The Glass Inferno

CHAPTER 55

A dozen emergency lanterns had been set at straight points in the lobby and Barton could now see his way around without tripping over the folds in the salvage covers or bumping into the furniture. Donaldson was trying to locate a mobile emergency generator. If he succeeded they could start stringing lights up the stairwells for the firemen.

Most of the tenants in the lower lobby lunchroom had elected to transfer to nearby hotels after the explosions.

The lobby now reminded Barton more than ever of a ship at sea stripped for action.

“Mr. Barton?” Garfunkel had returned from an inspection tour of the basement garage.

“How is it downstairs, Dan?”

“It’s empty now-the tanks are pumped out and all the cars have been transferred. There was one casualty.”

Barton tensed. “What do you mean?”

“It was a car,” Garfunkel added hastily. “When the lights went out, one of the hikers smashed into a pillar -totaled the front end.

The car’s already been-towed.

Incidentally, Joe wants to go home. Says he’s freezing his balls off down there.”

Barton nodded. “Let him go-and tell him thanks. I’ll see to it that Leroux says thanks in a more substantial way.”

“He could probably use it, but I think he’ll appreciate your thanks more.”

“See how Donaldson’s doing on that generator, will you, Dan? And if there’s any coffee left in the lunchroom, bring me a cup. I don’t care whether it’s cold or not.”

Garfunkel disappeared and Barton went back to his blueprints, staring at them but not actually seeing them.

Shevelson was down in the lunchroom and Barton was by himself when Infantino came up.

Barton looked up at him. “Bad?”

“Sixteen through eighteen are gutted, nineteen through twenty-five are on fire, and it’s going to be slow going there.

I’ve asked Southport to send all the men an equipment they can spare, including shape charges.”

“Got any plans for them?”

Infantino shrugged. “Not really, but if we want them, we’ll have them on hand.”

“And the fire in the sixty-fourth-floor machinery room?” Barton asked slowly. “There’s no way of getting to that ‘ is there? We just stand here and let it burn, right?” Infantino looked tired. “Wrong, ‘Craig. Southport’s sending a Seagrave pumper that’s a monster-it’s a new model that will deliver more than fifteen hundred gallons per minute at over 400 p.s.i.”

“That’s Greek to me, Mario. What’s it mean?”

“It means we don’t need the booster pumps-we can hook it up to the dry standpipe and we’ll have usable water pressure to more than eight hundred feet. The pumper was one of the items in disagreement between Fuchs and me; he couldn’t see any use for it except maybe once in a blue moon. By his lights, he had a point.

Neither of us expected a blue moon so soon.” He glanced around the lobby, then noticed several hosemen disappearing into the stairwell.

“I’ve already started to send hosemen up in relays so they can connect up as soon as the pumper gets here. Between now and then He shrugged.

“Any more casualties from the explosion?”

Infantino looked strained. “A rookie named Lencho.

The puppy-dog type that you rag a lot; I knew him pretty well. The first explosion killed him instantly.”

“Young Fuchs?”

“They haven’t found his body yet, so I guess there’s still hope.

I’m more worried about the chief. Miller tells me he went in on sixteen looking for his son and nobody’s seen,him since. Five, ten more minutes and he’ll be out of air.”

Barton started to ask another question when there was the distant rumble of a muffled explosion. Infantino said, “Oh, Christ! ” and ran over to the comm center in the cigar stand. He came back a few moments later. “Another gas explosion on sixty-four-it’s really going up now.”

He hesitated. “One of the hosemen was almost up there and he had a walky-talky with him.

He reports that the stairwell is filling with debris blown out by the explosion. It’ll be more difficult to get men up there now.”

The Promenade Room was two floors above, Barton thought, and it would be a while before the Southport pumper got there. Whoever was in the Promenade Room was now directly threatened. And if Jenny wasn’t in the elevator, she was there. For a moment he felt his emotions start to buckle, then deliberately throttled his feelings. You did the best you could, and for the rest you hoped. And prayed.

