Cemetery Dance

Chapter 11

Nora, I am very sorry!" The doorman opened the door with a flourish and took her hand, enveloping her with a smell of hair tonic and aftershave. "Everything is ready in your apartment. Locks change. Everything fix up. I have the new key. I offer my sincere condolence. Sincere."

Nora felt the cold, flat key pressed into her hand.

"If you need my help, let me know." He gazed at her with genuine sorrow in his liquid brown eyes.

Nora swallowed. "Thank you, Enrico, for your concern." The phrase had become almost automatic.

"Anytime. Anything. You call and Enrico come."

"Thank you." She headed toward the elevator; hesitated; started forward again. She had to do this without thinking too much about it.

The elevator doors clunked shut and the machine ascended smoothly to the sixth floor. When they opened, Nora didn't move. Then, just as they began to close again, she stepped quickly out into the hall.

Everything was quiet. A muted Beethoven string quartet issued from behind one door, muffled conversation from behind another. She took a step, then hesitated once again. Ahead, near the turn of the hall, she could see the door to their — to her — apartment. Brass numbers screwed onto it read 612.

She walked slowly down the hall until she faced the door. The spyhole was black, the lights off inside. The lock cylinder and plate were brand new. She opened her hand and stared at the key: shiny, freshly cut. It didn't seem real. None of this seemed real. Jamais vu — the opposite of déjà vu. It was as if she were seeing everything for the first time.

Slowly, she inserted the key, turned it. The lock clicked, then she felt the door go loose in its frame. She gave it a push, and it eased open on newly oiled hinges. The apartment beyond was dark. She reached inside for the light switch, fumbled for it, couldn't find it.Where is it? She stepped into the darkness, still fumbling along the blank wall, her heart suddenly pounding. She was enveloped by a smell — of cleaning fluids, wood polish… and something else.

The door began to shut behind her, blocking off the light from the hall. With a muffled cry she reached back, grabbed the door — knob, wrenched the door back open, stepped back into the hall and closed the door. She leaned her head against it, shoulders shaking violently, trying to force down the sobs that engulfed her.

Within a few minutes, she had herself more or less under control. She glanced up and down the hall, grateful nobody had walked by. She was half embarrassed, half afraid of the storm of emotions she'd been keeping bottled up. It had been stupid to think she could just walk back into the apartment where her husband had been murdered only forty — eight hours before. She'd go to Margo Green's apartment, stay with her for a few days — but then she remembered that Margo was on sabbatical leave until January.

She had to get out. She rode the elevator back down to the first floor and walked through the lobby on rubbery legs. The doorman opened the door. "Anything you need, you call Enrico," he said as she almost ran past.

She walked east on 92nd Street to Broadway. It was a cool but still pleasant October evening, and the sidewalks were crowded with people on their way to restaurants, walking their dogs, or just going home. Nora began to walk, briskly; the air would clear her head. She headed downtown, moving fast, dodging people. Out here, on the street, among the crowds, she found herself getting her thoughts under control, finding some perspective on what had just happened. It was stupid to react this way — she had to go back into the apartment sometime, and sooner rather than later. All her books, her work, her computer, his stuff — everything was there.

She wished, for a moment, that her father and mother were still alive, that she could flee to their warm embrace. But that was an even more foolish, futile line of thinking.

She slowed. Maybe she should go back, after all. This was just the kind of emotional reaction she had hoped to avoid.

She paused, looking around. Beside her, a line of people were waiting to get into the Waterworks Bar. A couple necked in a doorway. A group of Wall Street types were walking home, all dark suits and briefcases. Her attention was attracted to a homeless man who had been shuffling alongside the building façades, matching her pace; he stopped, too, and turned around abruptly, heading the other way.

Something about the furtiveness of that motion, about the way the man kept his face from view, made her big — city instincts sound an alarm.

She watched the homeless man lurch along, covered in dirty rags, looking precisely as if he was trying to get away. Had he just robbed somebody? As she stared after him, the man reached the corner of 88th Street, paused, then shambled around the corner, looking back once just before vanishing.

Nora's heart stopped.

It was Fearing.

She felt almost sure of it: the same lean face, the same lanky frame, the same thin lips, unruly hair, and leering smirk.

She was gripped by a paralyzing fear — which, just as quickly, gave way to furious anger.

"Hey!" she yelled, breaking into a run. "Hey, you!" She began pushing her way along the crowded sidewalk, halted by the Water — works crowd. She bullied her way through.

"Whoa, lady!"

"Excuse me!"

She broke free and ran; tripped; stood up again; then resumed her chase, spinning around the corner. Eighty — eighth Street stretched eastward, long and dimly lit, lined by ginkgo trees and dark brownstones. It ended in the bright lights of Amsterdam Avenue with its pretentious bars and eateries.

A dark figure was just turning onto Amsterdam and heading back downtown.

She raced down the street, running for all she was worth, cursing her weakness and sluggishness after the concussion and bed rest. She rounded the corner and stared down Amsterdam, similarly crowded with evening — goers.

There he was: moving quickly and with sudden purpose, half a block ahead. Thrusting aside a young man, she began running again, catching up to the figure. "Hey! You!"

The figure kept going.

She darted between pedestrians, stretching out her arm. "Stop!"

Just before reaching 87th Street, she caught up to him, seizing the dirty material of his shoulder and spinning him around. The man righted himself unsteadily, staring back at her with wide, fearful eyes. Nora released the shirt and took a step back.

"What's your problem?" Definitely not Fearing. Just some junkie.

"Sorry," Nora mumbled. "I thought you were someone else."

"Leave me alone." He turned away with a muttered "bitch" and continued his unsteady way down Amsterdam.

Nora looked around wildly, but the real Fearing — if he'd ever been there to begin with — had vanished. She stood amid the surging crowds, her limbs trembling. With a huge effort, she got her breathing under control.

Her eye settled on the closest bar, the Neptune Room: a loud, ostentatious seafood place she had never been into. Never wanted to go into. Never expected to go into.

She went in, settled on a stool. The bartender came over right away. "What'll it be?"

"Beefeater martini, extra dry, straight up, twist."

"Coming right up."

As she sipped the oversize, ice — cold drink, she upbraided herself for acting like a psycho. The dream was only a dream and the homeless man wasn't Fearing. She was shaken up; she needed to get a grip, calm down, and put her life back together as best she could.

She finished her drink. "How much?"

"On the house. And I hope" — the bartender said with a wink—"that whatever devil you saw before you came in is gone now."

She thanked him and rose, feeling the calming effects of the liquor. Devil, the bartender had said. She had to face her devils, and do it now. She was falling apart, seeing things, and that was unacceptable. That wasn't her.

A few minutes' walk brought her back to her apartment building. She briskly passed through the door, ran the gauntlet of another barrage of well — meaning comments by the doorman, and entered the elevator. In another moment, she was standing at her door. She slid in the key, unlocked it, and felt around the corner for the light switch, which she immediately found.

Double — locking the door and sliding home its newly installed bolt, she glanced around. Everything was perfectly neat, cleaned, polished, repainted. Quickly but methodically, she searched the entire apartment, including the closets and under the bed. Then, opening the curtains of the living room and the bedroom, she turned off the lights again. The glow of the city filtered in, throwing the apartment into shadow, giving a soft, gauzy focus to its surfaces.

She could stay here tonight, she knew now; she could wrestle with her devils. Just so long as she didn't have to look at anything.