Chapter 9: Close To Home, Part 1
It was a slow, easy night at Dispatch. Sam Lanier was enjoying the breather; his last few shifts had been complete nightmares, with calls coming in fast and furiously. Everyone always had some explanation for why it was busy at seemingly random intervals: phase of the moon (which he doubted), the weather (which he thoroughly believed, especially when it was hot), the timing of the games of the various L.A. sports teams (possible, but further observation was needed). But Sam wasn't going to question the dry spell. If a county with millions of people in it suddenly wanted to go sane for a night, it was fine by him. He'd put his feet up (not really; there wasn't anywhere to put them) and enjoy a tame shift.
He was in a good mood when his first call came in.
"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" Sam said, hoping he didn't sound too bright and cheery.
"My neighbor is parked in front of my driveway. Again! I need the cops to tow him."
Sam sighed, mentally; he couldn't let his disappointment at poor behavior show to a caller. "What's the address?"
The "citizen," as the dispatchers were instructed to refer to their callers, provided his information, and provided some bonus words of annoyance when Sam couldn't guarantee that the police would have the car towed. For the millionth time, Sam was glad that every 9-1-1 call was recorded, as this "citizen" seemed to think his own personal wishes stood far above anything else in the world. If there was a complaint, the guy wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
Sam dispatched the appropriate law enforcement vehicle, and settled back into his chair. He was glad he'd brought his crossword puzzle. He worked through a few clues, but just as he was stymied by 7-Down: Semi-aquatic oviparous mammal, eight letters (what the heck is 'oviparous,' anyhow?), his line rang again.
"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"
"My stove is on fire! I-I-I was just cooking eggs, is all! I think it's spreading to the rest of the kitchen!"
"What's the address?"
"2574 Highland Park Drive, apartment 3-D."
"Are you out of the apartment?"
"Yes, I'm calling from downstairs. People are getting out of the building—it's filling up with smoke!"
"All right. I have 2-5-7-4 Highland Park Drive, 3-D as in 'Dog.' Is that correct?"
"Yes!"
"Ma'am, the fire department is on their way; please leave the building and do not go back inside for any reason."
"Got it!"
The line clicked. Sam brought the location and its details up on his computerized map, and started pushing in buttons to tone out the correct fire stations.
"Station 51, Truck 60, Ladder 127, Station 8; stove fire, reportedly spreading. 2574 Highland Park Drive, apartment 3-D as in Dog. 2-5-7-4 Highland Park Drive, Apartment 3-D as in Dog; cross street Columbus. Time out: 2054."
As per standard procedures, he then sent a Sheriff's car and an ambulance.
Sam went back to his crossword. Some word the caller had said reminded him of something. He wished he had access to the tape recording of his conversation, but he didn't. He tapped his eraser on the page as he went over the call in his head.
Eggs! That was it! 'Oviparous' had something to do with eggs.
Sam filled in 7-Down with satisfaction: P-L-A-T-Y-P-U-S.
Sometimes he missed active duty, but not tonight.
~!~!~!~
Engine 51 arrived at the scene ahead of any of the other units attached to the incident. Mike pulled past the building, where there was an extremely well-placed hydrant. Cap took a look at the situation, and radioed in his initial report. There was smoke coming from the ground floor, and people waving out from an open window on the third floor.
"L.A., Engine 51 on scene. We have a three-story apartment building with heavy smoke pushing from the first floor, and multiple entrapments on the third floor. Have Ladder 127 approach from the north on Columbus to assist with evacuation."
Cap switched the radio over to broadcast from the speakers on the roof of the cab. "On the third floor; stay where you are! You're in no immediate danger, and a ladder truck is on its way to assist you."
"Chet, Marco—pull an inch-and-a-half and knock it down. John, Roy—assist with evacuating the building."
Mike was already busy hitting the hydrant. From the looks of things, the water in the engine's booster tank could probably do the job, but water was his job, so water he'd get.
