Mrs. Norwood harrumphed dramatically and rolled her eyes. It was her usual mannerism, employed to describe her feelings on just about everything. “They won’t do nothin’! Not until he gets somebody important. The police don’t care about anything but getting raises every year!”
“Well, perhaps you’re right…”
“The streets ain’t safe no more, Mr. Peake. Just last night, I went out on my street—right up on Skillman Avenue, mind you—and I seen a bunch of boys takin’ hubcaps off my neighbors’ car! I yelled at them, and you know what they did? Ignored me, that’s what! Finished takin’ the hubcaps and just walked off down the street like nothin’ was the matter! And where was the police while this was goin’ on? Who knows?”
“That’ll be $48.12, Mrs. Norwood.” Melvin W. Peake was not very interested in what she had to say. His mind was very cloudy this morning, and he hated it when he felt like that. He had had a very restless night, and lingering fragments of strange dreams still plagued him. “Yes, yes, it certainly is terrible,” he added as an afterthought.
“Here you are, Mr. Peake. I think I have the exact change. Yes, here it is. Thank you.” She grabbed her two bags of groceries and loaded them into a two-wheeled cart, stuffed the Daily News in between them, and trundled off.
He watched her leave in an abstracted way, still trying to grapple with the odd feelings he was having. Her remark about the subway “Slasher” had bothered him, but he could not place the exact significance it had for him. His dream last night about riding the trains … it had been late at night, and there had been all sorts of shady-looking characters riding with him. What the heck did it mean?
He sometimes felt like he was getting sick. Really sick. Not just like a cold or the flu, but something wrong with his mind. He was having trouble keeping all his thoughts straight, and he was growing forgetful. Sometimes he would even forget to turn on his television at night. He would close up the store with Brian, his best worker, and walk back to his house on 71st Street, and just go inside and sit in his favorite chair and look at the TV, and then realize that he hadn’t even turned it on. And other times he would blink his eyes and find himself doing something or sitting somewhere with absolutely no memory of how he got there or what he was doing …
That was crazy stuff, he knew, and it scared him to think of it. He remembered when his mother “got sick” when he was still a little boy. His Aunt Ellen had told him that she was going to be living somewhere else for a while. They came and took her out of the apartment, and Melvin had vague memories that were so hazy that they could have been dreams of riding in the car out to Long Island to visit her a few times. Only he was never allowed to see her. His aunt would go out there with him and his … his father, yes, it was his father; and she would sit with him in a room that looked like the waiting room of a dentist’s office while his father visited Momma. But they never let Melvin see her ever again. Try as he might, he could conjure up no memory of whatever had finally happened to her. For all he knew, she might still be living in that place on Long Island, but he didn’t even know where it was, or what its name was, or anything.
Just a bunch of broken pieces of memories. They lay like jagged pieces of glass in his mind. His memory was getting so bad that he had started letting Brian keep track of the inventory because he was starting to forget when to reorder things.
That was another part of his life that was starting to bother him—the grocery store. When Aunt Ellen died, he had inherited the whole business. Luckily, he had been working there on and off since high school, and his aunt had taught him almost everything.
The door to the grocery opened and a man entered. He was wearing an old slouch hat and carried a work jacket over his arm. He was tall and he needed a shave. “Hey,” he said with a vague grin, “you sell separate Cokes here?”
Melvin was staring at him, not listening to his words, even though he had actually heard what the man had asked. There was something about him that looked familiar, and Melvin was trying to figure out whether he knew him from somewhere. The man was like a memory, part of the misty, unclear, unsettling life that somehow was Melvin W. Peake.
“Hey, you hear me? You got cold Cokes?”
“Oh, yes, there’s a cooler in the back of the store. Down the center aisle.”
“Yeah, thanks,” said the tall man. He disappeared behind the display of canned goods, and Melvin listened to the scuff of his work shoes on the tiles.
(It’s him again! Keeps coming back!)
The voice was so soft, so faint, that Melvin was not sure he was hearing it. It was like holding a phone to your ear when you have a bad connection.
Bad connection. That was what Melvin W. Peake seemed to have with his whole damned life. The thought raced through his mind with such brief clarity that he actually convulsed, as though somebody had dropped an ice cube down his shirt.
(Even they get thirsty … and it’s hot down there, isn’t it? That’s why he’s here now. Up here. And not down there where he belongs … )
Melvin shook his head. He seemed to be thinking in two different voices. Like the shows on TV where people had guardian angels sitting on their shoulders and they could talk to them …
The footsteps shuffled closer to him, and he felt his hands gripping the edges of the cash register.
“What’ll I owe ya?” asked the man, slamming a Coke down on the counter-top.
“Fifty cents,” said Melvin automatically. That was the way he ran the store all the time now—automatically. He had been doing most things there for so long that he didn’t have to think about it.
The man popped two quarters on the counter, turned, and left, shaking his head. Melvin wanted to watch him go, but he kept staring at the two silver disks on the Formica. For a moment, they looked like gleaming eyes. Eyes that were looking up at him from beneath the surface of the sea-green counter-top. Eyes that were looking at him from down below.
