The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 41

Barton could hardly wait for Leroux to show so he could wash his hands of the whole mess. But Leroux hadn’t come down in the first elevator load of evacuees from the Promenade Room. Neither had Thelma nor Jenny.

It occurred to him then that when Leroux finally did show up, there would actually be little left for him to do aside from facing the cameras. The lobby had been cleared and those tenants who hadn’t taken advantage of the reservations made for them elsewhere were sleeping on cots set up in the lower lobby coffee shop and the corridor just outside. A few had gathered around tables in the lunchroom to talk in quiet monotones and congratulate themselves on having made the select fraternity of survivors.

There had been other problems in addition to those of the residential tenants. Barton had managed to locate repairmen for the ventilation fans in the machinery rooms.

They promised him that in another hour all of the fans would be back in operation on exhaust to clear smoke from the building.

Ductwork to The upper floors was still intact for the most part.

Repair of the phone lines to the upper floors, however, would have to wait until the fire had been completely knocked down on the various floors.

Human problems had given him more trouble than the mechanical ones.

A representative of the insurance company for the Glass House had somehow gotten through the police barricades. ‘ Barton had finished a cup of coffee’in the lunchroom and when he came back up he discovered the man taping the operations of the firemen and -the damage in the lobby with a port-a-pal TV camera. When he refused to leave, Barton threw him out physically.

He had also pacified some of the commercial tenants whom the police had brought in after getting Barton’s permission. Most of them were desperately worried about the records in their offices; a few about the actual physical furnishings. Barton had reassured the majority of them.

To others he could offer little consolation beyond suggesting they contact their insurance companies once fire damage had been assessed.

Access to their offices was denied everybody, Barton telling them they would be informed once the Fire Department had secured. There would be a lot of lease cancellations when it was all over, he thought, but that was Leroux’s worry, not his.

There were a dozen tenants in the hospital with smoke inhalation and an equal number of firemen. And there were the missing who had yet to show up and about whom Barton felt an increasing anxiety. Douglas, Albina Obligado, Bigelow, Deirdre Elmon-whom Jernigan had insisted was still in the building, even though she had signed out-and a number of the residential tenants whom Barton didn’t know.

And then there had been the fatalities. A tenant who had died of smoke inhalation. And Michael Krost! The firemen had knocked down the blaze on seventeen, helped by the fact that it had almost burned itself out. They found the doors of the stalled elevator still open. An ambulance crew had taken out Krost’s remains, setting their stretcher down on the lobby floor to ask Barton for help in identification. It had taken a full sickening minute to place who the crisped heap had been. Barton made a tentative guess and the stretcher crew departed with their burden, the trailing edges of the covering blanket dripping dirty water that had collected on the lobby salvage cover.

All in all, Barton thought grimly, it could have been worse-much worse. The fire on seventeen had been knocked down, the few blazes on sixteen had been put out, and now eighteen was coming under control.

Infantino’s men were having problems with twenty-one-the fire had leapfrogged up the side of the building through a channel formed by warping of part of the Curtainwall-but as yet it wasn’t serious. But then, any fire was serious, or could be.

“Jenn down yet?” Infantino had come in from outside . with coffee for the communications crew.

“Not yet-she and the Lerouxes will probably be in the last load from the Promenade Room.” He glanced at the coffee cup in Infantino’s hand.

“Why didn’t you get your coffee from the lunchroom?”

“Garfunkel asked for volunteers and Typhoid Mary was the first in line-that woman hasn’t boiled water in her life. Any report from the hospital about Edwards?”

“Holding his own but still in intensive care. I told Garfunkel-they were pretty good friends.” He noticed a few hosemen waiting by the elevator bank to go up.

“What’s the situation on twenty-one?”

“The fire’s gotten a foothold in a number of the suites on the north side but we’re making headway.” Infantino sounded confident, then realized it, and immediately hedged his bets. “Don’t get your hopes up; fires are unpredictable. Have a failure in one of your machinery rooms and all bets are off. Or if we’ve made a mistake on our estimates of the fire loading on the floors above eighteen, we could be in trouble. And I told you earlier the building was like Swiss cheese; the fire could have worked its way through a dozen different poke throughs and be smoldering away in areas we don’t even suspect yet.”

