Heaven's Fire (7 page)

Simon moved in closer. No, peaceful wasn’t the word. The old man looked like he was in awe, like he’d just seen God.

In Pasquale Firenze’s case, maybe he had.

Jake was cranky.

Not that she had anyone but her own obsessive-compulsive self to blame.

Barely lucid with less than three hours of fitful sleep, an explosion, and a five-hour live broadcast under her belt, here she was. Drawn to the YMCA pool like the swallows to Capistrano. Or something. To somewhere.

What was truly maddening, though, was despite the fact she had wrenched herself out of bed and been waiting when the Y doors opened at six-thirty, despite the fact she had arrived wearing only her swimsuit and a pair of gym shorts (the better for a quick change), and despite the fact she had flouted authority and
not
showered before
"
entering the pool"--despite all that, she
still
had to share a lane.

The guy was someone
Jake
had never seen there before. He'd hopped into the lane unannounced
while she was swimming
and nearly collided head-on with her. Luckily, she'd heard him coming: the interloper had a lazy right hand that thwacked the water, palm flat, on each stroke.
Stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...

For the first ten laps of the thirty-six that made up her daily mile, the sound was merely irritating. By lap thirty-five, she was ready to throttle the guy.

Stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...

Jake grabbed the end wall to turn and was nearly swamped by the swimmer's wash as he made a flip turn next to her and headed back. The fact he could do a flip turn only compounded her irritation.

Choking, she kept going.

So did he.

Stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...

36.

Finished.

Jake pulled herself up and out of the pool, aware that her lane partner had paused on the other end to watch her leave. Probably as glad to be rid of her as she was to be rid of him.

Jake picked up her towel and locker key and headed to the showers.
A
man two lanes over pulled off his goggles and hailed her
as she passed by
.

"You're dragging a little today, Jake."

She stopped and squatted down to answer. Doug was a firefighter on disability for a hearing loss caused by years of riding in a fire truck with a siren reverberating overhead, making th
e metal cab into a bell chamber. Doug's head was
the clapper. Today, sirens on fire trucks were regulated, but it had come too late to save
this firefighter
's hearing.

"I worked late last night," she answered, "and have to go back this morning. I couldn't see over here--were you blowing me out of the water?" Because Jake’s pace seldom varied from her first lap to her last, Doug had taken to using her as a sort of human metronome, pacing himself with her.

"Slow down, I didn't get all that."

The former firefighter wasn't talking about Jake's swimming
speed
. Jake talked in short, fast bursts, something she attributed to trying to fit a lot of information into the hurried radio exchanges with her crew. Or
,
perhaps
,
her fear of running out of time in general.

Whatever, Doug's hearing loss, combined with the echo-y indoor swimming pool, made it t
ough for him to catch every word
. "I said I worked late last night."

Doug pulled himself up on his elbows. "I was
watching the broadcast. R
eally sorry to hear about Pasquale. He was a good guy. Always insisted on having a truck standing by at a show, even if the municipality didn't require it. Had us wet down the ground before, too, if it was a dry year." Doug shook his head. "Of course, there's not much the fire department can do when the show's on a barge."

"I'm not sure there was much anyone could do
, period
."

"Do they know what happened?" Doug already was repositioning his goggles, ready to get back to his workout.

Jake stood up, her calves and thighs thanking her. She noticed her lane partner was still standing, but now on this end of the pool, and still staring. But she'd been stared at before. "ATF is investigating. A Simon Aamot--you know him?"

Doug nodded, but Jake wasn't sure if he had understood her. "Okay," he said, "I've got miles to swim before I sleep.
Or have my coffee, more accurately.
" And off he went with a smile and a wave.

Jake waved back--to herself, really, since Doug was already under water--and headed to the showers. When she first started swimming, she'd been proud that she was faster than Doug. That was before she looked over and realized he didn't use his legs. At all. Kicking aggravated an old back injury, he told her. Oh, and by the way, he was usually on his third or fourth
mile
by the time she arrived to do her first lap. Sort of took the wind out of one's sails.

Still, she liked Doug a lot. She saw him three times a week, speaking for maybe five minutes at a time, before they happily went their separate ways. What more could one want in a friend?

*****

Simon caught the news the next morning before leaving for the fireworks factory. Although local coverage usually was pretty sparse on Saturday mornings, Channel 8 was sandwiching newsbreaks between cartoons.

The station
opened with an aerial shot of the now-deserted lakefront. Clean-up crews could be seen picking up the trash left behind by the fireworks crowd. Despite the tragedy, Lake Days would open at ten a.m., a little more than three hours from now.

Neal Cravens was talking.
"
...last night’s tragedy. Here's what we know: One person, Firenze Fireworks patriarch Pasquale Firenze, is confirmed dead. Another, Ray Guida, who is married to Firenze‘s daughter Angela, is missing. What we don’t know, though, is why. Why did the shell--"

Simon switched over to CNN, then Fox News Channel, the Today Show and CBS Early Show. Liberty had made the big time. The Lake Days explosion was featured on all of them.

When Simon turned back to TV8, Cravens was talking to camera man Luis Burns, the two of them speculating endlessly and ignorantly on the possible cause of the blast. Behind them, a sanitation truck pumped out toilets.

