Heavy clouds of smoke now boiled through the corridor, laced with occasional tongues of fire. He started to cough. Christ, the whole place was going up. He pulled at the door from force of habit and jumped back as it fell from its hinges, almost trapping him under it.
In the hallway, the dense, black smoke bit into his lungs, starting another fit of coughing. Every now and then a puff of hot, wet air condensed on his face and he realized the steam lines in the, building must have broken. Far away, he could hear the cries of firemen coming from one of the stairwells to which they had retreated. A beam of light from a flashlight cut momentarily through the murk and he dodged to one side. He would try and get to the other stairwell; chances were all the firemen were at the nearest one. He knew where it was; he could feel his way to it.
He stooped low to avoid most of the smoke and held out his hand in front of him; the light from the small fires in-the corridor was becoming stronger now and he would have to hurry to avoid being seen.
He ran forward, doing his best not to cough, and in the next instant sprawled over an abandoned fire hose, the brief case spinning out of his grasp. Its catch snapped and packages of bills held together by rubber bands bounced across the corridor floor.
He grabbed at them, then realized he was on the edge of hell itself.
A few feet beyond the shattered wall of the utility core, part of.
the floor itself was gone, the rest of it sloping gently down into the gap in the wall. Through the breech he could seethe stark utilitarian outlines of the interior of the utility core itself. For a moment he was paralyzed with fear and hugged the floor, staring at the bundles of bills and the brief case lying just beyond his fingertips.
For a long moment he lay there; then he sensed a slow draft of air in the corridor flowing toward the open utility core. Scattered bills from a broken bundle of fifties stirred slightly with a life all their own, then tumbled like wind-blown leaves into the chasm beyond. Hughes whimpered and crawled forward, grabbing frantically for the bills. A clump of them caught on an exposed section of wire mesh and reinforcing rods where the concrete floor had been shattered. There was fire on the floor beneath, and in the rising heat-some of the bills began to blacken and then burst into flame, setting fire to the other bills on the mesh.
Freedom, the Adriatic coast, a new life were burning up just beyond his reach. It was too much for Hughes.
He got to his knees and clutched for the money, frantically trying to beat out the flames. One packet of bills rolled toward the, mesh, smoldered while he was trying to beat out the flames on individual bills, and started to burn around the edges. Hughes grabbed for it, then suddenly realized his hands were blistering and his face was raw from the heat. The hot air began to sear his lungs.
He tried to roll back, away from the jagged mesh and the chasm beyond. Suddenly the small section of floor that he was on tipped and crumbled. He toppled forward and caught the full strength of the heat from the fire below.
For an instant he was looking straight down the core for the entire eighteen floors.
He tried desperately to pull back, his feet scrabbling on powdered concrete. For a brief moment he was poised on the edge, like a figure in a freeze frame of a motion picture. Then the floor beneath him was gone and he plunged into the smoky darkness’of the utility core.
Time slowed and he could feel himself tumbling in the strong draft?
from the bottom of the shaft. He felt a touch of heat and as he turned looked up to see the final bundle of burning bills falling toward him.
The fiery packet of money looked for all the world like a great flaming eye set in the face of some terrible, avenging God.
CHAPTER 53
Douglas was completely unprepared for the explosions.
The stairwell lights went out immediately after the first blast.
There had been two explosions some floors below and then a more muffled one somewhere above them. It was the last one that worried him the most. He had hoped they could reach the Promenade Room and then take the elevators back down, or else simply wait while. the firemen put out the fires on the lower floors.
The explosions shattered his hopes and with the sudden darkness came new fear. Albina had been terrified at first; now she had simply withdrawn. She-obviously did not expect to live out the night and was resigned to it.
Jesus had immediately gone to pieces and Douglas had to slap him out of his hysterics. After that, they had followed him in silence up the shadowy stairwell; the only light was that which came from the windows at the various landings. Albina needed more and more help and the rest stops became more frequent. There was little smoke at this height, however.
