Earl W. Emerson

by The smoke room: a novel of suspense

  “I hope so.”

  A few minutes later, the detail from 32’s showed up and Sears left. The detail was a man named Bob Oleson, one of those big-boned men who’d come into the department a few pounds overweight but who had recently ballooned to even larger dimensions. Later, when Oleson was out of earshot, Tronstad looked at me and chuckled. “Even if Sears gets somebody to listen, how’s he going to explain he thought we were thieves and then left me in charge?”

  Somehow I didn’t believe Sears’s foolishness nor Tronstad’s reasoning was going to sway the FBI. We were in trouble here, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I was beginning to feel like that flying pig, whizzing through the deep blue twilight, no way to slow myself, much less stop. I had a lot to think about as we rode around the district taking care of the tasks Lieutenant Sears had left us: testing hydrants, doing a couple of building reinspections, visiting a preschool. He’d asked us to run three wet drills, too. Johnson, Oleson, and I were willing, but Tronstad sprinkled water on the hose bed so it would look as if we’d pumped water through it, saying, “The bastard drills us enough without us drilling us. It’s like asking a kid to go out to the woodshed and paddle himself.”

  In the back of my mind was the thought that I might end up in prison over this. I didn’t think so, but it was possible. Going to prison would keep me separated from my mother during her last year of life. After the way she’d dedicated her life to me, I couldn’t do that to her. Finding herself pregnant at seventeen, my mother left Spokane and centered her life around me. I never met my father. The official story is that my mother divorced him before I was born, but by the time I was ten I knew that was bogus.

  Her parents were hard-line Christians and never forgave her for her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Mother was the youngest of five siblings,

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  raised after the others had left home, so she wasn’t close to my aunts and uncles. My grandparents are in their eighties and now live in Spokane, a six-hour drive from Seattle, a couple of cold fish who for twenty-five years have treated my mother like an outcast. We rarely saw them when I was growing up, though I now visit on my own once or twice a year. My mother has good days, as the last four had been, days where you almost wouldn’t know she was sick, and then she has days where she gulps painkillers and gets a distant look in her eyes. All along she’s been desirous of the same privacy in death she enjoyed in life and has refused to inform anybody in the family she’s sick.

  Thinking of my mother made me even angrier that Johnson and Tronstad had splurged on new cars. We might have given the money back anonymously, but our chances of that were dwindling by the minute. I had assumed that under all their silly pranks they were mature individuals, but now as I viewed them through the clarifying prism of their greed, I knew I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  I saw how weak Johnson was, how flighty and vain Tronstad was. Johnson, who didn’t know his district and refused to study it, should never have been the driver on Engine 29. Anybody with a smidgeon of pride would have either learned his district or given up the post, yet he did neither. The department might have turned him out of the spot, but that wasn’t how things worked. Johnson liked to palaver about the fact that he was a small cog in a big machine, that he didn’t have control over his life, philosophizing endlessly without ever coming to any useful conclusions. Outwardly, he was jolly and always in a pleasant mood, but under the surface there was a layer of brooding most people didn’t notice. Tronstad was a different cat altogether; no deep thought there. Nobody who worked with Ted Tronstad ever forgot the impromptu stand-up comedy routines he put on at the drop of a hat. He was funny in a Robin Williams way. Everybody said he should audition for Saturday Night Live. He was gregarious and championed his friends, as he had me after the incident at Arch Place, yet on the downside, he had money problems, women problems, and a bunch of long-haired, tattooed, Harleyriding buddies who’d spent more of their lives in taverns and prisons than I cared to think about.

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  One thing Tronstad didn’t have that Johnson did was a kind heart. Johnson rarely spoke ill of anyone, while Tronstad rarely missed a chance to mock or denigrate just about everyone he met: every client, patient, and fellow firefighter he came into contact with. I’d always dismissed it as some sort of slanted attempt at black humor, but it was more; it was a cover-up of his basic insecurity. He had a negative outlook on life, and that outlook made him see the worst in people.

