The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 25

The dinner had started on a chilly note but at least it was going to end on a warmer one, Barton thought, thanks primarily to Thelma.

She had been all southern charm and courtesy and, by telling little stories on both herself and Wyndom, had coaxed Jenny into a friendly frame of mind.

Jenny was fighting it but she gradually relaxed, and the tension at the table slowly slipped away. There was no denying that the obvious good time being had by the elderly couple, at the table behind them had been contagious. You couldn’t help but overhear part of the conversation. The stocky woman had an endless series of stories about her life as a schoolteacher, some of them slightly risque and others hilarious. Even Jenny had to smother her laughter at times. After an hour, the pervasive feeling at their end of the dining room was-what would the stocky woman have called it?-Gemlitlichkeit?

Leroux ‘ x lit a cigar and offered one to Barton, who accepted it with thanks. He turned to Jenny. “How about an after-dinner liqueur, Jenny?” She hesitated and Leroux coaxed her. “A little Cherry Heering would top off the roast duck-nothing like basting a good dinner with a good drink.”

She suddenly smiled and said, “Yes,” and Barton knew the storm for the night was probably over. She might even start looking forward to spending the evening alone with him in a hotel room instead of with her parents.

At least, the demands on him would be different-and far more pleasant.

He ordered a Drambuie for himself and quietly toasted Thelma when it came. “To a woman who is probably the most charming hostess in America. Thelma, you’ve made the evening for us.”

Jenny reached over and squeezed the older woman’s hand. “You’ve been a dear to put up with me.”

Thelma looked half hurt. “Jenny, don’t ever accuse me of having to ‘put up’ with you. It was our pleasure to have you for dinner. We dragged you halfway across the continent and we owe you a good deal more than this.”

He heard it then, but paid no attention. The far-off wail of fire sirens, coming closer; it was almost lost in the murmur of conversation in the restaurant.

“Have you made up your mind, Craig.?” Leroux was looking at him shrewdly, half hidden behind a haze of cigar smoke. Striking while the iron was hot enough to be malleable, Barton thought.

“I’ll let you know tomorrow, Wyn, he said casually.

He didn’t want to make a big thing of it for fear Jenny would be at him about it for the rest of the night.

Leroux nodded, as if he were sure what the answer would be. “Take your time, Craig; enjoy the weekend. I can reach you at Southport if I have to?”

“Yes-you’ve got the number.” He ordered another Drambuie and had almost worked up the courage to tell Leroux he had a lousy taste in cigars-Wyn couldn’t be allowed all the victories that night-when Quinn Reynolds hurried over. Barton froze for a moment, wishing desperately that she had chosen another time to visit.

Then he caught the expression on her face.

She leaned over the table, keeping her voice low. She nodded to Leroux but spoke primarily to Barton. “Craig, I hate to, interrupt your dinner but Dan Garfunkel just called. We have a fire down below.

He knew from the reservation lists both you and Mr. Leroux were up here and thought you should be notified immediately.”

The sirens, he recalled. They had come closer and closer and then abruptly stopped. His only thought had been that the fire must be nearby. “What floor?”

“The seventeenth-it’s a storeroom fire.”

The sense of shock building up within him lessened a little.

Storeroom fires were-hardly that rare and control was usually a matter of minutes. “How bad?”

“Dan says it’s serious.”

There was a momentary flash as his eyes met Leroux’s.

The older man had gone white underneath his athletic-club tan.

“Are they trying to fight it inside the building?”

“Yes. Dan said some of the maintenance men led by Malcolm Donaldson and Griff Edwards took portable extinguishers and went by elevator to seventeen. They were driven back immediately. Heavy smoke and flames … too heavy to handle with extinguishers.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Mr. Edwards …” Quinn bit her lip briefly. “They’ve called an ambulance; we don’t know. Smoke inhalation, possible coronary from the exertion.”

It would be like Griff, Barton thought. Nobody or nothing was going to take his building away from him.

There was a moment’s silence at the table. He could suddenly feel Jenny’s hand squeezing his, hard. “The standpipe in the stairwell …

did they try to fight the fire from the hose out there?”

Leroux cut in. “It wouldn’t have done any good, Craig.

Maintenance men aren’t trained to handle it; it would take professionals.”

“Somebody called Dan with the information about the fire,” Quinn said. “Mr. Garfunkel rang the Fire Department immediately.” Barton looked at her, startled. Something had gone wrong. They, shouldn’t have to call; the heat and smoke sensors in the building had a read-out system connected directly to the Fire Department. Once they indicated the presence of either smoke or fire, four companies were to be dispatched to the Glass House immediately, even if it were only a fire in a wastebasket. “What about the tenants? Has anybody notified them?” He had a sudden mental image of Ian Douglas on the elevator and the lights that were on in the Credit Union though the people there should have left long ago.

Quinn signaled him with her eyes, trying to tell him to keep his voice down. The people at the tables around them had suddenly grown silent and were listening. “Security’s taking a building census right now, going through the commercial floors one by one. We’ve lost telephone communications to seventeen and above, though the residential lines are still working. The switchboard is calling apartment tenants now.”

Leroux frowned. “I don’t know if that’s necessary-it will cause a panic and a jam-up in the elevators, if nothing else. It’s a storeroom fire; the firemen are here; it’s wildly improbable that the fire will spread beyond the one room.”

