Dante shook his head. “Nah. I dunno. With the renovations and everything… I don’t realy have time, Briggs.”
Before he’d finished talking, Briggs threw his towel over a shoulder and wandered back toward the sinks, showing a bright green Shamrock tattooed on one
cheek.
Gross.
Then Dante raised his T-shirt to rol a fresh layer of deodorant into his pits. His abs bunched, and the slim treasure trail leading down them was glossy.
Griff didn’t actualy lick his lips, but he wanted to. “Hey, uh….” He fished in his bag for an envelope with $1,400 in fifties, tucking it into Dante’s warm
caloused hand.
Across the room, Briggs was whistling at the sink.
“What is this?” Dante looked at the cash, confused.
“Money from… that thing. You know. I forgot before and I didn’t want you to have to ask.” Griff nodded, like it was normal. “Look, I gotta talk to the
chief.”
Dante shook his head and held it out. “This is yours, G.”
But before Dante could hand it back, Griff headed out the door, puling his shirt over his head, trying to think of someplace in the house to hide from his best friend for the next twelve hours.
THE wail of the alarm woke Griff up where he had hunkered down in one corner of the breakroom to hide.
“Engine…. Ladder….” The automated voice echoed through the house. “Engine…. Ladder….” Griff could hear the clomp of boots on the stairs as the guys
made their way down to the rigs, grumbling at the late hour. Griff shook himself and headed for the door.
Half the night he’d managed to steer clear of any alone time with Dante. The breakroom was the only place that Dante couldn’t ever get him alone. The
constant audience meant that any conversations had to stay strictly pussy- or game-related. Groups were fine, but when it was the two of them, Dante had this way of pushing close to him while Griff went slowly out of his gourd. He knew Dante noticed, but there was no helping it.
The Anastagios had always been physical and affectionate, but what with everything, the contact was too much for Griff to handle. Dante patting him and
pushing him and squeezing his shoulder made him feel like he was going to bust. A few more weeks of watching “Monte” and coming to work, and they were
gonna have to clean him off the ceiling and wals.
“Engine…. Ladder….”
Down on the floor, guys were puling themselves onto the truck. Dante was inside already; he thumped the seat next to his. “C’mon, gorila. We were worried
you might sleep through it.”
Griff bobbed his head, closing his jacket as he sat down. He could smel Dante, and the pleasure unnerved him. “Yeah. I slept like hel last night.”
The rest of the crew piled into the rig. Briggs and Watson, bitching about nothing. Tarlton was chauffeur. Siluski rode shotgun, shouting over his shoulder as they puled out into the street with the sirens blaring and the emergency lights strobing the block with red.
The truck rocked and jerked over the streets, braking and leaning sharply when they had to navigate parked cars and drunk drivers and coasting taxis.
Tarlton could thread the ladder through these little streets blindfolded.
They puled up in front of a large store—appliances, it looked like. The high windows facing the sidewalk were cracked; looters had made off with some
swag.
Nice.
Already a couple of vultures were circling around the whiff of juicy tragedy.
As the men dropped out of the rig to the asphalt, the acrid stench stung their eyes. Even down here it was hard to breathe. Griff’s lungs burned.
“Plastic.” Siluski sniffed the air as he shifted his helmet on his head. “A lot of it burning. Jesus. I’d know that smel anywhere.”
“Totaly fucking carcinogenic.” Watson’s eyes were already raw and tearing.
They clambered down into the street, staring up at the column of oily smoke above them. The chief was already working out a plan of attack. The engine
company was already at the hydrant, and their probie had started puling the hose. Fire was visible in the windows from the third floor up. This thing had gotten awful hot awful fast.
Griff could almost hear his dad’s voice in his head: “probable arson.” They needed to tread softly in here. Anything could be waiting for them.
The ambulance puled up and Tommy popped out, hauling his big kit around the back.
“I know this building. Slick Wilie’s has the ground floor. Showroom and offices. Shipping too.” Briggs groaned. “Electronics chain.”
“Perfect. I been shopping for a new widescreen for the Super Bowl.” Dante grinned as he closed his jacket over his muscular chest.
Watson had come around the rig, the emergency lights flickering over his features.
