I nodded.
Her eyes filled with tears. She leaned in closer. “I’m so sorry. I tried to stop her, but she was just too strong. I couldn’t hold her.”
“Hold her…what?”
“She chased after you, into the fire.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. I tried to leap up from the stretcher, but the straps at my wrists, ankles, and neck held me down.
“Whoa, buddy,” the paramedic pressed a steady hand to my chest.
“Let me out of this thing!” I rocked violently back and forth. “Gerdy!”
I swiveled my head back toward the parked cars. A crowd of people stood between the Volvo and Sentra, where I had left her. I couldn’t see her, though. I didn’t see her. “Gerdy!”
I turned back toward Krendal’s, toward the black smoke drifting out the shattered opening. Firemen disappeared inside, pulling heavy hoses with them. “She’s not in there! She wouldn’t go in there!”
The strap on my right hand broke free. I reached over and started on the left.
The woman in the burnt floral print dress backed away, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she mouthed.
“Give me 10mgs Haldol, now!” the paramedic shouted above me, holding my chest down with the bulk of his weight.
My ankle broke free.
I tried to buck him off.
A needle plunged into my arm.
No, please. Not Gerdy. Not Gerdy.
All went dark then.
4
Faustino Brier liked pizza.
He liked pizza damn near more than anything else on this planet.
Of all pizza in all of Pittsburgh, he particularly liked Mineo’s Pizza in Squirrel Hill, so when John Mineo came over to his table no less than thirty seconds after his 16” cheese and pepperoni arrived and told him he had a phone call, he instructed the man to tell whoever it was that he wasn’t there, he hadn’t seen him all day. When John Mineo returned and told him the caller knew he was there and it was urgent, Faustino carried a lone slice back to the phone on the bar and picked up the receiver in his clean hand.
“This better be good.”
“Hey, this is Horton with Narcotics. You need to get down to Brownsville Road.”
Horton’s team had Duncan Bellino under constant surveillance in an attempt to build a trafficking case against him and his boss, Henry Crocket. Horton agreed to watch the Thatch boy too, and report anything out of the ordinary to Faustino. Professional courtesy.
“Something happen with your boy or mine?” Faustino said, taking a bite of the pizza. Delicious.
“Both. Get your ass down here. Now.”
Even with lights and a siren, it took nearly thirty minutes in the afternoon traffic. Faustino saw the smoke from more than a mile away.
Two blocks were roped off behind yellow crime-scene tape. First responders were everywhere. He parked behind two firetrucks and climbed out of his car. Firemen were rolling up hoses, putting equipment away. He pushed his way past the crowd of onlookers and reporters.
Fogel saw him and ran over. He had called her from Mineo’s.
He said, “Holy shit, is that Krendal’s?”
