12

As one set of safety clamps held and the other failed, the number four car twisted and buckled. With a thunder of tearing metal, impelled by its own weight and speed, plus the heavy load inside, the car split open. On one side lower than the other because the floor was now tilted at a steep angle – a gap several feet high appeared between floor and wall. Screaming, clutching wildly at each other, the passengers slid toward it.

Cy Lewin, the elderly operator, who was nearest, was first to fall through. His single scream, as he fell nine floors, was cut off when his body hit the concrete. An elderly couple from Salt Lake City fell next, clasping each other. Like Cy Lewin, they died as their bodies smashed against the ground. The Duke of Croydon fell awkwardly, striking an iron bar on the side of the shaft, which impaled him. The bar broke off, but he was dead before his body reached the ground.

Somehow, others held on. While they did, the remaining two safety clamps gave way, sending the wrecked car falling down the remaining distance of the shaft. Part way, a youngish conventioneer dentist slipped through the gap. He was to survive the accident, but die three days later of internal injuries.

Herbie Chandler fell when the car was near the end of its descent. Tumbling into the adjoining shaft, he sustained head injuries from which he would recover, and fractured vertebrae, which would make him a paraplegic, never walking again for the remainder of his life.

As the car hit bottom, Dodo was last to fall. An arm was broken and her skull cracked hard against a guide rail. She lay unconscious, close to death, as blood gushed from a massive head wound.

Three others – a Gold Crown Cola conventioneer, his wife, and Keycase Milne – were miraculously unhurt.

Beneath the wrecked elevator car, Billyboi Noble, the maintenance worker who, some ten minutes earlier, had lowered himself into the elevator pit, lay with legs and pelvis crushed, conscious, bleeding, and screaming.

13

When Peter McDermott reached the lobby, it was a scene of pandemonium. There was confused shouting and frightened screaming. In front of the crowd, a white-faced assistant manager and a bellboy were attempting to try open the metal doors to number four elevator shaft. Cashiers, room clerks, and office workers were pouring out from behind counters and desks. Restaurants and bars were emptying into the lobby, waiters and bartenders following their customers.

As loudly as he could, Peter shouted above the uproar, “Quiet! Please stand back and we will do everything we can.” He caught a room clerk’s eye. “Has anyone called the Fire Department?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

Peter snapped, “Do it now!” He instructed another, “Get onto the police. Tell them we need ambulances, doctors, someone to control the crowd.”

A tall, lean man in a tweed jacket stepped forward. “I’m a Marine officer. Tell me what you want.”

Peter said gratefully, “The center of the lobby must be kept clear. Use hotel staff to form a cordon. Keep a passageway open to the main entrance.”

The tall man began cracking commands.

A maintenance worker ran into the lobby, “We need help at the bottom of the shaft. There’s a guy trapped under the car. We can’t get him out or get at the others.”

Peter snapped, “Let’s get down there!”

A gray brick tunnel, dimly lighted, led to the elevator shaft. Here, the cries they had heard above were audible again, but now with greater closeness.

Peter shouted to the men not occupied, “Get more lights in here!”

He instructed the maintenance man who had come to the lobby, “Get back upstairs. Guide the firemen down.” Aloysius Royce, on his knees beside the debris, shouted, “And send a doctor – now!”

The man nodded and ran back the way they had come.

The chief engineer, Doc Vickery, shouldered his way through the tonnel, “My God! I warned if we didn’t spend money, something like this…” He seized Peter’s arm. “You’ve heard me enough times…”

“Later, chief.” It was evident that the chief was in no condition to take charge. Peter instructed him, “Check on the other elevators. Don’t take chances of a repetition.” Bowed and broken, the old man moved away.

Peter returned to the elevator shaft. Aloysius Royce had eased himself under part of the debris and was holding the shoulders of the injured, screaming maintenance man. It was clear that a mass of wreckage rested on his legs.

Peter took one of the injured man’s hands. “Help is coming.”

Distantly, high above, he could hear a growing wail of sirens.

14

The room clerk’s telephone summons reached the Fire Alarm Office in City Hall. Automatically, four fire halls responded – Central on Decatur, Tulane, South Rampart, and Dumaine. Within less than a minute, five engine companies, two hook and ladders, emergency, rescue and salvage units, a deputy chief and two district chiefs were on the way to the St. Gregory.

The Police Complaint Department received its warning two ways – from the Fire Alarm Office and directly from the hotel.

Two women communications clerks wrote the information on message blanks, a moment later handed them to a radio dispatcher. The message went out: All ambulances to the St. Gregory Hotel.

15

Three floors below the St. Gregory lobby, in the tunnel to the elevator shaft, the noise, commands, moans and cries continued. A young man with a medical bag was approaching them.

“Doctor!” Peter called urgently. “Over here!”

The newcomer joined Peter and Aloysius Royce. Billyboi Noble screamed again.

The doctor produced a syringe. Peter pushed back Billyboi’s sleeve. Within seconds the morphine had taken hold. Billyboi’s head fell back. His eyes closed.

“I haven’t much with me. I came off the street. How quickly can you get him out?”

“As soon as we’ve help. It’s coming.”

More running footsteps. Helmeted firemen streaming in. With them, bright lanterns, heavy equipment – axes, power jacks, cutting tools, lever bars. Little talk.

“A jack under there. Get this heavy stuff moving!”

From above, the sound of yielding metal. A stream of light as shaft doors opened at the lobby level. A cry, “We need ladders here!”

The young doctor’s command: “I must have this man out!

“We need a smaller jack!”

Peter’s voice. “That bar there! The one higher. If we move it, it will lift the lower, leave clearance for the jack.”

“Twenty tons up there. Shift something, it can all come down. When we start, we’ll take it slow.”

