Dead Man's Footsteps

knew he should put that from his mind, that it was unprofessional to be influenced by any personal agenda. But how could he?

30
11 SEPTEMBER 2001
    The floor was shaking. Key blanks, dozens of them hanging in rows on hooks along one wall of the store, were clinking. Several cans of paint fell from a shelf. The lid came off one as it hit the floor and magnolia emulsion poured out. A cardboard box tumbled, sending brass screws wriggling like maggots across the linoleum.
    It was dark in the deep, narrow hardware store just a few hundred yards from the World Trade Center, where Ronnie had taken refuge, following the tall cop in here. Some minutes earlier the power had gone off. Just one battery-powered emergency light was on. A raging dust tornado twisted past the window, blacker some moments than night.
    A shoeless woman in an expensive suit, who didn’t look like she had been in a hardware store before in her life, was sobbing. A gaunt figure in brown overalls, grey hair bunched in a ponytail, stood behind the counter that ran the full length down one side, presiding over the gloom in grim, helpless silence.
    Ronnie still held tightly on to the handle of his suitcase. Miraculously, his briefcase was still resting on top.
    Outside, a police car spun past on its roof, like a top, and stopped. Its doors were open and its dome light was on. The interior was empty, a radio mike dangling from its twisted cord.
    A crack suddenly appeared in the wall to his left and an entire stack of shelves, laden with boxes of different-sized paintbrushes, crashed to the floor. The sobbing woman screamed.
    Ronnie took a step back, pressing against the counter, thinking. He had been in a restaurant in Los Angeles once during a minor quake. His companion then had told him the doorway was the strongest structure. If the building came down, your best chance of survival was to be in the doorway.
    He moved towards the door.
    The cop said, ‘I wouldn’t go out right now, buddy.’
    Then a massive avalanche of masonry and glass and rubble came down right in front of the window, burying the cop car. The store’s burglar alarm went off, a piercing banshee howl. The ponytailed guy disappeared for a moment and the sound stopped, as did the clinking of the keys.
    The floor wasn’t shaking any more.
    There was a very long silence. Outside, quite quickly, the dust storm began to lighten. As if dawn was breaking.
    Ronnie opened the door.
    ‘I wouldn’t go out there – know what I’m saying?’ the cop repeated.
    Ronnie looked at him, hesitating. Then he pushed the door open and stepped out, towing his bag behind him.
    Stepped out into total silence. The silence of a dawn snowfall. Grey snow lay everywhere.
    Grey silence.
    Then he started to hear the sounds. Fire alarms. Burglar alarms. Car alarms. Human screams. Emergency vehicle sirens. Helicopters.
    Grey figures stumbling silently past him. An endlessline of women and men with hollow, blank faces. Some walking, some running. Some stabbing buttons on phones. He followed them.
    Stumbling blindly through the grey fog that stung his eyes and choked his mouth and nostrils.
    He just followed them. Towing his bag. Following. Keeping pace. The girders of a bridge rose on either side of him. The Brooklyn Bridge, he thought it was, from his scant knowledge of New York. Running, stumbling, across the river. Across an endless bridge through an endless swirling, choking grey hell.
    Ronnie lost track of time. Lost track of direction. Just followed the grey ghosts. Suddenly, for one fleeting instant, he smelled the tang of salt, then the burning smells again – aviation fuel, paint, rubber. At any moment there might be another plane.
    The reality of what had happened was starting to hit him. Hopefully Donald Hatcook was OK. But what if he wasn’t? The business plan he had created was awesome. They stood to make millions in the next five years. Fucking millions! But if Donald was dead, what then?
    There were silhouettes in the distance. Jagged high-rise silhouettes. Brooklyn. He had never been to Brooklyn before in his life, just seen it across the river. It was getting nearer with every step forward. The air was getting better too. More prolonged patches of salty sea air. Thinning mist.
    And suddenly he was going down an incline towards the far end of the bridge. He stopped and turned back. Something biblical came into his mind, some memory about Lot’s wife. Turning her head. Becoming a pillar of salt.