The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 36

Barton fought his way into the lobby past milling tenants.

Firemen grimly pushed through to the elevator banks while a scattering of policemen ineffectually tried to bring order out of confusion. The lobby itself had changed drastically from when he had seen it a few hours before. Salvage covers, spread over the marble floor, were now slick with dirty water and lumps of melting ice. The chill air of the lobby held the faint, acid odor of something burning Against the far wall by the doors to the bank, an ambulance team was bending over a stretcher’ covering the figure on it with an army blanket. Barton stared for a moment before he realized what it meant.

He could not tell whether it was a tenant or a fireman.

A few feet away two young parents held a sobbing boy while farther on, a woman cried hysterically, ignored by everyone around her. Only the crackling of a radio communication system cut through the general babble. He searched the crowd, finally locating several firemen standing by a comm system they had set up in the lobby cigar stand.

Barton hurriedly threaded his way over.

“Who’s in charge of the operations here?”

One of the firemen looked at him curiously. “Who are you, Mac?”

“Craig Barton-I was - chief architect of the building; I’m also representing Mr. Leroux down here. Check it out; he’s having dinner in the Promenade Room.”

The fireman looked faintly impressed. “Division Chief Mario Infantino’s the man you want-but he’s too busy to talk to civilians now.”

So Mario was running things, Barton thought; a sense of relief flooded through him. The building was in good hands. “Just tell him I’m in the lobby. If he gets a moment I’d like to see him-any way I can help, I will.”

“Sure thing.” The fireman nodded out at the lobby.

“You might try doing something about that mess-the cops can’t seem to.”

“I’ll give it a try.” He turned back to the lobby. He saw Garfunkel and Jernigan, standing by the security desk in deep conversation; both looked haggard and worn.

Garfunkel broke off the conversation when he spotted him, the strain in his face abruptly easing.

“When’s Mr. Leroux coming down? Christ, we could use him right now-people are asking me fifty million questions and I don’t know how to answer any of them.”

“He’ll be down later; you’ll have to put up -with me until he gets here.” Barton pointed at the blanket-covered figure being taken out the front entrance by the ambulance team. “How many casualties?”

Garfunkel’s face tightened. “One that we know of. The man they’re taking out is Sol Jacobs, the seventy-year-old bachelor in 3214. The smoke got him.” His voice dropped a notch. “And then there’s Griff Edwards. He tried to help us when we first went up to the fire floor.

Stroke-he’s in intensive care. There probably are others.”

To Barton, Jacobs was only a man. Griff Edwards he had met several times and liked; he assumed that Garfunkel was a close friend.

“How’s Edwards doing?”

Garfunkel’s voice shook slightly. “I talked to the doctors; they don’t think he’ll make it to morning.”

There was no time for tears, Barton thought, either for himself, Garfunkel, or anybody else. He glanced back at the lobby; little clumps of tenants wandered aimlessly around or stood guard by their small heaps of possessions.

“Dan, open up the lunchroom downstairs. See if we can get volunteers to make coffee and sandwiches, then circulate among the tenants and tell them it’s open. It will pug them out of the lobby.

And detail one of the guards to call nearby hotels for rooms-it’s the holiday weekend; chances are they’ll have a lot of vacancies.

Have him make reservations for the tenants who want one, either for the night or until such time as they can contact relatives or return here. Get hold of the night managers and explain the situation; tell them Curtainwall will pick up the tab.” They’d have to make good with the lunchroom owner, too, he thought, but that would be a minor expense. It would also be in Leroux’s bailiwick; let him worry about details. Then something else occurred to him. “Better call a cab company, too; have them send over all their free units … use the north entrance, so they won’t interfere with the firemen. We’ll have to use them to get the tenants to hotels. Then report back here.”

He turned to Jernigan who was obviously ready for his own orders.

“Harry, find the ranking police officer in charge and ask him to come over here.”