The heat from the plate-glass windows baked Griff’s face and watering eyes. “What about the higher floors?”
Briggs swung the irons onto his back. “I think they rent the uppers as storage. I fel through the floor once. Broke my tibia and my clavicle. Nothing is up to code.”
Siluski grumbled, “Fucking fantastic. It’s gonna be a flea market in there.”
“Fire sale!” Dante laughed. “Maybe I can pick up speakers to match.”
“Masks on, ladies.” Siluski wasn’t joking. “Awful hot from here.”
“I’l take the loading dock with the probie?” Briggs pointed. There was a driveway along one side of the building, wide enough for a semi. He grabbed the
youngest member of the team and hooked around to investigate without waiting for an answer.
The chief grumbled and turned to the rest of his men. “Muir! You and Siluski take the main floor up to three. I got a hinky feeling about this one.”
Griff and Siluski strapped on their irons and masks and helmets.
“Anastagio!” The chief hooked a finger at Dante. “Take Watson and sweep the fourth and fifth. Deli guy who caled it in says there may be squatters up
there.”
Watson jogged to the door and tugged it open; Dante folowed. The light caught the surnames emblazoned in reflective letters across the tail of their bunker
coats.
“Hope no one was working late.” Siluski slapped Griff’s back as they trudged for the entrance. Griff was watching the day-glow ANASTAGIO letters sink
into the stinking smoke ahead of them.
Up ahead, Dante grinned and cracked his neck like a boxer. “Let’s go make a fucking mess, huh.”
SILUSKI and Griff made quick work of the showroom. The ground floor seemed smoky but untouched. Filthy water dripped from spigots overhead. Their boots
slapped in a half inch of water pooled on the uneven linoleum.
“What’s up with the sprinkler system?” Griff was walking aisle to aisle, scanning rows of stereo bulshit and televisions and display racks. No civilians, no fire.
Siluski checked in with the chief on the walkie. “First floor and mezz, I got smoke but no bitch. Headed to three.”
Griff could hear the fire above them, but the sprinklers were dead throughout the vast store. “What’s with the sprinklers?”
They pushed through the emergency doors into the stairwel.
“Primary search negative on five.” Dante’s voice echoed from three floors up, barking into his walkie, then his voice rumbling to Watson as they clomped
down to the fourth floor.
Siluski was scowling as he climbed. “Maybe someone was playing a prank? Seems like a bulshit cal for al this water.”
Up on three it was hot and much smokier; even if they hadn’t found it, something was stil burning. The entire halway was stacked with unused packaging,
thousands of large corrugated cardboard boxes in flat stacks. Obstructing al movement and totaly unsafe. At one end of the airless hal they met a locked door, baking to the touch.
Griff nudged Siluski and looked at the ceiling tiles overhead. “What did Briggs say they use the upper floors for?”
“Dunno. Empty packaging al the hel over. I’m guessing storage mostly. Or shipping. I gotta pop this.” Siluski wedged the bar in and cracked the frame. Heat
roled out, and that godawful greasy smoke—barbecued plastic.
They stepped into a big space filed with high shelves and deep tables and a thick veil of roling blackness. On the opposite wal, windows faced the street.
Emergency lights flashed just out of sight below.
“Uh, Siluski….” Griff squatted and pointed at the ceiling. Above them the pipes were split, and the beams around them showed dents and heavy strokes of a
sledgehammer. No way was this an accident. Above the mangled system, the fire was crawling across the ceiling, slow and gold as a pool of spreading oil.
Siluski already had his radio out. “Chief, I got heat on three sides. It’s in the wals on three. We’re gonna need a line up here pronto. Somebody has sledged
the sprinklers.”
“Copy.”
Shouting came from overhead. A
pop-pop-pop
as a couple windows blew out upstairs from the heat.
“10-45! I got one,” Watson belowed from above; it sounded like the dumbass wasn’t wearing his mask.
There was a low crack above them. A few ceiling tiles fel in a shower of sparks.
“The hel is going on up there?!” Siluski’s voice was hushed inside the mask. “Get low.”
The pounding spray of water against the windows faltered. The guttural roar of the fire had changed pitch and the ceiling was hotter, the fire bluer. Footsteps thumped past overhead, and Dante shouted instructions far away.
