Total Rush (34 page)

“Fire department! Please evacuate the building!”

They repeated the procedure up and down the length of the hallway. Thankfully, no one seemed to be home except the dreaded Mrs. Croppy, who, despite the noise and the smoke, peered suspiciously at Sean as she opened the door a crack.

“Ma'am, I have to ask you to evacuate the premises immediately.” The woman simply stared at him, her milky blue eyes distrustful. “Ma'am?”

“It's that whore across the hall, isn't it? With her incense and her—”

“Ma'am, I don't know, but you have to
leave the building right now.
” Taking hold of the doorknob, he pushed the door open enough to gently grab the woman's elbow and pull her out into the hall, closing the door behind him. He began steering her toward the stairs at the end of the hall. “Can you make it down the steps on your own? Or do you—”

The woman jerked her arm out of Sean's grasp and pushed the door to the stairwell open with the other. “I don't need your G-D help,” she growled, gnarled fingers latching on to the banister as she started off down the stairs.

“Suit yourself.” Under his breath Sean muttered, “You nasty old cow.” How Gemma could stand living on the same floor with that old biddy was beyond him.
Gemma . . .

He met Ojeda outside Gemma's apartment. Smoke was steadily seeping out from beneath the door, its aroma acrid. Sean put his hand to the door. Hot to the touch. Without further thought, he started putting his mask on.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I'm going in,” Sean said, tightening the straps on either side of his neck.

“You wanna get your ass kicked? Cap said not to.”

“Cap doesn't know the woman who lives here.”
He doesn't have feelings for her, either.
He didn't want to tell Ojeda he had a “feeling” someone was in there. It would sound too airy-fairy, not to mention unprofessional. But it was true. A renegade thought invaded his mind: Gemma would be proud of him for listening to his gut. His inner voice. He laughed out loud.

“You losin' it or what?” Ojeda asked worriedly.

“I'm going in,” Sean repeated. “You stay here and hold the fire at the door.”

Sean gripped the door handle, surprised to find it unlocked. Ojeda radioed downstairs: “Ladder Twenty-nine Chauffeur, this is Ladder Twenty-nine, we're holding the fire at the apartment door.” Bracing himself for the worst, Sean opened the door slowly: A wave of heat and black smoke drove him down to his knees. It was worse, far worse, than he'd imagined. The shriek of the smoke detector—thank God she'd gotten a new one like he'd asked—was like a jackhammer to his brain. Can in hand, he crawled forward toward flame, an unconscious mantra beating through his brain:
Gemma, don't be here, Gemma, don't be here, Gemma, don't be here.
The heat was becoming more intense, but he'd known worse. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he was in close enough to hit the fire and he let the can rip. The fire darkened down. For a split second, Sean allowed himself the luxury of relief.

Still on his hands and knees, he continued scanning the floor, not surprised when his radio crackled. “Ladder Twenty-nine Chauffeur to Ladder Twenty-nine, we have a report of a person still in the apartment k.”

“This is Ladder Twenty-nine to Ladder Twenty-nine Chauffeur, I'm in the apartment right now conducting a search,” Sean radioed back down to the street.
Damn.
His intuition had been right. Someone was in here. But the front door had been unlocked. Could Gemma, or whomever it was, have run out when the fire started? Not an assumption he dare make.

With renewed determination, he pushed himself farther into the heat and darkness. That's when he heard it. Distinct, almost chilling: halting coughs and gasps interspersed with what sounded like mumbling from behind Gemma's bedroom door. Sean pulled out his radio.

“This is Ladder Twenty-nine. We've definitely got a viable rescue in 5B,” he reported.

Grateful he knew the layout of the place, he crawled in the direction of Gemma's bedroom, reaching up for the doorknob.
Fuck.
Gemma or whomever it was had locked themselves in. Rising up on his knees, he started hammering on the door.

“Fire department! Open the door! We're gonna get you outta here!”

He waited, then tried the door again. Still locked. A lump formed in his throat as he realized the cries behind the door had faded away to silence. Behind him, the fire had flared up again, roaring its intention to devour everything in its wake. As quickly as he could, Sean pulled out his rabbit tool and popped the lock. Just as he pushed the door open, the fire rolled over the living room. If ever time was of the essence, it was now: Flashover was imminent.

