Scavenger (8 page)

“Yes.”

“Did she say why?”

“No. I assumed it was part of the practical joke.” Perry tapped his pointer on the floor. “What’s the problem? Why won’t you tell us why you—”

“I smell smoke,” Balenger said.

11

Spinning toward the back of the theater, Balenger saw wisps of gray drifting through the seams in the double doors.

“
No
,” Perry moaned.

Balenger heard the four actors scramble down steps from the stage, but all he paid attention to were the strengthening tendrils of gray. He and Ortega ran up the aisle, stopping when they saw light flicker beyond the middle of the doors. Something crackled on the other side.

Perry and the other actors rushed to them.

“The paint supplies.” Drawing a breath, Perry inhaled smoke and stifled a cough. “Somehow they must have caught fire. Rags in a can. Some kind of spontaneous—”

“Or maybe they had help,” Balenger said.

“Help? What on earth do you—”

Behind them, the stage lights went out. As darkness enveloped them, an actress screamed. At once, battery-powered emergency lights glared from the corners.

“Give me your pointer.” Ortega took it from Perry and used its thick end to push the door open.

Smoke gushed through the opening. Beyond it, orange rippled among the gray clouds, flames licking toward the pointer.

Ortega yanked the pointer away, letting the door swing shut. As Perry stumbled back, he bumped into one of the actresses, who bent over, coughing.

“Where’s a fire exit?” Balenger demanded.

“One’s over there.” Perry gestured toward a door halfway down the right aisle. Next to it was a small red fire-alarm box.

Amid thickening smoke, Balenger helped the coughing woman to straighten and guided her along a row of seats. Ahead, the actors banged against arm rests and reached the aisle on the right, where Ortega pushed a bar on the fire door.

The door didn’t budge. Ortega rammed his shoulder against it, but the door remained firm. “Who the hell locked this?”

“Nobody! It always works!” Perry insisted. “The door must be jammed on the other side!” The director tugged open the alarm’s cover and pulled a lever, groaning when the alarm didn’t sound. “It’s supposed to be linked to the fire department, but if we can’t hear it, the signal isn’t being transmitted!”

In the back of the theater, the smoke was now so thick it obscured the doors. A crackle of flames became a roar. The paint and turpentine were acting as accelerants, Balenger realized. “Sprinklers? Does the theater have—”

“Yes! I don’t understand why they aren’t working!”

One of the actors pointed toward the back. “The fire got through the doors!”

Balenger spun, his skin prickling when he saw smoke and flames climbing toward a balcony. For a terrible moment, he reeled from deja vu, as if he were trapped in the inferno of the Paragon Hotel.
It’s happening again,
he thought. “Where’s another emergency door?”

“Backstage!” Perry shouted.

The smoke had a harsh greasy taste that made Balenger cough. A couple of the actors seemed paralyzed with fear. For a moment, Balenger too felt overcome with terror, his previous nightmares seizing him. “Move!” he found the strength to yell.

Boards rumbling, they hurried up the steps to the stage. Behind a side curtain, an emergency light glared above another exit. Ortega pushed the bar and crashed against the door, but it didn’t open. Balenger joined him, slamming his shoulder against it.

Someone pointed toward the back. “The fire’s on the ceiling!”

Smoke spreading toward him, Ortega noticed circular metal stairs. “What’s on the upper floor?”

“A fire escape off a dressing room!” Perry charged toward the spiral steps. They vibrated as he scurried up. But he suddenly stopped, clinging to the trembling hand rail. When Balenger reached the stairs, he saw what made Perry gape. Smoke obscured the top.

“We couldn’t breathe up there,” someone said. “We couldn’t see where we’re going.”

The staircase went down through the floor.

“What about the basement?” Balenger asked.

“Three windows!”

“Go!”

As their footsteps clattered on the metal, Balenger stared down toward the gloom and hesitated.
A basement
, he thought.
There’s always a basement
. Sweat oozed from his forehead, only partly because of the accumulating heat. He saw a flashlight attached to a bracket beside a control panel. Grabbing it, he forced himself down the stairs.

The air became cool. Off-balance from repeated turns, he reached a stone floor. Light struggled through a row of three narrow windows along the right wall. Close to the basement’s ceiling, the dusty panes showed the dirty brick wall of a narrow alley.

