KMG 365

Johnny Gage slammed both his hands down on the steering wheel of his Land Rover. “Damn. Damn, Damn!” he swore. How could this have happened? He’d made it a point of leaving for work a full twenty minutes early for all the good that would do him now. The cap would kill him. He glared at the gas gauge as if that would change the reading; as if he could will the needle away from the E. The most frustrating part was that he had waited in a long line in the sweltering heat yesterday just to buy gas. In other times the line alone would have driven him to another station but these were not other times and every station would be the same. The people in line were gassing up today because they had to. It was an even day and if your license plates ended in an even number you had to gas up on an even number day. It was now an odd number day and he couldn’t buy gas if he wanted to. Damn this gas shortage. He doubted there even was a gas shortage. It was probably all the plot of a bunch of powerful white men that was fueled by nothing but greed. He had hoped to make it to the station and beg one of the other guys to let him syphon enough gas from them to make it to another station tomorrow morning when it would be another even day for another long wait in line. Chet would probably charge him ten bucks for a gallon of gas but he’d have to pay it. Another greedy damn white man ready to profit from the plights of others. Damn Chet!

If he ever got a hold of the SOB that stole the gas from his tank outside his apartment during the night it would be Little Big Horn all over again. They were the reason he was stuck here on the freeway less than two miles from the station exit. He could probably walk there but he’d seen the results of people who thought that they could walk on the freeway before and getting hit by one or more cars in the morning rush hour wouldn’t help anything. He was lucky to have made it to the shoulder on the last of his fumes. Damn! He slammed his palms down on the steering wheel several more times to vent his anger and frustration. All it did was make his hands sore. Damn!

He glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes to eight. He wondered how fast he could run the distance between here and the station, providing he could dodge all the cars. Even on his best day he probably wouldn’t have made it in time and this was definitely not going to be one of his best days. Stanley would chew him up and spit him out. His most piteous ‘it’s not my fault, Cap,’ face would be wasted on the good captain, he was sure of that. Maybe he should take his chances in the traffic. A quick, clean kill would probably be better than whatever the cap would mete out.

Damn. This time he slammed the steering wheel with his forehead. Consciousness was overrated. Movement in his rear view mirror caught his eye when he picked his head back up. A Black and White had pulled up on the shoulder behind him. ‘Good!’ he thought ‘Arrest me. Take me to jail. Let all the Chets and the Captain Stanleys and the gas thieves have the world. I’ve had enough. Stop the world I want to get off!’

Just when he thought that things couldn’t get any worse, he saw the smug Irish face of Pete Malloy approaching the drivers’ side window.

“Well, well, well, Johnny Gage. What seems to be the problem?”

Punching out a cop would surely land him in jail but it might just be worth it. Pete looked in the window. He glanced at the gas gauge.

“Don’t tell me you’re out of gas,” Pete laughed.

“All right. I won’t tell you,” Johnny muttered.

“You should have gotten gas yesterday, Pal. Today’s not your day.”

‘In more ways than one,’ Johnny thought miserably but to Malloy he yelled, “I DID get gas yesterday. If you cops would spend more time catching gas thieves and less time harassing honest citizens, I wouldn’t be in this fix!”

“Tut, Tut, Tut. Temper, temper, Johnny,” Pete cautioned. If he was trying to hide the smirk on his face he was failing. “Would you like to report a crime?”

“What good would that do? I reported it the last two times it happened and nothing’s been done about it,” Johnny growled.

“Believe it or not, Gage, the LAPD does have other crimes to attend to that have a little higher priority than your gas tank. Most people these days are getting locking gas caps.”

The cap had suggested the same thing but Johnny figured that with his luck he’d just loose the key and end up having to break into the thing himself. Still, he had to do something, providing he ever got off this freeway, that is.

“Do you need a tow truck?” Pete asked.

“I don’t need a tow truck. I just need a gallon or so of gas, which I can’t even buy!” Johnny’s neck veins distended in anger. He stopped himself from hitting the steering wheel again but he caught more movement in his rear view mirror. Reed was now out of the cruiser and he was approaching the passenger side of Johnny’s Land Rover.

“I called in a stranded motorist call. Woody’s garage will bring you some gas since it’s an emergency and all. Can’t have this vehicle sitting here on the freeway. It’s a traffic hazard,” Reed told him in his matter of fact way. Reed’s face betrayed nothing, unlike his gloating partner. Reed might have been a nice guy if he ever got out of Malloy’s clutches.

“Thanks, I think,” Johnny muttered. Johnny knew that technically the freeway was chips jurisdiction but he still doubted that Malloy and Reed had stopped out of the goodness of their hearts. He was never going to hear the end of this. Those cops had a vendetta against him since he pitched the winning game of the fuzz/hose jockey softball finals leaving LAPD soundly trounced by the L A County Fire Dept.

He was at the mercy of sick cop humor until Woody arrived. Twenty minutes later, after he’d been charged nearly $40 for a roadside call and 5 gallons of gas, Johnny pulled into Station 51 and prepared to meet his fate.

* * * * *

Cassie Kelly walked into Station 18. She knew she was early but she’d been off on code-I with a broken arm. She’d finally gotten Brackett to sign off on her going back to work and she was chomping at the bit to be back. It was unbelievable how much she’d missed it.

“Well now what’s this? The prodigal daughter returns.” Captain Ruth Williams was coming out of her office carrying a clipboard. She threw her arms around Cassie. “Welcome back, girl!”

“Good to be back. The life of luxury’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” At first Cassie was a little surprised that the B-shift captain was there as they generally relieved C-shift but it was the end of the month and sometimes the nice orderly A-B-C order of the shifts went awry so that everyone got in the same amount of hours in a pay period. When the schedule was posted she just marked off the A-shift days on a small calender she carried and didn’t worry about the rest.

Captain Williams, who actually allowed her shift to call her Ruth, walked her into the kitchen area of the station. “Look who’s back, girls!” she called out to B-shift. They were sitting around the table wolfing down supermarket muffins and coffee.

An appropriate fuss was made over her. More than appropriate, Cassie thought. Cassie and Pidge called Captain Williams Mother Ruth behind her back. She certainly did not run the same kind of tight ship that Captain Tacy ran.

“You sure that arm is up to par?” Captain Williams asked.

“Brackett gave me a clean bill of health. I can do everything I ever could with it – except scratch it, of course — which is the one thing I’d really like to do.”

“Sit down here and have a muffin,” Suzy Parker invited. Suzy was one of the B-shift paramedics. She had a newspaper in front of her. She was doing the ritual reading of the horoscopes that was a B-shift tradition. “You’re a Sagittarius, right, Cassie?”

Cassie nodded. She by passed the muffin and reached for a banana instead.

“Ohhh,” Suzie squealed with delight. “Looks like your going to meet someone who could be your true soulmate.”

“I thought Frankenstein already had a chick,” the sarcastic voice of Leila Crenshaw said behind her, as she and some of the others from A-shift arrived.

“Don’t worry, Gritsbreath, I won’t horn in on your man,” Cassie shot back.

“They’re at it already,” Pidge groaned. “We’ve just had three weeks of peace and calm. I knew it was too good to last.”

“It’s too early in the day for this,” Barb Yates said as she headed for the coffee pot that only B and C shift ever used and poured herself a cup.

“I think I’ll transfer to B-shift. They’re nicer to me,” Cassie stated.

“That’s because they don’t have to work with you,” Pidge assured Cassie, sitting down on the other side of her and grabbing a muffin.

“I’m going to need some coffee to get through this day,” Barb said with a shudder, sitting across from the paramedics.

“I’m glad everyone’s sooo happy to have me back,” Cassie grouched. Maybe she should transfer to B-shift.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Cassie. Of course, I’m happy to have you back. It has nothing to do with you. It’s this day,” Barb explained.

“What’s with all the doom and gloom?” Cassie asked.

“Don’t you know about today? It’s a blue moon?” Barb was amazed that Cassie hadn’t been dreading the day as she had been.

“Blue moon? What’s a blue moon? Sounds like something out of the old fogey songs the cap likes. You know June Spoon Moon — all that……” She stopped because of the odd way everyone was suddenly acting. It could only mean one thing. Captain Tacy was standing right behind her and she’d put her foot in her mouth before the shift even started.

“A blue moon, Kelly, is a full moon. The second full moon in a calendar month and, if you recall, the last time we pulled a shift on a full moon, you ended up in la-la land — more so than usual, that is,” Captain Tacy said in a calm, clear voice that Cassie knew would be doling out latrine duty to her when they came on duty.

“That won’t happen again, Cap. I’m not working with Brice today. I’m working with good ol’ Pidge and she’d never shoot me full of Valium instead of the patient,” Cassie vowed.

“Don’t bank on it,” Pidge hissed under her breath.

* * * * *

“Blue moon, shmoo moon,” Johnny scoffed as he mopped the floor of the dorm while Roy changed the beds. “You’re not going to go on about that full moon crap again, are you?”

“Wasn’t I right last time?” Roy challenged. “Isn’t what happened to you already today proof enough?”

“Look today could have been worse, now that I think of it. I mean I was sure the cap would put me on latrine duty but he didn’t, did he?”

“That’s only because Chet was stupid enough to leave that sack of broken glass in the lot instead of putting it in the dumpster and the cap ran over it and ruined a brand new tire,” Roy assured him.

“I guess having that idiot Chet around is good for something.”

“I heard that, Gage,” Chet called from the washroom. “I’m not the idiot who won’t buy a locking gas cap. What’d that whole bit this morning cost you — 20, 30 bucks. To say nothing of the gas that was stolen. A locking gas cap costs a buck ninety eight.”

Before Johnny could retaliate the tones sounded.

Station 51 children trapped in spaceship. 1401 Lennox Street. Cross street Heron. 1-4-0-1 Lennox. Time out 9:14

“Did he say spaceship?” Johnny asked incredulously.

“What’d I tell you, Junior? It’s gonna be one of those days,” Roy said as he followed Johnny into the apparatus bay where the cap was acknowledging the call.

* * * * *

Engine 18 was responding to a motor vehicle accident. The squad had been called out too but they would be responding from Rampart General so the engine arrived on the scene first. Captain Tacy had been scanning the area. They didn’t have a definite address other than they were to meet the officer just west of the 14th Street overpass. They were almost at that location when she caught sight of a police officer flagging them down. His uniform was torn and muddy. He looked completely disheveled and closer to panicking than she’d ever seen a cop. She signaled Tinker to pull the rig over to the side of the road.

“Get a load of him,” Crenshaw leered. “He looks like a cross between Redford and Newman.”

“Unless you want to be written up for unprofessional conduct, you’ll pop your eyeballs back into their sockets and stop acting like a teenager mooning after Sinatra,” the cap hissed angrily without turning around to look at the offender. She got out of the rig. The cop ran up to her. She could see that he was young.

“I’m so glad to see you guys… I .. ah…” He noticed that they weren’t guys. It befuddled him even farther.

“What seems to be the problem, Officer?” The cap took charge in her most official voice.

“He told me to jump. I didn’t know what else to do. This is my first day…”

There was a pleading in his voice that even the cap couldn’t help responding to. “Start at the beginning. What happened?” she asked in a voice that bore none of her usual gruffness.

“We were chasing a perp. We couldn’t believe it. This guy had a baseball bat and was smashing in the headlights of cars parked on the street as he drove by. He did it right in front of us. Brazen as all hell. We ordered him to pull over but he rabbitted. We were on his tail but then we hit something slick on the road. I think he sprayed oil or something out of the back of car — it was like something outta James Bond, for Chrissake. Anyway we spun out and crashed through that guard rail. My partner told me to jump so I did. He didn’t get out. I’m sure he’s dead or something.” The young officer spat out his story nervously.

He ran his hand through his blond hair and the cap noticed that there was a large scrap on the side of his hand that was still bleeding. There was also a cut over his right eye. If he had leaped out of a speeding car he could well be injured and not even realize it since his adrenaline was up at the moment. The condition of his uniform with its tears, mud and grass stains attested to the fact that he had indeed leapt from a speeding car that had just crashed through a guard rail and sailed from an overpass to the street below. She looked around on that street for signs of a wrecked police car. She saw none. “Where’s your partner now?”

“Down there,” the young cop could barely say as he pointed not to the street below but to the strip mall that was on the other side of the off ramp. “I didn’t know what to do. I hiked back up here and called the station on that pay phone across the street. They said they’d send help and to wait here for you,” he went on helplessly.

Captain Tacy scanned the parking lot. She still saw no sign of a cruiser till her eyes fell on the roof of the shopping center. On the roof of the building sat a police car. It was on its wheels but the roof and doors were rumpled and the emergency lights were smashed as if the car had rolled at least once. “God Almighty!” she gasped.

The sounds of sirens approaching from two different directions startled her into action. A police car got there first. She approached the cruiser in her ‘take no prisoners’ mode. “You’d better direct traffic around that oil slick. We’ll hose it off when we get done here but the medical comes first.” She didn’t give them a chance to argue or even ask about the report they had of an officer involved MVA. The squad pulled up from the other direction. “Follow us,” she barked. She pulled open the door of the rig and motioned the cop to get in. When he was in her seat she closed the door and stepped up onto the running board. She grabbed the large sideview mirror for support and pointed at the shopping center on the street below. Tinker understood and the rig pulled out. The squad followed.

“I still think we should ask the cap if we can keep him,” Crenshaw said to Barb Yates in as quiet a voice as she could and still hope to be heard above the noise of the rig.

“He is pretty cute,” Barb agreed.

“You’re married!” Crenshaw objected.

“Well, I’m not blind..or dead,” Barb insisted. She caught the reflection of Tinker’s face in the rear view mirror and could tell that she agreed about the handsome young cop who rode next to her.

But when Engine 18 pulled up to the end of the first building in the strip center its occupants were all business again. The squad pulled in next to them. As they all got out, the captain took command of the situation.

“Crenshaw, get a ladder, Tinker and Yates we’ll need extraction tools. Kelly, you’re with them. We’ve got a patrol car on the roof that appears to have rolled once on its way here from the overpass with one occupant. Pidge, you come have a look at this guy who was thrown out.” Tacy knew she could count on Pidge to act in a professional manner, no matter how good looking the patient was.

Crenshaw set the ladder up and they managed to get the necessary medical supplies and extraction tools up onto the roof. There had been no sign of life or movement in the car. This did not look good.

