making him. A few judicious goads and Infantino would blow up. A little editing-well, it was ingenious what you could do with a taped interview and a splicer.
He had no desire at all to misrepresent Infantino’s views, just heighten them dramatically by removing the redundancies and qualifications. It was a tight moral line to walk, but news was first of all drama, a fact of life that Quantrell had learned long ago.
He found Infantino standing by the CD communications van, talking with another man. When Quantrell got closer, he recognized Will Shevelson. What the hell was he doing here? But, of course, he couldn’t stay away.
Quantrell pulled the fur collar of his coat up around his ears and shivered as a sudden blast of cold air raced through the canyon streets. He felt uneasy running into both Shevelson and Infantino at the same time; by now they must have compared notes and probably elected him villain of the year. He looked hastily around for Kimbrough and spotted him in the lee of one of the fire trucks, reloading his camera before he caught the elevator shot.
Well, the elevator could wait; it wasn’t going anyplace.
He caught Kimbrough’s eye and motioned at the van.
Kimbrough nodded.
There was no sense trying to be social; neither one of them would buy that. Get in, ask his questions and get the answers, and then get out.
“I understand it’s impossible to put the fire out on upper floors,” he said to Infantino.
“You didn’t hear it from me,” Infantino said curtly.
“Can you confirm or deny the report?”
“I don’t have to make a choice,” Infantino said coldly.
“The department gives out press releases after the fire, is over, not during.”
“In your opinion, would you say this is the work of an arsonist?”
“I’m not saying anything in my opinion,” Infantino said sharply.
He pointed at the cameraman. “Get your man out of here or I’ll have him thrown out; he’s in the way of the fire-fighting crews.”
Quantrell glanced quickly around. I don’t see any.”
“You’ve got to have twenty-twenty vision for this job,” Infantino said. “I can see them coming along any minute.
Now beat it.”
Kimbrough circled around to the left of Infantino, getting more of Quantrell and less of the division chief.
“Wasn’t the filling station in the garage against fire regulations?”
Quantrell persisted. Let Infantino throw him out; that would look great. And he knew that Infantino realized it as well. “Or did your department approve it?”
“No comment,” Infantino said dryly. “Whatever I could say might prejudice negotiations between the owner and the insurance company.”
“What about casualties from the fire So far?”
“No comment pending notification of next of kin.”
“I think the public would be interested in knowing how many persons have been hurt or have died by this time,” Quantrell said, not b(bothering to hide his annoyance.
Infantino smiled thinly. “I think the public would condemn any interviews by me at this time,” he said dryly and turned his back.
The bastard was learning, Quantrell thought. He turned to Shevelson.
“How do you feel about your predictions on the Glass House coming true, Mr. Shavelson?”
“Stuff it, will you, Quantrell?”
It took an effort but Quantrell kept his voice reasonable. “It seems to me that you would be pleased to see a perfect demonstration of your charges against Leroux’s skirting of good building practices. I don’t mean,” he added hastily, “that you feel anything but dismay about those who have been killed or wounded.”
“There’s another casualty,” Shevelson said tightly. “The Glass House itself. I helped build her-she’s part mine, with all her defects. I’m sorry, it doesn’t please me that she’s going up in flames.”
Quantrell motioned to Kimbrough and shoved the microphone toward Shevelson. “Do you have any other comments?”
Shevelson took the cigar out of his mouth and looked thoughtfully at Quantrell. “Yeah, you can kiss my sweet ass,” he said softly. He dropped his cigar on the ice where it sizzled briefly. “I think the chief told you to leave the area. If you need any help I’ll be glad to give you some.”
Quantrell motioned to Kimbrough and backed away.
“You called me, Shevelson, I didn’t call you. You were the one who wanted to spill his guts. You wanted revenge and I gave it to you-because it served the public interest. You’ll have more to say all right, but you’ll be saying it in the courts. Leroux’s a lead-pipe cinch for, indictment and you’re slated to be the chief prosecution witness. Or you will be when I tell the authorities you were my source.”
Shevelson spat on the ground, part of his spit splashing on Quantrell’s boot. “Get the hell out of here, Mac- and I don’t give a shit if you get this on film or not.” He took a threatening step, forward. Quantrell turned and walked away, with Kimbrough trailing behind. He couldn’t use the exchange on the air, it would only corroborate Clairmont’s charges of a vendetta. But his face burned and he felt like he was back in the sixth grade when the school bully had challenged him to a fight and he had run away. For twenty-five years he hadn’t been able to make up his mind whether he had backed down because he had been a coward or simply because it had been the smart thing to do. He knew at the time that if he fought, he, would be badly beaten. But for years now he wished he had been a dummy instead of the brightest one in the class-dumb enough to get the crap beat out of him back then so he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life doubting his own personal courage.
And then the wind came up and there were other things to think about and do. He walked back to the station’s mobile van to talk to the unit director who was handling the station’s live coverage of the fire.
“Jeff, we’re getting some beautiful shots from the helicopter.
You want to go on camera to handle them?” He gestured at the master monitor in front of him. The yawning image on the screen was an overhead shot that took in the whole side of the, building, including the shattered utility core.
“Sure, give me about five minutes, wig you? Kimbrough, get some footage of the elevator, will you? How many times do I have to ask?”
“Twice is enough,”. Kimbrough protested. “With a dozen other requests in between. Why the hell didn’t you slug him, Jeff? He would’ve creamed you but you would have felt better. Who knows, you might even have gotten in a lucky punch.”
Quantrell stepped outside with Kimbrough and watched him jog toward the side of the building. Quantrell turned, absently lit a cigarette, and stared into the snow-filled sky..
His gaze traveled over the light-washed plaza and stopped for a moment on the crumpled aluminum and Plexiglass sculpture. A tarpaulin had been pulled over the shattered base and the snow around the edges was only slightly pink now. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by….
Poor creature, he suddenly thought. Poor, desperate creature. He wondered who she had been.
CHAPTER 52
Lex Hughes had been almost dozing in a chair in the inner office, waiting ‘patiently for the firemen to secure so he could steal down the stairs. The explosions jolted him from his seat and threw him sprawling across the floor. The far wall of the Credit Union, facing the outer corridor, abruptly crumbled into shattered debris. Hughes clutched at the floor desperately as the surface seemed to jump and dance and heavy desks tried to walk across it. From somewhere close by a hissing sound filled the air and a hot mist rolled into the room.
Then the sound rapidly died down and it was quiet, except for the incidental noise of dribbling plaster and the more distant fall of masonry.
He lay on the floor for a moment, dazed, then slowly got to his feet.
The office was a shambles. The area around the vault was still intact, but the wall separating the office from the outside corridor was gone-the thin partition actually blown in and lying in pieces across nearby desks. The far wall in the corridor bordering the utility core was also shattered, the reinforcing rods showing through the broken
