Firetrap (31 page)

65. TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE

TREY
>

Over Kitty's radio, we listen as the dispatcher informs King Command he has firefighters trapped inside the building.

I tell Kitty to check her gear and make certain no skin is exposed, and then I do as much myself. It is best to make these checks with gloves off, but when I touch my helmet, my bare fingers recoil from the hot plastic, so I put my gloves back on. Chatty Kathy is strangely silent. She thinks we're going to die. And she's wondering how the hell she ever got herself into a job where you can be cooked to death inside a layered Nomex suit—tall, slim Kitty Acton, who before joining the fire department wanted to be a veterinarian.

The airwaves are crackling. “Dispatch from King Command. Our RIT team is making entry.” Moments later we actually hear firefighters through the thick wall behind us. I can feel movement through the bottle on my back, which is snug against the wall, can feel the vibrations of people moving. And then it is quiet for a long time, perhaps ninety seconds, maybe two minutes. Certainly long enough to cook to death.

“Dispatch from King Command. Our RIT team has been forced out of the building. Repeat. Our RIT team has been forced out of the building because of high heat. We're trying to cool the area now.”

“Geez, they left,” Kitty says.

“They'll be back.”

“Dispatch from King Command. We're not going to be able to access this building from the front. We're going to look for another entrance.”

“Jesus,” said Kitty. “They're not coming back.”

“Hold your horses. It's going to be all right.”

But it isn't going to be all right, and we both know it. Radio traffic has died down. It is rare to have zero fire traffic at a working fire, but that's what we are experiencing. Is it possible they are simply standing out there waiting for us to burn to death? If so, they won't have a long wait. I can hear Kitty burrowing into the debris looking for a cooler place, squirming down like a rat. It is getting hot enough that I pick up a piece of the ceiling board and prop it up to shield me from the radiant heat boring down on us from the fire above our heads. After a while the shield bursts into flame, and I toss it aside.

“Why can't they get us out?” Kitty asks despairingly. I do not reply. I am thinking this is the end. This is how it's going to end.

We all wonder at some point in our lives how we're going to finish. Unless we have a terminal illness or are sitting on death row, it is an enigma for most. Tonight I can verify how and when I am going to die. I'm going to heat up and lose consciousness and eventually burn to death in a smoked-up room beside a firefighter I've worked with for five years and can barely tolerate. It is remarkable to me that I am no more panicked than if I were sitting in the dentist's office waiting for an appointment. Maybe that's because there's nothing I can do about any of this.

There will be a whole lot of people at the funeral. Johnny will cry. My mother will handle it with the same stoicism with which she's handled all the bad luck in her life. Jesus will be her savior. There will be a massive department-orchestrated funeral, and our caskets will be lushly filmed for the news. They will remember that I was the hero at the Z Club and marvel that I could be dead a month later. People will give long, rambling speeches recalling trivia about my life that I don't even remember. The mayor will give a speech over my casket and tell the crowds he loved me like a brother.

There is a rattling, and something attacks the steel door, banging against it. After a moment, I decide it's a chain saw. The noise goes away. Then the wall directly behind me begins to vibrate. Moments later a chain saw blade pops through the wall.

“Goddamn,” says Kitty. “You gotta love 'em.”

The chain saw is high and to my left, working across the wall above me. Then the horizontal cut is ended and the saw is withdrawn. They begin another cut, this one vertically about four feet to my right, coming down the wall, the blade poking through on our side. Don't they know when you're cutting through a wall you don't bury the blade? You go by feel, and when the blade has barely breached the wall you hold it there. That is the procedure. Whoever is working that chain saw is working wild.

The vertical cut four feet to my right takes longer than did the horizontal one over my head. Perhaps the chain is becoming dulled. It isn't until the first downward vertical cut is almost complete that I try to recall exactly where the horizontal cut above my head began, because it is beginning to occur to me that the next downward vertical cut will be along my spine.

I'm jammed up against the wall and they're preparing to cut me in half lengthwise.

I push the send button on my portable radio and say, “Engine Twenty-eight to RIT team. Don't bury the saw so deep. I'm trapped against the wall opposite where you're cutting.”

I wait a few moments, but there is no reply. The saw finishes its cut to my right, and a moment later it bulges through the wall directly over my head, showering sawdust over me. At the depth he's burying the blade, it will rip through my bunking coat. It will slice my helmet. It will open my back in a way that will probably kill me. I arch and look up, using the flashlight on my helmet, directing the beam so that I might know whether the blade is going to come down with surgical precision or gross imprecision. Someone's got it poised directly over my spine.

“Kitty!” I shout. “You gotta jam the saw! It's coming right at me.”

As she begins to stir, the saw blade crawls down the wall toward me, three feet away, two and a half, two…with a grinding sound…“Engine Twenty-eight to command. The saw is too deep. You have to stop the saw.”

