The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 37

Through the long early moments of the emergency, Wyndom Leroux sat silently, watching the dialers. They were in no immediate danger and they seemed for the moment to know it. A sense of futility was settling over him, drowning his thoughts in a deadening blanket. He watched the diners and their reactions as though he were seeing them through the wrong end of a telescope. He was scarcely aware of Jenny or of his wife on his left.

For a while, after word of the fire had spread throughout the Promenade Room, the diners had treated the emergency almost as a lark.

The roar of the fire engines below, the free wine on -the house, the sense of danger and yet at the same time realizing they were far removed from it, the sensation of being suspended in the sky while the world below burned … all of these combined, evoking a mood of almost frantic gaiety. A few of the diners had quietly left, taking the scenic elevator down, but the others found themselves bound together by a tight camaraderie. A quiet night out now became a block party with people at adjoining tables joking and sharing the sense of distant danger, or else drifting out onto the promenade to try and see what was happening on the streets far below. They pointed out to each other the barricades and the police cars and fire engines, half hidden by the drifting snow.

It was great fun.

Then the ambulances pulled up to the edge of the plaza and tiny figures carrying rolled-up stretchers disappeared into the building; these reappeared a few minutes later bearing the same stretcher with a blanket covering it.

From that distance it was impossible to tell whether the blanket completely covered the figure on the stretcher or not. The party atmosphere began to die as the entire dining room emptied. Nearly everyone crowded onto the promenade to silently watch the scene below.

The smoke billowing from windows many floors beneath them and the driving snow made visibility difficult. Still they could see the oil truck drive down the ramp into the basement but few guessed the reason why. Shortly afterward a steady stream of cars began to leave the parking garage.

At the north entrance, taxis picked up pajamaed tenants on their way to their lodgings for the night.

Moments later the windows on the fire floors began to explode outward. The tiny figures on the plaza scattered as the glass knifed downward, shimmering briefly in the falling snow. The diners became far more sober after that and the babble of cheerful conversation fell to an occasional murmur or whisper. A feeling of apprehension started to build in the room. Guests drifted slowly back from the promenade to drink and eat in silence, occasionally asking questions of the hostess.

She seemed to have lost none of her self-assurance but she seemed disturbingly uninformed. Her calm had done a lot to reassure jittery diners earlier; now her calm seemed forced and her lack of information frightening.

Several of the more perceptive diners guessed the the phone lines to the lobby had been cut by the fire. A few more quietly paid their tab and drifted over to the scenic elevator, where a line began to form.

Leroux felt more uninvolved than at any other time in his life.

He ate and drank mechanically and made small talk when it seemed to be expected of him. He could tell that Jenny was terrified and went out of his way to say all of the usual things to calm her. Thelma, he knew, was watching him carefully, trying to guess at his inner strain.

There was no way that she could; his business affairs had been a part of his life that he had seldom shared with her and it was a little late to start now. Intellectually, he knew and accepted what was now going to happen: The public outcry, his personal crucifixion in the newspapers and on television, the investigations, the lawsuits.

He also realized that it hadn’t hit him yet emotionally.

Thelma and Jenny, the dining room and the fire itself were remote from him; in a sense, they didn’t exist. The fire was a catastrophe that he-had yet to acknowledge, could not acknowledge. The worst that could happen had, but he couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t face what it meant. In the long war of Wyndom Leroux against the world, he had never found it necessary to prepare a line of retreat.

Now it was necessary but there was no line. He had no plan of action.

“Wyn.

He looked up, startled. Odd, for a moment he really hadn’t been there at all. He had been thinking, of New Orleans when he had been a young man. His father had forced him to work on the docks so he would learn early what the world was like and what it took for a man to hold his own in it. The experience had been invaluable, but he had never forgiven his father for it.

Thelma started to say something to him, then stopped in mid-sentence, smiled, reached out and grasped his hand.

He squeezed it, then drew back. He saw that she sensed his remoteness and was withdrawing. She turned her attention to Jenny instead. Jenny replied to her attempts at conversation in monosyllables. Odd, Leroux thought, we’re both retreating, each from a different reality.

