It was Greco's room that was ablaze—he made that clear, trying to get into it. But he couldn't. Black smoke billowed out of it, and orange flame. The night manager's water bucket was going to make no headway against that.
I retreated. But Greco plunged ahead, his face white and scary.
I stopped at the head of the stairs. The flames drove Greco off, but he tried again. They drove him off again, and this time for good.
He stumbled toward me. "Out! It's hopeless!" He turned, stared blindly at the hotel employees with their chain of buckets. "You! What do you think you're doing? That's—" He stopped, wetting his lips. "That's a gasoline fire," he lied, "and there's dynamite in my luggage. Clear the hotel, you hear me?"
It was, as I say, a lie. But it got the hotel cleared out.
And then—
It might as well have been gasoline and dynamite. There was a purplish flash and a muttering boom, and the whole roof of the four-story building lifted off.
I caught his arm.
"Let's get out of here," I said.
He looked at me blindly. I'd swear he didn't know me. His eyes were tortured.