Linda Fairstein - Death Dance

I grabbed my pocketbook and dug out my cell phone, taking it into the living room, where the great expanse of windows caught whatever light reflected from the street lamps many floors below. I dialed the concierge desk to ask whether the two doormen could find the superintendent or a handyman, but the number was busy.

On the fourth try, I connected with Benito. "No problem, Ms. Cooper. Don't worry about anything."

"What do you mean, no problem? I've lost all my power. No lights, the refrigerator is off, the clock radio. What is it, Benito? Do you know?"

"It's all the apartments in the A line. You and everybody else in A."

"Up and down the whole building?"

"First floor to the penthouse. They're all yelling at me, like I had something to do with it."

"Are they working to restore it?"

"You could call me back in half an hour. The super says he's gonna have somebody here to check it out very soon. A crew from Con Ed is coming. Maybe we'll know something by then. Maybe you'll already have it back on. Or you could just go to sleep, Ms. Cooper. He gonna have it back on before the morning."

My hallway neighbors, David and Renee Mitchell, usually didn't come back to the city from their country house until Monday morning. I had a spare key for their apartment, for the times I occasionally walked their dog, Prozac. But I decided it was foolish to try to get inside in case they were home and already asleep.

I stretched out on my sofa in the den, nursing my drink, ready to nap against the background of routine city noises twenty floors below-cars honking at one another, the distant sound of an ambulance siren, and the rumblings of the private carting services that lurched through the streets at odd hours of the night. There was no point undressing in case I had to leave the apartment or let a workman in to check the system.

I dozed for half an hour, awakened-I thought-by scuffling sounds outside my door.

I walked to the foyer again and looked out through the peephole, but saw no one.

"Benito?" I asked, calling the desk again.

"Yeah, Ms. Cooper?"

"Any progress?"

"They got a guy working on it in the basement now, Ms. Cooper. You wanna come down to the lobby and wait here?"

"Why?"

"I dunno. You know Mrs. Melsher? The old lady with the walker? She got scared alone in the dark. She's down here keeping us company."

"Thanks, Benito. I'm fine."

"I'm going off at midnight. Want me to leave a wake-up call with Willie for you?" he said with a laugh. "It's not enough we gotta be the weathermen for you guys, deliver messages to each other, sign for your deliveries. Now I gotta play hearts with Mrs. Melsher and leave wake-up calls for the guy on sixteen who has to catch an early flight and the lady on twelve who's having root canal at eight a.m."

"See you tomorrow."

I went into the bedroom and laid down on top of the covers, pulling the throw over me. The lights flickered and the illuminated dial of the clock radio glowed for several seconds, but the room went black again and I closed my eyes to try to sleep.

It was one o'clock when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Sorry to disturb you, Ms. Cooper. It's me, Benito. The super aksed me could you come downstairs, please?"

"Why?"

"Look, I'm only doing what he told me. I'm calling all the A apartments. He has me working a double shift here," Benito said, pausing before he brought up the deadly reference. "He don't want me to be saying this to everyone, Ms. Cooper, 'cause we don't want no kind of panic. But-like-think of nine-eleven. We don't want people stuck upstairs if there's some kind of electrical fire."

I was bolt upright. "Fire? He thinks it's a fire?"

Benito clucked his tongue in annoyance. "I'm not saying there's no fire. It's a just-in-case kind of thing. Nobody told us what it is yet. The first guy that got here, he's started at the bottom. They're gonna check every hallway, go inside and check your electrical panels."

"I really don't want to leave the apartment. I'd rather be here," I said, thinking of the valuables I had around the place.

"Don't worry, Ms. Cooper. The super's coming with him. The guy won't be in there alone. It just could be a really dangerous thing."

The thought of getting zapped like Joe Berk or asphyxiated in a fire smoldering behind the apartment walls was enough to move me. I didn't need the reference to the unspeakable tragedies of 9/11.

"And you can't be using the elevator, Ms. Cooper. They had to shut that down."

"Why?"

"You're axing a lot of questions I can't answer. I guess that's how come you're a lawyer. Somebody smelled that kind of electrical-like, rubber-burning smell. We don't want to panic nobody, but they says you should come downstairs."

I threw my purse in the bottom of my linen closet, put my keys and cell phone in my pocket, and tossed on a leather jacket in case I decided to leave the lobby for a friend's house as events developed closer to morning. The last thing I brought was the flashlight.

The twentieth-floor hallway was quiet, and as I passed the elevator bank I paused to sniff the air to see whether I smelled anything unusual. If there was something on fire, that odor was overwhelmed by the remains of a neighbor's curried takeout, in containers still sitting next to the trash compactor.

I opened the door to the stairwell and was surprised to find that it was pitch black. I backtracked into the hallway and flipped open the phone to call the concierge desk again, but the number was busy.

After three more attempts and growing impatience, I pushed open the heavy fire door and shined the long, narrow beam of the flashlight into the deep tower of stairs and grabbed the steel handrailing to begin my descent.

The supposed fireproofing of the emergency staircase served as a sound barrier as well. The only noise was the clicking of my loafers against the cement steps. I picked up speed as I rounded the landing on nineteen, becoming more sure-footed as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

When I reached eighteen, I stopped in my tracks. Someone was breathing heavily, not far away from me, perhaps winded from going up or down the stairs. I tried to stay calm, assuming that it was a neighbor in some sort of distress.

"Hello?" I swiveled in place and turned the beam above me, in the direction from which I had just come, but saw nothing, and no one answered.

I grabbed the door handle to get back into the well-lit landing of the eighteenth floor, but it was locked. I flashed the beam below me and seeing no one, I went as fast as I could down the stairs to seventeen. Again, I tried the door for reentry, throwing my body against it as I pushed, but with no success.

Now the sound of my own deep breaths and loud heartbeats made it impossible for me to tell whether there were other noises.

I gripped the rail and dashed down farther, to sixteen, and now I could hear the footsteps racing from behind me, rubber-soled sneakers or shoes squeaking as they quickened coming toward me.

"Who's there?" I screamed out, sounding as panicked as I felt, knowing that my shouts couldn't penetrate the thick walls to alert adjacent tenants.

I leaned forward and slid my arm along the metal railing, trying to take two steps at a time but fearful of falling. As I turned on the next landing, I swung the light upward. Someone taller than I, dressed completely in black, with only the slits for eyes showing out of a ski mask, was trying to overtake me.

I let go of the support to reach into my pocket, bracing against the wall with my right arm to keep my balance, the friction of the leather jacket slowing my descent. Still clambering down and still shining the beam ahead of me, I felt for the redial button on the cell phone and pressed on it.

A gloved hand clamped around my neck, squeezing it with tremendous force, while the other hand locked on my shoulder. The person powering them knocked me to the ground as I tumbled to the next landing and rolled to a stop with my back wedged into the corner, wheezing to catch my breath.