Firefall - Recap

Remember the penny arcades that used to be so much fun when you were a kid? For a handful of coins you could test your strength, your skill at a pinball machine. Those arcades were a lot of things to a lot of kids. But there was one particular arcade that represented something special for me. It was here that began one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

The story started at Rabino’s arcade. Rabino’s was a different sort of place; a bagman’s drop, narcotics pickup, and occasionally a place to clean up old business. On September 3rd, at 1:00am, old business was a grey-haired pinball player named Frankie Markoff. Two men approach Frankie from behind and clean him up with three shots to the belly.

A few days later Ryder Bond (a prodigy at fourteen and an accomplished conductor by forty) is hurrying to the concert hall. Bond is a very punctual man and does not wish to be late. Hurrying, his driver cuts the dark red Rolls between a motorcycle and a long black hearse...

September 7th, at 6:40pm finds George Mason, concertmaster and first violinist of the Great Lakes Symphony, taking his customary pre-concert nap. Soon, both positions will be vacant; a series of bright flashes light the room. Each is accompanied by the whoosh of an igniting fire. Little is left of Mason but ashes. The police radio tips Carl to Mason’s death. In hopes of snagging a story he races to the concert hall. Lead investigator Sergeant Mayer believes Mason fell asleep while smoking in bed. Speaking to a Miss Sherman, Mayer learns she was returning at quarter to seven when she saw someone leaving. That’s all Carl gets before Mayer has him removed from the scene. To learn more, Kolchak waits around the corner until Mayer finishes with Miss Sherman. She readily reveals the name of the man she saw: Ryder Bond, symphony conductor. She is a fan of the symphony and could not fail to recognize Bond.

A tie-in with Ryder Bond would put meat on the bones of this story. Knowing Mayer and the cops would be along soon, Carl races to the symphony. Locating Bond, he relays the news of Mason’s death. Bond is skeptical at first but Mason’s absence soon convinces him. It seems Mason was a good friend and a mainstay of the orchestra. Bond is upset but won’t share his afternoon’s itinerary with Carl. Then his assistant Phillip enters asking about a phone message – a message he swears he gave Bond in the orchestra pit at a time when Bond claims he was in his dressing room. Sergeant Mayer’s appearance ends this conversation.

Back at INS, Tony pressures Carl for his assignment, an article about contractors who defraud homeowners. This story hits close to home for Tony; he was a victim of such fraudsters. As usual Carl is more interested in murder than pedestrian reporting. In this case, he’s caught up in the strange aspects of George Mason’s death: the bed was burned in the outline of a man but nothing anywhere near it was even scorched.

A day later atop the Patterson Towers Apartments, Miss Felicia Porter steps onto the roof to improve her tan. She sees Ryder Bond, but a moment later he’s gone. Miss Porter settles back for a nap and in a burst of light and whoosh of fire she is burned to a crisp. Sergeant Mayer’s theory is basically the same: Porter dropped a cigarette into her chaise, and was drunk or otherwise unable to escape the flames. If Mayer’s theory is true, the entire chaise should be cinders. But only the outline of Miss Porter’s body is charred. The last place Carl saw a burned outline like that was Mason’s apartment. And a witness saw a man just for a second, almost like a flash. When Carl roughly describes Ryder Bond, the witness allows that this could have been the man she saw. But he would have had to pass the couple to reach the roof exit, and no one passed them, so where did he go?

Carl begins to write this story but Ron rats him out to Tony, who is irate: Carl’s story all but accuses Ryder Bond of murder. Not only is this not Carl’s assignment, it veers dangerously close to slandering a man revered by many in the upper strata of Chicago society. Worse, equally persuasive witnesses counter Carl’s assertions that Bond was seen in the vicinity of each murder. These people saw Ryder Bond elsewhere at the times of both murders. Bond has an iron-clad alibi. Tony rips up Carl’s typed pages and puts him back on his swindle and fraud assignment in no uncertain terms. Carl storms out of the office.

Carl visits Cardinale, an arson and incendiaries expert, to find out what it would take to burn a human to ash in fifteen seconds or less. Cardinale tells Carl only military chemicals unavailable to civilians could create this effect. Carl is forced to face two unpleasant possibilities: that something has come loose in Ryder Bond’s brain causing him to kill people or that something even stranger is going on. Pulling into the symphony, Carl sees Ryder Bond leaving in the company of Phillip Randolph Rourke, Treasurer and Business Manager of the Great Lakes Symphony Association. Carl whips his Mustang around and follows but loses the car at a red light. By the time he catches up with it, smoke billows from every window and the police are struggling to extinguish a fire inside. Phillip Rourke has become the third flame in a growing and grisly candelabrum. Of Ryder Bond there is no trace. Returning immediately to the concert hall Carl sees... Ryder Bond conducting a matinee concert! Ryder Bond seems to have a talent for appearing in two places at once.

That night Carl calls on Ryder Bond at his Lakeshore home. Ryder meets him with a silent, stony stare but allows him in. Carl offers his condolences on Felicia Porter’s death. Bond says nothing, merely gesturing him to a chair. Carl continues to talk while behind his back, Ryder Bond… fades away. Calling out, Carl quickly tours the apartment but does not find Bond. Behind him a spark flickers on the drapes and they begin to burn. Sparks begin snapping everywhere; everything in the room is soon afire. Grabbing the hot doorknob with his ratty hat, Carl barely manages to escape.

