Continuing on, he found himself in a small cluttered vestibule between the addition and the main house. Shelves lined the walls, full of piecemeal hardware and tools. Cans of paint and varnish and thinner were stacked on metal shelving near the same corner where the water heater stood. Here, he decided. This is the spot.
He pried off the tub lid carefully, broke the seal on the fuse, struck twice, and lit the flare. He made sure it was going strong, then backed away, hustled into the addition, where his eye again caught the massive banner draped along the back wall. This time he could make out the words:
STRONG CARLISLE & THE MIGHTY FIREFLY
MF R&B
Manny should see this, he thought, smiling. Snag himself a handle, steal it from the man he killed. The Mighty Firefly. Multiple Fires Raging & Burning.
He hurried out the back, negotiating the mud the same way he had on the way in. Manny wasn’t at the van. Ferry slid behind the wheel and eased the door closed.
Dogs in the nearer yards began to bark again. Above the fences and through the trees, lights came on in windows. He leaned back in the seat, trying to hide. Sweat beading on his face, tricking down his back, he listened for footsteps and checked his watch until Manny yanked open the door and scrambled in.
Stluka and Murchison sped south from the station, passing through Dumpers where, on the brickwork wall of an abandoned foundry, a tagger had laid out the roll call for a gang called the Southtown Punk Stoners. The names of the dead wore large black Xs, relic of the turf war with Baymont, but two of the Xs were new.
When they turned onto the river road, the fire came into view. Flames cut high above the roofline along the whole south flank of the warehouse. Smoke boiled out of windows, churning from the wind and heat—black in places, gray or white in others, depending on what was burning—sparked with embers as it billowed up into the night sky.
The watch commander had sent them down to interview a handful of squatters detained by patrol units already on scene. The squatters claimed they had nothing to do with the fire. “Get them away from each other,” the watch commander said. “See what shakes out.”
The fire crews had cut their way in and thrown the gate wide open. Pumper engines and boom trucks and rescue wagons thronged the warehouse grounds. The blaze was a worker, three alarms, with every firehouse in town except one on scene, the last held back for other emergencies. Assistance was en route from Vallejo and American Canyon, Napa and Benicia, even the nearer refineries across the strait.
Firemen garbed in turn-out gear, bunker pants, and lug-sole boots hustled everywhere, manning hoses, hefting ropes and axes and chain saws and halligan tools into the building, raking through charred debris blown out through the roof and stamping out glow coals, shouting down from inside the building and shouting back from the ground amid the deafening thrum and hiss of their machinery and trucks and the roar of the fire itself. They’d already cut holes in the roof to let the smoke escape, and clouds of it roiled up into the night.
Murchison felt the heat prick the skin on the back of his neck as he turned around to eye the road and the tree line on its far side. The fire freaks had already arrived, picking up the dispatcher calls on their scanners. They stood atop cars and in pickup beds, peering in like dads at peewee football. Like my dad, he thought, years ago—that was me, Daddy’s little house afire, ha ha. None of the sightseers matched Manny’s description.
“Murch,” Stluka said, gesturing toward the gate. “Snap to. Let’s get this done.”
The boom trucks had hoisted ladders to the second floor in front, a way in through the broken windows. Murchison saw the beams of hand torches roaming around inside through churning waves of smoke. The dull flickering lights reminded him of something he couldn’t bring to bear at first, but then it came to him: fireflies.
He and Stluka checked in with the officer manning the gate, logging entry and exit, and got pointed north, where, about seventy yards away, a line of squatters stood inside the perimeter, against the fence, detained by patrolmen. They thanked the officer at the gate and headed that way.
There were five of them, and in accordance with some unspoken rule of youth, they bore themselves not with fear, or awe at the raging fire, but an instinctive surly contempt for the police. A study in slouches and extreme hair. What was it about being young these days, Murchison wondered, that made every kid you met so full of shit, and hostile about it to boot?
Reaching the northeast corner of the warehouse, he glanced up and spotted the sheets of black plastic where the windows on the second floor used to be. The fire hadn’t reached here, not yet, but the wind came freighted with heat and his pores opened as he looked up.
The patrolman in charge was named Maples. He wasn’t getting very far.
