She was a wheelchair case.
“Did you try to notify -everybody by phone?” Infantino had rejoined them.
Jernigan nodded. “The operators buzzed everybody in the upper floors, whether I had them logged out or not.”
“Have the operators ignore all incoming calls and keep trying those apartments where you’re not sure they made it down or aren’t absolutely certain they’ve left for the weekend. “Have them ring every fifteen minutes.”
Barton felt curious. “Why have the operators keep trying, Mario?
It seems like a Waste of time-if they don’t answer, they’re not home.”
“That’s the wrong assumption,” Infantino said grimly.
“They might have been watching television when you called and couldn’t hear the phone or didn’t want to answer if the show was exciting right then. Then there are the people who were taking a bath or a shower at the time or who turned the phone off for the evening or have taken sleeping pills and then hit the sack. As soon as I can spare the men, I’ll have them check the upper floors personally with a pass key.
If your phone operators do get a response tell the tenants to stay put and place wet towels around the door and over the ventilation grills.
If they insist on leaving the room have them feel the door first to see if it’s hot, though we don’t think there’s any fire above eighteen.
If they leave, and the smoke is thick, have them head for the north stairwell as quickly as possible-it’s relatively free of smoke.
Under no conditions do they take the elevator-the sky lobby transfer point is right by the south utility core and the smoke is too thick there now. But have the operators keep trying the suspect apartments.”
Jernigan suddenly looked stricken. “Mr. Barton, there’s the Albrecht family in 3416.”
Barton felt as if he should know something he didn’t.
‘So?”
“They’re deaf mutes.”
Infantino whistled. “Okay, I’ll get some men up there as soon as possible.”
Barton had unconsciously glanced at the elevator indicator board when they were discussing floors. He suddenly tensed. “What elevators are your men using?”
Infantino followed his glance. “The two at the right with manual override. No need to worry.”
On the indicator board, the red lights showed that the rest of the elevators had lined up neatly at the seventeenth floor; the lights read across in a single row. Then, they suddenly flickered and went out.
They were stalled there for good, he thought; the call button ‘ s had fused, calling them to the fire floor. If there had been anybody on board trying to get down … It left them with three operating elevators, the residential express and the two commercial cages which were equipped with manual override.
Infantino said, “Craig, we were talking about the fire loading before. Do you have any idea what’s directly above and below the seventeenth floor?”
Barton shook his head. “Curtainwall takes up the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth floors. The executive offices are on eighteen, probably flamboyant decorated by your standards. The other two floors are standard office floors, what you would probably call an ordinary fire load. I’m not sure what’s on sixteen, ditto from the twenty-first on. up.” He paused. “Motivational Displays is on twenty-one; they’ve got a pretty large suite of offices and a storeroom that they keep most of their displays in.
It’s the holiday season so I imagine the storeroom is stuffed with polystyrene Santa Clauses, that sort of thing. Other than that, I don’t know what’s on the floor. This is the first time I’ve been in the building since the dedication. I also suspect there’s been a heavy changeover in.
tenants.”
“We can get most of the information from the building directory and make an educated guess at the contents.
How about building blueprints? It would be nice to know where the numbers go.”
“To the best of my knowledge, they’re e m our offices on eighteen.”
Infantino looked frustrated. “We don’t have a set, and you can’t get at yours. Could you draw me a general floor diagram from memory?”Barton felt around in his pockets, then walked over to the checkin desk where the girl had been making X’s against the names on the Promenade Room reservation list. The small, black Magic Marker was right where she had left it. He picked it up, along with her clipboard, and hurried back to the cigar stand. He turned over one of the reservation sheets and drew the rough floor plan, then motioned Garfunkel. “You’ve been on fire patrols in the building, haven’t you, Dan?” Garfunkel nodded. “Okay, fill in the numbers of the office suites and tell Mario about the furnishings-drapes, sofas, open filing systems, wooden desks or metal, anything he asks. If you can’t remember all the offices, check with the building directory.
Jernigan-” He glanced around. “Where the hell did he go?”
Garfunkel looked blank. “He was here a minute ago.”
“When he comes back, see if he can help you any.
I’ll be down in the boiler room.” In the lower lobby the Red Cross had started to set up cots; already some children were asleep under the heavy army blankets. The number of tenants had noticeably decreased; the switchboard and the security guard must be having fairly good luck in placing them elsewhere.
On the garage floor, the City Gas and Oil truck had arrived and was pumping out the two tanks. A little of the color had returned to Joe’s face and he was shouting directions at the four parking attendants moving out the cars. Another half hour or so and the garage would be empty, Barton thought. When the diners started coming down from the Promenade Room, they would have to arrange for taxis to take them over to the city garage.
More money out of Curtainwall’s pocket-or some insurance agency’s, depending on how the policy was written.
Donaldson was sitting at Griff Edwards’ desk, looking tired and worn and on the verge of tears. Another.good friend of Edwards, Barton thought. “Things going all right, Mr. Donaldson?” he asked gently.
Donaldson’s face was dirty and his uniform rumpled.
Barton recalled that he had been with the men from maintenance who had tried to put out the fire in, the first place. “Things haven’t gone right since I came on shift, Mr. Barton.
“I understand some of the fan motors conked out.”
“One burnout, one freeze-up.” He leaned back in his chair and was silent for a long moment. “Mr. Barton, this may cost me my job but I gotta say what I think.
The lash-up down here is fine-for a building two thirds this size.
As it was, Griff had to push it even under normal condition. In an emergency, it just wasn’t up to it.”
“It met all the codes,” Barton said stiffly: Donaldson looked tired.
“Did it? I sometimes wonder.
It wasn’t the gear that was specified.”
The uneasy feeling that had been building up in Barton’s stomach-grew stronger. “What do you mean?”
“I ‘knew I was going to be transferred over and I talked with the architectural engineers when they first started construction. They had specified more expensive motors and generators, a more elaborate sensor system.
What we ended up with does the job-but just barely.”
He ran dirty fingers over an already streaked scalp. “I guess it’ll do the job all right, provided there’re no sudden demands made on it or emergency overloading.”
The equipment wasn’t what the Wexler and Haines engineering department had recommended, Barton thought. What Donaldson was saying was that Leroux’s accounting office had scrapped their recommendations and cut the heart out of. the building. He felt the anger start to build in him, then. He had wanted to be site supervisor-a job that would normally have fallen to him. But Leroux had shipped him to Boston. Because Leroux had known he would fight for his building?
Because Leroux had known he would quit before he would agree to the cost cutting that had gone on?
He started back toward the steps. “I’ll be in the lobby if you want me, Donaldson.”
He took a long break in the lower lobby lunchroom, huddled over a cup of -coffee and trying to sort out his thoughts. It was his building, he kept thinking. It had been his baby. Leroux had had no right…
. But of course, he did. Leroux paid the bills; Leroux paid his salary; Leroux had done the financing. Why had
