Fire Season (34 page)

Dmitri's gun went off with a flat, muffled crack. Dmitri shrieked and crumpled onto the asphalt.

“—dick off,” the old man said.

That left Aleks, who, like his compatriots, was actually Ukranian and not Chechen at all. Had he been Chechen, Ygor thought, on the claustrophobic ride into Provincetown inside the old man's trunk, he might have had the wherewithal to move three or four steps to his left, putting the Escalade between himself and the enraged Wookiee, who had picked up Vladi by the ankles and was swinging him in a long arc like a human baseball bat. Instead, foolishly, Aleks stood his ground, drew his pistol, released the safety and somehow squeezed off a shot just before Vladi's head, moving at Louisville Slugger speed, struck him squarely on the ear, knocking him over the Escalade's hood and onto the beach, where he lay twitching. The sound, Ygor decided, after he'd had a few days in jail to think about it, was something like the dull
clonk
of two coconuts being slammed together, but wetter.

“Home run,” Loverboy said.

“Son of a bitch,” Rudy said. “Are you hit?”

“Me?” Loverboy said. “Nope.”

“Could have sworn I heard that bullet hitting meat. Maybe I'm hallucinating.”

“Wouldn't be the first time.”

“Or the last.”

“I think is Vladi,” Ygor said. “He's bleeding from chest wound, looks like.”

Vladi lay facedown on the asphalt. His breathing was ragged. Loverboy turned him over on his back, pulled his blood-soaked shirt open. There was a large, messy exit wound just below his sternum. “Talk about bad luck,” Loverboy said.

“He is dead?” Ygor said.

“No,” Loverboy said. “Not yet.”

“Well,” Rudy said, “this was exciting, but I think we'd best be on our way.” He tilted his head toward the nearest bonfire, where the four fat people were frantically trying to dial 911 on their cell phones.

“Good luck getting a signal out here,” said Loverboy.

Ygor nodded. “Can you hear me?” he said. “No—I can't. I'm in P'town.”

“When I was a kid,” the old man said, “they told us we'd all have rocket cars by now. Instead all we got were these fucking cell phones.”

He closed the silver briefcase—which was indeed full of hundred-dollar bills, if not exactly a million dollars' worth—and threw it and the gym bag into the backseat of the Town Car. Then he popped the trunk and told Ygor to climb in. “We'll leave your boys out here for the cops to clean up,” he said. “You get to go to jail instead of the hospital. Lucky you.”

“And when I tell police about all that heroin?” Ygor said, curled awkwardly in the bottom of the trunk.

“Heroin?” the old man said, slamming the lid. “What heroin?”

*   *   *

“Fucking Christ,” Jamie said, rummaging in the rumpled bedclothes. “Where the hell are my underwear?”

Coffin threw open the west window, which was directly above the screen porch and was the obvious escape route in case of fire. “Holy shit,” Coffin said, looking out. The screen porch was fully engulfed: flames snapped and roared just under its roof, licking three or four feet into the night sky. A gust of wind drove a shower of sparks at Coffin's face. He slammed the window shut. He looked out of the south window, which faced the street, but it seemed like a long way down—maybe a twelve-foot drop onto the narrow sidewalk—with nothing to break their fall.

“I can't find my fucking underwear!” Jamie shouted. She was wearing a short, hot pink nightgown, trimmed in purple lace. “I'm not jumping out a damn window with no drawers on.”

“Forget your underwear,” Coffin said. He grabbed her hand. “Come on, we'll go out through the baby's room. We can drop down onto the shed roof from there.”

The hallway was filling with smoke—it boiled near the ceiling, and Coffin knew it might be a matter of seconds before the combustible gases in the rugs, the curtains, and the wall paint ignited, before the whole house flashed over and incinerated them in the intense heat. “What about downstairs?” Jamie shouted, smoke alarms howling. “What about the kitchen door?”

“No way,” Coffin said, pulling her down the hallway. “Too hot down there.”

The baby's room was at the end of the hallway, the farthest part of the house from the screen porch. Coffin flung the door open, pulled Jamie in, then shut the door behind her. There wasn't a lot of smoke. The big stuffed animals he'd bought—giant bunny, giant zebra, giant giraffe—goggled from their spot next to the window. Coffin grabbed the giraffe and laid it down in front of the door, trying to keep smoke from seeping in through the crack. The baby furniture hadn't arrived yet—there was no crib, no rocker, no changing table.

