Mario?”
“It means we can’t count on her,” Infantino said bitterly. “It means that you may be right-we just stand here and watch the Glass House burn.
There’s not another pumper that size in a hundred-mile radius.”
“Chief Infantino, how do you want my men deployed?”
Infantino turned back to talk to Jorgenson. Barton stood, staring blankly up at the building. No way to put out the fire at the top, he thought dully. She would burn and keep burning until eventually the fire would engulf the Promenade Room, the roof would collapse and with it the elevator housing for the scenic elevator, and the cage itself would take its final plunge to the plaza below.
The scenario was already written; all it needed was time for the acting out.
Shevelson had come over and read his face. “That bad?”
Barton nodded. “The big Southport pumper it in a ditch; no telling when she’ll be out.” Shevelson said: “The grapevine claims you and Infantino are thinking of bringing in explosives. Any experience with them?”
“Some-in the service.” Barton felt annoyed. “The grapevine doesn’t waste much time.”
“When you’re not getting your skin burned off or drinking coffee, you might as well gossip.” Shevelson hesitated.
“The utility core’s not in very good shape.”
Barton thought for a moment. “The steel skeleton will hold. You could drop part of a floor, probably without fatal results. If the building were reinforced concrete you would run the risk of pancaking the floors. Not so here.”
Shevelson lit another cigar. I’m not so sure it would matter; the building’s a mess now anyway.”
“Give a few million and it can be repaired,” Barton said bitterly.
“By Leroux? It would be rebuilt with all the same old mistakes if he had his way. But this time, he won’t have his way; by the time the courts and the papers get through with him, plus the civil suits that will be brought against him, he’ll be out of business for good.”
Revenge must taste sweet to Shevelson, Barton thought.
Unfortunately, it was a revenge compounded of a number of personal tragedies besides the destruction of the Glass House itself. There had been the deaths among the tenants and the firemen and then there was Jenny, condemned either to die in the restaurant at the top or to plunge to her death in the elevator cage. It was difficult for him to keep a sense of perspective and right then he didn’t feel like trying.
“Shevelson, you’ve got a right to your revenge but don’t gloat about it around me. I don’t give a crap what you think about Leroux and I don’t care what happens to him. Tonight I’ve seen too many dead people and in a few minutes my wife may become one of them. if you want to brag about how right you were tell somebody else.
I’m not in the mood.”
Shevelson looked faintly ashamed of himself. “Look, Barton, I’m sorry about your wife. I’m sorry about the others, too. Not that it matters, but people have been killed by the building since the day it started to go up. My best friend worked in high steel on it; a crane operator accidentally knocked him off a beam one day. Another bought it when they were pouring the foundations; he’s still down there, they chipped off a couple of hunks of concrete and buried them in a symbolic rite.”
“All right,” Barton muttered. “So everybody’s been a loser.”
He turned to go back inside the lobby when Quantrell appeared in front of him, his cameraman a few feet away.
“It looks like you’re going to lose the entire building, Barton-any comments on that?”
Barton whirled. If nothing else, Quantrell was a target he could take a shot at, unlike the others of the evening.
“If your trained seal points his camera at me just one more time, Quantrell, you’ll both be picking up your teeth off the sidewalk!”
Behind him, Shevelson said calmly, “Need help, just holler.
Always glad to help a friend-particularly in this case.”’ Quantrell bared his teeth and Barton had a momentary image of the cornered weasel. “They call it freedom of the press, gentlemen, in case you ‘haven’t heard.
It’s guaranteed me in the Constitution. Barton, I understand your wife is either in the Promenade Room or on the scenic elevator, is that true?”
“What do you want me to do?” Barton gritted. “Spill my guts so your viewers get ten seconds of wallowing in my problems and they can forget theirs? Get the-” Overhead there was the sudden beating of helicopter blades and all four of them glanced up to see the bubble craft lowering toward the plaza. Infantino, who had been in urgent conversation with Jorgenson a dozen’feet away, ran over to.Quantrell.
“That’s a K.Y.S ‘copter-who the hell gave you permission to use this plaza as your private landing pad? We’ve got equipment coming in here!”
Quantrell looked startled. “What the hell, I didn’t order them down!”
Barton and Infantino ran toward the helicopter, Shevelson and Quantrell trailing after. The door of the bubble opened and a man carrying a young girl climbed out.
“Somebody give me a hand!”
Barton took the girl from him and Infantino folded back the edge of the tablecloth that had been tucked around her throat and face.
“Smoke inhalation-pretty bad.” Quantrell turned to the cameraman.
“Get her downtown to one of the hospitals; I can have a photographer waiting to get some pictures and maybe a reporter to interview the doctors.”
Infantino held the cameraman from taking the girl back. “Sorry about your scoop, Quantrell-, but she wouldn’t make it without Pulmotor help.” He turned and waved at some of the white-clad attendants in one of the ambulances. The men got out of the cab and.ran over. “Get her on a ‘motor.” He glanced again at the girl’s mottled complexion and the slight motion of her chest. “Maybe we’re not too late.” The attendants took the girl’s still form from Barton and ran for the ambulance.
“We got her off the roof,” the helicopter pilot said, leaning out over the passenger side. “Pretty tricky with the winds up there; this craft’s too light for that sort of thing.”
The cameraman who had gotten out with the girl shook his head.
“Things are pretty bad. The fire’s directly below the Promenade Room now and there are still a lot of people up there.”
“What about the elevator?” Barton asked. “Did you notice it on the way down?”
“It’s off the rails-you should be able to see that from here. The wind is damned strong and it’s swaying back and forth; two more cables have frayed through and so far as I could make out, there’re only two left holding it.
If you’re going to get those people out of there it’ll have to be pretty soon. You’ll have to make it soon at the top, too -“Could you help us?” Barton asked the pilot.
“Take them off one at a time? You’re crazy, man-it was rough enough this time, we were lucky as hell.”
“Take her back up!” Quantrell ordered. “You’re missing some beautiful shots.”
The cameraman suddenly laughed. “What’ll I take ‘em with, Jeff?
Some madman up there threw all my gear over the side.”
“He what?”
“Yeah, I was carried away with the shooting-didn’t realize what he was saying about the girl at first. We would have had to lighten the ‘copter-anyway if we were going to take her so he did it for us.”
“That was five thousand dollars’ worth of equipment!” Quantrell screamed.
The cameraman shrugged. “Don’t yell at me, Jeff-I didn’t do it.
We’re insured, aren’t we?”
One of the attendants came back to report to Infantino.
“The girl’s in bad shape. We’ll have to get her to a hospital fast-heavy monoxide poisoning.”
“Don’t waste time asking me-take off. If we have other casualties, there’ll be other units.” The attendant ran back to the ambulance, with Quantrell and his photographer trailing after. Barton continued to stare up at the building, watching the smoke billow out of the windows on the sixty-fourth and sixty-fifth floors..
Infantino said, “We don’t have any choice, we’d better call in the 304th.”
