Fire Lover by Joseph Wambaugh Read Free Book Online Page A

bail. The Toyota took off again.
    After another block or two of crazed driving the Toyota went into a wheel - locking slide right into the Greyhound bus depot. The doors blew open and they were gone.
    One guy headed for an industrial park and got away. The other hot-footed down a residential street, the asshole that had flipped him the bird, so John racked a round into the chamber of the .22 and lit out after him, with two police units, sirens howling, headed his way.
    After rounding a corner, the burglar, who was in worse shape than the overweight fireman, had had enough. He made a halfhearted attempt to climb a block wall, but gave up.
    It was a neighboring Burbank Police Department motor cop who got there first. He looked at the prone burglar, then at the Glendale fireman, then at the little .22 pistol in the fireman's hand, and he said in disbelief, "Is that your fire truck back there?"
    "Yes," John responded. "Don't make me explain right now, 'cause I don't feel too . . ." Then he threw up. He tossed his cookies all over the burglar, who by now couldn't believe any of this shit, nor could the Burbank motor cop.
    It turned out that the addicts had burgled an apartment, and their Toyota was loaded with a few thousand bucks' worth of loot. John made a self-effacing claim to his colleagues that though the pursuit was undeniably exciting, he "didn't want any attention for it."
    And their answer to that was the same given by the Verdugo dispatcher: "Riiiiight."
    When they gave him the Deputy Dawg horseshit again, he said, "If I was a straight police officer this caper would've been chalked up as a righteous bust." He was absolutely right. He added, "But because I'm a half-breed wanna-be I'm a target of ridicule." And he was absolutely right about that too.
    The Glendale News-Press grabbed the story and published it the next day, and every fire station in the city and beyond heard about the swashbuckling fireman who ended up getting a commendation from the city council for his derring-do. The fire marshal gave him thirty merit points in his personnel file, but took back fifty for the offense of carrying a firearm in a fire department vehicle.
    It was getting hard for the fire marshal to decide what to do with this guy.
    John said that the next time he went to one of those cop bars, a young officer who actually seemed to get a kick out of the Glendale fireman's reputation sent the wanna-be a half-pitcher of margaritas. Now that was a bit of recognition, coming as it did from a real cop.
    John Orr enjoyed it immensely, and drank the pitcher dry, and played his favorites on the jukebox: Neal Diamond and the Doors. And of course, everybody loved the Doors' signature song: "Come on baby light my fire!"

    Chapter 3

Fire Lover (2002)

THE BIG SHOW
    During the early eighties John Orr enrolled in a few more fire-investigation courses with his firefighter colleague Don Yeager and a Glendale cop, Detective Dennis Wilson, who attended because the police were still handling the arson cases for the city of Glendale. Arson, according to the cops, was part of "the garbage detail," not like handling homicides or robberies.
    There was one aspect of those training sessions that John found fascinating. It was the staged fires where furnished rooms were set alight and allowed to burn. They got to watch the ignition and progression, and to examine the aftermath. He said it was a "privilege" to observe the before and after of a fire scene, something many firefighters never got a chance to see.
    When the training was finished, the fire marshal, only too aware of John's job enthusiasm, approved of his being called out after hours on unusual fires. John Orr was becoming a de facto arson investigator even though the responsibility still resided with the police department. His primary task still lay in inspecting vacant property for brush and weed abatement, and issuing citations to recalcitrant property owners, which wasn't always easy.
    He said it would