9. Cheaters
Cheaters
WYATT
Mid-afternoon. No calls in the last two hours. Knox, Travis, and Greene were at the table in the common area, three hands deep in a game that had been going since lunch. I was on the couch with my phone, half watching.
Knox laid his cards down. Travis threw his on the table.
"You cheated!"
Knox collected the pot without looking up. "You scratched your nose every time you had a pair."
"I did not." His voice went up half an octave.
"Three times," Greene said.
Knox was intense about two things in life: firefighting and poker.
A year ago, a ceiling beam came down on a call and a piece of debris tore open the side of his neck, from his ear to his collarbone.
I was on that call. I watched him drop. We almost lost him that night, and the only reason we didn't was a nursing student who held him together until the medics reached us.
What I couldn't wrap my head around was that he came back. Full duty, no hesitation, first one through the door like nothing had changed. I didn't know whether I admired him for it or thought he was out of his mind. Probably both.
"I'm done." Travis shoved back from the table. "I need to take a leak."
Greene yawned and followed him toward the bunk room. "Wake me if there's a real game."
Knox started shuffling the deck out of habit. He nodded at my phone. "What are you looking at?"
I turned the screen toward him. "Gandalf and Frodo. She wants the full setup, so I'm ordering cloaks, a vest, and foam hobbit feet."
"That's a cute costume," he said.
"She's been talking about it for months. She agreed to be a hobbit as long as I wear the beard."
Knox almost smiled. "Smart kid."
I hit confirm on the order and put my phone down. The ring was already handled. Birdie had been carrying a plastic one from a goodie bag she got at a birthday party, and no amount of negotiation was going to replace it.
"What are you doing for Halloween?" I asked.
Knox shrugged. "I'll probably pick up the shift."
That was Knox. He never lied about his plans, and he never offered more than the answer to the question you asked.
Outside of the job, Knox kept to himself.
I didn't know if he was seeing anyone. I didn't know if he'd ever been with anyone.
Whatever his personal life looked like, he kept it behind a door he never opened, and nobody on the crew pushed.
If there was something on the other side of that quiet, he'd tell us when he was ready.
Carl walked through the common area with a coffee in his hand. "Man, it's been a quiet shift."
Knox and I both looked at him.
"What?" Carl said.
The tones dropped.
Carl closed his eyes. Knox was already on his feet. I got off the couch and pointed at Carl on my way to my gear.
The warehouse was fully involved by the time we arrived. Flames through the roof, black smoke rolling west across the road. There were two engines on scene ahead of us, hoses already running. Our captain positioned us on the delta side and we went to work.
Police had the perimeter. Traffic was being routed around the block, cruisers at both intersections. An officer was waving vehicles through. Firefighters and cops on the same scene were standard for anything this size. We handled the fire, they handled everything else.
I was pulling a second line off the engine when I heard him.
"Brooks. Move your rig. You're blocking my lane."
Sergeant Elliot Handler. Pressed uniform, sharp jaw, sunglasses he didn't need. He was standing ten feet from the engine with his arms crossed, looking at our apparatus like it was parked in his personal driveway.
"We're on the delta side, Sergeant. Captain positioned us here."
"And I need that lane for emergency vehicle access. Move it."
I looked at the lane. It was clear. There was no access issue. He just didn't like a fire engine taking up space he considered his.
"I'll let my captain know you have a concern."
He stared at me for a second then walked off.
Every firefighter in this department knew Elliot Handler.
We called him Sergeant Hollywood on account of the sunglasses he wore to every scene like he was waiting for a camera crew.
He showed up and acted like the fire crew was furniture.
Like we were in his way, taking up his space, doing a job he didn't consider as important as his.
He talked past fire captains, gave orders he didn't have the authority to give, and treated every inch of scene tape like it belonged to him personally.
The cops who worked under him seemed to tolerate it. The rest of us just stayed clear.
I watched him walk toward the command post. He stopped to say something to a patrol officer near the perimeter, didn't wait for a response, just talked and kept moving. The officer stared at his back for a second before turning around.
Some men make themselves big by making everyone around them small. Handler did it without even trying to hide it.
I turned back to the line and got to work.
The fire took two hours to knock down. By the time the last hose was drained, the sun was lower and the smoke had thinned to a gray haze drifting across the lot. The warehouse was a shell. Investigators would be out tomorrow.
I pulled my helmet off and wiped my face with my sleeve. Knox was coiling hose. Greene was talking to the captain. Travis was somewhere behind the engine, drinking water like he'd just crossed a desert.
I scanned the perimeter and found her.
Andy Walsh. Standing near the east barricade with her notepad, talking to a civilian. She finished the conversation, wrote something down, and looked up.
I walked over because annoying Andy Walsh was the best part of any shared scene.
"Officer Walsh. Always a pleasure."
She looked at me. Soot on my face, sweat through my shirt. Her expression didn't change. "Brooks."
"How's your day going?"
"Better before you walked over."
"See, that's what I like about you. The warmth."
She almost cracked. I saw it. The corner of her mouth twitched before she caught it and pulled it back. Then her jaw tightened and the smile disappeared before it started.
"So firefighters really are cheaters?" Her voice was different. Sharper. "What are you doing here flirting with me when you have a wife and a daughter?"
The word hit me in the chest.
Wife.
I kept my voice steady. "My wife died in childbirth."
The color left Andy's face.
"Oh." She was quiet for a second. "I'm sorry."
Her eyes dropped and the edge she'd come at me with was gone.
"It's fine." I didn't want her to feel bad about it. "For the record, we're not all cheaters. At least not my crew."
She nodded. The tension in her shoulders loosened by a fraction.
"So you're just dorks with muscles?"
I laughed. "Yeah. That sounds about right."
She smiled.
"Get back to work, Brooks."
"Yes, ma'am."
I walked back to the engine.
Two hours of smoke and Sergeant Hollywood, and thirty seconds with Andy Walsh undid all of it.