Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [73]
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Paul Lazenby asked, his voice a low growl. Sheathing the knife, Finney wondered how long Lazenby had been watching.
Lazenby’s thick hair was mussed, his face puffy. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt with an SFD logo across the chest, the veins in his forearms and biceps as prominent as the noodling on his neck.
Diana appeared behind Paul, her chestnut hair plaited and trailing down the center of her back. Paul gave her a sour look and left.
“He seems a little on edge,” Finney said.
“The fire this morning didn’t go well for them.” It had been in a small, two-story office building located in a strip mall. Someone left a coffeepot on all night, and it caught the wall on fire and then spread to an attic space. Finney was there on Air 26, but he hadn’t spoken to anybody. “Michael made a mess of the hose at the front door, and when Paul charged it, it turned into a giant knot. Engine Thirteen marched right past them and tapped the fire. They were all whooping it up.”
“That’s what Paul and Michael do when they take a fire away from Thirteen’s.”
“They don’t like it so well when the shoe’s on the other foot. Paul’s furious at Michael for messing up the hose, and Michael blames Paul for charging it before he was ready. Balitnikoff says they’re going to drill all next shift.”
“What’d you guys do?”
“Put up a twenty-five and opened the roof. Haven’t done that in a while. Baxter and I cut the hole, and then Ladder Three shows up and cuts another one right next to ours, upwind. We were all wearing masks, but if there’d been any heat coming out, it would have been an ugly situation.”
“Why’d they cut a second hole?”
“I don’t know. In the beginning I thought they were racing us. They got off their rig and ran to the building. None of them had anything in their hands.”
“Violates one of the first rules of truck work. Never go to the building empty-handed.”
“When they tried to use our stuff, we told them to go get their own.”
“Second rule of truck work. Never give up equipment to another crew.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Used to be, every fire the truck went to the roof. Now we’re using those fans about eighty percent of the time. I kind of miss it. Going to the roof was part of the adventure.”
“I’d give anything to be back on a truck.”
“There’ll be a spot on Ladder One soon. Baxter’s going to retire this year. Now that his divorce is final, he wants to go back to Tennessee.”
Finney knew that even if Reese didn’t block a transfer, he could never work at Station 10 again. The memories were too painful and always would be. It was ironic that Reese, who had never much cared for the physical act of firefighting, would endeavor to punish Finney, who loved it so much, by placing as much distance as possible between him and any real chance to fight fire.
Before they could say anything else, Paul Lazenby came around the front of the rig again, opened the cab door, and began swabbing out the floorboards with a damp rag. It was clear that the floorboards didn’t need swabbing.
A moment later Michael Lazenby sauntered around the front of the rig with a dirty pike pole and behind him, Lieutenant Balitnikoff. “What the hell are you doing?” Balitnikoff asked, when he saw Finney.
“Came for the station tour. You out of coloring books?”
Balitnikoff glanced from Diana to Finney and back again, as if seeing the two of them together confirmed some pet theory of his. “Well, why don’t you just take your tour somewhere else?”
“Ease up,” said Diana.
“Ease up? What the hell does that mean? Ease up. Jesus!”
“Hey,” Finney said. “You guys are tired. Go home and kick your dog. Leave her alone.”
“You think you’re hot shit because you saved some old dame? Both of you?