Flashover

by Suzanne Chazin

  “We are New York City Fire Marshals,” Georgia called out. “We are armed and prepared to shoot. You have ten seconds to vacate the premises, starting now.” She began to count backwards.

  The footsteps echoed across the concrete floor. The intruder was walking away. He’s leaving. She felt a small sigh escape her chest. She had finished her count, but something made her hang back, made her not want to leave the safety of this little space behind the open door. She tried to take a deep breath, but her lungs burned with the effort. The air seemed heavy and devoid of oxygen, and an airport-fuel smell wafted toward her now. The smell grew stronger as the steps grew fainter. And in that instant, Georgia knew.

  Kerosene. Oh, my God. That’s why he’s moving away from me, Georgia realized. He’s going to torch the firehouse.

  A second later, the door downstairs slammed shut and a loud whoosh roared below Georgia. Almost immediately, thick, acrid smoke began pushing up the stairs, cutting off the light like a giant black inner tube someone had inflated in the hallway. Georgia holstered her weapon and kicked the officers’ bunk room door shut. Even so, smoke began to seep through the space between the floorboards and the bottom of the door. The flames would take longer to get going—they always did with kerosene. But even so, there was no interior escape. To walk out that door meant certain death. Georgia would die in a thick cloud of carbon monoxide before she made it to the top of the staircase. And even then, there was nowhere to go. The first floor was saturated with kerosene. She pulled out her radio.

  “Mayday, Mayday,” she said into the receiver. “This is Fire Marshal Georgia Skeehan. I’m trapped at a ten-seventy-five at the old Ladder One-twenty-one. Repeat the OLD Ladder One-twenty-one on Clay off Franklin.”

  Just choking out those words brought an uncontrollable fit of coughing to her lungs. The room was filling up with smoke fast. A dispatcher’s voice told her help was on the way. Georgia couldn’t answer him. A gray haze hung over the room now. It was banking down, inch by inch. She ran over to the plyboard-covered window and tried to pry off the sheet, but it was nailed down tight. She searched the room for an axe or a crowbar, but there was nothing in the room except cartons of paper. Her eyes began to smart from the smoke. She coughed hard, and it felt like a punch to the chest.

  The crawl space, thought Georgia. There’s a window up there. Smoke had darkened the room so much, she had to grope forward by feel, but she sensed the tile sill of the bathroom and reached around for the crawl space door.

  She could feel the flames crackling through the floor beneath her and curling up the stairwell—climbing higher and higher in the search for oxygen. The first floor was burning up now. It would take only a minute or two for the second floor to start to flame as well.

  She forced herself off her knees just long enough to reach for the knob of the crawl space door. Then she climbed the ladder to the top of the space. But even the crawl space was filling with smoke, and temperatures were beginning to leapfrog. The small oval window at knee level was single-paned glass. Georgia leaned back and kicked the heel of her shoe at the center of the glass. It shattered on impact. She had never heard such a delicious sound. She kicked until all the fragments were gone, then pushed herself to the edge. Directly below the oval pane was a small ledge. But the next drop was a distance of more than twenty feet to the street.

  Smoke was pouring over her shoulder, constricting her lungs like a tourniquet and stinging her eyes. Georgia hoisted herself feet first onto the narrow ledge outside the window. Her hands clawed at the loose mortar in the bricks. She prayed it wouldn’t give way. She hadn’t been to mass in years, yet suddenly, before she knew it, she was mouthing the Act of Contrition she’d learned from the nuns in grade school: O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest all my sins. The words came unbidden. They came, she realized, because she was sure she was going to die.

  And then she saw it—the flagpole, planted next to the firehouse at the end of the ledge. It was unused, and there was no telling how stable it was. Still, it was a pole—not vastly different from the brass poles Georgia had slid down as a firefighter. She inched slowly toward it now. She hadn’t slid down a pole in two years; and this one—with its metal rods and riggings—wasn’t exactly made for sliding. But it was all she had. She could hear sirens in the distance, but her panic wouldn’t allow her simply to stand here and wait for rescue. Georgia inched her way to the edge of the ledge, leaned over and grabbed the metal cylinder. Then she hugged it to her body, wrapped her ankles around it and gave in to the tug of gravity.

