Wild Fyre (9 page)

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Bert1();

/*****

Aside from Craig’s wife, Michael was the first person in to see Craig after surgery. The man’s bandaged hand was propped on top of a pillow. Craig was looking over towards the window. His wife held his intact hand.

Michael walked up behind Arnette and put his hand on her shoulder.

“How’s he doing?” Michael asked quietly.

“He’s troubled,” she said. “He’ll be okay.”

“Where is that son of a bitch?” Craig asked, still looking towards the window.

Michael looked to Arnette.

“Who, honey?” she asked.

“Fucking Bert. Where is he?”

Michael answered, saying, “I’m not sure, Craig. What happened?”

Craig held up his bandaged hand. The white gauze was wrapped with a purple tape. The whole bundle was the size of a cantaloupe.
 

“He did this. He pushed me into the saw.”

“What?” Michael asked.

“Are you sure?” Arnette asked.

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” Craig said. “I was re-sawing that fourteen-inch maple and he came up real close, you know how he does? I could smell his fucking breath. Next thing I know, he pushed the back of my arm. I thought he was reaching for the board, but he was shoving my hand right into the saw.”

“Oh, honey,” Arnette said.

“I’ll go find him,” Michael said.

In the car, Michael called his lawyer again.

Michael put his key in the door to the shop. He kept a small office in the back. He wanted to get Bert’s address and phone number so he could pass it on to the police. When he turned the key, he discovered the door was already unlocked. The lights over near the metal-working equipment were on. The rest of the shop was dark.

Michael went to the office. In one tall, locked cabinet, he kept the personnel records. Michael unlocked the bottom drawer and flipped through to Bert’s file. It was empty.

He picked up the desk phone and dialed.

“Hi, Franny, this is Michael. I’m looking for the employee file for Bert Williams. It’s not here at the office. Do you know what happened to it? Give me a call back on my cell if you could,” he said to the answering machine.

Michael held the phone in his hand for a second before dropping it back into the cradle. He looked through the office window to the shop floor, looking for the source of the noise he had heard. On his way out, Michael walked through the shop, turning off lights and looking for signs that anyone was around. He paused at the bandsaw. The station was a mess, and flies were taking turns landing in the sticky pool of blood. Michael pulled out his cell phone.

“Hey, Judy, see if you can track down one of those outfits that cleans crime scenes and see if you can get them over here tomorrow,” he said to her voicemail. “Ask them to cover everything but the machine itself. I’ll get Francine to use her people for that.”

When he disconnected, he left another message for the floor manager, Francine, to ask her to have the maintenance company replace the blade and service the saw.

With the door locked, and all the lights out, Michael sat in his car and looked through the windshield at the side of the building. He pressed his hands against the sides of his head and squeezed his eyes shut. In his head he kept listing the things he needed to do—tell the staff to take another day off, send flowers to the hospital, ask the woman who had apprenticed under Craig if she would like to take over bandsaw until his return, and something else he couldn’t think of.

When he opened his eyes he looked up at the windows that were high up on the side of the building. Through one, he saw that one of the light fixtures was back on. Michael called the police.

Two uniformed officers swept the building while Michael stood outside. They didn’t find anyone or anything. Sensing his stress level, they suggested that perhaps he had left on the light and forgotten. Michael reminded them about the unlocked door.
 

The three of them walked through the workshop together, and Michael showed the officers the bloody bandsaw and the blood in the dust collector. He described Craig’s accusation of Bert. The officers had Michael wait in his car while they called in more people to photograph the scene. They wanted to capture all the details before any cleaners came in.

When he finally got home, Michael was surprised to find it was still only afternoon. The day had stretched on forever. He worked at home until early in the morning, losing himself in the details of one of the drawer mechanisms.
 

The next morning, Michael worked in the shop’s office so he could supervise the cleanup. Francine, the office manager, brought in people to service the tools—as long as they were coming in, she had them service the whole row. Judith, the intern, tracked down crime scene cleaners who came in the afternoon to take care of the blood. Unfortunately, their job was compounded when the tool people tracked the blood around the shop floor.