Dropping back down to his knees, Sean crawled forward, kicking the bedroom door shut behind him. Dark smoke poisoned the room. He soon found himself at the nighttable closest to the window. He reached up, patting the bed. Nothing.

He continued his clockwise search, crawling around to the other side of Gemma's bed. He found an old woman curled up in a ball on the floor, her white hair spread across the lower half of her face like a veil. Gemma's grandmother. At first Sean thought she was dead. But closer examination revealed she was still breathing, albeit shallowly. “Don't worry,” Sean shouted. “I'm gonna get you out of here.” There was no response.

Grasping her firmly beneath the armpits, Sean began dragging her toward the door, stunned by how light she was. She was shrunken and small, almost child sized. He had almost reached the door when his radio once again crackled to life.

“Ladder Twenty-nine to Ladder Twenty-nine Chauffeur, I'm backing out. It's too hot to hold off k.” It was Sal Ojeda.

“Battalion Six to Ladder Twenty-nine, back out,” came the return message. Sean recognized Battalion Chief Murphy's voice. “Engine Thirty-one has arrived. Repeat: Engine Thirty-one has arrived.”

Sean got on the radio. “Ladder Twenty-nine to Ladder Twenty-nine Chauffeur. Position the ladder at the fifth-floor window. We will be bringing the victim out k.”

“Got it,” Joe Jefferson said. “I'm bringing the stick to the window.”

Sean hurriedly crawled in the direction of murky sunlight, rising up to break out the window with his ax. Then he dropped back down, quickly crawling back to the tiny form he'd left resting on the floor. As gingerly as he could, he gathered the fragile, withered body up in his arms.

“Hang in there,” he urged, as much to himself as to her, as he climbed over the window sill and out onto the ladder. His eyes quickly swept the scene below: The engine truck had arrived, and backup from another house was just pulling onto the street. Mindful of who it was he was carrying, he began his careful descent.

 

 

“
Gemma
,
look!
”
Frankie
shouted. “Look!”

Gemma looked skyward. There, crawling out of her bedroom window, was a firefighter. She squinted until she could just make out BIRDMAN across the back of his jacket. In his arms Sean carried a small, inert bundle which he carefully sheltered with his body. Nonna! Gemma shot forward, only to find herself running smack into the barriers the fire department had erected to keep civilians at bay.

“Please!” Gemma shouted in a desperate voice. “Please!”

Sean was on the ground now, easing Nonna onto a waiting stretcher near the base of the ladder. Gemma's guts twisted as an EMT immediately clamped an oxygen mask on her grandmother's face, while the other began checking vitals.

“SEAN! SEAN!”

He turned, whipping off his face mask as he approached her. “She's still alive,” were the first panting words out of his mouth.

Gemma gasped. “Oh thank God.”

Sean pushed aside one of the barriers, motioning for her to come through. “Come on, go with her in the ambulance.”

Gemma turned to Frankie. “Will you come?”

Frankie looked to Sean. “If I can,” she said uncertainly.

“Not a problem,” Sean said.

“Sean,” Gemma said again, as unrestrained emotion avalanched through her. “I don't know how to thank you—if you hadn't saved her—I swear to God I—I just don't know—”

“Sshh.” He patted her shoulder. “We'll talk later, okay? I'll stop by the hospital.” He seemed preoccupied, his breath still coming hard. “Right now I gotta go get checked out.”

Before Gemma could answer, he strode away, joining a cluster of firefighters. The EMTs had already loaded Nonna inside the nearest ambulance and were about to swing the doors shut when Mrs. Croppy pushed her way to the front of the crowd, straining against the barrier as she pointed at Sean.

“That fireman manhandled me!” she shouted to a nearby fire chief. “That fireman dislocated my elbow!”

“Too bad he didn't dislocate your jaw,” Frankie muttered.

Gemma shook her head sadly and began climbing into the back of the ambulance with Frankie.

“That's my grandmother,” Gemma explained to the female EMT, looking down at Nonna. “We're coming with you.”