Crenshaw popped the hood and disconnected the battery. Then the other three hung back and let Cassie approach the car.

Cassie tried the passenger side door. It was pretty rumpled but with Crenshaw’s help she was able to get it opened far enough to crawl inside. Tinker looked around the car for obvious leaks while Barb stationed herself by the biophone to contact Rampart, hoping they would not discover that the worst had happened here.

Once Cassie was inside she was startled to see that the victim was someone they knew well. He was sitting completely still and did not react to her presence. She reached up nervously to check the pulse in his neck. Please don’t let him be dead.

The cop in the driver’s seat still didn’t move but he did sigh deeply. “Oh no! Why did it have to be you?”

“Why, Officer Vince, whatever do you mean? Aren’t you happy to see us? I thought we were your favorite firefighters,” Cassie teased as she checked his vitals.

“I’m never gonna hear the end of this,” Vince complained.

“What are you talking about? Frankly, I’m in awe. I never would have thought of parking up here but it’s close to the store and you don’t have to try and remember which row you parked in. Darned handy, I’d say.”

“Just get me out of here. I’ll be in enough trouble later on without having to put up with your wisecracks. Is the kid all right?” Vince started to fidget a little.

“No no. Sit still while I check you out. What kid?” Cassie was happy that he seemed so alert but she still had no idea whether or not he was seriously injured and wanted to take no chances.

“My new partner. I swear they’re getting younger and younger. I’m not sure this one has all his second teeth yet.”

“Maybe they aren’t getting younger. Maybe you’re getting —” Cassie teased.

“Watch it,” Vince growled in his best annoyed cop voice.

“Don’t move your head — I need a cervical collar here,” she called out to the engine crew. She looked up to the ceiling over his head and the dent that was in it. “Good thing you were wearing that silly helmet of yours.”

“Used to be mandatory but a lot of the newer guys wouldn’t wear them,” Vince sighed.

“Who can blame them — helmet hair — yuck,” Crenshaw said as she handed the c-collar to Cassie from the driver’s side.

“Better than having your damn brains splattered all over the unit,” Vince argued.

“Vince, sit still,” Cassie said in a more serious voice.

“I don’t want to sit still. I want to get the hell out of here,” Vince complained even more forcefully.

“We’re working on that but if you don’t calm down, how am I supposed to know if you’re being combative because you have a head injury or if you’re just being your normal grouchy self?” Cassie matched his tone.

“Wha— grouchy?!” Vince sputtered.

“So, Vince, where did you ever find that gorgeous partner? He looks like a movie star. What a babe. Don’t you think, Kelly?” Crenshaw was making idle conversation to get Vince’s mind off the fact that he was pinned in the car.

“Don’t know. Didn’t even see him,” Cassie said as she checked Vince’s blood pressure. “Shh, I need to hear.”

Tinker was assessing the car as Cassie assessed its passenger. Barb contacted Rampart. “Rampart’s standing by, Cassie,” she called.

“Okay. Tell them we have a male patent, approximately 100 years old —”
“42,” Vince yelled a correction.

“42 years old,” Cassie continued. “He’s trapped in the vehicle after a really righteous flying stunt off a highway overpass.”

Barb translated Cassie’s message into more acceptable terms for Rampart and passed on the vitals as Cassie called them out.

Vince was trapped by the steering column. While Cassie worked on him the others discussed the best way to extricate him. Tinker thought the best way to raise it was to use a winch. That would be a breeze if they were on the ground. Maybe the Jaws of Life would budge it if they could get enough leverage but first they’d have to remove the roof of the cruiser.

“Hear that, Vince, you’ll be the first cop on your block to have a convertible cruiser. Won’t the other guys be jealous?” Cassie asked flippantly. She was sure that he’d think that if she was so cavalier that there was no way she’d found any sign that he was seriously injured. In truth she didn’t like his blood pressure and there was really no way to tell about internal injuries at this point.

“It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?” Vince griped. He saw that promotion to sergeant that he wanted flying right out the window.

“Let me get a tarp to cover you in case the windshield shatters,” Cassie said getting out of the car. “Have them call for a chopper. I don’t think jostling him around on a ladder is a great idea,” she told Barb on the sly when she got over to where the equipment was.

“This roof isn’t a heliport,” Barb gasped.

“It didn’t have any trouble with a speeding cruiser landing on it. It can be a hot landing or even a hover. Just shove the stokes on and go. Get Watson if no one else will try it. Or get a Coastie or someone with a hoist.” Cassie suggested as she picked up the tarp they had brought onto the roof and loped back to the car.

She crawled in and covered them both with the tarp. “Okay, ladies, time to play chop shop with the nice police car.”

“What’d I ever do to you?” Vince moaned.

“Remember that time you gave me that ticket for doing 36 in a 30 mile zone?” Cassie asked.

“And you’re still holding a grudge?!”

“You betcha. I hate having it on an official record that I ever went that slow. It’ll ruin my hard earned rep.” Cassie was pleased to note that the banter seemed to be having a positive effect on his blood pressure. Maybe the Reader’s Digest was right and laughter was the best medicine. She knew that under his gruff exterior he was a teddy bear and that inside he was laughing. Not that he’d ever show them. More Macho crapola.

“Get me outta here,” he hollered at the others. “I’m starting to understand her.”

The K-12 and the Jaws made quick work of the roof and windshield. They decided to try to lift the entire dashboard with a jack in hopes that that might raise the steering column. Cassie had to get into the back seat so that Crenshaw could try the jack from the passenger side.

“Don’t she look natural in the back of a police car?” Crenshaw asked Vince as she set up the jack. “Didn’t your horoscope say you were going to meet your cellmate today, Kelly?”

“That was soulmate, Honeychild,” Cassie growled in an exaggerated Southern accent as she leaned over the seat to check Vince’s pulse again. Their staged spat seemed to be amusing Vince and getting his mind off of his predicament. But Cassie was worried that he’d suddenly go south when they freed him. It looked like he’s been slammed around a little inside the car. She noted that he was wearing a seat belt. Seat belts did save lives. More people should use them. Unfortunately most people thought they were too much bother.

Once the roof was off and the steering column was jacked up out of the way, it was relatively easy to get Vince onto a backboard and out of the car. “I called for a chopper, since you’re recently shown and interest in flying, I thought you’d really dig that idea,” Cassie told him as she established the IV that Rampart had ordered.

“No, I can’t just leave. There’s weapons in the vehicle that have to be secured by a member of the PD,” Vince objected, suddenly more agitated.

“Okay, okay. We can take care of that,” Cassie assured him, picking up the handy talkie. “Engine 18, this is Squad 18.”

“Go ahead.” Captain Tacy’s gruff voice came over the hand held radio.

“Be advised that a member of the PD has to come up here and secure the weapons and the vehicle or what’s left of it.”

“10-4, Squad 18, I’ll send someone right up. Copter Two advises that it is en route to you, the exact message was: Never fear. Superman is on the way,” she added with a note of disapproval in her voice.

“10-4. Squad 18 out.” Cassie acknowledged with a grin. She looked down at rather disgruntled Vince, who was packaged up in a stokes ready to be flown to Rampart.

“Superman,” Vince groaned with disgust. “I’ve died and gone to a comic book. If this guy shows up in a cape and tights, I’m walking to Rampart.”

* * * * *

Engine 51 pulled up in front of an older house on a tree-lined street. The squad stopped right behind them. A woman wearing a flowered apron over a print house dressed came down the sidewalk to meet them. Her grey hair was in curlers and she had a look of complete exasperation on her face.

“Did you call the Fire Department, ma’am?” Captain Stanley tried to take control right away, given the nature of the call. There was a strong possibility that it was someone’s idea of a joke.

“Yes I did and believe you me, you are the only ones who can help me. Kids!” she grumbled.

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope,” Chet said to Marco in a stage whisper. He’d been having a lot of fun with the idea of a spaceship being part of the call on the way to the house. Chet had seen Star Wars 57 times and could recite the whole movie practically verbatim, much to the disgust of the rest of the crew.

Captain Stanley shot him an icy look but turned back to the woman, who seemed to be in no joking mood. “We got a call about some children trapped in a spaceship,” he began awkwardly.

“They’re around here. Darn fool kids,” she muttered as she led them around the side of the house to the backyard. “I’m babysitting, doncha know. My daughter and her new husband are on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Ever been to Hawaii, Chief?”

“No ma’am and it’s captain. Captain Stanley.”

“Delores Larsen. Please to make your acquaintance, I’m sure. Anyways, I get stuck with the kids for two weeks. Two of hers. One of his. Hers aren’t too bad. I could always handle them just fine — but that monster of his. He’ll be in prison before his 10th birthday. Mark my words. Anyways, he’s the ringleader and my two do everything he wants no matter what harebrained thing he comes up with. But this — this one takes the cake, doncha think?” She pointed to a rickety-looking structure made of cardboard and scrapwood high in the branches of a tree. It was mostly hidden by foliage but what was visible looked none too stable.

“Is that a treehouse?” Captain Stanley asked with disbelief.

“In our day, that’s what it would have been but these days, it’s a spaceship. Anyways, all three kids are up there and they refuse to come down. Just look at that thing. It ain’t safe. A good wind’ll knock it outta the tree. I can’t make ‘um budge but I figger you boys could. Put the fear of the Lord into um or somethin’, doncha know?” The woman looked expectantly at the captain.

“I don’t want to try talking them down with the bullhorn, it might spook them,” he said to his men. “Looks like you’ll have to go up and get them, Roy and John. I want you to wear all your safety gear. Chet and Marco take the lines. I don’t like the look of that thing one bit either.”

Roy and Johnny got suited up then Johnny grabbed two coils of rope and slung one over each shoulder. Roy strapped on a safety harness also but he looked a whole lot less comfortable about the prospect of climbing the large tree than Johnny did.

“I’m lighter. I’ll go first,” Johnny said and began making his way up the tree. When he reached the “spaceship’ he tossed first one than the other rope over a large secure branch just above it. He tied one to his harness then tossed the two ropes down.

Roy tied the second rope to his own harness. He also hitched some an extra harness to his belt and climbed up to meet Johnny. He was huffing and puffing by the time he reached Johnny.

“What kept ya?” Johnny teased him.

“You…..must….be… part….monkey,” Roy gasped.

Together they looked at the spaceship. It looked like it was constructed of old pallets, shingles, and boxes that once held appliances. It all seemed to be held together with duct tape and silver spray paint. There was a hole about three feet square cut into the cardboard. “I’ll check it out,” Johnny stated.

“Be careful,” Roy cautioned.

“Aren’t I always?” Johnny asked with a grin.

Roy rolled his eyes in response and took a hold of the spaceship to try and steady it as much as possible as Johnny leaned through the hole.

It was dark inside compared to the bright sunlight outside. It took Johnny’s eyes a minute to adjust. Once they did he looked around. There were three ‘beings’ inside. They had made spacesuits out of more cardboard, silver spray paint and boxes covered with Reynolds wrap. Johnny thought that the antennae that were made out of twisted wire coat hangers were a nice touch. They would have looked kind of cute if they were playing safely on the ground instead of 30 feet in the air in what looked like an old cardboard box held together with chewing gum and baling wire. Actually baling wire would have been an improvement on what he could see of the construction materials.

“Greetings Earthling,” said the largest of the three in a monotone. “Welcome to our spaceship.”

“Your space ship is not very safe,” Johnny told him. He could feel the contraption move in the slight breeze this hot day offered. He was beginning to share their grandmother’s feeling of desperation. “I think you kids better come down now.”

“We’re not kids,” one of the others objected. “We’re spacemen.”

“Spacepersons,” the third corrected in the unmistakable voice of a little girl.

“Whatever you are, you’d be safer on the ground.” Roy also peeked into the ship and tried to reason with the kids. He thought this would be a lot easier and a lot safer if they could convince them to come down without any kind of struggle.
“We refuse to leave our ship,” the first one said stubbornly. “And you are powerless to force us to go,” he continued in a mechanical sounding voice. The other two moved closer to him.

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Johnny muttered as he gently edged his way further into the doorway of the ‘spaceship’ in hopes of both counterbalancing the kids’ weight and being able to get a hold of them, if need be.

Roy moved closer to the door but still kept a good grip on the structure itself.

The largest ‘spaceman’ pointed a futuristic looking water pistol at Johnny. “Don’t make us use our lazar guns. We are here on a friendly mission.”

“So are we,” Roy assured him, playing along with the spaceman scenario. “In fact, we’ve come to invite you down to have a summit meeting with our leader.”

Johnny looked at Roy like he was crazy. Johnny wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his arm. It was even hotter inside the ‘spaceship’ than it was outside. The three kids crawled closer together and had a whispered conference about the idea. Johnny could feel the whole place shudder slightly as they moved. He didn’t like that at all.

“We have talked it over,” the largest spaceman said in a fake mechanical voice. “We can not go with you. We are scheduled to return to our home planet at 1100 hours.”

Johnny was fed up. It was too hot in there. The structure did not appear to be secured to the tree in anyway that Johnny could detect. This had gone on long enough. “You’re gonna return to your home planet right now,” he said as he made a grab for the little girl.

She squealed and wriggled out of his reach. The oldest boy fired his water pistol at Johnny hitting him in the face. Unfortunately for Johnny, it was filled with lemon juice not water and it hit him right in the eyes. He yelped in pain and fell backwards right out of the door of the spaceship. The motion caused the whole structure to shift wildly.

Roy had to hold onto it as Johnny sailed out past him and disappeared into the leafy tree. “John-neee,” he called helplessly but he dared not let go of the spaceship to try and catch Johnny.

Chet had been holding his line. He grabbed on tighter when he heard Johnny cry out. The rope flew through his hands as Johnny fell, burning both his palms. He was afraid he’d be unable to hold on so he threw himself down on top of the rope hoping his weight would stop Johnny’s fall. The cap also grabbed the line.

Johnny fell over ten feet. He was slapped and scratched by branches on the way down. Finally his belt dug into him as they managed to stop the falling.

“You all right, John?” The cap called up nervously.

“Ughhhh, yeah…I guess,” Johnny answered with a groan.

“Just relax, we’ll get you down. Lower him slowly, Chet,” the cap instructed without looking at Chet.
Chet got up and forced himself to slowly lower the rope in spite of the pain in his hands. The captain caught his grimace and went over to help. “Where’s your gloves, Pal?” he asked.

