The Pulp Fiction Megapack

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  Matt threw back his head and laughed.

  “New York broadcasting again!” He mimicked my tone perfectly. “Station B-U-N-K. That’s all I hear in this place.” With one sweep of his arm he included the reflection of the Broadway electric lights, the rows of Park Avenue apartment houses, the towering office buildings in the lower Forties, the East River with its miles of docks and a lighted biscuit factory in Long Island City.

  “You’re all important, awfully important,” Matt fumed. “I’ve yet to meet a New Yorker who wasn’t. You all admit it. Why, New York papers claim that the metropolitan murders are more murderous and the metropolitan divorces are more scandalous than our poor little affairs in the interior.”

  “But, Matt—”

  “You and Mary Hull, for instance. You both think you’re important. So you are—to yourselves. It’s just the same with all the rest of these people.”

  “Come, Matt! Listen to me. You must admit that everything in the commercial, financial and the artistic world is centered here.”

  Matt paid no attention to the interruption, but continued his recital.

  “The other American cities are married to the United States, while New York’s the country’s kept woman. She has no legal claim for support, but as kept women always do, she gets more attention than Uncle Sam gives his wives. Sure, New York’s important. So’s the correspondent in a divorce suit. So were the King of France’s girlfriends.”

  Matt chuckled, looked at his watch and turned to the door.

  “Train time?” I asked.

  “Nearly.” Then Matt grinned at his figure of speech. “I admit,” he said, “that I like to romp with your wanton city. She gives me a great vacation between pear and apple picking time. But you should tell Lady Manhattan not to take herself so seriously. If she continues, I’ll put a personal in the Times and warn her that her true character is known.”

  We walked to the Grand Central Station. Just before Matt handed his ticket and Pullman reservation to the gateman, he turned and shook hands.

  “Had a fine time, Alex,” he smiled. “I like you as a brother, if you are a New Yorker. In fact, you qualify better than some of our worthy Rotarians upstate. As for Miss Hull, don’t worry. She’s reached the point where she’d rather listen to you than talk herself. That’s the test of true love, especially with a New York woman. It doesn’t last long after marriage. Enjoy it while you may. I’ll come to your wedding if I’m asked.”

  He started away, then paused and grinned sardonically.

  “Some day I’ll make you tell me how and where you found a place to propose to a girl. I’ll bet you have to do it on top of a Fifth Avenue bus.” He waved his hand and passed the gate.

  After Matt disappeared, I found myself wondering irresolutely about the station. An illogical but overwhelming desire to see Mary and to speak to her had grown out of his raillery. However, a few minutes before midnight is scarcely a conventional time for calling upon a woman to ask her to marry you.

  I happened to remember that Bob Wiston had said he was going to Mary’s apartment that evening to play a few games of double solitaire with Mary’s semi-invalid mother. Double Canfield and Napoleon are Mrs. Hull’s only dissipation. I stepped into the nearest phone booth and called Wiston at the Engineers’ Club.

  “Has Mr. Wiston come in yet?” I asked.

  “On his way upstairs now, sir. If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll ring his room.”

  “Never mind.” I broke the connection and called Mary’s apartment. Evidently Wiston had left there only a few minutes before.

  “Yes?” came her voice, low-pitched and intriguing as she is herself.

  “Mary, this is Alex. May I see you for a few minutes? I just put my brother on the train and I’d like to see you—well, because—I’d like to see you,” I concluded, lamely.

  She whispered her reply into the mouthpiece. “I’m sorry I can’t ask you to come over. Mother’s going to bed and it would disturb her. Why do you want to see me?”

  Matt’s comment that there was no fit place in New York in which to propose to a girl flashed into my mind. For a moment I could think of no spot, private or even semi-private, where I might take her. How Matt would have laughed if he could have read my mind as I stood in that telephone booth.

  “Well, Mary, I was—you see, I was—” I stammered, like a schoolboy.

  “Alex!” Mary’s voice became firm and decisive. “Have you been drinking too much?”

