I leaned closer, enjoying his humor and that I gave it to him. I still felt it important enough to push.

If gently.

“So, seeing as I’m not properly equipped to get it, but I still get it, and a direct donation from me is out, would it be unacceptable if a certain someone leaned on some local businesses that sell electronics to get them to donate a new microwave and TV? These efforts being anonymous, of course.”

His eyes warmed and his arm squeezed. “You wanna put the effort into that, knock yourself out. This keeps goin’ where it’s goin’ and you meet some of the other wives and girlfriends and wanna arrange somethin’ like you did for the junior boxing league so the guys got it better when we’re hangin’ around waitin’ for a call, that wouldn’t be a problem either.”

So I could get someone else to donate or raise money. But Mickey Donovan’s wealthy new girlfriend was not going to become the Magdalene Fire Department’s patron.

Understood.

I let that go and asked, “Do women invade the sanctity of the firehouse very often?”

“Yeah, considerin’ we got one in the company.”

This surprised me. Not that firefighters couldn’t be women, just that what I saw appeared to be a man’s domain.

“Really?”

“Yeah. She’s tough. She’s good. Been with us four years. Name’s Misty.”

A firefighter named Misty was incongruous and humorous for several reasons.

I did not smile.

I mumbled, “Misty the firefighter.”

Mickey gave me one of his easy grins. “Yeah. She took a lotta shit about that girlie name while she was a recruit.”

“There aren’t a lot of women named Butch,” I pointed out and got another chuckle. “Was she okay with that?” I asked.

“She didn’t have a choice,” he answered. “You take it or you get the fuck out. She gets sensitive and pissy about gettin’ shit about her name, no way she has it in her to aim a hose at a wall of flame.”

I didn’t like the sound of that last part but I didn’t let on and instead queried, “So, how about wives and girlfriends?”

“It happens. They show. Necessarily, this is a family. You’re part of the family, you’re welcome.” He bent his neck to put his face close to mine. “But everyone knows, the men and their women, our woman and her man, there’s an unwritten rule. Dinner’s okay. Occasionally. Droppin’ in to drop shit off or have a chat, that too. The boys may look laidback but they gotta do that bein’ prepared. So we keep distractions at a minimum.”

I nodded.

Then I didn’t know why I did it, but I figured I did it because I had to know.

This being asking, “Have you fought a lot of fires?”