“You're both family?” the EMT asked.

Gemma grabbed Frankie's hand and squeezed hard. “Yes. We're family.”

Despite Uther proving
to be far from sane, and her apartment no doubt reduced to cinders, Gemma was still grateful. Whether this was a sign of faith or her own insanity, she didn't know. But Nonna had clung tenaciously to life, and right here, right now, that was all that mattered. Sitting beside her grandmother's bed in the hospital room, she watched the old woman's breath rise and fall, the endotracheal tube in her throat ensuring enough oxygen could pass through her swollen airways.
Lucky
is the word the doctor had used. “She's very, very lucky. Most elderly people don't survive smoke inhalation like this.”

His words had shocked Gemma, because Nonna sure didn't look lucky. Her face was swollen to twice its normal size, and soot clogged her nostrils. Blistering burns ringed her nose and mouth. Red, crusty splotches marred her face. There was no telling how long she would remain in the hospital. The doctor seemed to think at least a week, though given Nonna's frailty and “mental condition”—a nice euphemism for Alzheimer's—it was possible she could be there up to a month.

Exhausted, Gemma checked her watch. Ten P.M. Frankie had long since left, needing to catch at least a few hour's sleep before her air shift. Anthony and Angie had come and gone, too, as had Michael and Theresa, who graciously offered to let her live with them while her—correction, Theresa's—apartment was rebuilt. No one blamed her for what happened, not when they heard about the hostage situation. Yes, they all agreed, leaving an Alzheimer's patient alone was foolish, but what else could she have done, given the circumstances? It wasn't her fault Frankie was delayed. Their understanding gave Gemma something else to be grateful for.

The only people yet to show up were her mother and her aunts. Gemma had no intention of leaving the hospital until they did. She'd called them in Atlantic City hours ago, relieved to get her Aunt Millie on the phone and not her mother. “We'll be back as soon as we can, doll,” Millie had croaked in her smoker's voice. “You sit tight.” Gemma felt awful about interrupting Aunt Betty Anne's dream weekend, but what was she supposed to do? Wait to tell them their mother had almost died in a fire? She'd agonized, but in the end even Frankie agreed it was better to call than to wait. “Either way, you're the loser,” Frankie noted matter-of-factly. She was right.

Still, Gemma wondered what was keeping them. She knew it was a bit of a drive, but it wasn't that long. New worries beset her: What if something had happened to “Mo, Larry, and Curly” as Anthony facetiously referred to them?

As if on cue, her mother and aunts appeared in the doorway. Gemma wearily rose to greet them, and was met by a slap across the face from her mother. “
Idiota!
How could you be so stupid as to leave her alone?! HOW?”

“Jesus, Connie!” Aunt Millie looked mortified as she dragged her sister out into the hall. “What the hell kind of greeting is that?”

Stunned, Gemma raised a hand to her stinging cheek. She was tempted to leave without a word. She needed this kind of abuse like she needed a hole in her head.

“Cara,”
Aunt Millie coaxed from the hallway, “please come out here. I promise I won't let this madwoman lay another finger on you!”

Dazed, Gemma did as her aunt requested. She deliberately stood a distance from her mother, whose eyes burned with unchecked fury.

“What the hell happened?” her mother railed. “We let you take her out of the house for one day AND SHE WINDS UP IN THE HOSPITAL?”

“Connie, let the girl talk, for Chrissakes!” Aunt Millie barked. “And try to remember where you are, please! This is a hospital, not Giants Stadium. Keep your voice down!”

Huffing and puffing, Gemma's mother made an effort to calm down. In the meantime, Gemma closed the door to Nonna's room. The last thing she wanted was for Nonna to stir to consciousness and find her lunatic family yelling at one another. Assuming she'd even recognize them.

Gemma's eyes traced all three women. “Where have you been?”

“Traffic was a nightmare,” Millie said. “Then this nut-case here”—she jerked her thumb in the direction of Gemma's mother—“insisted we go home to Brooklyn first and drop off our stuff. Believe me, if it were up to me, we would have been here hours ago.”

“Listen to Miss Eagle Scout,” Gemma's mother jeered. “Stick it up your ass, Millie.”