“Let us back in, now, we gotta get our stuff.”
Maples said, “Nobody gets back in—”
“You can’t do this.”
“—till the fire commander—”
“Nazi motherfucking USA.”
“—gives the all clear.”
“You can’t frame us for this.”
“This is harassment.”
“Nobody wants to frame—”
“Blackshirt motherfuckers. This is against the goddamn law.”
The mouthiest of the bunch seemed to be the girl—sixteen tops, burrheaded, small and wiry. She wore a T-shirt reading SQUAT THE LOT!, plus khaki pants and rag socks, no shoes—probably abandoned inside once she smelled smoke. Rings and studs bristled everywhere, ten to an ear, plus the eyebrows, cheeks, nose, lip. She hopped around like a bantamweight.
“Cocksuckers! Give it or guard it!”
Other than Maples, the patrolmen just stood there in a semicircle, containing the group, thumbs in their gun belts. Maples saw Murchison and gladly stepped back.
“They want to go back in,” he said needlessly.
“Not possible. Safety, one. Crime scene, two.”
“Sieg heil!”
“I tried to tell them.”
“Looky looky here, will ya?” Stluka headed straight for the burr-headed girl. “You look like you fell face first into a tackle box, know that?”
“Up your ass crack.”
Stluka cackled. “Spunkita!” He turned back to Maples and dropped the act. “Take her in, call Social Services. Send her back to her weaselly boojwah parents.” To the other patrolmen he said, “Divvy these scuts up. Find out who’s been poking L’il Miss Squat the Lot.”
Every guy sank a half foot shorter, the same guilt lighting face to face. But it was the girl who darted. Eyes ballooning, she sprang for the road, dodged the one cop close enough to grab her, spun out of his grip, and kept running. Stluka and the cop who’d missed ran after. They caught her at the fence, boxed her into the corner. Before they could lay hands on, though, something in the northerly distance caught their eye. Whatever it was, it showed in their faces to where even the girl turned to look.
“Keep them here,” Murchison told Maples, gesturing to the four young men. He jogged up behind Stluka, followed his sight line, and saw at the top of St. Martin’s Hill a vast wash of tapered flame shooting up like a jet tail. Embers sailed high, drifting with the wind into nearby pines, which shortly glowed with flame. A moment later, a second ignition, same as the other, close by. The noise of the warehouse firefight drowned out the explosion. Given the distance, it seemed strangely innocent, the silence.
The Carlisle house, Murchison thought. The Victorian next door. Manny.
From behind, an eerie monstrous crack split through the firefight din, giving way to a rolling howl that ended in something like thunder. Everybody spun toward the sound as the earth beneath their feet shuddered and a vast new surge of smoke boiled out of the warehouse. The roof had crashed in.
Stluka was the first to move. He turned back to the cornered girl and three times, fast, punched her in the face. Her eyes rolled back as her knees buckled and he snagged her arm, gripping it tight. “You are going to tell me ever
y single thing you know about this fire. About the fires up there on that hill. About Manny.”
She winced, face bloody. “Fuck you, let go. I don’t—”
Murchison came up behind Stluka, grabbed his jacket. “Jerry—”
Stluka fought him off. “Some men just got trapped in there. Men with families, I’ll bet. They’re likely to die. That’s murder, understand?” He shook her. “You talk. Or we’ll go in for your stuff. And so help me God, I’ll shoot that shiny crap off your face before I let you come out again.”
Manny leaned back in his seat, hoping to hide his face in shadow. He was breathing through his mouth. “We can’t just sit here like this. We’ll get spotted.”
“Be quiet.”
“There’s gonna be people.”
“Keep it together.”
Manny unfolded the list of addresses for the Frontline foreclosure properties they were due to hit in Baymont. “Why we stopped here, anyway?”
“Quiet, I said.”
Manny sank down a little, not to hide but to get the best angle on the fires uphill. Like a kid at Christmas, Ferry thought. Good. Keep him entertained.
They were parked beside the stand of old, towering Monterey pines just inside the stonework gate at the bottom of the hill. A funeral home, still sandbagged against the flooding from a recent water main break, sat dark across the way. The pie shop next door was empty, too, same as the other stores in the slummy strip mall on the other side of the street.