No reply. I repeat my message as the saw blade moves toward me. To her credit, Kitty hits the wall hard. I don't know what the article is, but she holds it flat against the wall, and then the chain saw blade whips through it like a hot knife through butter. “God damn!” she says, scrabbling for another object to block the blade.

But it's too late. The blade nicks my helmet and specks fly off, then it passes my neck and I cringe. It spins and whirs on my composite air bottle and jams. The blade is stuck in the wall for a moment and then they pull it out. I whack the wall five times in succession, desperately trying to send a message.

When the dispatcher calls on my radio, I realize why I haven't contacted the fire crews. I've been on channel 16. Everybody else is on channel 1, the fire ground channel. The dispatcher says, “Engine Twenty-eight. Your message was garbled. Repeat.”

“The saw they're using is going to cut me,” I say as calmly as possible. Kitty is straddling me now, standing over me with a chunk of something else she's found in the rubble, her bunking trousers crotch in my face. “Tell the rescue crews they have to move the cut.”

“Okay, Engine Twenty-eight. We'll relay the message.”

When the saw starts up again and pokes through the wall, we can hear the dispatcher's warning on Kitty's radio, but it occurs to me that it will be impossible to pick up on the other side of the wall because of the roaring chain saw. The saw has been moved over a few inches, and I struggle to try to reposition myself so it will come down on the bottle again, but I cannot move. They're going to gut me from behind.

The saw moves faster this time, and I tell Kitty not to let the chain take a chunk out of her. Even as I'm speaking the blade cuts through whatever piece of junk she's jammed against the wall, and she falls backward in front of me, landing on the beam across my lap. It hurts, but it doesn't hurt as much as the chain saw blade when it zippers alongside my air bottle and shreds my bunking coat and goes deep enough so that I can actually feel the revolving steel in my back. I vow not to scream, but even before I complete the silent vow I begin screaming.

In the movies people pass out when they feel this much pain, but the blade rips into my flesh and continues down as if I'm just another layer of wallpaper, and no matter how badly I want to, I do not pass out. And then the blade is done, and they're hacking at the wall with axes, and moments later the heat lifts as I fall backward into the corridor with a large chunk of the wall. The idling chain saw on the floor is next to my head.

I watch Kitty being led to safety, and then they're lifting the beam off my legs and dragging me faceup, racing to the entranceway, and for a few seconds it's hotter than it was inside the room, and then we're in the parking lot and they've set me down. My legs are numb and my back is bleeding. My torn bunking coat is bright with blood.

I lay motionless in a tangle of gear and wait for them to realize I'm seriously injured. And then they're cutting my turnout clothing and mask backpack off with scissors and buck knives. There are five or six people working on me, and when my back is exposed to the evening air, one of the medics says, “Sweet Jesus. Get him on a backboard quick.”

They roll me onto my side and lift me onto a backboard and into the back of the medic unit, the same basic procedure I've done with hundreds of patients myself.

Sitting beside me is my friend Rumble, blubbering and confessing that he was the man on the saw. A firefighter is taking my blood pressure while one medic puts an IV into my left arm. The other medic is behind me, and I can feel gentle pressure as he pushes 4x4s against my wounds. I do not ask how badly I am hurt. I can tell from the ministrations of the medic team that they are in a panic. If nothing else, I've lost an enormous quantity of blood. I can barely stay awake. Before I know it, we are headed to Harborview Hospital, a firefighter driving, the two medics remaining in back trying to keep me alive. Rumble to one side, his teary eyes huge with guilt and grief. I'm not sure I've ever felt this much pain.

“Don't worry about it. You saved my life.”

“Geez, Trey. I can't believe I did that. I'm so goddamn sorry.”

From what I can feel along my back, the wound is twelve or thirteen inches long and runs from my scapula to a spot near my hip. To say it hurts is an infinite irony. It is the worst pain I've felt in my life. Every breath is agony. I'm getting weaker by the minute. Can feel myself begin to nod off.

“Don't leave us, Trey,” Rumble says. “Whatever you do, don't leave us.”

I drift off.

66. THE MAYOR TALKS HIMSELF OUT OF A JOB

JAMIE ESTEVEZ
>

The waitstaff, male and female, was decked out in white tuxedo-style shirts and black tuxedo pants as they served between two and three hundred people gathered in the lower level of the Space Needle, 100 feet above the ground.

