Roast Mortem (5 page)

“My friends! They're in there! I don't know what to do!”

A steady hand squeezed my shoulder. “Slow down, ma'am. Who's trapped? Talk to me.”

I glanced up. Under a bulky fire helmet, intelligent eyes were leveled on mine. Wisps of wiry blond hair peeked out from under that Darth Vader headgear. The man's pale skin was smooth. He was on the young side, late twenties maybe, but his voice and expression were cool and composed, his translucent blue eyes like clear beacons in the middle of this searing, dark fog.

“My friend . . . an elderly lady,” I said, feeling steadier in the presence of this man's calm. “She's in the basement with the owner of the shop. They're both trapped. There are no windows down there, and the sidewalk chute was bricked up long ago. The only way into or out of that basement is
on fire
. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“Yes. Anyone else in the upper floors?”

I blanked for a second. “No. There shouldn't be. Enzo—the building's owner—lives alone on the third floor, but he's in the basement now. He mentioned the second floor was being rented, but the business went under a month ago and the space is still vacant.”

The fireman nodded, spoke evenly into a radio attached to his coat. “We have two civilians in the basement. The only means of egress is blocked. Fire is doubtful at this time. Repeat. Fire is doubtful at this time—”

“Doubtful!” I cried. “You
doubt
you can save my friends?”

“Easy, ma'am. We'll get 'em out. Try to calm down.”

While we spoke, three firemen reached the building, a length of hose unfurling behind them. Another man raised an odd-looking tool—like the long, skinny offspring of a crowbar and a claw hammer. Wielding the thing as confidently as a Yankee all-star, he tore the caffè's front door off its hinges and swept away the jagged remnants of the plate glass window, deftly avoiding the spilling of razor-sharp shards onto the sidewalk's already twinkling concrete.

“Ma'am?”

My fireman again—the one with the reassuring voice. I turned to find he'd waved over a pair of FDNY paramedics.

Two women in dark blue uniforms lifted Dante out of my arms and onto a stretcher. I rose and followed them to the back of their ambulance, watched them take vital signs, cover his mouth with an oxygen mask.

“Will he be okay?”

“He's coming around,” one replied. “His vitals are strong, but he'll need a CAT scan . . .”

A paramedic tried to take my pulse, but I waved him off. Knowing Dante was in good hands, I returned to the sidewalk to see if there was anything else I could do for Madame and Enzo.

Another stocky, older fireman approached me. Like the rest, he wore thick, fire-resistant pants under a long, charcoal-colored duster with horizontal stripes of neon yellow, “a turnout coat,” that's what the firefighters in Mike's family had called it.
Bunker gear
was the more common term because they once literally stored it beside their bunks.

“We have a three-story attached commercial building,” the stocky man recited into a radio, “the fire began on the first floor and is going vertical—”

“Yeah and fast,” my fireman added. He must have seen the shock and alarm on my face because he put a hand on my shoulder once more. “Take it easy, okay? The fire is moving up and away from your friends. Right, Lieutenant?”

The lieutenant threw a deadpan glance at my guy, and I finally saw his face full on. The shape, beneath that large helmet, was more oval than square—as if it had once been chiseled quite sharply, but time had added weight, rounding off the angled landscape. His skin texture was craggy, and he had one of those big, red drinker's noses, the kind I'd seen among the crowd in my late father's bookie days. But his celery green eyes were not cloudy or dulled like my dad's old gambling customers. They were as sharp as his voice.

“Two victims are out, two more are trapped behind a fire door to the basement. The fire is confined to the single structure, and there's no shared cockloft with the adjacent building . . .”

After completing his radio report, the lieutenant turned to my fireman. “What the
hell
were those people doing in that basement past Enzo's Thursday night closing time?”

“You know Enzo?” I asked, surprised.

The lieutenant ignored my question. “Is this lady a victim?”

“Yeah, Loo. She got herself and another person out. Shaved-headed guy twice her size. That makes her civilian of the week, right?”

