Nat shook his head in silence.
“Will they rebuild?”
He had not even considered it, but the answer came loud and clear: “I hope not.” Pause. “Just this morning,” Nat said, “Ben Caldwell talked of the Pharos, the lighthouse that stood at the mouth of the Nile. For a thousand years, he said. That was how he thought of this building.” He shook his head. “What is the word? Hubris: human pride that affronts the gods. In places in the Middle East they never finish a building. Always a few bricks or a few tiles are left out.” He smiled down at the girl. “That’s because a completed job is considered an affront. Man is supposed to strive for perfection, but he’s not supposed to achieve it.”
“I like that,” Patty said.
“I’m not sure I like it, but I think I understand it. A man told me once that it was good every now and again for anybody to be cut down to size.” He paused. “Let’s go back in.”
“Have you thought of something?”
“No.” Nat hesitated. “But I can’t stay away any more than you can.” A new thought-occurred: “What if you were not Bert’s daughter,” he said, “but just—married to somebody involved?”
“To you?” Small, brave, willing to face even conjecture, hypothesis’. “Would I be down here at the building?” Patty nodded emphatically. “I would. Trying not to be in the way, but I would be here.”
“That’s what I thought,” Nat said slowly, and wondered at the sudden pleasure the knowledge gave him.
Inside the trailer one of the battalion chiefs was on the walkie-talkie. His voice was the only sound. “You can’t tell how deep the fire in the stairwell is above you?” The voice that answered was hoarse with exhaustion. “I told you, no!”
The chief said almost angrily. “And below you?” There was silence.
“Ted!” the chief said. “Speak up, man! Below you?” The voice came at last, almost hysterical this time: “What is this, a fucking quiz show? We’re going down. If we come out, I’ll tell you how deep it was, okay? We’re on fifty-two right now—”
“Inside,” the chief said. “How about that? Any chance? You could break through the door—”
“The goddam door will blister your hand! That’s what it’s like inside. I tell you, we’re going down. There’s no other way.”
Assistant Commissioner Brown took the walkie-talkie. “This is Tim Brown,” he said. “Good luck.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” .
“We’ll stand by for word.”
“Sure.” And then, speaking aside, “All right. Haul your ass. Here we go.” The walkie-talkie clicked dead.
The two battalion chiefs stood motionless, staring at nothing. Tim Brown’s lips, Patty saw, moved gently. In prayer? Giddings wore a scowl and his blue* eyes were angry. He looked at Nat and slowly, almost imperceptibly shook his head. Nat nodded faintly in acknowledgment, perhaps agreement. Patty closed her eyes.
It was not possible, she thought, and knew that it was. No dream, no nightmare this. There would be no sudden awakening, no rush of relief that the horror had fled with the morning light. She wanted to turn and run. Where? To Daddy? As she had run only this noontime for comfort, solace, understanding? But there was no—
The walkie-talkie in Brown’s hand came to sudden hollow life. It uttered a scream and then another. And then there was merciful silence, and the trailer was still.
Brown was the first to move. He walked to the drafting table and set the walkie-talkie down very carefully, switched it off. He looked at no one. In a slow monotone he began to swear.
27
Paula Ramsay walked up to the two chairs in the quiet corner of the Tower Room. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but what’s happening behind your back—” She shook her head. “I’m afraid I am old-fashioned.”
The governor nodded, expressionless. “With the exception of Paul Norris and Grover,” he said, “they’ve all done splendidly, so far. What can we expect?”
“Cary Wycoff is making a speech.”
The governor cocked his head. He could hear the voice, not the words; but the tone, high-pitched, angry, almost hysterical, spoke volumes. “He’s probably saying that someone is to blame and he is promising an investigation.”
Paula Ramsay smiled faintly. “You have it exactly right, Bent.”
“In a little while,” the governor said, “Cary will lead a delegation demanding that something be done. God, how many delegations like that I’ve listened to!”
“People,” Paula said, “are swarming to the bar. One of the waiters is sitting in a comer by himself, drinking from a bottle—”
The governor wondered if it was the waiter with three kids. He sighed and stood up. “What do you think I can do, Paula?”
Paula’s smile was brilliant. “I am like Cary Wycoff, Bent,” she said. “I think something ought to be done, but I don’t know what.” She paused. “And so I turn to you.”
“I am flattered.” The governor’s smile sadly mocked himself and the entire situation. “There was a Mark Twain character who was tarred and feathered and being ridden out of town on a rail.” The smile spread. “He said that if it weren’t for the honor of the occasion, he would just as soon have walked. I’d just as soon sit right here.” He glanced down at Beth. “But I’ll give it a try.”
He passed the closed fire door where Grover Frazee’s body lay beneath a white tablecloth. The secretary general was standing looking down at the motionless shape. Slowly, solemnly he crossed himself, and then, seeing the governor, smiled almost apologetically.
“Since my student days,” the secretary general said, “I have prided myself on my freethinking. Now I find that early beliefs do not die so easily. Amusing, is it not?”
“It is not, Walther. I find it almost enviable instead.” The secretary general hesitated. “I am beginning to understand,” he said, “that you are basically a kind man, Bent. I am sorry I did not realize before.”
“And,” the governor said, “I always thought that you were, that anybody in your position simply had to be just a stuffed shirt.”
They smiled at each other.
“In my country,” the secretary general said, “where mountain-climbing is a popular sport, men tie themselves together with ropes for safety when they climb, and we have a saying: ‘There are no strangers on a rope.’ It is sad, is it not, that it requires a crisis situation before people come to know one another?” He paused. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Pray,” the governor said without mockery.
“I have done that. I shall continue.” Again the pause, polite, solicitous, sincere. “If there is anything else, Bent—”
“I’ll call on you,” the governor said, and meant it. He walked out into the center of the room and looked around.
Paula had not exaggerated. The bar was doing a land-office business; in the center of the room Cary Wycoff was making a speech; it was the waiter with three kids who was sitting by himself drinking from a bottle of bourbon; in the far corner the transistor radio was playing rock, and some of the younger people were maneuvering in spastic gyrations.
There was smoke leaking from the air-conditioning ducts now, but it was not yet oppressive; its acrid taste hung in the air. The governor sneezed.
Mayor Ramsay nearby said, “Good God, look at that!” One of the younger dancers, female, was carried away. With a single motion she stripped her dress over her head and threw it from her. She wore minibriefs and no brassiere. Her generous breasts bounced with each pelvic lunge.
“It would have gone over big at the Old Howard when I was in college,” the governor said. “Kitty would have enjoyed it.” He smiled. “So would I.”