Jordan hadn’t counted on this. It was his tragedy and he wanted to see it close up. Nobody saw him dash out through the bus’s rear door and run across the tilled field toward the burning house until it was too late. Then everyone pointed and yelled. Ben the bus driver said, “You all stay put now,” and struggled out of his seat and left the bus.
One of the volunteer firemen noticed Jordan approaching and jogged out to intercept him. Jordan changed the angle of his approach to the burning ruin that had been his family home.
The fireman was in good physical shape and closed in on Jordan while Ben kept him from retreating. They both tackled him and brought him down, knocking the breath from him.
“It’s okay,” Ben kept repeating. “It’s okay, Jordan.”
Both men were breathing hard. Jordan tried to talk but was too winded.
“The kid’s family was in that house,” Ben said
The firefighter coughed and spat off to the side. Said, “I know. He’s one of the Krays. I seen him around.” He patted Jordan’s shoulder.”
All three of them lay quiet for a few minutes, working to breathe.
“How many of your family were inside, Jordan?”
“All of them, I think. Everyone but me.”
“Shit!” said the fireman.
Ben rested a hand on Jordan’s shoulder and kneaded his flesh, as if a good massage was what was needed by someone who’d just lost his entire family.
“You okay, Jordan?”
“Yes. I want to get closer and look.”
“Look at what?”
“My mom and dad, Nora my sister, Kent my brother . . .”
“You can’t help them now,” the firefighter said. “They’re in a better place.” He looked up at Ben and the other firefighter who’d come over to stand by them. “He tried to save them. Even with the fire.”
“Jesus!” the other firefighter said.
Jordan looked from one to the other. What better place were they talking about?
That was when Jordan suddenly recognized the first firefighter. Riley something. He was a deacon at the church Jordan and his family had attended exactly twice, before his mom and dad had declared themselves atheists.
“A brave lad,” the second firefighter said.
“Couldn’t keep him on the bus,” Ben said. “Not after he realized his family’s house was on fire.”
“Brave is right!” Riley said. “Inspiring!”
23
New York, the present
Charlie Vinson, on the first week of his new job, seemed to be doing well. He’d established his position as supervisor without obviously angering anyone or making any enemies. At least it seemed that way to Charlie. It wasn’t easy to make cold call sales, even for a well-established firm like Medlinger Management. Not only had they successfully managed their clients’ investments for twelve years; a year ago they had expanded and moved operations to their present high-end address in the financial district.
With the new offices had come the necessity of more employees and someone to supervise them. So they sent out a corporate headhunter, who had accomplished something of a coup by luring Charlie Vinson away from McCaskill and Cotter Enterprises. Charlie harbored the very pleasant feeling that everyone involved was going to be happy with the move.
He didn’t think anyone from the firm was still around, among those who, like Charlie, were standing and waiting patiently for an elevator. There was no conversation as the knot of half a dozen people grew to over a dozen. Everyone stood silently with their heads slightly tilted back so they could watch the digital numbers above the elevator doors indicate that two of the four elevators were on the rise.
“Mr. Vinson. Room for one more.”
He looked over to the far elevator and saw its light glowing above the door. Charlie moved toward the elevator to see who’d called to him. People were still filing in beneath the glowing green light.
He was surprised to see Della Tanner, one of the salespeople, among those already crowded into the elevator. She was young—still in her twenties—unapologetically ambitious, and attractive, if you liked large-breasted blond women with perfect features. Charlie did.
“Come on!” she said, smiling, and leaned forward to press a button that was out of his field of vision.
She was pressing the right button. The door remained open long enough for Charlie to elbow his way inside. He saw that the lobby button on the brushed aluminum console was glowing, along with half a dozen other numbered lights. The Blenheim Building was emptying out, like a lot of other office buildings in the area.
“Thanks, Della,” he said, returning her smile.
He and Della, pressed together between several large men, could barely move as the elevator began its descent. Charlie decided it wasn’t so bad being crushed into Della.
The elevator didn’t go far. It dropped smoothly from the Medlinger floor, forty-four, toward the next floor down. It stopped at forty-three, and one of the half dozen people waiting there somehow managed to wedge their way into it, mashing Charlie and Della farther toward the back of the car. Someone had forgotten to use deodorant. Someone else was wearing very strong lilac-scented perfume or cologne.
“Push lobby, please,” a woman said politely.
But there was no need. Almost every light on the console was glowing. Even “LL” for Lower Level, which was beneath the lobby. People shifted slightly, but no one said anything. The woman who’d asked to go to the lobby must have seen the glowing button.
The door slid open, and a small man in a blue—or was it dark green?—uniform looked into the packed elevator and smiled. He was wearing a blue baseball cap. He said, “I’ll wait for the next one.”
This was not the place to have a conversation. Della and Charlie both knew they would converse, or at least exchange pleasantries, after they’d reached the lobby. Charlie wondered if Della lived anywhere near the Blenheim Building. Della noticed a wedding ring on Charlie’s finger and wondered how much that mattered. Maybe Mr. Vinson—Charlie—drove into the city, or took a train, or stayed here during the week and went home to a dull suburban life on weekends.
No one in the elevator spoke. Charlie tucked in his chin and looked down at Della. She was staring straight ahead and wearing the slightest of smiles.
A hand snaked out and pressed the glowing Lobby button for good measure. The door closed, and there was silence as everyone waited for the elevator to continue its descent.
The elevator door had no sooner closed than it reopened. A small blond woman huffed up to it. A smaller figure was also waiting at the elevators—a super or maintenance man or some such. He turned away.
“Are you with Medlinger Management?” the woman asked him. “I’m looking for my husband, Charles Vinson. This is his first day at work here and I wondered—”
But the little man had spun on his heel and was swiftly walking away. The woman was left with an obscure image of him hopping and running as he reached the door to the stairs. There was a kind of faint but definite elfin quality about him.
Charlie hadn’t been paying attention and hadn’t heard his wife, Emma, address the small man. And, truth be told, he and Della were looking at each other in that way again.
Ah, well . . . The blond woman gave up on the elevator and pushed one of the down buttons for another. Then she gave up on that and walked toward the stairs.
Emma would walk up a floor and try an elevator that hadn’t yet taken on so many passengers. It was possible that Charlie was down in the lobby, waiting for her. She tried to call him on his cell phone, but apparently it was turned off. Or he’d let the battery run down. They both were distracted these days, he because of the new job, and she because she was pregnant and hadn’t yet told her husband. She smiled in anticipation, absently stroking her stomach. Wherever Charlie was, he was soon to discover that their luck had changed in more ways than one.