Bloody Horowitz (26 page)

There was a chauffeur waiting for them at the arrivals hall and a limousine parked outside, but still the family refused to cheer up. They trooped out as if they were heading for prison rather than a long weekend in one of the most exciting cities in the world.

The Wilmott Hotel was at the very southern end of Sixth Avenue, next to the neighborhood known as SoHo—and this disappointed them too. They would have much rather been close to Times Square with its big stores, fancy hotels and bright neon lights. The Wilmott was an old-fashioned place—all pillars and potted plants—with a doorman in a frock coat and top hat and everyone in suits with
WH
printed on the lapels. True to his word, the CEO of TexChem had booked the family into the executive suite on the eighteenth floor. They had a living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. But the wallpaper was faded, the view—across six lanes of traffic—hardly spectacular, and the beds were both smaller and less comfortable than the ones they had left at home.

I H8 NEW YRK,
Madison texted to her best friend, Chelsea, before they had even taken the elevator back down for dinner.
I AM SO BORED!

MISS U,
Chelsea texted back.
WILL C CHARLIE FRIDAY. SO LAME U CAN'T B THERE!

Thinking of Charlie made Madison all the more miserable. Worse still, she wondered why Chelsea had mentioned him. What would her friend get up to, knowing she wouldn't be there?

The family ate dinner together in the hotel restaurant. The food was good, but the Johnsons didn't enjoy the service: the waiters who kept sidling up to the table to check that everything was all right or to refill their water or to wipe away the crumbs. All in all, they would have preferred to have been left alone. But at the end of the meal, Herb made a speech. He could see the way the weekend was going and he knew he had to cheer them up.

“This place is okay,” he announced. “And we can eat and drink whatever we want. TexChem will pick up the tab. After all, this is meant to be a celebration. I won the case! And tomorrow we can see the town. We can do some shopping. Macy's. Saks Fifth Avenue. Let's treat ourselves.” He snapped his fingers at a passing waiter. “Waiter! Can you bring me a cigar!”

“I'm very sorry, sir,” the waiter said.

“You don't have cigars?”

“Smoking is forbidden inside the hotel.”

Herb's face fell.

MY DAD SUCKS,
Madison texted, secretly, holding the phone under the table.

The next day, at ten o'clock, they left the Wilmott for their first day of sightseeing, beginning with the Empire State Building. They hadn't been there fifteen minutes when they decided it was too hot, too crowded and actually too tall. The weather was cloudy that day, and when they finally got out onto the observation deck on the eighty-sixth floor, there wasn't actually that much to observe. Rockefeller Center also disappointed them. It was just another skyscraper. And what was the point of visiting Radio City, just across the road, without the Rockettes? They had lunch at a deli where all the customers were shouting and the servers were rude. In the afternoon they took each other's photographs against the flashing neon signs in Times Square and then walked in Central Park until Tammy complained her feet were hurting (the expensive Jimmy Choo high heels had definitely been a mistake) and they went back to the hotel.

The following day was Friday and in the morning they went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which they all agreed was too big and generally too full of art. In the afternoon they went shopping and bought new shoes, new shirts, new skirts and new socks . . . not that they needed any of them, but what was the point of shopping if you didn't buy anything? That night they saw
Mamma Mia!
. . . or at least some of it. Madison fell asleep after half an hour and Tammy said she preferred the film, so they left during intermission.

The trouble was that the city was exhausting them. Perhaps if they had planned their time a little more carefully they would have been able to travel less, but they had bounced up and down Manhattan as if they were trapped in some sort of demented pinball machine. And getting around wasn't at all easy. The sidewalks were crowded and even a couple of blocks were too much to cover on foot. On the other hand, all three of them hated the New York cabs, which were cramped and uncomfortable with nasty plastic seats and drivers who seemed to originate from every country in the world except America sitting on the other side of their thick glass partitions and never once so much as wishing them a good day, leaving any discussion to the taped voices of TV celebrities who urged them to “buckle up” and “enjoy the ride.”

