Vamparazzi (16 page)

“You came in via the
basement?
” I asked.

“And if
I
can, then maybe someone else can, too,” he said.

I felt cold again. “Such as the killer?”

“I'd feel better if this building were more secure while you're working in it,” he said, descending the stairs rapidly. “I'll show you how I got in, so you can show the stage manager—or whoever's responsible for this kind of thing around here—and have him seal it up.”

“Slow down,” I said anxiously. “This dress isn't made for scrambling up and down staircases.”

“Oh, sorry.” He let go of my hand so that I could use it to lift my skirts as I descended the rest of the way. I felt air on my back and realized I was still half-unlaced.

“I've never been down here before,” I said as we reached the bottom of the stairs. It turned out to be pretty much what you'd expect of the basement of a sixty-year-old theater: big, dusty, industrial, shadowy, and full of air ducts, water pipes, and machinery that powered the Hamburg.

Lopez led me across the length of the large basement, into a dark alcove behind piles of junk and ancient, rusted-out machinery, and down a few more stairs—smoothly worn and slippery with time. At the bottom of the small flight of steps, set deep in this seemingly forgotten corner under the theater, there was a big, heavy, very old door. I noticed stains and rusting on its lower portion, as if there'd been occasional flooding at this level over the years.

If I weren't with someone I trusted, I'd be very nervous by now. Actually, given that a woman who was a ringer for me had recently been murdered, I would be balking and shouting for help. But since I was with Lopez, I was just surprised and curious, as well as puzzled. What did these obscure portions of the Hamburg Theater have to do with either of us?

He opened the heavy, creaking door, and I saw that it led into a pitch dark corridor. Lopez paused and bent down to pick up something—a small backpack that was sitting on the floor, next to the door. I didn't realize it belonged to him until I saw how easily the thing slid into place as he slipped the straps over his shoulders.

“You really did come in this way,” I blurted.

“I thought I might be conspicuous upstairs, carrying a backpack, so I left it here. I wanted to slip in and out of the theater without anyone but you noticing I was there.” He grinned at me. “Little did I know that your dressing room is as busy as Grand Central Station.”

Looking at our subterranean surroundings, I said, “Sneaking into the theater from underground seems a little elaborate.”

“Well, I thought I could probably get in this way.”

“Why did you think
that?
”

“And it seemed easier than trying to slip discreetly past a few hundred crazed vamparazzi and a team of patrolmen who've been alerted by now to keep a sharp eye out for anyone who looks suspicious.”

“Such as a scary-looking undercover cop?”

“Fine, I get the message, I'll shave,” he said.

“And change your clothes?”

“That, too,” he agreed absently. “Come on, we need to hurry. They'll start looking for you soon.”

He reached into one of the Velcro-flapped pockets of his military-style pants, from which he pulled out a small flashlight with some straps hanging from it. Using this for illumination, he led me through the door where he'd collected his backpack, and down a long, dark corridor with a low ceiling. I tripped on the rough ground, and he took my hand again, holding onto it to steady me as we proceeded. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized that the walls were rough and unfinished, and the low ceiling was slightly curved. This wasn't a corridor, it was a tunnel.

“Where
are
we?” I asked, clutching his hand tightly.

“We're going under the street.” His voice was calm, despite the eerie surroundings. “Don't worry. The structure is solid here.”

“Uh-huh.”

At the end of the tunnel, we emerged into a small chamber with a very high ceiling and a crumbling iron spiral staircase which, bizarrely, led nowhere. There was just a sealed wall at the top of those stairs. On our level, behind the staircase, there was a low, rusty, iron door set deep in the wall.

“Your crew could seal off the door we came through back there,” Lopez said, “but I think this one would be a better choice.” He rapped his knuckles on the thick, old iron door. “It's the only way into this whole area, and a little welding would seal this thing so tight, no one and nothing would get through there.”

“I'll tell Bill,” I promised.

“Make sure you do. It's important.”

I glanced around at the strange place we were in. “I'm not likely to forget.”

He smiled at that. “True.”

“But this seems ... well, kind of an improbable way for anyone to try to get into the theater.”

“
I
got in this way,” he reminded me.

I gestured to our underground surroundings, dark and spooky in the faint illumination of his little flashlight. “How did you even know about this?”

“That's not important right now. What
is
important—”

“Is that I tell Bill to seal up this door. Yes, yes, I know.”

Lopez grunted a little as heaved open the heavy door under the spiral staircase, an effort that was accompanied by a long, loud, echoing screech of rusted hinges.

I flinched at the noise, and I thought the jarring racket would surely be heard. But then I realized we were too far away from the theater for that.

“Where exactly are we?” I asked, after the door was open and the screeching had stopped.

“Under Eighth Avenue.”

“Why did someone build a cellar under Eighth Avenue ?”

“This isn't a cellar,” he said. “Or it wasn't, back then.”

“Back when?”

“The nineteenth century.” Lopez pointed to the spiral staircase. “This was originally an access chamber to the water system under the Village. For maintenance workers. The entrance from above ground was sealed off decades ago. Probably to prevent curious kids or pedestrians from getting down here and getting hurt.”

I peaked through the rusted door he had pried open and looked into the stygian darkness beyond. “This was the water system?”

“Part of it. Abandoned more than a century ago. Here, have a look.”

He came closer to me and raised his flashlight to my head. The straps I had noticed dangling from it touched my hair, and then he settled the light on my forehead, tightening the straps around my head to keep it steady.

That's when I realized what the device actually was. “This is a headlamp!”

“Uh-huh.” He finished adjusting it on my head, then fastened the strap around my chin. “As long as we're here, you might as well see.”

