“Yeah. Well, you better get outta your building, make sure everybody else does the same. They’ll think it’s a drill.”
“You doing the same?”
“Not right away. If you get anthraxed or blown up, I’ll know what to do. One thing, Quinn, in case we don’t see each other again. You think the phony return address name on the packages means the real Jack Kerouac? The author?”
“Yeah. But I don’t know what that means.”
“He wrote Peyton Place, didn’t he?”
Quinn said, “Good luck, Harley,” and hung up.
Half an hour later, the packages were declared safe. Quinn and Renz had each been the recipient of a jigsaw with a charred wooden handle. As they suspected, there was no clue as to who had placed the packages in the mail. Not a very direct clue, anyway.
8
Just looking at it, no one would guess that the building in the West Village had once been a bakery. In the early seventies it had been converted to a three-story apartment building, with a small foyer. In the nineties, the building had been renovated again, and in a major way. Twenty more stories had been added, and the building had become a boutique hotel, serving both guests and residents. Stone had replaced brick on part of the exterior, the foyer had become a legitimate lobby, complete with leather easy chairs and potted plants, and an elevator had been installed. Upstairs, most large rooms had become suites or been subdivided into small rooms. The halls were carpeted in a deep red, and paneled halfway up to cream-colored wallpaper with a subtle rose print.
Emilio Torres, the head of maintenance in the building, lived with his wife, Anna, in a separate, super’s apartment below ground level. He could open his door, take two steps forward, climb three steps, and be in the lobby near the elevators. During certain late-night hours one of the elevators stayed in service, while the other was used only by the staff. When that happened, whatever workmen or equipment needed was shuffled between floors, using the other elevator.
The virtually new building was named Off the Road, in a sort of salute to the beat generation of the fifties, and the rates were reasonable—by Manhattan standards.
The West Village was home to artists of all types, some of whom were doing at least okay financially. Off the Road was a success. Units were purchased for ownership or rental, and recently all had become occupied.
Emilio slept well. All of the systems in the building were almost new. Everything worked as it should, and almost everything was designed to make maintenance and upkeep as easy and infrequent as possible.
He wasn’t sure what had awakened him at three a.m. At first he thought he must have something to do, and either he or Anna had set the alarm. After all, it was precisely three o’clock.
But he knew it was unlikely that either he or Anna had set the alarm as a reminder of some task.
He felt worry slip away as he felt himself drawn again to sleep. The apartment—the entire building—seemed quiet now. All he could hear was the steady rhythm of Anna breathing.
She stirred and turned away from him, drawing up her knees. Her familiar, gentle snoring comforted him.
Maybe that was what had awoken him. Anna had for some reason cried out in her sleep. Emilio punched his pillow to fluff it up, then rolled onto his stomach and rested the right side of his face on the cool, soft linen.
He might have gone back to sleep. He wasn’t sure afterward.
There was a muffled shuffling sound from out in the lobby. Anna put out an arm so she could reach the lamp on her side of the bed, and switched it on.
She and Emilio lay facing each other, staring puzzled into each other’s eyes.
Anna started to say something, but Emilio lifted a hand and put his forefinger to his lips, urging her to be quiet.
Sirens were wailing off in the distance. A lot of them. It took less than a minute for Emilio to be sure they were converging on Off the Road.
His building!
Emilio sprang out of bed and yanked on his pants, which were folded on a nearby chair. He fastened his belt, slid his bare feet into slippers. After cautioning Anna to stay in the apartment, he pulled a wifebeater shirt over his head and went to the door.
He felt the brass doorknob first, to make sure it was cool. Then he was through the door, and up the steps to the lobby.
The smell hit him first. Something burning. Then he saw a thick pall of black smoke clinging to the ceiling. Tenants were running and sometimes tumbling down the fire stairs, pursued by the smoke. A paunchy, white-haired guy, wearing nothing but Jockey shorts, shoved Emilio out of the way, cursed, and ran for the street door. Voices were calling back and forth. At least no one was mindlessly screaming. Not yet.
Though the fire was obviously upstairs, the elevator was at lobby level. As its door slid open, people tried to stream out but were blocked by others. Every few seconds someone was ejected by force out onto the lobby floor.
Finally they managed something like order, and came stumbling out one after the other. The last one out, a woman whose name was Karen and who Emilio thought was a painter, paused at the elevator door and reached back inside before stepping away.
“No!” Emilio cried. “Don’t send the elevator back up! Don’t use it! You can be trapped in it.”
Karen stared at him, comprehended, then stopped the elevator doors from closing and stuffed her purse in the door. The elevator stalled, stopped, and began to ding over and over. It was already filling up with smoke.
Karen, in a blue robe and one blue slipper, stopped running and gripped Emilio by the bicep, squeezing hard.
“Get out, Emilio! There’s nothing you can do.”
But there was. “Anna!”
“There!” Karen cried, and pointed.
Anna was crossing the lobby toward Emilio. He slipped from Karen’s grasp and went to save her. They hugged, but quickly, and he began to lead her through lowering, thickening black smoke toward the street door.
The door hung open, its vacuum sweep dangling and broken.
They were three feet away from it when a huge apparition burst in. A New York fireman in full regalia, boots, slicker, gloves, a hat, and some kind of respiratory mask.
Emilio and Anna jumped back out of the way as several more fireman streamed in and headed for the stairway.
The first one who’d come in stared at Emilio from behind the mask.
“I’m the super,” Emilio said.
“Get out for now,” said the gruff voice on the other side of the mask’s visor. “But don’t go away.”
“We’ve got no place to go,” Emilio said. “This is home.”
“Better leave it before it falls on you,” the fireman said.
One of the firemen who’d gone upstairs was back. The one talking with Emilio and Anna went over to him, and the two men started shouting at each other. The big fireman, with the hat that suggested he was in charge, glanced over and noticed Emilio and Anna and waved them toward the street door.
The smoke was thickest where it was backed up at the door, though the door itself had been removed and lay shattered off to the side. Emilio and Anna made their way outside and began coughing. A fireman led them away.
“How did this happen?” Emilio shouted, as if maybe the fireman was at fault.
“Don’t know how yet,” the fireman said. “But it looks like it started on the upper floors first, then another fire in the basement. On timers, so the fire would move up and down, catch people in a kind of pincer movement of flames.”
“Then somebody did this on purpose,” Karen said.
“Yes, ma’am. That’d be my guess.”
“Whoever did it wanted to kill people.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am.”
Emilio and Anna had stopped on the street.
The fireman studied the flames for a moment. “Don’t waste time, then,” he said. “Get some distance between you and the fire.” He patted them both on the shoulder. “Go!”