Blind Panic (18 page)

“Excuse me, sir! Madam! What exactly have you been
doing
in here?”

I raised both hands in surrender. “We had a little accident with a candle, that’s all. I swear to God we haven’t been smoking.”

He opened and closed his mouth several times. Eventually, he said, “You’ll have to leave. Like,
now.
And you can expect a bill for all of the damage you’ve done.”

“Believe me, Mr. Garfunkel,” I told him, “a burned rug is the least of your worries.”

As if to emphasize what I was trying to tell him, we heard a loud collision from out in the street, and a woman screaming, and then another collision, and another.

The hotel receptionist stared at me in bewilderment, as if I had somehow caused those accidents myself, by remote control. Then he said, “My name’s not Garfunkel. Why did you call me Garfunkel? My name’s Resnick.”

Ladera Park, Los Angeles

Jasmine was woken up by a loud banging noise, followed by another, and another, and then people furiously shouting. She sat up on the couch. It was almost dark outside, and the sky was a dusky purple with only a narrow streak of orange where the sun had gone down.

She heard more shouting, followed by a shot. A man started screaming and a door slammed. Feet came cantering and squeaking along the corridor, maybe ten or eleven people, and it sounded as if they were all wearing sneakers. Somebody kicked at the door of Auntie Ammy’s apartment.

The baby boy was sleeping in one of Auntie Ammy’s armchairs, but now he woke up, too, and started to cry. Jasmine went over and picked him up. He was still hot, and his hair was stuck up in a lopsided plume, and he smelled of warm pee.

Somebody kicked the apartment door a second time, and then a third. Jasmine held the baby close to her chest to muffle his crying. “Shush, honey. Shush.”

There was another bang, farther along the corridor. A young man shouted, “Here, bro! Forget about that one! We got this one open!”

More shouting, more scuffling. A voice that sounded like an elderly lady. “Get out! Get out! I’ll call the police!”

“You can’t call nobody, granma! Get out of my way!”

Auntie Ammy came in from the bedroom. “What’s happening?”
she asked. “I just dozed off for a moment and then I heard all of this hollerin’.”

“I don’t know,” said Jasmine. “It sounds like some gang’s broken into the building.”

The baby boy had stopped crying now. He leaned his head against Jasmine’s shoulder and softly snuffled. Jasmine lifted her hand to him and he clutched her fingers. Little, damp, and so vulnerable.

Auntie Ammy went across to the light switch, but when she flicked it, nothing happened. “Power’s out,” she said. “The air’s off, too. I thought it was hot.”

She went into the kitchen, pulled open one of the drawers, and took out a large black rubber flashlight. She switched it on and shone it upward into her face, so that she looked like a Halloween witch. Then she came back, slid open the door to the balcony, and stepped outside. Jasmine followed her. There was a strong smell of smoke in the air, and more than half of the city’s lights were out. Jasmine was so used to seeing the glittering lights of Los Angeles at night that she stood holding the baby boy and staring at the blackness with a terrible feeling of dread. Auntie Ammy leaned over the balcony and said, “I think there’s a fire down there. A fire burning on the first floor, God help us. That’s old Mr. Petersen’s apartment.”

They heard more screaming, and another shot. Jasmine said, “I think we need to get out of here, Auntie Ammy. It’s like they’re breaking in everywhere.”

“I aint leavin’ my apartment to get lootified. I’m goin’ to stay here and fend ’em off.”

“Auntie Ammy, we have to go. Let’s go down to the parking level and get your car and hightail it out of here. We can stay with Hubie until this rioting is all over.”

“S’pose they riotin’ in Maywood, too? I tell you, Jazz. I’m real reluctant to leave all my stuff unpertected. These pictures, these statuettes. They’re my
holy
things.”

But then they felt a deep, thumping explosion somewhere in the basement. They looked over the balcony and saw that
smoke was pouring out the ventilator grilles that surrounded the parking level. There was another explosion, and then a third, and tongues of flame licked lasciviously out of the grilles and shriveled the bougainvillea that grew up the walls.

“They’re blowing up the cars,” said Jasmine. “Come on, Auntie Ammy. We have to get out of here before this whole building goes up.”

In frustration, Auntie Ammy picked up the phone. She jabbed 911 with her long red-polished fingernails, and then listened, but the phone was dead.

“Okay,” she said. “Looks like we don’t have no option. Give me a couple of minutes to get dressed, and while I’m doin’ that I’ll say a prayer to Changó, because Changó can pertect us against fire.”

