The largest of the five buildings comprising the campus of John Jay College of Criminal Justice is Haaren Hall, a handsome, imposing redbrick and gray-stone building on the west side of Tenth Avenue. The building spans the entire block between Fifty-fifth and Fifty-sixth Streets, the sidewalk outside busy with the comings and goings of students and faculty from early in the morning until well after dark. The building, originally the home of a public high school, houses a fully equipped theater, as well as a swimming pool and a gym.
Around twilight the next day, Lee stood across the street on Tenth Avenue staring at the entrance, thinking about all the times he had mounted the broad stone steps, on his way to class or, after graduating, to meet a friend or former classmate there. The building was backlit in the pink glow of the sun setting over the Hudson, the temperature of the windless air so perfectly matching the warmth of his skin that it felt as if there were no atmosphere at all. He could smell the fresh woodsy smell of the magnolia bushes in the little pocket park behind him.
He was still in a daze from the phone call of the night before, immersed in a deep, bitter fog of self-pity he couldn't seem to shake off.
Behind him, he heard a familiar voice.
"Hello, my friend!"
He turned to see the Greek hot dog vendor who worked that corner, a man who had sold him dozens of hot dogs over the years, pushing his cart along the sidewalk, on his way home. The man's weather-beaten face broke into a broad smile, displaying strong, yellow teeth.
"How are you, my friend? I no see you in long time!" he said, stopping his cart next to Lee and clapping a friendly hand on his shoulder. His hands were thick and brown, the skin mottled and cracked from the wind and sun. "Is good to see you!"
"Yes, it's good to see you, too," Lee replied, and in truth, it was. One of the sweet things about life in New York was the relationships you had with people like this man. The young Guatemalan immigrant who makes your breakfast sandwich so quickly and efficiently, the Cuban deli owner who knows just how you like your coffee in the morning, the Korean salad bar lady with the good sushi at the Essex Market, the Indian grocer who sells you your daily bagel or newspaper. You rarely know their names, and you may not know much about them, but the moment you share with them every day is a thread in the fabric of city life. Lee valued these relationships: they were not complex and layered and ambiguous like intimate relationships, but that was part of their charm. New York was so full of people who came from other places, and those moments where they briefly touched, exchanging a sandwich and a greeting, were something Lee clung to and valued greatly.
He turned to face his friend. "How have you been? How's business?"
The man wagged his head back and forth. "Now is so-so, you know-not so good. When September come, is much better. Everyone back to class, everyone hungry!" He winked and let out a robust belly laugh. Lee was always impressed with the man's good spirits. After a hard day of standing outside in all kinds of weather, he still had good humor and a belly laugh. Lee didn't think he'd be up to a job like that-and this man probably had fifteen years on him.
"So, my friend, is good to see you-I see you again?" the man said, beginning to wheel his cart away.
"Yes," Lee replied. "You will definitely see me again."
He watched as the vendor pushed his cart uphill along the sidewalk, stooped over with the effort, favoring his right leg, his shoulders rounded from years of physical labor. Watching him, Lee's self-pity and indecision evaporated like steam from a hot dog bun. When the light changed, he strode out into the dusky street and toward John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Little had changed since he was last there some five months ago. The building was quiet, in the break period between the end of summer classes and the beginning of the fall term. At the front security desk, the pretty black girl with the colorfully beaded hair was absorbed in her textbook and barely glanced at him as he flashed his ID card. She pressed the release button, and he went through the metal turnstile as he had a hundred times before. Lee wanted to get used to being in the building again, to acclimatize himself, as it were, before tackling a lecture hall full of students.
He started up the stairs to the third floor, where most of the faculty offices were, and pushed open the door to the familiar corridor. The hall was empty, which wasn't surprising-most of the professors and staff would be enjoying the last week of summer vacation. He walked slowly down the hall, his footsteps ringing hollow through the deserted corridor.
As he turned the corner, he heard the dreaded voice in his head, in all its reptilian coldness.
I know about the red dress.
His knees weakened and he began to sweat.
"Get a grip, Campbell," he muttered, and walked onward. But each step seemed to pound out the same three syllables, over and over. The red dress… the red dress… the red dress. His vision seemed to narrow, and the walls felt as though they were slowly beginning to press inward, closing in on him. He knew the warning signs of a panic attack, but fought the sensation by swinging his arms vigorously, concentrating on taking deep breaths.
He passed the familiar place where there was a water stain on the ceiling in the shape of Florida, and the janitor's closet two doors away. He headed for the big lecture hall at the end of the corridor, which was where he would probably be giving his talk. He thought he detected a faint, lingering aroma of clove cigarettes in the air.
He reached the lecture hall, but the door was closed and locked. He tried to peer in through the gray smoked-glass partition on the door, with no success-he could see nothing except the sheen of sunlight coming through the row of tall windows on the far wall. The interior of the room was foggy and indistinct. The numbers 303 were stenciled on the top of the glass in an old-fashioned, gold-colored typeface.
He thought he heard footsteps behind him and spun around, his heart pounding, but the hall was empty. He felt all of his senses were magnified, more acute, but especially his hearing. It was as though he had the ears of a bat, and every little sound gave him a start. He leaned against the wall and put his hand to his left side, throbbing and pulsing with each beat of his heart. Steady on, Campbell.
There, on the opposite wall, was a student bulletin board, and clinging to it was a tattered scrap of paper with the remnants of a photograph of a smiling young woman wearing a lopsided graduation cap. Underneath the picture he could still make out the words, Please Help. He recognized it at once as a picture of one of the thousands still missing from the attack on the World Trade Center-no doubt buried under the mounds of rubble still piled high in Lower Manhattan. In the months following the tragedy, these pictures were everywhere-plastered on bus stops, park benches, trees, fences-hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, and the message was always the same: Missing-Please Help. And there was always a phone number to call. The smiling faces in the photographs were a terrible irony, as if mocking the reality of their fate-the people were never found, the phone numbers never called.
The girl in this photo was about the same age his sister had been when she disappeared.
The irony was suffocating. He tried to intellectualize it: Here he was, in the halls of the largest school for criminal justice in the greatest city in the world, yet he was as helpless to find his sister as the family of the lost girl was to ever find her again.
He turned to go but was overcome with nausea and had to lean back against the wall again. Saliva spurted into his mouth. His stomach rolled and churned, but he fought it. "Damn," he muttered, "I'll be damned if I'm going to be sick. " Even as he said the words, he was aware they were somewhat ridiculous, but he fought the nausea anyway, and after a couple of minutes he felt a little better. He took a few steps but was still shaking. and then realized what he really wanted, more than anything, was to scream until he was hoarse. That was impossible, as there were other people in the building.
Suddenly he wheeled around, his body filled with an intense, gathering rage. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he lunged back toward the door and swung at the glass partition with all his might, hitting it almost directly in the center with his right fist. The glass shuddered and held for a fraction of a second, then cracked and shattered, crashing to the floor in a waterfall of broken shards.
Lee stared at the broken pieces of glass at his feet, then at his hand, which was bleeding. He felt no pain yet-that would come later. His body was too full of adrenaline to register anything. It did occur to him with some irritation that it would be a while before he could play the piano again-some of the cuts were pretty deep. He watched with detachment as his blood dripped onto the polished tile floor. He thought of how a forensic investigation might classify it: Blood spatter from a puncture wound, non-high-velocity impact, indicating no blunt-force trauma or femoral arterial spray. Not enough volume to indicate the death of the victim. No, he wasn't dead-not yet.
But instead of feeling satisfaction or relief, he felt only a terrible, heavy sadness.