“In my pocket,” Chet admitted sheepishly.

“Not doin’ ya much good there. Did I not say the words ‘all safety equipment’?”

“Now that you mention it, I guess you did, Cap.”

“Next time maybe you’ll listen.”

“Sure will, Cap. I sure will,” Chet vowed wishing he could let go of the rope and rub his sore hands on his pantsleg to relieve some of the sting.

Meanwhile up in the tree Roy fought to hold the space ship steady and tried not to think about what almost happened to Johnny. He heard him say he was okay.

“Get us down!” the little girl screamed she left her companions and threw herself at Roy. It caused the structure to shake even more. He had to let go of it with one hand to catch her.

“Sit still, all of you,” Roy yelled at the kids in his best ‘annoyed Dad voice’ and they suddenly seemed very ready to obey.

“Get us down, please,” the little girl sobbed.

“Okay, okay, but you have to do exactly as I say,” Roy assured them.

“We will,” the smaller of the boys promised. His voice was laced with fear.

“We have to return to our home planet,” the older boy tried to re-establish his hold over them.

“Shut up, Lance,” they both yelled at him.

“We’re going to get you down one at a time with this rope harness. You’ll be perfectly safe as long as you follow my instructions. You got that?” Roy asked in a calm voice. There was no doubt about the fact that he was now in control. “You first, honey,” he said to the little girl. “What’s your name?” he asked conversationally as he adjusted the harness to fit her.

“M-Melanie,” she sobbed, “that’s my brother Johnny and he’s Lance,” she pointed at their former leader with disgust.

“Okay, Melanie, this will be fun,” he promised as he undid the rope from his harness and hitched it to hers. “It’s okay to close your eyes, if you want,” he whispered in her ear. “I always do.”

“You guys ready for the first one?” he hollered down through the tree.

“All set, Roy. Johnny’s off his rope if you want to haul it up and use it,” the cap called up.

Roy grabbed for Johnny’s rope. His movement caused the spaceship to shift a little. “Stay calm!” he yelled at the boys with authority. It occurred to him that he was off his safety line and if the structure went down they’d all go with it. The thought did not make him happy. He tied Johnny’s rope to his harness. That way if the thing went he could grab the kids and hope that whoever was on his line could hold them all.

The cap grabbed the little girl as soon as she was within reach. He lowered her to the ground and got her out of the harness. She was crying hysterically and she ran to her grandmother. The cap tugged on the rope. “Okay, Roy, pull it up and send the next one down.”

Once the little girl’s brother was on the ground he went to join his sister and grandmother. “Don’t cry, ya big baby,” he hissed at his sister.

“Why not? He is,” she sobbed and pointed at Johnny.

“You all right, Pal?” the cap asked Johnny. He was leaning against the tree rubbing his eyes which were watering like mad. He looked a little battered and scratched from the tree branches he’d encountered on his way down the tree.

“Sure. Just got a face full of lemon juice thanks to the aliens,” he muttered angrily.

“You need to have your eyes washed out.”

“It’ll keep till they are all down from that fool contraption,” Johnny assured him with a casual wave of his hand.

Once Roy and Lance were on the ground Grandma Larsen came storming over to them and unleashed a tirade that had Roy fearing for his life for a minute.

“You can’t yell at me. I’ll tell me dad when he comes back,” Lance threatened.

“Don’t think I don’t intend to yell at him too,” Grandma assured him. “How he could have raised a brat as insufferable as you is something he’s going to answer for, believe you me. Things are going to change around here right now. No more of this California “be friends with your kids” nonsense. No siree. I don’t want to be friends with you. I’m the adult here and you’re going to do as you’re told. All of you. From now on we’re going to do things the Minnesota way. No argument. No guff from any of you. March right into that house. Right now!”

All three kids did. Grandma turned to thank the firemen and then she followed them muttering something about that Lance finding out the other use for a woodshed if he wasn’t careful.

Once she was out of sight the cap told Roy to wash out Johnny’s eyes and take a look at Chet’s hands.
Both Johnny and Chet began to object. “Do you want me to have Grandma Larsen teach you boys the other use for a woodshed?” he asked with mock seriousness.

Roy checked Johnny out first. None of his injuries were anything but minor, however, washing his eyes out seemed to make his mood even worse than it was before. Roy was kind of glad to switch to Chet, who was rubbing his hands on his pantslegs.

“What happened to you?” Roy asked as Chet reluctantly held out the palms of his hands for Roy to examine.

“Just a little rope burn, thanks to Johnny falling out of the damn tree,” he muttered.

“Maybe you should have used the force, Luke,” Roy smirked as he put some salve on Chet’s hands.

“Maybe he should have used his gloves,” the cap disagreed. “Is he all right?”

“Yes, he’ll be fine. That should take the sting out.”

“But I probably can’t get my hands wet now. No latrine duty. No washing dishes, right?” Chet asked hopefully.

“We can always apply more salve if it washes off,” Roy disagreed, thoroughly enjoying Chet’s disappointment.

“Okay, let’s head back to the barn,” the cap announced. He took Roy aside. “You guys can go into Rampart and get some supplies.”

“But we don’t really need anything.” Roy was confused.

“But I don’t really need Johnny’s black mood at the station,” the cap said in a matter of fact tone of voice, as he headed for the engine.

Roy blinked in surprise. So he had to be stuck with Johnny’s black mood all the way to Rampart. Still, a change of scenery might do Johnny some good. Maybe flirting with a few nurses or some of Dixie’s coffee might cheer him up. If it didn’t, a full moon would be the least of Roy’s worries for this shift.

* * * * *

Cassie Kelly came out of treatment room 4 and joined her partner at the nurses’ station.

“How’s Vince?” Pidge asked with concern.

“Grouchy as ever. They’re gonna keep him overnight for observation but I guess he was pretty lucky. All he got was some bruises and a sore neck.”

“That’s a relief. His partner was asking about him.”

“Is this the partner Crenshaw was drooling about?”

“The same. In fact, she promised to cook for a month if we could find out his name. Trouble is, I didn’t see any name tag on him. He either lost it when he fell or he doesn’t have one yet since it’s his first day on the job,” Pidge mused.

“And you couldn’t just ask him?” Cassie was incredulous.

“It didn’t come up in the conversation. I didn’t want to sound like some kind of groupie like Crenshaw. It would be unprofessional,” Pidge insisted.

“Luckily I don’t have a stodgy reputation to uphold. I’ll go ask him,” Cassie sighed.

“He’s in room two,” Pidge informed her. Inwardly she smiled. Cassie was not the only one who know how to manipulate her partner.

Cassie pushed the door of room two open. She barely noticed that Dr Early and Dixie were in the room as her eyes fell on the guy who sat on the exam table. The paramedic in her noticed a few minor abrasions on his arm and a bandage on his hand but the rest of her was fully focused on the rest of his bare chest. He had a build like the guys on the covers of the trashy romance magazines that Crenshaw had stuffed in her locker. Her eyes moved up to his face. The Band-Aid over his eye did nothing to diminish his good looks. He had the bluest eyes and hair the color of honey. No wonder Crenshaw had the hots for him. It was the fact that Dixie was staring at her with one eyebrow raised that brought her mind back to the present and out of the gutter.

“Yes?” Dixie said in a tone of voice that sent nurses scurrying in four counties.

“Ah, Vince wanted me to check on his partner for him,” she said fighting not to stammer and to get her eyes popped back into her head.

“How is Vince?” young Adonis asked with concern.

“He’ll be fine. Vince is a tough ol’ nut,” Cassie said casually.

“He’s not the only one,” Joe Early stated. “Do you believe this guy was thrown from a speeding vehicle and he only has a few minor lacerations and abrasions? I couldn’t even find anything that needed sutures.”

“I wasn’t thrown, I jumped. Vince told me to.” His voice was quiet and serious.

“Well that still doesn’t explain how you got out of it without breaking your neck,” Dixie stated.

“It’s all in knowing how to fall,” he shrugged. “Anybody could do it if they studied martial arts.”

“Oh no not another one. Cassie here, is also into all that stuff,” Dixie said. No one noticed the sudden matchmaker glint that had entered her eye.

“Really? Where do you study? I’ve been looking for a place to study here in town.” He was suddenly a lot more animated and interested. His smile magically lit up his whole face.

“Double Dragon dojo. Here’s a card.” Cassie amazed herself by calmly digging out the business card for the martial arts studio where she studied and taught. It was an old YMCA and she also lived on the premises. This guy just got better and better.

“Great, thanks. I’ll be sure and check it out — ah Cassie?”

“Cassie Kelly. Oh by the way, my partner sent me in here to find out your name.”

“Your partner?”

“Yes Pidge, she treated you. We need your name for our report. I mean, I’d just write in Officer Cutie Pie but my captain would kill me.”

“What?” he asked with a laugh.

“Don’t worry. That’s the way she always acts. After a while you get used to it,” Dixie assured him.

“It’s Glade. Glade Logan,” he said extending his hand to her and flashing her another smile.

She shook his hand and tried to ignore that smile. It would have made a puddle out of most women but Cassie valiantly tried to convince herself that she was made of sterner stuff. “How do you do?” she forced herself to say.

“Well it looks like that is all medicine can do for you. You can go back to work now,” Dr Early told him.

“Thanks, Doc,” Glade said. He slid off the exam table. He picked up his uniform shirt and put it on. “You’re sure Vince is all right?” he asked Cassie with concern, as he buttoned up his shirt and tied his necktie.

“Same grouchy old bear he ever was. They’re gonna keep him overnight for observation but he’ll be just fine,” Cassie assured him. She thought the tie was a little formal for L.A. He’d soon learn. Must be first day jitters, although he seemed anything but jittery. She was impressed by his ability to tie the tie without a mirror to look at.

“I really want to thank you for taking such good care of him. Seriously, I was sure he was dead.” Glade remembered with a shudder.

“Vince?! Heck, he’s too ornery to die. You should have figured that out by now. I mean anyone who would be picky enough to give a girl a ticket for going 36 miles an hour in a 30 mile zone.” Cassie launched into one of the streams of verbal nonsense she was famous for.

Glade looked helplessly at Joe and Dixie as they all walked to the door of the treatment room.

“You’re on your own there. Once she gets going there’s no way to stop her,” Joe told him as they headed out into the hallway. “None we’ve ever found anyway.”

“Anybody ever try this?” Glade asked with a laugh. Without warning, he turned Cassie toward him and planted a kiss on her mouth.

This was not a move that Cassie was expecting. She was too startled to react for a few seconds by then she was enjoying it too much to care. This was the kind of kiss that Crenshaw went on and on about quoting her stupid magazines. But Cassie has always thought all that toe curling stuff kisses stuff was a lot of rubbish. Until now.

At the nurses’ station, Johnny and Roy had joined Pidge. They had a clear view of what was happening outside of room 2.

“Hey!” Johnny objected. He started to go down the hallway but Roy yanked him back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Roy demanded.

“What I’m doing?! It’s that cop that needs straightening out!”

“Johnny, use your head. I imagine if she objected, that cop would be sailing down the hallway feet first by now, don’t you think?”

“I..but… she…” Johnny grasped for words.

“It’s none of your business, Junior,” Roy said in no uncertain terms.

“Whatdya mean? She’s Chet’s sister that makes it our business, don’t ya think? If he knew…”

“It’s none of his business either, Gage,” Pidge said in a threatening tone.

“She’s right.” Roy agreed firmly.

“But…” Johnny looked from one to the other and saw that neither were about to give in so he just fumed quietly. Damn cops!

When the kiss ended Cassie was, indeed, speechless.

“Wow that works like a charm. Wonder why no one’s ever thought of that before,” Joe laughed. “Well come on, Officer Logan, there’s a sergeant waiting to give you a lift back to the station. He’s in the main lobby upstairs. Come on, I’ll show you where it is. The elevator’s this way.”

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” Glade told Cassie hopefully. “At the dojo…”

“If I’m not on duty, I’m generally there,” she said as Glade and Joe got onto the elevator.

Once the doors closed, Dixie turned her toward the nurses’ station and they started to walk in that direction. “You can breathe again now,” Dixie whispered to her.

“That’s what you think,” Cassie whispered back. She was unaware that her eyes were glazed over and she looked a little dazed.

“Recognize that look, Roy?” Dixie asked with a laugh.

“Sure do,” Roy said. “A clear cut case of young paramedic in love. I’ve seen in many, many times before.”

“What was that all about?” Johnny demanded ignoring the dig that Roy had intended for him.

“He wanted to thank me…for saving his partner,” Cassie sighed.

“Come on, girl, I think you need some air to clear your head. Maybe I’d better drive,” Pidge suggested dragging her partner toward the door.

“Okay,” Cassie said pleasantly, handing Pidge the keys.

“You got it bad, girl,” Pidge muttered under her breath as she shook her head in disbelief. No one was going to believe this one. Not that she was telling anyone about it. Must be the fool moon.

“Do you believe that?!” Johnny asked Dixie, hoping for an ally.

“Oh lighten up, Johnny. I think it’s kind of cute.”

“CUTE! A cop and a paramedic making out in the middle of the E.R. ?!”

“What’s the matter, Johnny? Ya jealous?” Dixie asked. She couldn’t begin to count the times he would have laid one on one of her nurses had she not put the fear of Dixie McCall into him at the getgo.

“Jealous?! Me?!” Johnny shouted in disbelief. “It’s just that well — for one thing. Cops and paramedics — everyone knows that never works out.”

“That never stopped you from trying,” Roy reminded him. “I seem to recall you chasing that undercover cop all over this place.”

“Well that’s different,” Johnny defended himself.

“How is that different?” Dixie demanded.

“Well, okay, it’s not different but that’s how I know that these things don’t work out,” Johnny insisted.

“What’s it to you anyway?” Dixie wanted to know.

“Look, Dix, in the Fire Department we look out for one another. We’re all fond of Cassie. No one wants to see her get hurt, is all.”

“Cassie can take care of herself,” Dixie told him firmly. She picked up a chart and pretended to go to work on it. That was her usual signal that the conversation was over.

“Dixie is right and if you don’t mind your own business, I’m guessing she can take care of you too, Junior.” Roy’s tone matched Dixie’s.

“Yeah? Well wait till Chet finds out about this,” Johnny said crossing his arms over his chest as if he’d won the argument.