There was now a chill to the air in the Promenade Room and the faintest suggestion of stuffiness. Leroux sensed it first, probably because he was the least concerned with what was happening at the moment. The ventilation and heating system had been turned off, he realized, or at least the supply to the upper floors had failed.

“Mr. Leroux.” Quinn Reynolds hurried to the table sudden alarm showing in her face. “Some of the diner’s‘ are trying to leave by the inside elevators. I’ve tried to dissuade them because I didn’t think it was safe, but they won’t listen.”

It was like stepping out of a fog or coming up from a deep dive in a pool. This was something he could handle.

“I’ll be right there, Quinn.”

Two couples were in the foyer, arguing with a frightened bellboy.

“Look, son, nobody here knows what’s happening and we’re not waiting around to find out, not one more minute.

There’s no sense waiting in line for the scenic elevator; this one’s just as fast.”

The bellboy was white-faced. “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve got my orders and nobody’s supposed to use these elevators.”

“Sonny, I’m not paying the prices they charge up here to argue with the hired help.” He started to push the boy aside, then suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

“The boy’s perfectly right,” Leroux said quietly. “The elevators aren’t safe. You have to transfer at the sky lobby and from there the elevator will have to travel through the fire zone to get to the first floor. I doubt that it would make it-or if it did, that you would.”

The man turned and glared at Leroux for a moment.

Early thirties, Leroux guessed, about his own size, probably ex-football and out of shape. The other man was the same age, though somewhat smaller; probably played on the same team. Old college buddies taking their wives out for a night on the town. His eyes flicked briefly at the women. Suburban. Too much make-up, girdled and shellacked for the evening. The type of women whose lives didn’t extend beyond their ranch house, two kids, and TV set; this sort lived vicariously through their husbands. They’d give him trouble.

“Frank, I’m not going to stay here one more minute!”

She hung possessively on her husband’s right arm and Leroux half smiled to himself. He waited impassively while the slightly paunchy husband debated his chances of intimidating Leroux. “Who the hell are you?”

“Wyndom Leroux, president of National Curtainwall.

We own the building.”

“Frank, we’re leaving!”

Frank turned slightly. “Shut up, Gale.” Then he faced Leroux, somewhat less belligerent now. The fear in his voice was unmasked and genuine. “I think we ought to get out, Mr. Leroux, as fast as possible. I think we’re cut off-no firemen have come up here to evacuate us.”

“Probably because the inside elevators aren’t working or they’re too dangerous to take,” Leroux said quietly.

The man’s wife paled and he nodded. “You’re . probably right.

So what do we do now?” He was automatically looking to Leroux for orders. Leroux welcomed it; it was a situation he understood, one that he could handle. The flash point for panic in the Promenade Room was probably only minutes away. They were in no immediate danger-the firemen on the scene below knew they were up here.

Even though the phones were out and the inside elevators not functioning, the firemen would have taken the scenic elevator up to evacuate the diners if they had thought it necessary. The diners could still wait it out-it would be the smartest thing to do-but the man’s fear was very real and probably everybody in the room felt the same way. Physically, they were safe where they were.

Psychologically, the situation wouldn’t hold together much longer.

“I think we ought to arrange our own evacuation , Leroux said.

“If there’s panic in the room people will get hurt, and it’s even possible that someone in panic could jam the scenic elevator. If one Of You gentlemen will get the hostess, we’ll figure out a plan of action.”

The smaller of the two men jumped at the chance to be a part of the action. “Sure thing, Mr. Leroux!”

Team spirit, Leroux thought cynically. You could play on it like You would an organ. The man was back with Quinn in seconds.

“Quinn, what’s the capacity of the scenic elevator? I’ve never really noticed.”

“Ten-though You might squeeze in one or two more.”

“All right, circulate through the dining room and tell your guests that we’re evacuating and remind them to pick up their coats from the checkroom. Start with the tables farthest from the elevator; the people sitting at them will feel the least secure, they’re the ones most liable to panic when we start sending groups down.”

