Warren Murphy: Firing Line

The kid had a book of matches and a paper bag

that their pastrami sandwiches had come in. He was tearing strips of paper from the bag, lighting them and tossing them out the car's open window. "Stop that," Solly growled.

The kid looked at him, first with a flash of anger, then turning it to a smile. "Just practicing, Solly," he said.

"You don't need any practice."

The kid kept smiling. "No, I guess I don't."

"And besides, you burn nothing without a contract," Solly said.

"You don't," the boy corrected. But he put the bag and the matches back into the glove compartment.

Solly looked back into the street, in time to swerve to avoid a big Gordon setter who seemed intent on proving that sexual intercourse between dog and parked car was possible. The kid was changing. He had been hanging on Solly like a father or a big brother, but now he had the look of somebody ready to spread his wings and go on his own. The kid hadn't been the same since the fire in St. Louis.-

"Still thinking about that guy?" Martin asked him.

"Yeah," Sparky said. "I don't know. When I saw him, first I was scared. But then it was like I'd been waiting for him. Like I was always waiting for him."

"You ever-see him before?" Martin asked.

The kid looked out the window and shook his head. "No. I mean, not really. But it's like he was familiar, you know, like I seen him before but

146

didn't really see him, like, you know what I mean."

"No."

"It's like I lived before and so did he, and like, we were supposed to meet because like we had an appointment. It was weird."

"Well, we're rid of him. Never see him again,"

Solly said.

Sparky shook his head in disagreement. "I don't think so," he said. "I don't think so."

Solly was glad they were back in New York. The kid was acting strangely. But this firemen's strike was made to order for them. One big score and Solly would retire, and the kid could spend the rest of his life setting fire to supermarket carts for all Solly cared.

The fires started in Harlem, where groups of teenagers decided that the way to improve the quality of their housing was to live in the street, so they began to torch their own apartment buildings.

Soon dozens of buildings were ablaze. In the absence of a fire department, policemen were trying to man fire equipment and fight the fires, after first extorting from the mayor a promise of triple time fox overtime. The same youths who had set many of the fires were pitching in, trying to put them out.

The reports crackled in over the all-news radio station in Solly Martin's car.

Solly swore.

He and Sparky were driving down what was left of the West Side Highway. The problem with driving this high-speed elevated thoroughfare was that a driver had to get off the road every six or eight blocks as he came to a section of the road that was

147

sealed off because it was falling apart. Solly drove down to 11th Avenue, drove at street level for a few blocks, then was able to get back up on the West Side Highway.

They were moving south along the Hudson River toward downtown. Solly swore again at the radio.

"Goddamn amateurs," he said. "There won't be anything left for us to burn, if they keep it up."

Sparky smiled and pointed out the window, straight ahead, toward downtown. "There's something that belongs to us," he said.

Solly followed the direction of the kid's gesture. He smiled, too, as he saw what Sparky meant.

The twin towers of the World Trade Center, the tallest buildings in New York City, jutted up into the sky like two upended silvery packs of gum.

"They're fireproof," Solly said.

"Not to me. I can make anything burn."

"Kid. I think you got it"

The mayor came back to crisis control center shaken. His city was burning up. From Harlem in the north to Chinatown on the south, from river to river, fires were exploding all over the city. The mayor had called on the state to mobilize and send in the National Guard; he had authorized police overtime to man fire equipment; he had called on private citizens to form bucket brigades to help fight fires. He had tried to call in the sanitation workers, too, but their leader had asked the mayor how much he expected a garbageman to do for $29,000 a year. The mayor had to promise them quadruple time before the union leader said grudgingly that he would tell the men and let them decide themselves.

148

"Maybe I should call the teacher's union," the mayor said.

His aide shook his head.

"Why not?"

"They won't even give out milk in classrooms. You think they're going to fight fires?"

"It might be a welcome change from not teaching," the mayor said.

"You're wasting your time," his aide said. "Try the governor again about the National Guard."

A commissioner of the agency that built and operated the World Trade Center pushed his way into crisis central.

The mayor saw him and smiled. "How'm I doing?" he asked.

"We're doing terrible," the commissioner said. "All of us. We've got to talk."

"Over here," the mayor said. His aide watched as the two men went to the side of the room. He walked over to join their conversation.

"I just talked to some guy on the phone," the commissioner said. He was a balding, sweaty man. "He's going to burn down the World Trade Center."

"There's always an unless," the mayor said. "What's the unless?"

"Ten million dollars. That's what he wants."

"What do you think?" the mayor asked. "Probably a crank."

"I don't know what to think. I don't think he was a crank."

"You want to pay him?" the mayor asked.

"Where am I going to get ten million dollars?"

The mayor laughed. With a stranglehold on the revenues of all bridges and tunnels leading into

149

and out of the city, the economy of the World Trade Agency was as sure as Saudi oil reserves.

"Raise tolls again," the mayor said. "What do you want me to do?"

The commissioner kept rubbing his hands together as if trying to wash them of some psychic dirt. "Protect our buildings. They're not paid for yet."

"Sure," the mayor said. "What do you want? I've got six Boy Scout troops I can mobilize. Maybe the League of Women Voters will come out They can carry water in their pocketbooksT"

He was interrupted by his aide. "Mayor, I think you ought to take this call."

The mayor nodded. "Wait," he told the commissioner.

He picked up the telephone and pressed a button. "This is the mayor," he said. He listened and said, "But you can't do that." He looked at the two men standing in the corner and shook his head. Then he looked at the telephone, as it obviously had gone dead in his hand.

He came back and whooshed a large sigh. "That was your arsonist," he told the commissioner. "He said he knew I must have heard about it by now. Ten million dollars or the twin towers get melted."

The aide said, "Can he do it? I thought those buildings were fireproof."

"He said he can do it," the mayor said. "Get the police over to the Eastern Marine Terminal on FDR Drive," the mayor said.

"Why?"

"He said that's a fireproof building, too, and he's putting it up, just to show us he can do it."

150

The aide raced to a telephone, picked it up, and began talking.

The commissioner shook his head. "You've got to settle this strike," he told the mayor.

"Sure. Give them off the first day of deer-hunting season?"

"Give them any goddamn thing they want," the commissioner said. "This is big."

"You going to give your cops deer season off?" the mayor asked.

"They haven't asked for it. But you've got to," the commissioner said. He wiped his brow with a wet handkerchief. 'This is important."

"Some things are more important," the mayor said. He looked toward his aide, who put the telephone down slowly as if not believing the message it had brought him.