Read Online The Smoke Room by Earl Emerson - Free Book Online Page B

of the law with a bearer bond. Bearer bonds aren’t registered anywhere, but they can be stolen, which makes them ideal for anonymity. While the U.S. government no longer issues bearer bonds, they still honor bonds issued in earlier years. Millions of dollars’ worth of bearer bonds are outstanding.”
    As Tronstad would put it, Johnson was happier than a dead pig in the sun. “We got bearer bonds in there from all over the world, but the majority are from the U.S. government. There’s no way to trace them. Those sacks might be worth a million each, Gum.”
    “There’s no way a pack rat like Ghanet had that much money lying around. That’s junk paper.”
    “How about four million each?” Tronstad said, when he came into the room. “I stayed up last night and counted them. Just over twelve million total.”
    “Whoo-hoo,” Johnson said. “The beauty of it is that this ain’t money. It’s paper, and it ain’t stolen. I don’t know where Tronstad got those sacks. Do you?”
    “We were going to make him take it back,” I said, more convinced than ever the paper was worthless. If it had been worth a few thousand, I might have believed Ghanet had squirreled it away for a rainy day. But millions? The man lived on macaroni and cheese. His truck barely ran. His TV was fuzzy on every channel.
    Johnson gave me a long, slow look, as if trying to convince himself. “We were like family to Charles Scott. He would want us to have it.”
    I could see they’d closed ranks and become a team, the two of them against me. They knew that I knew if I turned them in, I would be turning myself in for missing the alarm on Arch Place—and for lying about it over the course of the past three weeks. How could I get them fired over three garbage sacks full of worthless paper they thought was Aztec gold?
    “You in?” Tronstad asked. “Or are you going to walk over there and cost us our jobs? Your choice, pal.”
    “You just said it was worth—”
    “Nothing, probably. Your choice.”
    “What choice?” Lieutenant Sears opened the door from the apparatus bay in time to catch Tronstad’s last words. Despite our bad night, he looked military and shipshape.
    “The choice is ice cream,” Tronstad said. “Gum owes us ice cream for his first DOA in a tub.”
    Sears knew we’d been talking about something else—you could see it in the tilt of his head and his questioning brown eyes. “Is that what you guys were talking about?” Lieutenant Sears asked, looking at me.
    “No, it isn’t,” I said. “We were talking about . . .” Tronstad’s veins began bulging. Johnson stood up. “. . . about a surprise gift for somebody when he gets promoted.”
    The lieutenant’s look softened. Rumors were flying around that he might soon be transferred to a captain’s position in the fire marshal’s office, so the lie had come easily.
    Before he left, Sears, striking like a snake, snatched the bearer bond out of Johnson’s hands, then examined the gaudy colored ink and toy-money look. “This smells like cats,” he said.
    You could have heard a pin hit the floor.
    “I sure hope this didn’t come from where I think it came from,” Sears said. “Any time a firefighter removes something from the scene of an alarm, it’s a crime. I hope you boys know that.” He stared at us each in turn.
    I could hear Johnson’s Timex ticking.
    “I’ve got a safety committee meeting this morning at zero eight-thirty, and then Heather and I are heading out of town. But . . .” He held up the bond. “I’m going to keep this, and if it came from where I think it came from, somebody’s in trouble. I mean that.”
    “Give it back,” said Tronstad. “You don’t have any right to take that.”
    “Is it yours?”
    “Well . . .”
    “Then I’ll keep it.” Pausing in the doorway, Sears said, “This is potentially a serious offense.” He sniffed it again. “Oh, boy.”
    “Hey,” Tronstad said. “Give it back. It’s mine. I brought it from