He waved to Clairmont’s secretary and walked past ‘her desk before she could stop him. He knocked on the door once and walked in. “Hi, Vic, just thought I’d check bases before taking off to watch Leroux’s building burn.”
Clairmont leaned back in his chair and glanced at his watch.
“Well, I lose-I bet Marge it would take you two minutes to get here once you were off the air and it’s taken you all of three. What kept you?”
Cool, Quantrell thought. “The autograph seekers in the hall-there’s a whole mob of them out here.” He took the chair by the desk. “Are you sore because I was right, VicI thought you were a bigger man than that.”
“You went over my head,” Clairmont said tightly. “Do you expect me to congratulate you about that? My uncle called ten minutes before you went on the air; otherwise you would have been playing to a dead camera.”
Quantrell managed to look contrite. “I knew I was right and I went to any lengths to prove it. If you’re sore, blame fate-I didn’t set fire to the building. In the long run, I think my actions and attitudes will be of benefit to the station.”
“And to Jeffrey Quantrell’s personal ambitions?”
“I didn’t know it was a crime to be ambitious. If it is then I’m guilty of it and I imagine you are, too.”
“I’ll be goddamned if I’ll have you running upstairs on every little thing, now that you’ve pulled this one Off”, Clairmont flared.
“You wouldn’t have done the same thing in my shoes?”
Quantrell asked calmly. “I think you would’ve, especially if you believed in what you were doing as much as I do.”
He leaned forward. “You didn’t leave me any choice, Vic-you had greased the skids for a quick trip back to the sticks and I wasn’t going to go without a fight. If it helps, the visit to the Old Man was strictly a one shot.
I don’t play billiards that well and sooner or later he’s going to remember that I broke his favorite cue.”
Clairmont half smiled. “He told me about that, too.”
Quantrell studied him for a moment. “The story isn’t over yet; it will take a lot of work and a lot of cooperation from your end. From now on, it’s your story-as much as mine and I’ll make sure the Old Man knows it.”
“Don’t -do me any favors, Jeff,” Clairmont said, but Quantrell could tell his temper had been blunted. The Old Man had never forgiven his nephew for not being a hard-nosed newspaperman. Above all else, the Old Man had wanted to be proud of him and that was the angle to play.
So much for the younger Clairmont, Quantrell thought easily.
“What I’ll need is the station’s complete backing,” Quantrell said, realizing wryly that it sounded a shade too pompous for even Clairmont to swallow. He stood up. “Zimmerman is waiting for me outside with his cameraman. With good luck, maybe I’ll even get an interview with Leroux.”
Clairmont sighed. “Jeff, relax for. a moment. We’ve still got a minor problem. The police have called and want to know your sources for the inside information.
character on the arson squad-Petucci, you know him “A nebbish.
You’ve got lawyers on retainer; let them handle him.”
“Okay.” He started to dial his phone and Quantrell got up to go when Clairmont suddenly looked up. “By the way, who the hell were your sources?”
“Your uncle never told you?”
He was too busy talking about you ; he never had time to mention anybody else.”
“Will Shevelson, former construction foreman. Had a fight with Leroux and got canned.”
Clairmont stared at him for a moment, then leaned back and laughed.
“Jesus Christ, I might’ve known! Shevelson!”
Quantrell felt something kick in his stomach. “I don’t get it, what’s so funny?”
Clairmont shook his head, still half laughing. “I should’ve guessed it. Six months ago that nut made the rounds of every newspaper and radio and TV station in town trying to peddle his story. I thought he was paranoid and threw him out. You’re lucky the building went up; if it hadn’t, ten to one you’d be a loser. I wouldn’t believe the bastard if he told me the sun was going to rise in the morning.”
“The building’s burning,” Quantrell said simply. “Everything he ever told me checked out.”
