'Arson for profit?' I commented, glancing up. 'Implicating the owner, Kenneth Sparkes, who may have accidentally been overcome by the fire he started? Based on what?'

'Is his the name of an arsonist or what?' Marino said. 'Gotta be guilty.' He inhaled deeply and with lust. 'And if that's the case, he got what he deserves. You know, you can take them off the street but can't take the street out of them.'

'Sparkes was not raised on the street,' I said. 'And by the way, he was a Rhodes scholar.'

'Road scholar and street sound like the same damn thing to me,' Marino went on. 'I remember when all the son of a bitch did was criticize the police through his newspaper chain. Everybody knew he was doing cocaine and women. But we couldn't prove it because nobody would come forward to help us out.'

'That's right, no one could prove it,' I said. 'And you can't assume someone is an arsonist because of his name or his editorial policy.'

'Well, it just so happens you're talking to the expert in weird-ass names and how they fit the squirrels who have them.' Marino poured more coffee as he smoked. 'Gore the coroner. Slaughter the serial killer. Childs the pedophile. Mr Bury buried his victims in cemeteries. Then we got Judges Gallow and Frye. Plus Freddie Gamble. He was running numbers out of his restaurant when he got whacked. Dr Faggart murdered five homosexual males. Stabbed their eyes out. You remember Crisp?' He looked at me. 'Struck by lightning. Blew his clothes all over the church parking lot and magnetized his belt buckle.'

I could not listen to all this so early in the morning and reached behind me to grab a headset so I could drown Marino out and monitor what was being said in the cockpit.

'I wouldn't want to get struck by lightning at no church and have everybody read something into it,' Marino went on.

He got more coffee, as if he did not have prostate and urinary troubles.