The lieutenant barely glanced my way. “Where's her rescue?”

“He's with the paramedics!” I shouted at the man, barely able to stay sane. “What about my friends? They're trapped in there!”

“We know,” my fireman assured me. He was now strapping a bulky oxygen tank onto his back. “But they're safe behind the fire door for the moment. Right now we've got guys on the fire escape. Look—” He pointed. “And they're on the roof doing their thing, too. Right, Loo?”

But the lieutenant was already heading for the caffè's front doorway. I noticed the name
Crowley
printed in yellow across the bottom backside of his turnout coat.

“Okay, get ready with that hose,” Lieutenant Crowley bellowed at the nozzle team.

A loud crash sounded over our heads. A spectator cried out as black smoke began to pour off the top of the building's roof.

I pointed. “Is that supposed to happen?”

“They're venting the fire,” my guy replied. “That's how we begin to control it, release the heat and smoke, direct it up and out—and away from your friends.”

Away from Madame and Enzo
, I silently repeated, clinging to that thought.

“Okay,” Crowley yelled. “Let's knock this monster down!”

The flat hose swelled like an overstuffed sausage. The men clutching the nozzle released the explosive water stream. Gripping the engorged hose, they moved closer to the blazing shop while more firemen scurried up ladders braced against the walls of the second and third floor. The sound of splintering glass filled the night as they broke windows and climbed through.

“Go, boys!” Crowley cried.

The men gripping the hose advanced through the doorway and vanished into the haze. As the first blast of cold water hit the broiling blaze, a sustained hiss filled the air, and the thick smoke pouring out of the caffè's broken windows quickly faded from black to gray.

The firefighters moved even deeper, directing the stream of water toward the blazing ceiling as they advanced. Smoke billowed, obscuring everything for a minute. Just as the veil lifted, a hanging fan came crashing down, narrowly missing one of them. The firefighters didn't appear to care—they just kept pressing farther into the conflagration.

“What's happening?” I asked my fireman.

“The nozzle team is using the water to cool the combustible gasses at ceiling level. They're cutting a path through the fire to the basement door, then Dino Elfante and Ronny Shaw—that's the man you saw pull the front door off its hinges—those two will get that basement door down and bring your friends out.”

But a moment later, one of those firefighter's emerged from the oily smoke with his arms wrapped around the other. Paramedics rushed to the pair.

“Put him in a Stokes basket and strap him down tight! It might be snapneck,” Lieutenant Crowley barked to the EMT team. Then he signaled my fireman. “Ronny got clobbered by a chunk of ceiling. We need someone else to go in and make the grab.”

“I'm on it,” my fireman said. Grinning as if he lived for this, he lowered his Plexiglas face shield.

“Not alone, James—” Crowley warned.

James,
I repeated to myself, finally knowing my guy's name.

“Remember: two in, two out,” Crowley added then spoke into his radio. “Bigsby, you reading me? You're up.”

James ran toward the burning building and another fireman, with
Brewer
stenciled across the back of his coat, paired up with him. Bigsby Brewer was a real colossus, more than a full head taller than my guy, who wasn't exactly a midget. Side by side, the two vanished into the smoke.

As I watched them go, I felt my fragile steadiness going with it. James, like every other firefighter here, seemed almost gleeful about risking his life. But after his kindness toward me I couldn't help feeling I had a third friend in harm's way.

I kept my eyes focused on the building's front door, waiting, hoping,
praying
that those men would emerge with Madame and Enzo safe, ready for more grappa, and fox-trotting.

It was about then I sensed a large presence just behind me. In a deep, vaguely familiar voice, the hovering form spoke—

“Let's have an update, Lieutenant.”

“Fire is contained to the single building,” Crowley replied. “The adjacent structure has been evacuated as a precaution, but there's no sign of any spread. Right now, the nozzle team's pushing back . . .”

“Anyone hurt?” asked the male voice.