(Now that is crazy. It’s just money. Put it away in the register.)
As though following the silent instructions of someone else, Melvin picked up the two coins, punched the right key, and dropped them into the drawer. He wished that Brian would hurry and get back from his errands so that he could take over. Melvin did not feel like working this morning.
(Maybe you should go to the doctor.)
It was a different voice in his thoughts now.
(What kind of doctor? You have to know what’s wrong before you go to a doctor, don’t you?)
“I don’t know,” he said aloud, as though he were answering someone else. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
He stared out the window at the traffic on Queens Boulevard. There was an overpass across the street, and occasionally somebody would go through the small door at its base, climbing up to the train platform. Suddenly his dreams of the night before crept back to him. He knew where the trains went. He had been riding them since he was a small boy. Some of his earliest memories were of riding the trains and staring out the windows at the sudden blur when another train passed close by, going in the opposite direction.
(They go in the darkness. Into the tunnels. Down.)
The thoughts hit him with a cold, chilling brace of truth. He felt a flash of recognition, and in another brief moment of clear thinking, Melvin W. Peake knew that the answers to all the things that had been troubling him, that had been stalking him in the prison cell of his mind, could be found in the world of false night in the tunnels under the city.
He knew that he would have to follow the trains into their special world to find out what was the matter with him.
He would—
The thought was interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of another customer. He stared at the young woman blankly.
(You would what? What did you say?)
“I don’t know. I can’t remember …”
“I’m sorry,” said the woman. “Were you talking to me?”
She raised her designer sunglasses
and looked directly into his eyes.
“Uh, no, I was … I was just thinking out loud. Can I help you? Yes, that’s it. That’s what I wanted to say, can I help you.”
The young woman stared at him, and he could feel her gaze passing through his eyes and into his soul. He felt transfixed, like a bug on a pin. He wanted to say something, but no words would come.
“No, that’s all right,” she said. “I—I changed my mind. I’ll come back later, thank you.”
She turned and almost rushed from the store, as though she had seen something in Melvin’s eyes that had scared her.
(If she did see something, I wish she would have told me what it was.)
Melvin rubbed his eyes and shook his head. It was going to be a long day.
CHAPTER 7
CORVINO
It had been a very long day.
Michael Corvino was wondering how much longer the Slasher case would remain a dead end, an investigative blank wall. As he walked down East 26th Street toward his apartment building, he reviewed that afternoon’s interviews with the “witnesses” of the most recent killing. Corvino was feeling very frustrated.
Mr. Midnight, the conductor, claimed that he had seen nothing, nor could he remember what any of his passengers had looked like, stating matter-of-factly that they all began to look alike after so many years of riding the trains. Corvino figured the guy was being purposely closemouthed—he simply didn’t want to be hassled by the whole mess.
Cele Lemke, it turned out, was a topless dancer at a place called the Honey Pot on 44th Street off Times Square. While she had the body of a very ripe nineteen-year-old, her mind seemed to have evolved to only half that age. The only thing Corvino and Provenza could get out of her was that she was the person who had found Ronald Kirksey’s body and had run to tell the token clerk, who called the police. Everything else she had blotted from her limited memory.
What bullshit, thought Corvino.
He took the elevator up to his small apartment. The front room was living room, dining room, and den combined, with a kitchen that was crammed into what should have been a closet. Beyond that was a very small bedroom and bath. Bing-bang. That was it. The rent was reasonable by the city’s standards, and the space was average for Manhattan, but Corvino often wondered if he would ever be able to afford anything larger on a cop’s salary. The alternative was to move out to one of the other boroughs or to Long Island or the Jersey side, where things were cheaper. But Corvino liked being in Manhattan, close to the action.
Just now he was tired and hungry, and even a little sleepy because he and Provenza had stopped off at Cappy’s for a beer after getting off. They had talked over the decoy plan, and Provenza was definitely going to go ahead with it, hoping he could get it to fly with their superiors.
At this particular moment, Corvino didn’t give a damn about the case—he wanted it out of his mind, at least for the rest of the night. After popping a Stouffer’s frozen dinner into his toaster oven, he went over to his desk and sat down. There was a half-finished page in the typewriter—the latest short story he was working on. It was a natural for Alfred Hitchcock’s and it had been going well—the first draft was clean and precise, the idea firmly worked out. Michael enjoyed his writing, even during the inevitable period of rejection slips while he was still learning his craft, and now that he was selling fairly regularly. He was truly in love with his new profession. If someone asked him his profession, he would still say that he was a detective first, a writer second. But someday, if he became successful enough, he knew that he would resign from the department to become a full-time writer.
After rereading the previous few pages of the story, he went to work, spending the next two and a half hours at the typewriter with his Stouffer’s dinner. The story would be finished in one more sitting; then he would edit and polish and finally type up a clean draft. Next week he would have to get back to work on the novel he had already sold to Doubleday, he thought as he pulled the last page from the machine. He had the self-satisfied feeling of having really accomplished something as he got up from the desk.
