Bloody Horowitz (27 page)

“What station is the museum?” Tammy asked, and Herb could hear the edge of panic in her voice.

“It's not until Eighty-first Street,” Herb reassured her.

“Then that must be the next stop.”

But the A train didn't stop at Eighty-first Street or Eighty-sixth Street or even Ninety-sixth Street. It didn't stop anywhere. None of the other passengers in the carriage seemed at all concerned, but then they were all lost in their own worlds, nobody speaking to anyone else, so it was impossible to tell what they were thinking. 103rd . . . 110th . . . 116th . . . It was only as they arrived at 125th Street and at long last the train began to slow down that Madison looked up and unplugged her iPod.

“Are we there?” she asked.

“I don't know where we are!” her mother replied. Her lips now formed a single pink line.

The train stopped. The doors opened.

“We'd better get out,” Herb said.

A few passengers had gotten off ahead of them. The Johnsons watched as they disappeared into the gloom at the end of the platform, making their way toward the stairs that would take them to the exit. The doors screamed and thudded shut. A moment later the train moved off, the windows seeming to melt into each other as it picked up speed until finally they were no more than a brilliant white blur. And then it had gone. The Johnsons were on their own.

“What now?” Tammy demanded. Her voice was a sliver of ice in the damp heat of the station.

“Where are we?” Madison asked. She had only just begun to realize that they weren't anywhere near the natural history museum.

“Your father took the wrong train,” her mother said.

“We've just come a little too far up.“ Herb took out a handkerchief and mopped at his forehead. It often occurred to him that, in court, he could demolish anyone. But when he was at home or with the family, he had all the power and presence of a wet rag. Sometimes he wondered why that should be. Then he told himself—it was probably better not to ask.

“One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street!” Madison read out the station name with contempt. “That is so not where we need to be, Dad.”

“I know . . .”

“Let's go up to the street and take a cab back,” Tammy suggested.

“I'm not so sure that's such a great idea, honey.” Herb had a nasty feeling that they had left Manhattan. They had come so far north that they might be in Harlem. He didn't actually know anything about Harlem, but he had seen a number of television shows set there and nothing good had ever happened. It was bad enough being lost down here. But if they went up to street level... “It might not be so easy to get a cab up there,” Herb said, putting worse thoughts out of his mind.

“Then what—?”

But before Tammy could finish, there was a distant rumble and a pair of lights appeared in the darkness, heading back toward them, which is to say—back south. A second later a train burst out and began to slow down. But it was on a different platform. Herb quickly looked around him, taking in the stairs leading up to a corridor that must surely cross over to the other side.

“This way!” he exclaimed. Grabbing hold of his wife, he broke into a waddling sort of run.

There were ten steps up. With Madison right behind them, Herb and Tammy clambered to the top and then, without stopping for breath, hurried along the corridor. Below them, they could hear the train come to a halt and the doors open. There seemed to be turnstiles and staircases everywhere. There were signs pointing to the A, the B, the C and the D train—and even to La Guardia Airport. Herb ignored them all. He just wanted to get his family onto this train before the doors closed again. He didn't care where it took them. As far as he was concerned, they could go all the way back to Spring Street and see the American Museum of Natural History the next time they were in New York. Why had they wanted to visit the museum anyway? None of them were interested in natural history.

They reached a staircase. Herb just hoped this was the right one. Taking a tighter grip on Tammy and checking that Madison was still with him, he hurried down. It was lucky that his wife wasn't wearing high heels today. The three of them reached the platform just as the doors signaled their alarm. They leapt on the train, the doors cutting across like guillotine blades behind them. Their clothes were crumpled. They were panting and covered in perspiration. But they had made it.

Nobody had gotten off the train. Only the three of them had gotten on.

“What train was this?” Tammy asked.

“I didn't see,” Herb confessed.

“Did you see where it's going?”

“I didn't have time to look.”

It was only now that they realized they were alone in the carriage.

And this train was somehow different from the one they had taken before. It was much older. The seats were brown, not gray, and the silver handrails were a different shape. Herb glanced at one of the advertisements. WINSTON CIGARETTES—FOR A FULLER FLAVOR. That was impossible! Cigarette advertising had been banned on the New York subway more than five years ago. Everyone knew that.

There was no recorded announcement. Nobody told them what the next stop was going to be. But they were going the right way. They had to be. The train flashed through a station and Herb caught sight of the street number—116. They were already nine blocks south.

”Let's sit down,” he said. He was still holding Tammy's arm and he gently steered her toward the nearest seat.

“We don't know where we're going!” Tammy said.

“We're going back to the hotel,” Herb responded. “And then we're going to go out for lunch and I'm going to buy you the biggest steak you can buy in this darned city. Nice and bloody—just how you like it.”

“We're slowing down,” Madison said.

It was true. They could feel the wheels braking beneath them, and as they entered the next station, it was obvious that they were about to stop. 107th Street. It was just like all the other stations, with a low ceiling and a sense of being squashed beneath the surface. But the walls were more ornate. The name was written in mosaic. And there were classical pillars dotted along the platform, like something out of a Greek temple.

“I don't remember a station on 107th Street,” Tammy said.

“Well, we'll only be here a few minutes,” Herb assured her.

The train stopped. The doors opened. Then there was silence. Nobody got on or off. The engine didn't seem to be running. They waited a full two minutes. Then the lights went out.

“What now?” Madison wailed.

It wasn't too dark in the train. The platform lights were reflecting through the windows. But it really did feel as if it was here for good, that it would never move again. None of them were quite sure what to do. Should they just stay here and wait for a guard or perhaps a driver to appear? Or was this the moment to head back up to street level? Another minute ticked past.