Douglas was now halfway up the landing to the sixty-fourth floor.
He turned to wait for Albina, who was half pulling herself up the stairs with one hand on the railing and the other on Jesus’ shoulder.
She stopped to rest; both she and Jesus were breathing heavily.
“Come on, come on,” Douglas called impatiently. “Do you need help?”
“Go to hell, man; We’ll make it.” Jesus sounded exhausted and Douglas felt sorry for him. From pride, Jesus had taken over the task of helping his mother up the steps. He had continued to help her through sheer grit and gutter courage, though Douglas also admitted that part of it-may have been due to his own constant ragging and shaming of Jesus. Now the kid was trembling with fatigue.
Douglas walked back down a few steps and held out his hand.
“Here, Albina, grab hold.” Jesus started to brush his hand aside, then shrugged as Albina clutched Douglas’ fingers. Between them, they supported her for the last few steps.
“How much farther?” Jesus asked. In the dimly lit stairwell, he looked almost green.
“One more flight and we’ll be at the Observation Deck,” Douglas said.
“We should be able to get in there.”
The stairwell was open at the top and the bottom and from what he remembered, the top was the Observation Deck. They could get up to the Promenade Room from there but that was by an interior flight of steps that connected only the deck and the restaurant itself.
Jesus nodded, then suddenly looked up at Douglas, his face twisted with anger. “You dumb son of a bitch!”
Douglas reddened. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The electricity, man! All the lights went out when we heard the explosions, right? We should’ve tried the doors right then, the locks must have gone out, too!”
Douglas stared, then turned to the door behind him.
Sixty-four. The machinery-room floor just below the Observation Deck. He reached out and touched the knob, then jerked back. “Not this one,” he said grimly. “Let’s get up to the Observation Deck right away.”
Jesus hung back. “Not me, man. I’m getting off right here. I’m not going to walk up one more goddamn flight of stairs if it kills me.”
“Come on,” Douglas said shortly. “We’re in danger here.”
As Jesus started for the knob, Douglas grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Go ahead and touch it,” he said softly. “But just touch it, don’t try to open the door.
Okay?”
Jesus looked annoyed, reached out and touched the knob, then yanked his hand back. “All right,” Douglas said. “Upstairs and fast.”
They both grabbed Albina and half dragged, half carried her up the stairs.
They reached the next landing just as there was a soft explosion behind them. The door they had just tried blew off its hinges into the stairwell; a blast of hot air and flames followed Douglas had expected it-the knob had been hot and there had been the faint odor of gas.
There had probably been one gas explosion earlier, the explosion they had heard above them. Another pocket of gas had probably built up by the door.
What that meant, he thought slowly, was that they had outraced the fire by forty floors only to find it waiting for them. “Come on,” he said, fighting for calm. “One
more flight to go.” He felt his voice shake and hoped that Jesus wouldn’t notice.
Jesus shook his head dumbly. “What’s the use, man?
I’m beat. We come this far and the fucking fire’s kept right up with us.” He sounded near tears. Douglas inspected the boy’s face in the light from the landing window. Before he had seemed older, perhaps eighteen. Now he knew that couldn’t be true. He was maybe fifteen, at best sixteen-Fatigue and defeat had dissolved the hard look. He was just a kid, Douglas thought. But then, they aged fast on the street.
Thank God that the adrenalin in his system had countered the earlier withdrawal symptoms.
“What are you going to do?” Douglas asked. “Just sit there?
Wait until the fire gets to the Observation Deck and you’re trapped here?
NO way up, no way down? You’ll move fast enough then, but it won’t do you any good.
Now come on, help your mother-we’re almost there.”
“Okay, man, sure. We’re almost there. Almost to where?” Jesus stood up and gripped Albilita by the arm.
“Come on, Mama, one more flight.”
They staggered up the stairs to the red-painted door.
