“My friend Harry came up right behind me. His girlfriend’s baby was in there, on one of the desks, but the blast had knocked the kid to the ground. Harry went around to the left, toward the baby, and I went to the right. Sandra Guarino, she’s the executive director, she was slumped over a desk at the back of the room. I had to work my way around carefully because there was this big hole in the floor, and there were sparks jumping up out of the flames, crackling and catching on things, and it was very bright, from the fire, but also kind of dark, because of the smoke.”
I looked over at the Doc, who was listening intently. “It was like a picture in a Sunday school textbook of what hell was like.” I started to shiver a little.
“It’s all right, Kimo,” Riccardi said, and he put a hand on my shoulder. “We’re almost done.”
I took a deep breath. “I made it around to Sandra and I felt for a pulse. She had one, but it was weak. I wrapped her in my jacket and put her over my shoulder-I guess you know what the fireman’s carry is-and I headed back for the door. Harry had already gotten the baby and gone out. The footing was harder going out because the floor was hotter, and every time I took a step I thought I was going to slip and go into that pit.”
My throat was dry and my lips were parched. Damn, reliving those moments was tough. This must be what victims felt like when I interviewed them.
I licked my lips, took a deep breath, and coughed. Riccardi waited patiently while I got my breath back. “I made it out to the stairway, but by then the walls were broiling hot and I was afraid the stairs were going to collapse under me. I wanted to go fast but I was afraid to put too much stress on the steps and it was hard to move with Sandra over my shoulder. By the time I got downstairs there were flames everywhere. I saw the door ahead of me and I just bulled my way through.”
I looked up at him and smiled. “The last thing I remember is bursting through the door, and my brother was right there, and I knew that he’d take care of things from there. Kind of silly, isn’t it?” I shrugged.
“I don’t think it’s silly at all,” Riccardi said. He turned to Doc. “Okay, that tallies with what I’ve seen so far. A single blast concentrated in the area of the rest room. Probably some kind of plastic explosive, one with a simple timer. Once we can go through the debris I’ll know more. Now, we know Shira was upstairs in the office. If the bomb had blown out the floor directly under him, he would have gone through the roof and he’d be in little bitsy pieces. My guess is that he and the woman were far enough away from the hole that they didn’t get blown up right away. He probably got knocked out, though, and then slid or fell downstairs.”
He looked over at me. “We recovered the body on the first floor, not on the second.”
“That would explain the pattern of the burns,” Doc said. “If he fell feet-first into the fire.”
“Do you think he burned to death?” I asked.
“I have to examine his lungs-or what’s left of them. Whatever I can. My guess is that he was knocked out by the blast and then the fire finished him off. I’ll get you the results as soon as possible.”
“Thanks. You know this is going to be a nasty one.”
“The folks at City Hall do tend to look up when one of their own gets killed,” Doc said. “So, you guys finished with me now? Can I take the body?”
I looked at Mike. “Fine with me,” he said, and I nodded along. “Thanks for your help, Kimo. It looks like things have cooled down a little, so I’m going to take a walk through the ashes. I’ll let you know what I find.”
“I’d like to come with you.”
He smiled. “You aren’t exactly dressed for it. I think you might be missing your smoking jacket.” There was that condescension again.
“This tux is beyond repair. I don’t care if it gets a little smokier.”
“It’s not that. You need special gear to walk around after a fire.” He looked at me. “You sure you’re up to this?”
“I’ve got a job to do. I’ll be up to it.”
He nodded. “All right. I’ve got an extra fire suit in my truck.”
“I heard that the Queen of England was touring Disneyland with Prince Charles when he was a little boy,” I said, as we walked together. “And he told his mother that he wanted a Mickey Mouse costume. So she bought him a fire suit.”
“Very funny,” Mike said, as we stopped in front of a black pickup with red and yellow flames in a stripe down the side.
“Guess you want the world to know you’re a fireman,” I said.
I can’t be sure because of the darkness but I think he blushed. “I bought it from another guy. I didn’t bother to have it repainted.” He had a big locked case that spanned the bed, and all around it were piles of junk. Scraps of wood and metal, broken down tools, what looked like half a surfboard.
“Don’t bother to clean too often either.”
“Please. I grew up in a house with plastic slipcovers on the sofa and a plastic runner on the hall carpet. My mom used to dust every day. I think I’m in rebellion.”
“My mom would have tried that, too,” I said, as he opened the chest and rooted around in it. “But she had three sons. By the time I was born she’d pretty much given up hope of keeping the house clean.”
He pulled a big yellow suit out and held it up to me. He looked at me appraisingly, checking out my body.
I haven’t got anything to be embarrassed about there; I keep in good shape, between surfing, roller blading and riding my bike.
“I think it’ll fit you.”
Our eyes met, and I knew. Maybe Mike Riccardi didn’t know it himself yet; maybe he knew but he just wasn’t admitting it. But in that glance, when our eyes locked on each other, I knew. This hunky fireman with the sexy mustache and dancing eyes was just as gay as I was.
THROUGH THE FIRE
I held his glance for a minute, smiled, and then said, “So where do you think I can go to put this on?”
We both looked around. It was almost one in the morning by then, and the area had begun to empty out. We were about two blocks away from the offices of the Hawai’i Marriage Project, and the storefronts and office buildings around us were closed and locked. “Just go behind the truck,” he said. “I promise I won’t look.”
“I haven’t got anything you haven’t already seen.” Our eyes met again and he smiled. This had definite possibilities, I thought. Then I yawned, and felt an ache in my back, and once again I was conscious of the hammering in my head, which had muted. I had enough on my plate without wondering how I could get into Mike Riccardi’s pants.
I stripped off my jacket and shirt. My back hurt, but I assumed it was because I’d been laying on the pavement. My shirt was a wreck; the back must have caught a stray ember and there was a big hole with brown edges there.
I did allow myself to wonder, as I pulled my pants off and threw them into the cab of the truck, what Mike Riccardi looked like under all that baggy material. My dick responded, and I had to turn away. In turning, though, I exposed myself to the glare of a spotlight, and I’m pretty sure he saw a revealing silhouette.
I stepped into the suit, and pulled a pair of booties over my good dress shoes-also ruined. I had some trouble getting the suit buttoned up and Mike came over to help me. “You get accustomed to this after a while,” he said. “At least it keeps half your clothes from smelling like smoke.”
Together we walked back to the fire site, me clomping along in the ungainly booties and bulky fire suit. A series of high-intensity lights were focused on the ashy remains, but even so Mike handed me a small flashlight. All the engine companies but one had left, and most of the firemen were standing around in the street talking while their last few fellows prowled around looking for stray embers. Mike called out some greetings as we walked in through what had once been the front wall, and I remembered Robert telling me about the rocks that had come through the window that afternoon, the manure on the sidewalk. I wondered if there was a connection, and told Mike about them.
“My first guess is that this is an amateur bomb, which fits with that kind of shit,” he said. “No pun intended. But let’s keep an open mind as we look around.”
