Pyro (5 page)

9. MY BOSS’S BOSS’S BOSS

Cynthia Rideout

D
ECEMBER
6, F
RIDAY
, 0930
HOURS

         
We didn’t get to bed until sometime after four in the morning, and then the engine got up at six for an aid call to one of the local nursing homes. Right now I’m running on adrenaline and coffee.

Wow.

Talk about a hayride down a mountain without brakes.

More has happened to me in the last twenty-four hours than happened all last year. I remember one of the lieutenants in our drill school saying not to get antsy about getting fires after we got out in the company, that sometimes a recruit went into the company and didn’t get a fire for two or three months. That there were cases of recruits not having a fire their entire probationary year.

Last night we had seven. Granted, they weren’t big fires, but Lieutenant Wollf and I made a rescue. My first shift on Ladder 3—A RESCUE!

Wollf took the whole thing in stride. He even thought it was funny the news people got mixed up and gave Zeke credit for the save.

I keep thinking about what Katie Fryer told me about Wollf coming to Station 6 to fire me. Two things worry me. No. Three.

Wollf didn’t fill out his portion of the daily report yet. I’m worried the reason he didn’t is because he wants to screw me over and he needs some time to think through the wording. He said he was going to wait and fill it out next shift, Sunday. But he also said I did good and that there wouldn’t be any surprises.

On the other hand, that’s pretty much the same thing Chief Eddings told me at Thirteen’s, and look what she wrote.

I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s what he might say. I don’t know that he will, but this is what it could be:

(1) That I didn’t set up the fan properly. I delayed starting it because Chief Hertlein was talking and I knew the moment I pulled the cord we wouldn’t be able to hear him. Wollf seemed irritated with the delay. Then it shut off while we were inside. I suppose that’s my fault too.

(2) The second negative Wollf might write about me concerns the rescue. When we got upstairs to the third floor and found the woman, I wanted to take her legs, at least—the easy end—but he brushed me off and picked her up in his arms like a baby.

So what did I do? I got all turned around. I took us into another bedroom and we bumped into things, and all this time that poor woman was getting sicker and sicker.

This morning the medics called and told us her CO readings had been high but not fatally high and that she was going to make it. I’m so glad.

(3) The roof. Wollf told Dolan to let me open the roof. But then Dolan went up with the chain saw before I could stop him! Pickett told me I was Wollf’s partner, so I went to join Wollf. Later, I found out he made it up.

Pickett gave me a lot of tips yesterday, but the theme was basically that firefighting’s a challenging job
most
people can’t do. He never said I was
most
people, but I’m beginning to think that’s what he meant.

The more I think about it, the more I think he saw a chance to step in front of me and make me look bad, and he went ahead and took it. I hope that’s not true, because I don’t want to be thinking bad thoughts about anybody and, in spite of all his pontificating, I was ready to like Pickett.

After the Engine 25 guys came out of the basement with the mattresses and determined there had been no extension to the house itself, Lieutenant Wollf and I finished ventilating the house. Those gas-powered fans have large wooden blades that move 22,000 cubic feet of air per minute. They blow air in a cone that spreads as it leaves the fan blade. The idea is to seal up the entrance point with the largest part of the cone. The house gets pressurized. It amounts to the same thing as trying to blow up a balloon. Except, obviously the walls of a house aren’t going to stretch like a balloon. So now all that smoky air is looking for someplace to exit. You open an exit somewhere on the far side of the house and you watch all that smoke go shooting out.

Here’s something funny. Wollf and I were in the hallway on the second floor, and he was looking at pictures on the walls and said, “Patricia Pennington.”

“What?”

“I thought I recognized her. Patricia Pennington. She’s an actress. Her career extended back to the Forties and Fifties.”

Pennington had been featured in mostly B movies, Wollf said. She had dated some of the biggest male actors of all time. She’d even gone out with Howard Hughes. I think he was filthy rich.

He started naming her movies. I can’t remember any of the titles, but he knew them all and all the leading men she costarred with. John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney. Those are the names I recognized. It was weird the sudden surge in adrenaline I saw in him—the excitement—like nothing I’d seen during our fires. He handled those fires like they were piecework. But this!

I followed him to her bedroom, where he pointed out a poster for a movie called
River Brand Riders.
It must have been printed forty years ago. The date was at the bottom in Roman numerals, but I didn’t stop to figure it out. She costarred with John Payne and Andy Devine.

Wollf was examining the pill bottles and wine decanter on the bedside table. “Darvon. Taking this with wine would knock her out for a week. No wonder she couldn’t wake up.”

“You think there’s an Academy award lying around here somewhere?” I asked.

