Lowland Rider

by Chet Williamson

  He stayed with her for a half hour. They sat on the couch and watched a game show, and Gina didn't shoot up while he was there. When he left, he kissed her and told her again, "Soon, I promise," and she kissed him back and told him that she would not see Matt, the bearded man with the drugs, again, not even to talk to.

  On his way back to the subway, Montcalm checked his wallet, and found that he had only fifteen dollars left. The bank was closed this late in the afternoon, so he decided to go down to Penn Station and take some cash out of his locker. There would be enough to replenish it when he found out where Gordon hid his money. Enough to replenish it and to give him and Gina a chance at a whole new life.

  He rode the sixty-nine blocks with a smile on his face, thinking of that new life, thinking of Gina in the country, with sunlight on her hair and the stench of the city a dimly forgotten memory. He didn't play his usual game of watching the other people on the car, marking them for what they were—good, bad, or indifferent. In spite of the run-in with Matt, in spite of the work that lay ahead to root out Gordon and his money, Bob Montcalm felt good, as if things were going to finally go well for him.

  He got off the train at Penn Station with a light, boyish step, and threaded his way through the tunnels until he arrived at the alcove with the locker where he kept his money. He moved it frequently from locker to locker, just in, case they were ever inspected, a threat for which he had never seen any evidence. And if inspectors ever did open it, what would they find but a locked briefcase on which they would lock the door again?

  He read the number on the key —9273—and put it into the corresponding lock, then opened the locker, unlocked his briefcase, and took two hundred dollars in twenties from it, He locked it again, dropped fifty cents into the slot, closed the door, and took the key. Smiling, he walked out of the alcove into the commotion of the station and headed up toward the street, thinking that he deserved a good dinner.

  When he was gone, Jesse Gordon stepped from around the corner, walked up to the lockers, and shook the handle of locker number 9273. Then he opened the door of the locker numbered 9277, fed two quarters into the slot, closed the door, and took the key, which he dropped into his pocket, where its rough edge pressed against his thigh, an irritant impossible to ignore.

  He left the alcove, and took a stairway down.

  CHAPTER 20

  Jesse Gordon found Rags scrounging through a garbage can in the 59th Street station. When Jesse called his name, Rags came up holding a half-eaten Kentucky Fried Chicken breast. His face broke into a picket-fence smile, and he walked toward Jesse, chuckling and nodding. He was glad to see Jesse well, and glad to see him alive at all.

  "Where the hell you been at, Jesse? I ain't, seen you now for what, a couple weeks?"

  "Not that long, Rags."

  "You stayin' outa trouble?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  Rags nodded. "I know. I been hearin' about you, about what you been doin'. You're doin' some good, Jesse, but I think you gonna pay for it sooner'r later. You, uh, want some chicken?" He held out the breast. Its color was good. It had not been thrown away too long before.

  "No thanks, Rags."

  "Gettin' picky?"

  "Just not hungry."

  "You look like you could use some fattenin' up. You feelin' okay?"

  "I'm fine, Rags. But I need your help for something."

  Sweet God, what now? Rags thought, remembering the last time he had helped Jesse, helped him by killing a boy. That had stayed with Rags. He had never done anything like it before, and he woke up from his sleeps sweating beyond the heat, beyond the rags swathed around his body. The dream never varied—he would be sitting on some unidentified platform, he would hear a cry and look up, and there would be Jesse, bent back over the edge by someone whose face he could not see, and Rags would stand up, move through dream-mush toward the man harming Jesse, pick him up (he was light as air) and throw him onto the tracks, and as the man flew through the air he turned so that Rags could see his face, and instead of the boy, it was Enoch, and he was smiling, his face glowing with light, even as the oncoming express struck him in midair, turning him into a cloud of white flame.

  One time Rags woke up screaming, just as a transit cop was passing through the car on which he rode. The cop had questioned him, but seemed satisfied that Rags was neither drunk nor stoned, and only told him to get off at the next station. A tougher one might have arrested him, but probably not. Still, he had paid a price for the first time he'd helped Jesse Gordon.

  "I don't know, Jesse…"

  "You don't have to actually do anything, Rags. Just be a lookout for me."

