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another alarm with another DOA, he hooked a small picture frame. None of the items were of much value; it was almost as if the nature of the event required him to snitch souvenirs.
    Moments later, as Tronstad climbed into the crew cab, I said, “What’s in the bags?”
    Tronstad peered past me toward the dark house. “The place was full of old papers. Nobody’s going to miss them.”
    “Newspapers?”
    “Yeah. Papers, man. It’s nothing.”
    “Well, you’d better put them back anyway,” I said.
    “Hey, man, don’t get your panties in a knot.”
    “You guys ready?” asked Sears, climbing into the rig.
    Five minutes after we got back to the station, I discovered Tronstad and Johnson arguing in the bunk room.

8. BEARER BONDS
    TRONSTAD AND JOHNSON were squared off in front of Tronstad’s clothing locker, at their feet three bulging black garbage bags. “You can’t keep this,” Johnson said, shaking his head.
    “It’s just junk.”
    “It’s not
your
junk. You can’t keep it.”
    “Watch me.” I’d seen them bicker before, Tronstad a man who could get contentious about something as inconsequential as whether to have peas or green beans with dinner—afterward acting as if the squabble never occurred. “You just watch me.”
    “It’s not right and you know it.”
    “Oh, yeah? And it’s right to go bad on one alarm out of four?”
    “I don’t go wrong on one out of four.”
    “The hell you don’t.”
    I stepped into the bathroom at the west end of the bunk room to use the urinal. Before Sears galvanized them into a posture of unity, these two had quarreled almost daily. Tonight their tone was more malicious than usual, especially Tronstad’s, as if the months of holding back had built his grievances to the point of bursting.
    Even if these two didn’t, I knew we’d never quite worked together as a unit until we found ourselves united against Sears, who liked to think
he’d
brought us together through his authority and unyielding leadership. In reality our unification was a rebellion against his inflexibility. Personally, I liked him as an individual, but I stood with the others in my dislike of his stubbornness. It was always his way or the highway.
    “What do you think, Gum?” Johnson was standing in the bathroom doorway watching me in the mirror, giving me the smile he used when he was furious. Lately, I was beginning to see the multiple layers of angst buried beneath his cheerful exterior. His gambling, for instance: he believed with a conviction equal to his belief in God that it was his destiny to win millions of dollars, that he would pick the right numbers and it would be handed to him, that every time he lost he was getting personally screwed out of what was rightfully his.
    “What?”
    “Gum? You and I have to take a stand on this. Ted needs to turn in those bags.”
    “Of course he does. What’s in them?”
    Johnson handed me a slip of official-looking paper about twice the size of a dollar bill, replete with intricate script and seals. The print on the front claimed it was worth a thousand dollars to the holder and that it had been authorized by the Bank of Alfalh.
    “What is it?” I asked.
    “Says it’s a bearer bond for a thousand bucks.”
    “What’s a bearer bond?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Johnson and I walked into the bunk room, where Tronstad was cramming the last of the three plastic garbage bags into his clothing locker, forcing the door shut, and locking it. They barely fit. “If they’re not worth anything, what do you need them for?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” said Johnson. “If they’re not worth anything, what do you need them for?”
    “I want to play a joke on my brother-in-law.”
    “You have to tell Sears you took them,” said Johnson. “Tell him it was an accident. We’ll back you up, but we have to get these back where they belong.”
    “It’s not like he’s got any relatives to inherit that junk. Some real estate speculator will buy his house