Beside him, Shaner yelled, “One more sock, I can get this baby working.”
The ax lifted, fell. A square foot of the planking broke away, fell out of sight, was replaced by a gush of vanilla-colored smoke. Shaner let go with the extinguisher.
A livid sheet of violet flashed as the stream squirted out of the nozzle; it blinded Shaner momentarily, left him stunned. Pedley knocked the cylinder out of the deputy’s hands. It rolled along the floor, sprouting lavender flame over backdrop and floor!
Gasoline! In the extinguisher!
The marshal seized Shaner by the collar, dragged him back from the miniature volcano roaring up through the hole in the flooring.
The backdrop blazed up with the rapidity of a window shade zipping to the top when the catch doesn’t work. Pedley could see through to the stage.
Leila was at the mike again — singing. Some of the orchestra men had fled but most of them stayed with her.
Loud above the crackling and snapping of the flames, clear and cool over the terrified melee of the entangled aisles, came the husky, steadying voice:
It wasn’t exactly oil on the troubled waters; nothing could have completely calmed that fear-crazed group of sick and injured men. But it was enough. It gave them the narrow margin of confidence they had to have, if they were to survive.
She had nerve enough to stand there and sing:
And they wouldn’t be shown up by a girl — not by the voice many of them had listened to in faraway corners of the world, on shipboard, in foxholes. If Leila could take it, they could.
The hospital fire crew was swarming in now, with hoses. Men flung sand and retreated before searing geysers welling up out of the floor.
The seats themselves were nearly empty. But the aisles were still clogged, the exits hopelessly jammed. Another three minutes and most of the boys would be out. They wouldn’t have half that, unless that fireproof curtain shut off the flames from the stage.
It had jammed on the track somewhere. The patrol corporal and Ollie and Toleman were tugging frantically at the rope; the thing was stuck, a third of the way across the stage.
Pedley grabbed an armful of the heavy fabric, was attempting to drag it back toward the wing to clear the pulleys, when he saw the widening, luminous circles on Leila’s skirt. He dived at her, beat the flames out with his hands.
She staggered away from the mike, saw the gilt sparks racing across the material of her dress — and ran.
He tried to grab her, but she was too horrified at being afire to realize that running only fanned the sparks.
In an instant she’d reached the wings, staring over her shoulder, terrified at the trail of flame following her. She tripped over the extinguisher Pedley had knocked out of Shaner’s hand, fell headlong — disappeared into the smoke belching from the flight of stairs leading below-stage.
Pedley was plunging into the smoke and down the staircase before she hit the cement floor. But he couldn’t see her, couldn’t find her when he felt around at the foot of the steps.
He called to her.
Her answer came faintly from somewhere toward the opening into the musicians’ pit. He groped toward her in the half-light. She had crawled beside a crate of old costumes, crouched there, whimpering like an animal in pain—
He pulled her to her feet.
“You’re not hurt.”
He had to find out if she was hurt; he couldn’t tell if she slumped there in hysterics.
She could walk.
“Come on.” He made for the midget door under the apron, opening into the orchestra.
When he put his hand on the knob, he knew there was no use. It burned his fingers. The paint on the door was blistering.
He could open it, easily enough. But they wouldn’t get through. The other side of that door would be a sea of flame.
“Have to try the stairs.”
“All right.” She’d stopped whimpering.
The lights went out. They could still see; the orange glare was sufficient for them to find their way back to the bottom of the stairs.
They went up part way. But they couldn’t get out. The fireproof curtain had fallen over the stair up onto the stage; from beneath it angry spears of flame stabbed across the top steps.
Pedley dragged her back. “Doesn’t look so good.”
“We’re trapped?”
He pulled her along with him understage. “Might be another exit—”
There wasn’t. He was pretty certain there wouldn’t be.
She clung to him. “We’ll never get out of this.”
“Sure. They’ll get us.”
They would, of course. But it wouldn’t do any good to tell her how the rescue crew would come through here after the fire was out and everything was soaked down; to explain about the long black rubber bag they use to carry out — whatever was left of them. “I’ve been in tougher spots than this.”
“This is what Ned went through. And Kim.” She didn’t put it as a question; it was more as if she were understanding something for the first time.
“Uh, huh. Only we — we’ll be all right.”
The heat was a tangible thing. It needled the back of his neck, stung his nostrils, made the top of his ears ache.
“They wouldn’t have had to go through it — we wouldn’t be going through it — if it hadn’t been for me,” she said.
“Your first husband wasn’t exactly free from blame.” They were as far away from the flames as they could get. Pedley’s back was to the wall. She clung to him, her face half-buried in his shoulder.
“I forgot. You read my — day book.”
“Yair.” He slapped at a spark that dropped on her neck. It slid down inside her dress. He ripped the silk from her shoulders, flung the burning cloth aside. She didn’t move away from him.
“You know about — Ned—”
“I know he was some guy who came to your home town with a show and you ran away and married him, went into his vaudeville act.” A portion of the stage floor fell in, some twenty feet away; it was like watching a preview of hell, Pedley thought. “I found out you never did divorce him. That you had a lot of — uh — men friends. Guys who could help you along in show business, mostly. But you never committed bigamy until this kid Conover came along.”
“I never really fell in love until I found Bill. I never met anyone like him before. Maybe that was why. He wouldn’t — have anything to do with me, unless he could marry me.”
“The lieutenant didn’t know you’d — played around?”
“Yes.” It was getting hard for her to speak; her lips were beginning to swell from the heat. “I didn’t fool him about that. But I couldn’t tell him Ned and I were married.” She shrank behind Pedley’s shoulder as a knot in the flooring exploded and scattered fragments of glowing wood over them.
“Why’d you put stuff like that down on paper, anyway?”
“I never had many friends — except boy friends. I couldn’t keep them very long, either. Ned wouldn’t let me. He kept breaking up my friendships, even though he didn’t care for me, himself. He didn’t mind my — sleeping with men as long as it helped get us jobs or more money for the act. But he didn’t want me to like them.”
“Dog in the manger.” Pedley could smell the hair singeing on his head. Maybe it was her hair — didn’t make any difference. They were both going the same way.