Murder in the North Tower

by Greg Smith

  “Binjake (bin • yock • uh) means ‘twins,’” he told them. “Two twins is binjake. One twin is binjak (bin • yock).”

  Bin-yock. The word rolled off their tongues like a droplet of dew sliding down the crease of a leaf. They loved the word! All the more so once they understood its meaning. They loved saying it even more than hearing it. Liked it so much, they’d peppered their conversation with it throughout the rest of that day.

  “Did you see that dead man, Binyak?” Step’s eyes were wide.

  “Yes, Binyak. And the rifle. Did you see the rifle, Binyak?” Aleks responded, equally wide-eyed.

  “I saw it, Binyak,” Step answered, unimpressed. “It’s just an old gun.”

  “Do you think it still shoots, Binyak?”

  “Who cares, Binyak? Don’t you think it’s creepy to keep a body in your back yard? It’s scary, Binyak!”

  “They’re gonna bury him, Binyak. Tomorrow probably.” Aleks paused, then asked anxiously, “Do you think they bury the rifle with him, Binyak?”

  For days, they just couldn’t say the word enough. Ever after they would use the term reciprocally as an affectionate nickname for one another. Though they Americanized its spelling. Binyak.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  Behind the bar, a television blared a special report about the fire at the World Trade Center. The North Tower had been struck by a commercial airliner at 8:46 a.m. For the moment, there was no mention of hijackers. No thought of terrorists. It was assumed the plane had somehow flown off course. Firefighters were on the scene, evacuating the building. New Yorkers were being advised to avoid the area.

  I knew it! the jogger moaned. They’re gonna find them.

  As he watched the televised image of the smoking North Tower, a second plane appeared suddenly from the left of the screen, unexpectedly ripped into the South Tower, erupting into a torrent of smoke and flame.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 5

 

  Inside Nadia Nicolescu’s restaurant, an older, bearded man, wearing eyeglasses and a wool cap, stitched the tall wanderer’s head wound. The bearded man peered over his bifocals as he worked. At a television mounted on the wall. Images of the Twin Towers burning segued to people evacuating the Towers segued to police and firefighters arriving on the scene, entering the Towers.

  The injured man didn’t look at the television. Nor did he look at Nadia. Or at his bearded suturer. He didn’t focus on anything in particular. He kept his eyes opened wide, blinked occasionally, stared straight ahead.

  “This is what happens to our friend here?” the bearded man asked. “He is at Trade Center, hey?”

  Like Nadia, the old man was Romanian. Unlike Nadia, who’d lost hers after coming to America as a young teen decades ago, he spoke with an accent. He had the distinctive habit of including a “hey” at the end of many of his sentences. Like a Canadian’s “eh.” He also had an inclination toward sprinkling Romanian words into his conversations.

  “No, Griggor,” Nadia answered. “The television reports say the first plane hit after eight-thirty. I was sweeping at seven o’clock, as I do every morning. That’s when he came to me. He was here before the planes hit.”

  “You are certain he is here before? Not after?” Griggor asked.

  “As certain as you are stitching him,” Nadia said stubbornly.

  “It is interesting, then,” Griggor muttered, continuing to work. “So what happens, my friend? You are mugged, hey? You maybe have accident with automobile?”

  The injured stranger didn’t respond, continued to stare blankly.

  “He doesn’t speak,” Nadia remarked. “And he has no ID. No wallet. Nothing. It was negri,” she added confidently. “They took everything.”

  Griggor froze, a suturing needle in one hand, surgical suturing scissors in the other. From their hiding place beneath dual brambles of bushy grey eyebrows, his dark brown eyes scowled at the woman with mild annoyance. He was well aware of the source of Nadia’s prejudice. It had been he who had cut the bastard fetus from her womb months after she’d been gang-raped by three black youths. He who had avenged the brutal assault. That had been more than twenty years ago. He’d grown impatient with Nadia’s hatred of all blacks.

  “Nadia. Please. Must you blame black peoples for all things? I suppose they do this, hey?”

  He tipped his head toward the television.

