Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery) (9 page)

I fell back asleep.

The third time I heard the beeping, it felt like a chime in my brain. It was sharp and unpleasant, and there was a bitter taste in my mouth. Something was crushing my hand, and my eyes wouldn’t open. I wanted to tell someone, but my lips wouldn’t move. My tongue was a swollen thing too big to fit in my mouth. I might have gone crazy if it hadn’t been for the sound of Lamar’s voice nearby. It was low, and he was telling a story.

“The worst fire I ever fought?” Lamar said. “It was about a year before I met you, I reckon. I was still working for the Greenville Fire Department. We’d run out into the backwoods on a call. It was a four-alarm fire, and we were to be relief. When we got there, an old church was ablaze. There was a tank alongside the house, and it glowed as red as our pumper.”

Somebody else spoke, asked a question that I couldn’t make out. Lamar stopped talking, and I felt a flash of anger. Lamar never told stories, and I was afraid that if someone interrupted the flow of his words, the stream would dry up.

“Turns out,” Lamar continued, “we weren’t the ready team, we were the strike team, and our target was that heating tank. The captain ordered me to open up with a quarter inch hose to cool off the tank. Steam from the spray condensed my mask and blistered my hands through the gloves. But I couldn’t take the hose off the tank for fear that it’d blow all to kingdom come. That’s when they hit me in the back with soaker spray. It was touch-and-go for the better part of an hour, me soaking the tank, them soaking me.”
 

“What happened? Did it blow?” Mom asked.

“I’m here.” Lamar’s voice trailed off. “Ain’t I?”

The next time I heard the beep, I woke up soaked in sweat. Light flooded in as I cracked opened my eyes. Mom stood near the doorway of the hospital room, chart in hand, conferring with a man in a white coat. It was our family doctor. The man who once had happily given me a tetanus shot after I gouged myself with a rusty screwdriver caked with turtle poop.

On the opposite wall, the TV was tuned to
MythBusters
, one of Cedar’s favorites. Lamar sat in a green vinyl chair. A book was opened on his lap. He was wearing reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. They were about to slide off.

Abner stood looking out the window. His hands were clasped behind him. He was fiddling his wedding ring, a nervous habit.
 

I struggled to blink. The brightness stung my eyes. I tried to swing an arm across my face, but the IV catheter taped to my hand hurt. I yelped softly but loud enough for Mom to hear.

At the sound of my voice, she passed the chart to Dr. Tetanus and rushed to my side. Her mouth opened wide, and she smiled so big that her chubby cheeks turned her eyes into slits decorated with curling eyelashes.

“Hey, Boonster.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “How’s my boy?”

“That’s Petty Officer Boonster to you,” I said but it sounded nothing like that. My tongue was thick and my throat too raw.

Mom had no trouble translating. “You had us so worried. All of us.”
 

She pointed at Lamar, who had nodded off in the chair near the foot of the bed. The ledge of the long window behind Lamar held several large “Get Well Soon” flower arrangements.

“This looks like a funeral home,” I tried to say. It came out as “Dis wookie wikes funnel ohm.”

“Looks like what?” Mom said.

“A funnel dome.”

“A funeral home?” Mom said. “Boone! Don’t say such things.”

Lamar stirred in the chair. “It almost was just that. Those boys from Atamasco saved your life.”

“Shh,” Mom said. “He's not ready for that yet.”

“How long’ve I been out?”

“Seven hours, give or take a few minutes.”

“I feel weird.”

“It’s the narcotics,” Mom said. “You were hurting earlier, so they gave you a little something.”

“It must be working.” I tried to sit up, but a needle of pain shot from my bellybutton to my left scapula. “Ow.”

Mom used the controls to lift the bed. “Take it easy. You’re lucky to be alive. What were you thinking, Daniel Boone Childress? You rushed into an empty house. The other firefighters said you risked your life for another possum.”

“Possums don’t scream in Spanish.”

“Lamar warned you to follow procedure,” Mom said. “Those procedures are in place to save your life, you know.”

“Can we do this later?” I said. “When you don’t sound like you’re talking through a can at the end of a string?”

“Even with bruised ribs, you’re still a smart aleck.”
 

“That’s a good sign, ain’t it?” Abner wore hiking sandals, canvas pants, and an angler’s vest over a T-shirt, and my hair looked more unkempt that normal. He shooed Mom away from the bed. “You’re talking to a grown man, not a child.”