  “No,” I roared, the injustice of the accusation stinging. “I have not been drinking enough.” I forgot all my prepared finesse. “I wanted to ask you if you’d consider marrying me.”

  Mary Hull did not exactly gasp at the announcement. The sound was more like an excited giggle. I presume my indignation, when she assumed I was too familiar with a bottle, crept into my voice and that I roared at her as I do at the office boy when he forgets to mail a letter.

  Mary said nothing for a minute. The telephone operator interrupted:

  “Your time is up, please.”

  “Don’t cut us off,” I shouted. “I’ll drop another nickel.” I fumbled in my change pocket and failed to find the coin. I finally dropped a quarter.

  “You made a mistake in the coin, please,” piped the operator.

  “Hell’s bells,” I growled. “Get off that wire.” I could hear Mary laughing.

  By that time I was thoroughly angry. I swore at the telephone, the operator, at Matt, at the city, at my own stupidity. Had Matt, whose train must have been up at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, heard me, he would have laughed for a week. At length Mary halted my tirade.

  “Alex, dear,” said she, “do you still want to marry me or are you changing your mind?”

  “Well, do you think I paid thirty cents for this call for fun?” I retorted. “I put a quarter in this thing expecting to get my money’s worth.”

  “In that case, it’s only fair to tell you that I would like to marry you.”

  I did not know what to say next. I had a vague idea that one kissed one’s betrothed as soon as possible after such an avowal, but, obviously, that was impossible over the phone.

  “Aren’t you going to do something about it?” It was the only thing I could think of to say.

  Mary laughed harder than ever.

  “Want me to confirm it in writing?” she suggested, adding in her dictation tone: “This will confirm our telephone conversation of last night—”

  “I mean go somewhere. I’m serious about this thing.”

  “I can’t slip out tonight, dear. It would disturb mother. Call me in the morning.… Yes, about eight. And, Alex, I do love you. Good night.”

  Her receiver clicked as she replaced it upon the hook.

  I left the Grand Central and walked north on Madison Avenue. I was not precisely elated. At least I was not conscious of any feeling of elation. Instead I was worrying over the most trivial details of our engagement and marriage. I remember that I was greatly concerned lest Mary should keep her professional name after we married, instead of calling herself Mrs. Tennay. It was the only time in my life I was ever disturbed by the activities of the Lucy Stone League. I also worried about buying an engagement ring. I wondered if it were quite all right to take Mary to the jewelry store and let her pick it out and, if I did that, how I could prevent her knowing how much it cost.

  These and other ridiculous details occupied my mind while I was walking clear to Ninetieth Street. There I stopped, realized my own folly, and looked at my watch. It was one-twenty-five. I retraced my steps to Eighty-sixth Street and Lexington Avenue and entered the subway station. I caught the first downtown local train, intending to get off at Fifty-first Street.

  As it happened, the train was crowded. I walked forward and stood at the front door in the first car. At my right was the motorman’s boxlike control room. To that circumstance I owe my life.

  As the train shot through the tube, I negligently watched the red and green signal lights that flashe
d past as we roared along or stopped with a rattle of doors and a grinding of air brakes at the stations.

  We stopped at the Fifty-ninth Street station. More passengers entered the car, rather a jolly crowd of men and girls filled the aisle behind me. The train moved on, gathering speed as it went.

  The first shock hit us.

  That was, of course, the tremor at six minutes past two o’clock that was recorded upon the seismographs. It shows how little credence one may give to one’s own judgment of time, for I would have sworn it happened a full quarter of an hour earlier.

  We were moving at a speed of perhaps twenty or twenty-five miles an hour. Suddenly the car lurched. I was thrown against the door of the motorman’s control room and, at the same instant, the lights went out. Our train left the tracks and, with a tremendous crash of glass, the right side hit the wall of the tube. The motorman fell out of the door and sprawled over me. Some of the passengers screamed shrilly.

