“I’d stake my life on him.”
“It won’t be yours but’ it might be somebody else’s.
Let’s give Your drawings, a double check.”
They walked over to the cigar stand and the communications relay center. Barton noted that there were fewer transmissions now.
Infantino had stopped sending out calls for more men, and in the rest of the city the functioning of the Fire Department had returned to near normal with no more units being put on alert.
They were deep in a discussion of the fire loading on twenty-one when a Policeman came up. “Mr. Barton there’s a man at the barricades insisting on seeing you.”
“I’m not seeing anybody,” Barton grunted, irritated at being interrupted. Then he sighed and put down his Pencil. “Who is he?”
“He said his name is William Shevelson-that he used to be construction foreman or something on the building.” Barton caught his breath. Shevelson. His eyes met Infantino’s. “Send him in.”
Shevelson strolled through the lobby a minute later, an unlighted cigar in his mouth. He was half a dozen inches shorter than Barton and about the same number widen They sized each other up for a long moment and Barton decided, as he had when he had first met Shevelson two years before, that he didn’t like him. Shevelson had a belligerent attitude that was difficult to assess, an attitude that said he considered everybody else to b an incompetent.
“You’re Barton.” Shevelson studied him a moment longer. “I met you once, remember it now. A couple years back.” He nodded at Infantino.
“Where’s Leroux?”
“He hasn’t come down from the Promenade Room yet.”
“If I were in his shoes I wouldn’t either.”
“You wanted to see me about something?” Barton asked stiffly.
“Yeah.” Shevelson hesitated a moment, then abruptly pushed a roll of blueprints at Barton. “If the bastard was here I’d make him sweat for these, but he’s not and I suppose you can use them.”
Barton took them. “Thanks a lot.” He wished he could put more feeling into the words, but Shevelson was a difficult man to be polite to. Then he caught Infantino’s eye again and suddenly they both knew.
Infantino said it for him. “You were the one feeding inside information to Quantrell, weren’t you?” There was hostility in his voice that he made no effort to disguise.
“He used me, too,” Shevelson said calmly. “I was an innocent just like you. So now we’re both wiser.” He pointed to the blueprints.
“If you want me to do penance there it is.”
“I don’t know if we need them now,” Barton said..
“Thanks anyway.” It was a dismissal; the blueprints wouldn’t tell him anything now.
Shevelson didn’t move. He looked around the lobby, then glanced briefly overhead. “Oh, I think you’ll need them all right.” He waved at Barton’s sketches spread out on the counter. “If I were you I’d toss those out and take a look at the prints. You might find them of interest.”
“You forget, I designed the Glass House,” Barton said.
“I haven’t forgotten. You designed it and I built it and Leroux didn’t do a goddamn thing but pay for it and that’s the catch. He didn’t pay very damn much.”
Something in his voice prompted Barton to spread the ,prints out over his own drawings. He glanced at them quickly. They were familiar-all too familiar-and took him back three years to when he had been working on them. It had been a long time ago, he thought, a time when he had been happier, if less wise. The happiness he missed and the wisdom he was unsure of.
The prints were very much as he remembered and then he suddenly started noticing inconsistencies-changes that had been made of which he had been unaware. He suddenly realized he was looking at the actual working prints, not the original drawings he had labored over while at Wexler and Haines.
There had to be somebody responsible, he thought sickly. It couldn’t have been Leroux alone. It was common practice for construction companies to suggest ways in which money could be saved, to suggest alternative materials and changes in specifications to the same end.
And Shevelson had been The construction company’s representative.
“You’re right, Shevelson, I designed it and you built it and you did a lousy job. If you want particulars we can begin with the duct holes.
Damned few were fire stopped; that’s one of the main reasons the fire spread so fast.”
Shevelson nodded affably and felt in his pockets for matches to light his cigar. Infantino took it out of his mouth. “I wouldn’t want one of my men to slug you -they’ve seen enough of fire for tonight.”
Shevelson shrugged. “That’s right, Barton; the duct holes probably weren’t fire stopped like they should have been.
Sloppy workmanship, I agree. But you know better than to talk to me about it. Talk to the utility people- they’re the ones who made the poke throughs. Or talk to one of the city inspectors from the Department of Building and Safety; he’s the guy who should have raised hell about it.
But maybe he had a heavy schedule that day and didn’t have time for much more than a walk-through. And, after all, the city’s not paying him enough for him to really bust his ass and find every little flaw, even if he had the technical expertise to know what he was looking for in the first place. Or maybe someone paid him to overlook every little flaw.”
“There should have been fire barriers in the stairwells to prevent smoke spread,” Barton said slowly. “That was your responsibility; we called for them.”
“So you did. But the city fire codes didn’t require them and maybe the developer considered them an expensive luxury. In this case, there was no maybe involved -he didn’t want them. At the time of construction, the city code didn’t require pressurized stairwells, either. Your original design called for them though, didn’t they?”
“That’s right, so why weren’t they pressurized?” Barton asked angrily.
Shevelson took out another cigar. “You sure I can’t smoke, Chief?
There’s enough water in the lobby here; I don’t think we need to worry about a few ashes on your salvage cover.” He lit up without waiting for permission and turned back to Barton. “Look, Barton, why do you think I was fired?
Because I approved of the changes that were made?” He shook his head.
“I don’t particularly like you but you designed a beautiful building.
Everything considered, you also designed a fairly safe one. I didn’t call for the changes; your boss did. I was just a flunky for the construction company.”
“You’re saying that Wyndom Leroux was responsible?”
“Who else? He paid the bills.” He turned and blew the cigar smoke away from them. “Maybe he was just being a good businessman.
You people draw up pretty plans and then somebody had to make an estimate and put it out to bid; or if it’s a scope project, find a construction company that will at least be reasonable. If the project’s up for bid it sure as hell better be a competitive bid.”
Barton shook his head. “It didn’t have to be. The construction company was a satellite company.”
Shevelson raised an eyebrow. “Knudsen? I knew Leroux had an interest, but I didn’t think it was that heavy a one. But it still doesn’t change things. Leroux wouldn’t stay in business very long if his own construction company couldn’t built his buildings at least as cheap as anybody else.”
He could imagine Leroux saying it, Barton thought: He was running a business, not a charity. He had settled for minimum compliance with the fire codes, cut costs to the 9) bone, and eliminated All the “frills.
“You sound like you’re defending him.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Shevelson was suddenly bitter. “I was fired because I didn’t agree with him, because I didn’t believe in building firetraps no matter how pretty they look against the skyline.”
He suddenly changed the subject, his eyes narrowing in anger.
“Where the hell were you during construction? You’re pretty loose with your accusations. What were you doing? You were senior architect; it was your baby more than anybody else’s.”
“I was transferred to Boston during the primary construction work,” Barton said tightly. “I was in San