“Jeff.” Clairmont was serious now, all business. “Be careful how you play it. Particularly when it comes to Leroux himself. Plenty of perfectly legitimate businessmen have had fires. Shevelson-hates Leroux enough to twist the facts and maybe tell outright lies. If we can make a criminal negligence case against Leroux, that’s one thing. But it can’t be based on just what Shevelson says.
It’s sticky now and we’ll have to have a company lawyer right here in the office on the other end of your phone line checking out every word of your copy. There’s no other way to play it.”
Quantrell shrugged. “You’ve got your responsibilities; I’ve got mine.- As far as playing the story, I intend to use the Glass House only as an example. There are a lot of Glass Houses in the country; the problem is nationwide.
Other stations will pick up our coverage.”
Clairmont looked thoughtful. “I’m well aware of that.
Well, what do you want? What can we do for you?”
“I’ll need the Number Two mobile truck and probably the traffic helicopter before it’s over.”
“They’re all yours, though I don’t think you’ll be able to get the helicopter close enough to do you any good.
The downdrafts around the building will be pretty strong.”
Quantrell was at the door when Clairmont said quietly, “Got any ideas for an encore, Jeff?”
Clairmont’s ace, Quantrell suddenly thought. In another twelve hours or less, the story would be over. It would be yesterday’s news, and old news and dead fish stank after the fourth day. He could single out Leroux and make him into a villain, but Clairmont had as much as said he wouldn’t be allowed to do that. It would be a great story, but in winning for the short term, he had lost for the long one.
“I’ll think of something,” he said as he left.
Outside, Bridgeport was waiting his Turn with the great man. He was uncertain how to react to Quantrell and tried a casual smile first.
“Congratulations, Jeff; it was a great show.”
“It’s always a great show,” Quantrell said coldly. “But it takes talent to realize it.”
He returned to his office to pick up his tape recorder and then catch Zimmerman who was waiting outside in his car, probably swearing up a storm by now. Sandy was there at the typewriter, her coat on.
He glanced at her. “Where the hell are you going, Sandy?” & She looked at him, half frightened. “You’ll be busy covering the Glass House. I called up my date and told him I’d meet him a little later on.”
He sat in a swivel chair near hers and took her hands in his.
“Sandy, Sandy, I can’t have you leave now. I’ll be on the phone to you half the night with reports and figures and probably requests for equipment. You’re my go-between here; you can’t leave me now.”
“I’ve talked to Angie.” She bit her-lip to keep herself from shaking. “She said she’d cover for me, that chances were you wouldn’t have much time to call in at all.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never worked with Angle, I wouldn’t trust her to put a stamp on an envelope. It’s you I need, Sandy; you’re my personal anchorman back here.” He shrugged a shoulder at the newsroom just outside. “You think I would trust the, dummies out there to do what I wanted?” He let his voice become softer. “Look, Sandy, tonight I picked up all the marbles-I won the game. And you were as much responsible for my success as I was. I told Victor that, I even mentioned-you to the Old Man.” He let his shoulders droop helplessly.
“If you want to go I can’t stop you. But I depend on you, Sandy, I need you. -But if you want to duck out for the evening have a good time.”
“If you really need me,” sh
e said uncertainly.
He squeezed her hand. “He means very much to you, doesn’t he, Sandy?” She looked startled and he forced a smile. “You can’t hide it, I’ve known you too long. But if he likes you that much, Sandy, then surely he’d understand about tonight. And when it’s all over with, I’ll take you both out for a night on the town that you’ll never forget. Okay?”
She finally nodded. “Sure,” she said quietly. “I’d like that.”
Her voice held no enthusiasm and he realized it really was hearts-and-flowers time. Well, there were still some bridges to be crossed before then. But losing Sandy right now played no part in his scheme of things.
He squeezed her hand once more, then hurried into his office and found his tape recorder and stuffed a handful of cassettes into his pocket. He checked the recorder to see that it was on full charge, then grabbed his overcoat off the rack and struggled into it.
Zimmerman was probably calling him every name in the book.