Douglas touched the knob and turned it. The door opened easily and a moment later they were on the Observation Deck. The deck itself was U-shaped, surrounding both sides of the utility core and a large, completely walled-off room in the middle. Douglas had never been inside it but knew that there had to be a door and that Someplace inside that room was the interior staircase leading to the Promenade Room.
He had been on the Observation Deck before, when it was noisy with parents and their kids peering through the coin-operated telescopes or buying postcards and souvenirs from the small souvenir stand. Now they were the only ones there, standing alone in the dark and the silence with the snow swirling just beyond the huge plate glass windows that lined the floor.
Jesus found the door leading into the large, central room and they crowded through it. Inside were the massive water tanks that served the wet standpipe for the sprinkler systems in the commercial areas below, as well as Freon tanks for the air-conditioning systems. These were directly under the penthouse that took up one part of the roof, separated from the Promenade Room by small gardens.
The metal staircase to the Promenade Room was at the far end of the floor. Douglas walked toward it, then suddenly leaned against the side of the water tank. All at once he felt both sick and dizzy and the staircase seemed miles away. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was, how far he had pushed himself. The climb and the energy necessary to keep up Albina’s and Jesus’ Ragging spirits had completely drained him.
Now that they were almost there, he -suddenly felt on the verge of collapse. He was getting too old, he thought, getting too fat. It was no wonder that Larry … No, strike that; time enough to think about that later. His knees began to tremble and for the first time he seriously doubted that he could go any farther.
“Tired, man?” Jesus was looking at him and there was the faint trace of mockery in his voice. He was a young man, Douglas thought, and young men got second winds.
Now it was his time to rag. Douglas forced His knees to quit shaking and stood upright.
“Yes, but I can make it to the stairs. You’ll have to, help your mother, I don’t think I can.” It was Jesus’ Turn now, he thought; he himself was played out. He limped toward the steps, bringing up the rear. The Observation Deck was a floor and a half in height and the steps broke at a landing. Douglas wanted to rest but Jesus shook his head. “Stop now, man, and you won’t make it.
You’re too big for me to carry.” He craned his neck.
“Besides, the door at the top is open. Another minute and you can sit down. How’d you like that, huh?”
He’d like it fine, Douglas thought; he’d like it just fine.
He grabbed hold of the railing and half pulled himself up a step at a time. His knees started to go again and the muscles in the front of his legs passed from the aching point to the painful stage. Then they had pushed through the door into a carpeted alcove. To the left were the rest rooms that Douglas had missed that time, weeks ago. To the right, through the curtained doorway, he could see people. He gritted his teeth and followed Jesus and Albina into the room beyond.
The dining room that had once been so elegant and filled with soft light and the murmur of diners was now nearly deserted. Half-eaten meals were still sitting on the tables, the busing carts. in the kitchen hallway loaded with dirty dishes. Crumpled napkins, partially emptied bottles of wine, scattered silver, and wilted roses littered the tables. The only light in the room came from decorative candles on each table top.
A cluster of people, many of them in night clothes, huddled at the far end of the room. Tenants, Douglas thought. They must have come up via the residential elevators or by the stairwells, as he and the Obligados had.
Some of the tenants he recognized. An older man, Claiborne, Harlee Claiborne. He had wanted Modern Interiors to decorate his apartment.
Likable personality, but that had been his -sole asset. His first check had bounced. .
Douglas looked around, found a nearby chair and collapsed into it.
Jesus and Albina had already done the same. Douglas stretched out his legs and lightly massaged them a moment, then turned his attention back to the group. The leader of the group was obviously Quinn Reynolds, the hostess. He knew Quinn because of the business lunches he frequently held in the Promenade Room with prospective clients. She spotted him and came hurrying Over, turning her attention first to Albina, who had closed her eyes and seemed to be hardly breathing.
“Is she all right?”
“Mostly exhaustion,” Douglas said. “And a possible turned ankle.”
He explained what had happened to them.
“You walked up all those flights of stairs?” Quinn looked at him in amazement. He nodded and she abruptly turned to a table behind them and poured several glasses of wine, handing one to each of them.