“There is no 107th Street station,” Tammy said.

“What do you mean?”

Tammy had taken a New York guidebook out of her silver leather Prada handbag. Herb wondered why she had only produced it now. If she'd had the guidebook all the time, wouldn't it have been better to consult it while they were still at the hotel? She had opened it to the back cover. It showed a map of the Manhattan subway. “There's 103rd and 110th—but there's no 107th,” she said.

But look at the wall, honey. We're at 107th. It says it in black and white.”

“And red, green and gold,” Madison added.

It was true. The tiles were all different colors. But Herb scowled at her. This wasn't going to help now. “This must be a new station,” he said.

“It doesn't look new.”

“Maybe your guidebook's out-of-date.”

“Herb . . .”

“We can't just sit here,” Madison exclaimed. “This train isn't going anywhere.”

“She's right,” Herb said. “Maybe we can find someone to give us a little help.”

But there was no one . . . not on the train, not on the platform. Even the driver, if there had ever been one, refused to appear.

“Let's find the exit,” Tammy said. She was speaking in a whisper without knowing why. She could feel the emptiness all around her.

There was no exit.

No stairs led up from the platform. There didn't seem to be any signs pointing to other lines. The station could have been abandoned a week, a month or even several years ago. The air down here was sluggish. The neon lights, long rows of them, burned down, turning everything gray and white. The train they had just left seemed to have died. It was hard to believe it had ever moved at all.

“There!” Tammy shouted and pointed.

There was a single man at the end of the platform. Or it could have been a woman. The figure was too far away to be seen clearly, and anyway, he or she was concealed inside an ill-fitting coat . . . it was almost like a cloak. There was no face, no arms. Just a shape that was vaguely human, a wrapped-up bundle on legs that staggered slightly, as if drunk, toward an archway and then disappeared.

“Who was that?” Tammy asked.

“It must have been the driver.”

“He didn't look well.”

“Maybe that's the way out.”

“I don't want to be here,” Madison wailed. “I wish we'd never come.”

“Hush, sweetie!” her mother crooned. “Everything's going to be fine.”

Keeping close together, they edged their way down the platform, following the one other human they had seen. At last they arrived at an archway. And here was a sign. TO THE X TRAIN. About fifteen steps led down and then turned a corner. Herb looked back. As far as he could see, there was no alternative.

“Come on,” he said.

“Herb. There's no X train in my guidebook,” his wife muttered.

“There's no 107th Street either,” Herb reminded her. “But that's where we are. You need a new guidebook.”

“We need to get out of here,” Madison whimpered.

“South,” Herb said. “We'll take the X train south. That's all we need to do.”

They followed the staircase down. There were another twenty steps after the corner, then another corner and twenty more. By the time they emerged onto another platform, they knew they were far beneath the level of the road. They could feel the great mass of earth and concrete above them. The weight of it pounded in their ears.

Another train was waiting.

“Herb . . . ,” Tammy began.

Herb looked up and down the platform. The figure they had glimpsed had gone. He realized that there was no lighting at all down here. The only illumination came from the train itself. If the doors closed and the train moved off, they would be left in pitch dark. It was that thought that spurred him on.

“Get on the train,” he said.

“But Herb—”

“Just do it, Tammy. Now!”

They climbed onto the train and it was as if as invisible driver or controller had been waiting for them. At once the doors closed. The lights flickered out and for just a second the three of them could imagine themselves trapped in the inky darkness, unable to see as they were carried the Lord knows where. But as the train jerked forward and began to pick up speed, the lights came back on again. At least they could see. And by the time they had plunged into the next tunnel, they were aware of two things. The track was slanting down, taking them deeper and deeper into the belly of the earth. And this train—the X train— was like nothing that could possibly exist in any modern city. It had to be at least fifty years old. The outside had been painted dark green. The seats in the carriage were made of wood, not plastic. There were no advertisements. The wheels creaked and groaned. The whole thing looked like something out of a museum.

The journey took about ten minutes, which felt like ten hours, and during the whole time, none of them spoke. Madison sat with her head slumped, her long hair dangling between her knees, her Versace froufrou jacket drawn around her shoulders and her legs crossed. She had never looked so miserable. Herb was clinging to one of the strap handles as if he would collapse without it. He had taken his Stetson off and was holding it limply in his other hand. As for Tammy, she had already decided that she wasn't going to speak to him again for a week. Her eyes were tight little pearls of anger.

The train emerged from the tunnel. But the family saw at once that they weren't in a station. This was like nothing that could have ever belonged to the Manhattan subway. It surely couldn't belong to the real world.

A cathedral. That was Herb's first thought as he nervously poked his head out of the doors, which had once again opened. The ceiling rose improbably high above him. It was carved out of natural rock and glistened with strange crystal formations that caught and reflected the blue light that washed over the place. Where was the light coming from? There were no electric lamps, no sign of any machinery apart from the train itself.

Narrow metal walkways and spiral staircases clung to the rock face—tiny in the distance. And now that he examined his surroundings more carefully, Herb could make out doors everywhere . . . natural arches and narrow fissures in the rock with passageways leading into an inner darkness. A cathedral or a station—or even a hospital? Lower down, at the level of the train, a platform stretched out in both directions, although it had cracked and crumbled away about halfway along. A machine that might once have dispensed candy bars, empty now, the glass broken, clung to a tiled wall. And there were beds. Dozens of them. Lined up a few yards apart, some with wooden cabinets, chairs, folding screens.