The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 31

Within minutes after Jernigan got the warning call from Garfunkel, the sky lobby started to fill with people. Some of the tenants were dressed for the street, others were in pajamas and slippers with an overcoat hastily thrown over their shoulders. A few were hysterical and Jernigan sensed panic in the air. Faint wisps of smoke were already seeping into the lobby from the elevator shafts. He wondered if the fire below was worse than Garfunkel admitted.

He debated for a moment trying to convince residents to return to their apartments and follow the instructions printed on the door plaques. He decided that if he tried, he would have the makings of a riot. It would be the smartest thing to do, but the people in the lobby weren’t exactly in the mood for wisdom.

Rosette had arrived. She was watching a television show on a set in the maids’ quarters when the movie had been interrupted by the news flash of the fire. She was still in uniform and Jernigan thanked God for small favors. He immediately put her in charge of herding the tenants into the residential express elevator, the only elevator he could safely trust to travel through the fire zone without stopping.

He tried to quiet the tenants. “The Fire Department’s already here,” he said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the crying and the babble. “The fire’s confined to the seventeenth floor; we’ll get a little smoke up here but that should be all.” That would be more than enough, he thought, and wondered if the fire actually was being confined.

“They never tell us anything!” one woman shrilled. “We were supposed to have fire drills and indoctrination sessions but nobody ever told me anything!”

An older tenant turned to Jernigan. “See here, young man, does management have any evacuation plans at all? If so, what are they?”

Jernigan flinched inside. Harriman had planned coffee chats with The tenants, but he had postponed them because of the upcoming holiday season. The tenants couldn’t seem to find the time and neither could management.

“This is it, sir, just waiting in line for the express elevator down.”

“Didn’t they even give the families of employees directions on how to get out?”

“Sir, I don’t live here.”

The old man laughed shortly. “You’re a smarter man than I was.”

You had to look at it from their viewpoint, Jernigan thought.

There was the lack of communication between the tenants and management and there was also the sense of isolation on the part of the tenants themselves.

You had all the privacy you wanted in a high rise; it was worse than the’standard apartment house where you seldom knew the people on the other floors unless your kitchen sink overflowed and then you suddenly had the couple downstairs banging on your front door. Here, you didn’t even meet people in the hallways. It was more like a hotel: the usually deserted corridors and an occasional chance meeting by the elevators.

Now they were more-than just alone; they were frightened as well.

“They’ll pay!” a woman added. “The whole apartment will have to be cleaned; I know what smoke damage can amount to!”

See my lawyer first thing Monday. . - It’s all right, Martha, just a little smoke, we’ll be okay . .

“… Whatever happens, hang on to Daddy’s coat, don’t get separated

…”

“. . - Seen your name on the mail slot, you live right next door.

.

.”

“. - - Al, I’m scared as hell . .

One of the down elevators opened and a couple came Put with a toy poodle on a leash. Jernigan stared for a moment in fascination, wondering how they had taken the dog in and out of the building with none of the security guards aware of the animal. Lisolette Mueller had her pet cat, Schiller, but that was an open secret; everybody knew it but nobody really objected.

Jernigan helped Rosette form the tenants into lines in front of the residential express to the main lobby; the only stops the elevator was capable of making were the two lobbies and the basement garage. It made no stops at all in the commercial section of the building.

Suddenly Jernigan spotted a beefy salesman type and his chubby wife buzzing one of the elevators in the commercial bank.

He moved in quickly.

“I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to wait for the residential express; the commercial elevators are too risky to take down.”

The salesman gave him the fish eye. “I don’t get it.

“What do you mean, they’re too risky?”

Jernigan had been alerted to the risks once in friendly conversation with a fireman and patiently explained it. “If an elevator is capable of making stops in the fire zone and if the call button on that floor is fused because of the heat there’s a good chance the elevator will be called to that floor whether you want it to or not. Once the doors open, you might never get out alive.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, son,” the man said. “All I know is Maggie and me aren’t going to stay here and broil.”

“the fire is fourteen floors below us,” Jernigan said calmly.

“Look, it’s too risky; the elevator might go right to the fire floor.”

The lobby was overflowing now. It was going to take time to evacuate the residents and it was going to be increasingly difficult to keep them away from the commercial bank. What none of them realized was that there was a faint blue to the air even now from the smoke. It would get worse, and probably quickly. More people and he would start to lose control….

