Rough Justice

by Andrew Peterson

  I was through the gate. I was heading along the platform to the train. Now the cop knew.

  He shouted: “Hey! Hold it!”

  The last passengers crowded onto the train. I flew in after them.

  “Hey!”

  The doors slid shut behind me. The train gave a jerk. It began to move.

  I knew I should hide my face. I knew I shouldn’t look back. But I couldn’t help it. I raised my eyes to the window.

  The cop had not reached the platform yet. He was standing at the exit gate, staring at me. He started to turn back to the booth.

  The train rolled out of the station, into the dark.

  Sweat poured off me now. My mouth hung open. My heartbeat seemed to be rocking everything in-side me. I moved—I staggered—to a seat. Dropped into it. I leaned my head back, my eyes closed. I felt the jar and rhythm of the racing train.

  After a moment, I thought of my scraped cheek, the blood drying on my hand. I was disheveled, conspicuous. I opened my eyes, looked around the car. No one seemed to pay me any mind. The train rattled through the long tunnel. The walls at the window were a blur of blackness. I passed my gaze from one passenger to the next. None of them looked back at me. A bearded young man, earphones in his ears, read a textbook, bobbing his head to music I couldn’t hear. A husky black man stared at the Star wearily. A brown woman in nursing whites sat motionless in a corner, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes trained on an ad for Combat roach killer.

  My gaze passed over each of them. My heart beat. The sweat rolled down my brow. But none of them seemed to notice me. None of them met my eyes. My gaze moved on to the storm door—the door that led out between this car and the next. I could see through its window and through the window of the car beyond. I could see the people in there, too. I could see them in their seats, hunched over their papers, holding up their books, staring at the ads posted above their heads.

  And I could see a patrolman walking down the aisle between them, checking the face of everyone he passed as he came closer and closer and closer to my car.

  22

  The subway broke out of the tunnel, into the station at Seventy-seventh Street. It pounded past the waiting people without breaking stride. The billboards, the white tiles on the station walls, whipped by in a haze of color. We plunged quickly into the tunnel again.

  The cop in the next car was halfway down the aisle now. He’d stopped for a second to rouse a drunk, get a look at him. He was a tall, chunky fellow, this cop. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look like he had ever smiled. I sat still as he came on again methodically. His steady progress made him seem inevitable.

  Still, I worked my way to my feet. I turned my back on him and stumbled up the length of the car. There were other cars ahead. No cops in there. Maybe I could just stay away from the guy until the train reached Fifty-ninth. Maybe I could get off there, slip away.

  Not very likely. I’d been spotted. The cop on the train wasn’t the only one who’d been alerted. There were sure to be others—plenty of others—waiting for me when the train pulled in.

  All the same, with a grunt, I yanked open the heavy storm door. I stepped out between the cars.

  The wind of the tunnel washed over me. The couplings jolted this way and that beneath my feet. The train wheels rumbled. The tracks spat sparks. The guard chains swung dizzily to and fro. Beyond them, there was a little gate, but it didn’t do much. If you went past those chains, there was plenty of room to fall to the tracks.

  To steady myself, I reached out and grabbed the handle of the next door over. I let go of the door behind me and it slid shut. I braced myself to push into the car ahead. Then I stopped. As I looked into the car through the window, I saw two more cops enter it from the far side.

  They were an unpleasant pair. A fat one and a skinny one, both with hot, heavy-browed eyes. Their mouths were thin and wicked. They kept their hands to their holsters as they started down the aisle. One by one, they checked the faces of the passengers. Coming toward me just as steadily as the guy behind me was.

  As I watched them, frozen, the train took a hard turn. My knees bent, my foot slipped. I clung hard to the door handle with both hands to keep from flying out into the racing blackness. I had to get off the couplings, back inside. But as I glanced over my shoulder I saw that the first cop was now coming into the car I’d just left. I was caught. An android linebacker behind me. Ahead of me, Laurel and Hardy from Hell.

