The Manhattan Hunt Club (18 page)

Tillie took the paper back, knowing that if she left it, Liz would worry for an hour over how she was going to get rid of it. She wouldn’t dare set it down on her table, for fear that it would blow onto the ground, and she wouldn’t be able to put it in her tent, either. Liz had a thing about any kind of litter at all, and having the flyer around her tiny campsite would drive her even crazier than she already was. “Well, don’t you worry about it, Liz,” Tillie said, automatically reaching out to give the other woman a reassuring squeeze on the arm. When Liz shied away from the contact, Tillie made her way back up to the path. As she retrieved her shopping cart, she saw Liz already busily sweeping away the footprints Tillie had left on the dirt around her tent. “Crazy,” Tillie muttered, shaking her head sadly as she shuffled away.

Leaving the park, she headed over to Broadway. She recognized half a dozen people hanging around the subway entrance. Eddie was playing his clarinet, its case open at his feet. Tillie added twenty dollars to it and tucked one of the flyers in his pocket. Eddie winked at her but never missed a note, and Tillie moved on.

Blind Jimmy—whose eyesight was no worse than Tillie’s—was just coming across the street, tapping along with his cane and clutching the arm of someone Tillie had never seen before. She moved her cart close to the curb, parking it next to a trash barrel, and listened as Jimmy ran his spiel: “I could sure use a cup of coffee, and maybe a Danish. I think there’s a Starbucks in the next block. If you could just—”

But the mark—a man of about thirty, wearing a suit—was already walking away, and a second later Blind Jimmy was casting about for the next possibility. This time it was a woman of around forty, wearing a khaki trench coat. Blind Jimmy sidled up to her. “Is this Seventy-second Street?” he asked. Tillie couldn’t hear the woman’s response, but a second later she heard Jimmy’s voice again. “If you could just help me get across, I’d sure be obliged.” This time Jimmy had better luck—the woman gave him a dollar before going on her way. Blind Jimmy didn’t wait for the light to turn green, but darted back across the street, which told Tillie he’d cadged enough money for a trip to the liquor store. He spotted her before he got to the sidewalk, and veered toward her. “Hey, Till? What’s happenin’?”

“Hunt,” Tillie said. She stuffed one of the flyers into Blind Jimmy’s hand, along with a couple of bills.

“Ain’t never seen one of ’em yet,” Jimmy replied.

“Well, just keep your eye out.”

“Always do,” Jimmy cackled. “Al . . . ways . . .
do
!”

For the next two hours, Tillie walked down Broadway, giving a little money and one of the flyers to everyone she knew, and when the flyers were gone, she started back home. Most of the money Eve Harris had given her was still in her pocket, and she would dole it out slowly, making certain it did the most good. For the next week her family would eat well. The baby would have what it needed, and Robby would have new school clothes. A lot of other people in the tunnels would benefit, too; she would make sure of that.

Wherever she left some of the money, she left the flyer, too.

If this hunt was like the rest of them, it wouldn’t last more than a night or two.

Three at the most.

That was the longest anyone had ever survived.

“W
hat’s that?” Jagger asked.

They were walking along railroad tracks, and though Jeff couldn’t say why, he was almost certain they were moving south. He’d started counting his steps, too, so he was fairly sure they were about three-quarters of a mile from Tillie’s place. They’d taken the first passage they’d come to that led away from Tillie’s area and had enough light so they could see. A little while later they’d come to the tunnel they were in now, which had to be a railroad tunnel rather than one of the subways, since it had no third rail. It had been dead quiet, except for their own footsteps and the sound of their breathing.

Now, though, a faint rumbling could be heard.

A rumbling that got louder as they paused to listen.

“Train,” Jeff said. He glanced around, searching for a way out of the tunnel, but there was none. In both directions the track simply stretched endlessly away, and there wasn’t even a catwalk along the walls. He searched his memory, trying to remember the last time he’d seen one of the alcoves that were sunk into the walls at regular intervals.

Two hundred yards?

Three hundred?

The rumble grew louder. Far in the distance he thought he could make out a dim glow.

Jagger had seen it, too, and as the rumble grew into a roar and the glow began to brighten, he turned and started back the way they’d come.

“No!” Jeff shouted. “The other way! We have to go toward it!”

Jagger hesitated, turning back. “Are you nuts? We don’t know what’s up there!”

