Vertical Burn Part 3

"Why don't you go look around if you have so much extra energy?"

"Sure it's not your heart?"

"Get out of here!"

Smiling, Finney left Sadler in the stairwell while he went onto the floor, pa.s.sing two Hispanic men who were punching the elevator b.u.t.tons as if playing a video game. Unlike the old days when firefighters left their masks outside on the rigs and braved the smoke on their own, now the only time a Seattle firefighter was permitted into a fire building without an SCBA-a self-contained breathing apparatus-was to effect a rescue, and then only if other members with SCBAs weren't available. Medical treatment for smoke inhalation, once a badge of courage, triggered disciplinary charges these days.

Two doors down he came upon an apartment with light smoke drifting out of it.

"Fire department," he said loudly as he entered.

Standing in a semicircle around the stove were three mop-haired children and an elderly Asian man. They were mesmerized by a sheet of flame flowing out of the back burner on the stove, consuming a pot and lazily working its way up the wall. Finney hit the pot with a blast from his dry chemical extinguisher, snuffing the flames in a cloud of r.e.t.a.r.dant. He plucked up the pot and set it in the sink, then turned off the burner and opened a window to let in the autumn breeze.

"When the alarm goes off, you're supposed to leave the building," Finney said, turning to the old man, who smiled and nodded. In another minute or two it would have eaten into the walls and ceiling. Finney took off a glove and put his hand an inch above each of the burners to make sure they were off. Dropping onto one knee to address the oldest of the children, Finney said, "Tell him that first you turn off the stove, then you leave the room and call the fire department. Close the door but do not lock it."

"Tapped food on the stove?" Sadler asked, walking through the door and sniffing.

"Tapped food on the stove."

While Sadler code-greened the rest of the incoming units and tried to communicate with the elderly man, who continued to smile and bow politely, Finney looked out the double windows. Seattle sat next to Puget Sound in a huge basin a hundred miles across, mountains on either side. Even low-income housing had a panoramic vista. Finney admired the way the morning sun etched the container ships on the slate-blue waters of Elliott Bay. The angled October sunshine, brightening the whitecaps and making them look like sharks' teeth, also highlighted the jagged mountains along the western horizon. Finney had always been awed by the snowcapped Olympic Mountains to the west, the Cascade range to the east, and especially Mount Rainier looming in the distance at the south end of Rainier Avenue, as if the city fathers had planted it there.

Funny. Peering down at the street, he was surprised to see no other units had arrived. Had he and Sadler followed protocol and waited downstairs, a simple food-on-the-stove would have escalated to an apartment fire. It was even possible it would have burned out the whole floor.

As they left, Finney tousled the hair of all three children. The oldest boy cracked a gap-toothed smile. The old man grinned and half bowed once again. Finney bowed back.

Downstairs they reset the alarm system and then Sadler chased down the building manager so he could chew him out for his hijinks with the elevator. In the short time he'd worked with Sadler, Finney had noticed the one aspect to the job Sadler relished: dressing down subordinates and civilians.

9. THE DANGEROUS BUILDINGS LIST.

As a rule, Octobers in the Northwest are soggy, but several weeks earlier an unseasonable drought had developed, bringing with it clear, cold nights and cool, sunny days. When the rains came, the omnipresent dust in this neighborhood would transform into the kind of mud firefighters on Engine 26 had been grumbling about for as long as anyone could remember, the kind that reappeared as a sloppy film on the side panels after you washed them. At least they didn't have to wipe down the apparatus with a damp chamois, top to bottom, every time it returned to the barn-the procedure during Finney's first few years in the department, a mandate he a.s.sumed had originated from grooming sweaty horses after a run.

Finney stepped down out of the driver's seat and began pacing beside the rig, anxious about his scheduled meeting in less than an hour with the chief of the department. He was number one on the lieutenant's list, and everybody knew the first promotion was to be given out this week. He'd avoided taking the test for years, his reluctance stemming from family dynamics. His father had started browbeating him about becoming an officer the minute he entered the department, and falling into a lifelong pattern, Finney automatically resisted. At thirty-nine he finally saw his extended adolescent rebellion for what it was and realized that his refusal to accede to his father was keeping him from doing the very thing he wanted. Once he'd decided, it was a simple matter to follow through with the requisite studying. Coming out first on the list hadn't been difficult. The difficulty had been the initial resolve. After Leary Way he went through a period where he regretted having taken the test, wanting to keep as low a profile as possible. But his att.i.tude was slowly shifting, and he now saw making lieutenant as partial redemption.

While Sadler and Monahan were across the street inspecting buildings, Finney waited alone in the rig parked on Riverside Drive, the Duwamish Waterway a stone's throw to his right. Somewhere nearby a metal grinder shrieked. It was a sad neighborhood, Finney thought. After World War II these lazy streets had been taken over by industry and commerce, children and families chased away by the screech of trucks and the thump of heavy machinery. Before the war it had been a community of Italian truck farmers, some of whom still resided in tiny houses dwarfed by tall warehouse walls. It seemed to Finney that everywhere he looked, industry, commerce, and the need for a profit were overtaking humanity.