  Even though he choked up when we were around injured kids and could be as empathetic as anyone with certain adult patients, there were times when I believed Tronstad’s heart was made of chilled titanium. Perhaps the callousness came about because his father beat him when he was a child. Or because his mother did, too. Or because he’d left home at seventeen to join the Army, where he had a rough go of it, switching to the Air Force three years later.

  After lunch Johnson came into the beanery stealthily, closing the door behind him with exaggerated care. Tronstad was reading the sports page and I was rereading the article on Charles Scott Ghanet, or whatever his name really was. The chief had been gone for hours.

  “Oleson’s on the other side sawing the z’s in front of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We need to talk. We gotta figure out what we’re going to do,” said Johnson. “To prove we’re not guilty.”

  “We don’t have to prove shit,” said Tronstad. “That’s the beauty of this country. They have to prove we are guilty. And they can’t do it.”

  “The cops have the bond,” I said. “Or they will when Sears gives it to them. And you both bought new vehicles, plus you’ve got that new watch. They’ll trace your transactions at the bank. Don’t say they’ve got nothing. We need to turn that stuff in now.”

  “No way. To start with, Sears is not exactly Columbo. He’s not going to prove anything. Split three ways, those bonds should be worth four million each. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to Costa Rica, where I’m going to have me a different chick for every day of the week. With that much bread, they’ll probably make me El Presidente. ”

  I’d pretty much decided to come clean with Sears when he returned that evening. I wasn’t guilty of theft, and I didn’t want to be guilty of conspiracy, either. I should have done it that morning, but I hadn’t yet steeled

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  myself against these two. They weren’t going to get away with this, and even if they were, I didn’t want stolen money.

  Johnson and I looked at each other, knowing that the only things keeping Tronstad in the fire department were the biweekly paychecks and the fact that he was behind in his rent, credit card payments, and other bills. He didn’t know any other way to manage his life and bought ice cream by the pint because if he took home half a gallon he’d horse it down at one sitting and get sick. A bundle of money would be gone in months, perhaps weeks.

  Johnson and I continued our conversation late that afternoon in the basement, where he lifted weights and I pedaled the stationary bicycle.

  “I’ll tell you this,” said Johnson. “If Tronstad gets his hands on a penny of that money, he’ll spend it before we can blink.”

  “You didn’t do such a bad job yourself.”

  “I didn’t know Ghanet was famous when I went to that dealership and the jewelers.”

  “What kills me about this is, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You and I are in the same boat there.” I glanced over to see whether Johnson was serious. I hadn’t spent any money and I hadn’t reneged on my promise to take the bonds back. In fact, I’d tried to take them back when I drove past Ghanet’s place that next morning. If the cops hadn’t been there, the bonds would be on his property now. I couldn’t see how Johnson and I were in the same boat. Not at all. Johnson said, “I may not be the brightest penny in the jar, but I’m not stupid. When the dust settles I might buy some jewelry for Paul
a, and I’m pretty sure I’ll go out and get a new computer for LaQuisha, but other than that, I’m not going to do anything to attract notice. Oh, and there’s a gun I want. A nine millimeter. I was thinking about putting money on some vacation property in North Carolina on the shore where my folks live, but I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

  “Robert, we have to give it back. All of it. There is no other option.”

  “I can’t get out of the lease agreement on the car.”

  “I thought you said you were taking the car back.”

  “I signed papers, man.”

  “You can get out of a lease.”

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  “Well, yeah, maybe. But that ride is sweet.” Johnson grinned at me, and I knew right then that as soon as I got off work the following morning I would recover the sacks and hand them over to the FBI. If they wanted to arrest me, I would have to live with it. “I can be discreet with money,” Johnson continued. “Our trouble will be reining in Ted.”