  I had never before experienced a quake and my first thought was, “There has been a terrific explosion.” For a minute I lay upon the car floor, numbed in mind while my palsied limbs shook with the terror that follows surprise. The sensation was exactly like that which I encountered more than once during the war, when an enemy bombing plane was overhead and when one could hear the swish of a high-explosive projectile before it hit the earth.

  But the very blackness of the tube was as terrifying as the train’s derailment with its accompaniment of wails from the injured. I knew now how a miner must feel at the moment when there is a disaster in the workings.

  The motorman and much of the wreckage of the door had fallen upon me. He stirred and muttered: “God!” It was not profanity, but a prayer, as he said it. He was pulling himself to his feet when a second shaking of the earth threw him down again, his shoulder digging into my ribs. That was the jar at nine minutes past two o’clock.

  “What’s exploded?” I gasped.

  “That ain’t no explosion,” he returned. “That’s a quake. I was in one, once before.”

  Above our heads sounded a dull thud as the fronts of some buildings rocked and collapsed upon the pavement.

  “Good-by, New York.” The motorman found his feet and helped me up. “Come along with me,” he ordered; “we got to get these people outa here, somehow.”

  “How?”

  Behind us, in the wrecked cars, was bedlam.

  He slid the front door open, unhooked the guard chains, and dropped down to the roadbed. “Come along,” he ordered. “We’ll go to the next station an’ get us some oil lanterns. We can’t do nothin’ without a light.”

  I hesitated about stepping down into the black pit.

  “You needn’t be afraid of the third rail,” he assured me. “The juice is off.”

  So I stumbled along behind him, more than once tripping on steel supports and columns that had been shaken from their places. We left the madhouse of the wrecked train behind and found ourselves in a silence as oppressive as a tomb. Once he fell upon a girder and I stumbled over him.

  As we regained our feet, I noticed a hissing sound.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  In another moment, I knew. I could smell the sweetish, sickish odor of illuminating gas. The motorman sniffed the air.

  “Broken gas main,” he said shortly. “We got to hustle if those poor devils have a chance, back there.” He broke into a shuffling run. “Hurry,” he urged.

  We stumbled on. I was trying to breathe as little and hurry as fast as possible. Ahead of us something roared, like an approaching express train. I realized it was not, just as I instinctively thought to flatten myself against the wall to let it pass. It was the sound of water; it was a deluge of water, pouring into the tunnel like a huge cascade. His feet hit the water first. I heard him splashing.

  “There’s a dip at the station,” he called a final warning. “You’ll have to swim for it.”

  In another second I was waist-deep in the flood. It hit me like a wave. A second wave lifted me from my feet and I stretched out my arms to swim with a purely instinctive motion of self-preservation. A third wave engulfed me. I felt myself drawn back into the deadly cave from which I was escaping. I swallowed a mouthful of salt water, strangled, gasped, sank. Then my knee hit a rock. Half walking, half swimming I felt a concrete step and above it, a picket fence.

  The subterranean deluge had tossed me, like driftwood, upon the platform of the Fifty-first Street subway station.

  I never knew what became of the motorman who saved my life by leading me from that wrecked train. Perhaps, with his better sense of direction, he may have reached the platform and escaped. It is more likely that the wave which lifted me up to safety carried him back into the tube.

  I clung to the iron pickets, moving along them until I reached an open exit gate. I waded past the deserted ticket-seller’s booth to the steps and crawled, on my hands and knees, up to the street level. My teeth were chattering from the chill of the water.

  From the moment of the first shock, when our train left the track, I had been in the most oppressive darkness I have ever known. It was like the interior of the closest room on the darkest night. It was a kind of blackness that weighs one down beneath it. Compared to the tube, Lexington Avenue was light, although there was no moon, no streetlights and no lighted houses. Only the myriad of clear, peaceful stars gleamed overhead. About me, Lexington Avenue was deserted. Looking northward, toward Harlem, I could see an indistinct mob of fugitives crossing the street. They seemed to be moving toward Park Avenue.