  “Well, they do most of the crime,” Nadia retorted. “They killed my Leo.”

  She made the sign of the cross, kissed the wedding band she wore on a gold chain around her neck.

  Griggor sighed. They’d had this conversation too many times.

  “Leo is victim of life he chooses, Nadia. You know this, hey? He is killed by rival drug dealer. One man. No ‘they’.”

  “Still, he’s dead twenty-two years now,” Nadia sighed, still fingering the ring.

  She wasn’t about to give the old man the last word on her long-departed husband.

  Griggor finished stitching the stranger’s wound, placed his instruments on the plate Nadia had provided.

  “Terminat,” he announced. “Eight sutures. Some angry gash, my friend. But you will live, hey?”

  He patted the injured man on the shoulder.

  “He needs to rest,” Nadia insisted. “He’ll feel much better with some rest.”

  Griggor handed the woman a stack of clothing.

  “Here are vesmant you ask for. I bring pijama, three shirts. I hope they fit. He is much longer than I, hey? If you need something else, please, ask.”

  Their attention was suddenly caught by the sounds coming from the television. They watched in awe as the South Tower collapsed.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 6

 

  Immediately after the glass wall of the A/S/B Financial office exploded, a portion of the outer corridor ceiling collapsed. Pavel eyed the ceiling directly over his head, fearing the rest would come down on them at any moment.

  “We leave. Now!” he said, chopping the air with his hand.

  The three Russians stepped over smoldering rubble into a smoke-filled corridor. Debris from the falling ceiling covered the floor. Small fires had sprung up everywhere. Overhead sprinklers spewed water over everything.

  A bewildered Pavel peered through the smoky haze. He smelled something he knew he should recognize, but couldn’t identify.

  “Benzin!” one of the thugs, Vasily, exclaimed in alarm. “Is jet fuel!”

  Jet fuel? Why would building smell like jet fuel? Pavel wondered, sniffing the air.

  The Russians remained where they were. The two henchmen awaiting orders from their leader. Pavel, however, had no idea where the stairs or the elevators were located. The cries of building tenants calling for help reached their ears.

  “Here!” Pavel returned. “We are here! Help us! Somebody help us!”

  The bald-headed man had hoped to see someone who could lead them to an emergency exit. When no one came to their aid, he began working his way through the wreckage, followed closely by his two subordinates. He moved the group in the direction of the cries they’d heard. They could see only a few feet in front of them, the smoke inhibiting clearer vision.

  Dmitri unexpectedly panicked, moved ahead of the group, hoping to find an escape route. His large figure suddenly disappeared. One moment, he was in sight. The next, he was gone.

  Vasily shouted his name.

  “Dmitri!”

  A rush of air momentarily cleared the smoke. Pavel and Vasily caught a baffling glimpse of blue sky where a wall of windows should have stood. Dmitri’s large figure stood frozen beside the opening. The smoke had prevented him from seeing that the side of the building was gone. He’d nearly walked out of the opening, plunged to his death.

  The big man turned to face his comrades, a look of both horror and relief pasted on his fleshy potato face.

  Without warning, the rest of the ceiling came down on them
.

  Dmitri and Vasily took the brunt of the collapse. Vasily was killed instantly. Buried under a mass of rubble. Splayed on his back across a slab of concrete and rebar, half-covered by debris, Dmitri stared at the gaping hole overhead. Where the ninetieth floor had once been. A piece of metal protruded from his neck. Eyes wide, he gurgled blood as life slowly ebbed from his large, broken body.

  Pavel lingered longest. Pinned beneath drywall, ceiling tiles, metal wall studs and a file cabinet from the floor above. He couldn’t move. Worse, a blow to his temple had blinded him. Fully conscious, relying only on his senses of hearing and smell, he finally realized that the odor he’d detected earlier was, in fact, jet fuel. Just as Vasily had stated. The bald man was too panic-stricken to consider the source of the fuel. With frantic terror he believed the flammable liquid was now seeping into his clothing. That it could be water from the sprinkler system never crossed the terrified Russian’s mind. He was petrified that he would die in a torrent of flames.

