The Tower

by Richard Martin Stern

  So what if you let some subcontractor cut a corner here and a corner there, and you pick up a little extra for it? Who’s hurt? And who’s to know? That was the important question, because everybody had his angle, and anybody who told you different was either a fool or a liar, but the guys who made it were the guys who didn’t get caught, and the others, the ones who did take a fall, they were the losers. Simple as that.

  The inspector had opened a beer and was standing beside the oversize refrigerator-freezer drinking it. Funny, just looking at the Tower on the tube started up the thoughts. Well, that job was finished now, but not really forgotten. A sizable piece of the inspector’s life had been spent on that job.

  “Harry!” His wife’s voice from the living room. “Where’s my beer?”

  “Shut up,” Harry said. “I’m thinking.”

  From any job you remembered some things, maybe one winter a whole series of days cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, maybe an accident like that big Polack falling off a beam and splattering himself all over the ground, or that kid killed on the subway on the way home from the job. You remembered, all right, and sometimes you thought about how and why things happened.

  That Polack, for instance, Harry had always thought somebody pushed him; he was a big tough bastard and Harry liked to think that in this world that kind of self-reliant competent jerk always got what was coming to him.

  That kid killed in the subway, now, that was something else, although the kid was a pain in the ass with his bellyaching about the change orders that kept coming through, and maybe if he’d lived, somebody would have listened to him and taken him seriously. Come to think of it, somebody was maybe pretty lucky the kid had been killed when he was. Harry had never seen it that way before.

  Somebody. Not Harry. Harry had the signed change order to show if anybody ever asked why one of the safety circuits had been completely eliminated, and for all Harry knew, and never asked, the change order was for real at that. Harry didn’t ask questions. Only fools stick their necks out.

  But maybe somebody was real lucky the kid had fallen under the IRT express. Fallen? Harry had seen on TV how easy it was for somebody at rush hour to get a push at the wrong time, and who was to know? Maybe somebody wasn’t lucky; maybe somebody was being sensible, shutting up a kid who might cause trouble. Human nature being what it was, Harry wouldn’t doubt for a minute that somebody might take that way to protect himself.

  “Harry! Come here! There’s something funny!”

  Harry sighed and walked out of the kitchen. “I told you not to touch that picture. If your goddam Clara Hess is so great—” He stopped and stared at the massive television set.

  The camera had zoomed in on the smoke plume high up in the building, and the announcer’s voice was saying, “We don’t know what it is, folks, but we’ve sent a reporter off to—here he is. George, what’s going on? Is that smoke normal?”

  In the living room Harry said, “Hell, no, it isn’t normal. Something’s burning somewhere and they’d damn well better find out where and do something about it.” He sat down but did not push his recliner back. “What the hell goes on?”

  “It looks like you didn’t build it very good,” his wife said.

  “That’ll be enough from you.”

  “If I see smoke coming out of my oven,” his wife said, “I figure I’ve goofed on the cake. Where’s the difference?”

  “Goddammit, will you shut up!”

  In silence they watched the fire engines arrive, the hoses snake across the plaza, smoke pour out the concourse doors.

  Unseen George, breathless, came back to the microphone again. “The fire is on the fourth floor. We’ve just had a report. There are indications that the fire may have been set . . .”

  Funny, the inspector thought, how all of a sudden his breathing was easier. A torch job, huh? Nothing at all to do with the kind of work buried in the walls; nothing at all to do with him. He leaned back in the reclining chair and had a long pull at his beer. He was smiling now.

  “Torch jobs can be tough,” he said. His tone was knowledgeable, his approach judicious. “But, hell, the way that building’s designed, they’ll have it out before Willie Mays could put one in the bleachers. They got automatic sprinklers and fire doors, and the air-conditioning takes the smoke away—” He shrugged. “Cinch,” he said.

  “The Family Fun Show is almost over,” his wife said, “and you didn’t bring me a beer. What kind of a gentleman are you?

  “Oh Christ,” Harry said, and got himself out of his chair.

  In the kitchen he took one beer from the refrigerator, changed his mind, and took out a second, opened them both. He finished the half-empty can in three long swallows, and walked back to his chair.

  “There’s still a lot of smoke,” his wife said. “If your building is so great, why is that?” She took the beer can absently, drank deep. “Maybe we ought to have two TVs. Then you could watch what you want and I could watch what I want. How about that?”

  “Jesus,” Harry said, “do you know what this color set you wanted so bad cost? And that trip to Florida you kept nagging about all winter? You think I’m made of money?”

  “All I said,” his wife said, “was that if we had two TVs, then you could watch your ball games and your Monday night football games and like that, and I—”

  “You could watch Clara What’s-her-name. Well, goddammit,” Harry said, “you got the whole week, every day, Monday through Friday—”

  The picture on the screen suddenly wavered, shook. There was silence. Then, distantly, the sound of a hollow boom!

  “Jesus,” Harry said, “what was that?”

  The announcer’s voice, a little shaky, said, “We don’t know exactly what has happened.” He paused. “But I can tell you that the ground shook, and if I were still back in Vietnam, I’d say for sure that a mortar attack had just begun. Chief! Oh, Chief! Can you tell us what’s going on?”