The resident of unit 3-D had conveniently left the door unlocked. Chet and Marco pulled their line in, pushing through a wall of smoke, and found the kitchen, right where they thought it would be. Two minutes later, the fire was extinguished, and the kitchen was a soggy, sooty mess. Most of the rest of the small apartment wasn't left in very good shape, either, but better than it would've been if the fire had spread.
"That was easy," Marco said to Chet.
"C'mon, man; you know I hate it when you jinx us like that."
"Oh, give me a break, Kelly," Marco said. "You know I'm not superstitious."
"Yeah, well, I am. So behave."
They went back to the engine.
"Just the kitchen, Cap," Marco said. "But the whole place is a mess, of course."
"All right—go ahead and overhaul and salvage," Cap replied.
"L.A., cancel Station 8; continue the other units for evacuation and smoke removal."
There was a lot of smoke, and the interior stairwells were filled with enough smoke to scare people into staying out of them. As Cap put the mobile radio's microphone down, Ladder 127 pulled into position on the corner of the building. In just a few minutes, they'd have the third floor evacuated.
Cap sighed. It wasn't entirely true, that old saying about 'where there's smoke, there's fire.' There had been a fire, but it was gone. But in a 12-unit, 3-story apartment building with interior staircases, the smoke would keep them busy for a while yet. He watched Chet and Marco head into the fire unit to start with overhaul and salvage.
Out of the corner of his eye, Cap noticed a civilian—a mountain of a man—walking towards the building. He frowned; anyone with any sense was still walking away from the location, even though the fire was out. Cap approached the man, keeping his eyes open on the situation as a whole as he did so.
"Sir, it's not safe to go back in yet," Cap said.
The man whirled around to face him. "That's my girlfriend's apartment building."
"The fire is out; everyone's safe. There's nothing to worry about. Now please, keep away from the building."
The man's eyes drilled levelly into Cap's. Even though he wasn't accustomed to being eye-to-eye with people, Stanley didn't flinch.
The man blinked. "Fine," he said. He stalked over to a bench by the curb, and sat down.
"Steve!" a woman's voice shouted.
Cap watched as the man's head whipped towards the source of the voice.
"Hey, baby," the man said. "What happened?"
Cap relaxed; now the man knew for sure his girlfriend was safe. For a minute, Cap was worried that he was going to have a situation on his hands. He turned his attention back to the task at hand, and let the girlfriend take care of Steve.
Inside the fire apartment, Chet and Marco began making sure the fire was indeed truly out. They covered the refrigerator with a salvage cover to protect it from debris that would fall as they took the ceiling down, but left the stove alone, since it was a total loss. They started pulling down the ceiling, looking for hot spots that could rekindle the fire. They found one, right over the stove, and drenched it with the line they still had handy.
"Hey, Chet, I think this wall between the kitchen and the dining room's gonna have to get opened up; the sheetrock is still steaming, here."
"All right—I'll go get some salvage covers for the furniture in the dining room. I'll be right back."
Outside the building, Steve was having a tense conversation with his girlfriend.
"If they find it, we're both in trouble," the woman said. "It's your shit; you go get it."
"Fine."
"Look—the fireman is coming out. Now's your chance."
"Are you sure there was just one guy in there, Carol?"
"Pretty sure."
Steve sighed. "Fine. Here I go."
Looking around himself quickly to make sure nobody was paying attention, Steve trotted to the front door and ducked inside. Nobody came after him, so he went straight into Carol's apartment and made a beeline for the kitchen.
In the kitchen, Marco heard movement in the apartment. He lowered his pike pole from the ceiling he was ripping down and went to the doorway between the kitchen and the rest of the apartment.
"Chet, we might also need a—"
Marco and Steve were suddenly face to face.
"Sir, you really can't be in here. It's not sa—"
Steve yanked the pike pole away from Marco and threw it into the dining room.
"Get out," Steve said.
