[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

fair. If you weren t such a bumpkin, you d understand. It was a hoot. I
won t forget you anytime soon. I ve always wanted my own little fireman.
I watched the flashing red lights flicker across Iola s face.  Were you
going to tell me, or were you just going to stop showing up?
 Oh, you are hurt.
 I just want to know if you were going to tell me.
T HE S MOK E R O OM 141
 I suppose I probably wasn t. But, hey, men do it to women all the
time.
 Not me.
 Don t be so sensitive. It was a simple little flirtation. Now it s time for
you to find a girlfriend your own age. Hush now. He ll be back soon, and
I d rather you two didn t meet.
Frankly, I was struck dumb. Not because I d been a mere flirtation.
Or because she d dumped me. I d been on the verge of doing the same
to her for weeks. What bothered me was that I d seen anything at all in
this woman, who was about as shallow as a puddle of milk in a house full
of cats.
 You ll live, sweetie. These things can be so messy. Bernard had a lit-
tle friend once who called the house for months after he was finished with
her. It was so tawdry. You don t want to be like that.
 There is one thing, though.
 What is that?
 I left something at your place. I ll need to come by and pick it up.
Maybe later tonight.
 Don t even think about it. Since that pig fell through our roof,
Bernard s been worse than ever. He gets up a couple of times in the mid-
dle of the night and checks the yard. He takes a gun to bed with him. I m
not joking.
 Maybe I could swing by tomorrow morning when he s not there.
 What could you possibly have left at our place? A jacket or some-
thing? Tell me what it is, and I ll bring it to you.
 That won t work.
 You ll have to write it off, then, because this is the last time we re
going to see each other. Now shoo, before Daddy comes back. Shoo.
 It will just take a second.
 You show up, I ll call the police. It was an ironic threat, because by
morning I would most likely already be in the hands of the police.
I watched her float away through the bystanders.
After a while, I felt a tap on my shoulder.  There you are, said Lieu-
tenant Sears.  Come on. We ve got another assignment. Let s go do some-
thing good for a change.
21. FULL TILT BOOGIE
SEARS SWITCHED ON the heavy-duty orange battle lantern he d
W
been carrying all night, peering momentarily into the cone of light, so
that his face took on a curiously impish look. Every once in a while he did
something that amused me, and staring into flashlights was one of my fa-
vorites.
 Come on, he said.  We re going to check the water damage down
the road. I sent Ted and Robert ahead.
 Can we at least take off these backpacks?
 The backpacks stay.
On top of all my other problems, I couldn t help obsessing about the
way Iola had blown me off. What made me sore was how much of an ego
massage it had been for her. I had the feeling jilting me had been on the
program from the beginning, that she d planned and choreographed the
finale during those first minutes of sex at Station 29, that I d been a pawn
in a twisted marriage rite she and Bernard had been playing out for years.
It was hard to believe I could feel such gnawing emotional wounds
when I was on my way to the slammer, but even a man walking to the gal-
lows can step on a thorn.
Sears continued on while I stopped and bent over, hands on my
knees, thinking I was going to vomit. When I caught up he was talking as
if I d been beside him all along.  We re going to track down all this water,
Gum. Make sure it s not doing any property damage. Water can be as
damaging as fire. There s a lesson in that.
 Yes, sir. I want to keep learning lessons. I m probably going to be a
firefighter for another couple of hours.
Ignoring my sarcasm, he nodded at a photographer who d set up
a tripod on the sidewalk.
T HE S MOK E R O OM 143
 How long do you think before you guys put it out? the photogra-
pher asked.
 We re not going to tap this one, sir, Sears said.  It ll burn itself
down, but if you want a time line, I d say another hour, hour and a half.
Sears led me down a quiet street that ran east and west and termi-
nated at the south end of Lake Union several blocks away. The streetlights
were out, and the roadway was vacant. The police had cordoned off the
entire neighborhood. Here and there, sawhorse construction signs with
flashing orange beacons stood like sentinels to warn people of an ongoing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]