He shouted instructions to a passing group of hosemen, then turned back-to Barton. “Why didn’t Leroux come down with the first load from the Promenade Room, Craig? I’m glad you’re here, but it isn’t going to look very good for him.”

“Apparently he’s running the evacuation up there, keeping them calm, preventing any panic, that sort of thing.”

He felt uneasy about the question. “Why do you ask?”

“There may be another reason-he’s hot copy and you’re not. The moment he sets foot in the lobby and the reporters hear about it, the cops will have a tough time keeping them away. They’ll be hard on him, any way you look at it. I think Leroux figured all of that out.”

“He could’ve,” Barton admitted. “He could be stalling for time until he’s thought of some answers to the questions they’ll ask, though he could always say ‘no comment.”In any event, that’s his problem.”

Infantino finished his coffee and crumpled the plastic cup. “Let’s go back to your maps again, I want to check on What’s above twenty-one. How far can we trust Garfunkel for knowing the fire loading?”

“I’d stake my life on him.”

“It won’t be yours but’ it might be somebody else’s.

Let’s give Your drawings, a double check.”

They walked over to the cigar stand and the communications relay center. Barton noted that there were fewer transmissions now.

Infantino had stopped sending out calls for more men, and in the rest of the city the functioning of the Fire Department had returned to near normal with no more units being put on alert.

They were deep in a discussion of the fire loading on twenty-one when a Policeman came up. “Mr. Barton there’s a man at the barricades insisting on seeing you.”

“I’m not seeing anybody,” Barton grunted, irritated at being interrupted. Then he sighed and put down his Pencil. “Who is he?”

“He said his name is William Shevelson-that he used to be construction foreman or something on the building.” Barton caught his breath. Shevelson. His eyes met Infantino’s. “Send him in.”

Shevelson strolled through the lobby a minute later, an unlighted cigar in his mouth. He was half a dozen inches shorter than Barton and about the same number widen They sized each other up for a long moment and Barton decided, as he had when he had first met Shevelson two years before, that he didn’t like him. Shevelson had a belligerent attitude that was difficult to assess, an attitude that said he considered everybody else to b an incompetent.

“You’re Barton.” Shevelson studied him a moment longer. “I met you once, remember it now. A couple years back.” He nodded at Infantino.

“Where’s Leroux?”

“He hasn’t come down from the Promenade Room yet.”

“If I were in his shoes I wouldn’t either.”

“You wanted to see me about something?” Barton asked stiffly.

“Yeah.” Shevelson hesitated a moment, then abruptly pushed a roll of blueprints at Barton. “If the bastard was here I’d make him sweat for these, but he’s not and I suppose you can use them.”

Barton took them. “Thanks a lot.” He wished he could put more feeling into the words, but Shevelson was a difficult man to be polite to. Then he caught Infantino’s eye again and suddenly they both knew.

Infantino said it for him. “You were the one feeding inside information to Quantrell, weren’t you?” There was hostility in his voice that he made no effort to disguise.

“He used me, too,” Shevelson said calmly. “I was an innocent just like you. So now we’re both wiser.” He pointed to the blueprints.

“If you want me to do penance there it is.”

“I don’t know if we need them now,” Barton said..

“Thanks anyway.” It was a dismissal; the blueprints wouldn’t tell him anything now.

Shevelson didn’t move. He looked around the lobby, then glanced briefly overhead. “Oh, I think you’ll need them all right.” He waved at Barton’s sketches spread out on the counter. “If I were you I’d toss those out and take a look at the prints. You might find them of interest.”

“You forget, I designed the Glass House,” Barton said.

“I haven’t forgotten. You designed it and I built it and Leroux didn’t do a goddamn thing but pay for it and that’s the catch. He didn’t pay very damn much.”

Something in his voice prompted Barton to spread the ,prints out over his own drawings. He glanced at them quickly. They were familiar-all too familiar-and took him back three years to when he had been working on them. It had been a long time ago, he thought, a time when he had been happier, if less wise. The happiness he missed and the wisdom he was unsure of.

The prints were very much as he remembered and then he suddenly started noticing inconsistencies-changes that had been made of which he had been unaware. He suddenly realized he was looking at the actual working prints, not the original drawings he had labored over while at Wexler and Haines.

There had to be somebody responsible, he thought sickly. It couldn’t have been Leroux alone. It was common practice for construction companies to suggest ways in which money could be saved, to suggest alternative materials and changes in specifications to the same end.

