by John Saul
“I didn’t say you didn’t have a right to be here,” she heard the out-of-towner saying. “I’m just asking—”
“You got no right!” the other man cut in, his voice rising.
Shoving the report back into her bag, Eve walked quickly down the platform to where the two men were standing. “Can I help you?” she asked.
The black man wheeled around, his eyes blazing, but the fire quickly died away, to be replaced by a look of uncertainty. “I got a right to be here,” he said. “It’s a public place, right? So I got a right to be here!”
“Of course you do,” Eve said soothingly. “You have as much right to be here as anybody else.”
“See?” the man said, turning to face the other man. “I told you! I got a right!”
“I’m not saying you don’t,” the other man said doggedly. “I’m just asking you to look at a picture.” He was holding out a wallet, and Eve glanced at the photograph.
Suddenly, she knew why she recognized this man. She’d seen him on the news the day before yesterday, when they’d reported on the sentencing of Jeff Converse.
“You’re his father,” she said. “You’re Jeff Converse’s father.”
Keith’s brows rose. “You know my son?”
“I know he almost killed a girl, and I know he got sentenced to a year in jail for it.” But then Eve’s voice changed, some of the anger draining away. “And I heard he was killed in an accident yesterday morning.” She hesitated, then said, “That must have been very difficult for you.”
Keith’s eyes narrowed. “What’s really difficult is—” He cut himself short as he realized he was talking to a total stranger. “There’s just a bunch of stuff I don’t get, that’s all.”
Eve frowned. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”
“I’m not sure I do, either,” Keith said grimly. “But one thing I’m finding out fast—so far it doesn’t seem like there’s one damn person in this city except me who cares if it really was my son that died yesterday morning.”
Recalling Heather Randall insisting that Jeff Converse couldn’t possibly have been guilty of the crime of which he’d been convicted, the councilwoman decided the reports in her bag would have to wait. She held out her hand. “I’m Eve Harris,” she said. “Maybe we should talk.”
Though he knew he’d been asleep—suspected he must have slept for several hours—Jeff felt as tired as if he’d been awake for days. The damp chill of the concrete walls and floor of the subterranean chamber had penetrated every muscle and bone in his body, and a bank of disorienting fog seemed to have settled on his brain.
Part of it was the simple fact that he no longer had any idea of what time it was. It was so long since he’d been allowed to wear a watch that he’d stopped missing it—in fact, he hadn’t really needed a watch in jail. What use was a watch when everything happened according to someone else’s schedule, and it didn’t matter at all whether you kept track of time or not?
Someone told you when to get up.
Someone told you when to eat.
Someone told you where to go, and made sure you got there.
Someone even told you when to go to sleep, assuming you could sleep in jail at all.
But since he’d been locked in this windowless, featureless room, there was nothing to mark the passage of time except the occasional appearance of the man he’d made the mistake of following into the subway tunnel—a man whose name seemed to be Scratch. Even with the light on, as it had been recently, every real indicator of time had vanished.
Food appeared every now and then, always in the form of the same stewlike gruel he and Jagger had first been given. Usually there were two men with Scratch when he delivered the food, and the last time they’d appeared, Jeff had asked one of them what time it was.
“Animals don’t care what time it is,” the man retorted.
“I’m not an animal,” Jeff shot back, “I’m a human being.”
The man chuckled—a dark, hollow sound that carried far more menace than humor. “That’s what you think.”
The door had closed again, the bolt was thrown, and he and Jagger squatted down to share the bowl of the same gamy-tasting stew that was all they’d been given.
After he’d eaten—maybe an hour later, maybe two—he’d fallen asleep.
Now he was awake again, and his entire body ached, and his mind felt foggy.
And someone was watching him.
Jagger.
The first time it had happened, he’d woken up to find the big man hunkered down on the floor next to him, rocking slowly back and forth as he stared into his eyes.
Rocking, and humming something that sounded almost like a lullaby.
Jeff had rolled away and quickly sat up, automatically pulling his legs up against his chest.
Jagger’s eyes had narrowed. “What the matter?” he asked. “You afraid of me?”
Jeff had hesitated, then shook his head, even though it was true. In fact, as Jagger’s cold blue eyes continued to bore into him, it was all he could do not to draw still farther away.
Jagger had glanced toward the far corner and said, “There was a rat sniffin’ around—figured you wouldn’t want him climbin’ all over you.”
Jeff’s skin crawled just thinking about it, and the fear induced by the man’s intense gaze eased slightly. “Thanks,” he said. “I guess I’m just jumpy.”
Now Jeff could hear that lullaby again, and even with his eyes closed, he could feel Jagger watching him.
Then, before he could roll away, he heard the bolt on the door slide back with a clunk. Jagger’s odd melody silenced.
A moment later the door opened.
Scratch came into the room, followed by two other men, both dressed in the same kind of clothes Scratch himself wore: frayed and filthy pants, ragged shirts, and jackets so stained and greasy they could have been almost any color at all. One of the men had a tattered woolen scarf wrapped around his neck. The other wore a stocking cap with so many holes in it that great clumps of his unkempt hair were poking through.
