Young woman’s mother in Connecticut. Thinking about her daughter. She went to New York to do graduate work in painting. Took an apartment with another young woman, a friend from college. But the building’s bad. Filthy, poorly maintained, bell system that doesn’t work; a firetrap, she’s sure. Even if some of the neighborhood’s okay, and some of the river buildings even elegant, and as co-ops or rented apartments, quite expensive, much of it’s very bad. Welfare hotels. Cheap rooming houses. Awful-looking men and women on the street day and night. Little park nearby where men drink and some dope and urinate in the open and make vulgar remarks to passing women and all sorts of other things. Beggars. In the Times she’s read of break-ins and muggings and seen a city crime statistic chart that put her neighborhood near the top. Worried.
Man in a cab going acrosstown. Should have got out of the cab and escorted her upstairs. Didn’t like the looks of her building and block. But then he hardly knows her. She might have thought he was being funny in a way — forward, not funny. And he had this cab, was in it, did only promise to take her to the street door, or rather: just see, while he sat in the cab, she got inside that door, and then he might not have got another cab after he left her building or not so fast. Could have asked the cab to wait while he saw her to her apartment door. Now he thinks of it. But she said she’d be all right. He did ask. And he’s sure that no matter how hard he insisted on taking her to her apartment door, she would have said no. Still.
Woman’s in the lobby, presses the elevator button. Light above the elevator door says the car’s on the top floor, the eighth. Slow elevator, takes days to get down. She doesn’t like waiting in this creepy lobby. Anyway, her friend Phoebe will be upstairs and they can talk about tonight. The man she met. He was nice. Took her home in a cab, wouldn’t let her share the fare with him. She wishes she had accepted his suggestion and let him walk her to her door. But then she would have had to invite him in. And offer him a coffee or a beer, when really all she wants to do, if Phoebe’s up — she’ll be up — is talk a little with her and go to sleep. Elevator’s about here. It’s here.
Man thinks now’s the time. She’s a good-looking one. Long legs, big ass. She’ll screw well. He’ll screw her well. He’ll screw her till she cries for more, more. He steps out. She turns around. Knife’s out. Damn, she saw him. “Don’t say a word or I’ll kill you right here.” He gets behind her and puts the knife to her neck. Opens the elevator door, knife always against her neck. “We’re going to the roof. I know this building. Don’t say a word, make a peep — nothing — don’t even sneak a look at me again or you’re dead. I know how to get out of this building easily so I’ll be out of here before you hit the ground. Now get in.”
She gets in. She doesn’t believe this. What should she do? This is a dream. A nightmare. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. Think, think. That knife. It pricks. They go up. He pressed eight. He said “roof.” Maybe someone will stop the elevator on the fourth floor, fifth. There’s only one outside button for each floor. No down and up buttons — just one, and if you press that button when you want to do down and the elevator’s going up, it stops. Please. Someone.
It’s too late to call her, her mother thinks. She’d like to. She wants very much to speak to Corinne, tell her how worried she is about her. Tell her that Dad and she will give her a hundred dollars a month extra to find a better building to live in. Two hundred. It’ll be a sacrifice for them, but it just shows how anxious they are about where she’s living now. If she’s going to live in that city, she’ll tell her, then it has to be on these terms. Of course she could say no, she likes where she’s living now, took months to find and then paint and set up, doesn’t want to take any more money from them than she already is and so on, and they really wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. It’s too late to call. But it’s Saturday. She dials. Corinne’s phone rings. If she answers it, or if Phoebe answers it — she hasn’t once thought of Phoebe, for instance how she’d take to Corinne’s parents subsidizing most of their rent — she’ll apologize for calling this late, but both will have to know she only has their best interests at heart. That’s not enough. She slams down the receiver. She can wait till tomorrow? Has to, since Corinne will see her anxiety at this hour as bordering on mania. Just another nine or ten hours. Eleven’s okay to call on Sundays for women that age. Even if they’re with men friends who stayed the night, which, let’s face it, could well be the case. She goes upstairs to wash up for bed. Her husband says from the bedroom “What’ve you been doing? I heard you slamming the phone down, picking it up, then slamming it again.” “I only slammed it once. I was worried about Corinne. Worked it out in my head though, so it’s now all okay.”
Roommate at a party downtown. Wonders if Corinne’s home by now. She’s sure she’s expecting her to be there when she gets home. Note she left will explain it or should. Something like “Aaron called. Sudden invite to big bash at a south of Soho artist’s loft and wanted me to join him. I know. Swore I’d grind away at the books all weekend and maybe never see Aaron again, but what, dear, can I say?” They have a phone here? If so, she’ll call Corinne and say she doubts she’ll be coming home tonight, and she should try to do that before two. She’s just about never seen or heard Corinne up after two. “Excuse me,” to a woman she thinks is one of the three people giving the party, “but is there by any chance a phone in this place I may use?” “As long as it’s not to out of town,” the woman says. “Positively not.” “Actually, if you’re a good friend of either of the other hosts, you can make that call to as far west as Columbus, south as Washington, and as far north as Boston, let’s say.”
She’s also a very pleasant girl, man in the cab thinks. Attractive. Even pretty. He’d definitely call her pretty, even beautiful in some ways, though he doubts a couple of his friends would. Still. And she had spark. Bright, besides. Far as he could make out, bright as any woman he’s met in a year. He’s definitely phoning her tomorrow. Monday night, not tomorrow. Doesn’t want to appear too eager. Why not? She seemed like she’d like eagerness. Directed at her, but not just to score. She complained how most men she meets these days don’t really care or get excited about anything but making money and getting ahead. Don’t really read, don’t think much about serious things, aren’t interested in much art other than movies and music. She didn’t say he was different than they but implied he was. She also gave him her phone number willingly enough. He likes her name. She seems to come from a good family: intelligent, moral, involved, well-off. He thinks she sort of took to him too. Maybe that’s why he should act fast: so she doesn’t forget why she was attracted to him, if she was. Tomorrow night. No, Monday’s soon enough. He hopes she paints well. If she doesn’t, he could always say at first — later he could level with her more—“Hell, what do I know?”
Top floor. Roof stairs and door. Always trying to get a look at him to see if he means it — seemed he did. Had one of the most maniacal faces she’s even seen, when she saw him just that one glimpse. Slim, young, smelly, wiry, ruthless, cagey-looking. He’s crazy. He’s going to kill her. If it was just robbery he would have taken the bag from her downstairs and fled. Knife isn’t on her neck anymore. Rape and possibly kill her. She has to find a way to get away. She has to scream, run, kick, maybe on the roof. Now she’s thinking. Roof, where there’s space. Stairs he’s got her trapped. This building’s attached to the corner one and unless there’s barbed wire or something separating the two roofs, she can make a run for it yelling all the time. Pick up a brick if they have one on the roof and he’s cornered her against something like a wall or by a roof edge and throw it at him. Anything: teeth, knees and fists and then down a fire escape, but to escape. There’s one that goes all the way past her bedroom window to the narrow alleyway on the ground floor. Corner building must have one too. If not, down her building’s fire escape screaming, knocking, banging, breaking all the windows along the way if she has to till someone comes, wakes up, shouts, whatever, but helps chase the man away.