  She hit the ground with a thud. A metal bolt ripped Ida’s pink rayon blouse. A hoisting line abraded the flesh along her inner right arm. Georgia was scraped up, but not seriously injured. She stepped back just as a fire engine and truck were rolling to the curb.

  She forced her stinging eyes to look up at the building now. Black smoke was pushing out every window, and flames were crackling through the roof. It would take probably no more than about twenty minutes to bring the blaze under control. But by then, a hundred-year-old firehouse would be reduced to a smoldering ruin and a century of firefighting history would be wiped out.

  Georgia sat down on a stoop across the street, feeling her lungs burn with each breath of the clammy exhaust-choked air. The journals were gone, and with them, countless generations of men who had given their lives to this city.

  And with them, the ghosts of nineteen men who refused to die.

  32

  It was nearly nine P.M. before Georgia was able to wrap up her statement on the fire. She was relieved that the Brooklyn marshals bought her story about being in the building to look through some old records in Fire Prevention. What troubled them was the physical evidence.

  They found no signs of a break-in, yet Georgia was certain she’d closed the door to the firehouse behind her. From the odor of the fuel and Georgia’s description of the relatively slow spread of flames, they knew the torch had used kerosene instead of gasoline to start the blaze. Kerosene, because of its lower volatility, is the choice accelerant of professional arsonists. Yet the fire itself had all the earmarks of an impulsive act of vandalism. The fuel was carelessly splashed, as if the torch just wanted a big fire and didn’t care what burned.

  But most troubling of all to them was the fact that Georgia had insisted she’d called out her presence in the building and given the arsonist time to flee. If the torch had just been looking for an impulsive thrill, he would have thought twice about adding murder—especially the murder of a law-enforcement officer—to his rap sheet. To the Brooklyn marshals, the case was perplexing. To Georgia, only one explanation—an explanation she couldn’t give them—made chilling sense. The torch wasn’t trying to burn down the building; he was trying to burn down the woman inside.

  The Brooklyn marshals let her shower at their base and drove her home. One of the men even loaned her a clean pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt so she wouldn’t frighten her mother and son when she walked in the door. It was a good thing he did, too. Richie and Margaret were waiting anxiously for her. Margaret looked exhausted. Richie, who normally disappeared into his room for long stretches, hovered protectively nearby. Georgia tried to shrug off the afternoon and evening with just a word or two about the investigation, but Margaret noticed her daughter pulling all the telephone cords out of the walls after she had changed into shorts and one of her own shirts.

  “What are you doing, dear?”

  “I just want to be home, Ma. Here. Safe. I don’t want the outside world intruding.”

  Richie seemed to loosen up now that his mother was home. He began to regale her with the latest stunts from a Jackie Chan movie. Margaret fell asleep on the couch, then woke with a start and opted to go to bed. Georgia gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Things will be better tomorrow, Ma,” Georgia told her, forcing a smile.

  “I hope so, honey.” Margaret sighed. “I’ve been saying that ever since Jimmy…” Margaret’s voice traile
d off. They both knew what she was going to say: Ever since Jimmy died. Margaret wasn’t ready to accord Jimmy Gallagher the light, breezy caress of memory that Georgia felt sure he’d have wanted. She missed him too much. It made Georgia think of that picture Seamus Hanlon had given her from the corkboard of Engine Two-seventy-eight.

  “Ma? What happened to that picture I left for you? Of Jimmy and Seamus Hanlon on that fishing trip?”

  Margaret shook her head. “I put it with Jimmy’s mass cards and medals. I can’t look at it, Georgia.”

  Georgia put a hand on top of her mother’s. “I understand.”

  After Margaret went to bed, Georgia made popcorn for Richie while he acted out a scene from the Jackie Chan flick, his body a long, lean set of sticks with a face still chubby enough to make Georgia want to nuzzle him in her arms.