  Johnson did a set of bench presses, huffing loudly each time he pushed the bar up. It was demoralizing to realize I would be turning him in for theft along with Tronstad.

  “I read about Lotto winners,” he said, swinging his legs to one side of the bench as he sat up. “Interesting stuff. The money almost never makes them happier. In fact, for most people it flat out ruins their lives. They did a study of twenty past winners of our state’s lottery, and eighteen of them came out worse than before, both financially and emotionally—

  bankruptcies, divorces, lost friends, alcoholism. Two suicides. But I know that won’t happen to me. I’m smarter than that. I’m praying for us, Gum. I’m praying Sears forgets all about that bond, and I’m praying the cops don’t come sniffing around. I’m praying they find some money Ghanet was hiding and that it’s in the Cayman Islands or someplace and they stop looking here. I’m praying for you, too, Gum. I’m praying for your mother. I’m praying for all of us.”

  “Thanks, Robert.”

  “What’s all this praying about?” Neither of us had heard Chief Abbott descend the wooden steps to the basement. In fact, I hadn’t heard him drive into the station. “You weren’t talking about this, were you?”

  Chief Abbott pulled a slip of paper out of his waistband and stretched it between his pudgy fingers. It was either the bond Lieutenant Sears had been carrying or a duplicate.

  14. THE SMOKE ROOM

  W I D ON’T KNOW that I’ve ever met anybody who wanted to be liked more than Russell Abbott, or who had fewer clues on how to go about it. Yet, under the tail-wagging, waiting-to-be-petted puppy display he put on, there lurked a surly mongrel that snapped without warning. Today he was wearing new sneakers, freshly laundered shorts that stretched halfway up his round torso, and an ironed fire department T-shirt. He held the bearer bond with a look on his round face that approached glee.

  “Where’d you get that?” Johnson asked.

  “The bigger question is, where did you get it?”

  “Sears gave it to you?” Johnson asked.

  “Or an investigator.”

  “What do you mean an investigator ?” Johnson was unable to conceal his growing panic. The more nervous he got, the tighter his smile became and the shinier his black cheeks. “Are you talking about a fire department investigator? Or are you talking about the police?”

  “I don’t know. Which would be worse for you?”

  “Don’t have nothing to do with me.” Johnson flattened his back against the weight bench and reached for the bar. He’d been benchpressing his body weight, 240 pounds. I continued pedaling. When it became obvious we weren’t going to beg for information, the chief stood in front of the full-length mirror and began waving his arms in small circles. His practice was to do light calisthenics for exactly twenty minutes, no more, no less, then take a half-hour shower, all of which he called his fiftyminute workout. Without prompting, you could get Tronstad to do a hilarious spoof of the workout, which had made Sweeney Sears laugh so hard one evening, he cried.

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  After several more minutes of torturous silence, Johnson went upstairs and left me alone in the basement with the chief.

  “You boys concoct a story to tell Sears when he gets back tonight?”

  Abbott asked when we were alone.

  “Sir?”

  “What kind of story are you going to tell your lieutenant?”

  I shrugged.

  “Oh, come on, now. You tell me where the bond came from, and I’ll make sure you’re not included in the fallout. I know those other jerks got you into it. How many of these bonds did you boys steal?”

  I would tell Sears later, but I wasn’t going to tell this bastard. “Tronstad thinks he brought it out of Charles Scott’s stuck to his boot.”

  “But you were on the call. You were inside Ghanet’s house. You helped find the body.”

  “I was there.”

  “And you didn’t see any bearer bonds? Oh, come on, now, sweet cheeks. I find that hard to believe.” He’d never used “sweet cheeks” on me before, although I’d heard him use it on others, and the condescension made me angrier than I thought it would. “What would you say if I told you I took this to a bank today and they told me it’s as real as a Saturday night headache, that they were going to hand over a thousand smackeroos, no questions asked. You believe that, Gum?”

  “If you say so.”

