Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [19]
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