“Frank,” Jamie called, struggling with the window. “This fucker's stuck.”

“Hang on,” Coffin said. “We'll break it if we have to.” He strained, wrenched the window open—it had been humid, the sash was swollen—and kicked the screen out onto the lawn. He looked down: his father had built a small garden shed onto the side of the house, filled it with a lawn mower, rakes, hoses, gardening tools, most of which had gone unused. It was about five feet high, and directly below the window—an asymmetrical stroke of luck. Had his father thought of it as a fire escape, built below the window of the room his sons had shared?

The shed's corrugated steel roof sloped away from the house at a reasonably gentle angle. The drop from the windowsill was about seven feet—a lot less, Coffin thought, if you lowered yourself from the windowsill feet first, and then let go. Then it was only a foot or two.

“I'll go first,” Coffin said. “Then I'll help you get down.”

“Frank,” Jamie said, the howling of the smoke alarms muffled a bit by the door. “What about the animals?”

“What?”

Her eyes were wide. Even in the dark room, Coffin could see a single, glistening tear trailing down the side of her nose. “The stuffed animals. We can't just let them burn. You bought them for our daughter.”

“Jamie—”

She looked at him, blinked, shook her head as if to clear it. “Right,” she said. “Fuck the animals. Out you go.”

Coffin climbed out awkwardly, scraping his back on the open sash, elbows propped, gripping the windowsill with both hands, scrabbling down the cedar shingles with his bare feet, then letting himself slide a bit, arms straightening.

“How'm I doing?” he said, hanging straight down, cheek pressed against rough shingles. He couldn't turn his head enough to look down.

Jamie peered out of the window above him. “Good. Looks like you just have to drop maybe three feet. But Frank?”

“Yeah,” Coffin said. His arms ached.

“I don't know if I can do what you're doing.”

“Come on,” Coffin said. “You're a yoga instructor—pound for pound you've got way more upper body strength than I do.” He took a deep breath, let it out. He could hear sirens coming, not far away now. “Okay, I'm letting go.”

“Careful—” Jamie said, but Coffin had already dropped to the roof of the shed. He landed hard, left ankle twisting on the uneven surface, knees scraped on the shingles, right hand sliced by something—a stray nail head, maybe—on the way down.

“Ow,” he said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Coffin said. “Come on—your turn.”

“Maybe I should wait for the firemen,” Jamie said. “Sounds like they're almost here.”

Coffin could hear the fire roaring: a big, burning lung, sucking oxygen. The fire trucks were almost there—they'd slowed to negotiate the tight corner of Alden Street and Cemetery Road, only a block away. He pictured the fire and rescue boys trying to save Jamie, the ladder tipping over, the house collapsing on top of the whole crew in a burning shower of cinders.

“Better not wait,” he said. “Just sit your butt on the windowsill, let your legs hang out, and then slide down onto my shoulders. It's only about two feet.”

“Okay,” Jamie said, coughing. “It
is
getting pretty smoky. Here I come.” She swung a long leg out of the window, then her head and upper body emerged, then the other leg.

“Are you sure you can hold me? I'm pretty fat.”

“You're not fat. You're round. It's different.”

Coffin stood with his hands braced against the side of the house, knees bent slightly (the left one was probably bleeding, he thought), looking up at Jamie. Her nightgown had ridden up around her hips.

“Nice view,” he said. His nose was running; he wiped it on the back of his wrist.

“Shut
up,
” Jamie said. “Are you ready?”

“Yep,” Coffin said. “Slow and easy now. Just slide down, one leg on each shoulder.”

Jamie slid, landing solidly on Coffin's shoulders, right hand propped against the shingled wall of the house, left arm wrapped around Coffin's head. “You got me?” she said. Coffin's hearing was muffled by Jamie's thighs, but he still heard a low
whomp,
like the sound of a charcoal grill being lit after it's been doused with starter fluid. He guessed that the upstairs hallway had flashed over.

A fire truck rattled up to the curb, siren wailing. Four firefighters piled out and started shouting instructions at each other. Somebody turned on a spotlight: it searched the windows of Coffin's house briefly before falling on the shed.