  “You trying to tell me you haven’t cashed any yourself ?”

  “There’s only the one.”

  “It gets deeper and deeper, doesn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Go ahead and play dumb. It’s all going to come out soon enough.”

  He gave me a self-satisfied smile. “By the way. I’ve scheduled a drill for your crew this evening. Sears called and won’t be back until around ten. I thought we’d go down to Station Fourteen and see what sort of props they have set up. How would you like that?”

  “Great.”

  “I thought that’s what you’d say.”

  Drilling for Chief Abbott, who wielded practice sessions more as a

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  form of punishment than as a learning tool, was always a contest of wills. Tronstad had it right when he said, “Abbot likes to see you smile while he’s fucking you in the ass.”

  In the beginning, I thought surely Abbott’s tales of his own prowess on the fire ground were at least partly true, that years ago he’d been stronger, fleeter, and trimmer and had fought fire with the best. But the old-timers at Station 32, where Russell Abbott had worked as a firefighter and then ten years later as a lieutenant, told us he’d been worse than useless on the fire ground—that he’d been downright dangerous. Over the years he’d been the cause of several firefighter injuries, unsafe with a chainsaw and dangerous with a hose line, and after a fire, when confronted, he always denied his inappropriate actions. What confused me in the beginning was how sensible and calm he seemed around the station. His stories, mostly of others screwing up at fires, were detailed, witty, and often displayed an impressive store of firefighting tactics and strategy. There were other clues, though. Once while responding on an alarm on Admiral Way in the battalion chief ’s red Suburban, Abbott got cut off in traffic. When he pulled alongside the dilapidated Buick that had cut him off, the driver, a steel-mill worker on his way home from work, gave Abbott the bone. Abbott, by now code-greened on the original alarm, began chasing the Buick, something he was not trained or authorized to do. He radioed the dispatcher to send the cops, updating his location and direction of travel every minute or so, his exclamations growing more shrill as the chase lengthened. Abbott ended up ambushing the Buick at a stoplight and holding the incredulous driver for the police. During the commotion, Abbott began to feel chest pains and called for a medic unit. When the medics arrived and told him his heart was healthy, that he was only hyperventilating, he threw a temper t
antrum that got him into such a state, they put oxygen on him and transported him to Harborview Medical Center. A year later he found himself in another dispute with a civilian, this time at the scene of an accident, after which he called the medics and told them he thought he was having “another” heart attack. Nobody bothered to remind him that he’d never had a first one.

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  Battalion chiefs drilled engine companies at their discretion, and in our battalion everybody knew if you crossed Abbott, you drilled. There was some speculation that perhaps he also drilled his wife and eight children when they got out of hand. We made enchiladas, and the five of us—Abbott, myself, Tronstad, Johnson, and Oleson—enjoyed a meal that was so pleasant, we were taken aback when afterward Chief Abbott pushed himself away from the table and said, “Well, boys. You ready to do it?”

  “Shit, Chief,” said Tronstad. “You’re not still thinking about taking us out, are you?”

  “I’ll meet you at Fourteen’s.”

  “That stinks, Chief,” said Tronstad. “We had a busy day. Besides, we did three wet drills this morning.”

  “Then you’ll be especially sharp, won’t you? Of course, we could sit around and talk about that bearer bond,” Abbott said, leaning his thick arms on the dinner table, drumming the tabletop with his fingertips. Bob Oleson was the only one in the room who didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “I must have tracked it out of that place without knowing it,” said Tronstad.

  “Sure. Great,” said Abbott, standing. “By the way, I’ll call the dispatcher and put you out of service. And I’ll swing by Thirty-two’s and drop off Oleson. No point in drilling him, is there? Or would you like to drill with them, Bobby?”

  Oleson said, “Uh, actually, I tweaked my back earlier.”

  “That’s what I thought. Just the three of you, then. Station Fourteen. Half an hour.”