just another shabby frame house on the East Side, in a working-class, mostly Slovak neighborhood-made for a full- scale disaster.
Especially in Cleveland, where the fire department was using equipment that was modern only in the sense that horses weren't pulling it. Ness had taken the safety director's job because of its relationship to the police de- partment, to law enforcement. He had not, frankly, given the fire department much thought.
Thus far he'd had only one brief meeting, on Thursday morning, with Fire Chief Grainger. All else had been police matters. The mayor's two-month ticking clock made that the top priority. This included dealing with Potter, who'd seethed silently at the news of his 'promotion,' and the betting-parlor raid, on which he'd allowed Wild to come, where as expected someone had phoned in a tip-off, queering the bust.
Tonight, Friday, he was learning that the fire department was just as troubled as the police. Corruption wasn't the problem. The men Ness had seen tonight did their jobs bravely and relatively well. However, he'd also seen fire hoses with low pressure due to leakage, patched hoses that wouldn't fit hydrants without some imaginative jury-rigging, and a hook-and-ladder truck so decrepit that it, arrived after the two police squads and the pumper truck and the ambulance.
Ness had been on his way home this Friday night, after a long afternoon of meetings with various commissioners and department heads, when he heard on his one-way police radio the call go out for police backup on a fire at an old folks' home at 933 East Seventy-eighth Street. It seemed like a good opportunity to check out the fire department in action. It was already ten o'clock, and he had a brief thought of Eva waiting for him well into the evening, but he dismissed it.
He had pulled up in the Ford and leaped out and pitched in, helping those old people out the front door. The frame house was distinguishable from its neighbors only by its state of dilapidation, a small sign saying JOANNA HOME that hung from the roof over the porch and, of course, the fact that it was very much on fire.
'I'm the safety director,' Ness had snapped at the team of three firemen who were trying, with little success, to get the pumper truck in operation. 'Where the hell's your hook-and-ladder?'
They looked at him and shrugged, in unison, and went back to their work. It would have been amusing, if the air hadn't been filled with the crying and coughing and rasping and puking of the dozen or more old people, trooping out of the house like refugees, aided by fire fighters and neighbors.
The hook-and-ladder arrived minutes later, and Ness identified himself to the battalion chief who rode on board, a middle-aged potbellied Irishman with a nose as red as the fire.
'Where the hell have you been, Chief?'
'Director Ness, I'm sorry-but you can only get to a fire so fast when your truck's so old it can only climb hills in reverse gear. Now if you'll be excusing me, sir, I have a fire to put out.'
Ness had no answer to that, and when he got a look at the ancient, rusted-out hook-and-ladder, he could only sympathize.
The fire fighters did a good job, considering. They began by quickly, thoroughly wetting down the houses on either side of the burning one. The street was filled with curious neighbors, including those who'd fled the homes bordering the Joanna, and the two police squad cars, which Ness had beat to the scene by several minutes, another fact that didn't sit well with him, began crowd control procedures, keeping them back on the other side of the street. The front of the house became a wall of ice as water from the hoses froze on contact. The whole scene was a nightmare of hot and cold, fire and ice.
'These goddamn winter fires are the worst,' one soot-rouged fireman told Ness, in a panting, hoarse voice.
Ness understood. He had watched the frustrated fire fighters, kneeling over the frozen-up hydrants, using blow torches to melt them down-fighting fire with fire.
One group of firemen was in the house, while another group climbed ladders, smashing out upper windows, having already done so on the first floor. They seemed somewhat scattered in their efforts, with many of the younger men frantically asking older ones what to do next. The battalion chief to whom Ness had spoken seemed to be the only one with authority, and he was busy directing the outside hoses.
The fire fighters had decided the building was now empty. A fortyish, rail-thin woman was in charge, but it had not yet been pinned down if she was the owner or not. Mrs. Winters proved to be as cold as her name.
'This'll cost me a pretty penny,' she disgustedly told Ness, who had inquired after the old people, getting from the gray-robed woman an exact count of the number of 'patients' at the home.
'If you're thinking of repairing this place,' Ness said, 'I wouldn't count on it.'
Her witch's face contorted. 'You think the damage is going to be that bad?'
'I think your 'home' is an obvious fire trap and you're out of business.'
She scowled and moved away, disappearing into the crowd of neighbors.
The Salvation Army contingent showed up in a beat-up truck and an old flivver. From the truck the uniformed men and women began dispensing doughnuts and coffee to the elderly victims, and using the flivver to shuttle them to a nearby hospital. It disturbed Ness to see that the Salvation Army was better organized and more efficient than either of the public departments under his command.
Chief Grainger showed up when the fire was well under control, a second hook-and-ladder and another truck already on the scene. A sturdy blue-eyed, white-haired man of fifty-five, Grainger was in full uniform and looked pretty spiffy. Ness wished the department had a single fire truck that looked so fit for duty.
'My men have got things in hand, I see,' the Chief said proudly as he approached Ness, where he stood in the middle of the street watching the fire.
'They do,' Ness admitted. 'On the other hand, I think the neighbors putting together a bucket brigade might have done about as well.'
The two men were bathed in the shadowy flickering of smoke and flames from across the way.
Chief Grainger bristled, but kept his tone respectful as he said: 'My men are dedicated public servants, Director Ness.'
'I know they are. I'd like to see what they could do with equipment manufactured after the turn of the century.'
Grainger shrugged, and smiled humorlessly. 'We do what we can with what we're given.'
Despite the truth of that, it struck Ness that Grainger was copping out. 'It's going to take more than new equipment to overhaul this fire department, Chief. I've seen less than a crack team at work here tonight. More training is obviously needed. I may not be an expert about firefighting, but I know that much.'
'Training takes money, too,' Grainger said.
'Agreed,' Ness said tersely. 'And I want your detailed budget request as soon as possible. Make that part of it.'
'First thing Monday soon enough?' Grainger asked.
'That would be helpful.'
'You think we'll get what we ask for?'
'We'll know in a couple of months, won't we?'
The Chief nodded glumly and tipped his cap to the safety director as he left to join his men, not pitching in, just observing and cheering them on.
Ness checked his watch. It was almost midnight and he hadn't even called Eva. Damn.
He was heading for his car when the mayor's limousine pulled up, sliding a little on the glassy street, iced over from the fire fighters' hoses. His Honor, dressed in a tux, an expensive gray topcoat draped over his shoulders, stepped out of the back seat, as the police driver held the door open. Mrs. Burton remained in the car, a vague shape in a white stole. The crowd of neighbors began smiling and chattering; a few hollered hellos to the mayor, and he smiled tightly and waved back at them.
'I was on my way home from a banquet at the Hollenden,' Burton explained to Ness. The mayor, in white tie and tails, was an incongruous figure in this neighborhood, standing in an ice-slick street before the burning ramshackle frame house. 'I heard an old-age home had caught fire. I thought I should check it out…'
Just yesterday Ness had ordered a police radio installed in the mayor's car, at His Honor's request. He had also presented Burton with a gold Safety Department badge, which had pleased the mayor, who seemed to have a childlike enthusiasm for cops-and-robbers stuff.
'Fire's under control,' Ness said.