Jernigan disappeared and Barton inspected the lobby again. At the elevator bank, two firemen, their faces smeared with soot, staggered out. Firemen nearby immediately slapped a respirator on the one; the other of the pair clung to the wall for support and started to vomit on the salvage cover. The doors to another elevator slid open; a rescue team came out lugging still another stretcher. The huddled form beneath the blanket was completely covered. Barton watched in morbid fascination as the ambulance crew, blank-faced, carried the stretcher toward the door. Maybe it was because their faces were too carefully blank, maybe it was because of the etched lines of strain. Barton was suddenly glad that the blanket was completely draped over the stretcher itself; the shape roughly outlined beneath it couldn’t possibly be human. They passed him on the way out and he caught a whiff of odor, There were two smells that you never forgot, he thought, his stomach suddenly uneasy.

One was that of rotting potatoes. The other was that of burned flesh.

On the other side of the entrance, one of the guards was making a call on an outside phone; Barton guessed he was setting up hotel reservations for the tenants. Then, on the fringe of the crowd, he noticed Garfunkel in earnest conversation with some of the older women tenants.

They listened for a moment, then followed him toward the escalator to the lower lobby. As soon as they had made coffee, the lower level restaurant would be open, Barton thought, and at least one problem would be on its way to being solved.

Jernigan suddenly appeared at his side with a slightly disgruntled police captain in tow; the snow just beginning to melt off his slicker.

“Mr. Barton, Captain Greenwall.”

The captain didn’t give Barton a chance to introduce himself.

“I’ve got problems out there, mister; what’s so damned important that you have to see me here?”

“Because you’ve got problems in here, too,” Barton said dryly.

“How come this lobby hasn’t been cleared?”

The captain looked at him coldly. “I didn’t catch the name.”

“Craig Barton. I’m chief architect for the building.”

“That’s fine, I’ve got a mess outside to clean up.” He turned to go.

“I’m filling in for Wyndom Leroux until he gets down here,” Barton continued. “What’s the situation outside?”

“Leroux?” The captain visibly thawed and said, “We’re moving the barricades back another block around the building. Falling glass.”

“Bad?”

“It’s pretty windy; it’s probably as bad as it can get.”

His face blanked for a moment at something he obviously didn’t want to remember. “One fatality a block away.

Pretty messy. Half a dozen others hospitalized. Maybe a dozen cars with slashed tops or hoods.” He glanced at Barton sharply. “Was that all you want to know?”

“We’re starting to evacuate the tenants. There’ll be cabs coming in a few minutes to take them to hotels; they have instructions to approach from the north. Tell your men to let them through.”,He glanced at the lobby again and noted that more people were going downstairs.

“We could use some more men here and downstairs to keep order.

Can we get them?”

The captain shrugged. “I’ll do my best. Outside it’s a circus.

All the television stations are carrying film on the fire; half the city is out there, weather be damned.”

Bread and circuses, Barton thought. Except there was no attraction half so fascinating as a fire.

“You have a walky-t?”

The captain nodded toward the communications station at the cigar counter. “I’m hooked in over there; they can get me any time.” The lobby crowd was gradually thinning out now.

Garfunkel came back, his face less clouded than before.

“The lunchroom win hardly hold them all, but the tenants can camp in the lobby down there; the coffee and the food’s helping a lot-at least the level of complaints has dropped.”

“Anybody sick or hurt down there?”

“No, most of those were taken out by ambulance crews before you came down. Mostly smoke inhalation.

He hesitated. “We’re making reservations in some of the nearby hotels, but a lot of the tenants don’t want to leave.”

“Any Red Cross people around?”

“They’ve got a van outside serving coffee. Some of them were in the lobby half an hour ago taking down names and addresses of relatives to be notified.”

Barton turned to Jernigan. “Go out and contact their senior man-see if you can arrange for cots and blankets.”

After Jernigan departed, Garfunkel said: “Craig, I told the chief-Infantino-about the gas station downstairs. He was pretty annoyed, particularly when I said we had just filled the tanks the first part of the week.”

“What’s he want done about it?”

“He’s done it already-called City Gas and Oil; they’re sending over a truck to pump out the tanks and fill them with water to force out the explosive vapors.”

“Better call Greenwall and tell him the truck will be coming through his barricades. North entrance again.”

It wasn’t very likely that the fire would ever reach the basement, but there was no sense in sitting on a time bomb, either. He had noticed the spillage and the fumes in the basement when he had parked………. Oh, crap!”