“Chet’s not going to find out about this, though, is he, Johnny?” Dixie said in an icy tone. She fixed him with a glare that would have withered concrete.

“Did I say I would tell him? I won’t say a word but you know how the grapevine is. This’ll be all over the county by this afternoon.” Johnny fidgeted under her glare.

“If it is, I’ll know who’s to blame.” Dixie assured him.

“It sure won’t be me,” Johnny said barely hiding in his own anger. “I think I’ll wait in the squad.”

“What the heck is with him?” Dixie asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

“He’s just having a kind of anti-cop day. He’ll get over it,” Roy promised knowing full well it was a lie. “I’d better go before he drives off and leaves me here.”

“Don’t bring him back till his mood improves.”

“That’s what the cap said about the station,” Roy smiled and went out into the parking lot.

Johnny was already in the squad. Roy took a deep breath and got in too. “You all right?” he asked tentatively.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well it just seemed you got all worked up over nothing.”

“Nothing! You saw what that cop did!” Johnny turned toward him and stared in complete disbelief. How could Roy not be as enraged over that cop’s nerve as he was? He had definitely stepped over the line and no one seemed to care a bit. He never could understand some people’s sense of honor or lack of it.

“Yes but I’d say you were really over reacting — even for you.”

Johnny just grunted and a terrible idea came into Roy’s head. Dixie had said the word jealous but maybe it wasn’t what Dixie had thought at all. “Johnny,” he said seriously. “It’s not that you –”

“That I what?” Johnny snarled.

“You’re not harboring any feelings for Cassie, other than as a co-worker, are you?!”

“Of course I am. Cassie is Chet’s sister. Chet is my friend. Like I told Dixie, we look out for each other.”

“Chet is your friend?!” Roy was sure he hadn’t heard correctly.

“Yes he is. Him and Cassie. And friends don’t let friends kiss cops,” he stated as if Roy was a moron for not knowing such a thing.

Roy just stared at him. It’s gotta be the full moon. Please let it just be the full moon. He started the up the squad and headed back to the station. This was going to be a long shift.

* * * * *

They were just sitting down to lunch when Roy and Johnny arrived back at Station 51. Roy hoped that food would improve Johnny’s mood. When they opened the door to the day room the aroma of Marco’s burritos overwhelmed them.

“Perfect timing, gentleman,” Captain Stanley said happily. “Grab yourselves a plate and dig in.”

Marco’s burritos generally had this effect on the crew as they were everyone’s favorite lunch. Roy thought Marco was a genius. Even Johnny couldn’t continue his bad mood once he had a few of Marco’s burritos in him.

“All right!” Johnny said with genuine enthusiasm.

They all chowed down with gusto. When they had eaten more than their fill Johnny leaned back in his chair. “You know, Marco, you’re a great cook. Maybe you should quit the Fire Department and open a restaurant. I’d eat there every day, I can tell you that much.”

“Maybe you’re right, John. That way you’d have to pay for my burritos,” Marco commented.

“Johnny pay?! That’ll be the day,” Chet scoffed.

Before Johnny could retaliate, the tones sounded and the engine crew was called out to a dumpster fire. It was the first of many. Prank and nuisance calls kept the engine crew hopping for most of the afternoon. Roy and Johnny, on the other hand, got no calls at all. At first Roy was kind of relieved but the inactivity was starting to tell on Johnny. He had too much time to think and the more he thought the more he remembered all the things he’d been angry about. Roy tried to keep him busy. They did the lunch dishes and did some preparation work on dinner. It was Roy’s turn to cook and corn on the cob was on the menu so he had Johnny help him husk the corn. But there was only so much he could do before hand and after the corn and cutting up things for the salad he was running out of things to have Johnny do. He was so desperate that he almost suggested that they give Henry a flea bath when a call came in that included them.

Station 51 Injured man Westwood Apartments 5066 Westwood Blvd. Cross street Belmont. 5-0-6-6 Westwood Blvd Time out 16:04

Roy acknowledged the call and jumped into the squad beside Johnny. “Isn’t that?”

“Yes it is. Come on, Roy, step on it!” Johnny urged. It wasn’t everyday he got a call to his own apartment complex and it meant one of his neighbors might be in trouble.

Since Johnny knew all the short cuts between his apartment and the station, the squad arrived well ahead of the engine company. Johnny’s landlady, Mrs. Meyers was standing at the entrance to the parking lot waving them in. Mrs. Meyers was a monument to polyester with pink stretch pants and a silky looking flowered blouse. Her hair was in curlers covered by a pink hair net. Roy wondered if all the old ladies in L A had hot dates tonight but Johnny leapt our of the squad and ran over to her.

“What’s the problem, Mrs. M?” he asked with concern.

“Oh, Johnny, thank goodness it’s you.” She was very relieved to see him. “It’s Bob Hurley. He caught someone trying to steal gas from his truck and he confronted him!”

“Where is he?” Johnny forced himself to be patient with her. He was very fond of his landlady, in spite of Roy’s sick jokes about her being his girlfriend. Roy just didn’t get it. Many of the people who lived in this complex lived alone. Most, like him, came from somewhere else so they had became a kind of surrogate family to one another.

“Over there by his truck. We thought it was better not to move him.” Mrs. Meyers was very nervous. She clutched Johnny’s arm for support.

“You did the right thing,” Johnny assured her taking her hands in his for a brief moment. Then he motioned for Roy to follow him in the squad as he loped over to Bob Hurley’s delivery his truck. Bob worked at a local bakery. He generally left for work when everyone else at the complex was asleep but he got off in the early afternoon. He was an older man; a widower who lived alone. Johnny had known him since he moved in a few years ago. He was sitting up against the right rear tire of the bakery truck. Another neighbor, Mrs. Carmichael, held a washcloth to the wound on his head. Mrs. Carmichael could talk the ear off of a flea, according to Bob. It was common knowledge that Mrs. Carmichael had her cap set for Bob and he usually avoided her like the plague.

“Let me take a look at that, Mrs. C,” Johnny said as he knelt on the other side of Bob.

“Thank goodness you’ve come, Johnny,” Mrs. Carmichael cooed but Johnny was sure she’d much rather tend to Bob herself.

“It’s nothin. I keep tellin’ ‘um that,” Bob said in a gruff voice.

“Hush now, Robert, and let Johnny check you out,” Mrs. Carmichael scolded.

“What happened, Bob?” Johnny asked as he assessed the wound on Bob’s head. Judging from the stains on his shirt, it must have bled pretty heavily at first but the pressure that had been applied seemed to have stemmed the flow.

Mrs. Carmichael started to answer for him but Mrs. Meyers gently pulled her to her feet. “You have to stand back now, dear, and let Johnny and Ray have some room to work.” Roy had just arrived with the equipment.

“It’s Roy,” he corrected from force of habit, although he was sure no one was listening to him.

“I looked out my window and seen some punk messin’ around near the gas cap. I figured it was our thief so I runs out to confront him but he nailed me with some kind of pry tool. Next thing I know I’m sitting here and he peals off around the side of the building. If I was ten years younger, I’d a gone after him but I’m afraid I been samplin’ too many of the company donuts to get up much speed these days,” Bob grumbled.

“Did you lose consciousness at all?” Roy asked as he wrapped the cuff around Bob’s are to take his blood pressure.

“Naw.”

“You sure?” Johnny asked as he began to clean the wound. It was actually not as large or deep as he has feared. Bob’s thick grey curly hair must have deflected the blow.

“Sure I’m sure. I done worse than this to myself lots of times.”

“And he hit you with a pry tool? What a crow bar?” Johnny asked as he worked. He noticed that a syphoning tube and an old plastic milk carton were on the ground next to Bob. He’d obviously caught the guy in the act.

“No, nothin anywhere near that big. It was more like a suped up church key. Maybe a foot long. Probably designed for prying open locked gas caps. Took me by surprise is all. I never figured the punk kid had it in him.”

“You saw who it was?!” Johnny was amazed.

“Sure. It was that Willoby kid from 2-G.”

“You sure?” Johnny demanded. He stared up at Apartment 2-G. It was just four doors down from his own apartment but it was one of the bigger ones in the complex. A woman and her teenaged son lived there. They didn’t mix with the other people in the complex so no one knew them very well.

“Don’t worry. He’s long gone by now,” Bob told him.

“I saw Mark Willoby go into his apartment when I went back to get the washcloth for your head,” Mrs. Carmichael said. She had eased her way back toward Bob while Mrs. Meyers went to flag down the engine company which had just arrived.

“You did, huh? Well, you’re not in too bad a shape, Bob. Roy can finish up here. I think I’ll just go have a little talk with Mark Willoby,” Johnny said standing up.

“Johnny, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Roy said nervously.

“Don’t worry about me, Roy,” Johnny said with determination.

This made Roy worry even more. This kid had been desperate enough to attack once. Cornering him would not be a great idea. “Johnny no!” he called after Johnny who ignored him and was now heading for the building. The engine crew had just gotten out of the rig. “Cap, you guys better go with him!” Roy called out desperately. He didn’t normally order the cap and the others around but he didn’t want Johnny bulling into anything and Johnny was plainly not in any mood to listen to reason.

“I’ll go call the police,” Mrs. Meyers volunteered. She, too, had guessed what Johnny’s ill thought out plan was.

“He’s gonna get himself killed,” Roy muttered angrily as he finished dressing Bob’s wound.

“Naw, the Willoby kid’s just a punk is all. A sneak and a punk. Imagine stealing from your neighbors.” Bob was disgusted.

The Westwood Apartments were in a two story building made of a reddish pink stucco. There were barrel tiles on the overhang that covered the second floor hallway but the roof itself was flat. There were eight apartments on each floor. There was an iron stairway on each end of the open air hallway on the second floor which all the apartments opened onto. The place did not look that unlike a roadside motel in that respect. But it was home to Johnny and the others who lived there and Johnny didn’t like having a thief in their midst. It was a violation of the trust the neighbors had in each other.

Bob’s truck had been parked at the far end of the lot so Johnny took those stairs up to the second floor. The cap and the others mounted the near stairs and met Johnny outside apartment 2-G. Johnny had already knocked at the door several times. Finally a voice from within responded.

“Who is it?” asked a sleepy sounding voice.

“It’s Johnny Gage from down the hall, Mark. I want to talk to you.” Johnny tried to keep the anger from his voice. He’d much rather the kid co-operated.

“That’s not a good idea, Johnny. See I’m home from school sick and I’d hate to have you catch anything.” Mark accented that speech with a few fake sounding coughs.

“That’s okay, I’ll take my chances.” Johnny fiddled with the doorknob but it was locked.

“What’s going on, John,” the cap demanded.

“Found my gas thief, Cap,” Johnny said hoping that Stanley wouldn’t call him off. He was on duty so he’d have to obey but it would only put off his encounter with the kid. He’d talk to him as soon as he could.

“You think he might have some of the stolen gas in the apartment?” the cap asked.

“He might.”

The cap leaned over the railing and called down to Mrs. Meyers. “I think we need to make an emergency fire inspection of this apartment. Do we have your permission?”

“You certainly do,” she called up to him.

“Mark, this is Captain Stanley of the LA County Fire Department. We are going to inspect this apartment for a suspected fire hazard. Open the door or we’ll be forced to break it down.”

“You can’t do that. I know my rights. You need a warrant to get in here,” Mark fired back through the door.

“That’s the police department. We have the right to inspect any premises in our district. Are you going to open the door?” Captain Stanley corrected him.

“No way, Jose. You’re bluffing!” Mark yelled defiantly through the closed door.

“Break the door down, boys,” the cap commanded them casually, stepping back out of their way.

It took Chet and Marco two tries but they shouldered the door till it came loose from the hinges. Johnny pushed it open and forced his way inside followed by the others. They were stunned by what they saw. Every available space in the living room and what they could see of the kitchen was covered by old plastic milk cartons. The smell of gasoline was heavy in the air.

“This place is an absolute fire trap!” Captain Stanley gasped. The smallest of sparks could have set the place off. Even them breaking down the door could have done it. With this amount of gasoline present the whole place would have gone up in flames. There might have even been an explosion that would have killed them all and Mark. They had seen too many instances of what happened to people who hoarded gasoline but they’d never encountered this much before.

Johnny, however, paid no attention to the dangerous conditions. He narrowed in on Mark. Mark ran down the hallway to the bedrooms. Johnny was in hot pursuit. Johnny caught up with him before he could get the bedroom door closed and forced his way inside. With his peripheral vision Johnny could see that this was a typical teenager’s room. Posters of heavy metal bands and flashy cars hung on the walls. Shoes and clothes littered the floor. The bed was unmade. The thing that really caught Johnny’s eye was the inordinate amount of stereo equipment and other expensive electronics scattered around the room. This must have been what he was spending his money on. The money he got from selling the gas that he stole.

While Johnny’s attention was momentarily diverted, Mark seized the advantage and landed a right hook on Johnny’s jaw. Johnny stumbled backwards but did not fall over. Mark dove out onto the small balcony that opened off the room. Johnny was hot on his heels.

This balcony was at the rear of the building. The decorative tiled overhang was repeated here. Mark climbed up onto the iron railing that surrounded the balcony, grabbed onto the overhang and pulled himself up onto the roof. He kicked at Johnny on his way up but Johnny was able to avoid his booted foot.

Johnny followed him up onto the roof completely ignoring Chet and Marco’s warning not to. Chet and Marco returned to the living room. “Cap, Johnny chased the kid up onto the roof,” Chet panted.

“Okay, you three go back to the rig. Marco, Chet, you guys set up for a ladder rescue. Mike, call for a Fire Marshall and a haz mat team to secure this scene. I don’t even want to use the radio in here. Tell Mrs. Meyers that they’d better evacuate the building until all this is safely out of here and this apartment has been properly ventilated.” The cap was spitting out orders rapidly. He still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There must have been almost 100 gallons of the stuff sitting around the place. What was that kid thinking of storing all this gasoline in his apartment? What were his parents thinking to let him do it? He’d be glad when everyone was out of the building but he still felt duty bound to stay and guard the cache himself.

Outside the building, Chet and Marco ran to the rig and pulled their longest ladder off of it. Mike climbed into the cab to call for the help the cap requested on the radio. Roy and the rest of the tenants had their eyes glued to the roof watching as Johnny and the teenager struggled.