  Between the spot where I stood and the Kelton where I lived, three blocks below, the street was half-filled with debris; fronts of buildings had crumbled out, effectually blocking all traffic. Under my feet, in the subway from which I had escaped, I could hear the water hiss and boil. At first I wondered where the flood had come from and then I suddenly remembered the tubes to Brooklyn and Long Island. They must have opened during the quake, allowing the river water to surge into the tunnels.

  I realized that I must find Mary and her mother, take them to some place of safety, if, indeed, any such spot existed upon the tortured earth. Other refugees have mentioned the same paralyzing experience: the thought that any calamity so tremendous must have been shared by every inhabitant of the globe.

  Before I reached the hotel, another shock made me reel in my tracks. That was the final disturbance, recorded at forty-seven minutes past two o’clock, although it does not now seem possible that I was a half-hour in extricating myself from the subway.

  Weakened, giddy, I fell in the street. Building fronts and stone cornices, that had been loosened by the former shocks, crashed to the pavement. Before my very eyes the outer wall of a building rocked and slowly, majestically, crumbled into a heap.

  A room on the fourth floor was left exposed. In it a baby-grand piano hung precariously poised upon the very edge of the sagging floor.

  As I have said, there was no sound or sign of human life near me. I might almost have been in one of those dead cities, like Pompeii, whose ruined dwellings are peopled only by ghosts.

  The open doorway of the hotel was partially blocked by carved stone decorations which had fallen from the façade at the sixteenth floor. One huge block had crashed through the pavement into the subway tunnel, leaving a black, gaping hole in which the water gurgled.

  The menace of that hole made me dizzy. I crawled around it upon my hands and knees, afraid that I would be seized by vertigo and tumble in. I dragged myself into the lobby.

  Arthur Crown, the hotel accountant, was sitting there, quite at his ease. Except for him, the entrance was deserted. He had a candle for light, stuck upon a telephone table, and he was smoking a cigarette. “Hello, Mr. Tennay,” he called, waving me to a chair as casually as if he had been going to chat about the baseball games or the weather. “Have a smoke.” He looked more closely. “Good heavens, man, what happened to you? You’re half drowned.”

  “Subway,” I gasped, steadying m
yself against the table. “I was in a train that—was wrecked. The gas came in, then the water. I swam. They were all drowned.” The horror of it all was strongly upon me. “They all drowned—a whole train full. All drowned.”

  He nodded understandingly.

  “Sit down,” he insisted. “We’re safer here than anywhere else. Skyscrapers like this are the only buildings that haven’t been damaged. I tried to tell the guests that,” he added as if it were a cause for personal grievance on his part, “but they wouldn’t stay here. Everybody ran for the open.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Search me!” Crown shrugged his shoulders. “Do sit down.”

  “No, thanks.” Then I made the silliest speech of which I ever was guilty. “Please get my bill, Mr. Crown. I’m leaving.”

  Crown threw back his head and laughed until he was forced to wipe the tears from his eyes. When he was able to speak, he replied:

  “You’re not checking out tonight, are you? I hope you’re not displeased with our service.” He doubled up with another burst of laughter.

  The sound of his mirth brought me to my senses as nothing else would have done. I grinned sheepishly and looked about the lobby. An elevator was wrecked in the shaft; chandeliers had fallen; all the elaborate furnishings were in confusion, covered with plaster and plaster dust.

  “It’s Miss Hull, the girl I’m engaged to,” I explained. “We just became engaged tonight. I must find her.”

  “Sure.” Crown pointed to my dripping garments. “Better change your clothes, though. And if you have a gun, take it with you. They’re looting already. Here, take this candle.” He lighted a fresh taper from his own and passed it to me.

  “Let’s see,” he added; “your brother checked out, didn’t he?”

  For the minute I had forgotten Matt.

  “That’s good.” Crown said it heartily. “He must have gotten clear of the city before it happened.”

  The steel stairs were not harmed. I climbed to my room on the eleventh floor. Slowly I regained a hold upon myself. I stripped off my wet clothes, dressed in my warmest outing suit. I stuffed my money and a few trinkets in my pockets, loaded my old army automatic pistol and fastened it, in its holster, to my belt.