“Whoa,” one of the firemen said. “Check it out.”

Coffin staggered a half-step back as he took Jamie's weight, hands gripping her thighs, her round belly pressed against his forehead, the dark, fragrant ruff of her pubic hair in his face.

“Frank?” a voice said. It was Walt Macy. “That you?”

Coffin sank to one knee, set Jamie down on her feet, untangled himself while Jamie adjusted the hem of her nightgown. “Yeah, Walt,” Coffin said, straightening up. “It's me.”

“You all right? Everyone get out okay?”

“Everyone's fine,” Coffin said. “How about a ladder, and a blanket for the lady?”

“Right-o,” Macy said, signaling one of the firemen. He watched the fire for a second, big mustache bristling. “You're lucky you got out of there. That's a hell of a fire.”

*   *   *

“It's like your dream,” Jamie said, when they were standing barefoot next to the fancy Italian pumper, Jamie wrapped in a blanket, Coffin wearing a borrowed sweatshirt. The sweatshirt was huge, size XXXL: the pointy-hat Patriots logo swooped across its chest.

“Yeah, but without the Seal Baby,” Coffin said. “Thank God.”

“The Seal Baby is Maurice,” Lola said. She'd arrived in the Crown Vic a minute or two after the first fire truck, siren on and lights flashing. Tony was there—cleaned up and in uniform. At least half of the fire and rescue squad had turned out: Coffin's torn hand had been hugely bandaged, his scraped knee disinfected three times over.

Jamie put her arm around his shoulder. “Your poor old mom,” she said. “There goes her house.”

The fire crackled and danced in the upstairs windows. Coffin felt strangely elated. “There go our clothes,” he said.

Jamie sighed. “Yeah, I'm losing a lot of great shoes. And my favorite jeans. And that peridot necklace you gave me.”

Coffin turned to Lola. “Where's Skillings and Pinsky?” he said. “Something up?”

“Some kind of big fight out at Herring Cove,” Lola said. “Injuries. Shots fired. We've got a meat wagon on the way to Hyannis, one bullet wound, one probable DOA. The state police are working the scene.”

“Jesus,” Coffin said. “Busy night.”

Lola's shoulder radio sputtered, and then Marge the dispatcher said something Coffin couldn't make out.

“Son of a bitch,” Lola said, heading for the Crown Vic. The radios in the fire trucks and rescue vehicles had all crackled to life at the same time.

“What?” Coffin called after Lola. “What is it?”

“Fire at the Crown and Anchor,” Lola said, one foot inside the car. “Big one. All available units.”

“Let's go,” Coffin said.

“Frank, for Christ's sake,” Lola said. “You don't have any
shoes
on. Your pregnant girlfriend's wearing a
blanket.
” She climbed in, started the Crown Vic's big engine. “Your mother died and your house burned down in the same damn day. What, you're gonna go catch a bad guy now?”

Coffin held up a finger:
one second.
He turned, kissed Jamie on the cheek. “You okay?” he said.

“I'm sad about those damned stuffed animals,” Jamie said, sniffling a bit. “But yeah, I'm okay.”

“Who can you stay with tonight?”

“I'll call Corinne—she'll want to hear the whole story. Jesus, Frank—are you sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure.” He kissed Jamie again, this time on the mouth, and then climbed into the Crown Vic.

*   *   *

The Crown and Anchor was, emphatically, on fire. The flames appeared to have spread quickly through the west wing, and now they were leaping inside the second- and third-story windows. A rambling, hundred-year-old wooden structure, the Crown was laid out in a big L shape on two sides of a paved courtyard: the east wing ran across the back of the property, parallel with town beach; the west wing stretched roughly a hundred feet from Commercial Street to the rear of the property. The complex housed numerous guest rooms, a restaurant, three bars—including the Vault, Kotoswki's favorite leather bar, and the Paramount, home to Provincetown's popular and long-running drag show. The Paramount was also the venue for the climactic event of Fantasia Fair—the Fall Fashion Extravaganza.

Lola and Coffin were the first police officers on the scene. Lola parked the Crown Vic, flashers throwing their wobbling light against the storefronts. She moved quickly to clear the courtyard of spectators—mostly Tall Ships, there for the fashion show—driving them back across the street, out of harm's way in case the Crown's tall façade collapsed.