Stone 588

by Gerald A. Browne

  "Why?"

  "And plenty of spare ammunition."

  Springer saw she was serious.

  "It's a philosophy," she said.

  "Hitler's?"

  She disregarded that. "Before there were guns there were swords. No one ever thought of going anywhere without a sword. They'd be caught dead without one. Probably even when they were chasing one another around bare-ass they still had their swords on. And before swords, everyone—and I mean everyone—carried at the very least an enormous, hard club." She combed her hair back with her fingers. "I don't know where people get off these days thinking we Hve in such a sane, civilized, nonviolent time that we can go around defenseless. Shit, what a delusion!"

  Springer thought about mentioning that we have laws and police, but he was sure she was ready to jump all over that. He shrugged a bit concurringly, looked at the .451, weighed it with his hand. "Did it come with a special holster?"

  "Silencer and everything."

  "Maybe," Springer remarked, "we ought to also wear bulletproof underwear."

  Audrey laughed. "Not unless they make it really flimsy."

  She turned to the barn and let the Viscountess somebody have it.

  Later that morning Springer dismantled one of the stereo speakers and removed the magnet from the electrical coil of its woofer. Then Scoot did the welding. Audrey and Strand laid out everything on the grass, all the tools, equipment, and gear, in the order that it would be used. They checked each item against Audrey's list. Where were the surgical gloves? Audrey had forgotten them. She'd run into New Milford for them later. She printed gloves on the palm of her hand with a felt-tipped pen, not to forget. What about the fishing vests? They were hung over the fence and dry by now. All the green was bleached from them. They were now various shades of buffs and beiges, mottled because of the way they'd been bunched up and rocks placed upon them during the bleaching. Strand thought Audrey had somehow purposefully camouflaged them and he complimented her on it, said the vests were now a good Townsend color.

  During the afternoon they did several run-throughs. There was no way of duplicating the circumstances they'd actually be up against; however, they made do with the second story of the barn and some old metal filing cabinets that were out there.

  They also tried out the blasting cord. None of them had ever worked with it before. Springer knew a little about it from twenty years ago when he'd watched the dairy farmer up the road use it on a stump. There was nothing complicated about it. It resembled ordinary quarter-inch clothesline but with a core of a gel-like substance running through it made up of a cured resin and nitroglycerine.

  They took a length of it down the slope to where the land was wet and chose a swamp maple, one that was leafless dead but stifl standing solid. Springer fastened two turns of blasting cord around the trunk of the tree, which was nearly two feet thick. The others stood a safe distance away while he ignited it. The explosion was sharper than they had anticipated. It cut through the trunk. The tree crashed down. The blasting cord would more than do.

  Back at the house they greased the threads of the twelve sections of pipe and the connecting joints. Audrey wrapped them individually in red flannel. They packed those in the large back pouches of two of the fishing vests, and then packed everything else so the loads were about equal and they would all have their hands free. The zippers of the various pockets and pouches were stubborn from having been soaked, so Audrey sprayed them with silicone and worked them back and forth until they were easy. They memorized which pocket and pouch contained what so there would be no searching and fumbling. They tested one another on it and got it really down. At least they'd have control over what they could. There would be enough things left to chance.

  For Saturday night dinner Springer charcoal-broiled some steaks and Audrey threw some potatoes in the oven. As a celebratory gesture she baked a cake. Not from scratch, but she followed exactly the directions on the Duncan Hines mix package. When the layers had cooled she spread them with icing out of a can, sprinkled on a generous amount of shredded coconut, and there it stood on a pedestaled glass cake dish, all fancy white and sweet-looking. What a triumph! It was glorious to her eyes! To hell with Escoffier, she thought, there was hope for her yet.

  As she sliced into the cake rather proprietarily, she was reminded of the wintry night when she and Springer had met; the white coconut cake she'd devoured at that narrow Greek coffee shop while suppressing the impetuous urge to then and there devour him. Strange, she thought, how the past returns time and again to delight in its presentiments.

  Springer told her the loving fib that it was the best cake he'd ever had.

  Strand came back for thirds.

  Audrey sang "Night and Day" as off-key as ever while she did the dishes.

  They watched the late television news on channel 7. There was the usual warehouse fire in New Jersey and hospital workers on strike, a passe movie star had died and was suddenly loved by everyone again, and the Yankees had been clobbered by Detroit. The weather was the best news. According to the five-day forecast there would be two days of sun but a very low low was headed up the Atlantic seaboard and was expected to arrive in the area Tuesday morning, bringing heavy showers.

  Chapter 32

  The van was stolen.

  Tuesday morning from the Con Edison garage at Avenue C and 16th Street.

