Follow Me Down

by Gordon MacKinney

  Reuben released his stone weapons to the field of ballast.

  Tony staggered to a weedy spot under a tree and sat down hard, his hand pressed to his forehead. “We were only trying to scare you,” he hollered.

  I imagined the thoughts swirling in Tony’s mind at that moment, that his world had gone crazy. That the planet’s rotation had reversed directions. That river rats didn’t just step aside for the Princes of the Seven Hills, they bit back.

  His shoulders slumped, Tony withdrew a stained hand from his head and wiped it on his pants. Humiliation was always painful to watch, no matter the circumstances.

  “I tried to warn you about Valentine,” Tony yelled, his speech slurred. “You got ten seconds before the train passes and they tear you apart.” Blood and spittle slapped his chin.

  “Let them,” Reuben shouted in return, his legs spread. Noble words, but I surveyed the moonlit landscape for an escape route.

  No time. The caboose passed. A yawning worker in orange overalls watched from an open window, unaware of what the train’s engineer had witnessed two minutes earlier. Then the roar faded as if falling off a cliff.

  I looked sideways, expecting to see the three security men charging across the tracks. But they stood uncertain, watching a vehicle with flashing red lights barrel toward us on the dirt access road. A radioed report from the engineer must’ve reached the cops.

  With a glance, I exchanged a complete understanding with Reuben. Under the present circumstances, any encounter with the police would go badly, especially for me. We grabbed our gear and ran.

  CHAPTER 19

  Late afternoon the following day, Reuben and I sat in silence around the break room table at Blumenfeld Photography. I’d stopped worrying about the police, at least temporarily. A cop had left summons paperwork with the receptionist for delivery to me, with a court date two weeks out. Reuben had verified that no police cruiser staked out our house. I’d shifted my attention to Drax’s next move, my greatest worry.

  Reuben stared at the wooden surface and drew invisible nonsense with his fingertip. I stared at the walls. Alfred had tried to dress up the windowless space with his favorite poster-sized wedding photos, but I was in no mood for brides and grooms in ridiculous canned poses.

  “Say something,” I insisted, tired of Reuben’s sullenness and bored with waiting.

  He glanced up, his face drawn. “I really lost it, you know? I could’ve killed him.”

  “You could’ve been killed on those tracks. Tony deserved it.”

  Reuben returned to his phantom doodling for a few seconds before saying, “I don’t want to be a vengeful person.”

  I thought of the indignities he’d suffered in high school, along with every short, skinny, fat, redheaded, or poor kid. “Sometimes vengeance is all you’ve got left.”

  The door thumped and Tricia strode in on noisy heels, making her way to the staff refrigerator without glancing in our direction. “What are you two doing here?” She retrieved something in aluminum foil from the fridge and began unfolding the layers. At least she was eating. After seeing her bare apartment, I wondered.

  “We’re waiting for a phone call,” I replied, inadvertently opening the door for a dozen questions without good answers.

  She turned toward me. “Holy crap! What the hell happened?” She flipped her leftovers on the counter and approached like a spectator at a freak show. I couldn’t blame her. Valentine’s flashlight had left an eggplant-colored bruise running from my cheekbone to my temple. I’d spent the night on an ice pack.

  “It’s kind of complicated.” I told Tricia about the near-disaster at the railroad tracks. When I got to Reuben’s brush with amputation or worse, he looked embarrassed. I felt like an idiot for putting my friend in danger.

  Midway through my story, Tricia joined us at the table, hands in her lap, back straight against the chair.

  I finished and she shook her head. “You sure Alfred’s obsession is worth getting yourselves killed?”

  “I’m not doing this for Alfred,” I replied a shade too forcefully. I was doing it for my dad, my mom, Louisa Turkel, and all the others Drax had hurt. But a voice like a shadow sometimes spoke in my head: you’re doing it for yourself, Lucas. Sometimes vengeance is all you’ve got left.

  Tricia jutted her chin toward the telephone. “Who’s calling?”

  “It’s kind of complicated,” I repeated.

  She squinted. “Try me.”

  I straightened in my chair, matching her. “The only reason we got into the subway was because some phone company mole slipped Alfred the codes to Alpha Portal.”

  Reuben chimed in. “But Drax got the guy fired and the codes changed.”

  “But the new codes are stored somewhere,” I continued. “We just needed to track down the mole and ask him where, but Alfred wouldn’t trust me with the guy’s name—”

  “Can’t blame him,” Tricia said.

  I ignored the dig. “So Alfred called the guy himself. Turns out he was so pissed at getting fired he spilled the beans. All lock combos are stored in this one filing cabinet in the facilities department in the Cincinnati Bell building on Lincoln Avenue—”

  “Behind an army of security. Are you crazy?”

  “We don’t need to go in. We still have a mole on the inside.” I felt Reuben’s disapproval like heat from a tanning lamp. “My mom.” Mom had offered to help, and she’d insisted. After all, Drax negligence had taken her husband and left her struggling through each day. Still, I worried about involving her, with her faculties dulled by withdrawal. Could she remember the location of the file cabinet, the color coding of the folder, and the two codes without taking the risk of scribbling them down?

