one shoulder toward the sky, he stepped through the window onto its inside ledge.
When he had both feet inside the building, he jumped into the dark. The floor on which he landed was higher than he had calculated. His left ankle hurt him right up to the small of his back. He punched the pain in his back with his thumb.
More the sense of light than actual light itself emanated from his left. The band and the chanting had quieted now. A man’s amplified voice strided.
Sliding his feet along the floor so he wouldn’t fall down any steps that might be there, Fletch went to his left. After several steps he felt himself against a wall. He turned right, following the sound of the man’s voice—“Protect this great republic”—toward greater light, against another wall, right again, around a corner. He found himself at the top of a dimly lit, old, wooden staircase.
He could no longer hear the alarm bell.
His ankle and back not complaining too much, he ran down the stairs.
He pushed through the wide door to the corridor of the balcony. On the corridor’s side, the door was concealed as a mirror.
To orient himself, Fletch went onto the balcony.
Every seat in the balcony was taken. People were standing.
Onstage, Doris Wheeler and Governor Caxton Wheeler were sitting in the center of a half-moon of local dignitaries. Their plastic chairs were the sort designed to be uncomfortable in fast-food restaurants, to make people tip forward, eat fast, and get out. The speaker at the podium could have been Congressman Jack Snive.
In front of the stage, facing the audience, smirked a large band in high school marching uniforms. The uniforms might have been the right sizes for the band marching, but they were too big for them sitting down. All the drummers’ hands were in their sleeves.
The floor of the auditorium was filled. People clogging the aisles were urging other people to move. There was some movement, but it was more circular than directed.
Across the hall, nearer the stage than the balcony, was a separate box. In the box sat Freddie Arbuthnot, Roy Filby, Fenella Baker, Tony Rice, others. He could not see who was in the matching box, to his right.
Fletch left the balcony and ran down the stairs to the lobby of the auditorium.
To the left of the main door was a bank of three wall telephones. Bill Dieckmann was not there.
Fletch looked around what corners there were. No Bill Dieckmann.
There were no other phones along the back of the auditorium.
Even the foyer was crowded.
The fireman who had stopped Fletch outside the auditorium was now inside. He spotted Fletch. “Hey!” he shouted. He started toward Fletch.
Moving sideways very fast, Fletch kept the crowd between himself and the fireman.
Fletch ran back up the stairs to the balcony.
“Freddie?” Fletch sat down beside her. There was more room in the press box than there was anywhere else in the auditorium. “Have you seen Flash Grasselli?”
She shook her head no. “Something occurred to me,” she said.
“I need to find Flash.”
“Don’t you think it odd,” she asked, “that a few days after I join the campaign, Walsh hires you?”
Fletch said, “Help me find Bill Dieckmann.”
“I mean, you’re an investigative reporter. Like me.”
“Bill called me at the hotel. From here. Asked me to help him. Apparently his head was going again.”
Her brown eyes were fully on Fletch’s face.
Fletch said, “It sounded like he was afraid of what he might do, or something.”
“How long ago was that?”
“God.” Fletch looked at his watch. “More than a half hour ago. Man can’t fly.”
“I haven’t seen Flash.” She started to get up. “I haven’t seen either of them.”
Fletch stood up. “I told him to stay by the phones at the back of the auditorium. He’s not there.”
Fletch’s eyes were running over the audience below him. The aisles had been pretty well cleared, except for firemen and policemen.
Freddie leaned to her left and spoke with Roy Filby and Tony Rice.
Below Fletch, Betsy Ginsberg was sitting in about the middle of the audience.
Roy and Tony were standing, too.
“They’ll help,” Freddie said. “I told them about Bill.”
Fletch stood aside to let the three of them out the row of seats. “Just fan out and look for him anywhere,” he said. “Check the rest rooms, I guess. He sounded real bad.”
“Could the police have taken him out?” Roy asked.
“I don’t think they had by the time I came in.”
As they were leaving the box, Fletch took one more fast look at the audience seated on the floor of the auditorium.
Betsy had risen from her seat and was working her way along the row to the aisle.
Fletch ran out of the press box so fast he tripped against Tony Rice.
“Fletch!” Freddie called after him. “Did you see him?”
“No!”
He ran down the corridor behind the balcony and down the stairs to the auditorium lobby.
There was a bigger crowd of people in the lobby, grumbling about having been removed from the aisles. Some were angrily refusing to leave the building.
Fletch pushed through them. Some shoved back.
“Wheel along with Wheeler,” Fletch said.
Fletch glowered at the big stomach of a policeman standing in the main doorway to the auditorium.
“Get out of my way, please,” Fletch said. He pushed past the policeman.
“Trying to start a riot?”
“Sorry,” Fletch said over his shoulder.
The fireman who had stopped him outside the auditorium and yelled at him inside the auditorium saw Fletch push past the policeman from the lobby. “Stop him!” he yelled. “Hey! Get that guy!”
He pushed past the policeman, too.
Over the heads of the people seated in the auditorium, Fletch saw Betsy at the right of the auditorium, near the stage, going through a door marked EXIT.
Moving as fast as he could, dodging people standing at the back of the auditorium, Fletch went to his right along the wall at the rear of the audience. He was passing behind Hanrahan.
Hands grabbed both of Fletch’s shoulders and turned him around.
“Wait one minute,” the fireman said. He was crouched a little, as if to swing. “You’re causin’ one hell of a lot of trouble.”
“Sorry,” Fletch said, taking a step backward.
Michael J. Hanrahan had turned around.
The fireman grabbed Fletch’s arm.
Fletch did not resist.
“You’re comin’ with me,” the fireman said.
With his grin/grimace, Hanrahan said, “Trouble, Fletcher?”
“I’m in an awful hurry, Michael.”
“That’s fine.” Hanrahan lurched forward onto his right foot, and sent his left fist into the fireman’s coat.
The fireman dropped his grip on Fletch.
In a second, he had twisted Hanrahan into a half-Nelson wrestling hold.
Fletch said, “Thank you, Michael.”
Hanrahan’s face quickly turned crimson. “That’s all right, Fletcher. Always glad to slug a cop.”
“Michael!” Fletch said, backing away. More uniforms were appearing in the dark at the back of the auditorium. “You slugged a fireman!”
