Night Fall

I didn’t wake her, but watched her for a long time.

I left her sleeping on the couch and went out on the balcony, where I now stood, watching the smoke, which seemed endless.

The door slid open behind me, and I turned around. We looked at each other for a few seconds, then took a few tentative steps toward each other, then literally fell into each other’s arms, and wept.

We sat, half asleep in the two chairs on the balcony, and stared out at the darkness that shrouded Lower Manhattan, the harbor, and the Statue of Liberty. There were no planes flying, no phones ringing, no horns honking, and hardly a soul in the streets below.

It was difficult at this point to grasp the scope of the disaster, and neither of us had seen or heard any news because we’d been there where the news was happening, and aside from a few radios and too many rumors on the scene, we knew less than people living in Duluth.

Finally, though I knew the answer, I asked Kate, “How about Jill?”

Kate didn’t answer for a few seconds, then said, “I got to the Windows express elevator first, and decided to wait for her… she came into the lobby with Patrolman Alvarez and another officer… I put them on the elevator… then I decided to wait for you…”

I didn’t reply, and Kate didn’t continue. A few minutes later, she said, “Before I put Jill on the elevator, she said to me, ‘Should I wait here with you until John gets here?’ And I said to her, ‘No, you’re in good hands with those police officers. I’ll be up in a few minutes.’” Kate said to me, “I’m sorry…”

I said, “No, don’t be sorry.”

I wondered, of course, who else had gotten up to the 107thfloor before the plane hit. What I knew for sure, because I had asked a hundred cops and firemen, was that almost no one on the upper floors had gotten down before the North Tower collapsed at 10:30.

Kate said, “I stayed in the lobby to help, then the firemen ordered us out, and I looked for you… then the building collapsed… I remember ru

I took her blackened hand in mine and said, “I thought you were… in there…”

I closed my eyes, and I could see that huge jetliner coming down Broadway, and I realized now that it must have passed right between the Federal Building at 290 Broadway and our offices across the street at 26 Federal Plaza. Everyone in those offices must have seen it, and I wondered if they understood that they were seeing the first shot in what was going to be a long war that would change us forever.

Kate asked me, “Are you going back?”

I nodded.

She said, “Me, too.”

We both stood, and I said, “You shower first.”

She brushed my new shirt with her fingers, and said, “I’ll try to get that clean for you.”

She went through the door and into the living room, and I watched her as she walked, almost in a trance, into the bedroom.

I turned again and looked at the empty skyline, and I thought of Jill Winslow, and my friend and partner Dom Fanelli, Patrolman Alvarez, and the other police officers with them. I thought, too, of Ted Nash, truly dead this time though not how I would have chosen his death, and David Stein, Jack Koenig, Liam Griffith, Bud Mitchell, and whoever else had been up there. I thought, too, of all the people I knew who worked there, and those I didn’t know who had been there yesterday morning. I grasped the rail of the balcony and for the first time, I felt the anger. “You bastards.”

It wasn’t until Friday that I returned to the Plaza Hotel to pick up our things in the suite, and to have the safe opened to claim Mrs. Winslow’s package.

The assistant manager was accommodating, but informed me that there was nothing of Mrs. Winslow’s in the safe.