“Me or the dog?” Cahill said.
I simply smiled. Cahill just looked at me and shook his head before showing me the way out. As we walked down the steps, he said, “Me, Dougherty, and McGee were at the fire academy at the same time. We did three years together on Engine Thirty-three. I drove his wife home after the wake. She was so medicated, she didn’t know what planet she was on. Kids still can’t make sense of it.”
“I’d like to help.”
“Whatever it takes,” he said. “I haven’t slept in a long while.”
Johnny ran away from a couple of condemned triple-deckers on Dot Ave with a big shit-eating grin on his face. Kevin was driving his Crown Vic that night, windows down and headlights off. He’d parked around the corner and listened to the scanner on low. Johnny opened the passenger side and slammed the big door. He was laughing. The night was hot, and Johnny’s face shone with sweat.
“This one’s gonna be a pissah,” he said. “You see those old shingles on the roof?”
“Yeah?”
“They turn pink from wear,” he said. “They’re made out of gasoline. Those two buildings will burn like crazy. You’ll see this thing for miles.”
“You sure no one’s inside?”
“Does it fucking look like anyone would live in that shithole?” he said. “Or you afraid we’re going to burn up some rats? Don’t be getting soft on me.”
“I just thought we were going to burn that building on E Street. You know, that old warehouse?”
“We are,” Johnny said. “But we burn this and it’ll tie up a couple engine companies. That way we can set up shop and work on that building. We don’t and they’ll put it out before it really gets going.”
“I don’t know,” Kevin said. “They can’t handle all this.”
“If it’s not a mess, then we ain’t doing any good.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know dick,” Johnny said. “Just drive. Everything’s all set. Me and Ray already stacked some tires by the wall. He said it’s covered in scrap wood and oil drums. It’s all ready to go.”
“Do we wait for the call on Dot Ave?”
“You worried it won’t burn or somethin’?” Johnny said. “Christ.”
They drove through Dorchester and up into Southie. The scanner crackled to life: Engine 21, Ladder 17, and Ladder 7. Multiple calls for a fire at 848 Dorchester Avenue. Box 7252 is being transmitted.
Kevin drove. Johnny smiled, hot wind blowing through the open windows. “What’d I fuckin’ tell you?”
Johnny wore rose-tinted sunglasses that night. They were prescription, the kind that reacted to light. When he’d light up La Bomba, they’d change his eyes. He reached into the front pocket of his security guard uniform and pulled out a cigarette. He smoked it while Kevin followed the streets over to an endless warehouse on E Street. Almost all of it looked to be corrugated tin, and Kevin wondered how the hell they’d light up this beast.
Kevin had already sweated through his T-shirt. He reached for the hem and wiped his face. Driving with one hand, he slowed the Crown Vic and parked in an alley. Johnny already had La Bomba in his lap, cigarette dangling from his lips. “Here. You get the freakin’ honor.”
Kevin grabbed the paper bag and got out of the car. He walked to the west side of the building, close to Fargo. He found the wall Johnny had told him about, wood with tar paper and a pile of tires stacked eight feet high. All he had to do was light the match, get in the car, and roll on back to the first houses on Dot Ave. After all, if they didn’t show up at a fire, some of the Sparks would start to wonder.
Kevin’s heart raced and his hands shook as he set the bag next to the tire and struck the match. He got the cigarette going and ran back to the car. Two fires tonight. Johnny said they needed to do five or more tonight or it wasn’t worth squat. Really get the whole department hoppin’. From Southie to Charlestown and maybe over to Brighton. It would be beautiful, he said.
Soon they were headed back to Dot Ave, seeing flames and smelling the smoke from the triple-deckers. The scanner told them it was a working fire now. The chief had called for a second and third alarm by the time they parked a few blocks away. A ton of chatter on the scanner.
At the scene, Kevin and Johnny walked through the dozen or so Sparks watching the blaze and taking pictures. Kevin raised his hand over his eyes, seeing the two buildings burning hot and bright as promised. But also seeing a third house and an apartment building starting to smoke. It had spread. The buildings were too damn close.