Johnny had chased the kid up onto the roof. This seemed to surprise Mark and he desperately looked around for an escape. Johnny stopped at about the middle of the roof. He didn’t want the kid to do something really stupid like try and jump. “Look, Mark, you’ve got no place to go. You might as well just give up.” He tried to reason with him. He was also forcing himself to calm down so he didn’t do anything stupid in the heat of anger.

“No way! I’m not going back to juvie hall. Not now, not ever. So why don’t you just climb down and get off my back, ya creep?” Mark yelled at him and took a threatening step forward.

“I’m not going anywhere either,” Johnny said through clenched teeth. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Mark with narrowed eyes. He stood his ground. He could wait the kid out. He’d come to his senses eventually. Johnny hoped it would be sooner than later as it was hot as hell up on the roof. He could see the heat rising off of it in waves and he could feel the perspiration soaking his shirt.

Mark was shorter than Johnny but had a stockier build. After they stared at each other a while, Mark rushed toward him intending to knock him down. Johnny sidestepped him and tried to grab him instead. They struggled for a few minutes and then Mark broke free of Johnny’s grasp. The heat was making Johnny’s hands too sweaty to hold onto him. The exertion had winded them both. They stared each other down once more but this time they were both breathing heavily.

“Why don’t you just leave me alone!” Mark screamed in fury. “I never done nothing to you.”

“You stole gas from me and from almost everyone else in the complex,” Johnny argued.

“Big deal. You guys can all afford to buy more.”

“That’s not the point,” Johnny began. Once more he tried to curb his anger. Before he could continue the kid charged at him again. This time he connected and very nearly succeeded in knocking Johnny off his feet. Johnny stumbled and the kid charged past him.

Unfortunately the kid had built up too much momentum and he couldn’t stop when he got to the far end of the roof. He teetered near the edge. Johnny was right behind him. He grabbed him to pull him back. Mark, sensing his danger, turned and tried to lunge at Johnny. Johnny fought to keep his balance but Mark was too heavy.

“JOHNNY, LOOK OUT!” Roy yelled from his vantage point in the parking lot.

Mike was in the cab of the rig contacting L A “L A this is Engine 51. Request a Fire Marshall and a haz mat — holy shit!” he interrupted himself as he saw Johnny and the teenager tumble off the roof.

“Engine 51 repeat.” L A demanded clarification.

“L A we need a Fire Marshall and a haz mat team at our location. Also be advised we have a possible Code-I,” Mike told them nervously as he watched Roy, Chet and Marco race around to the back of the building.

“10-4 51. Do you need an ambulance?”

“Affirmative L A,” Mike told them hoping against hope that it wasn’t too late for an ambulance. He tossed the mic onto the driver’s seat and ran to join the others.

Much to everyone’s relief Johnny had not landed on the pavement that surrounded the building. He and Mark had landed in a nearly full dumpster. Their fall had been stopped by assorted paper and cardboard products. Not to mention plastic bags full of food garbage and disposable diapers that the hot day had ripened to an almost intolerable level. They all peered over the side of the dumpster in disbelief.

“What a lovely smell you’ve discovered,” Chet said holding his nose at the stink.

Johnny was too busy counting his blessings to answer out loud. He just picked up a blackened banana peel and tossed it at Chet. The sound of a siren told them that the police had arrived at last. All the fight had gone out of Mark and he was taken into custody without further incident

They canceled the ambulance as Johnny didn’t need it and Bob refused further treatment. Once the Fire Marshall and the haz mat team took control of the scene the Engine company was released.

Roy was feeling none to charitable toward Johnny both for not staying out of it when he told him to and for giving him heart failure by falling off the roof. “The way you smell you’re not riding in the squad,” he told him in no uncertain terms.

“Then how am I supposed to get back to the station?” Johnny demanded. He was hot and smelly and all he wanted was a nice long shower. Which he could take in his own apartment if they left him here, he grumbled to himself. He was in no mood for any of Roy’s righteous indignation.

“Guess you’ll have to ride with us, Pal,” Captain Stanley said but when Johnny approached the rig the cap pointed to the back of the rig with his thumb. They were going to make him ride back to the station standing on the rear bumper. He might have been mad about that but the truth was that was his favorite place to ride on an engine. You had a great view, it was easy to catch the eye of girls on the street or in convertibles and besides, it was nice and cool once the engine got going. Riding on the back of speeding engines and sliding down fire poles were two of the things that had made him want to be a fireman to begin with.

By the time Johnny got showered and changed, Roy was putting dinner on the table.

“Boy, do I need this,” Chet said, grabbing for a pork chop and an ear of corn. “I gotta tell ya, I’m really draggin’. Nothin’ but shit calls all damn day. Must be the full moon.”

“Roy, Joanne’s pork chops are delicious,” Marco said after he’d taken a bite.

“What do you mean Joanne’s pork chops? I cooked these,” Roy protested.

“But it’s Joanne’s recipe so I give credit where credit is due,” Marco argued with a grin.

They had the tv news on while they ate. “Hey, look they’re covering the gas thief story,” Chet noted as Johnny’s apartment complex appeared on the screen.

They all grabbed their plates and went to eat over by the TV. “Turn the sound up, Chet,” Johnny demanded of Chet who was the closest to the set.

“….potentially lethal situation as the young man stored over 90 gallons of the gasoline, which he allegedly stole, right in his own apartment endangering everyone in the building. Speaking with Fire Marshall John Otis, Channel 10 has learned that the stored gasoline had enough destructive power to have leveled the building at any time. Had something set it off at night, surely all of the other tenants would have been killed in their sleep.”

They all looked at Johnny who suddenly had a sick looking expression on his face.

“You all right, Pal?” the cap asked.

Johnny nodded and pretended to be paying all of his attention to the news story. He decided he didn’t want to think about what might have happened.

“….but due to a concerted effort by police and fire department personnel this situation has been safely defused. According to the owner of the building, a Mrs. Ida Meyers, the real hero of the day was Firefighter John Gage of L A County’s Station 51, who also happens to be a tenant here at Westwood Apartments. She credits him with singlehandedly capturing the young offender. Now back to you at the studio.”

“Man! It must be the full moon or something. Since when is a guy a hero for falling off a building into a stinky dumpster. Course, it seems like it’s Johnny’s day to fall off of things — like that tree this morning. I think the guy who gave up several layers of skin to keep him from splitting his head open is the real hero—”

“Shut up, Chet. We’re trying to watch the news,” Marco snarled at him.

“In other bizarre news on this day of the blue moon,” the anchorman told the camera, “a police car ended up on the roof of a shopping center after chasing a vandal who squirted oils out of his vehicle causing the officer to lose control.”

“Sounds like something out of a James Bond movie,” his lovely co-anchor said with an overly large smile. “For more on this story we take you to a report from the scene filmed earlier.”

The shot changed to one taped from a news helicopter. The camera zoomed in a what was left of a police car on the roof of a strip center. Firefighters and paramedics were loading a stokes into a county chopper which hovered right above the roof.

“The injured policeman, Officer Vince Howard,” the co-anchor spoke over the picture which changed to a photo of Vince, “is reported to be in good condition at Rampart General Hospital.”

“Oh man,” Johnny said for them all. Vince was a friend of theirs.

“Channel 10 spoke with Officer Howard’s partner on the scene.” The scene changed again to a close up of a nervous looking young cop. The name Officer Glade Logan appeared at the bottom of the screen.

“Glade — what the hell kind of name is that?” Chet scoffed. “Sounds like some kind of air freshener.”

“Oh, he’s fresh all right,” Johnny muttered but Roy elbowed him hard which stopped him from saying anything else. No one seemed to have heard. They were all listening to the cop’s explanation of what had happened to cause the patrol car to end up on top of a shopping center.

* * * * *

Station 18 had been having strange calls all day also. They were just returning to quarters after their second trip of the day to the Shady Acres Rest Home. The first time, Fanny, a retired Lady of the Evening had locked herself and several of the male patients in the sunroom. This time Fanny had locked a young volunteer in a closet. Both times she had brandished a set of long knitting needles as a weapon to keep the staff at bay. This time Cassie had relieved her of the needles and took them with her when they left.

When they pulled back into the station, Pidge noticed the knitting needles. “Don’t tell me you’re taking up knitting now?” Pidge was incredulous. Cassie was the least domestic female on the face of the planet.

“Hell no. But I am going to take up scratching. This should just do the trick,” Cassie said as she slid one of the needles into her cast. It had been on long enough to be very itchy by this time.

“I don’t believe you, girl.” Pidge just rolled her eyes.

“Hey, if you’d have let me take these last time we had to disarm Miss Fanny we probably could have avoided a second trip,” Cassie insisted as they walked into the kitchen.

Crenshaw was making a big deal over the delicious Southern dinner she had cooked. “Just think, y’all could have this kind of fabulous food every shift for a whole month if Kelly would just spill the beans about that cop’s name.” She figured if they all put pressure on her, Cassie would have to crack.

“I told you, I just called him Officer Cutie Pie,” Cassie said as she stole some celery out of the salad. Wild horses couldn’t drag his name out of her. She wouldn’t wish Crenshaw’s attentions on her worst enemy and she had hopes of Officer Logan being anything but an enemy.
Pidge was sure that her intrepid partner had learned a lot more about the guy than his name but she wasn’t telling anyone what it was. She had even written ‘Officer Cutie Pie’ in the log book but Pidge had changed it to ‘Officer Howard’s partner’. Pidge hoped that the rest of the shift would be uneventful but she doubted that she’d get her wish. It was a full moon and that brought all the looneys out if the woodwork. It was probably going to be a long shift. She tuned out Cassie and Crenshaw’s argument. These two looneys were always out of the woodwork as far as she could tell.

* * * * *

Suzy Parker climbed down from the step ladder and looked around the large ballroom. If she had had her druthers she wouldn’t even have been involved with this whole stupid idea of having a Blue Moon dance at the Hidden Hills Country Club. She was only here for two reasons. One was that her mother was the committee chairman for the dance which automatically made Suzy part of the crew. The other was that she felt a loyalty to the club. It had been here that she had learned to play tennis. It was a sport that she dearly loved. She had even been a pro for a while but the purses were never big enough to do more than cover expenses so she couldn’t really make a living playing the game. Besides, once she turned pro it became more like a business and that took some of the fun out of the game for her.

So she had quit the circuit and decided to become a nurse. When she graduated from nursing school she landed a job at an exclusive Beverly Hills cosmetic surgery clinic run by a friend of her father and a fellow member of Hidden Hills. He was only too happy to let her have time off to play tennis and bring further glory to the club so it was the best of both worlds for a while. But nursing school had shown her real medicine in action. She’d seen lives saved in her time in both the ER and the OR. It was exciting and important work. So she soon became restless at the clinic where she was stuck inside and had to cater to the whims of the ultra rich and pampered.

When she heard about the chance to be a firefighter and paramedic she knew she had to go for it. Not only would she be able to practice possibly life saving medicine as a paramedic but she could be outside in the fresh air much of the time. Like a true California girl, she was a sun worshiper. She also like to be active so the physical conditioning involved with firefighting appealed to her too. Her mother disapproved of job due to its bluecollar status which made it all the more fun for Susy, actually. Plus she found that she liked and respected the people she was working with, far more than she ever did the idle rich that she had always known. Now she felt she had a foot in each world. It was easier to appease her mother than to argue with her. Her mother had decided that this was some sort of a belated teenage rebellious stage that Suzy was going through. She was sure that once she was introduced to the right man all of this foolishness would be forgotten and Suzy would return to her rightful place in society.

Suzy took the room in. The Blue Moon theme seemed to be well represented. A huge Blue Moon/disco ball hung from an overhead beam in the middle of the room. The thing was actually an old movie prop. One of the members was an executive of a major studio and he had had his propmaster dig the thing out. It was originally supposed to be a boulder. It was made of Styrofoam and painted a dusty brown. With enough imagination it might look like the actual moon. However, Mrs. Parker had had the brilliant idea to cover the thing with tiny mirror tiles — blue ones in fact. This project had taken several people days to accomplish. It was lucky that Mother could bully the newer members into doing the tedious work of glueing hundreds of tiny blue-tinted mirrors onto the Styrofoam ball. Somehow Mother had thought that since it was made of Styrofoam, it would be light but 400 pounds of Styrofoam weighs as much as 400 pounds of anything else and once all the mirrors were glued on it was even heavier. It was clear that the filament that Mother wanted to use to hold the moon up would not be strong enough. Heavy cable would be needed. Mother had wanted the moon to appear to be floating freely. She didn’t want it to look like a ball on a chain as she called it. In the end, Suzy had hand painted all of the cable grey and assured her mother that in the low lights of the disco no one would notice the cable. What they were able to string up with filament and fishing line were chicken wire frames covered with gobs and gobs of fiberfil. These were spray painted grey. They were intended to look like clouds in the night sky. It was supposed to be some sort of spooky effect and was the brain child of the wife of the movie exec. The room was also draped in heavy black velvet curtains that looked like they were some kind of old theater props. This was supposed to represent dark shadows and add to the ambiance. It also would muffle the sound of the music so that the people in the dinning room would not be disturbed.

It looked like a bad stage effect with all the lights on in the ballroom but it might work better in the dark. It wasn’t like the people who came for the disco really noticed the decor anyway but the old ladies on the committee were clueless about discos. The whole disco scene was just about over, thank goodness and the senior members of the club had just discovered it. They thought it was a good way to increase membership by appealing to the young up and coming L A movers and shakers. Susy thought that dropping a lot of the restrictions would have done a better job of increasing membership but these old snobs would never do that.

“Oh this place looks wonderful,” one of the ladies on the committee cooed to her mother.

Suzy’s mother held a position of power in the club. The Parkers were charter members of Hidden Hills. One or both of them was on every major committee there was, including the all important Membership Committee which had the power to give the nod to those aspiring to join the club or the boot to a member who didn’t live up to expectations. Suzy really hated all of the politics involved.

“It almost makes me wish I was young enough to still cut a rug,” laughed Mrs. Sanderson. She was a long time member whose position was fairly secure but she still made it a point to always be on the good side of the Parkers.

“All that is left to do is for the disc jockey to set up on the stage and for the food service people to get the bar set up. And of course there will be the presentation by our own wonderful Chef Andre along with one of his world famous ice sculptures,” Susy’s mother thought out loud.