He turned and ran for the escalator stairs. Garfunkel had just finished giving instructions to the fireman at the relay station. He saw Barton forcing his way through the crowds and ran after him. “Mr. Barton, what the hell’s wrong?”

In the lower lobby, Barton noted that the restaurant was filled; the hysteria and,frightened looks had given way to a quiet murmur of conversations and discussions of what to do next. A few dozen of the tenants were leaning against the lobby wall of the restaurant, sipping coffee and eating sandwiches and stale doughnuts. The atmosphere was changed now, Barton thought. The survivors were beginning to enjoy the thrill and store up memories for reminiscing later. Barton ran past them to the stairway leading to the parking garage. He plunged down them, Garfunkel after him. “Where’s the car hiker, Dan?”

Garfunkel bellowed, “Hey, Joe!” The young parking lot attendant came out of his booth, looking scared.

“Look, Mr. Garfunkel, how bad is it upstairs? I’ve been afraid to leave, but I don’t know a damn thing about what’s going on. How bad’s the fire?”

“It may get worse. A truck should be here any minute from City Gas and Oil to pump out the tanks.”

The attendant blanched. “It’s getting closer?”

“It’s precautionary,” Barton interrupted. “We want to get the cars out, too. How many down here?” The floor looked half empty, probably because of the holidays, he thought.

“Seventy-three, Mr. Barton. Not counting my own.”

“How many car jockeys do you know personally whom you could get over here in a matter of minutes?”

“Maybe half a dozen. The weather’s lousy and the clubs in the area aren’t doing any business.”

“Call them up and ask them to come over. I want all these cars out of here. as soon as possible.” It was a remote chance, but if a fire started, the presence of the cars would be as bad as the full tanks themselves.

“Where’ll we take ‘em?”

“There’s a city garage at Elm and Taylor, three blocks away. I’ll have the police call and make the arrangements.

Turn your tickets over to the garageman there.”

He started back upstairs, Garfunkel trailing him.

Mario Infantino was waiting for him at the communications desk, looking tired and grim. Barton felt his stomach begin to knot. Now would come all the questions he was afraid to ask and all the answers he didn’t want to hear. & “How bad is it, Mario?”

“A lot worse than I thought it would be. You might as well have sprayed your walls with kerosene. So far as we can tell now, it started in a storeroom stocked with solvents and waxes. Once it got a foothold, there wasn’t any stopping it.”

“Casualties?”

“One of my men dead, three to the hospital-smoke inhalation and burns. Two tenants, maybe more, we don’t know yet. Smoke may have caught a lot of them while they were sleeping. Carbon monoxide builds up slowly; you don’t notice it. I understand one of your maintenance people is in the hospital with a coronary.” He shrugged.

“That’s all so far.”

Barton forced himself to ask the next question. “What about fighting the fire itself?”

Infantino hesitated. “A lot depends on luck. The seventeenth floor is gutted but it’s also pretty much burned itself out. We should be able to contain it on eighteen.

A lot of windows were broken on both floors; that vented the fire and helped a lot. For a while I thought we might have to hole through the nineteenth floor and try and get at it from above, as well as venting it. We don’t have to do that now. There’s been a lot of smoke dammage-it’ll probably cost Curtainwall a fortune just to clean its own offices.”

“That’s Leroux’s worry. What about the floors above?”

Infantino seemed a little less certain. “I haven’t been able to spare the men to check all the floors. There’s been smoke as high as the thirty-fifth, probably much higher depending on what side of the building you’re talking about. The wind’s from the north so that side of the building is relatively free from smoke. One thing for sure, both the fire and the smoke spread fast. The building’s like Swiss cheese, Craig. There’re so many poke throughs in the floors and the walls, I don’t think there’s an effective fire barrier in the entire structure.”

“The hVAC system should have changed over to exhaust once smoke -was detected,” Barton said slowly.

It couldn’t be that bad, he thought desperately.

“A lot of things should have happened that didn’t, Craig. Part of your system did exhaust-but only part.

One of your maintenance men can fill you in. We also should have received a smoke and fire warning at department headquarters automatically. We didn’t; the alarm was phoned in.” He caught the expression on Barton’s face. “Nobody’s blaming you, Craig-you didn’t build it.”

