Killer Market

I hadn’t realized how many branchings I had taken, but eventually we turned a final corner and there were the elevators.

“See you next week,” said Mai as I pushed the Down button.

Nice woman. And tactful, too, to pretend she believed that I could actually find my way back to their showroom in only a week.

Two cars went past—one with a blue ox—then a third, and each time there was no room for me.

An exit sign over a doorway at the end of a short hall finally convinced me that it would be quicker to walk down.

Inside the stairwell I found a world removed from polished tile and gleaming glass. Here were grungy walls, concrete steps, utilitarian steel railings and low-wattage lightbulbs. Here also was an institutional smell that was one part disinfectant and the other part damp cement with just a dash of machine oil for pungency. No windows, of course, no markings on the doors, and utter silence except for the sound of my echoing steps.

After several flights, I lost track of the floors and pulled open a door hoping to see someone to ask. Instead, I seemed to be standing at the back of a dark and deserted showroom filled with wicker chairs and couches.

“Careful you don’t set off a burglar alarm,” whispered the preacher.

“Better try Door Number Two,” advised the pragmatist.

As I closed the door and stepped back into the dimly lit stairwell, I heard another door swoosh open below me. Great! Someone I could ask for directions.

But when I reached the next landing, there was no one in sight and no sound of other footsteps. Puzzled, I tried the door. It didn’t budge.

I began to get uneasy. And just a tad claustrophobic. Surely I was on the sixth floor by now? But what if all the rest of the doors were locked? Should I go back up or keep going down?

I compromised and continued on down. One more door, I told myself. If it didn’t open, then I would go back up and take my chances with the wicker. A banner headline flashed across my mind: JUDGE NABBED IN MARKET BREAK-IN.

As I paused on the landing, I heard the door I’d just tried slowly open on the landing above. I shrank back in the corner shadows directly below and froze.

A long silence, then the door gently closed and footsteps started down.

I hadn’t checked to see what else was under the fried chicken, but that tote bag had a certain heft and I wound the straps around my hand, prepared to slug my way past whoever was playing cat and mouse with me.

The steps came closer, closer. They had nearly reached the foot of the flight when I stepped out of the shadows and with tote bag poised to strike, rasped, “What are you—?” before I recognized the woman.

She gave a terrified moan and all the color drained from her face as she half fell, half scrambled back up the stairs.

“Wait!” I called, running after her. “I won’t hurt you. I thought you were chasing me! Please stop.”

She turned and faced me warily, a stocky young woman with long black hair. Color crept back into her face as she recognized me. “You’re the one who was with Savannah at the reception upstairs.”

It was the reporter from Furniture/Today.

“And you followed her out of the Leathergoods party,” I said.

“You scared the bloody hell out of me,” she said, taking deep breaths as she pushed her heavy hair away from her face.

I realized I was breathing just as deeply. “How do you think I felt hearing someone sneaking in and out of the same door?”

“God! When you pushed against it, I thought I was going to pass out.”

“We are Woman,” I said wryly. “Hear us whimper.”

She gave a shaky smile. Her face was too broad and her nose was a little too big for prettiness, but her smile was engaging and intelligence shone in her dark eyes.

“Do you have any idea where we are?”

“I think that was the fifth floor,” she said in an accent I couldn’t quite place.

“Hallway or showroom?”

“Hallway. All the elevator cars were full so I thought I’d walk down, but when I heard your footsteps, I got nervous for some reason.”

“I think I’ll see if I can get one going up,” I said.

“Maybe I’ll come with you. I’ve had enough of creepy stairwells for one night.”

“I thought you said you just got here.”

“But I’ve been pretty well lost for the last half hour,” she said, following me up the steps. “I went after Savannah, hoping for an interview. I want to write an article on her.”

“Did you get it?”

“She never let me get close. I was going to wait till she left the elevator, but she didn’t get off till the ground floor and it was so damn crowded I had trouble keeping up. That woman can move when she wants to.”