Chef Andre was the one person at the club who had no fear of the Parkers or the Membership Committee. He let it be known that the club was very lucky to have an artiste of his caliber in its employ. As far as the food side of the club went, Chef Andre called all the shots. The fact that he was mean spirited and quite abusive to those who worked for him was of no concern to the members. They didn’t worry about the ‘little people’ who had no power. It was an attitude that they would come to regret before this night was over.
“What do you think, Suze, you’re more familiar with Disco than we older gals are?” Susy’s mother asked her.

Suzy was hardly a disco diva she was far more interested in tennis. Late nights at the disco and early court times didn’t mix. Besides, she thought that most of the club hoppers tended to look ridiculous. All of the music sounded the same to her and she always felt like she was center stage at a meat market whenever she went to a club with her friends. She did like to dance but dancing was the farthest thing from the minds of most of the guys she’d met at discos. They seemed to think that a couple of whirls around the floor to a BeeGees tune was an invitation to bed.

“I don’t think there’s much more we can do to improve it,” Suzy said diplomatically.

“Well good. I’d say it’s time for Suzy to get down to the locker room and shower off and get ready for tonight,” Suzy’s mother decided as she herded Suzy and the others out of the ballroom. The other women faded into the background as Suzy’s mother led her toward the ladies’ spa/shower area.

“Mom, the dance doesn’t even start until 8 o’clock,” Suzy objected.

“But we have so much to do before then. I’ve scheduled an appointment for you with Agnes and the cosmetologist. Plus we are going to have dinner with Daddy before the dance, in case you forgot. And you’ll want to look your best tonight.”

Suzy dreaded having an appointment with Agnes. It would be one long argument as Agnes tried to foist one of the big hair dos that she was so famous for onto Suzy. Suzy preferred a more natural look. And she hated feeling overly made up so a session with the make up people would mean another fight. “Mom, why all the fuss. It’s just a dance — wait a minute. You haven’t set me up with someone again, have you?!”

“Oh Susy, why are you so hard to get along with?” her mother complained with a pout. “All I want is what’s best for you. You’re almost 28 years old. You’re not getting any younger, you know. Nearly all the girls you grew up with are already married…,” her mother droned on.

Suzy tuned her out. Yes they were married but some of them were straddled with smarmy social climbers who were after their money and the rest were trophy wives of middle-aged men who were members of the club and therefore able to keep them in the same opulent style that they were born to while their first wives suddenly became persona non grata. ‘How could these girls live with themselves?’ she wondered as she reluctantly tuned back in on her mother.

“…A little blind date never hurt anyone. Besides, you’ll like him. He’s in medicine too. He’s a doctor!”

“A doctor?” Suzy was dubious. Doctors seldom felt the need to be fixed up with a date.

“An orthodontist. He had a thriving practice in Beverly Hills. You could do a lot worse,” her mother stated as she fussed with a piece of Suzy’s hair that had come loose from her pony tail.
“Mo- ther,” Suzy threatened.

“Oh for heaven sakes. All you have to do is spend the evening with him. I’m not asking you to go home with him or anything. I’ve already assured him that you’ll be coming home with Daddy and me after the dance. I just want to expose you to some decent men, honey.” Her mother put on her innocent face.

That might work on her father but it didn’t cut any ice with Suzy. Someday soon she was going to have to lay down the law with her. Suzy wished she was better at confrontation. She’d been raised to be too nice. Maybe she should take lessons from Cassie Kelly. She had taken confrontation to an art form. Suzy just bit her tongue and followed her mother down to the ladies’ locker room. The sooner this whole lousy evening began the sooner it would be over.

* * * * *

Along with the shower, spa and laundry areas, the lower levels of the Clubhouse were devoted to the storage of food and equipment for the kitchen. There were several walk in refrigerators and freezers down there as well as many closets for storage of everything from dishes and linens to spare chairs, tables and heating trays to keep food warm for the many buffets that the club had. There were also special freezer units designed to keep Chef Andre’s famous ice sculptures intact as long as possible.

Chef Andre was currently having a temper tantrum because he couldn’t find one of his favorite utensils. He was sure it had been stolen and he ordered all but the main door to the premises locked immediately until it was found. No one argued with Chef when he was in one of these moods, especially given that he held a clever in his hands at the present time. The head waiter ran to do his bidding. Food service people often fell victim to Chef Andre’s wrath and had learned to try and avoid doing so at all costs. Every command he uttered was always carried out to the letter.

Waiters, bus boys and food prep people had to duck thrown objects and put up with Chef Andre’s foul mouthed abuse as they set up for a regular dinner hour in the dining room as well as the bar and hors d’oeuvres table in the ballroom to say nothing of the infamous full moon sculpture the Chef had carved in ice. It was a lot more appealing to the eye than the monstrosity that the club ladies had made and had hung in the center of the room. That was a moon designed by committee and it showed. What didn’t show was the fact that the thing weighed nearly 500 pounds and was suspended from the ceiling by a cable that was only designed to hold up 300 pounds.

“I’m so sick of that damn frogfaced jerk,” muttered one bus boy to another as they set up tables in the ballroom. “Who the hell does he think he is anyway?”

“He’s our boss,” hissed his work mate. “Just forget about what he said. There’s really nothing you can do about it anyway. You need this job.”

“Maybe but I don’t need his damn crap. Someone ought to put that SOB in his place.”

“Yeah right but who?”

“Maybe me,” the first guy said mischievously.

“How you gonna do that and keep your job?”

“Don’t worry, Pete. He’ll never find out it was me but I think Chef Asshole is about ripe for a come down.”

“What are you talking about? Jerry, what have you got up your sleeve?” his friend demanded.

“Just watch me,” Jerry grinned. He was setting up the section of the table that would hold the magnificent ice sculpture. The platform that the sculpture sat on would eventually be draped in table cloths so the freezer unit underneath it was not seen by the general public so as not to spoil the magic. The freezer unit was hollow. Jerry took several heating trays off of his cart and put them inside the freezer.

“What the heck are you doing?!”

“Me? Not a thing but I think Chef Asshole’s moon might just melt tonight. Might even make some of the rich bitches wet and they might just call the fat old blimp out onto the carpet. Won’t it be nice to see him getting his ass chewed out instead of us for a change?”

“Jerry, you are a genius,” Pete said with awe.

Jerry did consider himself a genius. He turned all of the heating units to high then plugged them all into an extension cord as they often did when they had a buffet with many heating trays in operation at once. Then he ran the extension cord wire and the wire for the freezer unit across the rug to the wall they always used for the freezer unit. He taped them both to the floor with duct tape as they always did to prevent anyone from tripping on them. No one would guess that there was more than one wire running across the floor.

“Now what?” Pete asked enthusiastically.

“Now we plug in the freezer so it’s nice and cold when his highness brings in the ice sculpture.”

“Then what?”

“Then when the dance gets started we switch to the heaters and wait for the fun to begin. Now quick get away from here so no one suspects anything while I plug this in.” Jerry commanded. Once Pete was across the room he tended to a little problem he hadn’t anticipated. The socket was just a two prong one. The small freezer didn’t pull that much power so it ran on a two prong plug. All the heaters and the extension cord were grounded so they had a three prong plug. Jerry reached into his pocket. With the pliers on his Swiss army knife he managed to work on the prong till it finally broke off. Now it would be a breeze to plug this into the two prong outlet later and make his boss look like the fool he was to the members. They might even fire him.

By the time the dance began Suzy Parker was fuming. Not only was her head pounding from the blaring music but she felt like an idiot in her rather skimpy red dress and Farrah Fawcett hair do to say nothing of the fact that the red platform shoes her mother had insisted she buy added two inches to her height. Even in her stocking feet, at 5’7″ she would have been head and shoulders over her ‘date’. And what a piece of work he turned out to be. He had greasy looking Elvis hair worn with huge bushy side burns. He was clad in a white polyester John Travolta rip off suit with oversized lapels. His bright iridescent yellow shirt had even larger lapels and it was open almost to the waist. Around his neck he must have had twenty thick gold chains of various lengths and his own white platform shoes still made him so short that Suzy felt like she was babysitting. But what the good dentist lacked in height and taste he made up for in overblown ego. The icing on the cake though, was his name — Dr. Dick Wheat. Talk about being suited to his name!

Doctor Dick was a dynamo of energy also and he hadn’t missed one finger snapping dance since they entered the room. After an hour Suzy finally excused herself to the ladies room just to get a break from the jerk.

Long before Susy made her escape from the good doctor, Jerry had switched plugs and even in the dim light of the disco he could see that the icemoon was slowly losing its shape. How the mighty would fall. He smiled as he picked up dirty glasses from the small tables scattered around the edges of the room.

Because of the heavy draperies that had been hung around the room to create a dark and sound muffling effect no one could see the plug that Jerry had plugged the heaters into. Not only was it no longer grounded but it was drawing far more power than usual. The heating trays were always kept at warm when they were used in a buffet. Since Jerry had set each one at high it didn’t take too long for them to overheat. The first sign was the small sparks that escaped from the plug. The sparks fell onto the draperies that were pooled at the floor. Eventually the thick fabric began to smoulder. The silky lining of the draperies caught fire but the thicker velvet of the outside of the drapes hid the flames from view until they had traveled all the way to the ceiling. Asbestos ceiling tiles might have stopped the fire but before it got that far but the club prided itself on its tongue and groove pine paneled ceilings and thick log-like wood beams. Soon the flimsy fiberfil clouds were set alight high above the disco ball. The flames were halfway across the room before anyone noticed and those that did assumed that it was part of the spectacular disco experience they had been promised.

When Suzy felt she could put it off no longer, she returned to the ballroom. Compared to the hallway it was very dark in the room. It took her eyes a minute to adjust. It also took her ears a minute to adjust to the high decibel level of the disco music blaring from the two huge speakers on either side of the stage. But her nose was alerted right away to a smell that she knew all too well. One that should not have been present at all. It was smoke. Not just the scattered cigarette smoke near the bar that the ventilation system was working full tilt to pull out of there. This was serious smoke. Smoke from a fire. Her eyes searched the room to pinpoint the cause of it. It was then that she noticed that the darkened side of the room where the snacks had been served was not as dark as it had been. In disbelief her eyes followed the line of fire that lazily lapped its way up a curtain toward the ceiling. She saw at once that there was a good deal of fire overhead. Enough to be a serious danger. They had to evacuate this room right now. She ran over to the stage. The disc jockey could not hear her above the sound of the music. In desperation she reached over and yanked the arm off the record.

“Hey, Bitch, what gives?” the diskjockey demanded.

Suzy could smell the pot on him. No wonder he failed to notice the fire even at his vantage point. She grabbed the mic. It would be faster than trying to get through to this guy.

“Look,” she said with an authority she had never felt before. “We need to evacuate this room right now. On the wall opposite the bar there are several exits in the room that open onto the parking lot in the rear of the club so everyone just move to the nearest one in an orderly fashion.” She looked around the room. To her dismay she didn’t see a single exit sign. “Just pull that drapery down and you’ll see them with ease.”

To her amazement no one seemed to be panicking. In fact, no one seemed to have even noticed the fire that was now racing over their heads. A few people made half-hearted attempts to tug at some of the drapery. This wouldn’t be enough. “I have been authorized to offer free lifetime membership to the person who pulls down the most drapery,” she said in desperation.

It worked. A drapery pulling frenzy ensued. Soon two exit signs were clearly visible on the left side of the room.

“Holy shit,” the disc jockey said loudly enough so that his voice was picked up by the microphone. “This fuckin’ place is on fire!”

“Just open the doors and leave in an orderly fashion. There’s plenty of time.” Suzy tried keep her voice calm and authoritative in hopes of stemming panic. Inwardly she was furious at herself for never noticing that there were no sprinklers in this room. They would have put this fire out within minutes but they might have marred the view of the wood ceilings and beams so some committee must have voted them down.

Suddenly commotions broke out at all the doors.

“They won’t open!” a woman screamed.

“Push! Push harder,” someone else yelled.

Flaming pieces of fiberfill began to rain down on the crowd causing more screaming and rushing toward the exits. Thick smoke also began to billow around the room. People were rushing around now, banging into one another. Knocking each other down and trampling those that fell. Even though the doors were not opening more people rushed toward them creating a crush. Suzy tried to give further instructions but suddenly the power failed and the room was plunged into complete darkness. The mic no longer worked at all. She tried to yell above the hubbub that the main entrance that opened onto the main lobby of the club was clear but people still ran toward the exits that opened to the outside of the building and freedom.
She jumped down from the stage. She had to duck down to keep out of the worst of the smoke. She tried to grab people by the wrists and yank them down too or tell them that there was a way out at the far end of the room but mindless panic had set in. The fire would soon be out of control Suzy had to get someone to call the Fire Department. If she could just work her way through the smoke and over the people who had already fallen victim to the smoke and the panic.

* * * * *

Station 51, Station 18, Station 24, Station 42, Ladder 6, Battalion 14 Structure fire with an unknown number of trapped victims Hidden Hills Country Club 1 Hidden Hills Blvd cross street Palmetto Avenue. Number one Hidden Hills Blvd. Time out 22:15

* * * * *

Sheer determination is what got Suzy out of the ballroom and into the main lobby of the club. There was black smoke billowing into the lobby and the dinning room. She could see out the glass facade in the front of the building that many people were now in the parking lot. They looked a bit dazed but unhurt. She saw the head waiter who was herding his people outside. “Thompson, has anyone called the Fire Department?” she demanded.

“Yes ma’am Ms Parker. They should be here any minute now. You need to get on outside.”

“There are people trapped in the ballroom. The exterior doors are jammed.”

“Oh my God! Chef Asshole made us lock them earlier!”

“Do you have the key?”

“Yes.”

“Then get outside and unlock them and get those people out!”

“Okay you guys come with me,” he ordered some of his waiters. “You need to get out too, Ms Parker.”

Almost reluctantly Suzy left the building. She had the feeling that the fire had defeated her and she didn’t like that one bit. She’d always thought of herself as a paramedic but she knew at this minute that she was a firefighter too. The firefighter in her hated the idea of being defeated but the paramedic in her knew that there were a lot of people in need of medical attention and that she had to do what she could. She ran around to the rear of the building that the ballroom opened up onto. She thought that she heard sirens. Help was almost here. She’d try and get a jump on triage at least.