"What?" Marco couldn't believe what he was hearing. "No, I said, you have to get out. It's very unsafe in here." As if to illustrate his point, a chunk of ceiling fell into the middle of the kitchen.
"Get. Out."
Marco still didn't move. He was totally unprepared for what came next. Steve reached out and took him by the arm, yanking him out of the kitchen doorway and sending him sprawling to the floor in the next room. Although Marco felt like his arm had just been pulled from its socket, he quickly got to his feet, and saw Steve rummaging through the freezer. Steve opened a can, and removed something from it, shoving it into the front of his shirt.
Marco realized his mistake as soon as he made it. Not wanting to be seen by Steve, he moved slowly away from the doorway. But not soon enough for Steve to think he hadn't been observed.
Marco found himself pulled into the kitchen, and hoisted up against the wall he and Chet were about to open.
"You didn't see anything. If you did, you're a dead man. Got it?"
Marco nodded. As a reward, Steve took him by his lapels with one hand, punched him in the gut with the other, and then threw him on the floor like a ragdoll. Marco instinctively put a hand out to catch himself, and felt something go very wrong in his elbow.
Steve ran out the apartment door, cursing Carol under his breath for not knowing there was still a fireman in there, and for setting her fucking kitchen on fire in the first place. Before he could exit the building, he heard someone else coming in the front entrance—probably the short guy who'd come out before. He ducked into an unlocked apartment, realizing that was a better idea anyhow. He headed to a ground-level window in the bedroom. He hauled the window open, but then turned slowly and looked at the room he was in.
"Why the fuck not?" Steve said to himself, laughing. "I'm never coming back here anyhow." He rifled the bureau, and found some interesting-looking jewelry that went straight into his pockets. He found a wallet lying on the dresser, there for the taking, and liberated it as well. He left the pocketbook, but took the wallet out of it. The front of his shirt was bulging by the time he tumbled, unseen, out of the bedroom window and into the bushes. He disappeared down Columbus street.
On his way back into the building, Chet passed the noisy gas-powered positive-pressure ventilation fan that was set up in the front entrance. In the hallway, he thought he heard a noise from one of the apartments. He frowned—everyone was supposedly out from all the ground-floor units. He pounded on the door.
"Fire department! Anyone in here?"
The door must not have been latched, because it swung open on his second pound. He peered inside, and didn't see or hear anything. He shrugged and closed the door again, noting the unit number: 3-B, directly across from the fire apartment.
"Hey Marco, sorry that took so long, I had to—" Chet stopped short when he found Marco on the floor in the kitchen.
"Whoa—you okay? What happened?"
Marco had already decided what happened. He definitely did not just get manhandled by a civilian. No way, no how. "I slipped in a puddle—no big deal." Slipping. Yeah, that could happen to anyone.
"You sure? Lemme help you up."
Marco extended his uninjured arm, and let Chet haul him to his feet.
"Thanks."
"You sure you're okay?"
"Oh yeah, just a little tumble. No need to sic the Dynamic Duo on me."
Chet laughed. "I hear ya. Hey, let's rip a wall open."
"Sounds good."
They moved the dining room furniture away from the potentially problematic wall, covered it, and started ripping the sheetrock from the wall. Chet noticed that Marco was favoring his right arm, but didn't say anything. No fireman wanted to make a big deal of a minor injury, and no fireman wanted to admit to an injury caused by slipping and falling. So he just let it go. They'd all done the same thing at one point or another.
An hour later, the building had been ventilated, and declared safe for occupancy, with the exception of the fire apartment and the one immediately above it. The luckier residents began returning to their apartments, while the fire department wrapped up their operations.
Chet and Marco were loading hose on the engine, as was their usual task in the mop-up phase. Marco's elbow and shoulder were getting more and more painful with each length of supply line they laid on the hosebed.
"Hey, man, are you sure your arm is okay?" Chet said. "It looks like you can barely bend it at all."
"It's fine," Marco snapped. "It's just stiff, is all."