“I’m buzzing for the elevator, son. I pay my rent; you can’t stop me.” He was red in the face, trying to work up his anger.

Probably because he was scared to death, Jernigan thought. A number of tenants in the crowd had pushed over and would obviously stampede into the elevator the moment its door opened. He could tell by the looks on their faces that they hadn’t understood what he had tried to explain to the salesman either.

He raised his voice. “Rosette, make it women and children first, overload it if you have to.” There was a safety factor built in that could handle the overloading, particularly with women and children. But even though it wouldn’t stop at the fire floor, it was still traveling through the fire zone and the sooner the women and children got out, the better.

He turned back to the salesman, his voice hard. “I’ll try once more, mister. There’s no call button for the residential express’elevator on the seventeenth floor-it won’t stop there, it will go right through the fire zone down to the lobby. You take one of the commercial elevators and the chances are it will stop there, even if you didn’t press the button for the floor. And once the doors open, you’ll cook.”

“Don’t try to bullshit me, mister. When the elevator comes, I’m going.” A few of the tenants behind Jernigan pushed forward in anticipation.

The commercial elevator arrived and the doors slid silently open.

Jernigan saw what the salesman did not: The paint on the doors had been slightly scorched. It had probably stopped briefly at the fire floor, the doors opened and closed, and it had then resumed its upward journey.

It was most a sure cinch it would stop there on the way down.

The salesman smiled his triumph. “See you down below,” he said and started to get on.

Jernigan grabbed his arm, ignoring the surprised murmurs behind him.

“Nobody’s taking this elevator!” he said, raising his voice to keep the crowd back that had started to press forward.

The salesman jerked away, raising his fists. “No nigger’s going to tell me what I can do and cannot do. We’re getting out of here!”

Rosette was watching him, alarmed. Jernigan pointed at the residential elevator which was filling up fast and held up two fingers.

She nodded and immediately turned away two women, protesting.

Jernigan reached out and grabbed the salesman by the arm, whirling him off balance. “Sorry, Mac,” he said quietly and hit him just below the chin with a quick chop.

He caught the salesman before he hit the lobby floor and slapped him halfway back to consciousness, then pushed him toward his screaming wife. “Get him out of here,’ he said softly.

“Right now. There’s room for you both in the other elevator but it won’t wait.” She half carried her husband to Rosette’s waiting elevator. The rest of the crowd reluctantly backed away from the commercial bank. Jernigan could tell from the slight sound behind the elevator lobby doors that the cage was going back down, probably to the seventeenth floor.

There weren’t too many more tenants coming into the lobby, Jernigan thought, suddenly hopeful; he might be able to clear it out after all.

Fifteen minutes later, the crowd in the lobby had thinned noticeably.

The next time the elevator came up, several firemen got off, dressed in slickers and helmets. Jernigan motioned them over, away from the crowd.

“How bad is it?”

The older of the two shrugged. “Bad enough, worse than it should be.

If we had had an alarm fifteen minutes earlier it might have been a different story. You the guy who’s been keeping them away from the commercial elevators?” Jernigan nodded. “.Good thinking. How many people left upstairs?” Jernigan could feel the sweat start to work down the back of his neck; the air in the lobby was getting close.

“I’m not sure; I started to log them out and then there wasn’t time. I understand the switchboard is trying to notify everybody.”

“Sure they are.” He made a face. “Two operators on duty, the other two had gone off shift. Your switchboard’s jammed with outside calls trying to get in-relatives and friends, probably some crank calls.

They’re trying to notify the tenants but that takes time. And then there’s always people watching the tube with the volume turned up and who won’t hear the phone, or who have turned the phone off for the evening, or they’re taking a shower, or they’ve taken sleeping pills and hit the sack… .” He shook his head. “We’ll have to get more men up here and start going through the floors one by one. Smoke’s spreading pretty fast. Thank God the upper floors are empty.” He glanced sharply at Jernigan. “What about the kids?

Any apartments Where the parents have gone out for the evening and there’s a kid and a baby-sitter?”

Jernigan felt sick. Mrs. Harris and her husband had left for the movies earlier that evening with Irene and he couldn’t remember Danny and Sharon going through the lobby when it was emptying out.

“Two Harris kids, boy eleven, girl fourteen. I didn’t see them, though that doesn’t mean they didn’t get out.”

“What apartment?”

