Robin Cook - Contagion

It was not a good neighborhood. Jack had sensed that the moment he’d arrived that morning. The point had been driven home as darkness fell and someone tried to break into the van with Jack sitting there. The man had approached the passenger-side door with a flat bar, which he proceeded to insert between the glass and the door frame. Jack had to knock on the glass and wave to get the man’s attention. The moment he saw Jack he ran off.

Jack was now popping throat lozenges at a regular rate with little relief. His throat was worse, and to add to his increasing misery he’d developed a cough. It wasn’t a bad cough, merely a dry hack. But it further irritated his throat and increased his anxiety that he had indeed caught the flu from Gloria Hernandez. Although two rimantadine tablets were recommended as the daily dose, Jack took a third when the coughing started.

Just about the time Jack was contemplating admitting to himself that his clever ploy with the package had been a failure, his patience paid off. The man involved did not attract Jack’s attention initially. He’d arrived on foot, which was not what Jack expected. He was dressed in an old nylon ski parka with a hood just like a few of the individuals who’d preceded him. But when he came out he was carrying the parcel. Despite the failing light and the distance, Jack could see the “rush” and “biohazard” labels plastered haphazardly over the exterior.

Jack had to make a rapid decision as the man walked briskly toward the Bowery. He hadn’t expected to be following a pedestrian, and he debated if he should get out of the van and follow on foot or stay in the van, circle around, and try to follow the man while driving.

Thinking that a slowly moving van would attract more attention than a pedestrian, Jack got out of the truck. He followed at a distance until the man turned right on Eldridge Street. Jack then ran until he reached the corner.

He peeked around just in time to see the man entering a building across the street, midway down the block.

Jack quickly walked to the building. It was five stories, like its immediate neighbors. Each floor had two large, storefront-sized windows with smaller, sashed windows on either side. A fire escape zigzagged down the left side of the facade to end in a counterweighted ladder pivoted some twelve feet from the sidewalk. The ground-floor commercial space was vacant with a For Rent sign stuck to the inside of the glass.

The only lights were in the second-floor windows. From where Jack was standing it appeared to be a loft apartment, but he couldn’t be certain. There were no drapes or other obvious signs of domesticity.

While Jack was eyeing the building, vaguely wondering what to do next, the lights went on up on the fifth floor. While he watched he saw someone raise the sash of the smaller window to the left. Jack was unable to see if it had been the man he followed, but he suspected it was.

After making certain he wasn’t being observed, Jack quickly moved over to the door where the man had entered. He tried it, and it opened. Stepping over the threshold, he found himself in a small foyer. A group of four mailboxes was set into the wall to the left. Only two had names. The second floor was occupied by G. Heilbrunn. The fifth-floor tenant was R. Overstreet. There was no Frazer Labs.

Four buzzers bordered a small grille which Jack assumed covered a speaker. He vaguely contemplated ringing the fifth floor but had trouble imagining what he could say. He stood there for a few minutes thinking, but nothing came to mind. Then he noticed that the mailbox for the fifth floor appeared to be unlocked.

Jack was about to reach up to the mailbox when the inner door to the building proper abruptly opened. It startled Jack and he jumped, but he had the presence of mind to keep himself turned away from whoever was exiting the building. The person hastily brushed by Jack with obvious distress. Jack caught a fleeting glimpse of the same nylon ski parka. A second later the man was gone.

Jack reacted quickly, getting his foot into the inner door before it closed. As soon as he was certain the man was not immediately returning, Jack entered the building. He let the door close behind him. A stairway wound up surrounding a wide elevator built of a steel frame covered by heavy wire mesh. Jack assumed the elevator had been for freight, not only because of its size but also because its doors closed horizontally instead of vertically, and its floor was rough-hewn planks.

Jack got into the elevator and pushed five.

The elevator was noisy, bumpy, and slow, but it got Jack to the fifth floor. Getting off, he faced a plain, heavy door. There was no name and no bell. Hoping the apartment was empty, Jack knocked. When there was no answer even after a second, louder rapping, Jack tried the door. It was locked.

Since the stairway rose up another floor, Jack climbed to see if he could get to the roof. The door opened but would lock behind him once he was outside. Before he ventured onto the roof he had to find something to wedge between the door and doorjamb so he could return to the stairwell. Just over the threshold he found a short length of two-by-four, which he guessed was there for that very purpose.

With the door propped open Jack stepped out onto the dark roof and gingerly walked toward the front of the building. Ahead of him he could see the arched handrails of the fire-escape ladder silhouetted against the night sky.

Arriving at the front parapet, Jack grasped the handrails and looked down. The view down to the street awakened his fear of heights, and the idea of lowering himself over the edge made him feel momentarily weak. Yet just twelve feet down was the fire-escape landing for the fifth floor. It was generously illuminated by the light coming from within the apartment.

Despite his phobia, Jack knew this was a chance he couldn’t pass up. He had to at least take a look into the window.

First he sat on the parapet facing the rear of the building. Then, holding on to the handrail, he stood up. Keeping his eyes fixed on each rung, Jack lowered himself down the short run of ladder. He moved slowly and deliberately until his foot hit up against the grate of the landing. Never once did he look down.

Maintaining one hand on the ladder, he leaned over and peered through the window. The space was indeed a loft as Jack had surmised, but he could see it was partially divided with six-foot-high partitions. Immediately in front of him was a living area with a bed to the right and a small kitchen built against the left wall. On a round table was the opened remains of Jack’s parcel. The doorstop and the crumpled newspaper were strewn about the floor.

What interested Jack more was what he could just see over the partition: It was the top of a stainless-steel appliance that did not look as if it belonged in an apartment.

With the window in front of him invitingly open, Jack could not control his urge to climb into the apartment for a better look. Besides, he rationalized, he could exit into the stairwell rather than subject himself to climbing the fire-escape ladder again.

Although he continued to avoid looking down, it took Jack a moment to convince himself to let go of the ladder. By the time he had slithered into the apartment headfirst, he was perspiring heavily.

Jack quickly collected himself. Once inside with his feet planted on the floor, he had no compunction about peering back out the window and down at the street. He wanted to make sure the man in the ski parka wasn’t coming back, at least not for the moment.

Satisfied, Jack turned back to the apartment. He went from the combination kitchen-bedroom into a living room dominated by a storefront-sized window. There were two couches facing each other and a coffee table on a small hooked rug. The walls of the partitions were decorated with posters announcing international microbiological symposia. The magazines on the coffee table were all microbiological journals.