“I haven’t seen an alcove for a while, so there should be one not too far ahead.” The roar kept building, and then the glow began lighting up the wall to their right. Just before the engine swung so its headlight was aimed directly at them, he thought he saw what he was looking for. “Come on!” he yelled, starting to run into the stream of white light pouring out of the halogen headlight. He hurtled himself directly at the onrushing train, the roar so loud now that he couldn’t hear if Jagger responded, and he couldn’t risk looking back for fear of tripping over one of the ties. Though he was almost certain it had to be an illusion, the train seemed to be coming even faster now. He tried to keep his eyes on the ground ahead of him, tried to keep his stride perfectly controlled. His instincts screamed at him to run as fast as he could, to use every ounce of his energy to escape the oncoming juggernaut, but he didn’t dare. If he increased his stride even a couple of inches, he’d miss one of the ties, lose his footing, and sprawl onto the tracks.

Where was the alcove? What if he’d already passed it?

He had to look up, had to search for it.

The roar was deafening now, and he could feel the floor of the tunnel trembling under the weight of the locomotive. Shielding his eyes with his right hand, he glanced up.

There! Just a few more strides ahead—

And then, as he dropped his hand to his side, his eyes met the oncoming beam of brilliant light and everything around him washed away in a tide of white. Rendered blind, he missed his stride, and a second later the fear of a moment ago became reality as his toe caught on one of the ties. He threw his hands out to break his fall, scraping them across rough wood, then into sharp gravel. His face hit next, and he felt a burning sensation as the skin of his cheek was torn away.

He tried to regain his feet, but with his eyes still blinded by the stab of light, he stumbled and started to fall again.

Stupid!

How could he have been so stupid? He should have gone the other way, followed Jagger. He might have been wrong about how far back the last alcove was. Maybe it hadn’t been two hundred yards at all.

But it didn’t matter, because the train was almost on him now. Its horn blared and the high-pitched scream of metal ripping against metal pierced his ears as the engineer tried to brake.

Then, just as he was about to go down, he felt something grab him from behind. He was lifted off his feet and almost hurled off the tracks, landing directly in the alcove he’d been trying to reach. A moment later he was crushed against its back wall as Jagger, too, pressed inside. His wind knocked out by Jagger smashing into him, he struggled to breathe as the train—its horn still blaring but its brakes now released—roared by.

By the time Jeff finally caught his breath, it was over. The last of the cars rattled past, and the roar of the locomotive, already muffled by the length of the train, began to fade away. The light on the end of the last car diminished quickly and then was gone.

Still pressed against him, Jagger finally spoke. “You okay?”

Jeff managed to nod, and the big man stepped back enough to give him some room, but not so much that he would fall if his legs failed to support him. Jagger’s hands remained on Jeff’s shoulders, and Jeff slowly tested his body. His legs seemed to be okay, though his right knee hurt so badly he was amazed that he had no memory of it slamming into something as he fell. The palms of both hands were stinging, and his right cheek was burning badly where he’d scraped the skin from it. But he was alive, and the rumble of the train was quickly dwindling away. “I’m all right,” he managed to say. Jagger stepped back out onto the tracks. Jeff followed, his legs trembling so badly he had to steady himself against the tunnel’s wall. “I thought you went the other way,” he said, his voice shaking almost as badly as his legs.

“I was gonna, but I figured maybe you knew what you were talkin’ about,” Jagger replied. “Looks like maybe if I hadn’t . . .” His voice trailed off, but Jeff knew exactly what his next words would have been.

“I owe you,” he said. “Big time.”

In the deep gloom of the tunnel, Jagger grinned. “So figure out how to get us out of here, college boy,” he said. “You do that, we’ll call it even.” He glanced in the direction from which the train had come, then back the way it had gone. “Any idea which way we should go?”

Jeff nodded. “I think so. But first tell me if I’m right that before it hit the brakes, that train was speeding up.”

Jagger frowned, then nodded. “So what?”

“If we both thought it was speeding up, that means it was coming from one of the stations, right?”

Jagger shrugged. “I guess.”

“Don’t most of the trains leave the city heading north?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Jagger growled.

Jeff ignored the question. “Because if they do, then at least we know which way we’re going.” He pointed in the direction the train had gone. Its rumble had almost completely faded away. “If that train was heading out, that way’s gotta be north. Pretty soon it’ll be running along the river. The tracks come out around Seventy-second Street—we might just be able to walk right out of this tunnel.”

They headed in the direction Jeff thought was north, and this time he took careful note of how many paces he took before they came to the next alcove.

One hundred eighty-four.

“I never would’ve made it,” Jagger said softly, and Jeff realized that both of them had been trying to measure the distance. “I guess maybe I owe you one, too.”

They kept walking, moving steadily, until they came to the cross passage they’d used earlier.

Neither of them were tempted to turn into it.

A few hundred yards later, Jagger grabbed hold of Jeff’s shoulder. “Holy shit,” he breathed. “Would you look at that?”

For a second Jeff didn’t trust his vision—it had to be a hallucination. But as they took a few more steps, he realized it wasn’t a trick of his eye.

There was light ahead.

Daylight.

