The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 3

Mario Infantino felt on edge. Even the smell of minestrone and roast beef that seeped out of the kitchen didn’t make him feel any more at ease. A dozen minutes until the six-o’clock -news and five would get you ten that tonight would be the blowoff Quantrell had been building up to something for the past two weeks; hardly a day had gone by that -he didn’t call, despite the fact that Mario had kept recommending that he contact public relations.

Mario had been glad to talk to him at first, even in front of the cameras that had tracked him down to one or two small fires. But the way it was coming out on the air had made him look publicity hungry and things were strained enough in the department as it was.

He punched Channel 4 on the TV set and settled back to watch the tag end of a movie that preceded the news.

At the sound from the set, three boys came boiling out of a distant bedroom and raced into the living room.

“Hey, DAd, can I watch The Far West? Can I?”

o “Dad, I don’t wanna watch Far West, you promised last week I could see Hanrahan, Private Eye!”

“He didn’t, he said I could watch Galactic Rover!”

Infantino sighed. Down at the firehouse, where his division headquarters was based, he often referred to his sons as “the menagerie” and kept telling David Lencho, a rookie hoseman in his company, how it was a full-time job to “tame the menagerie.” Lencho dreamed of getting married and Infantino delighted in describing the horrors of raising a family to him. It wasn’t that he didn’t love the boys. There were just those nights when he would have been perfectly willing to auction them off on the block. Tonight was one of them.

“Look, kids, none of you are going to watch anything -I’m going to look at the news. You want to see something Turn on the set in the playroom in the basement.”

“but it’s black and white!”

Jerry, the oldest, mumbled something about Quantrell, and Infantino caught his arm in a tight grip. “You use that kind of language in front of your mother, young man, and I’ll guarantee you won’t be able to sit down for a week.” The boy winced and Infantino let go, suddenly ashamed of himself. He was tired, he thought, too tired.

“Doris!” he yelled.

She came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands and brushing damp strands of hair out of her eyes.

“Doris, get your kids out of here, I want to watch the news.”

She shooed them into the basement, then said, “They’re all mine?

You didn’t have anything to do with it?”

He laughed. “Okay, okay-I was half responsible.

When do we eat?”

“What now.”She glanced at the set’and her eyes strayed to the clock on the mantel. “I can set up the TV tables and we can eat in here; the kids can serve themselves.”

Infantino nodded. “Why don’t we do that; I want to see what the bastard has to say tonight.”

She looked concerned. “Did he phone you again today?

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t take the call.”

“I wish you hadn’t taken any of them.”

He, glanced up at her, annoyed. “Don’t start in on me, Doris; don’t you think I wish the same?” She squeezed his shoulder lightly and went to the basement steps to announce that dinner was ready. That was something else Quantrell had screwed up for him, Infantino thought.

a liked dinner at home-there were few enough that he had away from the firehouse-with all the kids sitting around the table, noisy as they usually were, and Doris bringing in huge plates of pasta from the kitchen or her own special lamb stew, which he never ceased to brag about. there was something about Doris, small and efficient in her crisp apron and with just a touch of make-up, that he found highly arousing. The movie stars were for somebody else, he liked to think; show him a woman who could keep a house and raise the kids and still not let them fall apart and she was for him-you could have all the =A Now supper was a different affair, noisy but hurried if it was the six-o’clock news, and slow and usually deadly,quiet if it was after.

There was a special tension during the dinner hour and Infantino resented it and blamed mill for it.

Doris set up the TV tables and he started to nibble at his food to the parade of news slowly passed by. And then Quantrell appeared on the screen with that look of concern that his viewers found so charming and heartwarming.

“I don’t think he really gives a damn at all,” Doris said in a low Voice.

“Doris, please.”

On the screen, Quantrell started with a statistical approach, supported by a series of graphs flashed on a board behind him. The population of an average high rise during the working day, the difficulty of evacuating so many people down the stairwells in case of a fire, the hazards of using the elevators, the fire dangers from modern furnishings, and the impossibility of policing what tenants might bring into a building. Some film clips of fires in South America and -Japan, including one particularly terrifying segment on the high-rise fire in Sgo Pauto, Brazil. Then it was time for a commercial break and Quantrell’s request to stay tuned in because the next five minutes would be devoted to a story proving that if some of the developers in the city were not above the law, neither were they incapable of changing it.

“You haven’t touched your dinner, Mario.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Is what he says true?”

Infantino nodded slowly. “I wish it weren’t but it is.

I’d give a lot to be able to say he was lying.”

And then Quantrell was back again, this time standing in front of a huge blowup of the Glass House.

“People have accused me of picking on the building you see behind me.

They maintain that there are dozens of high rises throughout the_city which are inherently fireproof shells that have been filled with enough combustibles to Turn them into tinderboxes. And they’re absolutely right-the city has dozens-, hundreds, of such buildings.

There are measures, of course, that can be taken. One is an extensive sprinkler system. But sprinkler systems are frequently unpopular with tenants because they’re unsightly and unpopular with builders because they’re expensive. Some progressive builders have nevertheless installed sprinkler systems throughout, perhaps in return for lower insurance rates. But our local building codes do not require a building to be completely sprinklered and until they do, competition will deprive most high-rise tenants of that protection.

