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block, and a good third of the middle part of the structure was alight. It
was more than hellish, I thought, as an interior wall collapsed and the im-
plosion ushered a flurry of sparks toward the sky. It was also astonishingly
beautiful.
Jesus, we re in some deep shit, Tronstad sputtered.
I wouldn t be worried, Johnson said. A fire like this, all you do is
squirt water from the sidewalk. We might not even get out of staging.
I m not talking about the fire. I m talking about jail.
Jail? You said yourself, we keep quiet and there s not a thing anybody
can do.
Nice plan, Tronstad said. Except for big mouth here.
You re kidding, right? Johnson asked, grinning at me. What? You
accidentally let something out? He guessed? What?
Tell him, Dubble Bubble. Go ahead. Tell him how you fucked us.
We d stopped in the dark in the middle of the closed-off street, so
Johnson couldn t see me clearly. Even though they d initiated the crime, I
felt as if I were solely to blame for our predicament.
My Lord, Gum. Tell me you didn t tell Sears the three of us are sit-
ting on all them bearer bonds. Jesus, Lord, have mercy on my poor black
ass. Why the fuck did you go and do a fool thing like that? What were you
thinking?
130 E A R L E ME R S ON
I honestly thought he would help us.
You mean you thought he would help you, Tronstad said, punching
me in the shoulder. Jesus, you friggin idiot. His blow didn t hurt
through the thick bunking coat, but it was the first time he d ever hit me,
even in jest, and I took note of it. You re a fuckin squealer, is what you
are. Nobody would have known if you d kept your mouth shut.
He was going for the cops before I said a word.
Sure he was.
He was.
Johnson put his hand on my shoulder where Ted had socked me.
We re in this together, but lordy, Gum, that was a dumb move. That was
just plain dumb.
Maybe if we get an attorney, we could make a deal. They don t pros-
ecute and we keep our jobs.
Dream on, peckerwood, Tronstad said.
Johnson s eyes were locked on the flames a block away. We re not
going to get the money, and we re going to lose our jobs. I didn t have any-
thing to do with it, but I m still going to have to explain why I bought that
Cadillac SRX.
I know this. Tronstad faced Johnson squarely as if I weren t there.
Somebody besides Sears, maybe we could cut him in. Split it four ways
instead of three. But you can t reason with Sears.
Tronstad turned to me. And you . . . I oughta wring your fucking
neck.
We re going to be here a couple of hours, Johnson said. We ve got
that long to plan.
I don t know about you guys, said Tronstad, but I m going to bug
out of here.
Like hell, Johnson said. You leave, and we re no longer a crew. He ll
have us arrested the minute he sees you re gone. I see you make a move,
I m yelling for a cop.
Then let s all go.
No. We need to think it through.
This is bullshit! We should all go!
And how long before Sears notices all three of us are missing? John-
T HE S MOK E R O OM 131
son asked. If you weren t wearing your ass for a hatband you might be
able to help us puzzle our way out of this.
Sears is going to hang us, Tronstad said.
He s doing what he has to do, I said.
You re a dumbass if you believe that. He s been trying to bone us
from the first day.
We were in staging now, an area set aside in a parking lot two hun-
dred yards south of the fire building, where incoming crews reported
while waiting for assignments. Including us, there were maybe thirty-five
extra firefighters milling about. Most of the smoke boiled over our heads,
but every once in a while a cloud rumbled down the street like a herd of
black elephants through the massed firefighters.
As always, I was struck by how large the average firefighter was, most
well over six feet, many over 250 pounds. This was before adding the
45 to 50 pounds of protective gear, MSA backpacks, and the compressed
air bottles we all wore. I always tried to make up for my lack of bulk by
working twice as hard as the next man, and I wanted to be especially dili-
gent tonight, for this would be my last fire.
The mood in staging was subdued. If they weren t thinking about the
fire in front of us, people were thinking about Abbott s funeral eight
hours earlier. Across the street behind Battalion 2 s Suburban, a cluster of
chiefs in white helmets conferred. Every other company officer had fol-
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