Stone Carmichael had chosen to build his public persona on events that in most families would remain private, sacrificing intimate moments for the greater glory of the family name. The room was full of the Carmichael family and friends. Kendra and her husband spoke to me briefly, and it was from Kendra that I gleaned that the anniversary celebration was a sham, that the Carmichael marriage was on the rocks, and that Carmichael had somehow coerced his estranged wife into participating. I couldn't help thinking Trey had something to do with their marriage going south, and the thought made my blood boil. We'd been getting along better lately, but he could still make me fume. I visited with Echo Armstrong, who was concerned that her husband was consuming liquor as quickly as he could locate it. The old man was there, too, Shelby Carmichael, who busied himself pestering a red-headed camerawoman working for the local ABC affiliate. I noticed Shelby's nurse following him at a discreet distance, as if he might keel over without warning. Every major city functionary I'd ever met was in the room. A half hour into it, Harlan Overby made an entrance. In his late sixties, he looked trim and fit, his silver hair slicked back, his suit tailored perfectly.

True to Carmichael's habits, the evening was preplanned, printed programs on rice paper available at the door. From seven until eight, there would be a cocktail hour with hors d'oeuvres. At eight: speeches, cake, music, and dancing. At eight forty-five, there would be an announcement. In a corner near the elevator, I'd glimpsed boxes of banners and buttons: “Carmichael for Governor.”

Thankfully, eight o'clock came and the celebratory speeches about the Carmichael marriage were offered, toasts were proffered, cake was sliced and passed out. The lights were dimmed while Stone and India danced a spotlight dance in front of hundreds of admirers—you couldn't even tell they didn't like each other. Stone Carmichael was probably the most popular Seattle mayor in thirty years. You would have to say—if you didn't know he was a crook or that India had been having a fling with a captain in the fire department and was leaving him—that they were perfect together. She wore a black off-the-shoulder floor-length dress, her pale hair long and loose. Stone had doffed his spectacles and had the half-blind look habitual glasses wearers get without them. The only snag that came remotely close to spoiling the picture was that India was half a head taller; I noticed she didn't kick off her heels to lessen the discrepancy in height. After their solo dance, the lights brightened and the dance floor began filling up. Around the outskirts chitchat started up again.

I was headed for the restroom when I saw Trey Brown and another African-American male arguing angrily with the security guys. The man accompanying Trey was shouting, but the music was so loud I could barely hear. Finally he flipped some identification out and they were allowed into the party.

Trey wore fire department trousers with a shabby white cotton coat that I learned later had been lifted from the hospital. He had white cream on his ears, probably Silvadine, the common medication for burns. So did his partner. When Trey saw me, he stopped and introduced Rumble. The two of them looked as if they'd just gotten home from a long road trip, or just crawled out of a fire.

“You know about the tape, right?” Trey's friend said.

“The what?”

“This. This right here,” he said, pulling a small tape cassette recorder from a pocket in his fire department coat. “His honor on the phone?”

“Rumble has a hard time keeping a secret,” Trey said, wandering off through the crowd.

“What?” his friend shouted to Trey's backside. “I can keep a secret. It was your idea to do this. You're the one who's mad.” My eyes followed Trey as he moved through the crowd. There was something wrong with the way he was moving.

“What's he mad about?” I asked.

“He thinks they tried to kill him.”

I knew from conversations with Trey that Rumble was his best friend and had been ever since they came into the department together. “Aren't you guys supposed to be at work? Isn't Trey's shift working today?”

“We
were
at work,” Rumble said. “Now we're here. Hey. You got any idea where the sound techies are hiding out?”

Not much later, while the police and fire chiefs and their wives were socializing near the windows on the west side of the room, somebody came in and handed a message to the fire chief, who in turn rushed the note to Stone Carmichael, who was about to mount the stage for the evening's centerpiece speech. The speaker of the state House of Representatives had halted the dancing and was giving a short talk, working up to the evening's announcement, I presumed, while Stone conferred with the fire chief.

Moments later, the speaker of the house ended his speech by announcing what we'd all guessed, that Stone Carmichael was in the running to be the next governor of the great State of Washington. Amid a chorus of whistling and party horns, thrown confetti, and a massive release of balloons, Carmichael leaped up the stairs to the podium and shook hands with the speaker, then with several other regional political figures. The band played a riff and ended with a staccato drum solo. Stone stepped up to the microphone, cleared his throat, and waited while the silence solidified.

“I'm going to talk politics in a moment, but first…Chief Smith has handed me a note that should give us all cause for concern. The fire department has suffered another tragic fire. A firefighter has been seriously injured. We don't know how seriously, but he's been rushed to Harborview. Ordinarily I wouldn't give out a name this early, but it's somebody we all know and respect. Most of you may remember Trey Brown as the man who made those valiant rescues at the Z Club a month ago. Right now our hopes and prayers are with this man.”

A smattering of applause. A couple of amens. Only a few people in the room realized Trey Brown was thirty feet in front of me, but even so, I could see a portion of the crowd react around him like a ripple in a pool.