It had started when he had noticed the cladding around the elevator banks, Barton thought. Since then, the building had been full of surprises for him, all of them unpleasant.

“You said the smoke spread fast and so did the fire. Even if the hVAC system was only partly operating, at least it was either shut down or on exhaust. How come the fire itself spread so quickly?”

A fireman interrupted with a message for Infantino.

He scanned it, then turned briefly back to Barton. “It depends on the fire load. On the seventeenth floor, it was exceptionally heavy-solvents and waxes in the storeroom, an interior decorating shop jammed with flammable draperies and upholstery materials, a number of very posh offices that were decorated like tinderboxes. What you end up with is a fire load that makes for a lot of smoke and a very hot fire.” He turned toward the elevator bank. “Be back in a few minutes-I’ll have to know about the fire loading on the other floors.”

Barton was silent for a moment after Infantino left then said: “Do we have any kind of a building census, Dan?”

“Not one that would be worth a damn.”

“What about the commercial floors?”

“One of the cleaning women is missing; the others got out. So far as we know, aLex Hughes who works in your Credit Union never left the building, though it’s possible he got out during the height of the confusion. And there’s one of the partners in Today’s Interiors, Ian Douglas.

He tipped us about the fire to begin with. We have no record of him leaving the building, either.”

Today’s Interiors was on seventeen, where the fire had started, Barton recalled. The upholstery and decorating materials that Infantino had mentioned were in his shop.

Douglas probably didn’t make it.

“Anybody else?”

“One of the maintenance men-Krost. Nobody knows where he is, either.”

Jernigan snorted. “Nobody ever does.”

“There’s also a John Bigelow, a veep for Motivational Displays.

We’ve been trying to raise their executive suite by telephone. He apparently was entertaining a client back there; he called Donaldson to have a refrigerator fixed. So far, nobody answers. It’s a couple of floors above the fire floor so maybe he got out, too, though we have no record.”

“What about the evacuation of the residential tenants?”

Jernigan shook his head. “It’s been one mother of a mess, pretty disorganized, as you can see. Nobody really knew what to do including me. None of us were ever told. But I think we got almost everybody out. The firemen got Mrs. Halvorsen and her husband down.”

Barton vaguely remembered them-an elderly couple.

She was a wheelchair case.

“Did you try to notify -everybody by phone?” Infantino had rejoined them.

Jernigan nodded. “The operators buzzed everybody in the upper floors, whether I had them logged out or not.”

“Have the operators ignore all incoming calls and keep trying those apartments where you’re not sure they made it down or aren’t absolutely certain they’ve left for the weekend. “Have them ring every fifteen minutes.”

Barton felt curious. “Why have the operators keep trying, Mario?

It seems like a Waste of time-if they don’t answer, they’re not home.”

“That’s the wrong assumption,” Infantino said grimly.

“They might have been watching television when you called and couldn’t hear the phone or didn’t want to answer if the show was exciting right then. Then there are the people who were taking a bath or a shower at the time or who turned the phone off for the evening or have taken sleeping pills and then hit the sack. As soon as I can spare the men, I’ll have them check the upper floors personally with a pass key.

If your phone operators do get a response tell the tenants to stay put and place wet towels around the door and over the ventilation grills.

If they insist on leaving the room have them feel the door first to see if it’s hot, though we don’t think there’s any fire above eighteen.

If they leave, and the smoke is thick, have them head for the north stairwell as quickly as possible-it’s relatively free of smoke.

Under no conditions do they take the elevator-the sky lobby transfer point is right by the south utility core and the smoke is too thick there now. But have the operators keep trying the suspect apartments.”

Jernigan suddenly looked stricken. “Mr. Barton, there’s the Albrecht family in 3416.”

Barton felt as if he should know something he didn’t.

‘So?”

“They’re deaf mutes.”

Infantino whistled. “Okay, I’ll get some men up there as soon as possible.”

Barton had unconsciously glanced at the elevator indicator board when they were discussing floors. He suddenly tensed. “What elevators are your men using?”

Infantino followed his glance. “The two at the right with manual override. No need to worry.”

On the indicator board, the red lights showed that the rest of the elevators had lined up neatly at the seventeenth floor; the lights read across in a single row. Then, they suddenly flickered and went out.

