for a couple of minutes while Eve was getting ready, but there was something about her.”
“Forget that right now,” Daniels said. “Eve never lets people pick their own dates. Lady has some kind of psycho-paranormal-psychic thing. She knows what she’s doing.”
“No, it’s not that,” Breaker said, “I’d never propose to go over her level of expertise and make a request. It’s just that when we BEAR THE HEAT
37
got into things, I found myself describing that girl.” Captain Daniels just watched while his old friend rubbed his temples deeply with his thumbs. “It was the weirdest damn thing. I just couldn’t stop myself. Eve kept asking me what I saw in a mate for myself, what kind of woman I was looking for, that kind of thing.”
“You don’t know her, though. How could you be describing someone you don’t know?”
“I mean at first it was just physical traits. I described her sort of crinkly, ringlet, black hair. You know what? This is stupid.
You’re just gonna use this to make fun of me next time we have a station party.”
Daniels chewed his chili slowly. “Why the hell would I do that? It isn’t even a funny joke. That’d be like someone at a roast of Dean Martin saying he was successful with women and very rich.” He stood up and mimed having a mic in his hand. “Ladies and gentlemen, our hero, our favorite fire bear, Breaker Hart.
You know what he did? He got a date ! Ha!” He sat down heavily.
“See? Not much of a joke. I’d much rather make fun of you for snoring like a goddam lumber saw, or perhaps, for your penchant for hoarding comic books.”
As though he hadn’t heard any of that, Breaker just looked off in the distance. “What if I’m getting sick?”
“Huh?”
“You know how you hear about people getting all weird and lonely when they know they’re about to die? Maybe there’s an aneurysm building up in the back of my head so I’m just looking for someone so I don’t die alone.”
“You smell any burnt toast or almonds lately?” Daniels took another bite, and then wiped the red remains out of his mustache. “I hear that’s a good way to know about an impending aneurysm. If not, then I think you’re probably just lonely.”
After a slight break for grumbling, Breaker looked up from his chili. “You really think that?”
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Lynn Red
“How long did you spend yammering on and on about a family? At least ten minutes? Maybe twenty?”
Breaker looked back at his chili. “Yeah, well, that’s different. I always get a little maudlin after fires. And anyway, there was something weird about that one.”
“Weird?” Daniels seemed fairly happy to be talking about anything other than dating. He’d had a long streak of marital mistakes, so even though he was willing to chat about relationships from time to time, it wasn’t his favorite subject.
“Looked like a normal electrical fire to me.”
“Yeah, but it looked too much like an electrical fire.”
“Oh great,” Daniels said with a sigh. “Time to break out the X-Files , huh? I’ll call the FBI.”
“Hell,” Breaker grunted. “No, I’m just saying. Electrical fires start from the middle of a house and go out.”
“Usually, that’s right,” Daniels said. “But they can sometimes go outside in, depends where the fuse box is. And anyway, the PD
already has their forensics lab rats poking around into all that mess. It ain’t our problem anyway, they’re the ones with all the fancy machines and telescopes and whatever.”
“Telescope? What’s that going to do for an arson investigation?”
“Shit,” Daniels grunted, “I dunno, look in some attractive young mink-shifter’s window? That’d help me out of a whole lot of weird situations that I can’t exactly quantify. The fuse box on this house was outside. Old as hell building, too. Built in the 20s.
You know as well as I do that if any place is an electrical fire waiting to happen, it’s right there. Quit looking for things