The nearest houses were around the corner on either side, seventy-five yards away at least. Manny was right—soon, people would start bubbling out of their homes, heading up toward St. Martin’s Hill, drawn by the sirens and word of the fire. Likely they’d head through the panhandle, though. It’d be safe here.
Ferry checked his watch. The tanker was late. Maybe the station had canceled its order. Maybe the driver had spotted the flames, stopped to CB in and tell the refinery he was circling back. Soon there’d be pumpers and ladder trucks heading in. Should’ve timed the fuses different, Ferry thought. Given us more time. Too late now. One more miscalculation.
Air brakes hissed and squealed beyond the trees, announcing the tanker’s arrival. The driver downshifted for the turn through the stonework gate. He didn’t see the fire after all, Ferry thought. Too busy worrying about his schedule, his load, making it up the hill. The truck was a brand-new Peterbilt ten-speed, 400 horsepower Cat, Muncie Fuller tranny, pulling a shiny aluminum DOT 406, nine thousand gallons. From the groan of the tranny Ferry figured he had the standard load, at best 10 percent outage in the tank trailer. The truck throttled low toward the next turn, then braked and downshifted again, at the panhandle, where the long, slow seesaw uphill began. A sign posted on the back of the tank trailer read: SAFETY IS NO ACCIDENT.
“Okay,” Ferry said. “Follow me.”
He got out, walked to the back, and opened the door as sirens approached down Magnolia Street. Manny came around, too, walking clumsily in the oversize boots. Ferry grabbed the next tub as a pumper truck, sent from the only local firehouse crew not called to the warehouse fire, pulled through the stonework gate. He stopped, Manny standing beside him, both of them watching as first the pumper, then a ladder truck moments later, and finally a rescue unit made the turn at the base of the panhandle and headed up St. Martin’s Hill toward the fires.
“That was luck.” Manny stared at the rescue unit’s taillights as they vanished uphill. “The timing, I mean.”
“Close the doors,” Ferry said. “Be quiet about it.”
Manny eased both doors shut, then followed Ferry beneath the canopy of the trees. The ground was thick with pine duff, still spongy and wet from the rain and the recent main break and flooding. Up top, though, the trees would be dry. Credit the wind, Ferry thought. He set the tub down at the base of the centermost pine, placing it deep in shadow and away from the sight line from the street. As he pried off the flare cap, Manny gazed up into the dense branchwork.
“Monterey pine. Trash heap of trees.”
“Upright log pile,” Ferry said. “All it means to me.”
The flare caught fire. Ferry pointed back toward the street. “Go slow. Easy.”
They walked single file across the pine duff to the van. Manny stared out the window as they pulled away. “That’s gonna light up like crazy.”
“No joke.”
Manny spun his head around. He finally got it. “How are we gonna get back out?”
“Like I told you before. Stay close.”
It took them twenty-five minutes to plant the rest, one after the other up the hill, the whole time hearing the howl of sirens in the night while ahead of them, unseen but always audible, the Peterbilt tramped and clutched up the incline, back and forth through the neighborhoods, to avoid anything steeper than a 7 percent grade. It shuddered up the narrow winding streets, taking corners in the lowest gear possible to avoid scraping parked cars or peeling alligators off the tires by hitting a curb. No doubt the driver heard the sirens, too, Ferry thought, even saw the fires now, but he was trapped in the maze. No way back down till he reached the top.
At each stop, Ferry kept the van running as Manny hurried to the back of the van, collected the tub, hustled businesslike, but not too fast, to the already jimmied door, stole inside the abandoned house, planted the bomb in a cellar if it had one, near a gas line in any event, and lit the flare, then scurried back to the van. He’d begun to enjoy himself finally.
At the last house, Ferry reached into the glove compartment once Manny was gone. He withdrew the kid’s .357 and tucked it into his belt beneath his overalls, right beside his own gun, a Smithy 645. Make sure everybody’s stepped away from the tanker, he thought. One stray bullet and the whole thing fails. To put it mildly.