Once the doors were opened people began to pour out of the ballroom coughing on the thick smoke.

“Keep moving,” Suzy yelled. “Get as far away from the building as you can!” Once they were clear, she and the waiters began to pull out everyone from the floor that they could reach without venturing into the building themselves. They had no protective equipment and it would have been insane to enter a fire without it. As it was, many of them suffered burns and breathed in too much smoke but they kept working with dogged determination. Suzy strained to hear the sounds of approaching sirens over the roar of the fire and the chaos in the parking lot. They were close now, just let them get here before it’s too late.

* * * * *

Battalion 14 had already set up a command post when Engine 51 and Engine 18 arrived. The building was fully involved by this time and flames were showing through the roof of the restaurant part of the club. The fire was being attached on two sides and from above with the water cannon on Truck 6. Both companies momentarily stood and waited for their assignments.

“Hey, isn’t that Mrs and Mrs Parker?” Barb Yates asked pointing to a very nervous looking couple in the parking lot near the front of the building.

“I recognize Charlie Parker from all those crazy TV ads he does for his car lot.  So what?” Tinker asked.

“They are Suzy’s parents, that’s what,” Barb told her. She headed over to talk to the couple but still kept an eye on the Captain so that she could follow her orders as soon as the Battalion Chief gave them an assignment.

She was back in a few minutes. She looked very worried. “They can’t find Susy. They think she’s still inside,” Barb said forcing her voice not to tremble. That made this fire very personal and it confirmed the terrible feeling of dread that Barb had had all day long.

Captain Tacy had heard what Barb said. “Just keep your minds on your jobs, ladies,” she barked at them hoping her gruffness would keep them in check.

Captain Stanley had been conferring with Chief McConnike. He came back to the companies that were awaiting assignment. “They’ve set up a medical triage out back. Paramedics report there with all your gear. They’ve called for a lot of spare oxygen and the Chief will send it around when it arrives. Hose jockeys you’ll relieve the first responders. Pull your engines close to the other in case they decide to put on more teams. At this point the fire is too hot to send in anyone to search for any victims,” Stanley said seriously. That meant that it was considered too late for anyone trapped inside.

“We might as drive the squads around there as mule all of our gear,” Roy said to Johnny, Cassie and Pidge.

Cassie and Pidge went to their squad without a word. Johnny shot a worried glance at Roy. He knew it was very likely that Station 18 had lost a member in this fire and that the county had lost a paramedic. Roy just nodded in agreement. There was nothing he could say that would change that besides they had a job to do to treat the people that could be saved.
Suzy already had a pretty good head start on triage when the first paramedic units arrived. Joe Connally from Station 42 was now doling out triage tags when they pulled up on scene. “Whatcha got here, Joe?” Johnny asked seriously as he started pulling gear out of the bays of his squad.

“24′s handling the worst cases. Steve and that girl from 18s are working up the moderate cases. It’s mostly walking wounded. You can help me corral them if you want, Gage. Maybe you girls can get your pal to back off and take a break. She took in a lot of smoke but she’s too bullheaded to listen to us men,” Joe told them.

“Where is she?” Pidge demanded. Joe pointed to the crowd near the farthest exit and both Cassie and Pidge took off at a run.

Johnny flashed Roy a grin. “What the heck were you worried about, Roy. I told you those girls from 18′s were tough?” he asked.

“Don’t know what I was thinking,” Roy said shaking his head. He, too, was relieved. He went over to Steve Morrison from 24′s to see if they needed any help with the worst cases, all of whom had been tagged with red priority one triage tags. Roy tried to ignore the half a dozen people lying to his left who were wearing black tags. Black meant that the person was triaged as either dead or unsalvageable so medical attention was shifted to people who had a chance. He didn’t like it but that was how triage worked in a disaster. They’d drilled for such an event many times. Roy just let his training kick in and got on with the job.

“Whoa, girl, you’re off duty. How about letting us handle this now?” Pidge said to Suzy, gently pulling her back from the man she had been working on. He was wearing a yellow tag designating him as a priority two case.

Cassie slapped an O2 mask on Suzy before she could argue. They figured she was probably working on pure adrenalin by this time. She was covered with black soot and her hair and clothes were singed.

Cassie picked up the HT. “Squad 18 to Engine 18.”

“Go ahead, Squad 18,” Captain Tacy’s voice barked through the speaker.

“We found Suzy, Cap. She’s a whole lot dirtier and more disreputable than I’ve even seen her but other than that she seems okay.”

“Stick it in your ear, Kelly,” Suzy snarled in a raspy voice.

Such a response was very unlike Suzy and Cassie was so surprised that she couldn’t even fire off a comeback.

“You tell her, Parker,” Captain Tacy laughed. “Engine 18 out.”

There were three priority one cases. Roy and both of the paramedics from Station 24 rode into Rampart with them in three separate ambulances. Johnny and the paramedics from 42 sorted out the walking wounded none of whom needed immediate transport to the hospital. Suzy used the oxygen for a while but soon wanted to get back to helping the injured. Pidge insisted on taking her vitals before allowing her to do so.

Captain Tacy must have told Suzy’s parents where she was as they showed up at the triage area along with Doctor Dick who seemed to have escaped the inferno without so much as getting soot stains on his white suit.

“Come on, Suzygirl, your Mama wants to leave now,” Charlie Parker announced with authority. He had build an two bit unpaved used car lot into a multimillion dollar a year enterprise that sold four different brands of new cars from six different locations. He was a man who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

“Go ahead. I have my own car here. I’ll be there when I can.”

“You will not. We want you to come with us now.” Charlie Parker insisted.

“I can’t go now. I have work to do here,” Suzy said not even giving them her full attention as she put a splint onto a man’s wrist.

“You don’t have to help them. Let them earn the salaries the county overtaxes us to pay these folks,” Doctor Dick said in a condescending voice.

Suzy stood up and without thinking she decked Doctor Dick. “You can shove that attitude where the sun doesn’t shine, Disco Duck!” she yelled. She was barely aware of the cheering that came from Cassie Kelly or the laughter that came from from the other paramedics that were within hearing distance. “As for you,” Suzy said rounding on her parents. “Go home and get the hell out of the way. I’ll be home when I get there.”

Her parents were so surprised that they actually did what she told them. An overwhelming sense of liberation came over Suzy and she knew she would never end up with another date from hell just to please her mother. In fact, she would no longer be putty in anyone’s hands. Damn that felt good!
She went back to what she was doing feeling like a whole new woman.

“Suzy Parker did you really go out on a date with a guy named Disco Duck?” Cassie asked as she bandaged a cut on the hand of one of the waiters.

“No, Cassie, I went out on a date with a guy named Dick Wheat,” she laughed, knowing exactly what Cassie would make of that one.

“Dickweed?! No way!”

“If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’,” Suzy laughed again. After all that had happened tonight, laughter seemed like the best response.
Triage had worked exactly as it was intended to. The most seriously wounded were already at the hospital and now the moderately wounded were all stable and ready to be loaded into waiting ambulances for further treatment off scene at local hospitals. City buses were starting to arrive to transport the green tagged walking wounded for follow up care off site. Johnny and the other male paramedics left on the scene were called upon for fire duty relieving men who were getting overheated and in need of a break. Pidge, Cassie and Suzy were still set up for anyone else that might need them but most of their patients at this point were overheated firemen.

* * * * *

Johnny was assigned a hose with Chet, who insisted on working the nozzle. They were working in what was left of the disco. The flames had been knocked down by an aerial assault made through holes cut into the roof and from the interior doorway. It was their job to completely dowse the place and knock down any lingering spot fires in areas that the initial attack had missed. Sadly, several bodies had already been carried out so both Johnny and Chet were pretty somber as they worked.

Chet concentrated his spray on the roof at first. A lot of water had already been pumped in here. They were ankle deep in water which made the footing precarious. The burst of water hit the large blue moon/disco ball. The force of it set the ball swinging. There was a lot of steam in the air creating a foglike effect and neither Chet nor Johnny noticed that the ball was in motion.

The motion put undue strain on the cable which was overtaxed to begin with. It also further weakened the large beam that it was attached to. This beam was the major support for the rest of the roof trusses. The effects of both the fire and the water that the beam had been exposed to had already severely compromised its strength and therefore the structural integrity of the entire roof system.

Finally the cable snapped sending the large ball crashing to the floor in the exact spot that Chet was standing. Johnny caught the movement. He stepped forward. With one hand he tried to shove Chet out of the way. With the other he tried to deflect the ball. He felt his wrist shatter upon impact with the ball which still managed to graze Chet. It impacted the floor so hard that it created a large hole in the floor into which both Chet and Johnny fell.

The sudden relief from holding up the ball’s weight was the final destabilizing effect for the beam. It broke. Both ends of the broken beam came crashing to the floor. The rest of the beams and the roof followed suit in a domino effect.

* * * * *

At the sound of the crash, the paramedics behind the building and the three firefighters they had been treating all jumped to their feet and ran to the open doors in spite of the clouds and debris now billowing out of them.

“I hope to hell no one was in there,” commented Sammy “the Bull” Carter, from Truck 6, who was being given O2 after breathing in too much smoke.

At the command post in the front of the building, all the captains began doing roll call as was customary after a collapse. All but two firefighters were accounted for. Captain Stanley called helplessly into his HT but Chet and Johnny never answered. To make matters even worse, Bob Davis, captain of 42′s began to suffer from severe chest pains. Captain Tacy had her crew bring a stokes from the Engine and they carried him around to the paramedics.

Tacy and the rest of the crew stood back while Pidge, Cassie and Suzy worked on Captain Davis. They got him stabilized and Rampart wanted him brought in but he refused to leave the scene while there were men missing. It was a fire department tradition. You didn’t leave a brother behind. Period. While Dr. Brackett had a fit about it, the paramedics respected the captain’s wishes and agreed to monitor him closely and administer meds but not transport at this time.

Once it looked like they had him well in hand, Captain Tacy called Cassie aside. “Look, these missing men, we have been authorized to do a search but they want a paramedic on each search team.”

“Pidge and Suzy can handle things here. Let’s go.”

“There’s something you should know. The missing men — they’re from 51′s.”

“Chet?” she asked forcing any sign of a quiver from her voice.

“Him and Gage. If you want to stand down on this, I’ll respect your wishes.”

“Cap, I won’t stand down on anyone — ever. This is my job,” she said with determination and more seriousness than Tacy had ever heard in her voice before.

“Okay. They think they may be in there,” she pointed to the destruction in the ballroom that was evident through the open doors.

Suddenly Sammy pulled off his O2 mask and started walking toward the front of the building to report to the command post for assignment.

“Where are you going?” Pidge demanded in her best nurse in charge voice. “You still need to re-oxygenate!”

“Later. If they need to move all that rubble, they need the Bull,” he called over his shoulder to them. Sammy was the strongest man in the department. Further argument was fruitless.

“Is there any other possible access to that room, Parker?” Captain Tacy asked. The two doors on this side of the building were clearly blocked and since the paramedics who had been over here did not know that anyone was missing it was unlikely that they had seen the missing men in the room prior to the collapse.

“There’s a basement underneath the ballroom. It’s mostly storage rooms and freezers for the kitchen. I don’t know if you could cut a hole from underneath to pull anyone out. It would be awful risky with all that weight above. But you might be able to locate possible voids from the floor below that would at least narrow the search.” Suzy told them.

“It’s a shot,” Cassie answered for the captain. “What’s the best way to the basement?”

“There’s access from a door near the dinning room but I don’t know what kind of shape that area is in now. Oh, there’s an access to that level over by the pro shop also. There wasn’t all that much fire over there so that might be the best route even though it’s a little longer. Just look for the place where all the golf carts are parked. The doorway is to the left of the shop under a sign that says Spa and locker rooms. Want me to show you?”

“We’ll find it. You help Pidgeon,” Tacy barked as she and her crew headed to the far end of the building away from most of the action.

* * * * *

As Johnny fell into the darkness the main thing he was aware of was the excruciating pain in his wrist. He was barely aware of landing on the hard floor below. It took him several moments to realize that he was sitting in water. The room was pitch black. He dug out the flashlight that was in the pocket of his turnout coat. He tried not to jostle his right arm at all. He was sure it was broken.

When he finally got the light in his hands he fumbled for the switch. He hoped it hadn’t been damaged in the fall. It had been working when he and Chet had entered the ballroom because he’d used it to check the place out so they’d know where to concentrate their efforts with the hose. The hose? Where was the hose? He knew better than losing the hose. It was the way back out of the building. He got the light on finally. There was no sign of the hose but it had to be here someplace. What else would account for the foot of water he was sitting in. He played the light around the room. He was obviously not in the room he’d been in. Then he remembered falling. He looked up at the ceiling. He could see a large hole in it and water was draining down from above. That must be where they fell through. They? Where the hell was Chet? He swung the flashlight down toward the floor. Chet was about ten feet away. Chet’s helmet and air mask were askew from his encounter with the disco ball. He was slumped against the giant ball and the water was rising fast. His face would be under in minutes. Johnny shoved the light back in his pocket so he’d have his good hand free.

It took almost every ounce of strength that Johnny had to force himself to move and make his way to Chet. He got up and walked in Chet’s direction in the dark. When he felt Chet’s leg with his, he started groping around for him. Finally he grabbed onto the back of his turnout coat and hauled him back over to the wall where he’d originally landed. He wanted to sit back down because he felt weak but the water was already up to his waist. He shifted Chet’s weight so the wall helped him support it and dug the flashlight out of his pocket again.

“Chet? You okay?” he asked. He pulled Chet’s useless helmet off and pushed his mask aside so he could examine him. He had no idea where his own helmet was. His mask dangled around his chest. It banged into his arm causing him to cry out in pain. He could tell that Chet was deeply unconscious and there was blood in his hair. There was nothing he could do for him under the circumstances except try and keep his head above the water. The water was inching its way up his chest. He knew that some of it was draining from the room they had been in but he could now see that the ball had fractured some large water pipes that were also spilling water into the room. At least he hoped they were water pipes.

He also hoped that help arrived soon. The water was getting deeper and it was cold. He began to shiver uncontrollably. At least the cold water would keep him conscious. If he passed out both he and Chet would drown and he had no intentions of drowning in the middle of a damn fire! Talk about a freaky full moon stunt if ever there was one — drowning in a fire. God his arm hurt! “Can anybody hear me?” he called out desperately. He had nothing to bang with or on to alert rescuers to his location and he had no free hand to bang with even if he did. “You’re in deep doodoo this time, Gage,” he told himself. If help didn’t get here soon, he wouldn’t make it. “HELP!” he called but he was sure that no one could hear him.