M
ade
for
two loads of crap.

*****

It took Simon about thirty minutes to get from home to the fireworks factory due west of Liberty. He was driving his government-issued Ford Explorer--a good thing, because the long drive that led up to the Firenze place was thick with coarse gravel that kicked up as he drove. The combination of spring rains and the heavy semi-trailers that trucked in raw materials
used to build
the shells and trucked out the finished fireworks, resulted in deep ruts that Pasquale spackled with more and more layers of gravel in an attempt to keep the drive level for the dangerous cargo.

Simon
's Explorer
made the final bend and the Firenzes’ two shepherd-mix guard dogs, apparently lying in wait, sprang up to give chase. The dogs, Bela and Lugosi, loved to play chicken with cars. Bela was better at it than Lugosi,
as
evidenced by the fact that Lugosi now raced alongside the Explorer on just two legs--both of them on the right side of his body. The legs on the left had been lost to a 1990 Mercury Cougar.

As Simon turned into the unpaved parking lot, being careful to avoid the dogs, he saw that six or seven other dusty vehicles were already parked there.
Not unexpected
. Fireworks was a family business and the Firenze family, both immediate and extended, was rallying around the homestead.

Simon
parked the Explorer and got out, pausing to pat the dogs.
Since the ATF agent
had legs instead of wheels, Bela sniffed and lost interest, running off after some imagined quarry.

Lugosi
, though,
trailed after Simon unsteadily. The dog had gotten along amazingly well on two legs up till now, but it
seemed to be
like riding a bike. Lugosi needed to keep moving in order to stay upright and balanced. As he got older and slower, he'd get less and less mobile.

As Simon reached the red single-story building that served as the fireworks company's office, Lugosi stopped to catch his breath, sidling in close to prop himself up against the red exterior wall. Not for the first time, Simon wondered how the dog managed to pee.

As if Lugosi had read his thoughts, a long wet stain dribbled down the wall, which looked freshly painted. Huh, Simon thought, it's actually damned efficie
nt. Didn't even have to lift a
leg.

Simon waited for the dog to finish and gave him a sympathy scratch behind the right ear. Sated, Lugosi sprang to life, pushing himself up and away from the building with a full-body wag
and bounded into the corn field as if to prove he, for one, didn't need the pity.

Simon walked--but did not bound--to the fireworks office, which looked more like a chicken coop than an office. In fact, surrounded by acres of open field for safety reasons, the entire fireworks factory resembled a working farm. Behind the office, an abandoned playground was half hidden. Probably where Pat and Angela had played a
s kids while their dad was bus
y packing shells with explosives. Don't bother Daddy, kids, he's working.

Beyond the office and playground stood a tall barn-like structure that
Simon knew
was used for constructing ground displays. It looked like the renovations that had started with the painting of Lugosi's pee-wall had continued
there
. The barn
had been
stripped of the white paint Simon reme
mbered from his last visit,
the bare barnwood prepped for painting. The three long, narrow process buildings that radiated out from the barn like spokes on a wheel were likely next on the "To Do" list.

The Firenzes ran a good operation. Everything clean and
up to
code. With explosives, neatness counted, and so did a lot of other things.

Knowing that he was coming to the factory, Simon had dressed in cotton fabrics: jeans and a cotton golf shirt. Static electricity, the kind that gives you a little shock when you walk across a carpet and then touch metal, can kill you in a fireworks factory.

Simon pulled open the
office's
wooden screen door and ducked in. No one was at the reception desk, but Tudy
stuck his head around the corner
when the door slapped shut behind Simon.
"
Simon, come in. You want a cup of coffee? A doughnut?
"

The old man looked bad. His face was gray, like
he
needed to prop himself up against a wall
like Lugosi. Yet Tudy
was offering refreshments
. And, like the aging dog, wouldn't appreciate pity.

"
No,
thanks.
"
Like the night before,
the man
wouldn't quite meet Simon's eyes. As the potential bearer of bad news, Simon had experienced that reaction from people before. It was like they thought if they didn't look at him...
"Are you sure you should be here
, Tudy
?"

Now Pat came out.
"
That’s what I asked him, but the old fart wouldn’t listen. Made me pick him up on the way out here.
"

Tudy led the way to the coffee room and sat down heavily--as heavily as a bantamweight could sit--on one of the mismatched chrome chairs set around the green linoleum-topped table.

He spread his hands.
"
Where’m I going to go, huh, Pat? Home to cry? No. My place is here with you, like it was with your dad. Besides, we got work to do. We got shows coming up for the Fourth. We got shells to finish.
"

Pat squeezed the old man’s shoulder before sitting down next to him.
"
I know, Tudy. I’m glad you’re here.
"
He looked a question across at Simon, who had pulled up a chair.

Simon
understood
and shook his head
to indicate there was still no
sign of Ray.
"
You have a full staff on today?
"

Pat shrugged.
"
Not on purpose, but e
veryone came in. Almost like it’s a tribute to Ray and my dad to be here.
"

"
Angela?
"
Simon asked.

"
She’s with Ma. They’re seeing the priest. My ma, she has a cold, so she didn't come to the show last night. She saw it on TV instead.
"
Pat looked down at the table.