She sat in a straight back chair next to the bed. “Dad, he’s my son.”

“He's also my grandson, which makes you my daughter.”

“He also did what he knew was wrong.” Lamar cut in. "He put himself and the other men in danger.”

Abner stared Lamar down. “I guess it depends on your interpretation.”

“Rules and regulations aren’t open to interpretation, Dr. Zickafoose.”

“Sure they are.”

“Not mine.”

I tried to whistle to shut them up, but I only managed to dribble spit down my gown. “What happened after I got hurt?”

“Tell him,” Abner said. “He’ll just keep asking.”

“The structure was a total loss,” Lamar said. “The house was in the Allegheny VFD’s district so we had containment duty. No other injuries were reported, only yours. I completed preliminary reports on the—”

“Anybody search the site for victims?”

 
“We did a visual search,” Lamar said. “The fire marshal is following up.”

“Just a visual? You only looked around?”

Lamar shook his head slowly, as if to say, will this boy ever get it through his thick skull? “The debris wasn’t stable enough to risk it.”

I wanted to know how Eugene and his boys had arrived so soon, but between the meds and Lamar’s bad mood, I decided not to press the question.

For now.

Mom pinched my chin and gave it a shake. “Let it go, Boonster. You’re hurt. Your body’s got a lot of mending to do, and it will happen faster if you set you mind at ease. Doctor’s orders.”

“Mind not calling me Boonster?”

“It’s better than Possum.” She straightened the blankets at the foot of the bed. “We do have a dilemma. You’ll need to spend the next couple of days resting. Lamar and I have work, so we need someone to watch over you.”

“A babysitter?”

“More like a day nurse.”

“I’ll be fine by myself.”

“Think again,” Mom said. “Once the meds wear off, you’ll be in some serious pain. We need someone to check your vitals, feed you, and control your dosages.”

“How about putting a cone of shame around my neck?”

“That can be arranged,” Mom said, “if you don’t stop chewing on me.”

 
“I’ll check in on him.” Cedar walked into the room. “Since Boone went to so much trouble to get out of a date with me.”

“Yeah!” I pumped a fist. Then I groaned. Sudden moments were a terrible idea. “Mom, this is Cedar—“

“No need to introduce her,” Mom said. “Her beagle’s one of my patients.” Mom exchanged a quick look with Lamar. “Thanks for the offer, Cedar, that’s very kind of you.”

“Dr. Zickafoose,” Lamar rose from his chair. “How about a Pepsi?”

“I’m a Co-Cola man myself.”

“I’m buying.”

“Let me get my coat.”
 

He grabbed his jacket, and they exited to make room for Cedar, who sat on the side of the bed.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked her.

“I didn’t. At first,” Cedar dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “I was already in the waiting room, and the nurses were talking about a cute but stupid firefighter who got hurt. I knew it had to be you.”

“Why were you in the waiting room?”

“Luigi’s in the hospital, too. He was attacked last night walking home.”

“Attacked? By who? When? After the hospital thing?”

“Slow down and I’ll tell you. He was beaten up by Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.”

“Have you been dipping into my meds?”

“Hush a let me talk, okay?”

 
After he left us last night, she explained, Luigi had set off down Highway Twelve. A car came speeding around the bend. The driver flicked the lights from low beams to high. Luigi was blinded and stepped off the shoulder.
 

The driver slammed on the brakes. Luigi thought they were stopping to help. Then he saw three doors open and four people piled out. They were carrying plastic baseball bats and wore Halloween masks with presidents’ faces.

“Look boys,” Richard Nixon said. “The pork chop fell down and can’t get up. Stupid Mexican.”

“I am Japanese,” Luigi said.

“It don’t make a rat’s ass,” Ronald Reagan said. “All y’all look alike to us.”

Reagan took the first swing, a wild strike that Luigi was able to block with his backpack. His only hope was to fend them off long enough for another car to come by. But the punks attacked all at once.

Luigi fought them off as long as he could. It was not long enough, and they left him bleeding on the side of the road. A few minutes later, a passing driver found him and took him to the emergency room.

Cedar was crying again. Mom passed tissues to her. She dabbed away the tears and then blew her nose.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“Bruises, mostly. He's got a goose egg the size of a tennis ball behind his ear. On that thick boney part.”

