He fell as though in slow motion. She saw Jernigan flex his knees and then the boy’s body struck his arms.
For a brief moment it seemed like they were both going to go over.
Then Chris was a wriggling mass of flesh, clutching frantically at Jernigan. He sank to his knees, holding the boy around the waist while Chris clung to his neck.
“He’s okay!” Jernigan shouted triumphantly. A fireman appeared behind him and led Chris away. Jernigan straightened up and rotated an arm. “Christ, I think I pulled a muscle.”
“Can you catch little Martin?”
“I think so-I have to.”
After that, Lisolette thought, the situation would become very grim indeed. She could hardly jump as the children had done and hope that Jernigan could catch her. Somehow, she would have to get down on her own.
She turned to Martin.
“No!” he screamed, wriggling out of her grasp. “I won’t! I won’t!”
She grabbed for him and he struggled hysterically. Beneath them, the concrete landing shuddered and dipped slightly farther toward the yawning core.
“Harry! I can’t drop Martin, I’ll have to bring him down myself!”
“Miss Mueller, there’s no way!” Jernigan shouted from below.
She glanced frantically around the landing, then suddenly saw the racked fire hose. The frame was now loose in the wall. “Yes, there is!” she shouted to Jernigan. She left Martin sobbing on the floor and ran to the hose. The wind was driving snow into the utility core and she could feel dampness spread over the back of her dress. She wrenched at the rack and it came free from the wall. She pulled the hose away from its retainer rod and began to feed it over the railing.
Jernigan grabbed it from below and began to pull. In seconds, the full length was played out. Lisolette eyed the coupling that held the end of the hose and decided it would be strong enough. It had to be; she didn’t have time to devise another anchor in any case.
She began to rip strips of cloth from the. bottom of her dress.
Her nice dress, she, thought; the one she had bought especially for the dinner with Harlee. But there was no way out of it; the dress was ruined anyway. As soon as she had half a dozen stout strips of cloth, she called to Martin. “Come here, son.”
“No!” he cried.”Come over here and put your arms around Lisa’s neck,” she coaxed. “That’s a good boy. But stand behind me and do it.”
Martin dubiously walked behind her and before he could wriggle away,.
she grabbed his wrists and bound them with one of the strips. He jerked back, nearly choking her. As he struggled, she reached behind and circled his body with two of the strips tied together, then brought them around to the from and knotted them at her waist.
It was crude but when she had finished, Martin was firmly bound to her back.
She walked to the railing and ran her fingers over the rough surface of The hose. Her palms were wet with perspiration and she wiped them on the front of her dress.
Martin was struggling on her back, crying with fright. She eased herself carefully over the railing, concentrating on looking at the hose rather than at the pit that opened beneath her feet. She turned and gripped the hose, transferring their full weight to it. The first few hand over hands were an agony with the boy bucking and struggling against her.
“Please be quiet, Martin,” she pleaded. “Lisa will take care of you.”
She slowly let herself down the hose, clutching at the rough fabric with her knee. Thank God she had torn some of the cloth away from the bottom of her dress or she wouldn’t have had complete freedom to use her legs.
She was halfway down when she heard the high-pitched screeching from above; the reinforcing rods that held the platform next to the interior wall were giving way and bending. The edge of the landing dropped a frightening two feet. Lisolette’s heart pumped violently and for a moment she closed her eyes. Then the movement stopped and she started to let herself down the hose again, trying desperately to master her panic.
All the old instincts were coming back now and she could feel long-unused muscles bulging beneath her skin. She felt a sudden wave of pride.
She could still do it; she would make it.
Martin had become very still. The sense of power and competence that she now felt seemed to have been communicated to him. Then she felt strong hands on her ankles, guiding her down. The next moment she was standing beside Jernigan and a fireman who helped to free the now quiet Martin.
“Come on,” Jernigan said urgently and pulled the two of them through the door where Linda and Chris waited.
Once inside, Jernigan looked at her proudly in the light of a nearby lantern. “You were tremendous,” he said quietly.
Lisolette smiled. “Thank you very much, Harry.” Before she could say more, there was a high-pitched rumbling sound. Lisolette darted one quick look behind her, then grabbed Chris and Martin and hastily pulled them back into the safety of the corridor.
The concrete landing she had been standing on moments before pulled away from its supports; with an almost unbelievable slowness it fell toward their landing.
It smashed with an explosion of concrete shards and then that landing, too, gave way. From the safety of the corridor, Lisolette and Jernigan watched the two concrete slabs tumble end over end down the utility core.
It was some seconds before they heard them strike the bottom, nineteen floors below.
CHAPTER 50
At the moment of the steam line explosion, four firemen were descending from the twentieth floor in one of the manual override elevators. There was no longer a dangerous fire zone on floors seventeen or eighteen; and the fire on sixteen had been knocked down for at least an hour. The men were tired and dirty and leaned against the walls of the cage without speaking. Ron Gilman, who had been lead hoseman earlier in the evening, had a badly scorched nose that was now a burned red and beginning to peel. Nick Pappas’ eyes were red and watering and every few seconds he had a fit of coughing. Sam Waters and Jake Lapides were in slightly better condition; they had served on the backup crews.
After a moment of silence once the doors had closed, Lapides said, “Christ, I hope all the tenants got out.”
“They didn’t-they never do,” Gilman said sourly. “The smoke Was too heavy, even with the ventilation system on reverse. When we start going through the apartments on the south side of the building, that’s when we’ll start finding them.”
“I don’t think I’d care to be part of the cleanup detail,” Waters said slowly.
“Weak stomach?” Pappas accused.
“You’re absolutely right,” Waters’ agreed sarcastically.
“I’ve been in this business for ten years and I’ve still got a weak stomach. The day I don’t, I’ll’ The steam explosion came at that moment. It must have been close, for the elevator cage shook violently and plunged downward. The lights went out abruptly. “Oh, my God!”.
Lapides yelled. A few feet farther down the wedge brakes jammed between the side rails and the cage.
and the elevator screeched to a halt. In the silence that followed, they could hear the thud of falling masonry as it hit the bottom of the elevator pit far below. Overhead, something that sounded like gravel rattled against the top and sides of the cage.
“For Christ’s sakes, somebody got a lantern?” There was a fumbling in the back of the cage and then a glow from a lantern held by Pappas.
“What the hell happened?” Lapides asked. His voice was shaking.
“Explosion,” Gilman said softly. “I think it snapped some of the hoist cables-did you hear that thudding sound? It sounded like the counterweight hitting the bottom. The rattling could’ve been caused by the steel ropes brushing the cage as they fell.”