And the traffic! It seemed to the Johnsons that they had wasted hours trapped in those yellow tin boxes, waiting for lights that refused to change or finding themselves stuck in cross streets with everyone blaring and swearing and policemen whistling and nobody actually moving. Visiting the tourist sites was bad enough. Getting there was even worse.

It was Madison who suggested on the fourth day of their visit—it was Saturday—that they should use the subway. They were heading uptown to the American Museum of Natural History, which, according to the guidebook, was on Seventy-ninth Street and, traveling from the Wilmott Hotel, about as far as it was possible to go without actually leaving Manhattan itself.

“I don't want to ride in another cab,” she exclaimed. She had already texted exactly the same sentiment to her friend Chelsea. “They're smelly and they're slow.” Her eyes brightened. “Let's take the subway! We can be like real New Yorkers. That'll be cool.”

“I don't know, sweetie pie,” her mother said. “The subway's very dirty in New York. And maybe it's not so easy to find the way you want to go—”

“I think it'll be fun!” Herb Johnson was surprised to find himself agreeing with his daughter. It wasn't something that happened very often. In truth, though, he was also thinking of all the cab fares he had paid out since they had arrived in New York. It seemed they couldn't even go around the block for less than ten dollars. “You go north. You go south. How difficult can it be?”

“Herb, there are all these different lines, local stops, express stops . . .”

“We'll ask the concierge.” Herb reached for his Stetson and balanced it carefully on his head. “We don't want to look like out-of-towners.”

The three of them took the elevator down to the ground floor, and while Tammy adjusted her lipstick in the ladies' room and Madison texted Chelsea to find what had happened at the party and who, if anyone, had left with Charlie, Herb inquired how the three of them might reach the American Museum of Natural History using the subway.

The concierge, like his name, appeared to be French. He spoke with a heavy accent that Herb found hard to decipher. At first, he seemed surprised that any guest of the Wilmott should want to travel on public transport, but once he had accepted that Herb was serious, he raised his eyebrows and provided the necessary information. “Of course, sir. It is very simple. You can take the 1 uptown from Houston Street, which is just two blocks from the hotel. Get out at Seventy-ninth Street and walk a couple of blocks east. Or you may find it easier to head over to Spring Street, where you have the choice of the C, the E or the B—but not the A, because that's the Express, and look out for the B train because it doesn't always stop at Eighty-first Street, which is the station you need for the Museum of Natural History. The N and the R trains leave from Prince Street, which is actually nearest to the hotel, but you'll need to make a change at Times Square. Or you can pick up the same lines at West Broadway if you prefer.”

“What was that about the 1?” Herb asked.

But the concierge had already turned to another hotel guest and, not wanting to look ignorant, Herb decided to let it go. He'd gotten the general idea. Lots of trains stopped near Eighty-first Street. He just had to pick the right one.

The family left the hotel, crossed Sixth Avenue and made their way into SoHo, an area of New York which was almost on their doorstep but which they hadn't yet explored. This part of the city was too old-fashioned for their taste, too cluttered with shops that were themselves too cluttered to provide a comfortable shopping experience. The Johnsons preferred the sort of open spaces that they had found along Fifth Avenue.

The New York subway was therefore the last place they would really have chosen to go. Even the entrance seemed purposefully designed to be hard to locate—they came upon it more or less by accident and saw at once that it wasn't the station they wanted. Herb had planned to go to Houston Street, but he must have set off in the wrong direction, because this was Spring. However, at least it was a name that the concierge had mentioned and the three of them set off down the steep concrete steps that led them below the level of the road. Almost at once, Herb felt uncomfortable, wishing that he had stuck to the cabs. The walls were white-tiled and grimy, like a restroom in a cheap motel. The ceiling was low. The air smelled of dust and oil. But he remembered that this had been Madison's idea. It had been the only enthusiasm that she had shown since they had left Texas. He didn't want to disappoint her now.