Trey stepped through the crowd to the front of the room and stood under the podium. Something had stained the back of his white jacket, and as I got closer, I realized it was blood. The realization that he was bleeding made me want to scream. Rumble hadn't volunteered any details about their evening, but at that moment the dark, brooding look I'd seen in Trey's eyes began to make sense.

“Well, here he is now,” Stone said, noticing his brother for the first time. Again, applause halted the program. “Captain Brown, I'm glad to see you're here and apparently doing well. The report we received was alarming.”

“Because I wasn't dead?”

“I don't understand.”

“You've wanted me dead for years.”

“Perhaps your doctor…” Stone addressed the crowd. “Did somebody come with this man?” By this time Carmichael had a simpering, half-embarrassed, angry look on his face. “I really think somebody should assist this man,” Stone said, gesturing to persons in the crowd I couldn't see from my position. “He's apparently under the influence of medication. Get him out of here before he hurts himself!”

The two security guys I'd seen at the elevators grabbed Trey and began walking him through the throng. Trey didn't struggle, and because of this I got the feeling he was incapable of resistance. They hadn't gone far when there was a loud droning as somebody tinkered with the sound system, and then voices came over the room's speakers. I didn't recognize the first voice, but Trey had already told me who it was.
“Yeah. Thought I'd check in. I got that info. They're definitely going after the owners of the club.”
Of course, the first voice was Barry Renfrow speaking to Stone Carmichael, but it wasn't until they'd had several exchanges that most people in the room realized they were listening to a taped phone call and that one of the parties was the mayor.
“Yesterday he called the King County assessor's office and then the city attorney's office. He's already got Silverstar Consolidated's name. It's only a matter of time before he finds out Overby owns Silverstar and has been funding your gubernatorial campaign and getting special favors in return. The direction he's taking isn't good. And we both know this isn't some kid you can intimidate. He's a captain in the fire department. He comes up with certain facts and people are bound to believe him. The whole city's watching these two investigate, and the worst part is, I don't know what the hell he's going to do next. We've got to figure out some way to control this report so it doesn't make us look bad.”

“Just keep an eye on Captain Brown and let me know what he's doing.”

“It might be too late by the time we see what he's up to. I think something needs to be done now.”

“Something harsh?”

“You can't treat a guy like this with kid gloves.”

“Don't worry about it. I have an inside source. When things start to get too scary, she'll let me know and then I'll let you know.”
The reference to me hurt, even though nobody else in the room except Trey knew what it meant.

“But, Stone—”

“Christ, Barry, I'm late for a ball game with my kids. Okay. Have it your way. Stop him. Maybe you can distract him or something. Get him a white woman. A fat one. All the black guys seem to go for that. Overby has raised a lot of money so I can be the next governor, and we don't need some hero messing it up by digging up the truth about Silverstar and our connection to the Z Club. But keep my name out of it. Keep my campaign out of it. Keep Harlan Overby out of it. Hell, Barry, you've been doing this for years. And I don't care if you have to hurt him. Listen, my boys are waiting with the bodyguard out at the car.”

Stone Carmichael, who was beginning to shrivel in place, said, “This isn't what you might think.” Everybody had recognized his voice, and it was common knowledge that Trey had been physically attacked on the street last week. Booing began to roll from the back of the room, then more from the front. I could see Stone's brain turning over the different ways he might spin this.

Harlan Overby made for the elevators. So did Shelby Carmichael and his nurse. India disappeared for a few moments but came up for air near one of the far windows, gazing out at the city lights with something that looked remarkably like contentment on her face. Almost as if on a signal, the local press in the room rushed the mayor en masse, three cameras and almost a dozen print reporters surrounding him before his entourage could mobilize and block the assault. One reporter was off to the side interviewing the head of the local chapter of the NAACP, who was saying, “…everything in my power to make sure he never holds elected office again. We're calling for a new investigation of the mayor and his participation in this cover-up.”

A few feet away, Miriam Beckmann from Z Club Citizens for Truth was giving an interview. “This is racism bare naked.” Several black people had angrily disengaged Trey from his two escorts and, free now, he made a beeline for India Carmichael at the windows. My heart broke to see him approach her, and it broke again when I saw the splotches of blood on the back of his jacket. Amid the uproar, nobody else in the room seemed to notice her. I remained far enough away not to impose, but close enough to come to Trey's aid should he falter. Rumble showed up about then, but I held him at bay with a hand gesture.

Trey and India looked at each other for a long moment, spoke a few words I couldn't hear, and then he turned and headed for the exit, draping an arm over my shoulders and taking me with him as casually as if he'd done it every day of his life. Rumble stared at India Carmichael for a few moments, then followed us. The ice queen, it seemed, had lost this round. It wasn't until much later that Trey told me she was the one who actually won it.