Into the Night

She left the bathroom hurriedly, left it just as she’d found it, door wide, light on; moved across the bedroom like a swift, silent streak. Across the main room, eyes straying to this side, to that, in oddly nostalgic snapshots of farewell. No more oleander tree watered with highballs. No more notes left on the piano. Taps waiting to be played instead: Heaven drops its curtain down upon my heart.

She listened carefully a moment, then opened the door sparingly, and neatly sidestepped through it. The hall was empty. She closed the door after her. She didn’t bother cleaning the knob. Somehow that seemed to belong more in books than in real life, she couldn’t have said why. Anyway, there’d probably be a myriad of others touching it after her.

The indicator above the elevator was at rest. It was down at the street. She pushed and brought it up to her. Then she got in, and pushed “two,” not the street. She was lucky, no one else got on during the entire sixteen-floor ride down. No one saw her riding that car.

She got out at two, and walked quietly down the stairs, which opened out onto the lobby, to one side of the elevator. She had noticed them many times, in her comings and goings. She stopped just out of sight, just before they made their final turnaround into view, and waited there for the chance to leave unseen. She determined not to move without it, not to accept anything less, not if she had to stand there two hours on end. Just one stray glimpse of her by someone, and it could backfire later on when least expected and involve her in disaster.

The setup was favorable, from her point of view. The call-board, on which incoming visitors were announced to the various apartments, was over on the other side of the lobby, away from the foot of the stairs. In performing his chore, the doorman had his back to her. However, she would have to time herself so that he didn’t turn around too quickly and glimpse her as she went out the door (and consequently wonder where she had come from). It was a long entrance-lobby, and the distance she had to traverse was not inconsiderable.

He was outside on the street when she first came down. It was impossible to escape detection with him in that position. He had to be brought inside by some arrival and placed with his back to her.

A young man was the first arrival. The doorman came in with him. “Miss Fletcher,” the young man said. “Mr. Larkin.” Miss Fletcher promptly said to come up. A dinner date probably, and she was expecting him. He was noticeably carrying an orchid inside an isinglass box.

A single arrival was no good to her. It took too little time to announce him and left the doorman free again too soon.

A trio showed up, two men and a girl, to pick up the fourth member of their quartet. Madeline made an abortive move forward, then her courage froze and she backed up again. The doorman said the three names awfully fast. She would have been pinpointed less than halfway to her destination if she’d made the try.

But if you wait long enough for the right combination, you finally get it. If you wait for the right kind of weather, it finally comes along. If you work a safe long enough, it finally opens. If you bet on it enough, your horse finally comes in.

People came and people went. Even an elderly lady in a wheelchair was brought in by an attendant. Obviously a tenant, since she wasn’t announced.

Then finally it paid off. A whole group of arrivals came in in a body. Actually there were not more than five or six, but they seemed to fill the lobby with a clamor of voices and restless movement and carefree laughter. They were all young, high teens or low twenties, and they were evidently all invitees to some dinner party or birthday party or engagement party, for most of the boys carried wrapped gifts.

The doorman was inundated. He disappeared in the middle of all of them, and Madeline, with the calm assurance of complete anonymity, stepped down off the stairs and glided across the lobby, not a hasty motion in her entire body.

Just as she passed through the door, she heard him direct them: “Seventeen-A, everybody.” A shudder flickered down her spine. The party was being held underneath the apartment in which the corpse lay.

Sensible enough not to linger in front of the building to pick up a taxi, she walked briskly, with head lowered to lessen chances of recognition, to the nearest corner, and there made a play for one and got in.

Unless there’s an unlucky star hanging over my head, she told herself, not a living soul saw me come into or go out of that building. And she superstitiously switched her middle finger across her index and kept them that way.

The first thing she did when she got back was take a drink, to try and steady up. She, who had scorned Dell’s drinking. But this was therapy.