“Let’s get out of here,” Morlacher said in something like his normal manner, moving towards the door. “I’ve got to get to the hotel.”
Werry continued to bar his way, shaking his head. “You’re going to my hotel, Buck. I’ve got adjoining rooms reserved for you and Starr.”
Morlacher pointed at him with an unsteady forefinger. “You’ve just lost yourself a good job.”
“That’s the second time in one night,” Werry said, unimpressed. He took a pack of restraint patches from his pocket and tossed them to Hasson. “Behind their backs, Rob, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to take any chances.”
Hasson nodded, went to Morlacher and drew the big man’s hands together behind his back. He peeled the wrapper from a square blue patch, placed it between Morlacher’s wrists and squeezed them together, creating an unbreakable bond. Pridgeon submitted to the same treatment almost eagerly, establishing himself as a man who believed in co-operating with the law.
“Now we can go,” Werry said. He opened the front door, reconnecting the interior of the house to the outside universe, and this time the Chinook Hotel was immediately visible, burning low in the southern sky like a troubled red planet.
nine
As Werry had predicted, the vicinity of the hotel had become thronged with spectators, both on the ground and in the air. The roads bordering the hotel land swarmed with the glistening curvatures of automobiles, as though infested with monstrous insects, and the sky was filled with veering constellations of fliers” lights. A bilaser projector had been used to float a huge warning sign in the middle air, the crimson lettering of which read: CAUTION! THERE IS A DANGER OF MORE EXPLOSIONS! GLASS WILL FALL OVER A WIDE AREA! STAY CLEAR! And perched high on its unseen pinnacle, at the unmoving centre of the spangled chaos, the hotel building itself remained invisible except for a partial nimbus of flickering orange.
“I’m almost sorry I put Buck inside,” Werry said as he got out of the police car. “He should have been here to see this.”
Hasson tilted his head back, trying to take in the entire spectacle. “How long do you think he’ll stay inside?”
“His lawyers should spring him in about an hour.”
“It was hardly worth the trouble of putting him away.”
“It was worth it to me — I owed him.” Werry grinned vindictively. “Come on. I want to find out how Henry got on up there.” He led the way across the uneven ground to where the impotent fire tenders stood in a line of other vehicles. The television unit was still in operation, surrounded by a cluster of men and women who were using its monitors to obtain a convenient view of the happenings in another world four hundred metres above their heads. As Werry and Hasson drew near, the slim figure of Victor Quigg detached itself from the group and came to meet them. His eyes had grown large and dark with strain, giving his immature face something of the look of a nocturnal animal.
“Everything okay?” Werry said. “Where’s Henry?”
“Still up there, Al. I couldn’t find him, and that’s a fact.”
“Do you mean he’s still inside the hotel?”
“I guess so. He wouldn’t have come out again without somebody noticing. He should have kept in touch.” Quigg sounded tired and afraid.
“The crazy old, . .” Werry stood on his toes to get a glimpse of the television image of the hotel. “It looks like the fire will be through into the second floor in no time at all. How’s he going to get back out?”
“That’s what I want to know. Al, if anything happens to him…”
Werry silenced the young policeman by raising his hand. “Is there another way out of the hotel? What about the roof?”
“There must be a way in and out through the roof — that’s the way the kids seem to get in — but I couldn’t find it,” Quigg said. “It’s like a town up there, Al. All kinds of machinery houses and water tanks and things.”
“Well, we can send for keys or rip a door off’.” Werry paused, looking thoughtful. “Except… if we go inside and start working down we’re likely to stand on one of Buck’s Goddamn bombs. We might just have to take that risk.”
“Henry should have kept in touch.”
“What about the windows?” Hasson put in. “Are there no big ones he can put out with a brick?”
Werry shook his head morosely. “It’s all this modem blastproof — blastproof, that’s a good one — tessellated stuff. They’re supposed to make high buildings more psychologically acceptable, or something like that.”
“I see.” Hasson moved closer to the television unit and examined the image being sent down by the airborne camera operator. The architect of the Chinook Hotel had extended the tessella motif to the entire outer surface, blending walls and windows into a single mosaic design. Looked at from a purely aesthetic point of view the building was a success, and it would have been unfair to expect an architect to foresee a situation in which anybody would have wanted to launch himself out of a room into the sort of thin cruel air streams that flowed over and above the Empire State Building. Hasson’s imagination, catching him off guard, drew him into the situation he had envisaged and the ground seemed to rock beneath his feet. He turned away from the television monitor, sickened, and was trying to control his breathing when he saw a young woman approaching from the direction of the road. Seeing her in the unusual circumstance and setting, he had a momentary difficulty in identifying her as May Carpenter. She hurried by him, white-faced and distraught, and halted beside Al Werry.
Werry put an arm around her shoulders and turned her towards the road. “You can’t stay here, honey. It’s dangerous and right now I’m. . .”
“Theo’s gone,” she said in a taut unhappy voice. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
“He’ll have slipped out with some of his pals,” Werry soothed. “I’ll talk to him about it later.”
May shook free of his arm. “I’ve called around everywhere. All the places he goes. Nobody has even seen him tonight.”
“May,” Werry said impatiently, “can’t you see I’m kind of busy?”
“He’s up there.” Her words were measured, unaccented, made lifeless by the weight of certainty. “He’s up there in the hotel.”
“That’s a stupid thing to say. I mean, it’s just. . . stupid.”
May pressed the back of a hand to her forehead. “He goes out flying some nights with Barry Lutze, and that’s where they always go — up into the hotel.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Werry said.
“It’s true.”
“If you knew that, and didn’t tell me,” Werry replied, his face suddenly inhuman, “you’ve killed him.”
May closed her eyes and sagged to the ground. Hasson moved in and caught her at the same time as Werry, and between them they bore her a few paces and seated her on the footplate of a nearby truck. Several men looked round curiously and tried to move closer, but Quigg spread his arms and shepherded them away.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” May whispered. “I’m so sorry.
Werry cupped her face in his hands. “I shouldn’t have said a thing like that. It’s just that… It’s just that… May, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you let me know?”
“I tried to, but I couldn’t.”
“I don’t get it,” Werry said, almost to himself. “I don’t get this at all. If it had been anybody but Theo . . .”
Hasson felt something heave in his subconscious. “Did he go for the drugs, May? Was he taking empathin?”
She nodded and a thin glaze of tears appeared on her cheeks.
“Why did he do that, May?” Hasson said, ideas crystallising in his mind. “Could he see when he was taking empathin?”
“I couldn’t understand it,” she said, opening her eyes and gazing sadly at Werry. “I caught him going out through his bedroom window one night and I was going to tell you, but he begged me not to. He told me that when he’s with the other kids and they’re all taking empathin he sometimes gets to see what they can see. He said it comes in flashes. He talked about telepathy and things like that, Al, and he was so desperate and it meant so much to him, and I one time heard you saying that empathin and gestaltin and stuff like that doesn’t do anybody any harm…