Have a NYC 3 by Peter Carlaftes Page A

you don’t have to.”
    I hesitated. “You sure?”
    My sister yelled from her bed. “For God’s sake! The doorman’s down there!”
    And in that split second, something inside me gave in. Right there: In my nightgown, on the eleventh floor, at 5:15 a.m. In that split second I let go. Let go of being an overprotective, middle-aged mother from Ohio. In that split second I became a New Yorker.
    â€œCall me when you get to the airport.”
    â€œMy cell phone’s dead. Forgot to charge the battery.”
    â€œWell, find a pay phone.”
    â€œOkay, okay.” She grabbed her suitcase, the door clicked shut and I sank back under the covers.
    Fifteen minutes later, the intercom buzzed. What did she forget? I got up, still groggy, found my way to the button. “What is it, hon?”
    â€œCar service.”
    â€œShe’s down there,” I replied in a thanks-for-making-me-get-up, forced-hospitable sing-song.
    â€œNo one down here.”
    â€œNo, she’s waiting for you in the lobby. The redhead, the redheaded girl!”
    â€œNobody here.”
    â€œThe doorman,” I yelled. “Ask the doorman!”
    â€œI don’t see no doorman.”
    â€œOh my God!” I screamed.
    My sister shuffled into the room and turned on the light.
    â€œNo, no, no!” I shrieked, fumbling with the three locks on the door. I yanked it open and ran barefoot, in my nightgown, down the hall to the elevator.
    My heart felt like a jackhammer. I pounded the button, wailing. I waited an eternity for the elevator to arrive and it took an eternity to go down eleven flights—ten and nine and eight and seven and— . . .
    The elevator doors opened. The driver stood alone next to an empty front desk.
    â€œOh God, oh God! Where is she?” I whirled around the room. “Where the hell is the doorman?”
    As if on cue, the doorman sauntered through the side door carrying an empty garbage can.
    â€œDid you see my daughter?” I screeched.
    â€œNo,” he said. He put the can by the door.
    I grabbed his arm. “The redheaded girl with the suitcase?”
    He sighed. “No one’s been here.”
    â€œHow do you know?” I squeezed his arm tighter. “Where were you?”
    He yanked his arm away. “I took out the garbage. I was only gone five minutes.”
    â€œNo! No!” I shook my head.
    These are the five this-is-how-it-always-happens minutes. The I just went out to . . . break in routine that allows the kidnapping, the rape, the murder. The five missing minutes in the air-tight alibi, the detective crime novel, the never-again wonderful life.
    I turned and ran out into the street, screaming my daughter’s name. Garbage cans and mounds of plastic bags lined the curb. My beautiful girl could be among them, her tortured, twisted and mangled body stuffed into a plastic bag. Waiting for me to identify the slender fingers that loved to draw, the green eyes so calm and assured, the fair Irish skin.
    I staggered back inside crying and pounded my fists against the glass door of the building. “Oh, this goddamned city!” I moaned, pounding, wanting to break the glass. Wanting the shards to stab my veins so I could bleed to death and the doorman could drag me out to the curb with the rest of the garbage. Me, the lazy mother who wouldn’t ride down ten flights in an elevator and wait with my daughter for fifteen minutes even though I had guided her every move for twenty years.
    My sister, the doorman and the driver tried to calm me down. They made phone calls to sort things out. I fell in a heap, banging my head on the floor, wanting to knock myself unconscious, or better, crack my head open so I could bleed out this nightmare and they could mop it up with my nightgown, then lug me out to the curb.
    Oh, New York: The city that never gave you a break. Never gave you a five minute time-out from its horrid, vile, beating,