The floor of the auditorium was filled. People clogging the aisles were urging other people to move. There was some movement, but it was more circular than directed.
Across the hall, nearer the stage than the balcony, was a separate box. In the box sat Freddie Arbuthnot, Roy Filby, Fenella Baker, Tony Rice, others. He could not see who was in the matching box, to his right.
Fletch left the balcony and ran down the stairs to the lobby of the auditorium.
To the left of the main door was a bank of three wall telephones. Bill Dieckmann was not there.
Fletch looked around what corners there were. No Bill Dieckmann.
There were no other phones along the back of the auditorium.
Even the foyer was crowded.
The fireman who had stopped Fletch outside the auditorium was now inside. He spotted Fletch. “Hey!” he shouted. He started toward Fletch.
Moving sideways very fast, Fletch kept the crowd between himself and the fireman.
Fletch ran back up the stairs to the balcony.
“Freddie?” Fletch sat down beside her. There was more room in the press box than there was anywhere else in the auditorium. “Have you seen Flash Grasselli?”
She shook her head no. “Something occurred to me,” she said.
“I need to find Flash.”
“Don’t you think it odd,” she asked, “that a few days after I join the campaign, Walsh hires you?”
Fletch said, “Help me find Bill Dieckmann.”
“I mean, you’re an investigative reporter. Like me.”
“Bill called me at the hotel. From here. Asked me to help him. Apparently his head was going again.”
Her brown eyes were fully on Fletch’s face.
Fletch said, “It sounded like he was afraid of what he might do, or something.”
“How long ago was that?”
“God.” Fletch looked at his watch. “More than a half hour ago. Man can’t fly.”
“I haven’t seen Flash.” She started to get up. “I haven’t seen either of them.”
Fletch stood up. “I told him to stay by the phones at the back of the auditorium. He’s not there.”
Fletch’s eyes were running over the audience below him. The aisles had been pretty well cleared, except for firemen and policemen.
Freddie leaned to her left and spoke with Roy Filby and Tony Rice.
Below Fletch, Betsy Ginsberg was sitting in about the middle of the audience.
Roy and Tony were standing, too.
“They’ll help,” Freddie said. “I told them about Bill.”
Fletch stood aside to let the three of them out the row of seats. “Just fan out and look for him anywhere,” he said. “Check the rest rooms, I guess. He sounded real bad.”
“Could the police have taken him out?” Roy asked.
“I don’t think they had by the time I came in.”
As they were leaving the box, Fletch took one more fast look at the audience seated on the floor of the auditorium.
Betsy had risen from her seat and was working her way along the row to the aisle.
Shit! Fletch said to himself. Betsy!
Fletch ran out of the press box so fast he tripped against Tony Rice.
“Fletch!” Freddie called after him. “Did you see him?”
“No!”
He ran down the corridor behind the balcony and down the stairs to the auditorium lobby.
There was a bigger crowd of people in the lobby, grumbling about having been removed from the aisles. Some were angrily refusing to leave the building.
Fletch pushed through them. Some shoved back.
“Wheel along with Wheeler,” Fletch said.
Fletch glowered at the big stomach of a policeman standing in the main doorway to the auditorium.
“Get out of my way, please,” Fletch said. He pushed past the policeman.
“Trying to start a riot?”
“Sorry,” Fletch said over his shoulder.
The fireman who had stopped him outside the auditorium and yelled at him inside the auditorium saw Fletch push past the policeman from the lobby. “Stop him!” he yelled. “Hey! Get that guy!”
He pushed past the policeman, too.
Over the heads of the people seated in the auditorium, Fletch saw Betsy at the right of the auditorium, near the stage, going through a door marked EXIT.
Moving as fast as he could, dodging people standing at the back of the auditorium, Fletch went to his right along the wall at the rear of the audience. He was passing behind Hanrahan.
Hands grabbed both of Fletch’s shoulders and turned him around.
“Wait one minute,” the fireman said. He was crouched a little, as if to swing. “You’re causin’ one hell of a lot of trouble.”
“Sorry,” Fletch said, taking a step backward.
Michael J. Hanrahan had turned around.
The fireman grabbed Fletch’s arm.
Fletch did not resist.
“You’re comin’ with me,” the fireman said.
With his grin/grimace, Hanrahan said, “Trouble, Fletcher?”
“I’m in an awful hurry, Michael.”
“That’s fine.” Hanrahan lurched forward onto his right foot, and sent his left fist into the fireman’s coat.
The fireman dropped his grip on Fletch.
In a second, he had twisted Hanrahan into a half-Nelson wrestling hold.
Fletch said, “Thank you, Michael.”
Hanrahan’s face quickly turned crimson. “That’s all right, Fletcher. Always glad to slug a cop.”
“Michael!” Fletch said, backing away. More uniforms were appearing in the dark at the back of the auditorium. “You slugged a fireman!”
“Listen,” Hanrahan was saying in a choke to the gathering uniforms. “Don’t you guys read Newsbill? I’m Hanrahan, for Chris-sake!”
Fletch walked fast down the aisle under the balcony. He pressed his weight against the metal bar-release of the door marked EXIT and found himself in a bright, empty corridor.
To his left was a door that obviously led to the stage area.
To his right the corridor had to run back to the lobby of the auditorium.
Down a short corridor straight ahead was a sign: EXHIBITION HALL, TUESDAY-SATURDAY, 10-4.
In the auditorium, the speaker roared at the audience, “The man who will be the next President of the United States,” and the audience was roaring its approval.
Fletch went down the short corridor and turned right into the entrance to the Exhibition Hall. Massive, double, polished wooden doors. Locked, of course.
He turned around.
Across the corridor, in the reciprocal alcove, was a small service door. The sign on it said: STAFF ONLY. Over it a sign said: NOT A FIRE EXIT.
He crossed to the door and tried the ordinary doorknob. Not locked. He pushed the door open.
Overamplified, the voice of Doris Wheeler was bursting from the auditorium. “My husband, son, and I are glad to be in Melville. Years ago, when we were first married …”
On the other side of the door were stairs falling to a basement. The small landing was lit by an overhead light. The stairs themselves were lit by occasional, dim, baseboard safety lights. The basement itself was dark.
“… and the friends we made around here then …”
From the basement came a woman’s shout: “No!”
The sound sent a pain searing from Fletch’s left ankle through his back to his neck.
As he started down the stairs he heard what sounded like a slap of skin against skin, a hard slap. A scuffling of feet on cement.
Near the bottom of the stairs, he stopped to detect were the sounds where coming from.
There was the sound of a light piece of wood falling on the cement floor.
There was then the sound of a woman’s outraged, frightened scream. “Stop!”
“Betsy!” Fletch shouted toward his right.