“The mastoid process,” Mom and I said in unison.

Cedar smiled. “That’s what I get for talking to a family of bone hunters. But the doctors say he’s going to be okay. They’re keeping him for observation for a few more hours. Truthfully, he’s doing better than the host family. They feel awful about calling Luigi’s parents in Osaka.
Hello, Mrs. Hasagawa, your son got beaten up by a bunch of Presidents
. I couldn’t do it.”

“Did they call the cops? Does he know who did it?”

“Luigi just gave the sheriff a statement. He didn’t see anything. It was dark, and their masks covered their faces. He only remembered that one of them was short.”

I sat up. “How short?”

Cedar shrugged. “I don’t think he had a meter stick on him. It was dark? His ankle was twisted?”

“How about the car? Did he get the make and model? The license plate? Even if he caught a partial number, it would help.”

“It was dark. His ankle was twisted. Were you not listening?”

Mom put her arm around Cedar’s shoulder. “No, he was not listening. He's as bad as my daddy. Always trying to fix things, always wanting to be the hero.”

"There had to be witnesses," I said. "Or tire tracks left beside the road."

“I don’t think he’s listening to you, either,” Cedar said.

“Let me put it in terms that you understand, Daniel Boone Childress.” Mom tucked the covers under my chin. “You will let the sheriff investigate Luigi’s assault. You will leave Luigi alone about it. You will not harangue him for information. You may be his friend, but only to give emotional support. You will stay at home to recuperate. Do you understand?”

“Huh?”

Mom waved a hand across my face. “Earth to Boone. Did you hear a word I said?”

“No haranguing and no fun.”

“Providing emotional support can be fun,” Cedar said.

“Not as much fun as haranguing.”

Mom began an explanation of why I would be a greater help to Luigi as a friend, but I was already tuned out, planning my escape.

1

A hospital was a lousy place to sleep when you were so sore your bones were vibrating, and the only thing you wanted to do was drive over to the Loach’s house and drag Dewayne out of his bed and kick his ass for attacking a Japanese kid who wasn’t bothering anybody.

Fighting was the barbaric, illegal way of settling problems. But with the painkillers leaving my body, I was finding barbarism more and more attractive because I just knew it had been Dewayne and the other knuckle draggers who beat Luigi up.

All night long, I rolled back and forth on the hard bed. Off and on when I managed to sleep, my dreams were haunted by images of the ceiling collapsing and the echoes of a woman’s voice crying for help.

No one was ever happier to see Dr. Tetanus when he made rounds at 0600 the next morning. A few papers were signed, then a wheelchair took me to the curb out front.
 

Minutes later, Abner backed his Range Rover slowly out of the parking space. Mom’s plan was for Abner to take me home, and Cedar would check in on me after her morning classes.

Abner had other ideas.

“You hungry?” he asked when I climbed into the front seat.

I groaned from the sore ribs. “My stomach’s kind of—“

“Because I was thinking of stopping by this diner near Nagswood. It’s a little out of the way, but they make one of the best western omelets in the county. Care to investigate?”

“Now that you mention it.” I shifted in the seat so my ribs were in the least painful position. “Some investigation would hit the spot.”

“That’s my boy,” Abner said and pulled onto the highway.
 

2

The house in Nagswood was a road kill skeleton that had been picked clean. The charred remnants of the frame stood on the corners of the building. The frame on the west side was slightly more intact, with eight feet of unburned clapboard siding joining two wall studs and a window header. The glass in the window was long gone, but the siding was still white. The rest of the structure had given way, collapsing in on itself, burying a home within it. Only red brick chimney remained standing.

“They should’ve built the whole house out of brick,” I said.

“Think that would’ve save the house?”

“Worked for the three little pigs.”

“Just the third one. Come on, let’s get busy.”

Tendrils of smoke dust rose from the debris. Beneath the smoke was a pile of what was once furniture. Now it was a twisted mass cooked together in a carbon stew. If you were patient and could stand the smell, you might be able to tell that the large slab of wood that now resembled alligator skin was once a Chippendale sideboard. You might also see a colonial style secretary desk and a stained glass lampshade. Over in the far corner of the mess that had once been someone’s life, you might see the bedsprings of a queen-sized bed.