Nat nodded. “I see what you mean.”
“My grandfather took sick,” Brown said. “He was in his eighties. The doctor came in the middle of the night, stayed until noon the next day. By that time Grandpa was dead.” He spread his large bony hands. “That was how it was. You were born, you lived, you died. Oh, maybe there were accidents, sure there were, and illnesses we can cure today we couldn’t even touch then. But there weren’t any hundred-and-twenty-five-story buildings and there weren’t a lot of other things too.”
Giddings came up the trailer steps. His face was smoke-stained and his blue eyes were angry.
“My wife’s uncle,” Brown said as if Giddings had not appeared, “he’s pushing ninety. He’s in a hospital. Never mind what it costs. He can’t hear and he can’t see and he doesn’t know anything that’s going on. They feed him through a tube and he lies there, still breathing, his heart still beating, and his kidneys and bowels still functioning. He’s been like that for three months. The doctors know how to keep him alive, if that’s the word, but they don’t know when to let him die decently. We’re too goddam smart for our own good.”
“I’ll go with that, Nat said. He looked at Giddings and waited.
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Giddings said. “Personally, I think no. We haven’t any idea what’s happened in the upper elevator shafts. There’s plenty of heat up there, too goddam much heat, we know that. The rails could be distorted—” He shrugged. “You name it and it could have happened by now. We should have told them to take the stairs—”
Brown said, “The doors wouldn’t open.”
“Break the goddam doors down.”
Nat said, “I don’t know. It was a judgment call and maybe I called it wrong.”
“You didn’t,” Brown said. “Fire’s broken out into one stairwell. Chances are the other will get it too. Then where would they be, out in the open, halfway down?”
“Maybe better than where they are,” Giddings said, “trapped. And all because—”
“Because of what?” Nat said. He shook his head. “No one thing. Not even two or three things. A lot of things which shouldn’t have happened, but did, all together. You and I ought to have caught on to what Simmons was doing, for one thing.”
“He was too smart for us, he and that little bastard of a foreman.”
“And the inspector,” Nat said. “But a supervising inspector ought to have caught the changes too, and either didn’t or let them go. That’s another thing.” He looked at Brown.
Brown nodded angrily. “And apparently we let some things get by we shouldn’t. There are standpipes up there, but there’s no hose, and by now there isn’t any pressure either, because some of the pipes have burst from heat and generated steam.”
“You didn’t want this reception,” Nat said to Giddings. “Frazee ought to have called it off, but you couldn’t tell him why, so he didn’t.” He paused. “And nobody counted on a maniac getting past the cops and down into the mechanical basements to do God only knows what kind of damage before he killed himself. We knew somebody was inside. Maybe we ought to have insisted that the building be searched—”
“Floor by floor with an army?” Giddings said. “You know better than that.” His temper had cooled.
“That’s the trouble,” Nat said, “I do know better than that. We could have insisted until we were blue in the face and nobody would have paid a goddam bit of attention.” He looked again at Brown. “You have a big point,” he said. “We have more knowledge than judgment.” He gestured wearily to Giddings. “Let’s go see whether they’re ready to give it a try with an elevator.”
“I want you here when the Coast Guard comes,” Brown said. “It’s your idea.”
Nat nodded wearily as he walked out.
In the office off the Tower Room, “Sooner or later,” the governor said, “we’re going to have trouble, maybe panic.” He spoke to the fire commissioner. “Just in case,” the governor said, “I think we might round up four or five of those waiters, the young husky lads, and have them standing by.”
“I’ll take care of it,” the commissioner said. He left the office.
“Grover,” the governor said to Frazee, “why don’t you go out and mingle with your guests.” He paused. “And, goddammit, smile!”
“I’ll go with him,” Ben Caldwell said. The two men left together.
“And now,” the governor said to Beth, “do you see how crafty I am? We’re alone.”
Beth said slowly, “Will there be a tomorrow, Bent?” The telephone rang then. The governor put the phone on the rest and flicked on the speaker switch. “Armitage,” he said.
“One stairwell is untenable, Governor.” Brown’s voice said. “The other may hold, but it may not too. My men aren’t very optimistic, but they’re still trying to reach you.”
“And then what?” the governor said.
There was hesitation. “Get the door on that side open.”
“And?”
More hesitation. Brown said at last, “I don’t know what to advise, Governor.”
“All right,” the governor said, “let’s look at the odds. One stairwell is already out. What are the chances—opinion, man; I’m not expecting anything else—what are the chances of all the fire doors on the other side holding long enough to get us down—to get any of us down?” Brown’s voice was reluctant. “I’d have to say almost nonexistent, Governor.” He paused. “There are two other possibilities that seem to me better. Maybe Wilson and Giddings and the electrical engineer can get an elevator running.” He paused again. “And the other is that somehow we can get the fire inside the building under control before—” He stopped. “Under control,” he said.
The governor’s face was expressionless. He stared, unseeing, at the far wall. “Then our chances are better staying here?”
“I—would think so.” Brown hesitated. “There is one other chance, but it’s wild. Wilson’s idea. If the Coast Guard can get a line to you from the north Trade Center tower, and rig a breeches buoy—” The voice stopped, skepticism plain.
“We’ll go for anything,” the governor said. He paused, straightened. “Call your men back.”
Brown said nothing.
“Did you hear me?” the governor said.
“Maybe,” Brown said slowly, “maybe we’d better let them get on to you, Governor. Just in case. I’m only guessing about the odds.”
“Call them back,” the governor said. “There’s no point in expending them in a lost cause.”
It was, Brown thought, precisely what the battalion chief had said. He nodded weary, automatic acquiescence. “Yes, sir,” he said. And then, “Two of them—they can’t come back, Governor. There’s fire beneath them.”
“We’ll let them in,” the governor said. “We’ll give them a drink and some snacks. That’s the best we can do, and it is damn little.” His voice changed. “All right, Brown. Thanks for the report.” He hung up the phone. With no change of expression, “You asked a question,” he said to Beth.
“I withdraw it.”
“No.” The governor shook his head. “It deserves an answer.” He paused. He said at last, “I don’t know if there’s going to be a tomorrow, but I doubt it.” There—it was spoken. “And I’m sorry about that for many reasons.”
Quietly, “I know, Bent.”
“How can you know my reasons?”
Her smile was faint, but reaclass="underline" the ancient all-knowing smile of Woman. “I know.”