Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [24]
“I deserve this promotion and you know it.”
Reese walked over to the office door and dropped his hand onto the knob. “I can’t promote a man who would abandon his partner and then sabotage the efforts of the rescue team.”
“Abandon? What the hell are you talking about? I went for help. And just how did I sabotage the rescue team? I did everything but take your hand and lead you down that corridor. In fact, I offered to do just that.”
“You were in a blind panic,” Reese said quietly. “I almost lost my life because of you.”
Finney stared into Reese’s unwavering dark eyes. He’d never seen a man more sure of himself.
“You’re making a mistake,” Finney said. “I’m a good firefighter and I’d be a good officer.”
“There are two of us in this room, John. One of us has a citation on the wall. The other has a dead partner. Think about it.”
13. SICK CHICKENS WITH MATCHES
The rig was out when Finney got back to Station 26, and for a few crazy minutes he considered emptying his locker and leaving his resignation scrawled on a roll of toilet paper the way one contemptuous old-timer had done years before. There were several actions he could take. He still had a vague hankering to go back to school, get a degree, and teach high school history. He’d worked for a commercial painting outfit and he’d always liked the smell of paint and the routine of good honest labor every day. The fire department wasn’t the air in his lungs or the blood in his veins. Then again, nothing would destroy his father quicker than to see him quit. And as he thought about it, he realized maybe the fire department was the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins. Maybe it was those things and more.
As he stood there thinking, Finney became aware of a woman rapping on the glass door to the station, her face less than a foot from his. Apparently she’d been in front of him for some time. It was Annie, one of their regulars. From dawn to dusk Annie roamed the streets of South Park, the neighborhood Station 26 protected, pulling a two-wheeled wire shopping cart behind her, obsessed with making right-angle turns, which meant she had surely been in his direct line of vision for the last thirty feet of her jaunt. Annie was a small woman in her early sixties who wore old-fashioned hiking boots, white knee socks, and, as always, a denim skirt and a lightweight raincoat.
As a courtesy, the Seattle Fire Department tested blood pressures for citizens during business hours; every station had their regulars, and Annie was one of 26’s. He knelt beside her, wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her arm, and put the stethoscope to his ears. It was, as always, 120 over 60, perfectly normal.
As she put her raincoat back on, she said, “You going to be here for the war?”
“What war?”
She removed a Wall Street Journal from her cart and showed him an article on the front page announcing an agreement between two Mideast powers to lower the price of oil. “Don’t you see it? They’re lowering the crude prices to lull us into complacency. These men have nuclear weapons. They say they don’t, but they do. We’re all standing in a pool of gasoline, and now these sick chickens have matches. What I need to know is whether you’re here at night.”
“Somebody’s always here, Annie. We work twenty-four-hour shifts.”
“You. I’m talking about you.”
“I won’t be here every minute. But somebody will.”
“I want you here. I’m scared.”
Finney patted Annie’s shoulder. He knew the worlds of the mentally ill and the mentally broken weren’t far apart, and even though he had survived those hellish weeks after Leary Way, they were as vivid to him now as if they’d happened yesterday. He’d tiptoed along the abyss, and there were a few hours scattered over several of the worst days when he’d come close to losing his mind. He identified with Annie in a way no