Vertical Burn (5 page)

10. CHUB O’MALLEY RETIRES

Finney always thought Station 10’s red apparatus doors, in contrast to its pale walls, looked like bright lipstick on a sickly streetwalker. The monolithic, four-story structure at Second Avenue South and South Main Street was in a small corner of old town called Pioneer Square and had been Finney’s home away from home until last June, when he’d requested a transfer after Leary Way. He still loved the place, but there was no way he could work here again. Every time he showed up, he expected to see Bill coming around a corner.

Except for the occasional Saturday-night rowdiness next door at the Fenix Underground and the traffic tie-ups when one of the nearby stadiums scheduled a ball game or a new-car expo, these were sleepy streets, frequented by lost tourists, homeless schizophrenics, and panhandlers trying to put together enough quarters for another bottle of Night Train. Finney and the others on his crew had spent countless hours people-watching from the windows upstairs.

He couldn’t begin to count all the times his father had brought him here as a tot; he still had vivid memories of concealing himself in the cubbyholes around the station. Once, after his father told him how his own dad had thrown him into Lake Missaukee in Michigan to teach him to swim, Finney had leaped into the pool upstairs only to be fished out by kindly Captain Gagliani, who had only three fingers on one hand—a fact that both terrified and fascinated the five-year-old. Like a lot of other old-time firefighters, Gagliani was long dead from lung cancer by the time Finney joined the department.

The third and fourth floors of Station 10 housed the department’s administrative offices. Floor two contained the living quarters for the crews of Engine 10, Ladder 1, and Aid 5: bunk rooms, officers’ rooms, the beanery, a small inspection room, an enormous TV room, a handball court, a weight room, meeting rooms, and the same indoor swimming pool Finney had jumped into so long ago. There was a mezzanine between floors one and two where the department fire investigators maintained offices. The ground floor contained the apparatus bay.

Firefighters parked their cars beneath the station in an underground garage that was so crowded the outgoing shift had to shuttle its vehicles to a pay lot across the street before the incoming shift could squeeze in. This rite was performed each morning before the 0700 bell-testing that was still called the hitch, one of many terms passed down from the horse culture of ninety years before, when each morning that day’s team was fitted in harnesses. Finney loved all the historical ties. The apparatus bay was called the barn and, as if galloping horses were still involved, alarms were called runs.

Finney hadn’t visited Station 10 in months, and though he expected to be overwhelmed by nostalgia, oddly, he wasn’t struck by anything except the fact that Diana Moore was in the watch office. He was surprised that spotting her sent a shot of low-voltage electricity through him.

Also in the watch office were Lieutenant Balitnikoff and his crew, the two Lazenby brothers. The assigned engine officer on C-shift, Marion Balitnikoff was slightly shorter than Finney but heavier, most of it in his bulky torso. Balitnikoff had made his share of enemies in the department by letting his mouth run too far ahead of his brain, and then laughing loudly as if his crude comments were harmless gags. He’d offended Finney as often as anybody else, but Finney figured that was just the way he was and tried to ignore it. Off shift he was a hunter and drinker; on shift he bragged about empty bottles and whatever animal he’d killed recently, when he wasn’t boasting about his sons, three young men attending various state colleges on second-string football scholarships. He was married to a mousy woman who took his excesses in stride. For years he’d tried to kindle a romance between one of his sons and any of Cordifis’s three daughters, but Cordifis’s daughters were too well-bred to be interested.

“Hey! There he is,” Michael Lazenby said, grinning at Finney. “You come down to talk to the big cheese?”

“The cheese himself.”

“Don’t drop your pants for him,” said Paul Lazenby. “That’s the wrong way to get a promotion.”

“Yeah,” said Michael Lazenby. “They’ll want to do it to you again when you make captain. Pretty soon you’ll start liking it.”

Both brothers laughed raucously. The Lazenbys were hard drinkers and amateur bodybuilders. Michael was good-looking in a California surfer style, while Paul was stockier, darker, and less amiable. Paul, who had all his department shirts tailored and rarely buttoned the top four buttons, touched the gold medallion dangling in the hair on his chest. He must not be doing a bodybuilding show anytime soon, Finney thought. He shaved his whole body for shows. Paul Lazenby was the only person Finney knew who managed to look like a lounge lizard in a fire department uniform. Despite their rough personalities, or perhaps because of them, in straight-ahead firefighting the crew of Engine 10 had few peers.

Finney looked around the group, his eyes settling on Diana Moore. “Where was everybody this morning?”

“What’s the matter? Couldn’t you guys handle a little food-on-the-stove by your lonesome?” Lieutenant Balitnikoff asked derisively, stepping between Finney and Diana. “Shit, man. Helen Keller could put out a food-on-the-stove.”

