A louder explosion came from high above us, by the fire. This time a couple of crates crashed to floor. Two more explosions came from them when they hit, scattering more fire.
'Come on!' I turned and ran. Behind me, I finally heard Cheetah's quick footsteps and Troll's pounding ones. Before I reached the back door, a roaring explosion shook the entire building. I stumbled through the door and ran toward the fence.
By the time I reached it, they had caught up to me. Troll grabbed a steel fence post and simply pushed it flat, shoving the entire fence down and out of our way. On the other side, I turned to look back at the warehouse.
Another series of powerful explosions thundered through the building. Red-orange flames raged in most of the windows now. Crates crashed to the floor. Smoke was pouring out through the broken windows.
'We got to call the fire department!' Cheetah yelled.
'They might not come — that's part of the deal,' I shouted. 'You go ahead and call! Troll, we have to find help! Come on!'
More explosions shook the building. Part of the roof collapsed. Fire danced out of the open space high above us.
While Cheetah ran for a phone, Troll and I crossed the street to an apartment building. I started inside, but he didn't bother. He looked in a second story window, where a couple of jokers were drinking beer and peering out to see what the noise had been. Troll shouted that it was a fire and to bring out the building's emergency firehose, fast.
I yelled for them to bring their neighbors. We would have to start a bucket brigade. Then Troll and I ran to the next apartment building, where we did the same.
Soon we had jokers of all shapes and sizes pouring out into the streets, running or limping or hopping or slithering. Some brought the hoses from their apartment buildings; others brought buckets from their closets or their places of business.
No one had a tool to use on the fire hydrants, but Troll was able to unscrew the protective nut with brute strength and hook up the hoses people brought out. He and some of the other strongest jokers held the hoses. I got people to line up in bucket brigades between the edge of the warehouse and some external spigots on the neighboring buildings.
Flo was right about the fire department, even with this accidental fire. They never showed up. The fire burned late into the night, and the explosions continued. None was big enough to level the building, though, and I figured out why. They weren't bombs in the sense of trying to destroy a building in one big bang. Instead, the stuff in the crates was intended to start fires that would spread afterward. All those small fires were pretty well lost in this great big one.
Actually, at first the bucket brigades didn't do much more than keep the fire from spreading on the ground. That was good, but nobody could get close enough to the building because of the heat and smoke to throw a bucket of water on it. Troll and the other big jokers holding the hoses made the real difference. With a couple of hoses on all three hydrants that were on streets by the warehouse, they kept up the spray.
It was long after midnight by the time the fire died down. Then the bucket brigades really moved in, but they were cautious because of the explosions. Finally the fire was under control and everybody cheered and ran around hugging everyone else. For that one night, all the jokers seemed to put their differences aside and work together to help their own part of town.
Most people started drifting away then. Troll and some of the others stayed until almost three in the morning to make sure the fire was out. Then he came up to me with this wet, heavy lump of metal in one hand and gave it to me. He also gave me a short piece of cord and a small lump of something that hadn't burned. I couldn't tell what any of it was, but I took it home with me. My mother had been too worried to be mad, but everything was okay when I told her I had been in the bucket brigade.
The next morning, I wrapped the unidentifiable stuff from the fire in a towel and took it to work. I stashed it on an empty warehouse shelf until lunchtime. Then, when Peter Choy sat down on a stool in front of the big freezer doors to open his lunchpail, I carried it over to him.
'Mr. Choy?'
'Hi, Chuck. You got your lunch wrapped up there?'
'Aw, heck, no. But, uh … look.' I set it all down on the concrete floor and unwrapped it.
He laughed. 'What is it?'
'I'm not sure. I got it from the fire last night.'
'You were out there?' He leaned forward, looking closely. 'I heard the explosions, but I went back to sleep.'
'Mr. Choy, I'm afraid to go to the police. I don't think they'll listen to a joker — especially a kid like me. But somebody's got a whole bunch of these stashed away.'
'More of them, Chuck?' His voice had suddenly grown serious.
'Yeah. Will you report it, if I tell you?'
'Tell you what. I'll go to the police with you.'
'Aw, no. The fire chief is in on it. The cops might be, too.'
He frowned thoughtfully. Then he closed his lunchpail and stood up. 'I know where to go. No cops. Come on.'
We hiked down to a little Chinatown dive on Mott Street. By the time I had carried the load through the noonday heat that far, I was exhausted and soaked in sweat. For a change, my boss was quiet, instead of friendly and joking all the time.
Inside, Peter walked up to one of the booths. A skinny, chain-smoking man with his brown hair in a buzz cut sat hunched over, alone. Wearing a baggy black suit, he was poking through a bowl of pork noodles with a fork.
'Matt? I'm Peter Choy. We used to talk sometimes when I had lunch here regularly. On my old route.'
'Sure, I remember.' He tugged his tie a little looser and glanced at me. 'So, you want to sit, or what?'
'I might have a story for you.' Peter slid into the booth and gestured for me to join him.
'Chuck, Matt Rainey here is a Chinatown beat reporter for the
I set the bundle on the table. Then I pulled the edge of the towel back just a little. He watched Matt's face.
'Say, I haven't seen a mess like that since Korea.' Matt's narrow eyes widened.
'You can tell what it was?' Peter asked.
He tapped the big piece of metal with a fingernail. 'Magnesium case for an incendiary bomb. It should have been filled with thermite, only this one didn't detonate. The case melted down from heat on the outside instead. Properly detonated, it could generate enough heat to turn steel machinery into a molten puddle. This other thing is a piece of detonating cord. Wrap that around a five-gallon gas can and
'I have to be anonymous,' I said. 'You can't use my name or what I look like or anything.'
Matt blew smoke out to one side and grinned cynically. 'You don't want your name in the paper? All that fame and glory?'
'You take it,' I said.
'All right, then. Give.'
'This was in the big Jokertown fire last night. Stuff like this helped start it. There's another whole warehouse full of these. And word on the street is, they belong to racket guys.'
Peter turned and stared at me in amazement.
'Which guys? You got a name, kid, or just teenage gossip?'
'Lansky. He rented the warehouses.'
Matt's eyebrows shot up. He puffed on his cigarette again and blew out more smoke. 'That fire was real enough; I took a look this morning after I got the word. Where's the second warehouse?'
I told him.
'And you're giving me this tip free and clear? You won't come back later on, whining that I gypped you on