  “Okay, so then Jackie Chan does this.” Richie kicked his foot out sideways. “And then the bad guy does this.” He spun and moved his hands in short chops in front of his face. There seemed to be no dialogue in the movie, or at least none he wanted to convey. Georgia attempted a karate chop herself and ended up flipping the popcorn bowl in the air. The boy laughed. That small, childish giggle lifted her spirits for the first time in days.

  They were scraping kernels off the floor when Richie caught her eye, a serious look on his face.

  “Jimmy DeLuca saw a picture of Mac’s arrest on TV.”

  The statement stopped Georgia cold. She put down the popcorn bowl and sat back on her heels, staring at Richie. Jimmy DeLuca was her son’s best friend. She didn’t want him having to explain something like this to other children.

  “How did you feel when Jimmy told you?” Georgia asked, willing her voice to sound nonchalant. She went back to scooping popcorn kernels off the floor, but she watched him from the corner of her eye.

  Another shrug. “Okay, I guess,” said the boy. He straightened up, then walked over to the kitchen counter and hoisted himself on top. Georgia hated it when he sat on the counters, but she decided against correcting him right now. “I told Jimmy that Mac was innocent—like in the movies. Jimmy thought it was kinda cool that I knew somebody who’d been arrested for murder. It was like knowing a rap star or something.” Richie curled his fingers and extended his forefingers and pinkies, then moved them like a rap singer’s stage gestures. “Yo, check it out.”

  “Oh, terrific.” Georgia rolled her eyes. Come the fall, the entire PTA at Saint Aloysius will be whispering that Richie Skeehan’s mother is dating a murderer.

  “I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this, honey,” said Georgia. “If anyone gives you a hard time about this, you tell me—okay?”

  “Okay.” He hopped down off the counter. Georgia swept up the remainder of the popcorn and threw it in the garbage. “Can we play a board game?” he asked.

  Georgia was about to tell him she was too tired and it was past his bedtime, but when she saw his hopeful face, she changed her mind. “Oh, all right. Which one?”

  “Life.”

  Richie loved the game of Life. Everybody got married. All the little pink and blue kid pegs had a matching set of pink and blue parents. Nobody died suddenly or thought about walking out on their kids or cheating on their lovers. Nobody got arrested for murder. And the worst trouble that could befall you was some uncle leaving you a skunk farm that you had to pay $10,000 to get rid of.

  They played until just after ten-thirty—well past Richie’s bedtime, but Georgia sensed he needed this time with her right now. She was just about to send Richie up to bed when the doorbell rang. Georgia furrowed her brow. She wasn’t expecting anybody.

  “Go upstairs,” she told him. She’d temporarily tossed her duty holster on top of the television in the living room. She got her gun from it now, telling herself that what happened at the old firehouse in Greenpoint hadn’t affected her. She was just being cautious—that’s all. It made perfect sense to answer your front door with a gun trained on it. Perfect sense.

  She cracked open the front door. It was Mac. He was wearing a baseball cap pulled low across his face and mirrored sunglasses.

  “Hey there, Stashoo. Nice disguise,” she teased, trying to recover from the wave of panic that had seized her just moments before. Her body temperature had risen at least ten degrees. Her face felt flushed. Sweat gathered under her armpits, across her brow and in between her breasts.

  He stepped inside, pulled off his sunglasses and stared at the gun in her hand. “Who you planning to shoot?” he asked gruffly. “And what’s wrong with your phones? Christ, I heard about what happened in Greenpoint and I wanted to make sure you were okay. I couldn’t even get you on your cell phone.”

  Georgia lifted her right hand and examined the gun still clutched tightly in its grip as if it had walked over by itself. She returned it to her duty holster and locked the door. All three locks—even the chain.

  “Friendly tonight, aren’t you? What’s going on?” he asked. “And what the hell were you doing in that firehouse anyhow?”

  “Trying to get something solid to tie Bridgewater to Robin Hood,” Georgia said in hushed tones. She knew Richie was listening.

  “You okay?” he asked, holding her by the shoulders and looking into her eyes. There was a distance to his own bright blue wattage. Something was on his mind.

  “Hi, Mac,” a little voice called from the top of the stairs.