Walking into the bedroom to get undressed, he noticed that the red light on his answering machine was on. He usually checked the machine as soon as he came home, but tonight he had been tired, yet determined to work on the short story. He smiled as he walked over to the machine. The salesmen and the ads for them neglected to tell you that 80 percent of your callers were freaked out by answering machines and would simply hang up, leaving a not-so-pleasant hum on the message tape. He rewound the cassette and listened to a series of beeps and hums, finding only one message along the way. It was from Robin Lee, a pretty woman who worked the radio desk at the precinct. She said she had some tickets to an Off-Broadway show and if he wanted to go to please call her back.
Corvino rewound the tape and switched off the machine. Reclining on the bed, he found himself wanting a cigarette. Even though it had been a while since he’d quit, he found himself craving one at odd times. He didn’t want to call Robin back. He didn’t really want to see her or go out with her anymore. He smiled to himself at the thought, because he hadn’t realized that fact till right now. She was a fine woman, but she wasn’t the “special one” for him. She and Corvino had enjoyed a good physical relationship, though, which was probably why they had been seeing each other as long as they had.
He thought about the word love and how much it had been abused. But he had to smile inwardly because he knew he was no less guilty than the next person when it came to not understanding the complexities and mysteries of love.
And that made him think of Lya Marsden and her incredibly blue eyes. His attraction to her had been immediate and almost overwhelming. He wanted her to know that he was interested, and he hoped that she would realize that he was interested in more than just taking her out and then to bed. He had sensed that she was a woman he could talk to, a woman he would like to confide in, to trust… as well as make love to.
He grabbed the phone and called his sister to get Lya’s phone number. Theresa wanted to chat, but he made it clear he didn’t have time for that sort of thing. She didn’t really mind because she was so happy that Michael was going to call Lya. Theresa the matchmaker… she’ll never change, thought Corvino. She probably has this secret fear that her brother will never marry, and will someday die of a venereal disease.
He smiled at the thought as he said good-bye and hung up on Theresa, and quickly punched in Lya’s number. He let the phone ring for a long time. No answer, either not home or in the shower—and no answering machine.
Too bad, thought Corvino, because he had no qualms about speaking to tape machines, and he would have left her such a message to think about, too.
CHAPTER 8
LOGGINS
It was after 3 A.M. when Ralphie Loggins scuttled down the stairs into the cold sterility of the subway station.
Holding the railing carefully so that he would not slip, he entered the Times Square station, chased by the autumn wind. Ralphie always had to be watchful on steps because the elevated heel on his left shoe was constantly threatening to trip him up. He fished a token from his navy pea jacket and dropped it into the turnstile, passing through and stepping easily down the last set of steps to the platform.
Ralphie walked with his peculiar clump-click-slide to a supporting girder by the tracks and waited for the Broadway Local, noticing that there were a couple other people standing in the station.
Behind him, he heard footsteps. Getting louder.
Closer.
Just as he turned to look, he felt something sharp threatening to penetrate his coat and, ultimately, his kidney. At the limits of his peripheral vision, he caught the suggestion of someone tall and dark-skinned looming over him. He felt the stranger’s breath warm and heavy in his ear.
“Okay, suckah!” came a harsh whisper. “You move and you dead! Dig?”
Ralphie nodded, relaxing inwardly since he knew what would come next. When he did not m
ove, the man pressed the point of the knife more firmly into the fabric of the coat and held it there.
“Now, real easy-like … get out your bread and give it here.”
Ralphie slipped his left hand into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, feeling it snatched from his grasp as soon as it was free. It was rifled quickly and cleanly, the two five-dollar bills stuffed into the mugger’s pocket, the wallet thrown down onto the tracks. The point of the blade retreated, as did the dark presence of the thief. His footsteps described his flight from the station, and Ralphie was alone again.
Looking to the far end of the platform, he saw an old man in a ragged corduroy jacket standing and shivering, his senile gaze fixed straight ahead, staring into oblivion.
He was not upset at losing his money. In fact, he always kept two five-dollar bills in his wallet just for that purpose, having learned long ago to carry his “real money” in a money clip deep in the front pocket of his jeans. He was angry, yes, and he felt a sense of loss, of course, but for different reasons. Ralphie felt violated, defiled in a more psychic sense. The mugger had reinforced his views of life in the city of light and darkness.
There was nothing to be done but try to smile ironically, as he scrambled off the edge of the platform to recover his wallet. It was an eerie feeling to be down on the tracks, and the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened, even as he pulled himself back up over the edge to safety. The tracks were a place where you do not go, no matter what. It was a true no-man’s-land where time was meaningless and a train could materialize almost instantly and crush you to a pulpy mess.
In fact, Ralphie had often thought that time in general seemed to lose its way beneath the streets of Manhattan. Down here it flowed at a totally different rate, and there seemed to be a reason for it. Ralphie felt that there was something essentially wrong with the subways. As if man had somehow violated the earth by cutting these filthy pathways through her belly, and that the earth was reacting violently to it.
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