“The Department of Building and Safety, however, is not completely blind to the hazards of high-rise fires and the fire codes have other requirements that builders have to follow; granted that adherence in these codes is often a matter between the local contractor and the building inspector. The vast majority of inspectors are honest men who are paid relatively small salaries for the work they do. But it would be too much to expect all of them to be above temptation. However, the construction of the tall buildings that dot our skyline involves huge amounts of money, and big money frequently has methods of, getting its own way besides the obvious but crude one of bribery”For instance, consider the city code requirement that all buildings above a certain height have stairwells that are pressurized to keep out smoke and thus serve as a safe, interior fire escape for tenants. This is a vital, relatively cheap protection for the occupants of our sky scrapers.

Listen to what Mario Infantino has to say about them. Mr. Infantino is the youngest and most knowledgeable of our city’s division fire chiefs as well as first assistant chief fire engineer.”

Infantino cursed and felt Doris’ hand on his shoulder.

Quantrell had faded from the screen, to be replaced by Infantino’s own image in a street interview that had been taped weeks before. He leaned forward to catch the words of his television alter ego.

“… well, -of course, the pressurized stairwell is an obvious and straightforward approach to confining the, spread of smoke during a high-rise fire. It offers invaluable protection to the tenants of such buildings at a minimal cost. As a protective device, it’s probably next in importance only to sprinkler systems-and in buildings that are only partially sprinklered, it may be even more important for the safety of the average tenant.”

Quantrell’s image reappeared on the screen.

“It may come as a shock to our viewers that the building amendment requiring pressurized stairwells was repealed by the City Council shortly after construction began on the Glass House, well after its building permits had been approved. Coincidence? Perhaps.”

Behind him appeared an architect’s drawing of a portion of the Glass House. The date under the National Curtainwall logo was quite clear.

Drawings from the earliest design period for the Glass House show that the plans never included a pressurized stairwell, despite the fact that at the time National Curtainwall’s architects were designing the Glass House, building codes clearly required such stairwells.

Prior knowledge that this requirement would no longer exist. when the building was finished? A wish? A mere hope? The management of National Curtainwall, as usual, had nothing to say. Nobody at City Hall seemed to know either And when we called the Fire Department, the usually knowledgeable Division Fire Chief Mario Infantino could not be reached for comment.

Nevertheless, the conclusion is inescapable that somebody We repeat: Big money is a law unto itself; it has a way of writing its own codes. Good night and may God watch over all of us-particularly those of you who live high in the sky.”

Infantino stalked over to the set and abruptly switched it off.

“He’s a goddamned muckraker. That was just a warning to me-play ball or I get tarred with the same brush he’s using on everybody els.

I wasn’t ducking his question, I was just ducking him. Everything I say to the bastard gets twisted.”

“He’s causing trouble between you and Chief Fuchs, isn’t he?”

Infantino shrugged. “He’s not helping any. Fuchs thinks I’m trying an end run behind his back. I don’t know what the hell he’ll think after tonight.”

“Don’t talk to that TV man at all then,” Doris-said pragmatically.

“What you don’t say can’t hurt you” Infantino shook his head, exasperated. “As far as opening my mouth goes, it’s damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I’ve been an idiot, I’ve said too much in the past.

If I clam up now, it’ll look as if the department has muzzled me, or worse yet, that I’ve been bought off.”

There were sudden noises from the basement and the three boys came boiling back into the living room; the program they had finally settled on was over. In a moment they began to roughhouse, rolling around on the floor and bumping against Infantino’s chair.

“Look, kids, I’ve got a lot on my mind-how about taking it easy on your old man?”

“It’s not too early for bedtime,” Doris warned.

There was a sudden silence and then a plaintive “But tomorrow’s a holiday!”

“All right,” she said. “You can go back down and watch for another hour-but only on condition that you don’t bother your mother and father.”

“We promise!” And they were gone like wind-blown leaves back into the basement.

Infantino sank back in his chair, shaking his head. “My God, I don’t think I can stand the silence.”

Doris suddenly came over and sat on his lap. “I think the dishes can wait,” she half whispered. He wrapped her small waist in his thick arms and pulled her to him, delighting in the softness of her body against the muscles of his midsection. Her hair was moist against his face, still smelling faintly of the perfume in the hair spray she used.

He buried his face in it, breathing in the scent, and then his hands were moving gently over her body as they kissed.

“The children,” Doris said quietly.

“They won’t bother us for an hour, you know that You sent them away, remember?”

She laughed and he kissed her on the ear and then on the mouth, then gathered her in his arms and stood up.

She was light and warm and moved gently against him as he carried her into-the bedroom. She kicked off her shoes as they entered and shoved the door closed behind them.

He let her down on the bed and then lay down beside her, running his fingers through her hair. She seemed so small and fragile against his bulk, too small to have borne him three boys, he thought.

They touched and quickly the ritual of removing clothing, undoing each other’s buttons and snaps and zippers, pausing every now and then to kiss and hold each other.

He was terribly excited now, part of the thrill being the slow, tender way they went about touching each other, each of them enjoying the delicious tension of anticipation.

Later, when they were unclothed and he was making love to her in the darkness of the bedroom, he thought how very lucky he was. For a second Quantrell intruded on his thoughts and he wondered how the newscaster had obtained the architect’s drawing, how he had known about the possible code violation. Then all thoughts of Quantrell faded from his mind and Mario Infantino lowered himself into his wife, his muscular body spasming in her arms as her nails raked light streaks through the sweat that coated his back and buttocks.