Al Steinowitz

Al Steinowitz is the Shop operative who turns the search for Andy McGee and Charlie McGee near Hastings Glen into a concentrated armed pursuit. Cap Hollister’s personal ramrod, he assumes field command from Norville Bates and brings the operation to Irv Manders’s farm. His authority and methodical coordination make the agents’ approach formidable; his death there, as Charlie’s flames consume him, exposes how little that organization can control the power it has come to capture.

Identity and Position

Al operates within the Shop’s field network as an agent trusted with responsibility for a consequential pursuit. In Hastings Glen, ten Shop agents are coordinating with Norville Bates, who remains in Albany waiting for Al. The arrangement places Al above the local search effort while tying his authority directly to Cap Hollister, whose personal ramrod he is. The description establishes an operational role, not a personal history: the evidence presents him through his assignments, his command of other agents, and his encounter with the fugitives.

His arrival is treated as a change in the operation’s leadership. After nearing the Slumberland Motel, Al briefs agents in turn. Their information includes Bruce Cook’s recollection of a farm truck seen in town, parked outside the A&P. The vehicle’s possible connection to the fugitives gives the search a specific lead: the agents determine that the truck belongs to Irv Manders, at an address on Baillings Road in Hastings Glen. Al’s importance is thus conveyed through the movement of information as well as through his later presence at the farm.

Command of the Pursuit

The search first spreads through the town. Shop agents show Charlie’s picture to a woman who helps children cross the street; she shakes her head. Elsewhere, Bruce Cook and another agent recognize the farm truck. The scene makes the hunt visible as a coordinated operation among ordinary streets and familiar landmarks, while Al himself is still absent from the immediate search. His expected arrival in Albany gives the scattered effort a center of command.

Once Al catches up with the other agents, he takes over quickly and decisively. At the rendezvous near Highway 40 and the Old Baillings Road, the force consists of sixteen men in five cars, moving toward Irv Manders’s property. Norville Bates yields the reins and responsibility to Al with evident relief. The contrast is pointed: the search has grown from agents asking townspeople for information into a large, mobile force under a single field leader.

Al also controls how much outside authority is allowed into the operation. Local and state police have been contacted, but he tells Norville Bates that the pursuit will be kept quiet for the time being. If the agents catch the fugitives, the police can be told to fold their roadblocks; if they fail, they can be directed to move inward. Al’s stated reasoning is that sixteen men should be enough to handle the pair without interference. Norville, for his part, understands the advantage of keeping the police away because he expects Andy McGee to suffer a fatal accident once captured. The passage places Al’s secrecy within a pursuit whose intended outcome is more than an ordinary arrest, while distinguishing Norville’s explicit understanding from Al’s own stated words.

At the Manders Farm

At the farm, Al approaches Andy McGee and Charlie McGee in the lead car. He greets them by name and smiles. His hands are empty, but his coat is open; another man stands alert beside the car as further vehicles arrive and more agents get out. The visible force quickly grows to at least a dozen men, as Andy begins counting and then stops. Al’s greeting is almost disarmingly familiar against this accumulating show of numbers, but the situation is plainly one of capture rather than a social visit.

Charlie tells the agents to go away. Al tells Andy that they have led the group on a merry chase, then turns to Charlie and begins to reassure her that she does not have to do something. The appeal is cut short. At the farm, Al’s approach combines direct address with a display of organized force: he speaks to both fugitives as known individuals while his agents fill the yard. The scene brings the pursuit’s competing expectations into the open. Al acts as if command, numbers, and proximity have brought the operation to its conclusion; Charlie’s response overturns that assumption.

Death and Its Consequences

As the confrontation breaks into gunfire, Charlie looks down at Al. The cold confidence has vanished from his face; he is terrified. Flames suddenly consume his trousers and sport coat, and his hair catches fire. He backs into the side of his car, turns toward Norville Bates with his arms extended, and screams. Andy feels a rush of heat pass him, while Al’s face catches fire as well.

The description stays with the destruction rather than reducing it to a quick report of a casualty. For a moment Al remains visible beneath the flames; then his features run together, and he staggers blindly down the driveway before collapsing face down beside a car. He no longer resembles a recognizable man, but a burning bundle of rags. The agents around him are also affected: three whose hair Charlie has ignited manage to put themselves out, though their hair is left blackened and tangled. Al’s death is therefore both the decisive end of his own pursuit and the scene’s clearest demonstration of the scale Charlie’s power has reached.

Narrative Role

Al’s brief arc is defined by a reversal in authority. He enters the search as the awaited leader, takes over from Norville Bates, coordinates a force of sixteen, and chooses to keep the police outside the operation. At the farm, however, his organization’s numerical advantage cannot protect him from Charlie. The confident field commander who arrives to address the fugitives by name becomes the scene’s most visible victim of the power he and the Shop have failed to contain.

His death also changes the meaning of the agents’ arrival. Their cars, coordinated search, and controlled approach have made capture seem imminent; the flames turn that apparent control into panic. Andy’s warning that Charlie has never done anything like this before and may not be able to stop makes the consequence larger than Al’s individual fate: the encounter leaves the people at the farm facing an unprecedented and potentially continuing danger.