“Just hurry,” Jasmine urged her.

Outside, in the corridor, they heard the old woman shrieking, and somebody laughing at her—a loud, coarse laugh followed by whooping and shouting and repeated door-slamming.

“Wass wrong wichyou, granma? You doan like dancin’? How’s about I set fire to that ugly old dress of yours? Maybe you’ll dance better then.”

Jasmine pressed her hand against her mouth. Her natural instinct was to go out and confront the old lady’s tormentors, but she knew what would happen if she did. She and Auntie Ammy and the little baby boy would all be hurt, too, or even killed.

Quickly she changed the baby’s diaper and dressed him in his romper suit. She took a maroon shawl from the back of Auntie Ammy’s couch and wrapped it around him until only his face was showing. He didn’t cry, but he blinked at her unhappily, as if he were thinking about it.

Auntie Ammy came out of her bedroom in a black ankle-length dress. Around her neck she was wearing at least a half dozen brightly-colored bead necklaces, each of them representing a different Santeria orisha. Red and white beads for
Changó, green and yellow beads for Orunla, blue and crystal beads for Yemayá.

“I called on Changó,” she said. “
Kabio, kabio sile,
come to my house and pertect us, Changó! Now we can go.”

They heard more screaming, coming from the next apartment. “Let’s use the fire escape,” said Jasmine. But as soon as they stepped out onto the balcony again, they heard laughter and shouting coming from the square paved area below. Jasmine looked cautiously over the railing. In the half darkness she could see six or seven youths, some of them white, some of them Latino. They were pushing a fortyish man and woman from one side of the square to the other, taunting them and spitting at them.

“Who’s the big man now? Who’s the big man now, huh? Bet you’re pissing in your pants, amigo! You want to see me screw your wife? How about that? You want to see your wife suck my
nabo?
”

Jasmine pushed Auntie Ammy back inside.

“
Now
what we goin’ to do?” asked Auntie Ammy, clutching at her necklaces.

Jasmine went across to the front door and placed her ear against it. All wrapped up in his shawl, the baby shook his head from side to side and said, “
Wum wum.
”

The corridor outside Auntie Ammy’s apartment sounded quiet now. No screaming, no shouting, no running sneakers.

“I can’t hear anything,” said Jasmine. She peered through the peephole but she all she could see was the cream-painted door to the opposite apartment.

“
Wum wum,
” the baby repeated.

“Sorry, sweet thing, I don’t know what you mean. A
gah
, yes.
Mmm-mmm
, yes. But what on earth is a
wum wum?
”

“
Wum wum
,” said the baby, and smiled at her.

“Maybe he’s tryin’ to tell us that it’s safe to go out,” Auntie Ammy suggested. “After all, this little fella can see things that nobody else can see. He got the perception.”

“I don’t know,” said Jasmine. “What if ‘wum wum’ means there are a half dozen young hoodlums right outside the door, waiting to jump on us, and we’re better off staying where we are?”

From the square below the balcony came the sound of breaking glass, and the fortyish man shouting, “No!
No!
Get away from her, you animal!”

“Don’t think we have a whole lot of choice, do we?” said Jasmine.

She passed the baby over to Auntie Ammy. Then—as quietly as she could—she drew back the heavy security chain. Next she turned the three steel dead bolts, and eased the door open.

Outside, it was still comparatively quiet, although she could hear water running somewhere. She could also smell smoke, much stronger than before. She waited for a few seconds, and then she put her head out, shining Auntie Ammy’s flashlight left and right. The green-carpeted corridor was deserted, although the door of the apartment one down from theirs was wide-open.

“Come on,” she said to Auntie Ammy. “It looks like they’re gone.”

Auntie Ammy was holding the baby tight against her shoulder. “If they’re gone, maybe it’s safe for us to stay.”

But as if to answer her, there were two more muffled explosions from the parking level. “We have to go,” Jasmine insisted. “This whole apartment block is going to burn down, and I don’t exactly hear the fire department speeding this way to put it out, do you? Hurry up, Auntie Ammy, otherwise we’re going to be barbecued.”

She took the baby. Auntie Ammy closed her apartment door behind her and made an elaborate performance of locking every lock. While she was doing so, Jasmine walked along to the open apartment door and peered inside.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is anybody in there?”

There was no answer, so she stepped inside. The bathroom
was off to the right of the open front door, and it was the bathroom faucet that was the source of the running-water sound. The door was two or three inches ajar.