CHAPTER 23

T
he familiar beep of the answering machine in Jeff’s apartment signaling a message waiting was so unexpected that both Keith and Heather stopped short at the door. Their eyes locked on the machine, the same thought crashing into both their heads.

Jeff!

He’d gotten out of the tunnels and was calling for help and—

And both of them hesitated before they’d taken more than a single step toward the machine. Why would Jeff call here? He couldn’t know they were looking for him, let alone that his father was staying in his apartment. The red light continued to blink and the beep sounded again.

“No one knows I’m here,” Keith said.

Where a moment ago both of them had been eager to listen to the message, they were now reluctant. Why would anyone call here?

“Probably my foreman,” Keith said, but the lack of conviction in his voice told Heather he didn’t really believe it. Finally, Heather went over and pressed the button.

“One new message,” the impersonal voice of the machine intoned.

“Keith? Are you there? If you’re there, you pick the phone up right now!” It was Mary’s voice, and the edge on it told Keith his wife was on the verge of hysteria. There was a barely perceptible pause, and then she went on. “I know you’re staying there—Vic DiMarco says he hasn’t seen you since day before yesterday. You have to be at Jeff’s. I don’t see how you can stand it, with all his things around you—” She abruptly cut off her own words and Keith could almost hear her struggling to regain control of herself. Then she started over: “There’s going to be a memorial mass for Jeff tomorrow. I was going to hold it out here at St. Barnabas, but then—well, I started thinking about how much Jeff loved the city, and how many friends he has there, and how much he loved St. Patrick’s. So the mass is going to be there. At one o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I tried to call Heather, but she’s not home. I’ll keep trying. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and now Keith had the distinct impression she was trying to think of more to say, if for no other reason than to avoid hanging up the telephone. Finally, she spoke again, and now her voice had a flat, defeated quality. “If you get this, please call me back, Keith.”

There was a click, and then the computer-generated voice spoke again: “1:52 P.M.”

As the machine fell silent, neither Keith nor Heather said anything. Keith reached out and pressed the button that activated the outgoing message on the machine, and Jeff’s voice emerged from the tinny speaker. “Hi! You know what to do, so go ahead and do it. I’ll call you back as soon as I can!”

They both listened to the message, then Keith shook his head. “I can’t erase it. We kept it on all through the trial because we were sure he was coming home. And I’m still sure.”

Heather chewed at her lower lip. “What about the memorial tomorrow?”

“What about it?” Keith asked, a note of stubbornness creeping into his voice that told Heather what he was thinking as clearly as any words could have.

“We have to go,” Heather said.

“But he’s not dead!” Keith’s voice began to rise. “What are we supposed to do, sit there acting like he’s dead when we don’t believe it?”

“I think we need to be there anyway,” Heather replied. “If neither one of us goes, how will it look? Everyone else thinks that Jeff is dead, and if we don’t go to the mass—”

“I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks,” Keith cut in. “Going to that mass is like admitting he’s dead. I’m damned if—”

Suddenly, all Heather’s tension erupted in pure anger. “Why doesn’t anyone matter except you?” she demanded. “Don’t you care about how anyone but you feels? And it’s not admitting he’s dead!”

“The hell it isn’t!” Keith shot back. “It’s not just a mass—it’s a funeral mass. It’s praying for the dead.”

Heather hardly let him finish. “Then don’t say the prayers for the dead! Pray that we find him—pray that he’s all right—pray for any damn thing you want!” Her eyes fixed on him. “And call Mary. Don’t be the same kind of asshole my dad is to my mother!” Shocked by her own outburst, Heather clapped a hand over her mouth for a second, then shook her head almost violently. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have said that. I mean—”

But now it was Keith shaking his head. “It’s okay,” he told her, his own anger draining away as quickly as hers. “You’re right—no matter what problems Mary and I have, she shouldn’t have to go through all this alone.” For the first time since they’d come into Jeff’s apartment, he smiled. “Actually, one of the main things we fought about was you—Mary always thought you were the best thing that ever happened to Jeff, and as I’m sure you know, I didn’t agree. So I guess it turns out I was wrong about that.” He picked up the phone and dialed Mary’s number. “It’s me,” he said when she picked up. “You’re right—I’m at Jeff’s. I’m—well, if I told you what I’m doing, you’d only think I was crazier than you already do.”

“You’re right,” Mary replied. “I don’t want to know.” There was a short silence. “Just be at the mass tomorrow, all right?”

Before Keith could reply, the phone went dead in his hand.

“I
still say it can’t be this easy,” Jeff said. The patch of daylight had been growing steadily, and now it seemed to be drawing them out of the grim shadows of the railroad tunnel like a magnet.