“Now that you mention it, I think it was Helen Keller. She put it out and then she gave the radio report and helped us with our gear. She’s coming back to the station tonight to tuck us in.”

Unable to goad Finney, Balitnikoff stalked out of the room, humorless and cold as stone, rolling slightly on the outer edges of his feet, his blue officer’s shirt stretched over his abdomen like spandex. Five months ago, before Cordifis’s death, Finney had enjoyed a raucous camaraderie with these men. Now they seemed like strangers.

As he followed his lieutenant out of the room, Michael Lazenby turned to Finney and said, “Just remember us when you make chief.”

“I’ll keep a bag of peanuts in my desk drawer for the little people.”

“Paul likes corn nuts.”

“I’ll keep some of those, too.”

After the others left, Diana’s gray eyes swiveled expectantly to Finney. “Don’t pay attention to them. They think the sun rises and sets out of that tailpipe on Engine Ten. I’ve even seen them out there taking pictures of it like they’re going to send them to their grandma or something.”

“I think their grandma is a bodybuilder.”

Diana laughed. He liked that she laughed at his lame joke. He’d been thinking ill of her for some time. He wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was survivor’s guilt. Maybe it was because he hadn’t yet apologized for speaking rudely to her after Leary Way, when she tried to console him. He hadn’t thought about that in weeks. He’d been terrible.

Finney knew that, despite strenuous objections from her well-to-do family, Diana had taken the job in the fire department after receiving an education in private schools and following a course of studies in English literature at Pepperdine. Four months ago, after the Leary Way fire, she’d been moved to his empty spot on Ladder 1. Maybe that was why he held a grudge against her.

“How have you been, John?”

“Except for the heart palpitations and the random paranoia, just fine,” he said, smiling. He could tell she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. The funny thing was, it was half-true.

He could also tell that she’d been trying not to look at the side of his neck where the doctors had grafted fresh skin onto the worst burns. “I probably shouldn’t ask,” she said, “but did that hurt?”

The burns had been nothing compared to what had been going on inside his head. “I cried like an orphan at the train station.”

“I doubt that. Are you all right? I worry about you. They don’t talk about it around here, but I don’t think anybody’s handling Bill’s death too well. No one except Reidel, who turned to religion and acts as if it was God’s will. I wish I had a nickel for every time he’s said ‘Bill’s with Jesus now.’ The engine guys don’t talk to the truckies, and Baxter’s in retirement mode.”

“The chemistry of a crew is a delicate thing. It’ll get better.” Neither of them spoke for a few uneasy seconds. “All those missing units this morning weren’t at a class?”

“There were two fires in the north end. Then a bunch of runs came in all at once and tied everyone up.”

“The last time I remember that happening was June seventh. The night of Leary Way.”

“I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right.”

“If Helen Keller hadn’t been at the Downtowner, we wouldn’t have had any help at all.”

She smiled good-naturedly. It had taken a long time for Diana to be accepted in the ranks. Eleven years ago, when she started at Station 2, the old salts spent weeks trying to break her—their primary weapon the rumor mill. They said she was too weak to meet the department’s physical standards, that she was a lesbian, or that she had slept with the captain at training to get the job. After her physical strength was tested and found sufficient, a rumor circulated that she was on steroids.

None of the rumors seemed to rattle Diana, who somehow remained even-tempered and pleasant throughout. Two years before entering the department she’d finished in the top ten at the Hawaiian Iron Man competition, so she was stronger than many of the men she worked with and had more endurance than all but a handful. Among eighteen hundred candidates, she’d passed the physical agilities section of the department’s entrance exam at eighth. She told this to no one. If the old-timers wished to believe she wasn’t strong enough, that was their problem.

It was a slow process, but eventually she was welcomed into the fold. The lone holdout was Chub O’Malley, who’d been the driver on Engine 2 since the late sixties. One day the other crew members egged Chub into betting two gallons of ice cream that he could bench-press 150 pounds more times than Diana. O’Malley felt confident that even a flabby male was stronger than the fittest female. “One Rocky Road,” he said, as they walked into the weight room at Station 2. “And one chocolate chip mint.” Ten minutes later O’Malley was on his way to the hospital with a torn ligament in his elbow. While he was being wheeled out, Diana said, not unkindly, “Two vanilla.”

Six months later, on his first day back from disability, the crew taunted Chub about still owing ice cream, taunted him until he made a second wager. Double or nothing. At first Diana refused, but if Chub could do nothing else, he could make her angry. She stormed into the weight room and bench-pressed 150 pounds twenty-seven times.

O’Malley performed the exercise four times and tore the ligaments in his other elbow. This time he retired.