  The microphone picked up crowd sounds now, an excited murmuring as at opening kickoff, the feeling of spectator enjoyment high.

  “What was it, Harry?”

  “How the hell do I know? Maybe somebody planted a bomb. You heard the man.”

  There was confusion covered by commercials. At last the announcer said, “This is Assistant Fire Commissioner Brown, ladies and gentlemen, and maybe he can tell us what has happened. Commissioner?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t—yet,” Brown said. “We know there has been something like an explosion down in the main transformer room in one of the subbasements. All electrical power in the building is out. There are two men dead down there and sabotage is being considered. Beyond that—” The assistant commissioner shrugged.

  “Standby generators,” Harry said. “What’s the matter with the goddam standby generators?”

  The announcer said, “What does the loss of electrical power mean, Commissioner? Lights? Elevators? Air-conditioning? Are all of those kaput?”

  “That’s what it means at least for the present. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  As the assistant commissioner turned away, the long-range microphone caught Will Giddings and Nat Wilson standing together:

  “If it was a short,” Giddings said, “it ought to have gone to ground. Goddammit, that’s how it’s designed.”

  “Agreed.” Nat’s voice was weary. He had heard the point made several times. “Unless somebody altered it.”

  The voices were cut off. The screen showed a soup commercial.

  “Harry!” The wife’s voice was almost a scream. “Harry, for God’s sake, what’s wrong? You look like you seen a ghost!”

  Harry tried to set the beer can down on the chair-side table. He missed. It dropped to the floor and beer foamed out on the wall-to-wall carpeting. Neither of them noticed.

  “What is it, Harry? For God’s sake, talk!”

  Harry licked his lips. His throat felt dry and filled with sour vomit at the same time. How could that be? He took a deep
breath. He said at last in a low vicious voice, “All right. So all right. You got your goddam big color TV, didn’t you? And your trip to Florida?” He paused. “Just remember that.”

  14

  4:43P.M.-4:59P.M.

  In the office the governor said wearily, “All right. There isn’t anything for us to do right now except wait.” So be it.

  “‘When rape is inevitable—’” Jake Peters began. He shook his head. Then, “Where’re you going, Bent?”

  “I promised a report.”

  Frazee said, “Oh for God’s sake! We don’t know it’s as bad as they say it is. Let’s keep it right here in this room until we do know.”

  “Grover”—the governor’s voice was sharp and the wolfish grin showed his teeth in a near-snarl—“I made a promise. I intend to keep it.” He paused. “There is another point, and it is that those people out there have just as much right to all the facts as you have.” He paused again. “Even more right because none of them could have had anything to do with what has happened.”

  “And I have?” Frazee said. “Now, look, Bent—”

  “That,” the governor said, “is something we will find out later.” He looked down at Beth Shirley. “You don’t have to come,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  There was still ample light coming through the tinted windows, but somewhere the waiters had found more candles and lighted them around the big room for cheer. It was, the governor thought, a setting for a pleasant, if pointless, cocktail gathering. But now with a difference. As he and Beth walked in conversation slowed and then stopped.

  They walked to the center of the room, and there the governor signaled to a waiter to bring a chair. The governor stepped up on it and raised his voice. “In my younger days,” he said, “I was used to soapboxes. This will have to do.” Always start it on a light note—who had taught him that so long ago? No matter. He waited until the murmur of amusement subsided.

  “I promised a report,” he said. “This is the situation . . .”

  Beth watched and listened, and thought, I have no right to be here. But would I change it if I could? The answer was no.

  She looked around at the nearby faces while the governor was speaking. Most wore set smiles like masks; a few wore frowns of puzzlement, one or two of annoyance.

  There was the young congressman, Cary Wycoff, whom she had met. Was that the expression with which he waited for a political opponent to finish his say on the floor of the House? He seemed tense, almost coiled, holding down angry words with effort. His eyes never left the governor’s face.

  There was Paula, Bob Ramsay’s wife, tall, serene, smiling as she had smiled through a thousand social events and campaign visits. She caught Beth’s eye and drooped one eyelid momentarily in a girlish gesture of intimacy. Obviously to Paula the situation was far from serious.

  Directly in front of the governor’s chair were the UN’s Secretary General and its Ambassador from the Soviet Union. Their faces were expressionless.

  Senator Peters, Beth noticed, had come out of the office and was leaning against a wall, watching the scene. A strange, earthy, involute man, she thought. Over the years she had often come across newspaper and magazine pieces devoted to his accomplishments and idiosyncrasies. Now, meeting him for the first time, she found the reports all the more remarkable.

  He was a bird-watcher of almost professional caliber, and his catalogue of birds to be found in the Washington tidal basin area was the standard. He had been a guiding spirit in the establishment of the Appalachian Trail, and he had walked its two-thousand-mile length. He read Greek and Latin with ease and spoke French and German—with an American big-city working-class accent. It was said that his mental collection of bawdy limericks was the largest in the entire US Congress. He was here now, as Beth was, not entirely, but at least partly, by chance.