With nothing else to occupy his time, Finney picked up his portable radio and made a circuit of a two-story vacant house just this side of the waterway. Wind, time, and dust had abraded most of the paint from the outer walls and the boarded-over windows. Long-neglected azaleas and rhododendrons still thrived in the yard. A sepia swoosh marked the front porch, where it looked as if the boards had recently been swept clean of the neighborhood grit. Finney wondered who'd been here.

Stepping past an old wringer washer on the slanted back porch, he found the door had been forced recently. His small yellow department-issue flashlight in one hand, portable radio in the other, he stepped inside.

The house was at least a hundred years old, its wood floors scarred from generations of shoes. Mold and the smell of old apples permeated the rooms. The only piece of furniture on the main floor, a couch in the sitting room, was cancerous with black industrial grime that had infiltrated the structure. To the left of the front door a set of stairs led to the second floor, where Finney found three small bedrooms and a bathroom with a claw-foot tub. One bedroom was almost bare, but the others were cluttered with empty Corn Flakes boxes, Pepto-Bismol bottles, crushed Pepsi cans, prescription containers, crumpled newspapers, and filthy bedding. A vagrant must have set up camp here years ago and left after the disorder defeated him.

Throughout the house the grimy floors were dappled with fresh boot prints. Somebody had been here recently. Not a lot had been disturbed, but it was all to one purpose, and Finney gleaned that purpose quickly.

Outside in the sunshine Lieutenant Sadler and Monahan showed up at the apparatus just as Finney did.

"Come on," said Sadler. "We gotta get you back so you can see the chief."

"This place needs to be on the dangerous buildings list," Finney said.

Sadler put his clipboard and Notice of Violation pad inside the rig. "You went inside?"

"Somebody's got it all set to burn."

"This old wreck?" said Monahan dubiously. "Who would bother?"

"I don't know, but the wallboard is kicked out around the stairs. There are combustibles stacked in all the right places. It's balloon construction, too, so the walls don't have any fire stops in them."

"Heck," said Monahan. "Half the places around here are like that. How about that double-wide trailer down the street? We going to put everything on the list?"

"We should put this this on it. I'll fill out the form when we get back." on it. I'll fill out the form when we get back."

"Don't bother," said Monahan. "I've got a building I've been meaning to do myself. I'll do them both at the same time. You just go downtown and get those bars and make us proud."

As they drove back to the station, Finney let the full impact of his promotion wash over him. To be truthful, he had b.u.t.terflies in his stomach. He'd waited a long time to become a lieutenant. Eighteen years.

He had to laugh when highfliers outside the department presumed that remaining a firefighter was the mark of a loser. Perhaps it wasn't exactly the fast track, but riding tailboard had always suited Finney just fine. Reporting for eight twenty-four-hour shifts a month gave him all the time in the world to keep in shape, to take long, rambling hikes in the Cascades or kayak trips through the San Juans, even to start a second business. For a while now he'd been toying with the idea of building kayaks professionally. He'd already built six of them, sold four, given away two. He liked the work and had every reason to believe that once he set his mind to it, he could make a business out of it.

But first and foremost he loved the straightforward hard work of firefighting. As a lieutenant he would still be fighting fire, and as a captain; but a chief's job was all paperwork, personnel problems, and incident command. And those dreadful meetings. Finney couldn't imagine being old enough or tired enough to want to be a chief.

Until recently Finney had worked his entire career on one of the city's eleven aerial ladder rigs, referred to as trucks or sometimes simply ladders, to distinguish them from the thirty-three engine companies in Seattle.

Engines carried hose, couplings, and nozzles-and usually five hundred gallons of water. The motor served double duty and could run either the rear wheels or a built-in pump. At a fire the driver ran the pump and made the hose connections, while the officer and the nozzleman took a line into the building, where they located the seat of the fire and put water on it.

Trucks carried ladders, including a hundred-foot aerial, power saws, forcible entry equipment, hydraulic extrication tools, and high-angle rescue ropes and hardware. At fires, truck companies performed forcible entry, searched for victims, and ventilated the fire building, which was just as necessary to putting out a structure fire as a chimney is to a fireplace. Ventilation was accomplished either by laddering the roof and cutting a hole with a chain saw, or by mechanical means, with fans.

Finney treasured the unique challenges of truck work, and to him, a lieutenant's spot on a truck seemed about as perfect as life could get.

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 Sat.u.r.day-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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.signed 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 b.u.t.toned the top four b.u.t.tons, 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. "s.h.i.t, 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 G.o.d'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 cla.s.s?"

"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 compet.i.tion, 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 pa.s.sed 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 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 att.i.tude. Or any reason. h.e.l.l, 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. 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 att.i.tude. Or any reason. h.e.l.l, 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.