"Jeez!" yelled the driver. "Cracked my windshield!" He started to pull over.
"Don't stop! There'll be fallout." Moments later, the roof of the cab was showered with debris. Sirens screamed. Red and blue flashing lights filled the street. At the hotel the security guards were out on the sidewalk, looking toward the west.
While the cab waited, Qwilleran ran in to the registration desk and came out with the word that the Airport Motel was the nearest facility that would accept pets. The driver headed for the freeway, and his passengers rode in silence, sickened by the enormity of the disaster and stunned by the thought of their near-extinction. All was quiet in the cat carrier.
Finally Qwilleran said, "The noise I heard... the noise Koko detected... under the floor... It sounded like someone in the crawl space, setting a fire... I didn't have time to think... Now I realize they were planting a time bomb." His thoughts went to those whose lives had touched his briefly: The Countess... Had they been able to dislodge her from her palace? Rupert with his handgun and Ferdinand with his muscle could overpower her, if not convince her, but they had only minutes to act. It was questionable that all three could escape.
Isabelle... She lived on one of the upper floors. Was she sober enough to recognize the danger? If not, her troubles were over.
Winnie Wingfoot... She also lived on Ten, but she had probably stayed out all night.
Keestra Hedrog... No cause for concern. She would fly to safety on her broomstick.
Amberina Kowbel... Poor, disorganized Amber! At least she would never have to unpack the eighty-four shopping bags and the mountain of cartons.
Courtney... He would get out all right, lugging his Hudson River painting.
But what about the nameless old ladies in quilted robes? And all the others with canes and crutches?
He said, "It would have been wrong, Arch, to evict all those people and revert the Casablanca to a ritzy enclave for the superrich." "They're evicted now, that's for sure," said Riker.
The driver tuned in the round-the-clock news station on his radio. After a few words about a woman arrested for selling her children, and about the discovery of three bodies buried in Penniman Park, the announcer said: "Bulletin! An explosion rocked the near West Side at 3:18 this morning, destroying the top floors of the Casablanca apartment house.
The cause has not been determined. Firefighters and rescue crew are on the scene, and survivors are being evacuated.
The blast broke windows in Junktown, and debris fell on an area of several blocks. There is no report on the number of casualties at this time. Stay tuned." The cause has not been determined, Qwilleran thought. He remembered Amber saying, "The city would love it if something terrible happened to the Casablanca." He remembered that Raymond Dunwoody worked for the city and had lost an ear in a dynamite explosion. Had he planted dynamite in the crawl space between Twelve and Fourteen? If so, at whose behest? Qwilleran felt a tingling sensation in the roots of his moustache - the old familiar feeling that meant he was on the right trail. It was the man with an ear patch, he recalled, who had been the dinner guest of an affluent businessman at the Japanese restaurant; the generous host, Qwilleran now knew, was Fleudd. He had joined Penniman & Greystone in the spring, and Dunwoody had been living with Charlotte Roop for the last four months, no doubt relaying information about SOCK when she innocently discussed conversations she had overheard at Roberto's. Furthermore, it was Memorial Day weekend when Jupiter moved into the Casablanca. They were both undercover agents for Fleudd!
Riker broke the silence as they approached the motel. "I had enough sense to grab my credit cards, but I don't have my socks or my razor or my partial!" "I'm in the same boat," Qwilleran said. "I have my wallet but I've lost everything else, including the cats' turkey roaster." The clerk at the motel said, "We have a few rooms with waterbeds." "Not for me," said Riker.
"I'll take one," said Qwilleran. "And do you have a disposable litterbox for the cats?" Once situated in the room, he opened the door of the carrier and threw himself on the bed, while the Siamese inspected the room like veteran travelers.
In a matter of minutes someone kicked the door, and Riker was standing there with two paper cups. "Turn on the TV! There's live coverage on 'All-night News' right after the commercials. And here's some free coffee." An announcer in a parka - filmed against a background of fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars - was saying, "Firemen are still fighting the blaze at the Casablanca apartments following an explosion at 3:18 this morning. The blast, of unknown origin, destroyed three floors of the building, which is almost a hundred years old." The camera zoomed to the top of the blackened, smoldering structure, while the voice-over continued: "Forty-two residents have been hospitalized with injuries, and many are missing. No bodies have been recovered. Jessica Tuttle, manager of the Casablanca, says it is impossible to tell how many persons were in the building at the time of the explosion." The face of Mrs. Tuttle, grim and managerial, flashed on the screen with a microphone thrust in front of her. "We have about two hundred tenants," she said, "but we don't know who was in the building when it happened and who wasn't. We're grateful for the prompt rescue attempts. Everything's been handled very efficiently... No, I don't know what could have caused it. Perhaps the Lord is trying to tell us something." A cracked voice off-camera shouted, "He's tellin' ya to tear the place down!" The video cut to a Red Cross van and then a bus being loaded with refugees in nightclothes, some huddled in blankets. Voice-over: "Survivors are being bused to temporary shelters. Residents who were not on the premises at the time of the explosion are urged to telephone the following number to assist in the search for the missing..." Qwilleran said, "There's Mrs. Jasper with Napoleon, boarding the bus!" She raised the cat's paw to wave at the camera. "And there's Yazbro, the skunk who let the air out of my tires!" A man in a red golf hat was helping elderly tenants into the bus. Then, as the camera panned the windows of the loaded vehicle, showing strained and frightened faces, Qwilleran caught a glimpse of plucked eyebrows, marcelled hair, and a head tilted prettily to one side. His sigh of relief was more like a groan.
He said, "I wonder if poor Charlotte got out safely. I wonder if her 'gentleman friend' got out in time. If not, he's lost more than an ear on this job." "Yow!" said Koko. He was sitting tall on the TV and washing up - just as he had sat tall on the volume of Van Gogh, licking his right paw and washing his mask, his whiskers, and particularly his right ear.
"Remarkable cat!" Qwilleran murmured with- out elucidating to his skeptical friend.
"I've had all I can take," said Riker. "I'm going to bed." As soon as he was out of the room the Siamese engaged in a sudden expression of joy, chasing each other wildly under and over the furniture; they knew they were going home. Qwilleran propped himself against the headboard and watched the steeplechase.
Eventually Yum Yum snuggled down on his lap. She had lost her apathy and moody aloofness. Had she been affected by the "opalescence" that hung over the city like a stifling blanket? Did she find it unsettling to live on the fourteenth floor (which was really the thirteenth)? Or was she simply using feline strategy to get her own way? Qwilleran stroked her soft silky fur and called her his little sweetheart, and she responded by raising a velvet paw to touch his moustache, all the while squeezing her eyes and purring deliriously.
As for Koko, he jumped on the bed and flopped down in an attitude of exhaustion. It had been a strenuous night.