By the end of the day the shop was starting to appear normal again. It was Wednesday. Michael and Francine debated when to bring the staff back and they settled on Thursday and Friday being normal workdays, with the offer of time-and-a-half for anyone who wanted to come in on the weekend. Their delivery deadlines still loomed.

On his way to the hospital to visit Craig, Michael got a call from the police. They hadn’t yet tracked down Bert and asked Michael to call if he heard anything.

Michael came in extra early on Thursday. He turned on all the lights and tuned the shop radio to a classical station. The music seemed doleful so he turned the radio off again. He found a paper cup of coffee—half full—on the table of the bandsaw. He thought it had been left behind by one of the cleaners, but when he went to throw it away, he noticed it was still slightly warm. The first workers arrived as Michael finished reporting the coffee to the police.

Michael watched his staff through the office window. They stood in clumps. At the time of Craig’s accident, some hadn’t arrived at work yet, so they were asking questions of the witnesses. Michael walked out and tried to get everyone motivated, but they merely scattered from him. It wasn’t until Tien arrived that the mood turned. He was seen as one of the heroes of the incident—because of Tien’s attention, the fingers arrived at the hospital in great shape and had an excellent chance of viable attachment.

The workers rallied and sounds of productivity filled the shop.

People seemed to shy away from Michael. Nobody wanted to talk to him. The closest he came to a conversation that day was when a small group stood in his doorway and asked him about a safety stop for the bandsaw. Their cabinet saws were equipped with a brake mechanism that would stop the blade within milliseconds of it touching flesh. Unfortunately, as Michael explained, the safety device was not available for band saws.
 

Work lumbered steadily on through Thursday and Friday. Michael visited Craig and Arnette at home on Friday evening.

“How are you doing?” Michael asked. He regretted the question, but he didn’t know what to ask.
 

Arnette answered. “He has a ninety percent chance that the fingers will be fine. So that’s good.”

“With fifty percent normal motion, and reduced sensation,” Craig amended. He stared at his bandaged hand.

“I don’t remember, are you right- or left-handed?” Michael asked.

“Right,” Craig said, holding up the bandaged hand, “of course.” He sneered at his own hand.

“But he’s already learned to sign his name with his left,” Arnette said. “He’s always been good with both. His mom said that when he was a kid, he was ambidextrous.”

“If there’s any job in the shop at all you’d like to train for, you let me know. Of course your old job is waiting for you, if you still want to do it.”

“I can’t handle that saw anymore. You know that’s a two-hand job.”

Michael nodded.
 

“We don’t have to make any decisions today. Disability will pick up most of your pay and the shop will cover the rest. You focus on healing.”

“That’s very nice of you,” Arnette said. “I know that’s above and beyond.”

“Thanks,” Craig said.

“No problem at all,” Michael said.

“Did they catch that bastard yet?” Craig asked.

“You’ll be the first to know,” Michael said.

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Bert2();

/*****

Michael arrived at the shop early on Saturday. He didn’t expect many people to take him up on his offer to work the weekend. He paused as he stepped from his car. He could hear machinery buzzing inside the shop. Michael smiled as he opened the door—he was happy that at least one of his workers wanted to pull a Saturday shift.

His smile disappeared fast.
 

He saw the back of a tall old man at the table saw. Only the lights around that station were on. The man was holding a board up to examine a cut.

Michael flipped on the lights and killed the power to the machines. The saw gradually wound down as Bert turned around.

“Hi, Bert,” Michael said, “what are you doing here?”

“I was doing my job. It will be difficult without electricity,” Bert said. He said the last word in the British way, “EL-eck-tricity.”

“You don’t work here anymore, Bert,” Michael said. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the number the police had given him.

“Oh, really?” Bert asked. “Why is that?”

