He took another sip of bourbon.
There was a tentative knock at the door. He said, "Yeah," and Anna stepped in. She wore cotton pajamas and no makeup. Her eyes were round and puffy.
"Do you hear that?"
The smoke alarm was perfectly clear, but he fought the smart-ass remark, and just nodded. "Bill’s, I think."
"It’s been going for a while."
"Just a minute or two." Even as he said it, he realized that this wasn’t like an alarm clock, something to ignore. Stood up. "I guess you’re right." He stepped past her, tracing one hand along her hip as he did.
She fired a tired smile at him. "You want me to come?"
"Nah. Go back to bed." He walked the creaking hardwood hall to the kitchen and grabbed the keys to the bottom unit. He and Anna had fallen in love with the building the moment they’d seen it: A brick two-flat, almost a hundred years old, in Lincoln Square near the river. The neighborhood was great, safe and full of families, and the house backed up to a park they had imagined taking their own children to someday.
Of course, the building ran two-hundred grand more than they’d anticipated spending. But renting out the bottom floor let them swing the house payments, more or less. More or less: The modern way. Tom opened the front door and started down the steps. Mortgaging the present to afford the future.
The smell of smoke pulled him from his reverie. "Shit." He hustled down, yelled over his shoulder. "Anna!" The door to the foyer stuck, and he yanked hard to open it. Behind him he heard her footsteps, but didn’t stop, just stepped into the narrow vestibule. A trickle of gray slid beneath the door to Bill Samuelson’s apartment. Shit, shit, shit. Tom banged on the door, feeling silly, like the guy was going to hear knocks but not the smoke alarm. He fumbled with the keys, trying one and then another before he got the deadbolt open. Tried to remember everything he’d learned about fire. Touch the door, he thought, see if the flames are on the other side, if you’re going to feed them oxygen. But the wood was cool. Anna stepped behind him.
Tom twisted the knob and cracked the door. The front room was a haze of smoke, the aftermath of a rock concert. The alarm screamed panic. "Hello?" He couldn’t see any flames, so he opened the door all the way and stepped in. The room was spartan, just a battered easy chair and a big television propped on a particle-board entertainment center. A halo of swirling yellow clung to the top of the lone lamp.
The décor reminded Tom that he was in another man’s apartment, but he pushed the thought aside. This was his house, his building. Damned if he’d let it burn to uphold courtesy. He quickstepped down the hallway. The smoke grew thicker and darker. He pulled the hem of his shirt up over his mouth, sucked hot air through it.
The kitchen overheads drilled tunnels of shifting light. Tom could sense heat before he saw flame, primitive instincts feeding dread as he moved toward the stove, where spikes of yellow and green danced. The flames wrapped a blackened teakettle, cloaking it in fire, and for a split second he imagined that the kettle itself was burning, and then he realized that the fire was coming from the gas jets. He lunged forward, spun the knob to kill the gas, feeling the fire like a wave of heat. Nothing happened, and he realized the gas wasn’t the source, that the fire came from below and around the metal ring. Months of dribbled grease had caught and pulsed with a sweet black smoke. The wall behind the stove was blackened.
"Shit," Anna said from behind him. "Does he have a fire extinguisher?"
Tom threw open the cupboard beneath the sink. The air was clearer down here, and revealed cleansers, a couple of half-empty liquor bottles, but nothing useful. He stood. There was a mug on the counter beside a jar of Sanka. He could fill it with water…wait. Better. The dishwashing hose. Tom stepped to the sink, spun the water on, then reached for the gun.
"No!" She had to shout over the alarm. "Grease fire."
Grease fire, grease fire, grease fire. Right. Water would just spatter it, send flying blobs of burning oil in all directions. What the hell did you use for a grease fire?
Anna was answering the question for him, pushing past to open the doors of upper cabinets. Canned soup, pasta, a box of Girl Scout cookies. Teas and coffee. Spices with the price tag still on. A ten-pound sack of flour, blue letters on white paper, the top rolled down and rubber banded. She pulled it from the shelf, knocking glass bottles to clatter on the counter. The flames had spread to a second burner. She snapped off the band and opened the sack, then leaned closer to the fire and dumped it, thrusting the bag like she was flinging water from a bucket. An avalanche of powder poured out over the stove, the wall, the counter. The flames sizzled as the flour hit, and then with a whoomp were buried beneath mounds of white. Particles rose in the heat, spinning and dancing like dust motes.