It was most a sure cinch it would stop there on the way down.
The salesman smiled his triumph. “See you down below,” he said and started to get on.
Jernigan grabbed his arm, ignoring the surprised murmurs behind him.
“Nobody’s taking this elevator!” he said, raising his voice to keep the crowd back that had started to press forward.
The salesman jerked away, raising his fists. “No nigger’s going to tell me what I can do and cannot do. We’re getting out of here!”
Rosette was watching him, alarmed. Jernigan pointed at the residential elevator which was filling up fast and held up two fingers.
She nodded and immediately turned away two women, protesting.
Jernigan reached out and grabbed the salesman by the arm, whirling him off balance. “Sorry, Mac,” he said quietly and hit him just below the chin with a quick chop.
He caught the salesman before he hit the lobby floor and slapped him halfway back to consciousness, then pushed him toward his screaming wife. “Get him out of here,’ he said softly.
“Right now. There’s room for you both in the other elevator but it won’t wait.” She half carried her husband to Rosette’s waiting elevator. The rest of the crowd reluctantly backed away from the commercial bank. Jernigan could tell from the slight sound behind the elevator lobby doors that the cage was going back down, probably to the seventeenth floor.
There weren’t too many more tenants coming into the lobby, Jernigan thought, suddenly hopeful; he might be able to clear it out after all.
Fifteen minutes later, the crowd in the lobby had thinned noticeably.
The next time the elevator came up, several firemen got off, dressed in slickers and helmets. Jernigan motioned them over, away from the crowd.
“How bad is it?”
The older of the two shrugged. “Bad enough, worse than it should be.
If we had had an alarm fifteen minutes earlier it might have been a different story. You the guy who’s been keeping them away from the commercial elevators?” Jernigan nodded. “.Good thinking. How many people left upstairs?” Jernigan could feel the sweat start to work down the back of his neck; the air in the lobby was getting close.
“I’m not sure; I started to log them out and then there wasn’t time. I understand the switchboard is trying to notify everybody.”
“Sure they are.” He made a face. “Two operators on duty, the other two had gone off shift. Your switchboard’s jammed with outside calls trying to get in-relatives and friends, probably some crank calls.
They’re trying to notify the tenants but that takes time. And then there’s always people watching the tube with the volume turned up and who won’t hear the phone, or who have turned the phone off for the evening, or they’re taking a shower, or they’ve taken sleeping pills and hit the sack… .” He shook his head. “We’ll have to get more men up here and start going through the floors one by one. Smoke’s spreading pretty fast. Thank God the upper floors are empty.” He glanced sharply at Jernigan. “What about the kids?
Any apartments Where the parents have gone out for the evening and there’s a kid and a baby-sitter?”
Jernigan felt sick. Mrs. Harris and her husband had left for the movies earlier that evening with Irene and he couldn’t remember Danny and Sharon going through the lobby when it was emptying out.
“Two Harris kids, boy eleven, girl fourteen. I didn’t see them, though that doesn’t mean they didn’t get out.”
“What apartment?”
“Two floors up, I can show you.” He called over to Rosette, who was handling the last of the dwindling crowd by the express elevator.
“Take over, Rosie, I’ll be back in a minute. If I’m not, go down with the last load.” The air was distinctly hazy now and it was getting a little more difficult to breathe.
The fireman noticed. ,It’s not bad enough for masks but you’re in a lousy’ spot here. The utility core has a southern exposure and outside there’s a strong north wind. You can’t feel it but it works its way into the building and is pushing most of the smoke this way.”
Jernigan had buzzed for one of the regular residential elevators going up. “That smoke spread awfully fast.”
“Partly the weather-the building acts like a chimney when it’s cold out-and partly the building itself. They’re trying to reverse the ventilation fans now, suck some of the smoke out. Should’ve been automatic. Two flights up?, They caught the elevator and a moment later were running down the hall to the Harris apartment. There was some smoke in the hall but nowhere near as much as in the sky lobby.
Probably because the Harris apartment was nearer the north side of the building. He thumped the apartment door with his fist, then fumbled in his pocket for a house key. Crap, he had left it behind at his desk.
The senior fireman motioned him to one side and stuck a pry bar in a corner of the door, near the lock. He started to apply pressure when a high-pitched, muffled voice within said, “Just a minute, please.”
A moment later the door opened and Sharon Harris looked at them, surprised. “We got a phone call,” she said primly, “but we really didn’t think you’d be here this soon.”
Jernigan followed the firemen into the apartment. There was even less smoke in the apartment than in the corridor.
Then he noticed the wet rags around the door. In addition, all the ventilator rills had wet dishtowels and strips of sheeting poked into the holes.
The firemen also noticed and the older one shook his head in admiration. “Who told you how to do it, kid?”
“The telephone operator told us there was a fire and I ran to the door and saw some smoke in the hall. I didn’t know how much there might be by the elevators or the stairwells so I thought we ought to stay here until somebody came to get us. Danny has asthma and I was afraid he might not make it. Then I remembered what Lisolette had said about the plaque on the door; she explained it to us.” Sharon looked at the firemen very soberly, and Jernigan wondered briefly where he had seen the expression before, and then remembered. “It really seemed like the only sensible thing to do.”
The fireman looked over at Jernigan. “Who’s this Lisolette?”
“Old-maid schoolteacher-patron saint of all the kids in the building.” He wondered briefly how her dinner with Harlee was going and then asked Sharon, “Where’s Danny?”
“There.” She pointed to the family room. “He’s watching the fire on television.”
One of the firemen went to the door. “Come on, son, it’s time to go.”
“Do I have to? This is exciting!”
“Afraid so, son. Get your coat; we’ve got to leave right now.”
In the living room, Sharon picked up one of the wet towels that had been stuffed around the door and gave it to Danny with instructions to hold it over his face and breathe through it. The smoke in the hallway was thicker now and down in the deserted sky lobby, the blue in the air had turned to a dirty gray. Danny. started to cough.
“Can you think of anybody else who might not gotten out?”
“Hell, man, I can’t think of any-I sure as hell hope they all got out.” The smoke had started to hurt his lungs and Jernigan didn’t want to talk. He also didn’t want to think about those who might have been left behind. There had to be some, he knew; he’d remember them as soon as he got downstairs and then the night would turn into a living hell for him.
Both Sharon and Danny had started to gag and the firemen shoved them and Jernigan into the residential express. The doors were almost closed when Jernigan violently thumbed the “open” button. He felt like crying.
“I forgot, Jesus, I forgot! There’s an old lady and her husband in 3724-name is Richardson. She’s a wheelchair case and I know damned well they didn’t come through. Maybe the left before the fire but I can’t remember seeing them or checking them out.” He felt helpless.
“I just can’t remember.”
“That’s okay, we’ll check it out. When you get down below, try and take a census in the lobby. You got your checkout boards with you?
Okay-they’ve got spare inhalators down there, get one on the kid, just in case.”