  "A lookout," Rags said flatly. "Lookin' out for what, Jesse?"

  "For cops, for Montcalm."

  "Montcalm?"

  "I've found out where he keeps his money, Rags. The money he gets from Rodriguez. His drug money."

  Rags shook his head. "You over your head, Jesse. You way over your head. You mess with them once, you maybe get away with it. But you keep doin' it, they not gonna turn their backs. They gonna kill you, that's all. I ain't ready to die yet."

  "When will you be, Rags?" At first Rags didn't think he heard Jesse correctly, and cocked his head and gave a puzzled look. "When will you be ready to die?"

  "What you mean?"

  "I mean I'm ready now. So I'm not afraid. Oh, a little, maybe, of the pain. And of the mystery. But not enough to stop me. That's what I've learned. Not to be afraid. I haven't done both yet, but I don't believe that dying can be as bad as living."

  Rags nodded slowly. "You right." More loudly he added, "I know you right, Jesse. You come down here because you do somethin' bad, least you think you do. But you don't do nothin'. No sir, you don't do nothin' like I do." Tears filled his eyes. "You wanta know why I come down here? You want me to tell you? I tell you, then you see if you still want me to help you, look out for you. But not here. Can't tell you here, not with all these people, no sir . . ."

  They boarded a downtown train, found a car with only a few passengers in it, and sat in the unoccupied end.

  "I told you I was a preacher, and I was. Congregational Baptist, down in North Carolina, little town near Asheville. Never had no seminary learning. My daddy was a preacher and so I took it up. I was a good one too. Until what happened happened. I was married, but my wife and I had no kids for a long time. Then, when I was forty or so and she was 'bout thirty-five, she got pregnant. She was pretty well along when one of the families in the congregation, their house caught fire. The mother and father were caught in a upstairs bedroom and they burned to death, but the firemen got out their little girl, girl eight years old. My wife and I, we took her in, it was our responsibility as the preacher and his wife. The first night she stayed with us, my wife got sick and started bleedin' from down there, and I took her to the hospital in Asheville. Wasn't nothin' I could do, the doctors said, and they thought she'd be all right and not lose the baby, so I went back home, where I'd left the little girl. When I got back . . ."

  Rags took a deep, shuddering breath, and hugged himself hard to keep from shaking.

  "When I got back she was sittin' there in my wife's rocker, lookin' so sweet and pretty and scared, and I was scared too, scared that somethin' would happen to my wife and I'd be all alone. And I wanted to comfort that little girl who'd just lost her mommy and daddy, and I wanted comfort too. So I held her and cuddled her and sang hymns to her, and while I was doin' that I started to think about other things, bad things, and I knew they were wrong, and I sang more hymns and I prayed inside to God to keep me from doin' what I wanted to do. But it wasn't any use. I… I done things with her. I didn't hurt her, I wouldn'ta hurt her. But I done things I shouldn't, things that I can't even speak of." A sob racked Rags's body. "Oh God, she was so little, and she trusted me so much, and believed the things I told her . . ."

  He clasped his hands at the back of his neck and pulled down, as if he wanted to tear off his head. "I musta hurt her, she was so li
ttle. But she didn't cry, not at all. After she went to sleep I thought about what I'd done. And I thought about killin' myself, but I was scared to. Y'see, I never knew that I felt that way, I'd never had the chance before, and it scared me somethin' awful, like lookin' in the mirror and seein' a monster starin' back at you. And I worried the little girl might say somethin' to somebody, my wife might find out and other people'd know too, and it wouldn't mean just not bein' a preacher anymore, but goin' to jail if I didn't get hung first. But then I wondered what if she didn't say nothin', and maybe she wouldn't. And I thought about my little baby comin' along, and I thought about what if it was a little girl. And I couldn't bear that thought, 'cause I had to think about what I might do to her, and when I thought about that I went outside and I threw up, hard. And I knew I had to go away, go somewhere where I wouldn't be tempted never again. But I couldn't jes' go away and leave my wife there in the hospital, not knowin' what might happen to her. So I waited through that night, not sleepin' at all. Next morning I called up the hospital."