  The steady roar of the tunnel became a sudden loud, rattling crash as we coursed out into the Sixty-eighth Street station. The station lights flashed at me between the cars, making me wince. The train seemed to speed up. It rocked back and forth hard. I was jarred to the side. The door handle slipped from my grasp.

  I tumbled to the right, across the couplings, into the chains. I gasped. Grabbed hold of them, reached desperately for the car to steady myself. Now, as I held on, I could see Patrolmen Fat and Skinny through the window. They were almost to the end of the aisle. They were maybe twenty seconds from coming out the door, out to where I was.

  I let go of the car wall, grabbed the swaying chains with both hands. I crouched down and began to ease my legs out underneath them. As they went out—out into the nothing, out into the speed and the noise and the nothing—I turned over, still gripping that chain. The links burned my palm. My muscles ached, weary, loosening. I lowered my legs down behind me, feeling with my feet for something—anything—other than that screaming, empty air.

  I slipped. My knee slipped over the edge. I cried out, waiting for the onrushing wall to crush me. Then there was something … The toe of my right foot hit it. Some handle there, something for workmen to stand on. I got my right foot onto it, then my left. I slid my hands down the chain as far as I could. I lowered myself the rest of the way over the edge of the couplings.

  And I hung there. I felt the walls of the tunnel tearing by my back. The rumble of the wheels surrounded me. Sparks shot up from the tracks around my feet. Above me, I heard the car door crash open.

  Out came Fat and Skinny, passing from one car to the next. They could have seen me. Easily. They could have looked to one side and seen my head and shoulders above the couplings. My goodness, they could have said to one another, there is an idiot with his ass hanging over speeding death. But neither of these officers of the law was so stupid as to stay out between two subway cars any longer than he had to. Fat opened one door even as Skinny closed the other. They passed from car to car without turning toward me. They went in to meet their colleague and trade the report that I had not been found.

  I cried out, startled. The tunnel had opened again and now the brakes were screaming. The noise drilled into me. I gritted my teeth against it, clinging to the chain as the subway slowed. We had reached the Fifty-ninth Street station.

  The platform was on the far side of me. I could see it through the space between the cars. I had a glimpse of a small cluster of blue uniforms out there. Then we’d gone past them. The brakes squealed again. The train stopped.

  I could barely open my hands. They wouldn’t let the chain go. When they did, I clawed at the coupling, dragging myself back up onto the train. I stood up, pressed back, away from the station platform, close to the door. I peeked out through the train’s window and saw the three cops exiting with the other passengers. They walked back along the platform. I saw them through the train windows. They joined the cluster of other cops. They all spoke together.

  As they did, the doors of the train slid closed again. The body of the machine punched forward. I fell back against the chain, my heel going over the edge of the couplings. With a curse, I reached for the door handle, grasped it. I pulled the door open and tumbled into the car.

  A few passengers glanced up as I stumbled forward gasping. A few. Then they looked at their papers, at their books, at their ads again. I moved to the corner seat, the nearest one. I fell into it.

  My jaw hung slack, my eyes stared at nothing. The train carried me downtown to my destination.r />
  23

  “Wells!”

  Lansing caught me as I fell through her door.

  “I ran …”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I ran away.”

  “The cops are looking—”

  “I ran away from the cops, Lansing.”

  “What?”

  “I ran away.”

  “Oh Jesus. What did you do?”

  I could barely stand. My legs had finally given. She had me by the arm and I swayed in her grasp. Tears of exhaustion were pouring down my cheeks. They ran into the open wounds there. The salt stung.

  Lansing got a better hold on me, grabbed me around the waist. I flung my arm over her shoulder, trying not to fall.

  “Lance!” I kept gasping at her, trying to speak.

  “Shut up, Wells. Be quiet.”

  We stumbled together toward a cushioned chair. I tumbled down toward it, taking her with me. My body went slack against the cushions. I tried to hold her, talk to her again as she disentangled herself and stood. Instead, I started coughing. A damp cough from deep in my lungs. The phlegm boiled up into my throat. I leaned back, swallowing hard, gasping for air.