Diana was almost as tall as Finney, and moved with the grace of a large cat, certainly without the clumsy, masculine affectation Finney noticed some of the women in the department strove for. Her uniform always looked as if it had been pressed minutes earlier and might still be warm from the iron. She had perfect white teeth, chestnut hair, and wide cheekbones.

Finney was aware that she’d been looking at him for some time now, and her look was about as personal as he’d gotten with a woman in some time. Judging by the question in her eyes, she’d meant it to be personal.

“You don’t like me, do you?” she said.

“Pardon?”

“I just get the feeling you don’t like me.”

“Where did that come from?” She was right, but he was defensive, had thought he was hiding it better than he probably was. She was some kind of mind reader or something. He hoped she couldn’t see his chagrin.

“I can understand why. I mean, we went through that fire together, and now you’re getting shuffled around the city like a recruit, while here I am working out of your old locker.”

“I’m getting shuffled around because I’m on the lieutenant’s list. And if I’m acting uneasy, it’s because I owe you an apology.” He thought about the clumsy things he’d said after Leary Way, to her and others. He’d been particularly horrid to her. She’d been trying to help, and all he’d wanted was to be left alone. Their intentions had collided and he’d said things he wished he hadn’t. “I was rude. I should have apologized earlier.”

“I know you weren’t yourself after Leary Way. I wasn’t angling for an apology.”

“You got one anyway. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. But apology aside, you don’t like me, do you?”

She was on to him. From what little he knew about her, she’d always been an astute judge of character. He might as well have been naked. “I like you fine.”

“Is it because Bill had me stay outside that night?”

“I can’t get into this now.”

“Okay, when?”

“I’m sorry if I gave you the impression I don’t like you. I like you just fine.” Her eyes remained fixed on his, and it was clear she didn’t believe him, as well she shouldn’t. He
didn’t
like her. Undeniably, he felt electricity in his stomach when he was around her, but he hadn’t liked her since Cordifis’s funeral, and it bothered him that she had found him out and that he didn’t have a good reason for his attitude. Or any reason. Hell, everybody liked Diana. And why wouldn’t they? She was sharp as a tack, amiable, straightforward, and she was a first-rate firefighter—that last a quality one wouldn’t necessarily expect to find in a beautiful woman. And without an ounce of snoot to her, as Bill had said that last day they worked together. Finney took a step back and looked around the room. “I miss this place. I thought I would, and now I do.” He turned to leave.

“Break a leg.”

“That’s the plan.”

11. THE GOVERNOR’S LIFESAVING AWARD

When Finney stepped out of the elevator onto the fourth floor, a businesslike secretary with green-tinted contacts and a pile of brunette hair told him the chief would be with him in a minute.

She left him to his own devices in a large office with a tall ceiling and a desk sporting photographs of Reese’s family. Hanging on the wall behind the desk, where you couldn’t miss it if you tried, was a Governor’s Lifesaving Award, praising
BATTALION CHIEF CHARLES REESE
for his actions the night of June 7. Surrounding it were framed photos and newspaper clippings chronicling Reese’s meteoric career, including a photo from
Time
magazine of Reese and Robert Kub running out of the Leary Way building in front of a ball of flame. It gave Finney the creeps. Maybe they should all chip in and buy Reese a scrapbook for this stuff so he wouldn’t have to plaster his ego all over the walls.

The search for Bill Cordifis had been the pinnacle of Reese’s career. Written up as a hero in the regional and national papers, Charlie rode his renown into the chief’s office three months later.

It occurred to Finney that Leary Way was the defining moment in the careers of both Reese and himself. Finney went into the burning building with a partner and forty-eight minutes later came out alone, burned, confused, disoriented, barely able to walk. Even though he, too, failed to bring Cordifis out, Reese went into that same burning building and came out as chief of the department. Finney sometimes wondered if his dislike of Reese was nothing more than envy—but no, his opinion had been formed eighteen years before, when they entered the department in the same drill school.

It was twenty minutes before Charlie Reese showed up, which was about ten minutes after Finney figured the chief had succeeded in making his point.

At five foot five, Reese was a short man in a profession of giants. He had unwavering eyes and wavy black hair. He wore loose-fitting trousers and an off-white dress shirt, the collar of which captured a wedge of soft flesh just below his chin. He’d been handsome once, and would still have been handsome, Finney thought, if he hadn’t let so much of his personality leach out into his face.

After shaking hands, Reese smiled slowly. “Whoever would have thought, huh? You and me. Here in this room.” He laughed.

“From day one you said you were going to be chief of the department.”

“And now here I are.” Reese laughed again, then walked around the desk and sat heavily in the leather chair. “So tell me, how’s your old man?”