“The lady here says two civilians are trapped in the basement. Ronny Shaw's skull got harassed by a nasty chunk of ceiling and is on his way to the docs. Jim and Bigsie are doin' the snatch and grab on the vics. They should be out any second now.”

“It's not like you to miss a rescue, Oat.”

Oat Crowley shrugged. “I'm going to Lake George in June, Cap. No time to attend Medal Day.”

The man behind me chuckled and I finally glanced over my shoulder. One look at his face confirmed what I'd suspected: the captain and I had met before. In the reflected shadows of the nighttime inferno, his fair complexion had an almost burnt orange cast. Legs braced, one balled hand propped on a hip, Michael Quinn stood like a municipal tower, a full head taller than his lieutenant and most of the men under his command. His substantial chin sported a prominent cleft, and above his upper lip he wore a trimmed handlebar right out of nineteenth-century New York (or a
Lonesome Dove
casting call).

Needless to say, this man was not
my
Mike Quinn. This fire-haired giant was Captain Michael Joseph Quinn of the FDNY—Mike's first cousin. Both were born in the same month and year, and both shared their paternal grandfather's first name, but that's where the solidarity ended.

The captain caught my eye. “You went to an awful lot of trouble to get my attention again, Clare, darlin'. You could have just rung me up for a nice romantic dinner. No need for this elaborate production.”

When I didn't immediately reply to the man's stunningly out-of-place innuendo, his hint of a smile blew up into a grin wide enough for his gold tooth to wink at me in the firelight.

“So are you here all alone, then? Where's my cousin Mikey? Spending too much time shaking down parking violators, is he?”

I just kept staring. The last time I saw this character was aboard a fire-rescue boat that had pulled me out of New York Harbor. Even then, surrounded by the men of the marine squad, he was throwing thinly veiled insults at his cop cousin.

The captain grinned wider at my silence, then used a thumb and forefinger to smooth his mustache, more vivid than his flame-colored roof. “Well, the Quinn family black sheep never did know how to treat a lady.”

Before my fried brain could even
begin
to formulate a response to that charge, the radio clipped to the man's coat came to life. As if in stereo, the transmission also echoed through Lieutenant Crowley's receiver.

“This is Brewer,” the voice said.

“Go ahead, Bigs,” Crowley answered.

“Ten forty-five. Repeat. Ten forty-five. Both victims—”

Victims?
“What's a ten forty-five?” I shouted. “What's he saying?”

“Take it easy, honey,” the captain replied, his monotone maddeningly casual. “They're bringing your friends out right now. Alive and well.”

Donning his white helmet, the captain pushed toward the smoldering building. A whoop went up from the firefighters around me as James emerged from the smoking caffè, cradling Madame.

Pristine peach pantsuit blackened, silver hair a sooty tangle, cheeks and chin smudged with grime, my former mother-in-law looked like an elegant, antique doll that some careless child had badly mistreated. One thin arm held on to her rescuer's strong neck, while the other hugged the old photo album from Enzo's basement.

The enormous firefighter named Bigsby appeared next, toting Enzo Testa. As he gently laid the elderly man out on a stretcher, I could see Enzo was in bad shape—conscious but gasping, a long string of dark phlegm under his nose.

In no time, Madame was ringed by a concerned circle of bunker coats. I had to push through the wall of muscle just to get to her.

“Clare!” Tears were in her eyes and mine, too. I moved to hug her, but a female paramedic jumped in first, trying to place an oxygen mask over her mouth. Madame pushed it away.

“Are you insane?” I told her. With her cheeks flushed, I wasn't sure what had affected her more—the ordeal of the fire or all the grappa she'd drunk. “You need oxygen after the smoke you've inhaled!”

“Yes, but”—the octogenarian coughed once then gestured to the army of strapping young firemen surrounding her—“I'd really prefer mouth to mouth.”

THE
puddle-strewn pavement gleamed like black onyx. The street was so drenched in places you'd think a cleansing storm had passed. But there was no rain-swept freshness in the evening's air, just a miasma of smoke, creosote, and scorched wood.