Academia is Carl’s next try. At the university he tells his tale and is met with amused interest. Finally, the people there suggest that what he has seen is a doppelganger – a destructive ghost that takes on the appearance of a living person. They give him books but he has a better source: Marie, a gypsy he knows. Carl must stretch his persuasive skills to their limits: the last time he encountered Marie he printed what she told him and the police came around to ask her questions. In her somewhat dodgy line of work as a fortuneteller police attention is decidedly unwelcome.

Eventually Marie tells Carl a doppelganger is a malicious spirit. It selects someone it envies and tries to wear down that person by destroying what he loves. When the weakened victim sleeps it can overwhelm him and possess his body. And, now that he has drawn its attention, it will try to kill Carl the next time he goes to sleep. Such a spirit cannot operate on sanctified ground. If Carl can make it to a church he’ll be safe for as long as he remains there. Maria doesn’t know how to get rid of the spirit permanently but she’ll be happy to ask her grandmother, the authority – for two hundred dollars.

Ryder Bond is at the concert hall. When Kolchak shows up, Bond complains that he’s developed an exotic form of schizophrenia: he keeps seeing himself. In a change from the usual reception, Bond actually appreciates Carl’s theory. Since the alternative seems to be the onset of madness, he’s prepared to follow Carl’s lead at least long enough to explore the possibility that the doppelganger is real. When Carl suggests the doppelganger is angry at him for helping Bond the piano begins playing angrily with no one touching it. That event convinces Bond that Carl is right. Both men race from the stage and Bond follows Carl to a church where he can sleep safely. En route the men discuss Bond’s agenda on the day of Mason’s death. When Bond remembers cutting through the funeral procession Carl realizes where the spirit latched onto him. A funeral procession traveling north on Lakeshore Drive could only be going to one particular cemetery. Carl resolves to learn who was buried there that day. Now he finally has the name: Frankie Markoff.

Digging through the hopeless mess of INS files, Carl finds Markoff’s file under “F” for Franklin Markoff. The file contains the facts of Markoff’s death and that Markoff was a convicted arsonist.

Carl visits Markoff’s widow but doesn’t learn much. Markoff was a very private person. The subject of classical music comes up and Carl learns Markoff was an aficionado. Frankie listened to music, attended concerts and even pretended to conduct. The next stop is Rabino’s arcade, where Frankie drew his last breath. The manager there reveals another Markoff hobby: pinball, a game at which Frankie excelled. Carl soon learns the exact spot where Frankie Markoff died. On Carl’s way out a very unhappy looking Ryder Bond, out of place among the lowlifes in the arcade, stares daggers into Carl and then vanishes into thin air.

Forcing Tony’s desk, Carl rifles the petty cash box to pay Marie for visiting her mother before her brother uses Carl’s kidneys for kettledrums. Shoving the money into Monique Marmelstein’s hands, Carl tells her where to find Marie. Then he raids Ron Updyke’s desk for caffeine pills. At fifty-two hours straight Carl is very afraid of nodding off. He knows the moment he sleeps Markoff’s ghost will roast him. Tony and Ron are concerned; they try to help Carl lie down. Before Carl can nod off a priest calls. Whatever the cleric says sends Carl racing out of the office.

At the church, Sergeant Mayer and Ryder Bond’s doctor are trying to reason with him. They’re convinced he’s hallucinating and want him to leave. But Bond sees the doppelganger as himself leering in from a tall window. It can’t enter but it can frighten. No one but Bond and Carl can see it. The real Ryder Bond is near collapse. Carl reminds him that if they take him out of the church and to a hospital, they’ll give him a sedative. He’ll go to sleep but what wakes up won’t be Ryder Bond. Unable to persuade him away, the doctor and the sergeant leave and both men are able to nap. The angry spirit’s relentless tapping and distractions keep Carl from resting and he finally decides to do something about it.

Carl knows this is a one man operation. He has no chance of getting Frankie Markoff officially exhumed and no chance of getting help. But finally he reaches the casket. Then he carts the remains back to Rabino’s and forces the ancient back door. Peeling off the heavy burlap bag, Carl arranges Markoff’s body as it was when he fell a week ago and then rises to confront the angry ghost. It says nothing, but a snapped spark lights the cigar store Indian near Carl. Sparks fly and flames begin to consume the building. Undaunted, Carl confronts Markoff with the truth: this is his body; he is not Ryder Bond; he is dead and he must return to his body. Through the flames, Carl sees the spirit lose Bond’s identity. It has lost the fight to usurp Ryder Bond’s life and is once again Markoff the two-bit arsonist. Powerless, it sinks back into its body and its eternal rest.

Racing from the burning arcade, Carl is nabbed by a uniformed cop. His final indignity is to shoulder the blame for Markoff’s last act of arson.

Well, at least I won’t have to worry about the doppelganger any more; he’s back in his own body and will probably be cremated. Which is really rather sweet poetic justice for Frankie Markoff. My only worry now is to find Tony Vincenzo to raise bail; they’ve got me hooked on some stupid arson charge. But, it’s Tony’s night to play cards and I don’t know where he is. So I think I’ll just spend a nice good night’s sleep… in the slammer.

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