“She never won an Academy award. She
was
on the list of top ten female performers three times in the early Forties. Then her career did a slow nosedive. Had a lot to do with the advent of television and the fact that they weren’t making B movies for double bills anymore. She never quite made it onto the A-movie list.”

Wollf knew every movie she’d ever been in, her marriages, divorces, costars. The affairs she’d had. Then, right before he clammed up, he told me the first personal information I’d heard out of his mouth all day. He said he had over eight thousand videos of old movies. That he’d collected every movie Patricia Pennington ever made. That he had every movie Marilyn Monroe made. Jane Russell. Clark Gable. Paul Newman. Joan Crawford. Bette Davis. Lon Chaney, whoever he was.

Remarkable. Under all that brawn and fire department professionalism there actually beats the heart of a human being.

We were really starting to get chummy, I thought. Wollf must have thought so too, because he stopped talking.

When we got back down to the first floor, a woman was waiting for us on the front porch. She’d obviously put herself together in a rush. She wore jeans and a white ski jacket and was a couple of years older than me.

“Hi,” she said, looking at me instead of the lieutenant. Maybe she didn’t realize the red helmet was the boss; the yellow helmet with the big recruit number fifteen on the back was the flunky. “I’m Vanessa Pennington. This is my grandmother’s house. I just spoke to her in the medic unit. The chief said you might let me walk through the house?”

“I’d have to escort you,” Wollf said.

Looking at her, you automatically thought money. Later we saw her driving a BMW, white to match her ski jacket. She had dirty-blond hair that fell to her shoulders. I could see right away she’d never make it in the fire department. She was too skinny. But she
was
pretty.

10. FIRE

Vanessa Pennington

         
It was just a good thing it was the middle of the night and there were no police cars around. The drive to Nanna’s normally takes ten minutes, twenty if traffic is heavy, but I made it tonight in under seven.

I’ve been so worried about her lately, and then Jackie wakes me up to tell me Nanna’s garage is on fire and what should she do. What should she do? This is just the kind of thing that makes me want to get Jackie out of there. “Call nine one one,” I said. “I’m on my way.” Later I find out she never did call 911. The fire department discovered the fire on their own. Jackie is such an incompetent. I’ll never understand why Nanna doesn’t fire her and hire a housekeeper and companion who isn’t likely to get her killed.

There were so many fire department vehicles in the street I ended up parking half a block away. I found Nanna’s front door broken open, the house full of firefighters and residual smoke. One of them told me I couldn’t go in, that the fire department hadn’t released the property back to the owners yet. When I asked where my grandmother was, a helpful black firefighter named Zeke told me she was in the medic unit with the man who’d rescued her.

When I got there I told them who I was, and they were kind enough to let me sit with her for a few minutes before they took her up to Harborview. Everybody was so nice. But when I asked permission to go inside and secure Nanna’s things, I had to go through the chain of command, just like the army or something. They sent me to a lieutenant named Wollf, the same fire officer who’d been in the medic unit when I first got there. He’d been holding Nanna’s hand. Nanna was barely conscious, and he was talking to her as if she were
his
grandmother and not mine. The sight impressed me more than I can say.

Later, he seemed inexplicably tense around me.

“Pardon me,” I said. “I’m Patricia Pennington’s granddaughter. They said you might take me inside the house?”

He seemed shy and tongue-tied. It was painful to watch—but cute too, especially for such a big, brawny guy. Finally he said if I could wait a minute he’d take me inside and show me what they’d broken. He must have seen the look on my face because he added, “Don’t worry. It’s not bad. The house is smoked up, but there’s no structural damage.”

A few minutes later he walked me through the house and explained where they’d found Nanna. He told me they would secure the front door and told me how to get the smoke out of the draperies and clothes. Never once did he mention anything about Nanna being famous, although the woman firefighter told me he knew.

I found myself drawn to him. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he had an open, boyish face that didn’t hide what he was thinking. I like that in a man. I’ve always been attracted to shy men too. Perhaps because I used to be so shy.

After we’d gone down to the basement to check out the damage, I said, “Look, Lieutenant. My grandmother is going to want to do something for all of you who helped her tonight. That’s how she is.”

“We were just doing our job.”

“It might be a job to you; it was my grandmother’s life. They told me nobody even knew there was a fire in the house until you discovered it.”

Wollf looked at the female firefighter as if she were going to help him out—something he’d been doing all along—but she didn’t let out a peep. I think she enjoyed watching him bumble along. It was like watching King Kong trying to play checkers.

“Just doing our job, lady.”

“Vanessa. Call me Vanessa. I can tell you right now my grandmother isn’t going to give up until you let us do something. I was thinking about a catered dinner at the firehouse? We’ll supply everything.”

“You know,” Wollf said, “this is my first day at the station. What you should do is, you should go around back and find Lieutenant Slaughter.”