They were stalled there for good, he thought; the call button ‘ s had fused, calling them to the fire floor. If there had been anybody on board trying to get down … It left them with three operating elevators, the residential express and the two commercial cages which were equipped with manual override.

Infantino said, “Craig, we were talking about the fire loading before. Do you have any idea what’s directly above and below the seventeenth floor?”

Barton shook his head. “Curtainwall takes up the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth floors. The executive offices are on eighteen, probably flamboyant decorated by your standards. The other two floors are standard office floors, what you would probably call an ordinary fire load. I’m not sure what’s on sixteen, ditto from the twenty-first on. up.” He paused. “Motivational Displays is on twenty-one; they’ve got a pretty large suite of offices and a storeroom that they keep most of their displays in.

It’s the holiday season so I imagine the storeroom is stuffed with polystyrene Santa Clauses, that sort of thing. Other than that, I don’t know what’s on the floor. This is the first time I’ve been in the building since the dedication. I also suspect there’s been a heavy changeover in.

tenants.”

“We can get most of the information from the building directory and make an educated guess at the contents.

How about building blueprints? It would be nice to know where the numbers go.”

“To the best of my knowledge, they’re e m our offices on eighteen.”

Infantino looked frustrated. “We don’t have a set, and you can’t get at yours. Could you draw me a general floor diagram from memory?”Barton felt around in his pockets, then walked over to the checkin desk where the girl had been making X’s against the names on the Promenade Room reservation list. The small, black Magic Marker was right where she had left it. He picked it up, along with her clipboard, and hurried back to the cigar stand. He turned over one of the reservation sheets and drew the rough floor plan, then motioned Garfunkel. “You’ve been on fire patrols in the building, haven’t you, Dan?” Garfunkel nodded. “Okay, fill in the numbers of the office suites and tell Mario about the furnishings-drapes, sofas, open filing systems, wooden desks or metal, anything he asks. If you can’t remember all the offices, check with the building directory.

Jernigan-” He glanced around. “Where the hell did he go?”

Garfunkel looked blank. “He was here a minute ago.”

“When he comes back, see if he can help you any.

I’ll be down in the boiler room.” In the lower lobby the Red Cross had started to set up cots; already some children were asleep under the heavy army blankets. The number of tenants had noticeably decreased; the switchboard and the security guard must be having fairly good luck in placing them elsewhere.

On the garage floor, the City Gas and Oil truck had arrived and was pumping out the two tanks. A little of the color had returned to Joe’s face and he was shouting directions at the four parking attendants moving out the cars. Another half hour or so and the garage would be empty, Barton thought. When the diners started coming down from the Promenade Room, they would have to arrange for taxis to take them over to the city garage.

More money out of Curtainwall’s pocket-or some insurance agency’s, depending on how the policy was written.

Donaldson was sitting at Griff Edwards’ desk, looking tired and worn and on the verge of tears. Another.good friend of Edwards, Barton thought. “Things going all right, Mr. Donaldson?” he asked gently.

Donaldson’s face was dirty and his uniform rumpled.

Barton recalled that he had been with the men from maintenance who had tried to put out the fire in, the first place. “Things haven’t gone right since I came on shift, Mr. Barton.

“I understand some of the fan motors conked out.”

“One burnout, one freeze-up.” He leaned back in his chair and was silent for a long moment. “Mr. Barton, this may cost me my job but I gotta say what I think.

The lash-up down here is fine-for a building two thirds this size.

As it was, Griff had to push it even under normal condition. In an emergency, it just wasn’t up to it.”

“It met all the codes,” Barton said stiffly: Donaldson looked tired.

“Did it? I sometimes wonder.

It wasn’t the gear that was specified.”

The uneasy feeling that had been building up in Barton’s stomach-grew stronger. “What do you mean?”

“I ‘knew I was going to be transferred over and I talked with the architectural engineers when they first started construction. They had specified more expensive motors and generators, a more elaborate sensor system.

What we ended up with does the job-but just barely.”

He ran dirty fingers over an already streaked scalp. “I guess it’ll do the job all right, provided there’re no sudden demands made on it or emergency overloading.”