And Shevelson had been The construction company’s representative.

“You’re right, Shevelson, I designed it and you built it and you did a lousy job. If you want particulars we can begin with the duct holes.

Damned few were fire stopped; that’s one of the main reasons the fire spread so fast.”

Shevelson nodded affably and felt in his pockets for matches to light his cigar. Infantino took it out of his mouth. “I wouldn’t want one of my men to slug you -they’ve seen enough of fire for tonight.”

Shevelson shrugged. “That’s right, Barton; the duct holes probably weren’t fire stopped like they should have been.

Sloppy workmanship, I agree. But you know better than to talk to me about it. Talk to the utility people-they’re the ones who made the poke throughs. Or talk to one of the city inspectors from the Department of Building and Safety; he’s the guy who should have raised hell about it.

But maybe he had a heavy schedule that day and didn’t have time for much more than a walk-through. And, after all, the city’s not paying him enough for him to really bust his ass and find every little flaw, even if he had the technical expertise to know what he was looking for in the first place. Or maybe someone paid him to overlook every little flaw.”

“There should have been fire barriers in the stairwells to prevent smoke spread,” Barton said slowly. “That was your responsibility; we called for them.”

“So you did. But the city fire codes didn’t require them and maybe the developer considered them an expensive luxury. In this case, there was no maybe involved -he didn’t want them. At the time of construction, the city code didn’t require pressurized stairwells, either. Your original design called for them though, didn’t they?”

“That’s right, so why weren’t they pressurized?” Barton asked angrily.

Shevelson took out another cigar. “You sure I can’t smoke, Chief?

There’s enough water in the lobby here; I don’t think we need to worry about a few ashes on your salvage cover.” He lit up without waiting for permission and turned back to Barton. “Look, Barton, why do you think I was fired?

Because I approved of the changes that were made?” He shook his head.

“I don’t particularly like you but you designed a beautiful building.

Everything considered, you also designed a fairly safe one. I didn’t call for the changes; your boss did. I was just a flunky for the construction company.”

“You’re saying that Wyndom Leroux was responsible?”

“Who else? He paid the bills.” He turned and blew the cigar smoke away from them. “Maybe he was just being a good businessman.

You people draw up pretty plans and then somebody had to make an estimate and put it out to bid; or if it’s a scope project, find a construction company that will at least be reasonable. If the project’s up for bid it sure as hell better be a competitive bid.”

Barton shook his head. “It didn’t have to be. The construction company was a satellite company.”

Shevelson raised an eyebrow. “Knudsen? I knew Leroux had an interest, but I didn’t think it was that heavy a one. But it still doesn’t change things. Leroux wouldn’t stay in business very long if his own construction company couldn’t built his buildings at least as cheap as anybody else.”

He could imagine Leroux saying it, Barton thought: He was running a business, not a charity. He had settled for minimum compliance with the fire codes, cut costs to the 9) bone, and eliminated All the “frills.

“You sound like you’re defending him.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Shevelson was suddenly bitter. “I was fired because I didn’t agree with him, because I didn’t believe in building firetraps no matter how pretty they look against the skyline.”

He suddenly changed the subject, his eyes narrowing in anger.

“Where the hell were you during construction? You’re pretty loose with your accusations. What were you doing? You were senior architect; it was your baby more than anybody else’s.”

“I was transferred to Boston during the primary construction work,” Barton said tightly. “I was in San Francisco when they were working on the interior.”

Shevelson was contemptuous. “Your work in Boston was really important, wasn’t it? And have you really done anything more than spin your wheels in San Francisco?

It never occurred to you that Leroux might simply have wanted you out of town during the construction? That if you had stayed here, you would have asked to be site supervisor, and if you hadn’t gotten it you would have been over here every day anyways checking? Then what would you have done when you discovered that Leroux was cheapening it little by little? Blown your stack and quit? But Leroux got what he wanted.

He got you-and he got you out of the way.”

“You’re right,” Barton agreed angrily. “I would have blown my stack.

But there’s one difference between us, Shevelson: You knew. I didn’t.

Why didn’t you go to the city officials or to the Fire Department?

You knew what he was doing. You knew all the violations; what did you do about them?”