  Rags broke off, cleared his throat, wiped his eyes with a dirty sleeve. "She was dead, Jesse. My wife was dead. Died toward morning. I knew it was my fault, knew it was God's punishment on me, knew how he couldn't let me have a daughter of my own, so he took her, and took my wife too, so as to punish me.

  "Now there was nothin' to keep me there, nothin' at all. I took enough money to get me here, and got on the bus to New York City. I come down here, and here I been ever since."

  Jesse looked at him without expression. "And the rags…"

  "Just wanted to wrap this poor body up, keep it covered away. Keep it always covered away.”

  “God, Rags. God, I'm sorry."

  "No more than me. Now you know, Jesse. You know why I ain't ready to die yet. 'Cause when I do, I go to hell."

  "No, Rags. This is hell. When you die, you leave it.”

  “I can't believe that, Jesse. That goes against everything I ever believed."

  "You believe good works save souls, Rags?”

  “I … I don't know. Maybe they can."

  "I'm doing good works, Rags. I'm taking away bad money from a bad man. You help me, who knows? Maybe God will smile on you, maybe forgive you."

  "I don't know life works that way, Jesse."

  "I don't know either, Rags. I'm just making this up as I go along. But it's worked so far. You wouldn't be doing harm, Rags. You'd be doing good. We can give it to people who need it. And I'll tell you one thing I do know. When you finally do die, Rags, you won't go to hell. That I know for a fact. Just believe in me. And help me. You'll feel better. Maybe you can even take off those rags."

  The train shook them both. Rags looked at Jesse, tears cutting trails through the dirt on his face. "I won't take off my rags, Jesse. But I'll help you. Maybe I been scared of goin' to hell for too long. Been scared of too many things too long. But you tell me what to do. I'll help you now."

  Jesse gave Rags forty dollars, which Rags took to a hardware store on Eighth Avenue. There he bought a cold chisel, a hammer, and a pair of compound leverage shears, which he brought back to Jesse, along with the change, in a shopping bag. He didn't ask Jesse where he had gotten forty dollars, although he wondered about it. Forty dollars was a huge amount of money to Rags, weeks worth of watching the concrete, of accumulating nickels and pennies and dimes. But Jesse had simply handed him two twenty dollar bills and told him what to buy, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Rags did what he was asked. He gave Jesse the bag, and stood awkwardly while Jesse examined the contents.

  "You really gonna do this, Jesse?"

  "We are, Rags."

  "What if he catches us?"

  "We run. We're both very good at that. But he won't catch us. Now we've got to wait for a while. Meet me back here at four o'clock tomorrow morning. We'll do it then."

  Rags rode and tried to sleep, but couldn't. It was as though he needed to practice watchfulness in preparation for what the morning would hold. He found himself thinking about Jesse Gordon, about what made him tick, what drove him. Jesse had changed so much from the wary, frightened man he had first met months before. He had come down into these tunnels to escape what had happened up above, to get away from the death of his family and the killing he had done himself. But instead he had come down here and begun to do more killing. Rags tried to sort it out in his mind, to get it to where it made sense to him.

  Jesse was obsessed, that was the word. He was obsessed with Montcalm, and obsessed with Enoch. Obsessed, like that sea captain, named after King Ahab in the Bible, was obsessed with that whale, Moby Dick. Rags had found that book on a train and read it, though he skipped a lot of it. He guessed it was pretty much the same thing. That captain had lost his leg, and Jesse had lost his family. But where Ahab had the whale to go after, Jesse could only go after bad folks in general. It made sense, he supposed—as much sense as anything like that could.

  Rags sighed and tried to stop thinking about it, then closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep. But the thought of Jesse kept coming back to him, and the lump on his neck started to hurt again. It had been hurting on and off for a couple of weeks now, and though Rags knew that he should follow Jesse's advice and see a doctor at a free clinic, he was afraid to, afraid that the doctor would tell him that it was a cancer and that it couldn't be cured. Rags had once heard that when tumors started to hurt, then it was too late to do anything about them. He didn't want to know that it was a cancer. He didn't want to hear that he was going to die, despite what Jesse had told him about not going to hell. The pain, and the fear of the pain, did not let him sleep.