He turned and motioned to the two mell behind him.

“I’ll need your help in case there’s any panic or somebody tries to rush the elevator.”

“You can count on it.”

Leroux glanced at their wives standing nervously nearby, “We’ll send your wives down with the first load. My guess is that they’ve transferred all the cars in the basement to a public garage and your wives can pick them up for you.” Their wives had probably pushed them into trying to take the inside elevators in the first place, he thought. Get them off the scene and the men would be easier to handle-if they had to be handled.

He stopped briefly at his own table. “Thelma, Jenny, we’re sending people down on the scenic elevator. Get your wraps.”

“What about you?” Thelma asked.

A smile flickered briefly over Leroux’s face. “I’m running the operation.”

Thelma settled back in her chair. “I’ll leave with you whenever you’re ready to go, Wyndom.

“What about you, Jenny? Craig’s down there.”

“I’d be in his way,” she said stiffly, then managed a slight smile.

“I’ll stay here with you. It won’t be long, will it?”

“Maybe half an hour, not much more.”

“Just enough time to finish my wine,” she said lightly.

Leroux hurried back to the scenic elevator whose entrance was just off the foyer. He introduced himself briefly to those in line, explaining the system of the farthest table first-after the people already waiting in line had gone down, of course. He could see Quinnat the far end of the dining room dutifully explaining the situation.

One by one the farthest tables emptied, the diners going ‘to the foyer checkroom for their wraps and then forming a line. There was no panic. Once people knew they would be leaving shortly and there was a plan and Somebody in Authority was present, the atmosphere in the room brightened considerably.

There we’re minor problems, however.

“I didn’t come up the outside elevator,” one woman announced, her face white. “I’m afraid of heights; I don’t think I could stand it looking at the street from this high up with nothing but glass around me.”

Leroux smiled and handed her firmly to her husband who was already inside the elevator. “Just close your eyes and when you feel the bump, that means the elevator’s at the lobby stop.”

A man in his mid-forties who looked like a wrestler was the next to hang back. “How do we know this will be safe? I heard you telling your friends here that the elevators were running through the fire zone. Why is this one safe but the others aren’t?”

“The scenic elevator runs down the outside of a blank concrete wall all the way to the first-floor lobby,” Leroux explained patiently.

“There’s solid concrete between you and the fire and absolutely no way the elevator can stop at a fire floor.” He pushed the man inside and the elevator doors closed on his next question He was probably actually afraid of heights, like the elderly woman had been.

“Mr. Leroux?”

The dapper little man-who had been at the table directly behind them was standing in the foyer entrance, a worried look on his face.

“Yes?”

“You didn’t notice Miss Mueller get on the elevator, did you?”

Leroux looked blank and the man added, “She was my guest for dinner tonight. I went to the men’s room a few moments ago and when I came back, she was missing.”

Leroux turned to hand some more people into the elevator. Two loads had already gone down since the evacuation had started, but Miss Mueller had not been among them. “I’m sorry, sir, she hasn’t left yet.

Are you sure she isn’t talking to friends at another table?”

The dapper man shook his head, for the moment looking inexpressibly sad. “No,” he said slowly. “I’ve been through the room twice and she isn’t here.”

Leroux recalled the good time they both had been having and said, “Have Miss Reynolds check the powder room; she may be under the weather.”

The man smiled faintly. “Her father was a brewer. She could probably drink us both under the table.”

He went back into the room for another search of the tables and Leroux wondered briefly what could have happened to the woman. Then the elevator had come back for a third load and he forgot her.

It felt good to be immersed in the shuttle operation, but another half hour, Leroux realized, and he would be down in the lobby and it would be a different kind of reality. His mind couldn’t face it now and he doubted that he could face it then. And he still had no alternative plan of action, he still didn’t know what he was going to do, And then he wondered what Barton was doing down below and how he was holding up. He was probably taking all the gaff that Leroux would have if he had gone down first. But it seemed like a practical idea at the time and might still prove to be.

He also knew that as soon as he got down, he would lose the best employee he had.