The equipment wasn’t what the Wexler and Haines engineering department had recommended, Barton thought. What Donaldson was saying was that Leroux’s accounting office had scrapped their recommendations and cut the heart out of. the building. He felt the anger start to build in him, then. He had wanted to be site supervisor-a job that would normally have fallen to him. But Leroux had shipped him to Boston. Because Leroux had known he would fight for his building?

Because Leroux had known he would quit before he would agree to the cost cutting that had gone on?

He started back toward the steps. “I’ll be in the lobby if you want me, Donaldson.”

He took a long break in the lower lobby lunchroom, huddled over a cup of -coffee and trying to sort out his thoughts. It was his building, he kept thinking. It had been his baby. Leroux had had no right…

. But of course, he did. Leroux paid the bills; Leroux paid his salary; Leroux had done the financing. Why had he cheapened it? There hadn’t been any reason for it. , . .

“Mr. Barton, when do you think the fire will be over so we can go back?”

. He vaguely remembered her; an elderly matron, her wispy hair done up in curlers, half lost in her soot-smeared silk bathrobe. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Maybe a few-hours but then there’ll be the cleaning up. We’re making reservations for those who want to stay in a hotel until the building’s all right for tenants to move back in.

There’ll be no expense on your part.” She shook her head and smiled somewhat wanly. “No, I don’t think I’d care for that. This is such a beautiful building and it’s home to us. My husband and I have been living in hotels for years.”

There were murmurs from other tenants who were watching him; they didn’t know him by name for the most part but knew that he must represent management.

Some of them started to come over. He finished his coffee in a hurry and fled.

Back upstairs, Garfunkel had finished filling in several floors for Infantino. Barton had just bent over to study the sheets when there were quick bursts of light near the entrance. A small group of reporters started to crowd into the now almost-emptied lobby.

“Where’s Leroux?” one shouted.

“Any statement from management?”

One of the reporters remembered Barton from the dedication. “What went wrong, Mr. Barton? The building’s going up like it was a torch job.”

“No comment!” Barton shouted furiously. He motioned to Captain Greenwall who had come in to check at the communications station. “Get some men and clear the lobby. See that all reporters stay behind the barricades -it’s dangerous within a block of the building and I’ll be goddamned if I’ll be responsible for anybody else’s life tonight. No unauthorized personnel are to be allowed within a block of the building.”

The captain motioned to several of his men standing nearby and headed for the entrance. “Okay, fellas, I’m sure everybody will have statements later on. Let’s move on, let’s go. At least a block and watch out for falling .glass, we already lost one young man that way.”

One of the reporters asked him what he meant; Greenwall explained in brief, graphic detail. The reporter went white and the group backed quickly out, a few taking last-minute shots of Barton.

After the reporters were herded out, the captain came back.

“There’s a man from the insurance company by the barricades; he wants to talk to you. Also some people who claim they lease stores and offices and want to check their shops and empty the cash registers or else look over the premises.”

“Nobody gets in,” Barton said automatically. “Absolutely nobody.”

“Some of them are pretty worked up.”.

“Tough.” They wanted to complain to somebody, he thought, they wanted to confront somebody in authority so they could threaten to sue.

But that was Leroux s job, that was his dirty laundry.

“Greenwall?”

The captain turned. “Keep them out of my hair; I don’t care how you do it. It doesn’t matter if they’re tenants or from the insurance company or what. Tell them . …” He hesitated, then shrugged to himself. He had done enough, he had done more than enough.

From now on, it was going to be Leroux’s ball game. He had had it.

And it didn’t matter to him what Jenny was going to think.

“Tell them,” Barton said slowly, “that Mr. Leroux will be down in a few minutes to talk with them.” Before he could get to a house phone, Infantino called him over. He was puzzled. “Craig, is there any way at all we can get blue prints? We need to know the distances between these offices and exactly which ones are above one another.”

“No way, Mario, unless your men can get. into Curtainwall’s offices.”

“Okay, so we do without them. But it would help.” He glanced up from the drawing in front of him. “I wish the hell you had designed in fire doors in the stairwells, too.

It would cut smoke spread. It’s not required by city code but it would have helped in preventing smoke spread-helped in evacuation, too.”

Barton Rasped in sudden anger. “I did design them, Mario! I knew they weren’t required by the local code but I know the value of them.”