By the time Manny climbed back into the van, the first bomb went hot downhill in its stand of pines. The only crews to arrive so far were fighting the St. Martin’s fire—the next ones in would be turnout crews from out of town; their hoses wouldn’t fit the hydrants. They’d be forced to fight the tree fires with just the water in their pumper reservoirs, five minutes max. Once the crowds started down, you’d have chaos. Everything else up here would rage hot for a good long while.
At the crest of the hill, they both looked back. From this vantage, the warehouse, the Carlisle house, and the Victorian next door, the Monterey pines downhill, they burned hot and high, still uncontained, the blazing corners of a citywide triangle. As they watched, the first of the downhill houses exploded, the roof melting away where the jet from the bomb burned through like a massive blowtorch.
Manny stared at the fires with a kind of reverence. “Thank you, Richard.”
Ferry let off the brake and steered toward Home in the Sky. “Thank me for what?”
“You know for what.” No more whiny objections. The boy had settled into what seemed like an almost ethereal contentment. “This is awesome. Just awesome.”
As they pulled into the gas station, the owner and the tanker driver argued nose to nose, yelling, gesturing to the fires. The driver was beside himself, his thumper pole in one hand, the other sailing wildly around his head. He was white and string bean tall, with long sandy-colored hair, pinpoint eyes, and a hatchet-shaped nose. The owner was black, short but muscular. Despite the cold he wore shorts and a T-shirt from which his arms bulged like hams.
Ferry eased the van near where they stood, rolled the window down to listen.
“Safest place for the damn gas is in your tanks, now unlock the latches.”
“Safe? How ’bout where it’s sittin’ right now, inside your truck. Now turn the damn thing around and head on off my lot.”
“I’ll burn up my brake lines I try to go back down that hill with a full load.”
Ferry parked the van just beyond the Peterbilt and gestured for Manny to get out with him. “Act scared, like you don’t know what the hell’s going on.” Ferry eased out onto the pavement and edged toward the two men. Manny did likewise, exce
pt he had an edgy grin on his face.
Ferry called out, “You guys see what the hell’s going on down there?”
The owner and driver ignored him.
“Nothing more dangerous than an empty truck. Jesus, listen to me, will ya? It’s the fumes’ll blow you sky-high.” The driver pointed to a blister on the side of one of the trailer tires. “Got that taking a damn turn up here. I could lose that tire, understand? I stop at a guillotine, they’d nail me for sure. My container’s empty? They wouldn’t let me budge. Like a bomb on wheels. I’m sure as hell not driving down into no fires. Jesus.”
“And you sure as hell ain’t unloading, and you ain’t staying here.”
“Your tanks are safer loaded than they are now. You deaf? I unload, park out on the street, down the hill, I don’t care. Wait till the fires burn out. What’s the problem? You’re being seriously fucked about this.”
Ferry edged to position himself between the tanker and the two men, figuring ten feet was good. He feigned bafflement, like he couldn’t figure out why all the yelling, then turned toward the truck briefly, subterfuge while he opened his overalls and removed the .357. Turning back and raising the gun in one movement, he aimed, sighting the driver and firing twice at his back, high left side, the heart. The tall man jerked from the impact and the blood spray showered the owner. The driver didn’t fall, though, just stood there wavering, but Ferry’d planned for that, moving quick to his right and taking aim now at the owner, who stood rooted to his spot, stunned, eyes perplexed as his hands went instinctively to his face. A big man, he’d require closer range, even with the Magnum, so Ferry closed another five feet, aimed again for the heart, and landed three fast shots. Like shooting a bear. He didn’t fall, either, just tottered, still blinking the other man’s blood from his eyes.
Ferry realized he’d missed by the gaping wound on the big man’s arm. It had shielded his chest from at least one of the shots. Ferry stepped closer, avoiding the driver, who’d fallen to his knees now, one hand to the ground to keep himself upright as he coughed up blood. The owner could do no more than clench his jaw in rage and swing loosely with his ruined arm as Ferry stepped in and fired the last round in the cylinder point-blank. Even with that, the man wouldn’t fall. He twisted away, eyes blind, staggering toward the door of his station. Fine, Ferry thought, go on, go. He turned back to the driver, kicked the man’s arm away so he fell to the pavement.
Done for a Dime Page 27