Something heavy slammed down behind them and punched through to the floor below. A large hole in the ceiling between two beams was sucking air, churning the smoke, and feeding oxygen upwards. Through the impromptu chimney, they could hear Dante shouting instructions up on four loud and clear.
No mask either, fucking idiot
.
“The hel was that?” The chief’s grim confusion was palpable.
Flame licked down the wals on the west side of the third floor halway. Plastic rubble popped and fried around them, running in stinking molten rivers that
stuck to their boots.
The chief’s voice cracked on the radio. “You boys pul out! It’s too hot and we got a dead hydrant. Get out of there.”
“Lieutenant?” Griff’s gut tingled with certainty. “Hey! Siluski?”
“Copy that. Already on it.” Siluski nodded at Griff and pointed back the way they’d come. They crouched and hustled for the open door.
Outside, the halway was a jumble of paper and sheetrock. The air was starting to cook. Sounds filtered to them from the unreachable stairwel. Breaking
glass overhead and someone screaming at Dante and Watson.
Siluski jerked his chin at Griff to hang back.
Navigating the smoky halway was like swimming in scalding mud. Griff’s breath hissed behind the rebreather. Even with the beams on their chests and the
flame down the west wal, they were fumbling blind. Siluski tried to tug a toppled wal-sized cabinet out of their way with his haligan bar; it fel with a thud and threw up a cloud of sparks. Its drawers emptied files against the burning wal. No way could they go out the way they’d come.
“B-stairs.” Griff gestured, and they doubled back and headed for the door at the other end, crouched and kicking aside the boxes and charred drywal. Griff
used his mass to plow through some of the debris toward that back exit. And then they were taking the stairs down three at a time. The bitch was chasing them and picking up speed.
THE chief was speaking to Siluski very calmly. “… some kinda accelerant. They want to torch TVs for the insurance, I’m not gonna lose good men over that
bulshit.”
Without enough water to pour on the conflagration, the engine company was crippled. Briggs and the probie were standing at the back of the rig. The ladder
was extended for a hose hanging limp with no water. The stink of scorched plastic clogged everyone’s noses.
Where the hel was Dante?
Siluski spat black at the ground. “Chief, there’s no one to grab! That hot and we’re supposed to go in with a limited crew to rescue cardboard boxes? Fuck
that. It’s just overstock bulshit, and you better believe it’s insured.”
Feeling claustrophobic and impotent, Griff puled his own mask off and paced. Sweat ran down his face and throat as he looked up at the glare in the high
windows. Dante and Watson were stil working their way down, taking their goddamn time.
Then a shout and Siluski trotted toward the door. Briggs folowed and the chief turned to look.
In the smoky entrance of the store, Watson was dragging someone, bracing the weight on his hip. His shout was muffled til he clawed the oxygen off. “Can I
get a hand?” A scorched bum was dead weight against him, beard burned half off.
Relieved, Griff started walking toward him wanting to yel at someone. Dante stil wasn’t visible.
The chief was already caling the 10-45 before Watson even made it outside: fire-related injury.
EMS had their kits out; Tommy was trotting toward Watson to take over.
The homeless man had puked down his own front and one side of Watson.
“I lost Anastagio!” Watson’s eyes were bloodshot under the soot. “Trying to get this
genius
to the stairwel.”
Griff’s heart squeezed. “What do you mean, lost?”
Watson leaned over, bracing himself against the truck. The men gathered into a knot around him. “He was behind me. So fucking hot up there. I was talking
to him the whole way. Then nothing. Maybe he made a grab?”
“Without his mask.” Griff’s voice was hushed in his own ears.
“Dante, position?” Siluski asked his walkie and got no response. “Watson, fourth floor?”
“Ladder! Fourth floor.” The chief looked up at the smoking windows. “Shit stil burning up there?”
The other guys around the rig were only a couple yards away from Griff, but they seemed like they were on Mars. The emergency lights strobed over the
smoky faces,
red-blue-red-blue
. Siluski looked so pissed he had to be terrified.
“Anastagio!” Siluski shouted into his radio again. “Quick jerking off up there!”
“Anastagio!” Siluski shouted into his radio again. “Quick jerking off up there!”