Infantino shook his head. “They never bothered to install them Craig.” He laughed bitterly. “Looks like your baby was a breech delivery.”

Barton stalked over to the house phone and savagely dialed the Promenade Room. He no longer trusted Leroux’s -reasons for having sent him down..It had been a setup, he thought. Leroux had known what he would hear and he didn’t want to face it. So it was send down Barton As his patsy. Well, this was the end of it. He’d call Leroux and have Jenny come down with him. And when Leroux arrived, Barton would turn in his resignation on the spot.

He finished dialing and waited for the ring. There was dead silence on the phone. He dialed again and still nothing. Then he dialed the operator.

A moment later he hung up, feeling sick and tired and frightened.

There was no phone contact to the forty-fifth floor and above.

Somewhere, the fire had cut the coaxial for the bank of phones that served the Promenade Room.

The restaurant was now cut off from all outside contact. And so was Jenny.

Nearly all of the offices in the area of the seventeenth floor utility room, the birthplace of the beast, have now been gutted. rugs and draperies are rich fuel for the fire, as are the heavy parquet floors installed by Psychiatric Associates half a corridor length away.

The paint on the office walls and those of the corridor is a Popular brand that advertises itself as “fire resistant.” In the incandescent heart of the fire, it quickly bubbles, exposing the flammable surfaces beneath. The exposed metal studding glows and begins to melt; Plaster decomposes and spalls in a rain of dirty white flakes.

In the washrooms, grouting crumbles away and tile walls buckle.

Plastic water tumblers and hampers slump, then finally char and flame.

The paint on the paper-towel dispensers blackens and the towels blaze, peeling away from the roll like the leaves of an onion. In various offices, the bottles in water coolers crack and shatter as their contents boil and turn to steam. In a lunchroom area,- the glass front of a sandwich vending machine breaks and the sandwiches inside toast, then char as their Plastic wrappings burn away. The front of a nearby softdrink machine warps and buckles with the heat, then curls aside.

The cans of soda explode in a continuing chain, like a string of giant firecrackers. In the offices of the collection agency next door, the fire sweeps the desks clear of correspondence and file.

folders, fuses staples and paper clips into solid ),masses of metal.

It scorches the paint from a line of file cabinets and warps the drawers, then reaches inside to finger the contents. The records of a thousand debts go up in a rush of flames.

On the eighteenth floor, the fire has pushed its way through badly sealed duct holes to race across the carpeting in a dozen different offices. It climbs the wallpapered walls of an insurance company and Penetrates into the air space above the acoustical tile ceiling. Here it discovers a long air-conditioning duct that has accumulated a heavy coating of dust and lint inside its walls. There is just enough air within the confines of the duct for a hot, incomplete combustion that chars the organic contents, releasing flammable gases to burn in the limited oxygen.

The temperature of the resulting mixture of carbon monoxide and resinous fumes approaches 1,000 degrees.

A hundred feet farther down, the duct fails at a plastic joint.

The hot, fuel-rich gases hit the open air. There is a low-order, gaseous explosion that tears away whole masses of ceiling tile. For a few seconds, the equivalent of a massive blow torch flares over the wooden furniture below and plays against a wall covered with plastic paneling resembling walnut veneer. The wall bursts into flame.

At the far end of the eighteenth floor, a portion of the aluminum Curtainwall outside has heated to the point where it pulls away from the framework of the building this opens up a channel leading as high as the twenty-first floor. Clouds of hot smoke billow up the resulting flue and stream across the windows of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first floors, heating the metal frames.

On the twenty-first floor, a window suddenly cracks and drops from its frame, plunging to the street below to shatter between two cars.

The draperies inside twist and dance in the hot blasts of air, then start to blaze. They lash back inside the office, flapping against a wall poster that says simply “Motivational Displays Move Products.”

A curling edge of the poster browns, blackens, and begins to burn.

Three floors below the beast pauses as it realizes it has almost run out of food. Abruptly something stings it on one side and it retreats a few feet. There is another, more painful hit and it recoils farther. It is suddenly frightened; something is trying to kill it.

The pain is continuous now and it slowly but steadily falls back upon itself. It senses a growing numbness.