Jasmine said, “Hello? Is anybody in there? If there is, you really need to get out of here now. The whole building’s on fire.”

There was still no answer, so she pushed the door open a little wider, shining the flashlight through the gap. At first she saw only the sink and the mirror above it, which reflected nothing but the shower curtain with a pattern of white seagulls on it. But then she looked around the door, and shone the flashlight toward the bathtub. “Oh my God,” she said, and jerked backward, jarring her shoulder on the doorframe.

An elderly woman was lying in the tub, both of her arms upraised as if she were reaching for someone to pull her out. But her arms were burned scarlet, and her face was burned scarlet, too, and her pale blue eyes were staring furiously at the ceiling. She looked like an African juju mask, her mouth dragged downward in agony, her hair sticking up in blackened spikes. Her dress had been reduced to rags and ashes.

She must have climbed into the bath and turned on the cold water to numb the pain of her burns, but the shock had been much too severe and her heart had stopped.

Jasmine turned away. Auntie Ammy was standing right behind her. Auntie Ammy could obviously tell what Jasmine had seen by the look on her face.

“Is she gone?” she asked.

Jasmine said, “Yes.”

“Dottie Feinstein,” said Auntie Ammy, as if the name itself were a prayer, and crossed herself. “She was a dear, kindly woman.”

Another
boom!
from the parking level. “Let’s go,” said Auntie Ammy. “If I lose all of my holy things, that’s the will of the orishas. I know they’ll make it up to me.”

They walked quickly along the corridor. Jasmine stopped to knock at every apartment they passed, and shouted out,
“Fire! You need to get out of here!” Strangely, though, not one door opened up, and nobody answered, except for one Hispanic-sounding woman who called back, “Go away!
Vamos!
You leave me alone!”

The residents had locked and bolted themselves in their apartments as if they were all in denial. This couldn’t be real. How could airliners drop out of the sky? How could the whole city go dark? How could the TV go blank and the phones go dead and the air-conditioning clatter to a stop?

They reached the door that led to the stairs, and pushed it open. The staircase was almost completely dark, and filled with smoke that made their eyes water. It echoed with shouts and screams from the square outside so that it sounded as if it were the staircase down to hell. Jasmine gave the flashlight back to Auntie Ammy and began to make her way downward, holding onto the handrail so she wouldn’t lose her footing. The baby started to cough, and then he let out two emphatic sneezes.

When they reached the door to the front hall, Jasmine again handed the baby to Auntie Ammy. She opened the door very slowly, and then she peered out. The hallway was smoky, but there was nobody there. The door to the super’s office was open, but there was no sign of him, either. His chair lay tipped over on the floor, and a Styrofoam coffee cup had been spilled across the newspaper on his desk.

Jasmine beckoned to Auntie Ammy, and they hurried across the hall and pushed their way out through the revolving doors. The baby said, “
Wum wum,
” and looked up at Jasmine as if he were trying to tell her something really serious.

“Yes, darling,” said Jasmine. “You’re absolutely right.
Wum wum.
”

Outside, the night sounded like a zoo crowded with panicking animals. As they walked as quickly as they could down Ladera Avenue, they heard howling and screaming and desperate shouts for help. A young Hispanic man in a T-shirt
stained dark with blood came staggering across the street, his arms held out in front of him, sobbing. He passed within fifteen feet of them, but he was blind, and he wasn’t aware that there was anybody so close.

“Where we goin’ to go?” asked Auntie Ammy. “Seems to me like every place is just as dangerous as every other place.”

“We need to find ourselves some wheels,” said Jasmine. As if to emphasize her point, they heard two more loud explosions behind them—from Aunt Ammy’s apartment block—and they turned around to see fire jumping out of the basement windows.

There were three automobiles parked in the street just ahead of them. Jasmine tried their door handles, but they were all locked.

“Can’t you jimmy them open or something?” asked Auntie Ammy.

“What do you take me for, some carjacking expert? I wouldn’t know how.”

They continued to hurry down Ladera until they reached South La Brea. Not far away they heard more baboonlike screaming, and the smashing of glass—dull, repetitive crashes as if somebody were using a sledgehammer to break everywindow in a whole apartmentbuilding. Sirenswhooped in the distance, but there was no sign of any squad cars.

About three blocks to the south, Jasmine saw a sudden flicker of intensely bright lights. They didn’t look like lightning—more like camera flashes.

“Think we’d better head in the opposite direction,” said Auntie Ammy, nodding so emphatically toward the lights that her earrings swung.