“Mr. Donaldson reports the corridor is blazing,” Quinn added quietly.

“Even so Leroux chewed on his cigar for a moment. Barton knew what he must be thinking. The more panic, the worse the fire looked, the blacker the headlines in the paper, and the more it would seem that Quantrell had been right.

“Mr. Leroux.” Quinn hesitated a moment. “There are one hundred and thirty-two diners plus the kitchen help up here now. Should we try and evacuate them?” There was a thin thread of exasperation running through her voice.

“I don’t think so, Miss Reynolds. The diners are probably as safe as they’ll ever be, waiting right here.” Barton started to object and Leroux glanced at him coldly. “If the firemen can’t control it, they’ll let us know. There’ll be time to evacuate then. If we leave now, we’d have to take the residential elevators to the sky lobby and are both the lobby and the elevators are mobbed. I don’t think it would do anybody any good to add to the confusion.”

“There’s the outside, scenic elevator,” Quinn said.

“True,” Leroux said gently, “but what’s the capacity?”

She hesitated. “At the most a dozen.”

“That would be eleven trips, with the diners left behind getting more and more nervous after each trip. No, I’m afraid if we started to leave now, we’d create a panic.

If we have to go, there’ll be firemen up here to direct the evacuation-it will make it one hell of a lot easier.

As it is, I’d suggest we all stay right here until we’re told to leave. Miss Reynolds, how’s your wine cellar?”

“It was completely stocked when we opened. We have plenty.”

Break it out-make it on the house.” His voice was husky and strained and Barton noticed Thelma watching him” like a hawk.

A bad heart beneath that healthy exterior? he suddenly wondered.

Something else that could be brought on by strain?

A quiet babble began to fill the room. Quinn left the table. to circulate among the other diners and reassure them that everything was under control. Barton and Leroux looked at each other in silence, the older man’s face blank and unreadable. It must be tough on Leroux, Barton thought. He had lost the game, even if the-damage proved to be minor. He had laid elaborate plans to shut up Quantrell, but fate had turned over the wrong card. For all practical purposes, Quantrell’s on-the-air statements about the Glass House were now confirmed.

Jenny suddenly turned to him. “Is it really bad?” she whispered.

“I think it’s exactly as Quinn told us,” Barton said heavily.

“But I’m also afraid that she may have only an early report.” The sensors hadn’t reported the fire to the Fire Department, he thought.

That meant there had been a delay during which the fire might really have gotten a foothold. Had gotten a foothold; Donaldson and Edwards had been driven from the floor.

“Craig.” He looked over at Leroux-who seemed like a man who was coming out of shock. His brain was working again and it was obvious he would spend little time with regrets for the past. “I think you ought to take the scenic elevator down to the lobby and act as liaison with the Fire Department. Until such time as I get down there, you’re in charge. Some of the tenants who have shops and offices in the building will be showing up; they’ll want to talk to someone in authority. I imagine our insurance people will be down there, too.”

“Glad to, boss.” Barton took a breath. “Only one question: Why don’t -you go?”

“I’m hardly afraid of facing whoever’s down there, Craig. But it would be bad public relations. It’d be too much the image of the captain deserting his ship-not a good idea under the circumstances.”

He could buy that, Barton thought, though you could argue it both ways. The papers would get hold of it, or Quantrell, and Leroux could be made to look as if he were not only criminally liable but a coward as well. And then he had another thought.

“Where’s Captain Harriman?”

“Out of state for the holidays.”

“Crandall?”

Leroux looked pained. “Checked out sick at noon. He wouldn’t be any good down below right now anyway.”

“All right, I’m it,” Barton said. “But just out of curiosity, who follows Crandall in the table of organization?”

“He’s out, too,” Leroux said gently. “Griff Edwards.

He was the oldest man in the, organization and I thought it would be a nice gesture; I never imagined it might get down to him.”

Barton stood up to go and suddenly Jenny was hanging on his sleeve.

“Craig,” she said in a little voice, “I think I ought to be with you.”

For a moment he was touched, then shook his head.

“Jenny, this is probably the safest place in the entire building if you stay behind. If you go with me, I’d insist on putting you in a cab for a hotel as soon as we reach the lobby.”

“Then I’ll stay right here with our friends,” she said, something of a chill back in her voice. Then she caught helena’s disapproving look and forced a smile. “How often do you get to see this kind of fire from a ringside seat?” Barton squeezed her shoulder lightly.

“Not very often.”

He pushed back in his chair and started to squeeze past the table behind him when he felt the stocky woman tap his shoulder. “I couldn’t help but overhearing,” she said softly. “How serious is it-precisely?”

Barton shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he reassured her. “A fire in a storeroom. Nobody’s been hurt and the Fire Department’s already here. There’s nothing to worry about-the tenants in the building are being notified.

Frankly, if I were you I would drink your wine and enjoy Late Evening -” He glanced at her escort, who looked slightly pale. “Don’t you agree with me, sir?”

“You’re quite right, the first rule to follow is to stay put until you can assess just how bad the situation is.”

Barton brushed past them toward the scenic elevator.

Odd, he thought. The stocky woman had looked quite serious when she had asked him about the fire but when he had said that the tenants were being notified, she had looked even more worried.

Then he was waiting in the foyer for the scenic elevator, along with a few other diners who had abruptly decided to leave. Despite Quinn’s reassurances, they were grim and white-faced.