Royce and Peter, shoulders together, backs under the higher bar, arms interlocked. Strain upward! Nothing. Strain harder again! Still harder! Do the impossible! A shout, “The jack is in!” The straining ended. Down. The jack turning, lifting. Debris rising.

The doctor’s voice, quietly. “Take your time. He just died.”

The dead and injured were brought upward by the ladder one by one. Women were crying. Some men had turned away.

One by one the ambulances raced away. First, with Herbie Chandler; next, the injured dentist who would die. Other ambulances drove more slowly to the city morgue. Inside the hotel, a police captain questioned witnesses, seeking names of victims.

Dodo was brought up last. A doctor had applied a compression dressing to the gaping head wound. Keycase Milne, ignoring offers of help himself, had stayed with Dodo, holding her, guiding rescuers to where she lay. Keycase was last out. The Gold Crown Cola conventioneer and his wife preceded him. A fireman passed up the bags – Dodo’s and Keycase’s – from the elevator’s wreckage to the lobby. A uniformed city policeman received and guarded them.

Peter McDermott had returned to the lobby when Dodo was brought out. She was white and still. Two doctors worked over her briefly. The younger doctor shook his head.

Behind the cordon, a man was shouting, “Let me pass!”

Peter motioned to the cordon to part. Curtis O’Keefe came rushing through.

When Peter last saw him, he was on the street outside, pleading to be allowed in the ambulance. The intern nodded. Doors slammed. The ambulance raced away.

16

Barely believing his own deliverance, Keycase climbed the ladder in the elevator shaft. In the lobby Keycase found that he could stand and move unaided. Once more, his brain was alert. Uniforms were all around. They frightened him.

His two suitcases! If the larger one had burst open!… But no. They were with several others nearby. He moved toward them.

A policeman behind said, “Sir, there’s an ambulance waiting. Everyone must go, sir. It’s for a check. For your own protection.”

Keycase protested, “I must have my bags.”

The young policeman carried the bags and escorted Keycase to the ambulance.

While the policeman was gone, Keycase picked up his bags and melted into the crowd.

He continued to walk, without haste, to the outdoor parking lot where he had left his car yesterday. He had a sense of peace and confidence. Nothing could possibly happen to him now.

From downtown, Keycase drove carefully to the motel on Chef Menteur Highway where he had cached his earlier loot. Its value was small, compared with the glorious fifteen thousand dollars cash, but still worthwhile.

Making sure he was unobserved, he loaded the suitcases into the car, placing the coats beside them. He checked out of the motel and paid a balance owing on his bill.

His destination was Detroit. On the way he would do some serious thinking about the future. For a number of years Keycase had promised himself that if ever he acquired a reasonably substantial sum of money, he would use it to buy a small garage. There he would settle down to work honestly through the sunset of his days.

But hadn’t the success of the past three days been an omen? Perhaps after all, Keycase reflected, he should continue the old ways for a while. The garage could come later.

Approaching the junction of Canal Street and City Park Avenue, Keycase observed that the intersection’s traffic lights had failed. A policeman was directing traffic from the center of the road on the Canal Street side.

A few yards from the intersection, Keycase felt a tire go flat.

Motor Patrolman Nicholas Clancy, of the New Orleans Police, had once been accused “the dumbest cop”.

Despite long service, which had made him a veteran, Clancy had never once advanced in rank or even been considered for promotion. With no arrests made, his record was inglorious. One solitary thing in line of duty gave Clancy not the slightest trouble – directing traffic. He enjoyed it.

From the opposite side of the avenue, Clancy saw the gray Ford slow and stop. He strolled across. “Flat tire?”

Keycase nodded.

He was remembering the single, simple factor his plans had overlooked. The spare tire and jack were in the trunk. To reach them, he must open the trunk, revealing the fur coats and the suitcases.

“Guess you’ll have to change the wheel, eh?”

He could do it fast. Three minutes at the most. If only the cop left…

“Gets busy around here. You’d better start now.”

Keycase drew the keys from the ignition. He forced a smile. “It’s all right, officer. I can handle it.”

Clancy said good-naturedly, “I’ll give you a hand.”

An impulse seized Keycase to abandon the car and run. Instead, he inserted the key and opened the trunk. Scarcely a minute later, he had the jack in place, wheel nuts were loosened, and he was raising the rear bumper. The suitcases and fur coats were heaped to one side in the trunk. As he worked, Keycase could see the cop contemplating the collection. Incredibly, so far, he had said nothing.

Clancy leaned down and fingered one of the coats. “Bit hot for these.”

“My wife… sometimes feels cold.”

“Little lady not with you, eh?”

“I… I’m picking her up.”

Keycase froze.

Fate had presented him a chance, and he had thrown it away. Now, in anger, fate had turned its back. Terror struck as he remembered what, a few minutes earlier, he had forgotten – the awful price of one more conviction; the long imprisonment lasting, perhaps, for the remainder of his life.

Freedom had never seemed more precious.

At last, Keycase knew what the omens of the past day and a half had really meant. They had offered him release, a chance for a new and decent life, an escape to tomorrow.

Was it too late now – at least for hope?

He vowed that if he escaped this moment, he would never again, in all his life, do one more dishonest thing.

Keycase opened his eyes. The cop was walking to another car, whose driver had stopped to ask directions.

Keycase had the trunk repacked when the cop returned.

Clancy nodded approvingly, “All finished, eh?”

Keycase slammed the trunk lid down. For the first time, Motor Patrolman Clancy saw the Michigan license plate.

Green on white. Clancy wished he could remember.

From behind, an impatient horn. Clancy seemed to remember he was a policeman. “Let’s get this lane clear.”

Green and white. The thought still bothered him.

Keycase drove forward. Clancy watched him go. After all, he had been called “the dumbest cop”.