Page 4 of The Night Belongs To Fireman

“All right, all right.” Cindy grabbed her hand. “Let’s go. Limo’s waiting.” She bundled Rachel behind her and addressed Fred. “Thanks for everything, attractive stranger. She’s usually such a sweet girl, believe it or not. Devotes her life to helping animals, will do anything for a friend, even drink too much champagne during her friend’s last night of freedom … okay, we’re going now.”

They all waved good-bye and flocked to the door. After they left, the entire room seemed to go dim.

Back at the table, Mulligan tossed some money down and pushed back his chair. “Nice move, bro. You scared away the only girls worth talking to in this whole joint.”

“I didn’t scare anyone away. I rescued her from being slobbered on by a vomit-covered idiot.” Fred worked at a knot in his neck, trying to understand how the night had begun with a mauling in the fight ring and somehow gone downhill from there.

“Details, details,” said Mulligan. “Come on, let’s ghost. I want to see what’s rolling at Firefly.”

“Nah, man. I’m done. If that bout wasn’t enough to do me in, that girl was. She got in more hits than Namsaknoi.” He tenderly felt his jawbone, where she’d bonked him in the hallway.

Mulligan cackled. “You should date her. I can see you with a girl like that. She’d keep things hopping.”

“Not going to happen. The girl I go for is going to be nothing like her.”

“I wouldn’t say nothing like her,” mused Mulligan as they headed for the exit. “She’ll probably wear a veil at the wedding.”

“Nothing like her,” said Fred firmly. “What kind of woman nearly walks into a game of darts?”

“Someone fun, someone who lets loose once in a while. Someone who’s not Courtney. Someone who doesn’t think she’s superior to everyone else in the damn world.”

Mulligan’s lip curled. The guys really didn’t like Courtney. Sometimes Fred thought he would have called it off much sooner if he hadn’t wanted to prove them wrong. Dumb, since they weren’t exactly wrong. “Courtney,” he pointed out, “is proud of my fight trophies. She wouldn’t rip them apart.” He gave a mournful glance at the dismantled statuette in his hand.

“Right. She’d probably polish them every day in their little glass case,” said Mulligan. “Because she’s a control freak.”

“And Courtney wouldn’t be caught dead alone in a dark hallway with a drunk. What was that girl thinking?” He followed Mulligan through the door into the cool of midnight. The loud music from the bar chased them, the wail of U2’s “Mysterious Ways” suddenly stifled as the door slammed shut.

“Seems like you were watching every move she made.”

“Someone had to,” he grumbled, trying to remember where he’d parked.

“Holy shit,” Mulligan breathed.

Fred was still scanning the street for his truck. He remembered parking next to a construction barricade. The City Lights Grill squatted in the shadow of the old City Hall, which had partially burned a couple of years ago. They were finally starting to rebuild, and during the day this entire area was a construction zone mess. At night, it was a ghost town of earth movers, backhoes, and cranes.

“There it is,” Fred said, finally spotting his Toyota pickup and moving toward it. But Mulligan snaked out a hand and stopped him cold. The big guy’s phone was at his ear.

“Look,” he said, and pointed up the street, to the end of the block.

The sight made Fred’s blood run cold. Illuminated by the chill light of a streetlamp, a white stretch limousine was stopped in the middle of the street. Its roof was crushed by the arm of a crane, awkward and ungainly, like a metallic giraffe that had toppled over. Steam hissed from the engine. If the crane had hit the gas tank, it could explode at any moment.

“Calling 911?” he asked Mulligan.

“Yup.”

The door opened, spilling a blast of music and a handful of people. “Keep everyone back. I’m going in.” Fred ran toward the limo.

Chapter 2

As the fire department’s newest Urban Search and Rescue member, Fred would have gotten the call if he’d been on duty. Of course he would have been in Truck 1, with all his gear, not to mention the Jaws of Life, air bags, and other tools to extract people from wrecked cars. But there wasn’t time to worry about that. He had to do what he could right here, right now.

As he got closer, he saw that the telescoping steel structure of the crane arm had struck toward the rear of the limo, pinning the passenger doors. The truck to which it was mounted lay on its side, its bed abandoned. Whatever idiot had been operating a crane truck at night had fled. A pallet of something, possibly shingles, had spilled across the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

The driver’s side door of the limo hung open and a man in a dark suit and cap knelt on the pavement. Blood ran down the side of his face. Fred ran to meet him.

“Did you turn off the engine?”

When the driver just stared at him blankly, Fred crawled into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. If there was a gas leak, the smallest spark from the engine could send the limo sky-high.

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