“That’s.the point,” Shevelson said slowly. “There really weren’t any violations. Oh, maybe a few minor ones here and there,. But nothing major. And nothing I could prove.

Some coincidences perhaps, like the sudden change in city fire codes eliminating pressurized stairwells. My case was essentially an emotional one so I took it to the papers and the television stations and, nobody did anything but Quantrell. Now, God knows, I’m sorry about that.” Shevelson stood there for a moment, his face drawn, fighting to keep his anger on the inside. Barton and Infantino kept silent and waited. “Everything he did was Perfectly - - . legal. A little chintzing here and a little chintzing there until finally the building was a weak version of what it was meant to be. Maybe it was no more dangerous than other buildings in the city, but this was one that I built.” He cocked his head at Barton, the expression on his face that of a man who doubts that he’s really being understood.

“You want to know who writes the fire codes in this city, Barton?

Ask the developers. Ask the people who own the buildings; they’re the ones who write the codes.

The Fire Department inspectors come around and it’s cut and dried.

Are the valves set right? Do they work? Is the fusible on a fire door installed properly? But there are other questions to be asked and nobody seems to be asking them’ Why did this city remove the requirement for pressurized stairwells from its fire code? How come New York required neither pressurized stairwells nor smoke shafts until 1973? Why did Los Angeles allow shingle roofs-one of the greatest possible fire hazards -for so long? Who brings the political pressure to bear?

This city isn’t unique, Barton.”

He was making an indictment and a plea for understanding all at the same time, Barton thought. And at least for the moment he could see beyond the facade and understand the contempt Shevelson felt for lesser men. He had met so many of them.

“Where’s all this leading to?” Infantino asked impatiently.

“We’ve still got a fire here.”

And it wasn’t out yet, Barton thought. But Shevelson had reminded him of something: The building was his; he was kidding himself if he thought he could walk away from it. He twisted the blueprints around so they were facing Shevelson. “What are the risks we don’t know anything about? I could spend all night looking for them; you probably know them by heart.”

Shevelson was suddenly all business. “Assume the worst. There are probably few of the duct holes that are properly fire stopped and the building is peppered with them. Dangerous and sloppy, but I’m sure it was fast, easier, and cheaper; the utility people had to make a buck and Leroux wasn’t paying much. So they chintzed, too. You can assume the building has very little fire integrity. You can also assume that some of the main girders are exposed in places where ducts pass directly beneath them and are strapped to them for support. Or maybe conduits are strapped to them. In either event the fireproofing would have been scraped off the beam and five will get you ten it was never replaced.

It’s standard practice-and in a big fire, it can buckle a floor on you.

But your big worry is probably right here.”

He took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed the lighted end at a ‘portion of the blueprint. “The utility core. The old-fashioned method of building a fire-rated core wall was to make it from terracotta blocks and then plaster over that. What we use now is Pyrobar. It has a high fire rating but, structurally speaking, it’s not very strong. The bad design feature is that there are some, storage rooms, both those for the building itself and those for commercial and business tenants, that share a common wall with the utility core. Now remember that the gas, electric, steam, and some of the phone lines go directly up the core. It’s conceivable that if one of the storage rooms should catch fire and burn out of control, you’d be in for trouble, depending on the fire loading. And in storage rooms, it’s usually high.”

Barton looked up at Infantino. “What are the chances?”

“Not very good.” Infantino didn’t seem impressed. The one storage room fire we’ve had is under control. He glanced over at Shevelson.

“But thanks for bringing the Prints; it’s a help to know where things really are.”

Shevelson managed a quick smile. “I remember some professor saying a high-rise building is the biggest machine there is but nobody’s written an operating manual for it yet. These were the best I could do.” He stared down at the prints for a moment, then glanced around again at the lobby. “It’s a beautiful building,” he said quietly. “It’s mostly yours, Barton, but a good piece of it is mine, too. I had to do what I could; I wouldn’t even have held up Leroux, much as I despise him.”

“You didn’t despise him at the start, did you?” Barton suddenly asked.

For a moment Shevelson was lost in thought.

‘No, I didn’t. At first, I thought he was one of the most capable men I had ever met.”

Another load from the scenic elevator suddenly emptied into the lobby. Barton searched the faces of the people getting off. There had been how many loads so far? Ten?

Eleven? Leroux had to be on the next one.

And so did Jenny.