The legs of a table screeched as Ortega dragged it toward a window. Balenger switched on the flashlight and aimed it along the length of the basement, revealing painted backdrops of a hill, trees, and sky stacked against a wall.

“It won’t open!” Ortega tugged at the window. “It’s painted shut!”

”Break the glass!” Perry shouted.

“The opening’s too small!” the older, heavyset actor moaned. “I won’t fit through!”

Balenger kept scanning the flashlight, searching for another way out. He saw tables, chairs, and other stage furniture. Costumes hung on poles. Wigs perched on plastic heads. Everything was protected by clear plastic sheets.
But not for long
, Balenger thought.

He heard glass breaking, Ortega smashing the window with a cane Perry handed him.

“I’m telling you, I can’t fit through that narrow opening!” the heavy actor insisted.

“I can’t, either!” the other actor said.

The flashlight beam reached the wall under the stage. Stacked boxes partly obscured an old door.

Balenger grabbed Perry. “Where does that door lead? Another building?”

“No! A sub-basement!”

“
Sub-basement?
Why does this building need a—”

“It doesn’t! Not now!” Perry trembled from the heat and roar of the approaching flames.

“What do you mean ‘not now’? Don’t look at the fire! Just tell me about the sub-basement!”

“It’s from an earlier building! Way back, there was a stream!”

“What?”

“A long time ago, Greenwich Village had a
lot
of streams.” Perry rushed on. “Drainage tunnels kept the buildings from sinking. The stream’s dry now, but in the old days, you could get water from it.”

Balenger ran to the door, shoved the boxes away, and tugged a rusted handle.

“No!” Ortega warned. “We’d suffocate down there!” Even with air streaming through the broken window, the detective bent over and coughed from the smoke.

Wood scraped against stone as Balenger pulled harder on the door. Rusted hinges protested. He managed to open it enough to aim his flashlight through. He saw cobwebs across dust-covered stone walls and steps.

“The flames’ll absorb all the oxygen down there!” Ortega yelled.

Glancing behind him, Balenger saw Ortega finish smashing the glass from the window. The detective helped the older actress climb onto the table and lifted her toward the opening. She squirmed halfway through and got stuck.

“Squeeze in your stomach!” Ortega shouted.

“I’m cut!”

Ortega pushed her hips, and abruptly, the actress moved, struggling the rest of the way through.

As Ortega helped the other actress onto the table, the writhing wall of flames shifted closer.

“I’ll never fit!” the older actor insisted.

Nightmarish memories of the Paragon Hotel almost overwhelmed Balenger. He squeezed through the gap in the door. Aiming the flashlight, his footsteps echoing, he brushed away cobwebs and hurried down the uneven stairs.

He reached a stone chamber. A rat squealed and darted out of sight. Balenger stumbled back. He listened to his hoarse breathing, fought to keep control, and used his flashlight to study his surroundings. The rough, vaulted enclosure was about six feet long, wide, and high. It forced him to stoop. A trough in the stones showed where the stream had gone through. To the right and left, arches of crumbly bricks provided the openings through which the water had come and gone. Even after a century and a half, the air still carried a hint of fetid dampness.

Balenger heard shouting above him. He listened to the fire’s roar and felt air rush past, the fire sucking it upward. He put a hand against a stone wall, suddenly realizing how unsteady he felt.

“I’ll never get through!” The voice above him sounded more panicked.

Balenger knelt and aimed the trembling flashlight through the arch on the right. Five feet inside, part of the ceiling had collapsed, a pile of dirt and broken bricks impeding the way. Several red eyes reflected the light.

Fear cramped Balenger’s chest. He shifted the flashlight through the archway on the left. As far as the light stretched, nothing blocked the way. He came dizzily to his feet, feeling the air rush toward the basement above him.

A man screamed up there.

Balenger mustered his strength and charged up the steps, seeing the rippling reflection of the fire. He no longer needed his flashlight. The approaching blaze showed Ortega’s frenzy when he pushed a tall, thin man—Perry—through the broken window. That left two men, along with Ortega and Balenger.

“Can we get through?” Balenger shouted.

“I don’t think so!” Sparks swirled over Ortega.