  Marenko turned and forced a smile to his lips, but the edgy glint never left his eyes. “Hey, Sport, how ya doing?” Richie came down the stairs. Marenko pulled off his baseball cap and swatted the boy playfully on the shoulder. Richie gaped at him with a mixture of curiosity and awe.

  “My friend saw you on TV.”

  Marenko’s face dropped. “Fu—.”

  Georgia gave him a dirty look. He caught himself just in time. He threw his baseball cap and sunglasses on a table near the door and regained his composure. “…Sport, I’m uh…”

  “—Honey, go upstairs,” Georgia interrupted. “I’ll be up in a moment to put you to bed.”

  “Can Mac put me to bed?”

  “What?” Georgia bounced a look from Richie to Marenko.

  Marenko bit back a grin. Georgia could tell he was flattered. Instead of making Georgia happy, however, it filled her with a dull ache. Richie was bonded to a man who might not be in their lives much longer.

  “Relax, Mom,” said Marenko, kissing her cheek as he sidled past her and up the stairs. “My good nights are G-rated.”

  It was ten minutes before Marenko came back downstairs. In the interim, Georgia cringed at the loud, wet-sounding release of air from Richie’s “Captain Underpants” whoopee cushion. She listened to her son’s latest rap tape, and she heard Marenko talking to the boy about how the Mets were “kicking ass” this summer.

  Georgia shook her head at Marenko as his footsteps thudded on the landing. The pictures on the walls seemed to shake when he walked past. She was glad her mother was a heavy sleeper.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Do you act this way around Michael and Beth, too?” His back straightened.

  His kids were always a sore topic. “Act what way?”

  “Like an overgrown delinquent.”

  He made a face. “I just like to horse around, that’s all. Richie likes it. All boys do.”

  He flopped down in a chair across from the television. Georgia noticed he didn’t sit next to her on the couch. He was keeping his distance tonight for some reason. “I wouldn’t have come over at all if you hadn’t turned off your cell phone and unplugged every friggin’ phone in this house,” he added.

  “I was really worried about you.”

  “I ruined your grandmother’s blouse.”

  Marenko dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “She won’t care. She’s got twenty more just like it. The point is, you’re okay.” He ran a hand through his hair, matted down from the baseball cap. He gave her a dark, tentative look. Something was on his mind. “Did you, uh, speak to Chief Brennan t
onight?”

  “Yeah. And Ed Delaney. And this guy from the mayor’s office. They don’t want me investigating the Bridgewater fire or the Empire Pipeline anymore.” Georgia still had the CIDS card in her hip bag. She retrieved it and showed it to him. It smelled of smoke, like everything else in the bag, but it was still legible at least.

  “Somebody knew what was in that warehouse nine months before the fire,” she explained. “The card could’ve been misfiled or someone could’ve chosen to deliberately hide that information…Did Andy call you with my request?”

  “Yeah.” Marenko frowned at the card, then handed it back to Georgia. “Tristate’s out of business—went out of business right after the fire. But, man, what a sleazebag operation it was. The firm was responsible for illegally disposing of thousands of gallons of PCBs, benzene and toluene. Very, very toxic stuff. Since the nineteen seventies, benzene and toluene have been classified as known human carcinogens. It’s almost a guarantee that that’s what the men at Bridgewater were exposed to.”

  “Yeah, but the DEP was trying to clean it up.”

  “They were supposed to notify the EPA. They were supposed to get the soil tested and cleaned—not sneak the barrels out and hope nobody in the neighborhood found out they were living down the street from a major environmental disaster. That’s my old neighborhood, Scout. Practically my grandmother’s backyard. My family’s health and well-being were traded in a back-room deal because the city was afraid of ending up with another Love Canal on their hands.”

  Georgia sank back onto the couch. “It’s a dead end, though, I guess, since Tristate’s out of business.”

  “Yes and no,” said Marenko. “Tristate’s assets went into receivership and were bought out by a construction firm called Northway. They’re a big developer in the five boroughs. My friend at HIDTA tells me that Tristate probably only went belly-up to avoid liability after the fire. It’s possible the people who owned Tristate and the people behind Northway are one and the same.”