“Why not?” Jagger demanded, his eyes fixed on the expanse of blue sky ahead. “All they said was we had to get out—that if we could get out we’d be free.” He took another step toward the bright beacon, but Jeff’s fingers closed on his arm, holding him back.

“It can’t be that easy,” he said. “They’re not going to just let us walk out.” Now he had an uneasy feeling that they weren’t actually alone in the shadows, that somewhere in the darkness, someone was watching them. He glanced around, but his eyes had already been blinded by the brilliant daylight ahead, and in contrast, the shadows behind him were an impenetrable pitch-black.

If there were people behind them—and he thought he could almost feel them now—he and Jagger would be framed in perfect silhouette against the bright backdrop of the sky. He moved off the center of the track like a creature of the darkness reacting to the dangers of daylight.

But Jagger was already moving toward the light again. Not wanting to lose his companion, Jeff followed him. After another eighty paces or so they could see the mouth of the tunnel. Though there was still a roof over the tracks and a solid concrete wall to the east, the west side of the tracks was open to the Hudson River. To the north they could see the George Washington Bridge, and across the river the wooded bluffs of New Jersey.

“Holy fuck,” Jagger whispered. “Will you look at that? We did it, man! We’re out!”

Jeff recognized where they were. The southernmost end of Riverside Park was just above them. From what he could remember from the long walks he and Heather had taken through the park a lifetime ago, a high fence separated the tracks from the park itself. It was designed to keep people away from the tracks, and out of the tunnels. A fence that now served to hold them in. But the fence was hardly insurmountable. It wasn’t as if they were on Rikers Island, where the prison buildings were surrounded by two fences and a no-man’s-land filled with razor wire. Here, there was only a single obstacle, maybe eight or nine feet high. A few strands of barbed wire ran along its top, but he remembered watching a couple of kids slither over the fence one day to retrieve a model airplane that had lost power at the wrong moment. Though one of the kids’ mothers had yelled bloody murder at her son, the boy ignored her, scaling the fence with the ease of a chimpanzee climbing the wall of an old cage in the Central Park Zoo. If those two boys could do it, so could he and Jagger.

Yet even as he told himself escape was possible, an instinct told him that something was wrong, that it couldn’t be as easy as it looked. From the moment he had tried to help Cynthia Allen on that subway platform, nothing in his life had been easy.

They moved forward again, but Jagger seemed to have been infected by the same unease, and instead of rushing toward daylight, he also moved ahead more cautiously.

The view of the Hudson broadened, and they could smell fresh air from the river. Jeff drew it deep into his lungs, reveling in its sweetness. As the crisp air flushed some of the staleness of the tunnels out of his system, his sense of danger began to diminish.

Perhaps, after all, they were about to escape.

But escape to what? Even if they got out of the tunnels, the police would be searching for them. For him, at least. The guards taking him to Rikers surely would have witnessed his escape.

Unless . . .

What if both the driver and the guard riding shotgun had died when the van exploded?

But even if that happened, the police would have found the van’s open back door. And they wouldn’t have found his body. They’d know he escaped, and they’d be looking for him.

On the surface, away from the terrible darkness and claustrophobia of the maze that lay beneath the city, at least he’d have a chance. “Maybe we can do it,” he whispered, not really meaning to speak out loud.

“Sure we can,” Jagger replied. He threw his arm around Jeff’s shoulders. “Over that fence, and we’re outta here. Come on.”

Moving forward, they edged closer and closer to the point where the west wall of the tunnel would end. Ten feet from their goal, Jeff cast one backward glance into the darkness—the darkness he hoped never to see again. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Quickening their pace, they emerged from the shadows into the late afternoon sunshine. The fence was right where Jeff remembered it. And on the other side, he saw the softball field, where he’d played a couple of times in pickup games.

Maybe thirty-five yards to the fence—fifty at most.

And then he heard a voice, low and menacing.

Mocking.

“Too bad, boys. Wrong exit.”

Jeff spun around to see five derelicts indolently watching them. Their hair was shaggy and unkempt. They wore grease-stained shirts and pants and had moth-eaten knit caps on their heads.

One was sitting on the ground, leaning against a rock. Two more were lounging against the wall of the tunnel itself. Another pair were sitting in faded canvas director’s chairs, one of which was missing an arm.

The man who had spoken was holding a gun—an ugly snub-nosed revolver—and pointing it at Jeff. The other four had their hands concealed in jacket pockets, and Jeff was certain that another gun was concealed in every one.

Instinctively, he looked the other way, only to see three more men, dressed as shabbily as the rest, and looking just as menacing.

The softball field was empty, and he and Jagger were shielded from the view of any chance passerby. There was no one in sight except the eight homeless men.

Silently, Jeff and Jagger turned away from the fence and retraced their steps.

A few seconds later the darkness of the tunnel closed around them again.