“Two floors up, I can show you.” He called over to Rosette, who was handling the last of the dwindling crowd by the express elevator.

“Take over, Rosie, I’ll be back in a minute. If I’m not, go down with the last load.” The air was distinctly hazy now and it was getting a little more difficult to breathe.

The fireman noticed. ,It’s not bad enough for masks but you’re in a lousy’ spot here. The utility core has a southern exposure and outside there’s a strong north wind. You can’t feel it but it works its way into the building and is pushing most of the smoke this way.”

Jernigan had buzzed for one of the regular residential elevators going up. “That smoke spread awfully fast.”

“Partly the weather-the building acts like a chimney when it’s cold out-and partly the building itself. They’re trying to reverse the ventilation fans now, suck some of the smoke out. Should’ve been automatic. Two flights up?, They caught the elevator and a moment later were running down the hall to the Harris apartment. There was some smoke in the hall but nowhere near as much as in the sky lobby.

Probably because the Harris apartment was nearer the north side of the building. He thumped the apartment door with his fist, then fumbled in his pocket for a house key. Crap, he had left it behind at his desk.

The senior fireman motioned him to one side and stuck a pry bar in a corner of the door, near the lock. He started to apply pressure when a high-pitched, muffled voice within said, “Just a minute, please.”

A moment later the door opened and Sharon Harris looked at them, surprised. “We got a phone call,” she said primly, “but we really didn’t think you’d be here this soon.”

Jernigan followed the firemen into the apartment. There was even less smoke in the apartment than in the corridor.

Then he noticed the wet rags around the door. In addition, all the ventilator rills had wet dishtowels and strips of sheeting poked into the holes.

The firemen also noticed and the older one shook his head in admiration. “Who told you how to do it, kid?”

“The telephone operator told us there was a fire and I ran to the door and saw some smoke in the hall. I didn’t know how much there might be by the elevators or the stairwells so I thought we ought to stay here until somebody came to get us. Danny has asthma and I was afraid he might not make it. Then I remembered what Lisolette had said about the plaque on the door; she explained it to us.” Sharon looked at the firemen very soberly, and Jernigan wondered briefly where he had seen the expression before, and then remembered. “It really seemed like the only sensible thing to do.”

The fireman looked over at Jernigan. “Who’s this Lisolette?”

“Old-maid schoolteacher-patron saint of all the kids in the building.” He wondered briefly how her dinner with Harlee was going and then asked Sharon, “Where’s Danny?”

“There.” She pointed to the family room. “He’s watching the fire on television.”

One of the firemen went to the door. “Come on, son, it’s time to go.”

“Do I have to? This is exciting!”

“Afraid so, son. Get your coat; we’ve got to leave right now.”

In the living room, Sharon picked up one of the wet towels that had been stuffed around the door and gave it to Danny with instructions to hold it over his face and breathe through it. The smoke in the hallway was thicker now and down in the deserted sky lobby, the blue in the air had turned to a dirty gray. Danny. started to cough.

“Can you think of anybody else who might not gotten out?”

“Hell, man, I can’t think of any-I sure as hell hope they all got out.” The smoke had started to hurt his lungs and Jernigan didn’t want to talk. He also didn’t want to think about those who might have been left behind. There had to be some, he knew; he’d remember them as soon as he got downstairs and then the night would turn into a living hell for him.

Both Sharon and Danny had started to gag and the firemen shoved them and Jernigan into the residential express. The doors were almost closed when Jernigan violently thumbed the “open” button. He felt like crying.

“I forgot, Jesus, I forgot! There’s an old lady and her husband in 3724-name is Richardson. She’s a wheelchair case and I know damned well they didn’t come through. Maybe the left before the fire but I can’t remember seeing them or checking them out.” He felt helpless.

“I just can’t remember.”

“That’s okay, we’ll check it out. When you get down below, try and take a census in the lobby. You got your checkout boards with you?

Okay-they’ve got spare inhalators down there, get one on the kid, just in case.”

They caught an elevator going up and then the doors to his own cage had closed and Jernigan could feel the slow acceleration downward.

Behind him, Danny was being sick all over the elevator floor.

Back in the deserted sky lobby, the house phone on Jernigan’s desk suddenly began to ring. On the little red-lighted switchboard behind the desk, number 3416 was lit up.

Somebody was trying to call the desk from the Albrecht apartment.