  Or Fate. Call it what you would. She was here, as he was, and it might not have been so. How often has one heard tales of the passenger who arrived at the airport just too late to board the airplane that crashed shortly after takeoff? The concept gave her a start. Was she, then, already accepting a foretaste of disaster?

  She concentrated again on the governor. He was winding up his explanation of what had happened.

  “The telephones are working,” he said. He smiled suddenly. “That is how I know these facts. I did not make them up.” There was no amused murmur—he had expected none—nevertheless, a little lightness was not out of place. His smile disappeared. “Help is on the way. Firemen have been sent up the stairs at each side of the building. It is a long climb, as you can appreciate, so we must be patient.” He paused. Had he said it all? He thought so, except, of course, for an appropriate windup. “This,” he said, “is not exactly the way this reception was planned, as I am sure you are aware. But I, for one, intend to enjoy myself while I wait for matters to be brought back to normal.”

  “And if they aren’t?” This was Cary Wycoff, his words and his tone angry. “What if they aren’t, Governor?”

  The governor stepped down from the chair. “You are out of order, Cary.” His voice was pitched low. “Justice Holmes made the point. I repeat it: ‘The right of free speech does not carry with it the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater.’ That is precisely what you are doing. Why? Just to call attention to yourself?”

  The congressman flushed, but stood his ground. “The people have a right to know.”

  “That is a cliché,” the governor said. “Like most clichés, it is partly right and also misleading. The people here have a right to know the current facts and that is why I have reported to them. They have no right, and I am sure no desire, to be frightened out of their wits by some loud young fool crying like a religious fanatic in Union Square about the doom that may be coming. Use at least some of the sense some people credit you with.” He turned then to look for Beth.

  She came forward and took his arm. “A fine rousing speech,” she said, and smiled. “I will vote for you. You see, I am learning the ways of politics.”

  The governor covered her hand with his. He squeezed it gently. “Thank God,” he said, “at least some people remember how to laugh.”

  She had expected to return to the office, which already she thought of as the command post. But the governor was in no hurry, and Beth understood that by his presence he was offering reassurance. Together they moved from group to group, pausing briefly for introductions where necessary and a few polite, apparently meaningless words.

  To the secretary general: “Walther, may I present . . .” And then, “We have an Americanism, Walther. I think it applies here.” The governor, smiling, looked around the room and then back to his small audience. “It is, I’ll admit, a hell of a way to run a railroad.”

  The secretary general smiled in turn. “I have heard the idiom, and I am afraid I must agree. Is it not a Penn Central kind of—mess?”

  To an aging actress: “There was a movie once,” the governor said, “well before your time, I am sure. It was called King Kong and it featured a gigantic gorilla on the Empire State Building. I almost wish Kong would appear now. He would be a diversion at least.”

  “You’re sweet, Governor,” the actress said, “but not only was it not before my time, I had a bit part in it.”

  To a network president: “Do you think your people are giving us good coverage, John?”

  “If they aren’t,” John said, “heads are going to fall.” He was smiling. “We ought to be able to work it into a documentary on how civilization overreaches itself. We know how to build the tallest building in the world, but we’re having trouble figuring out how to get people out of it. Isn’t there, by the way, a battery-powered television set somewhere here? Or at least a radio?”

  “Good thought,” the governor said. “I’ll see about it. But not,” he added quietly as he and Beth walked on, “for public viewing. Those on the ground will be giving it the full treatment. They’ll already have us doomed.”
/>   “Are we, Bent?”

  Nothing changed in the governor’s smile, but his hand tightened almost imperceptibly on her arm. “Frightened?” he said. His tone was easy.

  “I’m beginning to be.”

  “Why,” the governor said, “so am I. Just between us, I’d much rather be out in that high New Mexico meadow with a fly rod in my hand and a cutthroat trout, which they call out there a native, giving me a tussle.” He looked down at her, smiling still. “With you,” he said. “And if that makes me selfish and cowardly, so be it.” He was about to say more when he was interrupted.

  “This is outrageous, Bent.”

  A tall gray-haired corporate-executive type, Beth thought, and almost giggled when her estimate was verified.

  “Why, Paul” the governor said, “I’ll agree with you. Miss Shirley, Paul Norris—J. Paul Norris.” And with no change in tone, “Outrageous is the proper word, Paul. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “By God, somebody ought to be able to do something.”

  The governor nodded. “I quite agree.” His smile brightened. “And there you have your answer, Paul. The Army has arrived.” He pointed to two helicopters banking into position to circle the building.

  They seemed so free, Beth thought, close but distant, impossibly removed from this—this confinement.

  The governor’s hand tightened on hers. “There’s our diversion,” he said quietly. “Now we can slip back to headquarters.”

  Senator Peters moved to intercept them. “I’ll stay out here, Bent. If you want me for anything—” He left it unfinished, offer clear and without limit. “My role,” he said then, “unlike yours. You’re the commander, the administrator, the organizer. My place is outside the chain of command”—he paused—“which is the way I like it.”

  “You seem,” the governor said, “a little less unhappy with the human race than you were, Jake.”

  The senator looked around the great room. Slowly he nodded. “They’re behaving very well. So far.”