Shevelson came up from down below and handed Barton a cup of coffee.

“Compliments of your security chief -says he warmed it with his -lighter.” He looked at Infantino. “Didn’t know you were here, Chief, or I would’ve brought you one as well.”

Infantino nodded. “Thanks anyway.” He turned to Barton. “Can we get Donaldson back up here? He’d know the fire loading on the floors just below the machinery room, wouldn’t he?”

Shevelson interrupted. “So do I.” He shrugged at Barton’s questioning look. “I’ve never lost touch, Barton.

I was curious how they were going to fuck it up and I’ve got lots of friends in contracting. They kept me informed.” He riffled through the blueprints until he found those of the upper floors. “You’ve got five floors of unfinished apartments-“

“Infantino?”

Quantrell had walked up behind them, minus his cameraman.

“I told y6u to get the hell away from my working crews,” Infantino said tightly. “You can consider this a working crew.”

Quantrell ignored him. The faintly mocking look was gone from his face. “We’ve got our news helicopter up there and they’ve made a few passes past the Promenade Room. The pilot says there’s maybe twenty or more people in the room-it’s hard to tell since it’s lit only candles.”

He glanced at Barton, paused a moment, continued. “He also took a pass by the. scenic elevator.

He swore it slipped a little while the photographer was taking his footage. He thinks the emergency brakes may be going.”

It was Barton who said “Thanks” in a soft voice as Quantrell walked away. Infantino touched his shoulder briefly, then turned to Shevelson. “Five floors of unfinished apartments,” he repeated.

“What’s on them?”

Shevelson started to methodically list the contents-the stacks of tile and lumber, the sheets of plywood, the five-gallon cans of paint and varnish, cans of sealer and adhesive, wallboard, rolls of carpeting and wallpaper, cartons of kitchen appliances packed in excelsior, a dozen other items. Barton caught Infantino’s eye. The upper floors were a tinderbox. ‘ . “Once they start to go,” Shevelson finished quietly, “I don’t think you’ll be able to stop them.”

There was silence for a long moment afterward. Suddenly Infantino looked puzzled and held up his hand for quiet just as Barton was about to speak. Barton heard it then. A faint pounding from the doors to the elevator shaft, far too regular to be debris falling into it.

Infantino shouted over to the comm center: “Get a couple of men in here with pry bars!”

A moment later several firemen lumbered in and Infantino motioned them over to the elevator shafts, pausing by the doors until he located the one from which the noises came. Barton and Shevelson walked up as the men wedged their pry bars between the shaft doors and slowly muscled them open. For a moment all they could see was the darkness of the shaft with a faint glow from the bottom where burning debris had hit.

Barton found a lantern and held it close to the doors. Three men were hanging on a cable about five feet in. One of them held a pulldown hook with which he had been tapping on the shaft. doors.

Infantino grabbed the extended end and pulled the man and the cable slowly toward the doors until the firemen in the lobby could grab the hands of the others hanging to the cable and swing them onto the floor.

The three men collapsed on the salvage covers and one of them immediately vomited. The other two just huddled on the floor, their faces strained and blank.

Barton got a quick look at their hands and felt like turning away; their palms were black and bleeding.

“What happened?” Infantino asked after a second.

The youngest of the men was the first to speak. His eyes looked wild. “Four of us were trapped in an elevator about the eighteenth-floor level. There was no way out but to come down the cables.”

Infantino said, “You say there were four of you. What happened to the fourth?”

“He was Ron Gilman,” the young man said. His voice started to break then. “He never got a good grip to begin with and he couldn’t hold on.

He was the last one on the cable. When he felt himself slipping, he jumped to one side so he wouldn’t take us with him.” The tears were leaking down his face now, mixing with the grease and the soot and the mucus from his nose. “He made me go first because he was afraid I would slip. Oh, Jesus Christ!” He broke completely then and started to cry.