  Lansing was on her knees next to me. She held my arm in her two hands. She pressed her face against my shoulder.

  “What did you do?” she repeated softly.

  “He’ll kill me, Lancer. He’s gonna kill me ….” The coughing started up again. It was a long moment before I could force it back. “Oh God,” I muttered. “Oh shit. Oh God.”

  Without thinking, I reached into my shirt pocket, brought out my cigarettes.

  “God,” I whispered.

  “What are you …?”

  I fumbled a butt from the pack.

  “Wells, you can’t …”

  “God …”

  “Stop.” I didn’t listen to her. “Stop, please,” she said. I brought out the cigarette. Suddenly, she started to scream: “Stop it! Stop it, what are you, stop, stop!” She slapped wildly at my hands. The pack flew out of them. Cigarettes scattered in the air as the pack spiraled to the rug.

  I turned my head to look at her. She was staring at my hands, my shaking hands. Her eyes burned bright and crazy. She wrapped her fingers around my palm, lowered her face to my leg, and started to cry.

  I sat still, breathing hard. I felt her tears coming through my pants leg. I felt her trembling. In the quiet apartment—the garden side of a SoHo brownstone—I heard classical music playing softly somewhere. I heard her sob.

  I moved my free hand to touch her hair. I passed my fingers through it. The long gold strands were silken to the touch. My hand went over them again and again, then shifted to her cheek. I felt the dampness on her skin. Then she turned and I felt her lips. She kissed my palm gently.

  “Why did you do it?” she said through the tears. “Why did you do it, John?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Christ. I had him. I had him dead to rights, and now he’s after me.”

  She came off my leg. Turned to me, her hair fanning out behind her, her eyes going hot.

  “Is that all? Is that all?”

  I looked at her a long time. Her cameo face, her blue eyes swimming. Her porcelain skin pink and mottled with tears.

  My voice was thick. “I’m scared, Lansing. He’s a cop, for Christ’s sake. He’s a cop and he’s after me, he’s trying to kill me, he’s trying to …”

  She came to me. Climbed onto me. Put her cool hands on the sides of my face, pressed her lips against my forehead.

  “A man is dead,” I whispered. “Someone has to pay.”

  “He attacked you.”

  “I don’t know what happened anymore.”

  “He tried to kill you. You fought back.”

  “And now they’re after me.”

  “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”

  “Christ, Christ, Christ, Lansing. What’re they gonna do? They gonna arrest me? I mean, is that it? They’re gonna put me on trial for murder? I mean, Christ, Lansing! I mean, Jesus Christ!” I wrapped my arms around her. I pressed my hands into her back, felt her breasts against me. “What the hell happened here? What the hell is going on? I had him.”

  We sat that way a long time. A long time while I stared over her shoulder into the bright room. Colors. There were lots of colors everywhere and lots of curves. The walls peach, peach arches over the doorways to the kitchen and the hall. Tapestries on the walls, dark red, bright gold. The rugs—lots of small rugs over the floor—deep blue, electric yellow. And funny old furniture—old sewing chairs, giant pillows, an inlaid coffee table—crowded together in the small space and all of it pink and paisley and deep brown.

  Lansing had her cheek against my cheek. Then she turned her head to lay her lips there. I kept staring past her into the room.

  “There’s got to be an answer,” I said.

  I felt her lips part. I felt them move away from me. She sat up on my lap, looked down at me.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve got to think.”

  “Wells. Wells, you’ve gotta go in.”

  I glanced at her, but couldn’t meet her eyes. I shifted out from under her, letting her down onto the chair. I stood up and took a pace away.

  “You’ve gotta go in,” she said. “You’re giving them everything they need to convict you.”

  “I’ve gotta think, Lansing, I’ve gotta …”

  “Wells.”

  I spun to her, my fist clenched, the anger flaring in me. “There’s gotta be an answer here.”