He brushed quickly through the newsroom, past several girls clattering away at their typewriters and a processing man heading back to the developing room with a reel of sixteen-millimeter film. It was going to be one busy night, he thought. Just before going out the door, he glanced back quickly at Sandy, who was listlessly dialing her phone.
Dumb broad, he thought.
CHAPTER 28
“That mouthy little bastard is the most self-serving son of a bitch I’ve ever met! And I knew it from the start; goddamnit, I knew it all the time!” Will Shevelson rose from the couch, strode over to the set, and punched the off switch. The image of Jeffrey Quantrell suddenly went mute and dwindled to a point of light. “You want a beer, Marty?”
Marty Hodgehead stretched in his chair, smothered a yawn and said, “Yeah, I could use one.”
Shevelson took two cans from the den’s refrigerator, tossed one to Hodgehead, and pulled at the ring of his own. “He’s a real bastard, Quantrell.” Shevelson went back to the couch and sat down, moody in the sudden silence. He was a burly, thick-muscled man in his late forties. Dressed in loose corduroys and an olive work shirt open at the neck, he looked a little like Rodin’s “The Thinker.” He glanced around the book-lined shelves of his study, his eyes stopping at the small collection of photographs just above his desk. All were of buildings he had worked on in the last twenty years. Several of them were National Curtainwall’s, the last an eight-by-ten color print of the Glass House. All good buildings, he thought, even the Glass House-at least from the outside.
Hodgehead had followed his eyes. “Look, Will, forget it. It’s all over and done with. They’ll put the fire out; this time there’ll.be a real investigation and Leroux will get his. What more do you want?”
“His skin, so I can tack it up on the wall,” Shevelson muttered. His thick right hand suddenly spasmed in ai and beer geysered out of the can. “Shit, let me get a He came back from behind the bar with a damp cloth and swiped at the floor tiles. “I don’t know if I can explain it to you, Marty. The Glass House was my baby, but every day I worked on her, I felt more and more like a pimp who was selling his own daughter.”
Leroux kept cutting corners, he thought, and he forced himself to go along. Finally the day came when Leroux showed up on the forty-fourth floor of the unfinished building with the latest drawings spelling out still more changes. Nothing that would hold them up . .
. just new specifications for cheaper materials, short cuts in construction.
Shevelson blew his stack.
“Did I ever thank you for stopping me from hitting the bastard?”
Hodgehead nodded.. “A dozen times.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “If you had connected Leroux would have gone right over the edge. It would’ve been a long drop, Will.”
Shevelson nodded. He had replayed the scene a dozen times in his head and hadn’t yet made up his mind whether it filled him with terror or regret. He hadn’t waited for the official notice of dismissal but had taken the construction elevator down the side of the building, got into his car and driven home. His paycheck had arrived by special delivery the next day, and that had been the end of his career in the building trades. Nobody in the city was willing to-risk Leroux’s anger and considering the circumstances-in those moments when he was stone sober and coldbloodedly objective about it-he couldn’t blame them.
Who would hire a construction foreman who was willing to kill you if you disagreed with him? Leroux himself had never pressed charges, partly because of lack of witnesses.
Shevelson half smiled in remembrance. “I guess I’ve also thanked you a dozen times for clamming up when Knudsen called you in at the investigation.” Knudsen Construction had damn near. lost the contract and been sued in the bargain, he mused.
“So you tripped and fell during an argument. It can happen, with all the crap that’s lying around on an unfinished floor. But if you had actually connected and Leroux went over …” He shrugged. “I guess it would’ve been a different story. One of the guys would’ve chickened out, you know that. But it didn’t happen, so why worry about it?” He hesitated a moment. “You ain’t asking, but I think you should’ve kept your mouth shut later.”
Shevelson nursed his beer and nodded. His feud with Leroux and the Glass House became an obsession the first few months afterward. He contacted newspapers and radio and television stations, trying to tell them what Leroux had done, and was doing, until everybody had figured that he was some kind of nut. There had been a short story or two in the newspapers,’ a brief abortive investigation that Leroux managed to get quashed, and the story died.