* * * * *

When they got to the door Suzy had told them about the cap reluctantly waited outside where she could stay in communications with the command post and so that someone would know where they went should they become lost. They were equipt with heavy duty flashlights, an ax, a pike pole, a halogen tool, an HT and Tink’s special tool bag from which she managed to find tools for any purpose known to man.

The hallway was pitch dark as there was no power anywhere in the building. Those with flashlights swept the beams around as they walked by an area that housed locker rooms and spa facilities.

“Boy the rich sure now how to live, don’t they?” Crenshaw commented. She shined her light into every room the came to as they passed massage tables and a lavish beauty salon.

“We’re looking for the kitchen area,” Tinker told her with disgust. They didn’t have time to browse around.

When they got closer to the kitchen they started opening doors and stepping into the rooms. They occasionally poked small holes in the ceiling but so far the rooms above did not appear to be the room they were looking for. Inside one small room that was obviously an office, they found the body of a very obese man. There was no sign that either smoke or fire had come near this room. He may have suffered an MI. In any case he was beyond their help and they had to continue their search.

* * * * *

Marco wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm but was ready to take the next piece of debris that was handed to him. They were carefully taking chunks of wood and other parts of the roof and ceiling out of the room and handing them from one man to another in two parallel long line. It was hot, tedious work and it had to be done very carefully to prevent a shift that might have closed up any voids that the missing men might be trapped in. Marco and the others refused to believe that they would not be found alive. There were always voids in a collapse, he told himself, and Chet and Johnny would have found one. But mostly he tried not to think of anything at all. He tried to just work mindlessly and as quickly as possible. This fire had already claimed many victims and he was not willing to even think that it could have gotten two more.

At his insistence, Captain Stanley was in charge of this operation. Periodically he would call out to the missing men with his bullhorn. All work would cease and the room would become perfectly quiet. Everyone would strain to hear any sounds that might be a signal from the men that would tell the rescuers that they were alive and where they were. No such sound ever came and soon the work would begin again with even more determination.

The full moon shone down on them, illuminating the room enough to work in now that the roof was gone. No one looked up at it. Firefighters were a superstitious lot and they didn’t like anything about the full moon or the kind of things that happened under one.

* * * * *

Johnny was having a full blown conversation with himself in his head in efforts to remain conscious. If he passed out it would be the death of both him and Chet and he knew it. It’s a good thing this water is so cold. It’s keeping me from passing out from the pain. And it’s a good thing that my arm hurts so much so I can’t just drift off to sleep from hypothermia. Boy, I’m sure lucky guy. I’d even be luckier if Chet would wake up so he could support his own weight. To say nothing of the fact that I’m ready to kiss the first person that climbs down from up there to get us out of here — even if it’s Sammy the Bull. Goddamn it, it’s cold. And dark. Why the hell did I have to go and drop the flashlight?

He actually knew why he had dropped the flashlight. His fingers had been too cold to hold onto it any longer. The water was up to his chin. He wished he could shift Chet’s weight again but now he was afraid he’d lose his grip on Chet too if he tried to move again. If he dropped him he’d drown for sure. The weight of his tank would push him under and Johnny would never find him again in the dark. Not that it probably mattered much, the water was still rising. It would be over both of their heads before long but Johnny refused to give up hope. “Hurry up, guys,” he said quietly through chattering teeth. He’d yelled for as long as he could but he didn’t have the strength to yell anymore. He was cold and tired. It would be so easy to just go to sleep. A small ripple in the water caused a three inch wave which was enough to cover his nose and mouth for a minute. It made him cough but it also renewed his determination not to go to sleep. Whatever was going to happen, he was going to face it head on.

* * * * *

The crew from Station 18 were now sure they were under the ballroom. They were in a hallway that was lined with storage rooms and walk-in refrigeration units. They pulled down the suspended ceiling in the hallway and in every room they entered. They rapped on the ceiling but they never heard anything that would indicate that there was a hollow space above them. A hollow sound would mean that they had found a void space in the debris and a possible safety zone for the men who were missing. All they were supposed to do was try and locate them. They were to make no attempt at rescue. Once they were found, the men upstairs moving the debris would find a way to get to them. They all knew that what they were doing was probably an exercise in futility. They’d probably feel more useful on the line with the men. They ever speculated that the chief had sent them on a fool’s errant to keep them out of the way of the real work that he didn’t think they had the strength to do.

Nevertheless they concentrated on the task they’d been given. They came to a place where another service hallway crossed the one they were in. They shined their flashlights down the new hallway.

“Should we split up? We’d cover more territory that way.” Tink wondered.

“No,” Barb said. “We only have one radio. That is our link to the outside world. If we get lost or in trouble we can call for help if we stick together. If we separate some of us will have no way to call for help if we need it.”

“You been studying to take an officer’s test?” Cassie asked. That sounded like textbook reasoning to her.

“No but Bill has and I’ve been helping him,” Barb admitted.

“What a good little wife,” Crenshaw teased.

“Shut up, Gritsbreath, sounds like she’d got the drill down pat. She might be our boss someday,” Cassie warned with a grin. She didn’t really feel much like grinning. She felt more like ripping the ceiling down with her bare hands to find them. It would be a stupid thing to do so she wouldn’t do it but she sure wanted to.

“Hey,” Tinker said calling their attention to the hallway to their left. She had walked a little way down it and was now shining her flashlight at the floor in front of a thick metal door. “Look at this.”

They all joined her. There was a steadily growing puddle of water pooling on the floor. “This looks like a freezer of some kind,” Barb commented.

“You suppose the stuff inside is melting because the power is off?” Cassie asked. She pulled her glove off and knelt down. She put her fingers in the liquid. It was cold but it felt like water and didn’t smell like any petroleum based product.

“No, the freezer should retain the cold for quite a while without power as long as the door’s not opened. The ones on home refrigerators do and this one should work the same way.”

“Then where’s all this water coming from?” Cassie demanded.

“Let’s pop ‘er open and see,” Crenshaw suggested. The door was padlocked but Crenshaw picked up an ax to smash it. “Y’all best stand over there behind the door in case there’s a whole lot of water in there fixin’ ta come out when the door is open.”

They did as she suggested. Two strikes of the ax sent the large padlock flying. Crenshaw pulled the door open. She had been right in her suspicions. Water burst out of the closed room with a force that would have knocked Tinker off her feet, if Barb had not steadied her. Within minutes the hallway was knee deep in water but after the initial burst the water lost much of its force as it made its way through the hallways. Since there was much more area for the water to spread itself it remained at knee height and became more placid.

Cassie was the first one in the freezer. It was a step down freezer so the water was waist deep here. Had she not seen the sign that said step down she’d have fallen. She played the beam of her flashlight around. She noted the hole in the roof through which she could see debris from the room above. Then she saw the large disco ball. It blocked her view of the other side of the room so she tried to move it. It was a lot heavier than it looked but with help from the others she pushed it aside.

Once the ball was out of her way she saw Johnny and Chet slumped against the far wall. There had been a hell of a lot of water in here. They couldn’t be too late! She sloshed her way over to them as fast as she could. Johnny was in front of Chet, leaning into him as if he was trying to hold him up.

She reached Johnny first and shined her flashlight at him. His lips and he was shivering like mad but he grimaced from the light. “Johnny?”

“I..p-p-promised..myself..I’d..k-kiss..whoever..f-f-found us,” he struggled to say.

“Go ahead,” she laughed, relieved to find him even this alert.

“C-can’t..my…lips…are….f-frozen,” he gasped.

“We’ll take a raincheck,” Barb assured him. She reached around Johnny and checked Chet’s pulse. She didn’t want Cassie to have to do this, just in case.

The touch of her warm skin against his chilled skin was enough to startle Chet back into consciousness. “I smell ice cream,” he muttered.

“Is he delirious?” Barb wondered.

“Nope, he’s right,” Crenshaw told them. She played her light around the small room. There were shelves on two sides holding all manner of food stuff — cases of frozen burgers, french fries, vegetables and dozens of large cylindrical containers of ice cream.

“Where..th-the..hell….are..we?” Johnny asked. It had just occurred to him to wonder about this.

“Looks like a walk in freezer,” Cassie told him.

“N-no..wonder..I’m…so..damn..c-cold. I…thought…I..w-was..going..into..s-shock.”

Cassie suspected his original assessment was correct but he was so chilled that it was hard to tell. They really had to get them out of here as soon as they could. She thought that they’d be too weak to walk on their own so she decided the best thing to do would be to make them as light as possible and carry them out if they had to. “Let’s get their tanks off of them,” she said. “Can you move out a little so they can get to Chet?” He looked uncertain so she said. “I’ll help you. Lean on me.”

“No!..Caref-f-ful..I..ah..my arm,” he finally admitted.

Cassie wondered why the cold seemed to be affecting him more than it was Chet. “I’d better take a look at that. Lean on me till they get Chet out from behind you.”

Barb and Crenshaw helped pull Chet to one side, then Cassie let Johnny lean against the wall. There were enough flashlights on that Johnny could see that they were helping Chet out of his tank.

“I’ll cut yours off,” Cassie told him. “And I’ll be careful,” she promised.

“Do you know what happened to you?” Barb asked Chet conversationally. She knew that paramedics asked that of victims all the time, especially if they had lost consciousness.

“I teamed up with Gage, that’s what. He’s been falling all damn day long. First he falls out of a tree, then he falls into a dumpster and now he falls into a damn hole in the floor and drags me with him!” Chet said indignantly.

“Be glad he did, Big Brother. The roof collapsed up there. You’d be flatter than a pancake if Johnny hadn’t found a nice hole to fall into,” Cassie chastised him as she carefully worked on cutting the straps of Johnny’s air tank. They finally let loose but not without considerable pain to Johnny’s arm. He screamed before he could stop himself.

“Is he okay?” Chet asked with concern. It hadn’t occurred to him that Johnny might be injured.

“Looks like he broke his arm,” Cassie said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with falling into a hole and breaking your arm. All the better people do it,” she teased as she took her turnout coat off to try and immobilize Johnny’s arm with it.

“Y-you’re..gonna..wreck..your..c-cast,” Johnny told her. He noticed that the cast on her arm was thoroughly soaked.

“Good. That means they’ll have to take it off and give me a new one and I’ll get to scratch my damn itchy arm. I really appreciate you guys this.”

“Glad we could be of assistance,” Chet muttered.

“I knew you’d come in handy for something someday, Chester B,” Cassie teased him.

“Oh come off it,” Chet launched into an argument.

“Let’s get them out of here,” Tinker suggested. Barb and Crenshaw got on either side of Chet. They each draped one of his arms around their shoulder and started walking toward the door of the freezer. “Step up here, Sweetcheeks,” Crenshaw told Chet.
“Can you manage him by yourself?” Tinker asked Cassie as she gathered up the various tools that they had brought with them.

“Yeah,” Cassie said as she pulled Johnny’s good arm across her shoulders. “We’ll be okay, won’t we, Johnny?”

In the past, Johnny would have hated the idea of being supported by a girl but he was surprised to realize that he didn’t think of it as being helped by a girl. He thought of it as being helped by a fellow firefighter. He’d have to think about that one of these days but for now he just said, “We’ll be f-fine.”

Tinker brought up the rear just in case there were any problems. She pulled the HT out of her pocket. “Squad 18 to Engine 18.’

“Go ahead, Squad 18,” the cap’s anxious sounded voice answered immediately.

“We found them, Cap,” Tinker forgot about protocol in her excitement to get the good new out.

“Repeat, Squad 18.”

“Part of the floor collapsed too. They were in the basement. They are alive. We’re bringing them out. Cassie and her brother are arguing.”

“10-4, Squad 18,” Captain Tacy acknowledged. She made no attempt to hide the relief and joy that she felt. She made a call to the command post.

* * * * *

Chief McConnike came up behind Captain Stanley and put his hand on his shoulder to get his attention.

Captain Stanley turned around expecting the worst. If McConnike even suggested that they stop the search he was gonna deck him right here and now.

“Tell ‘um to stop, Hank,” McConnike said indicating the bull horn.

The only thing that made Stanley hesitate to deck him was the fact that he sounded so damn happy. That didn’t make any sense. No matter how much animosity might be between the two of them, the Chief would never take it out on any of the men.

“18′s found them,” McConnike repeated, amazed that the news hadn’t seemed to get through to the captain the first time. “They’re alive. Maggie said to tell you that the Kelly’s are arguing.”

The last part of the message didn’t make much sense to McConnike but it made a lot of sense to Captain Stanley. Without thinking he put the bullhorn to his lips and yelled into it. “Yaaahoooo.”

Every curious eye in the room was on him. McConnike took the bullhorn and told them all that the missing men had been found. The room was soon full of cheers and a lot of high fiving and back patting.

* * * * *

The arrival of the rest of the crew of Station 51 at the triage area just added to the confusion and jubilation that was going on there. Finally Pidge ordered them back while she got her scene back under control.

They were now able to get Captain Davis to go to the hospital. Pidge turned the triage area over to the paramedics from Station 42 as she got Captain Davis into one of the waiting ambulances and they sped off to Rampart.

Suzy and Barb walked Chet to the other one while Crenshaw and Cassie got Johnny onto a gurney.

“Tell ya what, Gage,” Crenshaw said. “I’ll trade in that kiss you owe me if you can get Kelly here to give me the name of a certain cop.”

“So you can harass him?” Cassie scoffed.

“I can give you the name of a certain cop myself,” Johnny said. He had finally stopped shivering and the morphine that Rampart had prescribed had him feeling pretty good. After all, the guy’s name had been on TV. It wasn’t a secret.

Cassie glared daggers at him.

Then Johnny remembered he had told Roy that Cassie was his friend. And she was, damn it. A friend as well as a fellow firefighter and both of those things called for some loyalty. Crenshaw was eagerly awaiting his reply. He had to say something. Suddenly he was hit by a stroke of pure genius.

“Malloy,” Johnny told her. “Pete Malloy. He’s in the book.” He’d get back at that Malloy yet for having such fun at his expense this morning. You almost never got one up on a cop but once in a blue moon, you did.