From a Buick 8(81)

'The problem's the school,' George went on when he could. 'Poteenville Grammar is only two hundred yards away.'

'School's not in for almost another month, 14. You ? '

'Break, break. Maybe not, but I see kids.'

Behind me someone murmured, 'August is Crafts Month out there. My sister's teaching pottery to nine- and ten-year-olds.' I remember the terrible sinking feeling I got in my chest when I heard that.

'Whatever the spill is, I'm upwind of it,' George went on when he could. 'The school isn't, I repeat the school is not. Copy?'

'Copy, 14,' Tony said. 'Do you have FD support?'

'Negative, but I hear sirens.' More coughing. 'I was practically on top of this when it happened, close enough to hear the crash, so I got here first. Grass is on fire, fire's headed toward the school. I see kids on the playground, standing around and watching. I can hear the alarm inside, so I have to guess they've been evacked. Can't tell if the fumes have gotten that far, but if they haven't, they will. Send the works, boss. Send the farm. This is a legitimate 29.'

Tony: 'Are there casualities on the bus, 14? Do you see casualties, over?'

I looked at the clock. It was quarter past two. If we were lucky, the bus would've been coming, not going ? arriving to take the kids home from making their pots and jars.

'Bus appears empty except for the driver. I can see him ? or maybe it's her ? slumped over the wheel. That's the half in the fire and I'd have to say the driver is DRT, copy?'

DRT is a slang abbreviation the PSP picked up in the ER's back in the seventies. It stands for 'dead right there'.

'Copy, 14,' Tony said. 'Can you get to where the kids are?'

Cough-cough-cough. He sounded bad. 'Roger, base, there's an access road runs alongside the soccer field. Goes right to the building, over.'

'Then get in gear,' Tony said. He was the best I ever saw him that day, as decisive as a general on the field of battle. The fumes turned out not to be all that toxic after all, and most of the burning was leaking gasoline, but of course none of us knew that then. For all George Stankowski knew, Tony had just signed his death warrant. And sometimes that's the job, yes.

'Roger, base, rolling.'

'If they're getting gassed, stuff them in your cruiser, sit them on the hood and the trunk, put them on the roof hanging on to the lightbars. Get as many as you can, copy that?'

'Copy, base, 14 out.'

Click. That last click seemed very loud.

Tony looked around. '29-99, you all heard it. Assigned units, all rolling. Those of you waiting for switch-over rides at three, get Kojak lights out of the supply room and run your personals. Shirley, bend every duty-officer you can raise.'

'Yes, sir. Should I start calling OD's?'

'Not yet. Huddie Royer, where are you?'

'Here, Sarge.'

'You're anchoring.'

There were no movie-show protests about this from Huddie, nothing about how he wanted to be out there with the rest of the crew, fighting fire and poison gas, rescuing children. He just said yessir.

'Check Pogus County FD, find out what they're rolling, find out what Lassburg and Statler's rolling, call Pittsburgh OER, anyone else you can think of

'How about Norco West?'

Tony didn't quite slap his forehead, but almost. 'Oh you bet.' Then he headed for the door, Curt beside him, the others right behind them, Mister Dillon bringing up the rear.

Huddie grabbed his collar. 'Not today, boy. You're here with me and Shirley.' Mister D sat down at once; he was well-trained. He watched the departing men with longing eyes, just the same.

All at once the place seemed very empty with just the two of us there ? the three of us, if you counted D. Not that we had time to dwell on it; there was plenty to do. I might have noticed Mister Dillon getting up and going to the back door, sniffing at the screen and whining way back low in his throat. I think I did, actually, but maybe that's only hindsight at work. If I did notice, I probably put it down to disappointment at being left behind. What I think now is that he sensed something starting to happen out in Shed B. I think he might even have been trying to let us know.

I had no time to mess with the dog, though ? not even time enough to get up and shut him in the kitchen, where he might have had a drink from his water bowl and then settled down. I wish I'd made time; poor old Mister D might have lived another few years. But of course I didn't know. All I knew right then was that I had to find out who was on the road and where. I had to bend them west, if I could and they could. And while I worked on that, Huddie was in the SC's office, hunched over the desk and talking into the phone with the intensity of a man who's making the biggest deal of his life.

I got all my active officers except for Unit 6, which was almost here ('20-base in a tick' had been my last word from them). George Morgan and Eddie Jacubois had a delivery to make before heading over to Poteenville. Except, of course, 6 never did get to Poteenville that day. No, Eddie and George never got to Poteenville at all.

THEN:

Eddie

It's funny how a person's memory works. I didn't recognize the guy who got out of that custom Ford pickup, not to begin with. To me he was just a red-eyed punk with an inverted crucifix for an earring and a silver swastika hung around his neck on a chain. I remember the stickers. You learn to read the stickers people put on their rides; they can tell you a lot. Ask any motor patrol cop. I DO WHATEVER THE LITTLE VOICES TELL ME TO on the left side of this guy's back bumper, I EAT AMISH on the right. He was unsteady on his feet, and probably not just because he was wearing a pair of fancy-stitched cowboy boots with those stacked heels. The red eyes peeking out from under his scraggle of black hair suggested to me that he was high on something. The blood on his right hand and spattered on the right sleeve of his T-shirt suggested it might be something mean. Angel-dust would have been my guess. It was big in our part of the world back then. Crank came next. Now it's ex, and I'd give that shit away myself, if they'd let me. At least it's mellow. I suppose it's also possible that he was gazzing ? what the current crop of kids calls huffing. But I didn't think I knew him until he said, 'Hey, I be goddam, it's Fat Eddie.'