  His feeble calls for help were never answered. Pavel Lukin, now blind, lay fully conscious in the darkness for over an hour. Before the North Tower mercifully collapsed.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 7

 

  The jogger spent the remaining hours of the afternoon of September 11th in Greenwich Village. Watching the events of the day unfold on national television. By early afternoon, he knew as much as the rest of America. More than he cared to know.

  The North Tower had been struck by a plane at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later, a second plane had hit the South Tower. The Towers were being evacuated. Police, firemen and emergency crews were on the scene. Then, the unfathomable. The South Tower had collapsed less than an hour after being hit. Followed half an hour later by the collapse of the North Tower. Elsewhere, the Pentagon had been hit by a plane, as well. A fourth plane had crashed somewhere in a field in Pennsylvania. All four planes had been hijacked and piloted by terrorists.

  Watching the North Tower collapse, the jogger had felt an icy spike pierce his heart. Binyak was in there, he’d thought with frigid certainty. That his brother was already dead hadn’t mattered. The jogger realized he would never see Binyak again.

  He now watched in numb disbelief as the images of the Towers collapsing played over and over on a myriad of televisions throughout the bar. Intermingled, were the images of dust-covered pedestrians. Dust-covered firefighters. Dust-covered buildings. Dust-covered streets, littered with dust-covered vehicles and dust-covered debris.

  Dust covered everything.

  From his seat inside the bar, the jogger was isolated from what was taking place on the streets of The Village and elsewhere in Manhattan. Eventually, evacuees from the World Trade Center began wandering through the nearby streets. Making their way to homes northward. Most of these walking wounded plodded along like mummified zombies. Shocked and silent, they were tended to by a myriad of volunteers. Primarily store and restaurant owners offering food, water, comfort.

  By late afternoon, the only traffic on the otherwise barren boulevards consisted of emergency vehicles heading downtown toward the disaster area. And those few racing in the opposite direction. Away from the calamity. Transporting first responders who had been injured when the Towers collapsed to hospitals uptown. Fleets of rescue vehicles would remain queued at the Trade Center site throughout the night. Awaiting survivors who would never materialize.

  North of 14th Street had been classified a “Frozen Zone.” All traffic was prohibited. With the exception of authorized vehicles. Those being emergency, police, military.

  The usually vibrant streets of Manhattan were eerily silent.

  As the hours passed, the jogger became more and more despondent over the events that had gripped his beloved city. Early reports revealed the devastating destruction. Lamented the enormous loss of innocent lives. Proclaimed the sheer futility and desperation facing authorities. Later in the day, the broadcast images depicted the utter loss, frustration and hopelessness on the faces of rescue workers. It was soon apparent that New York City faced a horrendous task. Not of caring for the anticipated injured, but of finding and identifying the remains of the thousands of victims buried in the heap of rubble that had been the two-hundred-and-twenty stories of the Twin Towers. At one time, the tallest structures in the world. Just hours earlier, the matching skyscrapers had stood sentinel to the world’s most powerful financial district.

  The abrupt, unanticipated loss of American lives was unthinkable. The brazen, disrespectful acts of cowardice, unacceptable.

  By midnight, the jogger was physically exhausted, emotionally spent, more than a little drunk. His head was abuzz with the news and images of the day’s events. At the same time, he was tormented with the knowledge that he’d been responsible for his twin brother’s death. Despite his feelings of sorrow and shame, however, he couldn’t shake the internal voice telling him the incident with Binyak and Connie was over. That it could not be undone, but that it would now go undetected. All evidence destroyed in the collapse of the North Tower.

  In his inebriated state, the tall man wavered from feelings of remorse to feelings of relief. From guilt over his part in his brother’s and Connie’s deaths, to comfort in the knowledge that he would not be found out. From anguish about thousands of people dying in the shocking and unanticipated collapse of the Towers, to the consolation that he would not spend the rest of his life in prison for the murders of his brother and sister-in-law.

  Overriding it all, he felt the loss of his Binyak. The brother with whom he’d shared more than three decades of life. A good life, for the most part. With loving parents. A successful business. Their dream business.

