what she’d done. Would they even suspect her? A little thing like her? And what would it matter? She owned the warehouse, the company. She could burn it to the ground if she wanted. She could do whatever she wanted. Her laughter grew hysterical. But it wasn’t laughter anymore. She was crying. Her stomach hurt. She hadn’t eaten in too long. She was dehydrated. She’d overtaxed herself in the warehouse. She’d inhaled too many fumes and they’d gone to her head and made her sick. This time she’d say it. She was sick. Her mother would be proud of her for admitting it.