“Well, I guess it’s time,” Scratch drawled. “You ready?”
Jeff and Jagger glanced at each other, then both of them peered suspiciously at Scratch. “Ready for what?” Jeff finally asked.
Scratch’s lips curled into a twisted smile. “Ready to play.” When neither Jeff nor Jagger spoke, Scratch snapped his fingers and one of the other men tossed a bundle toward the mattress.
Jagger’s hands snatched it out of the air before it landed.
“Nice reflexes,” Scratch observed. “They’ll like that.”
As Jagger began ripping the bundle open, Scratch said, “That’s all you get. And remember the rules—get to the surface, you win. Otherwise, you lose.”
Jeff’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How do I win? The police are going to be looking for me.”
Scratch shook his head. “No they’re not—as far as they’re concerned, you’re dead.” His eyes flicked toward Jagger. “Both of you are. So if you get out, nobody’s going to be looking for either one of you.” His cold smile gave way to a mocking grin. “If you get out.” He jerked a thumb at the third man, who stepped forward, pulling his right hand from his jacket pocket.
The hand held a heavy pistol.
“It’s a .45,” Scratch explained. “And Billy here’s a really good shot. So think of it as hide-and-go-seek, okay? After we leave, you count to a hundred real slow. If you do, you’re on your own. But if you come through that door too soon, Billy’ll have a good time blowin’ a couple’a holes in you.”
A few seconds later they were gone, but though the door closed behind them, they didn’t hear the familiar clunk of the bar. As Jeff went to the door and pressed his ear against it, Jagger finished tearing open the bundle. All he found inside were two flashlights and two sets of clothes as ragged as the ones Scratch and the others had been wearing, and even filthier. The smell that rose from them nauseated Jeff, but Jagger was alread
y ripping off his orange coveralls. He tossed them in a corner and started pulling on the largest of the pants from the bundle, kicking the second set toward Jeff. “Don’t matter how bad they stink,” he said. “They ain’t orange, and they don’t say Rikers Island on ’em.” He finished pulling on the filthy clothes, then picked up one of the flashlights and started toward the door.
“How do you know they won’t shoot you as soon as you go out there?”
“Can’t be any worse than sittin’ here wondering what’s going to happen,” Jagger replied. He pulled the door open, hesitated a second, then stepped out into the darkness beyond.
Nothing happened.
“You coming?” he asked. “Because I ain’t waiting.”
Ripping off his own clothes, Jeff pulled on the ill-fitting pants and shirt that still lay on the floor, then picked up the second flashlight. He was about to turn it on, then thought better of it. If the batteries ran out in one, they’d need the other.
Moving through the door, he peered into the darkness that stretched away in both directions. “Which way?” he asked.
“Up,” Jagger replied. “Except we haven’t got a ladder.”
From somewhere far off in the darkness to the right, they heard something.
It sounded like a shot, followed by a scream.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Jagger said. Without waiting for a reply, he moved quickly into the blackness to the left.
A second later, before Jagger would disappear completely, Jeff followed.
CHAPTER 14
Keith and Eve Harris were sitting in a tavern—Mike’s, or Jimmy’s, or something like that—at a tiny table covered with a red-checkered tablecloth. A real linen tablecloth with the stains to prove it. Every table in the place was filled, and people were three deep at the bar that ran the full length of the far wall. Curtains partially blocked the view of the sidewalk outside, giving the illusion that a steady stream of bodiless heads were drifting by. The buzz of conversation was loud enough that Keith had to strain to hear Eve Harris, but that same buzz gave them a degree of privacy they might not have had at a quieter restaurant.
Keith’s gaze had flipped back and forth between the woman and her business card at least half a dozen times in the five minutes since she’d led him into the tavern, ordered a glass of merlot to his scotch on the rocks, and handed him her card. “This is real?” he’d asked as he read the title beneath her name.
“It’s real,” the waiter had said. “Nice to see you again, Ms. Harris.”
“Nice to see you, too, Justin. Everything going all right?”
“I’m still working, aren’t I?” the waiter countered, then turned to Keith. “If it weren’t for Ms. Harris, I’d probably be dead by now. You don’t even want to know how I was living before I met her. Be back in a minute with the drinks.”
A minute was exactly what it had been, and in that minute Eve Harris told him that she hadn’t done much for the waiter—she’d just gotten to know him when he was panhandling in Foley Square, and after talking to him almost every day for a month, asked him what he wanted to do with his life. “He said he just wanted to get himself cleaned up enough to get a real job. So all I did was take him shopping. We got him new clothes and a haircut, and I rented him a room. Then I sent him in here to talk to Jimmy, and he’s been working ever since.” Then Justin reappeared with their drinks, and Eve Harris glared at him mischievously. “Of course, if he screws up, he’ll be the best bartender living in a box on Foley Square.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not screwing up,” Justin assured her, grinning.
Now that they were alone again, Keith said, “I don’t get why you’re even interested in this.” He could feel Eve Harris studying him with as much concentration as he’d been studying her before answering.