“But aren’t you the one who—”

“Slaughter’s the guy you want.”

Five minutes later I was behind the house talking to Lieutenant Slaughter when Jackie came out and began flirting with one and all. To my surprise, she homed in on Lieutenant Wollf, and to my even greater surprise, he flirted with her too. In fact, they were like a couple of drunks at a frat party. It was amazing. With me he’d barely been able to get a word out, yet here he was putting on a show with Jackie. I guess I misjudged him. Apparently what I mistook for shyness was actually a distaste for me.

11. CANNONBALLS IN A PILLOWCASE

Lt. Stephen Slaughter AU6/C-3

         
All day I been watching Wollf and that new recruit of his, and here’s what it boils down to. No. This is really what it boils down to. Forget the ifs, ands, or buts. He’s going to fuck her. I’m sure of it.

We can say whatever we want about her abilities as a firefighter—and I seen some stuff tonight makes me want to puke—but the truth is, there isn’t a man jack of us wouldn’t sit her on our lap if she asked.

She just might be the single hottest female in the department. She’s got those perky little . . . If she wasn’t an Indian and twenty-five years younger than me, she’d be perfect. But here’s the deal—and I’m pretty sure about this part: If he
doesn’t
end up fucking her, he’s going to fire her.

Oh, yeah. He’s going to give her the heave-ho so fast she won’t know whether to shit or go blind.

Of course, after he gives her the axe, those namby-pambies in the administration will offer her the option of resigning, which they always do, which means she won’t take any of our negative assessments with her when she signs up at the next fire department. What a racket these bitches got going. We fired the chief of Tacoma when she was a recruit here. They fired our Battalion 4. Bellingham fired our training officer. We fired their newest lieutenant. They’re like dogshit on your boots. You can’t get rid of ’em.

Good men line up by the thousands for a crack at the job. They fly in from Minnesota and New York just for the privilege of taking our test. Women go through a special door. No waiting. No fuss. Thank you, ma’am. I know you’re a little weak and a little scared, but would you like to be a battalion chief tomorrow? No problem. Just shine up those bugles for your collar and show up on time.

Disgusting ain’t even the word for it.

’Course, the chicks can’t get through a drill school on their own, so they get a coupl’a weeks coaching prior. Then they come out here to the stations and swish their little butts around, making the officers feel sorry for them, and they end up passing them through. We all know after the first year you can’t fire
anybody.
Take Zeke. Lazy bastard should have been shitcanned long ago.

The only swinging dick downtown worth two cents is Billy Hertlein.

He came out last night to watch a couple of our fires, then at the garage fire, he’s the first to realize the house next door is on fire. Sharp.

I don’t know exactly what’s going on between him and Wollf, but Wollf would do himself a favor by making peace. One thing I can tell you about Billy, he’s got no forgiveness in his bones. I’ve never known him to forget anybody ever did him wrong.

I made a big production of telling Wollf we were going to be a team, but the truth is, he keeps a little too much to himself for my taste. Also, he takes chances at fires.

In addition, I heard he’s a whorehound, and a whorehound is always susceptible to the charms of a chick, especially one like Rideout.

She made so many mistakes tonight I should have been taking notes. To start off with, why wasn’t she the one on the roof with the chain saw? You don’t have to think about that too hard. She was scared, scared to climb a ladder and scared to be on a roof over a fire.

This morning I heard from one of the medics that when they came out of the house with the victim, she wasn’t even helping. Now I’m hearin’ talk she didn’t know how to run the fan.

I mighta jumped her shit ’cept I had my hands full keeping Zeke and Gliniewicz in line. Gliniewicz has been smoking so long he gets winded doing a simple hydrant hookup. At that garage fire we stood around waiting for water seemed like five minutes. At the beginning of the shift I was waiting for Zeke. At the end I was waiting for Gliniewicz.

God, if I could just get those two whipped into shape.

The thing I noticed after the Pennington fire was Wollf practically ignored that Pennington granddaughter, even when she was trying to be nice to him. Lordy, but she was fine. I mean, she could have been an actress herself. And Wollf? When the slut who lives out back showed up, he was on her like white on rice.

Ignored the fox, chased the pig.

Now, why would he do that?

You could tell the old lady’s housekeeper had been drinking, flouncing around making comments about how HOT firemen were. You know the kind, never passes up a wet T-shirt contest. Walking back and forth in front of the spotlight on our rig so’s we could see through that blouse. Enjoyin’ the way the guys on Engine 30 just about swallowed their tongues. Out in the cold dressed like summertime. When she walked, her ass end worked like two cannonballs in a pillowcase.

Wollf was wasting
way
too much time with her. And check this out.
He
kicked in the front door. Not Rideout.

If Rideout did a single blasted thing last night, I don’t know what it was.