"All right, all right!" Chet said, hands up in mock surrender. He took the coupling that Marco handed up to him, and attached the new piece of supply line to the lengths already laid flat in the hosebed. He laid the rest of that length in the bed as Marco fed it up to him, and they repeated the procedure until all the supply line had been relaid on the truck. They drained and repacked the inch-and-a-half line they'd used, and they were ready to roll.
Marco sat silently in his seat in Big Red's cab. He barely made it through the last part of the hose-packing procedure, and he was sure Chet was watching his every move by the end. His elbow and shoulder were screaming at him.
I'll just tough it out for the rest of the shift, and then go home and rest. No problem. I've done it before, and I'll do it again. I'm no sissy.
Back at the station, Marco waited until he was sure Chet wasn't watching as he struggled out of his coat. He took a quick detour to his locker, and popped two extra-strength Tylenol before heading back to the bay. The squad was gone, having been called out on a run straight from the fire scene. Mike was hosing the engine down, and Chet was getting ready to squeegee the water towards the sloping apron, where it would drain into the gutter.
Marco gritted his teeth, and was about to grab the small squeegee to clear the water from the engine's windows and mirrors when Cap approached him from behind.
"Say, Lopez, you're looking a little tired, there. Everything okay?"
Marco nodded. "Sure thing, Cap. Just tired. That's all."
"All right, then. Carry on."
Cap clapped him on the shoulder—the wrong one—and the pain sent Marco to his knees.
"Marco? What … geez, pal, you're hurt!"
Marco cradled his damaged arm, kneeling on the polished cement floor, unable to reply.
Okay, so the macho thing wasn't working anymore.
"Chet! Mike! Need a hand, here!" Cap called.
Mike shut of the bay's reel line, and Chet leaned his squeegee up against the engine. They both carefully made their way around the truck, heeding the slippery floor.
"Marco? Jesus," Chet said.
"Let's get him up," Cap said. "You okay for us to help you up, Marco?" Cap asked.
Marco nodded, and the movement shot pain through his shoulder. The three men helped him to his feet.
"I'll go get a chair from the ready room," Chet said, while Cap and Mike supported Marco.
"What happened, pal?" Cap said.
"Fell," Marco gritted out between clenched teeth. He was invested in the lie at this point, and was almost starting to believe it himself.
"Yeah, Cap," Chet said, as he placed a wooden chair behind Marco. "He was on the floor in the kitchen of the fire apartment when I came back from getting something. Said he slipped in a puddle. C'mon, Marco, there's a chair right behind you. Now sit down, pal."
Marco sat down, still cradling his arm to his body.
Cap squinted at him, partly concerned, partly annoyed. He went to the call station.
"L.A., Station 51."
"Go ahead, 51."
"L.A., what's Squad 51's status?"
"Squad 51 is returning to quarters."
"L.A., we have a non-critical code I at our station; please inform Squad 51. Also, be advised Engine 51 is currently down one man."
"Copy."
As was proper procedure, dispatch toned Squad 51 out to a code I at Station 51, thus setting off the station's tones.
"All right, ah, let's get some ice on this," Cap said. "Marco, what's hurt?"
"Elbow, and shoulder," Marco gasped.
"All right—Chet, Mike—make him some ice packs. I'll go call the chief and see if we can get a sub. Marco, we'll talk later. Hang in there, pal, okay?"
Marco had learned his lesson about nodding. "Yep."
In the squad, the mobile radio beeped, signaling an imminent call.
"BEEP BEEP BEEP! Squad 51, respond to Station 51 for an unknown non-critical code-I. Time out, 2316."
Johnny and Roy looked at each other.
"What the hell?" Johnny said to Roy. "Squad 51, responding," he said into the mobile radio.
TBC
A/N: Yeah, I don't usually split UTR stories into two chapters, but this one is longer than usual. More soon! And yes, dispatch can and will tone you out to your own station. I always wonder if they're silently laughing when they do that. My guess is yes, especially if it's an alarm panel activation.