They bought three MetroCards from one of the machines that stood against the wall . . . or tried to. It was actually quite difficult to work out exactly what sort of ticket they wanted and how much they should pay, and then they found that Herb's dollar bills were too crumpled and the machine wouldn't accept them. Fortunately, there was a ticket seller in a booth, sitting on the other side of a dirty glass window. She scowled at them as she handed the MetroCards across—although Herb thought that he too would hardly have been smiling if he'd had to work down here all day.

The platform was another level farther down, reached through a thickly painted iron gate that seemed to turn only reluctantly. As Herb pushed his way through, he had the impression that he was being eaten alive, that he was entering the bowels of some gigantic creature. The platform was almost empty, with just a few people standing in clusters, some staring into the gloom of the tunnel, others reading the Saturday edition of
The New York Times
. There were more passengers on the other side—Herb could see them through the forest of steel girders that supported the ceiling. The light down here was hard and unwelcoming. Gusts of warm air scurried over the concrete, adding to the sticky heat.

“You know, maybe we should take a cab after all,” Tammy said. She had painted her lips that morning with Chanel crème lipstick—Lilac Sky, her favorite shade of pink. But now they formed a little O of disapproval. “It's not very nice down here.”

“Well, honey, we've paid . . .” Herb didn't care about the money, but he didn't want to climb back up the steps. And anyway, it was never easy hailing a cab without the help of the hotel concierge.

“Herb, I just don't feel comfortable. Which train are we meant to take?”

“I think he said the 1,” Herb replied. In truth, he couldn't remember what he had been told.

“I don't think the 1 goes from here. I'm sure we'd be more comfortable in a cab. What do you think, Madison?”

Madison, who was once again plugged into her iPod, didn't hear what her mother had said but raised her eyebrows in disdain.

Any further discussion was ended by the sudden arrival of a train, crashing out of the tunnel and roaring and rattling down the full length of the platform, a series of silver boxes scarred with graffiti and with shafts of bright white light spilling from a long line of windows.

It was the A train.

“Is this the right train?” Tammy asked.

“I guess so.”

“Maybe we should ask someone.”

“I don't think it matters, honeybun. They all go uptown. We might as well take it now that it's here.”

The three of them clambered onto the train. Tammy stepped through the door as if she knew they were making the wrong decision but had no choice in the matter and would regret this for the rest of her days. Herb followed sheepishly behind. Madison came last, lost in the music of Michael Jackson, which echoed faintly from her ears. There were perhaps a dozen people sprawled out on the hard plastic chairs. A couple of them glanced briefly at the Johnsons, identified them instantly as tourists, and then forgot them. The doors screamed out a warning signal and then slammed shut.

With a jerk, the train moved off, then picked up speed, disappearing into the tunnel.

“This is the A train, Eighth Avenue Express, heading uptown to Inwood 207th Street. The next stop will be West Fourth Street.” The amplified voice came out of speakers built into the carriage ceiling. None of the passengers seemed to notice it.

“It's the right train,” Herb muttered, then called out the words a second time so that Tammy could hear.

Tammy nodded and they all sat down.

In fact, Herb had to admit, the train was a lot faster than any cab would have been. It whooshed through the tunnels, suddenly exploding into the stations and hurtling along the platforms as if it couldn't wait to be out again. It barely spent a minute at Fourth Street before the doors thudded together and it was off, racing through no fewer than ten blocks before stopping once again for breath. Above ground, the traffic would have been tied up in its usual knots—with red traffic lights, horns, piercing police whistles, angry faces. And this was an awful lot cheaper. Perhaps, after the museum, they might even use the train a second time to go back!

The A train stopped at Thirty-fourth Street and again at Forty-second. People got on. People got off. This all seemed quite normal and Herb was able to relax, knowing exactly where he was. If he got out at Forty-second Street, he would be back in Time Square, close to the theater where they had seen
Mamma Mia!
But it was then that everything went wrong. The train stopped stopping. It ignored Fiftieth and Fifty-ninth. In fact, it gave all the fifties a miss . . . and the sixties too. It seemed that the driver had gone mad! Herb saw the flashing lights of Seventy-second Street, but the train didn't stop there either. They seemed to be hurtling through the darkness as if they were going to leave Manhattan altogether.