  At four o'clock, when he rounded the corner where he had last seen Jesse, Jesse was still there, standing as though he had never moved from the spot, holding the shopping bag in his right hand. He led Rags through a maze of tunnels and rooms into an alcove where a wall of lockers stood at the far end. "I've watched security," Jesse told him. "They come around every twenty-five minutes. It's more than enough time to get in and get the money."

  "You gonna be loud?"

  "Just at first. I've got to break through from inside my locker to Montcalm's with the chisel. From then on, no noise. Now stand over there, right at the entrance."

  "What if somebody comes?"

  "Then I throw the tools in my locker, drop in some quarters, shut the door, and walk out. I've got plenty of quarters."`

  "How the hell you cut through that steel?"

  "These are compound leverage shears. They use them on planes. Once I get a hole made, they'll cut through it like butter. Okay. Start watching."

  Rags watched what was happening outside, but he watched Jesse too, as he placed the chisel an inch from the bottom of the inner wall of his locker and struck it with the hammer. A hollow crash came from the unsupported metal, making Rags wince. Another crash followed, and a third. It seemed to Rags that the clamor must echo through the halls and stairs, up into the very office of station security. "Jesse!" he hissed. "Jesus, man!"

  A fourth crash sounded, and an instant later a metallic squeal grated on Rags's ears. "I'm through," Jesse said. "No more banging."

  Rags watched him wiggle the tip of the shears through the hole he had made and begin to cut a circle through the steel. "How long this gonna take?"

  "Be patient, Rags. Good things take time."

  "Yeah, time. Like ten to twenty years for breakin' into that thing."

  Jesse's only response was the snip snip snip of his shears as they made their way through the steel. "Damn," whispered Rags to himself. "Damn, damn, damn…"

  Finally Rags heard the grinding of wrenched metal, a final, triumphant snip, and a clatter as the pie-shaped piece of steel fell to the bottom of Jesse's locker. He saw Jesse's arm disappear into the hole he had made, and heard a clunking sound as Jesse maneuvered whatever was on the other side. In another few seconds, Rags saw the end of a briefcase emerge through the hole, and Jesse angled it around, bringing it out the door of his own locker. He
put the case into the shopping bag and dropped the hammer in beside it. Then he put the shears and chisel inside the locker, put more quarters in the slot, closed the door, and threw the locker key into a waste can. "This way we'll be sure," he told Rags, "that Montcalm gets the surprise."

  They opened the locked briefcase with the claw of the hammer in an empty car on the downtown Sixth Avenue train. It was full of envelopes stuffed with money—mostly twenty dollar bills. "Damn, Jesse!" Rags hissed. "There must be hundreds here."

  "Thousand, Rags. Thousands, at least."

  They counted nearly fourteen thousand dollars. "What you gonna do with this?"

  "You want some?" Jesse asked him.

  Rags licked his lips. "Could buy a good meal for a change. I could go for that."

  "Take what you want then. But not more than you can spend in a day. After all, you don't want to be caught with stolen money on you, do you?"

  Rags laughed uncomfortably, but took two twenty dollar bills. "What you gonna do with the rest?"

  "Give it away," said Jesse. "I don't want to be caught with it either. I'll give it back to the people it came from."

  "What? You mean them dopers, the junkies?"

  "No. The people the junkies got it from in the first place. Redistribute the wealth, Rags. Do I sound like a communist?"

  "I don't know what you sound like, Jesse Gordon. You sound crazy is all."

  Jesse smiled, dumped the contents of the briefcase into the shopping bag, and slid the empty briefcase under the seat. "Go get yourself a good meal, Rags. I'd join you, but I've got some money to give away."

  ~*~

  Father Richard Mulcahy was returning to his parish in Gramercy from a visit to a parishioner who was dying of cancer in Lenox Hill Hospital. The priest was weary and depressed, and had just closed his eyes to try and steal a brief nap when he became aware of someone standing next to him. He opened his eyes and saw a young man in T-shirt and jeans, carrying a large shopping bag. Father Mulcahy tensed as the man reached inside it, then relaxed as he saw that the stranger held nothing more threatening than a thick, white envelope, which he held out to the priest.