The Smoke Room
Page 32
I’ve had my mother’s mail rerouted to my place, so every time she gets a package of coupons or a renewal notice from the Sierra Club or Amnesty International, I get sweet little reminders of a life lived well.
A little more than a year after Tronstad’s death, Sonja takes a vacation to Hawaii with her three best friends, young women she’s been close to all through school and beyond. “You don’t mind, do you?” Sonja asks.
“Not at all. It’ll give me a chance to spend some time at the titty bars.”
“Quit it.”
“If I get tired of boobs, and the weather cooperates, I might drive over to Eastern Washington and go hiking. Maybe even an overnighter.”
“That sounds like fun.”
After her plane leaves, I drive home, pack up the bearer bonds in a large cardboard box, wipe it clean of prints, and take it to an attorney, where I lay out the entire story. The attorney contacts the local federal prosecutor and hashes out a deal. I will turn in the bonds in return for blanket immunity to any crimes associated with the theft. I will guarantee I’m not holding anything back, and they will trust my guarantee. Twelve million in bonds is far more than they were looking for. I will keep the names of any confederates to myself. In return, the government will not name me publicly. They will get the bonds, and I will walk away with a clean slate. Everybody will be happy.
Sonja comes back from Maui, and a month later we buy a two-bedroom fixer-upper on Thirty-fifth Avenue SW, a main thoroughfare near Station 37. We are pounding nails and restoring it one room at a time. The work is satisfying, especially my chores in what will be the baby’s room.
I strive to be a man who defines himself, rather than having his possessions define him. I do not wallow in luxury goods or run up tabs on credit cards.
It is ironic that in death my mother has given me what she could never provide in life, a surfeit of material wealth. Just as ironic is the fact that I cannot bring myself to touch it.
I ride Engine 29 and take pride in my duties. On alarms I deliver the goods, and when we have a fire, my crew gets water. We drill for the chief and I make no mistakes. Sonja and I talk about having babies, about her day in the patrol car, my day at the fire station, about national politics or the last movie we saw together. Whenever the weather allows, I skate. When she’s not at work, Sonja skates with me. We listen to music. We read books. We take walks after dinner. We enjoy each other’s company and the company of our friends.
Two weeks after I make the deal with the feds, my attorney calls. The government has flown experts from the Treasury Department to Seattle to examine the bonds and has learned they are fakes. Eventually the bank would have caught Tronstad for the bonds he cashed. The government bonds are counterfeit, and the private and foreign bank bonds are phoney, too. For twenty years Ghanet had been hoarding a treasure that is bogus.
It kills me to think about it. Three sacks of garbage propelled the runaway machine that chewed up my life and killed six people.
Once a day, sometimes more, black thoughts cross my mind, thoughts of pumping on Russell Abbott’s chest, of the charred corpses at the intersection of California and Admiral Way, of the tiny article in the Seattle Times noting Heather Wynn’s death. Sears twisting in the grip of the whirlpool. Tronstad choosing money over his very life. I lie to myself. I rationalize and I justify and I make the best of my part in all of it. I live my life and it is good, but underneath, I carry a secret that is as nasty as the cancer my mother walked around with.
These days, perhaps more than anybody around, I realize the value of law.
I do not trample rules. I do not roll through stop signs. I do not drive the interstate five miles over the speed limit. I do not hedge when filling out tax forms. I return my library books on time. I pocket my litter and that of the next man. Sometimes my punctiliousness annoys Sonja, but I will not change.
I have to admit there are times when I am tempted by the money my mother left, but I know I’m happiest when I’m living a normal life like everybody around me. A life with simple pleasures.
Sonja loves me and I love her, and I’ve found that’s more than enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EARL EMERSON is a lieutenant in the Seattle Fire Department. He is the Shamus Award–winning author of Vertical Burn, Into the Inferno, and Pyro, as well as the Thomas Black detective series, which includes The Rainy City, Poverty Bay, Nervous Laughter, Fat Tuesday, Deviant Behavior, Yellow Dog Party, The Portland Laugher, The Vanishing Smile, The Million-Dollar Tattoo, Deception Pass, and Catfish Café. He lives in North Bend, Washington. Visit the author’s website at www.EarlEmerson.com.
OTHER BOOKS BY EARL EMERSON
Vertical Burn
Into the Inferno
Pyro
The Smoke Room
THE THOMAS BLACK NOVELS
The Rainy City
Poverty Bay
Nervous Laughter
Fat Tuesday
Deviant Behavior
Yellow Dog Party
The Portland Laugher
The Vanishing Smile
The Million-Dollar Tattoo
Deception Pass
Catfish Café
The Smoke Room is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Earl Emerson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Emerson, Earl W.
The smoke room: a novel of suspense / Earl Emerson.
p. cm.
1. Fire fighters—Fiction. 2. Theft—Fiction. 3. Bonds—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.M39S66 2005
813′.54—dc22 2005041143
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-48455-0
v3.0