“This way!” Balenger told them. “There’s a chance!”

The heat from the fire roared so near that they didn’t hesitate. The three of them squeezed past Balenger. He pushed the door shut, trying to block the outflow of air, and ran down to join them.

“To the left!”

The young actor hesitated. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Crawl!”

“I just saw a rat!”

“Which means there’s a way out! Crawl! I’ll come last and aim the flashlight ahead of everybody!”

Smoke drifted down the steps.

“No choice!” Balenger shouted.

“I’ll go first!” Ortega drew his pistol.

The heavy actor gaped. “What do you need the gun for?
How big do those rats get
?”

Ortega dropped to his knees, then his chest. While the detective squirmed through the low archway, Balenger told the others, “Go, go, go, go, go!” He shoved the men to the ground, urging them forward. “Move!”

Amid the rush of air, Balenger sank to his chest and squirmed over the stones. Aiming the flashlight forward, he crawled into the archway. The shadows seemed to get heavier. The stones under him changed to dirt. He heard the echo of clothes scraping, of harsh breathing, and the man ahead of him murmuring what might have been a prayer.

Cobwebs clung to Balenger’s hair. The brick archway sank lower. He felt it against his back and pressed his chest against the dirt.

“I don’t think I can get through here, either,” a man ahead moaned.

“Push the dirt to the side,” Ortega ordered from in front. “Deepen the channel.”

The line stopped. Air rushed past them toward the fire.

“
What’s the matter
?” Balenger called. Dust filled his nostrils. His claustrophobia squeezed his chest so tight he feared he’d pass out.

“I thought I saw . . . ”

“Thought you saw
what
?” Balenger leaned to the side and angled the flashlight beam as far forward as he could.

“A shadow moving.”

“If it’s a rat, shoot it!” the older actor said.

“No!” the other actor warned. “The sound might collapse these bricks!”

“Then why don’t you stop yelling?”

“Bricks,” Ortega told them. “I reached some fallen bricks.”

Dirt trickled onto Balenger’s neck. He had trouble breathing. After a pause, he heard bricks being stacked to the side.

“Okay, I’m moving forward,” Ortega said.

More dirt trickled onto Balenger’s neck.
Faster
, he thought.

The man ahead of Balenger started crawling again. Pulse racing, Balenger painfully followed.

“Hold it!” the man ahead of him blurted.

“What’s wrong?”

“The back of my belt’s caught against a brick in the ceiling.”

Balenger tensed. In the semi-darkness, he heard strained movement.

“Got it,” the man said. “I’m free.”

Balenger heard scraping sounds as the man resumed crawling.

“I reached some old steps!” Ortega called.

Thank God, Balenger thought, unable to catch his breath. Tasting dust, pressing his stomach to the ground, he squirmed forward.

His heart twitched when something held him back. His jacket was caught on a brick above him.

“Keep the flashlight steady!” Ortega called back.

“Yeah, steps!” the man behind Ortega cheered. “I see them!”

Balenger felt the brick move against his back.

“We’ll soon be out of here.” The actor in front of Balenger squirmed ahead.

The brick came loose, weighing on Balenger. More dirt trickled.

“Frank!” Ortega called back. “What’s wrong?”

Balenger didn’t dare speak for fear the vibration would dislodge more bricks.

“Why did you stop?” Ortega’s voice echoed.

Another brick weighed on him.

“My God, does it ever feel good to lift my head,” the actor in front of Balenger said. “I see a door!”

“Frank?” Ortega called.

As panic seized him, Balenger almost shrieked. A third brick shifted. Dust filled his nostrils. He eased forward an inch. Dirt pressed against his shoulder blades.

“Frank?”

The roof squeezed down on him. He needed more strength to pull forward. Bricks sank onto him. Abruptly, he couldn’t bear the weight any longer. The air was so stale, he feared he’d suffocate. Inwardly wailing, he squirmed faster, and suddenly more dirt fell. He crawled in a frenzy, bricks striking his legs, dirt collapsing, and he was shrieking out loud now, shoving with his knees, pulling, digging with his elbows, lunging, his legs feeling crushed, the noise of the collapse louder than his scream. Hands grabbed him, dragging him upward. The flashlight wavered in his trembling grasp. Dust swirled. He felt smothered.