  She stood. She stepped close to me, eyes on mine.

  “He’s the law, Wells.”

  “Not my law, not him.”

  “He’s a cop.”

  “He’s a mob killer with a fucking badge. I had that. I had that solid.”

  “Wells!” She barked it at me, but then her voice went quiet: “Listen to me. Listen to me, okay? You’ve got to let it go. You had him, I know, but things have changed.”

  “I still can get him.”

  “We’ll bring in a lawyer …”

  “Oh yeah, fucking F. Lee Bailey, I’ll do fucking life with that guy …”

  “Would you listen?”

  “I’m telling you, Lance …”

  “Just listen, John, listen. We’ll get a lawyer, a different lawyer, a good one. We’ll go in—”

  “I gotta think.”

  “You turn yourself in. You get out on bail …”

  “They’re charging me with murder. I tried to escape, they won’t give me bail. Once he gets me in there …”

  “We will get you out, John. Once you’re out, we’ll go after this. Okay? We can—”

  “Listen, Lance. Listen. Would you just listen to me?”

  “Wells, please. This is crazy.”

  I stepped to her. I put my hands on her face. I gazed down at her. Her eyes were filling again. “Listen,” I said. “There’s an answer here. I’m close to it. I followed your leads.”

  “What leads, what do you …?”

  “The house, Cooper House, Baumgarten …”

  “We’ll cover all that.”

  “There’s a woman, too. She’s dead. An overdose.”

  “What? I don’t …” Her lips trembled, as if she might cry again.

  “Ssh,” I said. “Listen.”

  “I don’t understand. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What woman?”

  “Just a woman at Cooper House, the bookkeeper.”

  “The bookkeeper.”

  “Mikki Snow, her name was. She was onto something …”

  “Wells, I don’t—”

  “Something about Howard Baumgarten.”

  “I don’t get this. The comptroller?”

  “She went to him—I don’t know why—then she quit—now they’ve found her, see? You see what I’m saying?”

  “No! A bookkeeper? What …?” She lowered her face. A tear fell onto the rug. A darkened spot between
two white cigarettes lying there.

  “Maybe she killed herself,” I said. “It could mean something. I just have to …”

  “I don’t get it. I don’t see. What does this have to do with you?”

  I let her go. I left her standing there, crying. I paced away from her. I turned, paced toward her. She was fighting off the tears now. Wiping her face with her hand, running the hand up through her hair to straighten it.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s the thing. That’s the key to it.”

  “You just can’t do this,” Lansing said.

  I paced. “There’s got to be some link between what Snow found and me.”

  “We can protect you from Watts.”

  “I mean, some reason why I figured into it.” I paced toward her.

  “You’re making yourself look guilty.”

  I paced away. “That story I wrote, that old story …”

  “They’ll put you away.”

  I paced toward her. I fought her voice. “They would have read that at Cooper House, seen my byline.”

  “They’ll put you away and you’re not guilty.”

  I paced away. “But so what? It was just straight news.” I paced toward her.

  “You’re not guilty for killing Reich. You’re not guilty for any of it. For losing Watts, any of it. You’ve got to stop doing this. You’re not guilty, you’re not guilty—”

  I grabbed the front of her blouse. “Shut up!”

  “No!”

  “Shut up!” I shook her. There were tears in my eyes. “I killed him!”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Why don’t you ever shut up?”

  “Because I love you!” She grabbed my hands, digging her nails into them. “Because I love you and you’re innocent. You understand? You’re innocent, whether you like it or not.”

  I yanked her to me, kissed her. I held her hard as her hands dug into my hair, her nails sharp. I wanted to be in her. My Lansing. I was half-blind with the hunger for her.

  She started crying again as I brought her down to the floor. Crying with her arms flung out, hands grabbing at the rug, fists clenching it. Her head rocked back and forth. I stared at her face, stared and stared at it. My hand was up under her skirt. I clutched at her panty hose, tore it away.