Roast Mortem

“Okay, get ready with that hose,” Lieutenant Crowley bellowed at the nozzle team.

A loud crash sounded over our heads. A spectator cried out as black smoke began to pour off the top of the building’s roof.

I pointed. “Is that supposed to happen?”

“They’re venting the fire,” my guy replied. “That’s how we begin to control it, release the heat and smoke, direct it up and out — and away from your friends.”

Away from Madame and Enzo, I silently repeated, clinging to that thought.

“Okay,” Crowley yelled. “Let’s knock this monster down!”

The flat hose swelled like an overstuffed sausage. The men clutching the nozzle released the explosive water stream. Gripping the engorged hose, they moved closer to the blazing shop while more firemen scurried up ladders braced against the walls of the second and third floor. The sound of splintering glass filled the night as they broke windows and climbed through.

“Go, boys!” Crowley cried.

The men gripping the hose advanced through the doorway and vanished into the haze. As the first blast of cold water hit the broiling blaze, a sustained hiss filled the air, and the thick smoke pouring out of the caffè’s broken windows quickly faded from black to gray.

The firefighters moved even deeper, directing the stream of water toward the blazing ceiling as they advanced. Smoke billowed, obscuring everything for a minute. Just as the veil lifted, a hanging fan came crashing down, narrowly missing one of them. The firefighters didn’t appear to care — they just kept pressing farther into the conflagration.

“What’s happening?” I asked my fireman.

“The nozzle team is using the water to cool the combustible gasses at ceiling level. They’re cutting a path through the fire to the basement door, then Dino Elfante and Ronny Shaw — that’s the man you saw pull the front door off its hinges — those two will get that basement door down and bring your friends out.”

But a moment later, one of those firefighter’s emerged from the oily smoke with his arms wrapped around the other. Paramedics rushed to the pair.

“Put him in a Stokes basket and strap him down tight! It might be snapneck,” Lieutenant Crowley barked to the EMT team. Then he signaled my fireman. “Ronny got clobbered by a chunk of ceiling. We need someone else to go in and make the grab.”

“I’m on it,” my fireman said. Grinning as if he lived for this, he lowered his Plexiglas face shield.

“Not alone, James — ” Crowley warned.

James, I repeated to myself, finally knowing my guy’s name.

“Remember: two in, two out,” Crowley added then spoke into his radio. “Bigsby, you reading me? You’re up.”

James ran toward the burning building and another fireman, with Brewer stenciled across the back of his coat, paired up with him. Bigsby Brewer was a real colossus, more than a full head taller than my guy, who wasn’t exactly a midget. Side by side, the two vanished into the smoke.

As I watched them go, I felt my fragile steadiness going with it. James, like every other firefighter here, seemed almost gleeful about risking his life. But after his kindness toward me I couldn’t help feeling I had a third friend in harm’s way.

I kept my eyes focused on the building’s front door, waiting, hoping, praying that those men would emerge with Madame and Enzo safe, ready for more grappa, and fox-trotting.

It was about then I sensed a large presence just behind me. In a deep, vaguely familiar voice, the hovering form spoke —

“Let’s have an update, Lieutenant.”

“Fire is contained to the single building,” Crowley replied. “The adjacent structure has been evacuated as a precaution, but there’s no sign of any spread. Right now, the nozzle team’s pushing back...”

“Anyone hurt?” asked the male voice.

“The lady here says two civilians are trapped in the basement. Ronny Shaw’s skull got harassed by a nasty chunk of ceiling and is on his way to the docs. Jim and Bigsie are doin’ the snatch and grab on the vics. They should be out any second now.”

“It’s not like you to miss a rescue, Oat.”

Oat Crowley shrugged. “I’m going to Lake George in June, Cap. No time to attend Medal Day.”

The man behind me chuckled and I finally glanced over my shoulder. One look at his face confirmed what I’d suspected: the captain and I had met before. In the reflected shadows of the nighttime inferno, his fair complexion had an almost burnt orange cast. Legs braced, one balled hand propped on a hip, Michael Quinn stood like a municipal tower, a full head taller than his lieutenant and most of the men under his command. His substantial chin sported a prominent cleft, and above his upper lip he wore a trimmed handlebar right out of nineteenth-century New York (or a Lonesome Dove casting call).

Needless to say, this man was not my Mike Quinn. This fire-haired giant was Captain Michael Joseph Quinn of the FDNY — Mike’s first cousin. Both were born in the same month and year, and both shared their paternal grandfather’s first name, but that’s where the solidarity ended.

The captain caught my eye. “You went to an awful lot of trouble to get my attention again, Clare, darlin’. You could have just rung me up for a nice romantic dinner. No need for this elaborate production.”

When I didn’t immediately reply to the man’s stunningly out-of-place innuendo, his hint of a smile blew up into a grin wide enough for his gold tooth to wink at me in the firelight.

“So are you here all alone, then? Where’s my cousin Mikey? Spending too much time shaking down parking violators, is he?”

I just kept staring. The last time I saw this character was aboard a fire-rescue boat that had pulled me out of New York Harbor. Even then, surrounded by the men of the marine squad, he was throwing thinly veiled insults at his cop cousin.

The captain grinned wider at my silence, then used a thumb and forefinger to smooth his mustache, more vivid than his flame-colored roof. “Well, the Quinn family black sheep never did know how to treat a lady.”

Before my fried brain could even begin to formulate a response to that charge, the radio clipped to the man’s coat came to life. As if in stereo, the transmission also echoed through Lieutenant Crowley’s receiver.

“This is Brewer,” the voice said.

“Go ahead, Bigs,” Crowley answered.

“Ten forty-five. Repeat. Ten forty-five. Both victims — ”

Victims? “What’s a ten forty-five?” I shouted. “What’s he saying?”

“Take it easy, honey,” the captain replied, his monotone maddeningly casual. “They’re bringing your friends out right now. Alive and well.”

Donning his white helmet, the captain pushed toward the smoldering building. A whoop went up from the firefighters around me as James emerged from the smoking caffè, cradling Madame.

Pristine peach pantsuit blackened, silver hair a sooty tangle, cheeks and chin smudged with grime, my former mother-in-law looked like an elegant, antique doll that some careless child had badly mistreated. One thin arm held on to her rescuer’s strong neck, while the other hugged the old photo album from Enzo’s basement.

The enormous firefighter named Bigsby appeared next, toting Enzo Testa. As he gently laid the elderly man out on a stretcher, I could see Enzo was in bad shape — conscious but gasping, a long string of dark phlegm under his nose.

In no time, Madame was ringed by a concerned circle of bunker coats. I had to push through the wall of muscle just to get to her.

“Clare!” Tears were in her eyes and mine, too. I moved to hug her, but a female paramedic jumped in first, trying to place an oxygen mask over her mouth. Madame pushed it away.

“Are you insane?” I told her. With her cheeks flushed, I wasn’t sure what had affected her more — the ordeal of the fire or all the grappa she’d drunk. “You need oxygen after the smoke you’ve inhaled!”

“Yes, but” — the octogenarian coughed once then gestured to the army of strapping young firemen surrounding her — “I’d really prefer mouth to mouth.”