Shevelson went to get another can of beer and turned the TV set back on, staring at tiny figures running across a too-green gridiron.
He fiddled a moment with the color and hue controls. “How’s that?”
“Looks fine, but it ain’t gonna help ‘em win.”
Shevelson sat back on the couch cushions. “You know, Marty, I think I was disappointed in Leroux as much as anything else. Damnit, the world’s run by assholes but I had never considered Leroux to be one; in fact, I thought he was one of the most capable people I ever met. He had knowledge, energy …” He searched for the word.
“Integrity, too, I guess you’d call it.”
“Until it came to the Glass House.”
“That’s right, until it came to the Glass House.” What changed Leroux? he wondered. He really didn’t have to make the compromises he made; he wasn’t in a money bind. Them were compromises to be expected, but there was usually a point past which a man wouldn’t go. But Leroux was willing to buy any patchwork scheme that would save a dollar. He was lavish when it came to the external appearances of the building, but the end result was still that Leroux sold his principles and apparently did so without a qualm.
For himself, Shevelson thought … well, he’d manage well enough.
He finally found a job as building supervisor for this small apartment complex complete with apartment and settled into a quiet life of tinkering around the apartments during the day and drinking beer and watching television at night. After three marriages and three divorces, he had decided that he was a loner and solitude was something he accepted almost with relief.
“How come you ever got tied up with that schmuck on the K.Y.S news show?” Hodgehead asked.
“Because I’m an idiot,- because I couldn’t leave it alone,” Shevelson said, his mood suddenly gloomy. “I got out the blueprints one day and I was going over them and got carried away. So I called up Quantrell and he invited me to lunch and I spilled my guts.” He had done more than that, he thought. He had fed the bastard everything he knew of for a certainty and quite a few things he.had only suspected.
He grimaced. “It was a cheap shot, Marty … you don’t have to tell me that. I could have gone to the Building Trades Council; I could have done a dozen other things than what I did. I wanted to hurt Leroux as bad as I could; a slap on the wrist from the Council wouldn’t have satisfied me.”
, �
�The construction techniques weren’t all that bad,” Hodgehead said slowly. “Quite a few of them are common practice.”
“Whose side are you on, Marty?” Shevelson looked at him angrily, then waved a hand. “Okay, you’re part right.
But just because something’s common practice doesn’t make it good practice. One by one, you might defend them. Put them all together and you wind up with a building in which some of the construction techniques or materials haven’t been tested outside of a laboratory, a few others that are borderline, and some that you can get away with because your local building code doesn’t specifically forbid them.” He drained his can of beer and crumpled it in his hand. Something was beginning to surface in the back of his mind. He fished for it but it eluded him. He let his attention drift back to the television screen.
Second down and eight to go and the defense was weak; it should be a snap.
“I guess I would have done the same if I had been in your shoes,” Hodgehead said. “She was your baby from the star-t. Let’s face it, a building actually belongs to the men who make her, not the men who pay for her.”
That’s what was wrong, Shevelson thought suddenly.
The Glass House had been his baby-and what was bothering him was that it still was. Maybe somebody else had designed it and somebody else had finished it, but with all its faults the Glass House was still his more than anybody else’s. It was the most beautiful building in the city and like Pygmalion with his statue, during the slow process of construction, he had fallen in love with it.
Now it was going up in smoke and he was just sitting there, drinking his beer and watching the replay of a football game.
With all its faults … And who knew them better than he? Not Leroux. To him, the building had been a rendering and a sheaf of figures from his accounting department telling him what it was costing and how much he could save… . And not the guy they had-called in from the East Coast to wrap up the project after he had gotten the can.
So long as he collected his paycheck every Tuesday, the bastard hadn’t given a damn. In any event, he had flown back East immediately after the,dedication and there was probably no locating him on short notice.
The Glass Inferno Page 19