Albina gulped at hers, choked briefly, but waved Quinn away when she started to take the glass from her.
“Thank you, thank you very much.”
“Miss Reynolds!” a man called. Douglas and Quinn turned. Nearby an older man was holding a small girl in his arms. She was crying and coughing; the coughs were deep and racking.
“Pardon me a moment,” Quinn said, and disappeared with them toward the kitchen. She came back a minute later. “We keep a first-aid kit in the kitchen for the help and for diners who suddenly get sick.” Her face was drawn and she looked worried “There’s not much in it that’s good for smoke inhalation.
Douglas had been glancing around the room, a terrifying thought slowly forming in his mind. “Miss Reynolds, how come you people are here? Why haven’t you left?” Quinn looked surprised, then said, “That’s right, there was no way for you to know. The’explosions knocked out the scenic elevator as well as the electrical system so the residential elevators are also useless. Probably the smartest thing to do is to wait here while the firemen put out the fire down below.” She hesitated. “I suppose we could leave by the same way you came up-the stairwells.
It would be much easier going down.”
“That’s impossible,” douglas said slowly. “You can’t do either.”
.
Quinn correctly read the tone of his voice and paled.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You can’t do either one,” Douglas repeated. “Even if the stairwells weren’t filled with smoke, I doubt that you could get to them now. And you can’t stay here, either.”
“I still don’t understand,” Quinn said. “Why not?”
“The fire,” Douglas answered, feeling the weariness sweep over him again. “It’s on the machinery floor, two floors below us. And it’s spreading.”
CHAPTER 54
It was a longer, harder climb to the sixteenth floor than Chief Fuchs had anticipated. The smell of seared me
tal and burned wood was heavy on the air and the concrete steps were slippery with water. The stairway itself was ordered confusion, with hosemen and salvage crews pushing past him in -the dimly lit shaft. Nobody noticed his rank in the semidarkness. Once he stepped aside as two men, supporting a thud stumbled down the steps. The face of the man in the middle had that beet-red look that told Fuchs more than he wanted to know. He must have been caught in the steam explosion, Fuchs thought, and wondered just how badly he was burned. One thing for sure: He would be making trips to the plastic surgeon for years to come.
He didn’t let himself dwell upon it but in the back of his mind was the thought that Mark might be in the same fix. Or worse.
He got to the landing at sixteen and glanced quickly around.
Just inside the smoke-filled corridor, Captain Miller was giving instruction to a hose crew about to go into action. Fuchs waited until he was through, then walked over. Miller recognized him and said, “I’m sorry about Mark, Chief. We’ve got a rescue crew in there searching for him now. It’s tough going.”
“Where’d it happen?”
“The last feeder corridor off the main one, by the utility core.
We think-the explosion may have blown him quite a distance down it.”
“Think I’ll take a look,” Fuchs said calmly.
Miller suddenly stood in the way. “You’re being foolish, Chief, and you know it. You’re the head of the department and you, of all people, know you can’t let your emotions get in the way. You can’t do anything more than is being done right now.
If you were no more valuable here than a backup hoseman that’s what you’d be. But you’re not and in there is not your place.”
“Nice speech,” Fuchs said. “Thanks. As far as this fire goes, Division Chief Infantino is in charge, you know that. I’m not very valuable looking over his shoulder.” Miller hesitated. “If it were my son, especially without a backup man, would you let me through?”
Fuchs shook his head. “No. But if you were me and it were your son, you’d go.” He pushed past the protesting Miller and strode into the smoky corridor, turning on his lantern a few feet in. It didn’t help much in cutting through the smoke. He had borrowed a respirator, one of the newer ones with an automatic demand regulator that would deliver all the air he needed even under -heavy work conditions. He slipped on the mask, adjusted the tank on his back, and started down the charred corridor toward the fire. Once he paused as part of the false ceiling in the corridor ahead gave way and tumbled to the floor in a shower of sparks.
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