‘Shirley,’ Justin said — solemn enough, but with that cute little twinkle in his eyes — ‘We want to make up with you.’
‘That’s right,’ Herb said. ‘I hate having you mad at us.’
‘I do, too,’ Justin said. I wasn’t so sure that one meant it, but I thought Herb really did, and that was good enough for me.
‘Okay,’ I said, and took the flowers. ‘But if you do it again — ‘
‘We won’t!’ Herb said. ‘No way! Never!’ Which is what they all say, of course. And don’t accuse me of being a hardass, either. I’m just being realistic.
‘If you do, I’ll thump you crosseyed.’I cocked an eyebrow at Islington. ‘Here’s something your mother probably never told you, you being a pointer instead of a setter: sorry won’t take a coffee stain out of a linen skirt.’
‘Be sure to look in the envelope,’ Justin said, still trying to slay me with those bright blue eyes of his.
I put the vase down on my desk and plucked the envelope out of the daisies. ‘This isn’t going to puff sneezing powder in my face or anything like that, is it?’ I asked Herb. I was joking, but he shook his head earnestly. Looking at him that way, you had to wonder how he could ever stop anyone and give them a ticket for speeding or reckless driving without getting a ration of grief. But Troopers are different on the highway, of course. They have to be.
I opened the envelope, expecting a little Hallmark card with another version of I’m sorry on it, this one written in flowery rhymes, but instead there was a folded piece of paper. I took it out, unfolded it, and saw it was a J.C. Penney gift certificate, made out to me in the amount of fifty dollars.
‘Hey, no,’ I said. All at once I felt like crying. And while I’m at it, that’s the other thing about men —just when you’re at your most disgusted with them, they can lay you out with some gratuitous act of generosity and all at once, stupid but true, instead of being mad you feel ashamed of yourself for ever having had a mean and cynical thought about them. ‘Fellas, you didn’t need to — ‘
‘We did need to,’ Justin said. ‘That was double dumb, horsing around in the kitchen like that.’
‘Triple dumb,’ Herb said. He was bobbing his head up and down, never taking his eyes off me.
‘But this is too much!’
Islington said, ‘Not according to our calculations. We had to figure in the annoyance factor, you see, as well as the pain and suffering — ‘
‘I didn’t get burned, that coffee was only luke — ‘
‘You’re taking it, Shirley,’ Herb said, very firmly. He hadn’t gotten all the way back to being Mr State Cop Marlboro Man, but he was well on his way. ‘It’s a done deal.’
I’m really glad they did that, and I’ll never forget it. What happened later was so horrible, you see. It’s nice to have something that can balance out a little bit of that horror, some act of ordinary kindness like two goofs paying not just for the skirt they spoiled but for the inconvenience and exasperation. And giving me flowers on top of that. When I remember the other part, I try to remember those guys, too. Especially the flowers they picked out back.
I thanked them and they headed upstairs, probably to play chess. There used to be a tournament here toward the end of every summer, with the winner getting this little bronze toilet seat called The Scranton Cup. All that kind of got left behind when Lieutenant Schoondist retired. The two of them left me with the look of men who’ve done their duty. I suppose that in a way they had. I felt that they had, anyway, and I could do my part by getting them a big box of chocolates or some winter hand-warmers with what was left over from the gift certificate after I’d bought a new skirt. Hand-warmers would be more practical, but maybe a little too domestic. I was their dispatcher, not their den mother, after all. They had wives to buy them hand-warmers.
Their silly little peace bouquet had been nicely arranged, there were even a few springs of green to give it that all-important town florist’s feel, but they hadn’t thought to add water.
Arrange the flowers, then forget the water: it’s a guy thing. I picked up the vase and started toward the kitchen and that was when George Stankowski came on the radio, coughing and sounding scared to death. Let me tell you something you can file away with whatever else you consider to be the great truths of life: only one thing scares a police communications officer more than hearing a Trooper in the field actually sounding scared on the radio, and that’s one calling in a 29-99. Code 99 is General response required. Code 29 . . . you look in the book and you see only one word under 29. The word is catastrophe.
‘Base, this is 14. Code 29-99, do you copy? Two-niner-niner-niner.’
I put the vase with the wildflowers in it back down on my desk, very carefully. As I did, I had a very vivid memory: hearing on the radio that John Lennon had died. I was making breakfast for my dad that day. I was going to serve him and then just dash, because I was late for school. I had a glass bowl with eggs in it curled against my stomach. I was beating them with a whisk. When the man on the radio said that Lennon had been shot in New York City, I set the glass bowl down in the same careful way I now set down the vase.
‘Tony!’ I called across the barracks, and at the sound of my voice (or the sound of what was in my voice), everyone stopped what they were doing. The talk stopped upstairs, as well.
‘Tony, George Stankowski is 29-99!’ And without waiting, I scooped up the microphone and told George that I copied, five-by, and come on back.
‘My 20 is County Road 46, Poteenville,’ he said. I could hear an uneven crackling sound behind his transmission. It sounded like fire. Tony was standing in my doorway by then, and Sandy Dearborn in his civvies, with his cop-shoes hung from the fingers of one hand. ‘A tanker-truck has collided with a schoolbus and is on fire. That’s the tanker that’s on fire, but the front half of the schoolbus is involved, copy that?’
‘Copy,’ I said. I sounded okay, but my lips had gone numb.
‘This is a chemical tanker, Norco West, copy?’
‘I copy Norco West, 14.’ Writing it on the pad beside the red telephone in large capital letters. ‘Placks?’ Short for placards, the little diamonds with icons for fire, gas, radiation, and a few other fun things.
‘Ah, can’t make out the placks, too much smoke, but there’s white stuff coming out and it’s catching fire as it runs down the ditch and across the highway, copy that?’ George had started coughing into his mike again.
‘Copy,’ I said. ‘Are you breathing fumes, 14? You don’t sound so good, over?’
‘Ah, roger that, roger fumes, but I’m okay. The problem . . .’ But before he could finish, he started coughing again.
Tony took the mike from me. He patted my shoulder to say I’d been doing all right, he just couldn’t bear to stand there listening anymore. Sandy was putting on his shoes. Everyone else was drifting toward dispatch. There were quite a few guys there, with the shift change coming up. Even Mister Dillon had come out of the kitchen to see what all the excitement was about.
‘The problem’s the school,’ George went on when he could. ‘Poteenville Grammar is only two hundred yards away.’
‘School’s not in for almost another month, 14. You — ‘
‘Break, break. Maybe not, but I see kids.’
Behind me someone murmured, ‘August is Crafts Month out there. My sister’s teaching pottery to nine- and ten-year-olds.’ I remember the terrible sinking feeling I got in my chest when I heard that.
‘Whatever the spill is, I’m upwind of it,’ George went on when he could. ‘The school isn’t, I repeat the school is not. Copy?’
‘Copy, 14,’ Tony said. ‘Do you have FD support?’
‘Negative, but I hear sirens.’ More coughing. ‘I was practically on top of this when it happened, close enough to hear the crash, so I got here first. Grass is on fire, fire’s headed toward the school. I see kids on the playground, standing around and watching. I can hear the alarm inside, so I have to guess they’ve been evacked. Can’t tell if the fumes have gotten that far, but if they haven’t, they will. Send the works, boss. Send the farm. This is a legitimate