She took a sip of her merlot, seemed to come to some kind of decision, then leaned forward in her chair. “I’m aware of who your son is, what he did, and what happened to him,” she said. “But I’m also aware that Perry Randall’s daughter doesn’t think he was guilty, and was planning to marry him. What I don’t understand is what you were doing in the subway, asking people if they’d seen your son. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
As briefly as he could, Keith told her what he’d seen at the Medical Examiner’s office, and what the drunk over on Bowery had told him.
“And you believed him?” Eve asked.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Keith challenged, a note of belligerence in his voice.
She shook her head almost sadly. “Mr. Converse, there are basically three kinds of people living on the streets of this city: the addicts, the crazies, and the houseless.” She smiled thinly at the puzzled look on Keith’s face. “ ‘Houseless’ is their term, not mine. Some of the people consider the streets their home, so they aren’t homeless, at least according to them. Houseless, but not homeless. But a lot of the groups tend to overlap—most of the addicts and crazies are homeless, but not all the homeless are addicts or crazies.” She tilted her head toward Justin, who was busily wiping down a table that had been momentarily vacated. “A lot of the homeless just need a break. But some of the rest of them . . .” She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I wish I could say they’re all just down on their luck, but I’ve lived here too long and seen way too much. And I’ve learned that the addicts will tell you anything they think you might be willing to pay for.” She fixed him with a look that told him she would know if he didn’t tell her the exact truth. “So how much did you pay him?”
Keith felt utterly stupid. “Five dollars,” he admitted.
“Tell me what he looked like. And be specific—shabby clothes and gray hair isn’t going to cut it. That’s half the derelicts I know.”
Keith cast his mind back to when he’d talked to the drunk that morning, and began describing everything he remembered. When he was finished, Eve Harris nodded grimly.
“Al Kelly,” she sighed. “Well, at least now I know what happened to him.” She took a deep breath. “Mr. Converse, let me tell you a few things about this city . . .” She talked steadily, and when she was done, Keith’s hands were clenched around his now empty glass.
“You’re saying it was my fault Al Kelly died?” he asked, signaling Justin for a refill. “You’re saying if I hadn’t given him the five dollars, he wouldn’t be dead?”
Eve shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But I do know better than to give money to addicts. Drunks and junkies—they’re all the same—they’ll lie, cheat, and steal to get what they want. And it sounds like you bought Al’s lie for five dollars. Some other people saw the money change hands, and a few minutes later Al’s dead. You add it up.”
Now it was Keith who fell into a long silence. Out the window, it was starting to get dark, and cold-looking rain had begun to fall. The bar itself was so packed now that the waiter was barely able to get through with his drink. Keith pictured the subway platform again, and recalled the roar of the trains that streamed through the station every few minutes all through the long afternoon as he’d shown Jeff’s photograph to anyone who would look. Most of the people—the well-dressed ones who had things to do and places to go—barely even glanced at the photo. Most of them turned their back on him, or refused to acknowledge his existence at all.
Only the bums—the ragged men and women who had nothing better to do—had been willing to talk to him.
And now Eve Harris was telling him that most of them would just as soon lie to him as tell him the truth.
Like Al Kelly had lied. And gotten killed for a lousy few bucks.
And even if Kelly hadn’t lied, how was he supposed to find Jeff? he wondered. If his son had made it into the subway station, he could have gotten on any one of the trains and gone anywhere.
Maybe Eve Harris was right—maybe he should just give it up and go back home. But then he remembered there was still one more possibility. “Do you know a lot of them?” he asked. “The people on the streets?”
“Ever
ybody in the city knows them,” Eve replied. “I just take the time to talk to some of them.” She smiled wryly. “I guess I sort of think of myself as their voice on the council—Lord knows they don’t have another one, and if I don’t stick up for them, no one will.”
“So have you ever run into someone named Scratch?”
Eve shook her head. “I don’t think so. Who is he?”
“The man Al Kelly said led my son down into the subway,” he said.
“I suspect he’s no more real than anything else Al Kelly told you he saw.” She glanced at her watch, finished her merlot, and stood up. “I don’t have any way of knowing whether your son was guilty or not, but I think I can understand how much you’re hurting right now. So let me talk to a couple of people, and at least maybe we can find out if anyone else has ever heard of this ‘Scratch’ person. Call me tomorrow?”
Keith stood up. “Are you saying you believe me? That Jeff might be alive?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Eve said. “It’s what you believe that’s making you hurt. The only way you’re going to stop hurting is by knowing for sure.”
Then she was gone.
None of the men spoke; they didn’t have to.
They all knew why they were there, what they had to do, what they were going to do. . . .
Silently, they stripped off the clothes they’d worn when they arrived, then just as silently began pulling on the clothes they would wear for the evening’s adventure. First came the socks and gloves. The socks were thick to keep their feet warm inside the thin and flexible shoes they would wear. The gloves were thin, to allow their fingers maximum flexibility.
Both the socks and gloves were black.
Next came the insulated nylon coveralls, so the men would be protected against the chill of the tunnel.
