“Craig Barton-I was - chief architect of the building; I’m also representing Mr. Leroux down here. Check it out; he’s having dinner in the Promenade Room.”
The fireman looked faintly impressed. “Division Chief Mario Infantino’s the man you want-but he’s too busy to talk to civilians now.”
So Mario was running things, Barton thought; a sense of relief flooded through him. The building was in good hands. “Just tell him I’m in the lobby. If he gets a moment I’d like to see him-any way I can help, I will.”
“Sure thing.” The fireman nodded out at the lobby.
“You might try doing something about that mess-the cops can’t seem to.”
“I’ll give it a try.” He turned back to the lobby. He saw Garfunkel and Jernigan, standing by the security desk in deep conversation; both looked haggard and worn.
Garfunkel broke off the conversation when he spotted him, the strain in his face abruptly easing.
“When’s Mr. Leroux coming down? Christ, we could use him right now-people are asking me fifty million questions and I don’t know how to answer any of them.”
“He’ll be down later; you’ll have to put up -with me until he gets here.” Barton pointed at the blanket-covered figure being taken out the front entrance by the ambulance team. “How many casualties?”
Garfunkel’s face tightened. “One that we know of. The man they’re taking out is Sol Jacobs, the seventy- year-old bachelor in 3214. The smoke got him.” His voice dropped a notch. “And then there’s Griff Edwards. He tried to help us when we first went up to the fire floor.
Stroke-he’s in intensive care. There probably are others.”
To Barton, Jacobs was only a man. Griff Edwards he had met several times and liked; he assumed that Garfunkel was a close friend.
“How’s Edwards doing?”
Garfunkel’s voice shook slightly. “I talked to the doctors; they don’t think he’ll make it to morning.”
There was no time for tears, Barton thought, either for himself, Garfunkel, or anybody else. He glanced back at the lobby; little clumps of tenants wandered aimlessly around or stood guard by their small heaps of possessions.
“Dan, open up the lunchroom downstairs. See if we can get volunteers to make coffee and sandwiches, then circulate among the tenants and tell them it’s open. It will pug them out of the lobby.
And detail one of the guards to call nearby hotels for rooms-it’s the holiday weekend; chances are they’ll have a lot of vacancies.
Have him make reservations for the tenants who want one, either for the night or until such time as they can contact relatives or return here. Get hold of the night managers and explain the situation; tell them Curtainwall will pick up the tab.” They’d have to make good with the lunchroom owner, too, he thought, but that would be a minor expense. It would also be in Leroux’s bailiwick; let him worry about details. Then something else occurred to him. “Better call a cab company, too; have them send over all their free units … use the north entrance, so they won’t interfere with the firemen. We’ll have to use them to get the tenants to hotels. Then report back here.”
He turned to Jernigan who was obviously ready for his own orders.
“Harry, find the ranking police officer in charge and ask him to come over here.”
Jernigan disappeared and Barton inspected the lobby again. At the elevator bank, two firemen, their faces smeared with soot, staggered out. Firemen nearby immediately slapped a respirator on the one; the other of the pair clung to the wall for support and started to vomit on the salvage cover. The doors to another elevator slid open; a rescue team came out lugging still another stretcher. The huddled form beneath the blanket was completely covered. Barton watched in morbid fascination as the ambulance crew, blank-faced, carried the stretcher toward the door. Maybe it was because their faces were too carefully blank, maybe it was because of the etched lines of strain. Barton was suddenly glad that the blanket was completely draped over the stretcher itself; the shape roughly outlined beneath it couldn’t possibly be human. They passed him on the way out and he caught a whiff of odor, There were two smells that you never forgot, he thought, his stomach suddenly uneasy.
One was that of rotting potatoes. The other was that of burned flesh.
On the other side of the entrance, one of the guards was making a call on an outside phone; Barton guessed he was setting up hotel reservations for the tenants. Then, on the fringe of the crowd, he noticed Garfunkel in earnest conversation with some of the older women tenants.
They listened for a moment, then followed him toward the escalator to the lower lobby. As soon as they had made coffee, the lower level restaurant would be open, Barton thought, and at least one problem would be on its way to being solved.
Jernigan suddenly appeared at his side with a slightly disgruntled police captain in tow; the snow just beginning to melt off his slicker.
“Mr. Barton, Captain Greenwall.”
The captain didn’t give Barton a chance to introduce himself.
“I’ve got problems out there, mister; what’s so damned important that you have to see me here?”
“Because you’ve got problems in here, too,” Barton said dryly.
“How come this lobby hasn’t been cleared?”
The captain looked at him coldly. “I didn’t catch the name.”
“Craig Barton. I’m chief architect for the building.”
“That’s fine, I’ve got a mess outside to clean up.” He turned to go.
“I’m filling in for Wyndom Leroux until he gets down here,” Barton continued. “What’s the situation outside?”
“Leroux?” The captain visibly thawed and said, “We’re moving the barricades back another block around the building. Falling glass.”
“Bad?”
“It’s pretty windy; it’s probably as bad as it can get.”
His face blanked for a moment at something he obviously didn’t want to remember. “One fatality a block away.
Pretty messy. Half a dozen others hospitalized. Maybe a dozen cars with slashed tops or hoods.” He glanced at Barton sharply. “Was that all you want to know?”
“We’re starting to evacuate the tenants. There’ll be cabs coming in a few minutes to take them to hotels; they have instructions to approach from the north. Tell your men to let them through.”,He glanced at the lobby again and noted that more people were going downstairs.
“We could use some more men here and downstairs to keep order.
Can we get them?”
The captain shrugged. “I’ll do my best. Outside it’s a circus.
All the television stations are carrying film on the fire; half the city is out there, weather be damned.”
Bread and circuses, Barton thought. Except there was no attraction half so fascinating as a fire.
“You have a walky-t?”
The captain nodded toward the communications station at the cigar counter. “I’m hooked in over there; they can get me any time.” The lobby crowd was gradually thinning out now.
Garfunkel came back, his face less clouded than before.
“The lunchroom win hardly hold them all, but the tenants can camp in the lobby down there; the coffee and the food’s helping a lot-at least the level of complaints has dropped.”
“Anybody sick or hurt down there?”
“No, most of those were taken out by ambulance crews before you came down. Mostly smoke inhalation.
He hesitated. “We’re making reservations in some of the nearby hotels, but a lot of the tenants don’t want to leave.”
“Any Red Cross people around?”
“They’ve got a van outside serving coffee. Some of them were in the lobby half an hour ago taking down names and addresses of relatives to be notified.”
Barton turned to Jernigan. “Go out and contact their senior man-see if you can arrange for cots and blankets.”
After Jernigan departed, Garfunkel said: “Craig, I told the chief-Infantino-about the gas station downstairs.
