“Aw, no,” Werry groaned, shaking his head. “Henry, don’t say things like that over the air. In fact, don’t say them at all. Hang on-I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Werry accelerated past a group of slow-moving cars and the dark hulk of Weisner’s furniture store came into view ahead. The bilaser projector on its roof had created a gigantic dining table which glowed against the night sky. The sight of it caused an uneasy stirring in Hasson’s memory, but his thoughts were completely dominated by the conversation he had just heard. On the night of the barbecue Morlacher had seemed dangerously near his limit of control, and from what Hasson knew of the big man it seemed entirely possible that he would go as far as planting booby traps to clear his property of what he regarded as vermin.
“I don’t like the sound of this, Rob,” Werry said thoughtfully. “I don’t like it one bit.”
Hasson gave him a sympathetic glance. “You think Morlacher would have gone that far?”
“Buck thinks he can get away with anything.”
“So what’l1 you do?”
“Who says I’ve got to do anything?” Werry demanded, hunching his shoulders like a man warding off blows. “We don’t even know that Buck had anything to do with this. It seems to rue that I’ve got to have some kind of proof before I think about arresting a man like Buck.”
“Nobody’s going to argue with you on that one,” Hasson said, resolving not to raise the matter again. The flashing lights of an ambulance expanded out of the distance and momentarily washed the interior of the police car with ruddy brilliance as the two vehicles passed. The bleat of the ambulance’s siren dopplered away into a low growl. Werry swung his car into the cross-street from which the ambulance had emerged and the Chinook Hotel came into view as a vertical thread of grey light surrounded by a vague smudge of weak radiance.
Hasson, who had been looking out for something spectacular, had to remind himself that the hotel building itself was four hundred metes above ground, that a person standing on its lowest floor could have looked down on the old Empire State Building. The fantastic structure, made feasible only by 21st century materials and engineering techniques, was a monument to one family’s megalomania and arrogance. He could visualise, and almost condone, the poisonous rage which boiled through Morlacher’s mind each time he looked at the edifice which had annihilated the parental fortune and which, instead of repaying the investment with profit and prestige, had made him the butt of local humour and created a safe refuge for the gangs of delinquents he hated so much. It was even possible to imagine him reaching an extremity in which he was prepared to destroy the building altogether…
The police car abruptly slowed down as the street ahead of it became congested with other vehicles and groups of pedestrians all, as though taking part in an animal migration, converging on the site of the hotel. Werry swore and rolled down his window as he came to an intersection where a uniformed police officer was absent-mindedly controlling traffic while exchanging banter with two girls.
“Arnold,” he shouted, “stop trying to fix yourself up and get this street cleared right up to the hotel entrance. Do you hear me?”
Arnold gave him a friendly wave. “I hear you, Al. Some fun, eh?”
“That’s what I have to work with,” Werry muttered as he switched on the car’s warning lights and forced his way at dangerous speed up to the hotel grounds and across the line of the perimeter fence. Several other cars and two fire vehicles were parked in a loose cluster a short distance away, their headlights streaking the grass. Werry slid his cruiser into place beside them and got out, smoothing his tunic as he craned his neck to look up at the hotel. Hasson joined him as he was met by the bear-like, sag-bellied figure of air patrolman Henry Corzyn.
“It doesn’t look like there’s much happening up there, Werry”.
“You can’t see anything till you get up high.” Corzyn lowered his voice and moved closer to Werry. “I haven’t said anything to the television people, but I think there’s a bunch of angels still in the building, Al. I got as close as I could and shone a light in, and I think I saw somebody skulking about. Couldn’t be sure, though.”
“Why don’t they pull out? Aren’t they worried about being roasted?”
“Who knows what goes on inside their pointed little heads?” Corzyn shifted his position until he had his back to a man who was standing nearby aiming a television camera at the sky. “Besides, if there’s anybody dead up there…”
Werry looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Are you trying to make me feel good?”
“It was one hell of an explosion, Al. Most of the glass is gone out of the first floor windows on this side — and those kids don’t go around singly, you know. A whole bunch of them might have got clobbered all at once.”
Werry walked three paces away from Corzyn, stood for a moment with a hand on his brow, then came back. “That isn’t very likely, is it? I mean, some of the others would have sent for help.”
Corzyn shrugged. “Young Terry Franz from the TV station is up there now with a big spotlight. Maybe he’ll be able to see more’n I could.”
“You better get up there with him, Henry. Try to check the place out. Take a megaphone with you.”
“Got one here.” Corzyn touched his breast pocket, revealing the square outline of an electronic voice magnifier, and shifted his hand to the control panel of his CG harness. Hasson turned away, chilled, unable to watch the take-off. He waited a moment and when he directed his gaze skywards Corzyn’s shoulder and ankle lights were like a small group of tracer bullets speeding towards the dim-glowing target of the hotel. The dinner Hasson had eaten became an unwanted mass in his stomach.
“Where’s Quigg?” Werry bellowed, striding towards the nearest knot of onlookers. “Has anybody seen Victor Quigg?”
“Here I am, Al.” Quigg, managing to appear thin and adolescent even when wearing a flying suit, detached himself from a group which was standing at a portable television transmitter. Werry gripped his arm and drew him into a private triad with Hasson.
“Victor,” he said quietly, “are you making unauthorised statements to the gentlemen of the press?”
Quigg glanced at Hasson, obviously wondering how he fitted into the picture. “You know me better than that, Al.”
“Okay. Did you tell anybody you saw Buck up at the hotel today?”
“Nobody “cept Henry. He was the only one I told.”
Are you sure it was Buck you saw?”
Quigg nodded vigorously, jiggling the magnifying visor of his flying helmet. “It was Buck, all right. I had a second look at him because he was all rigged up with panniers and he don’t usually like to load hisself down that way. He was taking something into the hotel.”
Werry made a clicking noise with his tongue. “But you didn’t try to find out what.”
“It’s his place, Al,” Quigg said reasonably. “I figured he was entitled.”
“You did right.” Werry gave the young policeman a sombre stare. “I want you to keep quiet about this till I say it’s all right to talk. Okay?”
“Sure, Al. By the way, nobody has contacted Lutze’s folks yet- do you want me to do it?”
Werry frowned. “Lutze? Lutze?”
“Yeah — the kid who got hisself blown up. Didn’t Henry tell you?”
“Is that Barry Lutze?”
“No such luck,” Quigg said. “This is his cousin Sammy. The family lives out Bettsville direction. They probably didn’t even know he was out of his own back yard tonight.”
“Probably not,” Werry agreed. “Call the station and get somebody down there to notify the Lutzes. I want you to stay here and…”
“Hey, Al!” One of the men at the television unit beckoned to Werry. “Come over and have a look at this, for God’s sake — old Henry’s trying to get into the hotel.”