• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Excuse me for asking, but is there word? Might there be anything about Sam that you can tell us?”

The obvious concern in the elderly doorman’s voice brought back so many painful images for Sarah. How many times had she and Sam stopped to talk with Mr. Sullivan before heading up to their apartment on evenings just like this?

Partly because Sam’s father didn’t live in the building, and partly because Sam was so outgoing and friendly, the doormen had adopted him as their own. They had adopted Sarah as well. It was a prototypical New York family situation.

“No, there’s nothing yet,” Sarah said. “As soon as there’s anything, I’ll tell you first thing, Mr. Sullivan.”

The ancient doorman revealed the most gloriously white set of teeth, complementing his full head of white hair. “Well, you folks try to have a peaceful evening, under the circumstances. I’ll say a prayer tonight.”

“Nice old man,” Stefanovitch found himself whispering as they continued through the marble front hall toward the elevator bank. He wanted to keep Sarah’s mind off Sam, if he possibly could. She needed sleep, or soon she wouldn’t be any good to anyone. For the first time since he had known her, she looked terrible. All the pain and exhaustion showed on her face.

“My neighborhood up in Yorkville is filled with doormen who work in midtown,” he said. “Families pass these jobs down from generation to generation. Manhattan doorman jobs have been known to appear in wills.”

Sarah finally had to smile. “You love any kind of street gossip, don’t you? You’re a closet sociologist, you know.”

“Park Avenue is a street, too,” Stefanovitch said and winked at her. “I’m getting into this Park Avenue life-style a little. I’d love to hear the real dirt from this street.”

Up on Sarah’s floor, they stopped to kiss in the deserted hallway. Sarah tenderly held his face in both her hands. Maybe she was fooling herself, but some of the sadness seemed to have left his eyes.

There was something about those brown eyes, windows to the real John Stefanovitch…

It struck her, suddenly, how sad it would be if they never got to find out any more about one another. If their story had to end right at its beginning.

That was a possibility, wasn’t it? They had broken the street law. They had gone after Alexandre St.-Germain and the Midnight Club.

Stefanovitch sensed that he was blushing as they held one another in the hallway. He felt vulnerable lately, completely at Sarah’s mercy.

Finally, they pulled apart. Sarah clumsily tried to find the house key, groping inside her purse.

“You’re the writer. Say something clever to break the silence,” Stefanovitch said.

“I can’t find my damn key.”

The two of them laughed as they entered her apartment. The laughter was a relief, because it came so infrequently lately. The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind them.

Locks clicked tightly into place.

The digital clock radio inside Sarah’s bedroom went out at three-seventeen in the morning.

The almost imperceptible electric hum inside the apartment suddenly stopped. The buzz from the refrigerator and the illuminated face of an old “Pepsi Cola Hits the Spot” wall clock in the kitchen disappeared.

Sarah stirred slightly. She rolled toward Stefanovitch, but she didn’t wake up.

The building’s electricity had gone off.

Downstairs in the lobby, the night doormen cursed the building’s prehistoric wiring. Their usual night of card games, paperback book reading, and paid catnaps was going to be ruined.

The fire exit stairway leading to all floors, the roof, and the basement was illuminated in a widening arc from a powerful flash lamp. The fifth-floor hallway eventually appeared in the jouncing lamp’s bright light. Then the imposing dark wood door to Sarah McGinniss’s apartment was revealed in the narrowing cone of light.

Low rumbling voices could be heard in the hallway. Three dark figures stood huddled together behind the search lamp.

More words were spoken softly. A ring holding several skeleton keys was produced. One after