“See
what?
”

Lopez grinned. “A glimpse of the hidden world under the city.” He took my hand again and led me to the threshold of the ancient door, leading into pitch darkness. As we ducked our heads to pass under the doorway, he said, “Watch your step. There's a little water in here.”

“How much water?” I hung back, tugging against his hand.

“Not that m . . . Oh, you're worried about your costume ?”

“Fiona will kill me if I ruin these shoes.”

“Fiona?”

“The wardrobe mistress.” The light on my forehead shone on Lopez, who was standing in pitch darkness. I could see a curved wall behind him, made of long, narrow bricks. It looked very old. Intrigued, I took one cautious step forward. “What
is
this?”

“Watch your feet,” he said, gently halting me with a hand on my shoulder. “I forgot for a minute you're in some Regency lady's shoes. Here, try this. Lean on me.” He shifted position and claimed both my hands, holding them so that our palms were pressed together, our fingers linked. “Go ahead, lean in.”

“This is like a trust exercise in acting class.”

“And the fact that you're bound to fall out of that dress if you lean forward one more inch has nothing to do with my suggesting this.”

“Oops.” Realizing he was right, I hunched my shoulders a little to prevent that from happening.

He sighed. “Oh, well.”

Leaning forward in this awkward posture, I let Lopez take a lot of my weight as I turned my head this way and that, trying to illuminate the parameters of this mysterious place with the headlamp.

The forgotten underground tunnel stretched out darkly on either side of me, its smoothly cylindrical shape carrying on in a straight line as far as I could see in this faint light, gradually disappearing into complete and intimidating blackness in both directions. The curved ceiling was only a little higher than Lopez's head, and a narrow, very shallow stream of water flowed through the gently rounded brick floor at his feet.

“This is amazing!” My voice echoed eerily through the long, empty tunnel, prompting me to call, “Helloooo !” Then I listened to the echo that bounced along the brick walls and disappeared into the distance.
“Cool.”

Lopez encouraged me to lean further in, still using his hands for balance, so that I could see more.

I flinched a bit when I spied something creepy dangling from the tunnel ceiling in the syrupy darkness some distance to my left. “What's
that?
”

He peered in the same direction. “Tree roots. Over the years, they force their way through the mortar of these old underground constructions.” He added, “Eventually that affects structural stability and can cause problems.”

“But since the tunnel's not in use anymore . . .” I started to shrug, then realized that my precarious balance, as well as my low neckline and partially undone laces, made that an unwise gesture.

“It's still not good for public safety to have things collapsing under Eighth Avenue—or anywhere else,” Lopez said. “And people down here can get hurt in cave-ins.”

“Who comes down
here?
” I demanded.

“Well, urban explorers, for one.”

“Oh, people who explore tunnels, bridges, abandoned shipyards, and stuff? I've seen some TV programs about them.”

I thought urban exploration seemed interesting—but also like a hobby I was content to know about
only
via my television. It looked dirty, uncomfortable, and dangerous, and I suspected that anyone who did it regularly probably had to get a lot of shots, since it seemed to bring people into frequent contact with garbage, sewage, rust, used syringes, industrial waste, rats, and other things I didn't want to get close to. I gathered from my TV viewing that urban exploration was also not strictly legal, since it often involved trespassing or going into places where public access was prohibited. I wasn't in a position to be smugly critical about breaking the law; but the possibility of being arrested did strike me as an additional disincentive for crawling around in polluted storm drains.

“Here, look this way,” Lopez said, gesturing with his head and shifting his weight to reposition me and point my attention in the other direction, away from the eerily dangling tree roots. “Look at what I found when I was coming to see you.”

I was about to ask again why he had chosen a route through abandoned underground water tunnels, rather than a more conventional path to the theater, since even trying to sneak past vamparazzi and cops struck me as less trouble than coming via this eccentric entrance, but then my attention was captured by what he was trying to show me, as he instructed me exactly where to point the light that was fastened to my head.

“Oh!” I said with surprised pleasure, leaning heavily against his supporting hands as I strained to see farther down the length of the tunnel. “Look! What
is
that?”

About thirty yards away from us, a series of long, shinywhite spires hung down from the sloping ceiling. Some of them were perfectly straight; others twisted and twined into weird, fantastic shapes. Some were very short and thick, while others were slender and almost long enough to touch the tunnel floor. They gleamed beautifully in the faint light of my headlamp, glistening like stony icicles, as if dotted with glitter or tiny shards of crystal.

“They're stalactites.” I could hear in his voice that he was pleased with my enthusiastic reaction to this surprise. “There's a lot of stuff under the city that's abandoned or forgotten, but none of it is stagnant or dead. It's constantly changing. Those crystal formations developed over decades down here. They'll keep growing for centuries if they're left undisturbed.”

“Growing how?” I tilted my head from side to side, enjoying the way the shifting light made the dangling formations glitter.

“Water drips down from the street and the ground above us, through layers of soil and sediment, picking up mineral deposits along the way,” he replied. “Those stalactites are formed by years and years of that water creating tiny cracks in the tunnel ceiling and leaving behind microscopic deposits from every drop that falls. Until you get
that.
”

“Yeah.” After a moment he added, “And it's all right under our feet every day, while we're walking around the city.”

I looked at the beautiful shapes for another moment, then asked, “If you came here this way, where did you come
from?
How did you get into this tunnel in the first place?”

“Oh, there's a whole maze of entrances and exits. This tunnel hasn't been in active use for over a hundred years, but it links up that way—” He nodded in one direction. “—with the steam tunnels under New York University.” Then he nodded in the other direction. “And it connects that way with a portion of the old covered canal under Canal Street. If you know where you're going, you can link up with the storm drains for this part of the city, too, or with part of the old sewage system.”