  Tricia pursed her lips. “Way to go, Lucas. Hasn’t she put up with enough of you already?”

  Yes, she had, banished from her own house ever since the bogus meter man paid a visit.

  My watch read 5:20 p.m. “She ended her shift at five, right when the administrative offices closed. When she gets to the street, she’ll find a pay phone and call here.”

  Ten seconds later, the phone rang.

  Reuben and Tricia stared suspended, but for what? Maybe Reuben wanted bad news that would end our dangerous adventure. Maybe Tricia wanted further proof of my ineptitude.

  I grabbed the handset. Mom’s opening words stretched my mouth into an easy smile. Tricia stared while I wrote the new codes, on paper only long enough to memorize.

  I hung up the phone.

  Tricia wasn’t impressed. “Proud of yourself?”

  Not in the least. “Proud of my mom. Things aren’t easy for her.” I scanned the two rows of numbers.

  Reuben remained silent.

  “You put her at risk for nothing,” Tricia said. “They know where your portal is, and they know it’s the only way down. Go ahead and zigzag all over town to lose them, but the minute you drop off their radar screen, they’ll surround the portal and wait for you to show up.”

  I said nothing. Reuben continued doodling.

  Tricia pressed on. “Even if you slipped past them, you’ll need hours to take all the measurements. Drax will be waiting when you come back up, and you won’t get away this time.”

  “Maybe we don’t need hours,” I said. “Not for this trip.”

  Tricia’s eyebrows shot up with skepticism. “This trip?”

  “There’s another entrance somewhere,” I said. “Tony admitted it. They found Alpha Portal by following our footprints in the dust. But from where? If we can get down below, we can play the same trick—following footprints to their entrance.”

  Tricia looked doubtf
ul. But my plan had sounded feasible earlier that day when Reuben and I hashed it out. At best, Alpha Portal was good for one more access. But another entrance could swing the odds, particularly if it was located where we assumed.

  She’d find out eventually. “Guess where the other entrance is.”

  Tricia folded her arms across her chest. Reuben glanced at me tightlipped as if to say You’re on your own, buddy.

  “Underneath Drax headquarters,” I declared, and then plowed forward to head off criticism. “Think about it. They built the subway. The Gilmore line runs right under their building. Would they trust the phone company for their access? Hell no. They’d put a hatch in their own basement.” Her expression shifted from skepticism to disbelief, but I stayed the course. “Look, Reuben and I have gotten into half the buildings from the river to the expressway. We’re good at it. We can get into Drax headquarters by night, find that access point, go below, and shoot every measurement Smith needs to prove fraud.”

  Tricia played along. “If you’re so positive about a second portal inside Drax, why bother following dusty footprints to find it from below?”

  Reuben spread his hands, drawing an imaginary expanse on the tabletop. “Including the adjacent buildings that Drax owns, their complex covers two city blocks, and the subway runs the longest length. The portal could be anywhere.”

  “We can get into Drax through utility tunnels without being observed,” I said, my voice sounding more confident than I felt. “But staying hidden through a quarter-mile of Drax’s basement? No way. We need a specific location.”

  We were back to our original dilemma. Drax watched our only way down, Alpha Portal, and they watched every move we made. They had enough sentinels for half the city, while we had only Reuben and myself.

  As Tricia gnawed her lip in thought, a few long moments passed silently. Then she drew in a breath and her expression took on a playful intensity. “Your mom did well,” she said and leaned in with her elbows on the table. “Who gives a shit if Drax is watching you?” She paused to make sure both of us paid close attention, her eyes lit. “They’re not watching me.”

  . . . . .

  What did Tricia know about off-limits exploration? What if she got hurt? What if she became disoriented, or panicked? Even experienced urban adventurers could come unhinged.

  But we listened to her plan: while Reuben and I would divert Drax’s attention, she’d slip solo into the subway and backtrack Tony’s footprints—no tangents, no delays. Where the impressions in the dust ended, she’d look up and note the location of the other portal, Drax’s secret portal. Then she’d retrace her steps and get out.

  Reuben didn’t buy it. “They could be watching that switching station around the clock.”

  Tricia held firm. “Why would they? They don’t know we have the new access codes.”

  “An assumption,” he said, forever the voice of doubt.

  Tricia shrugged. “I’ll take cover in the bushes and wait twenty minutes to make sure I’m alone. If they show up, well… game’s over. If they don’t show up, I’m good to go.”

  Reuben shook his head. “You might not get away.” Good point. If the cops hadn’t interrupted at the railroad tracks, we might not have escaped.

  “I might make a break for it—I’m pretty fast.” She gave a lazy blink. “Or I might stick around and beat the shit out of them.” She smiled but something told me she wasn’t entirely joking. Then she became more animated. “Your diversion will improve my odds. They’ll be watching you in broad daylight, so they won’t be watching me.”

  As she spoke, my fears for Tricia eased and I came to like the simplicity of the plan. I also came to believe that maybe Tricia had begun to care about our crazy mission.

  CHAPTER 20

  We waited a couple of days before making our next move. If we were lucky, Drax might ease up on their surveillance, or believe we’d thrown in the towel.