“Well, you’ve been absent for three days, and before that you maimed another employee. Also, the police are looking for you,” Michael said. His call went to voicemail. He spoke quickly into the phone. “This is Michael York. I own the shop where the guy’s fingers were cut off. The guy, Bert Williams, is here in my shop.”

Michael disconnected and dialed 911.

“I was under the impression that our shop was closed,” Bert said. “Because of that accident. Then, I heard that we were open for the weekend. If my information was incorrect, I apologize. Shall I leave?”

Michael described the situation to the 911 operator. She told him not to engage Bert, but to wait for the officers and stay on the line. Her voice chattered in his ear as he spoke to Bert.

“No, please stay here,” Michael said to Bert.

Bert approached.
 

“Stay where you are,” Michael said.

“Are you in danger, sir?” the operator asked. “If you’re in danger, please move outside to a public place.”

Bert came closer. He held out the board he had been working on.

Michael took a step backwards, towards the door. Bert pressed ahead, leading with the board. When Michael’s eyes registered what Bert had done, his feet stopped. He put the phone with the chattering operator’s voice in his pocket and reached out for the wood. The cuts were ingenious. Bert had solved one of the table’s remaining problems, and he had done it completely with wood. There were no metal parts to squeak or wear or require maintenance. This solution would last forever and move like silk. Michael turned the board over in his hands and looked at the craftsmanship.

“This is brilliant,” Michael said.

“It will suit,” Bert said. Michael heard the pride in his voice.

He looked up. Bert pulled something from his shirt pocket and nibbled on the end. He thought it was a stick of cheese, but the end was red. His horror and revulsion were accompanied by disgust with himself for not guessing what the cylinder was. One thought repeated in his head. “Of course.”

Bert was chewing on a severed finger.

Michael clutched the board to his chest and ran for the door. He turned and shut the door behind himself, holding it shut while he tried to get his keys out. He bolted the door and somehow kept the board clamped to his side.

Michael waited in his car with the doors locked until the police arrived.

He handed the keys to one of the officers. His own were shaking too much for him to unlock the door. Michael told them all the details of the situation and his recent encounter.

“Is he in there?” the police officer asked.

“Yes, he must be,” Michael said. “I locked it.”

“There’s no other way out?”

“Oh. Yes, he could have exited to the alley, but I would have seen him come out. He would have come out of the alley there,” Michael pointed.

The officers didn’t draw their weapons, but kept their hands near their holsters as they entered. Michael went back to his car.

They came out a few minutes later and closed the door behind them. One officer knocked on Michael’s window. Michael got out of the car.

“Nothing,” the officer said.

“That’s impossible. Did you check the alley?”

“Yes. If you see anything else, please call 911.”

None of the other employees showed up for extra work that day or the next. The staff was holding an impromptu fundraiser to cover Craig’s insurance deductible, and somehow word got around that Bert was seen in the building. Those two things kept everyone away until Monday. Michael watched them come in all at once when the shop officially opened Monday morning at eight.

Tien had become the point-person of the staff. He knocked on the office door.

“Michael?”

“Yes?” Michael asked. He set his reading glasses down on the computer keyboard.

“Some of the guys are concerned about Bert coming back,” Tien said.

“Oh?” Michael asked. “You shouldn’t. He’s been fired.”

“Yeah, but wasn’t he here on Saturday?”

“I’ve talked to him, and let him know that he is fired. The police seek him for questioning. They might have already picked him up. I’m sure he won’t come back, but if he does we’ll call the police. He’s only an old man.”

“Okay,” Tien said.

At noon, the fears of the shop workers multiplied. Some people headed towards the refrigerator where they kept their lunch boxes. Some were clustered around a menu—they were putting in a sandwich order. The door swung open and all conversation in the shop stopped. The radio went silent.

Bert walked in and paced towards the biggest group of people. He held out something towards them. Michael watch through his office window, not sure if he should call the police or intervene. He was frozen at the sight of the old man.