Chapter 1
September
11th, 2001, for many thousands a day of death, disaster and
suffering, was for me a day of resurrection, rebirth and release. Or
so I thought at the time.
If
like me you were in New York that day you will remember exactly where
you were and what you were doing between 8:45 and 9:00 a.m., just as
people of an earlier generation can tell you where they were in 1963
when they heard the news of President Kennedy’s assassination, in
that far-off Cold War era which now seems like an age of innocence.
A
little before 8:30 a.m. on September 11th, 2001, I was walking into
the main entrance lobby of Tower One, the north tower of the World
Trade Center, glancing at my watch.
‘Morning
sir. Bagel with cream cheese and black coffee, no sweetener, sir?’
The word ‘sir’ was used in a subservient, groveling manner, not
merely as a polite form of address showing friendly respect.
I
looked at the man I had privately labeled ‘one of nature’s
subordinates,’ the uniformed security guard who was walking across
the lobby beside me.
How
did that man remember my breakfast order? Two or three times a month,
maximum, I attended a meeting in the World Trade Center. Not only my
order, but presumably that of every person who passed fleetingly
through his world. What an existence, frittering away your life
kowtowing to strangers about their breakfast orders. I’d rather be
dead than live like that, I thought, as I did every time I saw him.
Then
I swore under my breath as I remembered the thick wad of cash which
was so vital to the success of the meeting. It wasn’t where it
should have been, in the briefcase I was carrying. I had left it in
my car.
‘Two
of the early birds, you and me, sir. Eh?’
The
presumption of the man, comparing himself with me.
But
he was right. There was plenty of time, and I could ill afford to
lose the contents of the envelope I had left in my car.
I
could hear Bernie’s voice. ‘What kind of accountant do you call
yourself? I pay you to lose paper profits, not real dough,’ he would
say, menacingly, eyelids lowered, switching from his successful
business tycoon rôle into his mobster mode.
Who
do you think you’re kidding with your gangster act, half of me
would think. Thirty-something and still living at home in deepest
Queens, in the house where you grew up, because you can’t bear to
give up your mother’s cooking? But the other half of me wasn’t
anxious to risk an arm or a leg, or possibly both.
If
the cash were stolen Bernie would insist on its being reimbursed in
full, plus interest. There was no way I could pay back what I already
owed him in the foreseeable future. The worst-case scenario was
never. So I would have to persuade him to add the extra amount to the
ever-increasing debt to be repaid on some far-distant unspecified
date, or on demand if I failed to perform satisfactorily. Bernie
would have no problem with that. Despite the initial request he would
make for immediate repayment, it would suit him to have an even more
malleable CPA in his pocket.
So
I turned on my heels, grunting to the guard ‘Yes, the usual,
thanks,’ and retraced my steps in the direction of West Broadway,
and back towards the garage, through the throngs of office workers
converging on the towers, like hoards of lemmings I remember
thinking. Did I have a presentiment of what was to come? No, the
spirit world is Janet’s department.
The
amount wouldn’t be important to Bernie, but it would be a matter of
principal. To him, that quantity of money was like a hundred-dollar
bill to me. Losing it would be regrettable, but not something to cost
him any sleep. If I had to repay what I’d left in my car, it would
be yet another worry to keep me awake at night, along with the images
of my bank and credit card statements floating vividly before my eyes
in the darkness, as I listened to the snores and grunts issuing from
the body which tossed and turned gently beside me.
At
the corner of Reade Street, just before I reached the garage, I had
second thoughts. The attendants there seemed to take their work
seriously. The place was secure and a meeting wasn’t the place to
hand over the money, even concealed in a bunch of papers. So I did a
quick turnaround again, and made my way down Chambers Street and over
the Tribeca footbridge towards the Hudson River, deciding to take the
scenic route back, along River Terrace or maybe through the Nelson A.
Rockefeller Park. I might even take a quick glance at that little
sculpture park with those freaky metal footprints and surreal
statuettes of weird diminutive creatures if I had time.
As
I strolled towards the riverside, I looked at my watch again. Almost
8:45. I was still on schedule, only just. The meeting was due to
start at 9:00 a.m. But before I reached the river I heard the sound
of a plane, a strange sort of noise, too loud, too close. The pigeons
in the street all took flight, and looking up at them I saw an
American Airlines jet screaming across the water from the Jersey side
of the river.
It
was too low, too big to be flying here towards the skyscrapers of
lower Manhattan. It wasn’t going to clear the buildings. There
didn’t seem to be any engine trouble and the pilot didn’t try to
maneuver. With hindsight, it was obvious that this plane was on a
mission. With a whooshing sound the plane passed in front of me,
almost overhead, and I watched it slam into the north face of Tower
One, producing a blinding orange explosion. The concussion of the
impact rippled over the face of the building, and I checked the time
again as the debris and fire started to rain down. It was 8:48
precisely.
There
are no heroes in my version of the events of that day and the
following ones. Or rather those heroes whose paths I crossed I saw
like extras in a film. Far from being a hero myself, I lied, stole,
committed forgery and generally behaved despicably and cynically. I
was a coward, selfishly using for my own ends situations in which
people were frightened and emotionally traumatized. I acted without a
thought for those supposedly nearest and dearest to me. I suppose my
one redeeming good point is that I am aware of my shortcomings.