  The third day began with routine. Reuben reported to work at the insurance company, and I hit the books at the Xavier library.

  I went through my motions in plain sight. After a leisurely sack lunch outdoors on the granite steps, I rode the bus downtown to Drax and swung through the massive glass and steel doors like I owned the place. The lunch hour was over, the lobby quiet except for the odd courier scurrying across the marble floor with a delivery pouch.

  I paused within sight of the front desk, slid a note from my hip pocket, and noisily unfolded it. In my peripheral vision, the watchful receptionist pressed a speed-dial button and murmured something. Apparently, the lobby staff had been instructed to keep an eye out for me. Good. I replaced my note, crossed diagonally to the Drax Museum, and asked the attendant about an admission fee.

  “Oh, heavens no, dear,” replied the older woman with a genuine smile. “Senior management holds private meetings in the mornings, but the public is always welcome every afternoon.”

  I returned her smile and stepped into the museum.

  I’d come to do a job, to divert the attention of our pursuers and ease them into complacency, however temporary. A simple task, I’d thought, but I hadn’t counted on the impact of seeing symbol after symbol of Drax success.

  An old contradiction slapped me in the face. Drax built buildings, and everyday citizens benefited from Drax projects, including schools, hospitals, and workplaces. Yet lots of developers built buildings without cheating on bids, siphoning taxpayer money, and bankrolling European dictators.

  To Drax, the minute Dad became a potential lawsuit, he stopped being a human being, the red-blooded father who, night after night during my young years, checked my closet for monsters. But the old contradiction nagged.

  The museum was spacious and high-ceilinged like a school gymnasium. Lofty walls continued the lobby’s motif of slice-of-life photos overlaid with sayings like If you can dream it, we can build it.

  Unlike in the lobby, the museum floor was thickly carpeted so this afternoon’s half-dozen visitors wandered among the exhibits in a church-like hush. I figured Rudolph, the museum’s designer, intended to elicit respect, even reverence.

  Five or six dozen 3-D replicas lined the perimeter, each several feet long and intricate with landscaping and hand-painted pedestrians. Some structures were lit for nighttime with functioning miniature streetlamps and indoor fixtures glowing amber. Over other buildings, wall-mounted track lights angled like the mid-afternoon sun. Placards explained each model alongside photos of groundbreakings, girder skeletons, and grand openings attended by Cincinnati’s big shots. Every image included Walther or Rudolph at various ages.

  A couple and their grade-school son wandered by. For a moment, I imagined I was the boy, throwing a five-year-old’s tantrum, stomping each replica into pieces as if smashing models would smash the real things.

  In the room’s center, the black marble surface of a huge conference table gleamed with mirror-like perfection. I imagined Walther or Rudolph sitting erect in one of the burgundy leather chairs or standing majestically at the head of the table, pitching ambitious projects to well-funded clients, embraced on all sides by 3-D proof of Drax success. Our odds seemed to shrink amidst such living legacy.

  I progressed along a wall of displays, feeling like an atheist in a revival tent. I recognized the Westridge Mall edged with tiny trees like plasticized broccoli, and an acrylic Mill Creek so blue it belonged in Alaska, not suburban Cincinnati.

  When I spotted the next display, something old and powerful twisted in my chest.

  A faux concrete lip topped with a delicate yellow railing edged a two-foot hole, all set in a cornfield landscape. The headline on the placard read Minuteman Missile Silo, Butler County, Ohio. I scanned the smaller text and knew damn well what I wouldn’t
find. But I scanned anyway, hopeful and hopeless, my face cool with new moisture. Nothing.

  “Of course not!” I spoke out loud. Heads turned in my direction. There could never be mention of my father’s death, even if accompanied by bullshit words like accidental, unfortunate or tragic, because the truth would leave an unsightly smudge on Drax’s hospital-white image and we fucking well can’t have that, now can we?

  Again, I imagined myself as the five-year-old, hoisting one of the steel stools used by museum guards and smashing the display into fragments of balsa wood and modeling foam. I turned my head to see if such furniture lay within my reach.

  But when I did, I met the familiar eyes of a beautiful woman watching me warily from four feet away. I should have been happier to see Rachel Nolan, one of Rudolph’s harem of knockout assistants. After all, she’d come back to the studio to check on me after Hard Ass clubbed me unconscious. But my rage at the silo model lingered like a dissonant gong.

  “Not enjoying your visit to our museum?” she said and smiled to strip any seriousness from her question.

  “Our museum? You ignored what I told you about your bosses. You’ve joined the family.”

  Her smile vaporized. “What are you doing here, Mr. Tremaine?”

  “Is that an official question?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Let’s see.” I stroked my chin and pondered theatrically. “That means you’re obligated to tell Rudolph whatever I say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think Rudy—can I call him Rudy?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Do you think Rudy knows that I know you’ll repeat whatever I say?”

  “He’s a smart man.”

  “Then surely he knows I’ll say nothing but complete bullshit.”

  She replied instantly, unwilling to be ruffled. “He can decide on his own what to believe.”