  Time to go home, he told himself. Before realizing home was not an option. Giuliani had evacuated Manhattan below Canal Street. Going back to his apartment was out of the question.

  He reached into his pockets, took out his wallet to settle his tab. Only the wallet he retrieved wasn’t his glossy, slim, black leather Gucci. It was Binyak’s worn, brown leather tri-fold. He flipped it open. The face on the driver’s license inside the plastic sleeve was his. But it wasn’t.

  Binyak, he thought despondently, forlornly.

  His other hand had fished Binyak’s money clip from a different pocket. Another habit the brothers had shared. Always carrying cash. Binyak’s clip held a few hundred dollars. He peeled off enough twenties to cover his tab, left them on the bar.

  Out on the street, he wasn’t sure where to go. He surveyed the neighborhood, struck by how eerily silent and desolate it was. No clamor. No sirens. No horns. No one driving. No one in sight. No noise whatsoever.

  It was just after midnight. The streets shouldn’t be so empty. So devoid of energy. Not in the city that never slept. The scene before him resembled a movie set on the verge of erupting into a bustle of activity at the director’s shout for action.

  A call that never came.

  Instead, an isolated sound broke the silence. A noise the jogger couldn’t quite place. Like a heavy object being rolled across a floor. In the bizarre quiet of the unordinary New York City night, the sound was magnified. It grew in intensity as whatever was causing it drew nearer. Perplexed, the jogger tried to determine where the sound was coming from.

  A lone figure on rollerblades unpredictably coasted into view. As the skater got closer, the jogger saw it was a black man. Clad in yellow hot pants and a lime green tank top cut off at midriff. He was wearing large Elton John-ish glasses with bright yellow frames. A purple feather boa trailed behind him as he rolled by. He held an American flag in each hand, waved them as though conducting an orchestra. It was a soundless ensemble. One only the skater could hear. The only noise that of his plastic skate wheels rolling over Manhattan concrete.

  The jogger watched solemnly as the rollerblader disappeared into the night.

  He continued walking, still unsure of where to go. Candles were glowing in the windows of many of the apartments he passed.
Red candles, bordering a small American flag, in one. More red candles in another. White in many. Flags in most.

  Paying homage to the day’s fallen.

  The candles reminded him of votives on an altar at church. The thought immediately inspired him. St. Joe’s would be open.

  St. Joseph’s Catholic Church stood on the corner of Washington Place and Sixth Avenue. Not far from Washington Square Park. To the jogger’s relief, the church doors were open. Welcoming all who sought sanctuary. Nearly all of the five borough’s churches remained open that night.

  St. Joe’s pews were filled almost to capacity, yet the sacred structure was oddly hushed, even for a church. Most people were praying silently. Some were sleeping. The jogger found a spot, genuflected, made a rapid sign of the cross, before sitting down. He’d accepted a blanket from the stack on the end of the pew, folded it to use as a pillow. Settling in, resting his chin on his chest, he detected a faint scent. Just a hint of something leathery, woody, masculine.

  Aramis.

  He knew it was his own aftershave. Lingering even after a day that had offered every opportunity of escape. It had been Binyak’s scent as well.

  He inhaled. Savored the smell. Found comfort in it.

  He thought again of the scuffle with his brother. Its bloody outcome. A cloud of images swarmed through his head. Binyak choking him. Him swinging the statue, striking his brother on the side of the head. Binyak crumpling to the floor. Him shaking his brother, checking for a pulse. Finding none. The brass letter opener protruding from Connie’s thigh. Her haunting, lifeless eyes. The two dead bodies lying on the office carpet. Lastly, the Towers collapsing.

  After some time, he fell asleep. To the echo of that internal voice repeating its persistent mantra in his head.

  No one will ever know. No one will ever know.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 8

 

  After seeing the South Tower crumble, Griggor had become engrossed in the news of the attacks. Had witnessed the North Tower collapse moments later. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent lives had just evaporated before his world-weary eyes. The wanderer, meanwhile, sat complacently nearby. Oblivious to the historic event occurring in his own backyard.