Or
was I really a coward? Perhaps it needed more courage to do what I
did, than being brave in the conventional sense, like those
firefighters and cops undoubtedly were. What I did took guts, too,
not acting just on the spur of the moment initially, but after days
in which I spent hours agonizing about what I had done and what I was
going to do.
I
said I was a coward, but instead of turning and running away I broke
into a slow jog-trot towards the burning tower. Why? I don’t know.
From curiosity, perhaps. I felt completely and utterly calm. I had
escaped death by a matter of minutes, of that I was sure. But far
from being in a state of shock I felt I had been reborn. Everything
that had happened to me up till now was irrelevant. I had been
presented with the gift of starting my life anew, leaving behind all
the meaningless trivia and clutter that had accumulated over the
years.
People
came streaming out of the entrance and away from the tower, some
silent, some screaming or sobbing hysterically. Clouds of thick black
smoke bellowed from the point of impact and dark spots fell from the
sides of the tower. It took me a few seconds to realize that these
spots were flesh-and-blood people. High up, around the eightieth
floor, close to where I might have been waiting for the meeting to
start, I saw tiny figures standing at the vertical rows of narrow
windows as though expecting some miracle to rescue them: firefighters
clambering helter-skelter up a giant ladder or a flotilla of
helicopters with daredevil pilots, risking their own lives to pluck
them to safety. But these things only happen in the movies, and bad
movies at that.
As
I watched some of the figures jumped, driven out in desperation by
the heat and flames behind them. Approaching the ground the figures
briefly became distinguishable from one another. A man fell
headfirst, arms by his sides and one leg bent at the knee as though
taking an upside-down step in midair. A woman fell with her dress
billowing out. It was like watching a Hollywood disaster movie, as
though what I was seeing wasn’t happening. But this was for real.
These people were going to die in just seconds. They would be dead
for ever. They weren’t going to clamber out of safety nets and walk
off the set.
Had
Bernie arrived on time? Could fate be smiling on me at last? The
chances were he hadn’t quite reached the conference room, although
with luck he could be in the building. If he was it was sure to
collapse any minute now under Bernie’s weight, I joked to myself, a
witticism which was to produce a twinge of guilt which penetrated
even my thick skin when I recalled it later. We underlings were of
course expected to be sitting there, awaiting his pleasure when he
deigned to put in an appearance. I usually aimed to arrive just a
little late, without pushing my luck. Ideally I liked to arrive
seconds after he had entered the room and scowled at my absence, or
so I hoped, as he scanned the circle of docile sycophants who would
be sitting patiently around the table awaiting his pleasure. I had
seen him react like that when someone else was missing.
Sometimes
I even concealed myself in the lobby until Bernie arrived and then
sprinted for the next available elevator after the one he had taken.
That way I could emerge from the elevator just after him, shadow him
along the corridor and follow him into the meeting room the instant
he saw I wasn’t there. It was my way of asserting the independence
which I’d sold for numerous wads of dollar bills, along with my
soul, to this genial but ruthless representative of the devil. Bernie
tolerated such behavior from me in a way he wouldn’t from others,
treating me as a sort of court jester. Because he knew that in
reality he owned me completely.
But
could this be my lucky day? Had he been one of those black spots I
had seen falling? If so, I might be totally free, because my
indebtedness would have died with him. In Bernie’s way of doing
business, accounts were an inconvenient necessity to keep the IRS
happy, or if not happy at least off his back for a while.
I
remembered his words at our last meeting when we had cooked up a set
of accounts for one of the minor fiefdoms in his empire. We had
developed a set routine, working backwards from an arbitrary figure
inserted first at the end of the accounts. Bernie set the ball
rolling, as always. ‘How about we start off with a modest loss of
say half a million?’ I shook my head.
‘I’m
talking round figures, naturally. Exact amount $489,373, how does
that sound? And twenty-four cents, to make it believable.’ I shook
my head again. He accepted that I knew what was within the realms of
possibility, feasible if not believable, and therefore for the IRS
not worth the hassle of contesting without firm evidence, when there
were plenty of easier cases to be won.
‘OK.
Let’s say a slight profit. Eight hundred grand. Round figures
again, of course, between $750,000 and a straight million. I’ll
leave the details to you, as usual. You’re the expert. What you say
we just sketch out the broad outlines today and you tell me what you
need in the way of papers to back up the figures? More important,
what papers should get conveniently mislaid.’
Might
I really be off the hook at last, I wondered? Or was Bernie safe and
sound, stuck in the traffic somewhere on the Brooklyn Queens
Expressway? I already knew that being Bernie’s bagman had saved my
life. Was there no justice in the world? I had survived because of
that unpaid bribe, while an army ordinary, honest, decent,
hard-working clerks was dropping like flies before my eyes.
I
laughed out aloud at the irony, and a young woman nearby glared
disapprovingly at me briefly before her expression turned to one of
pity and understanding, which said: ‘Poor man. He’s flipped his
lid. It’s all too much for him.’ Was it possible that I was
really liberated, utterly and completely? So the main thing on my
mind as I watched the scene of death and destruction unfold before me
was: How could I find out whether or not Bernie was dead or alive
before I made my next move?