  The guy who stole it, one of Danny's people, could have taken two or three if he'd had to. Dozens of vans were there, all lined up with the keys in them, just waiting for somebody like him to waltz in and drive them away. Big money company, Con Edison. He'd chosen to steal that particular van because while he was casing the place he'd seen it brought in and, using his head a little, he figured nobody had yet gotten used to seeing it around. He even gave the wave to a couple of Con Ed guys when he drove it out. He left it legally parked on First Avenue between 84th and 85th, as he was told to. The easiest three hundred he'd ever made.

  Now, around eleven, the van was headed down Second Avenue in traffic that was stopping and going more than usual because of the rain. Audrey was driving. Not only because she wanted to. It was thought that if they were stopped by a cop for running a light or something, Audrey would stand the best chance of charming out of it, unless, of course, the cop happened to be a woman. Springer was in the passenger seat. Strand and Scoot were squatted on the floor in the enclosed back.

  The rain couldn't have been worse and therefore couldn't have been better: almost tropical the way it was so densely pouring down, large close drops that the van's windshield wipers weren't efficient enough to cope with. Any rain, but surely one such as this, would be an edge, they thought. While people were caught up with trying to keep their heads and feet dry and find ways of fording the curb-deep swamps at every comer, they weren't likely to be so closely noticing incidental things.

  Audrey swerved the van — but failed to avoid one of the city's more notorious potholes.

  She was having trouble driving in the heavy steel-toed work boots she had on. Her feet felt out of touch with what they were supposed to be doing. Most of the time she couldn't tell whether she had the brake or the clutch, and she couldn't feel the gas pedal at all. Damn boots were clunky, so much too big that six pairs of thick woolen socks wouldn't have filled them. For some reason, possibly her attitude, they hadn't seemed nearly so large when she'd bought them.

  Springer leaned forward and squinted through the animate film of water on the windshield, trying for a better look at the truck that was just ahead of them. An open flatbed truck stacked with a dozen or so large rectangular boxlike objects that were individually covered by quilted moving pads and securely tied down. Coffins bound for imminent occupancy.

  Audrey declared emphatically that those were not to be taken as an omen. Nevertheless, at the very next intersection, which happened to be 70th Street, she hung a right.

  Springer slouched, wedged his knees up against the dashboard, hummed a fragment of any song, and, to further demo
nstrate how loose he was, cocked his head at Audrey, put on a proper crooked smile, and told her, "You're a swell looker."

  "You just like my chapeau," she said affectedly, raising her perfect chin.

  "I sort of thought it was more than that, but"—he nodded—"that could be it."

  She cut him playfully with a glance. Every move of her head caused the yellow hard hat she had on to slip awry, down over an eye or an ear. It had been one of those found in the van among the equipment and she hadn't had time to adjust it to her size. It was almost as much of a bother as her boots.

  "I love you. Springer," she said seriously to him and the situation.

  Springer nearly responded in kind but felt it more loving on his part to just let her have her say.

  They proceeded along East 70th until it ended at Fifth Avenue, went left there, and continued on downtown. Approaching 56th Street Audrey got the van over into the extreme right lane. Mid-block between 56th and 55th she stopped a few feet from the curb and cut the engine.

  Almost in front of Townsend's.

  Strand and Scoot opened the double rear door and jumped out. The bright yellow ponchos they wore were immediately slicked shiny by the rain. They each had a manhole-lifting key, a T-shaped steel rod about two feet long with a blunt hook on its end. Scoot knelt to the manhole cover. He used a screwdriver to dig the compacted grime from the notches along the outer edge of it, opposing notches about an inch square and an inch deep.

  With the notches cleaned out. Strand and Scoot were able to fit the blunt hooks of the keys into them. They stood facing one another, got good holds on the T ends of the keys, and lifted.

  The thirty-six-inch cover weighed about five hundred pounds. Not an easy heft, even for both of them, but they lifted it clear and, stepping awkwardly because of the dead weight and shape of it, placed it aside out of the way.

  Next to deal with was the inner seal of the manhole, a seven-inch-thick metal-coated fitting like a plug. Its purpose was to prevent surface water from seeping in. Strand and Scoot got it with the lifting keys, drew it up and out.

  Meanwhile, Springer and Audrey had put a sawhorse barrier in place up the avenue about twenty feet from the rear of the van. It had glowing orange stripes and reflectors. They stuck several orange plastic pennants on it and ran a string of those pennants from the barrier to the van, setting the boundaries of the work area. Buses were already hating it, having to swing out into the center lanes to get by. That, of course, put the squeeze on the taxis and other cars. All the way up beyond 59th Street, circulation was beginning to suffer. There at 56th it was practically coagulating.

  Audrey was sure so much anger and impatience was in the air and directed at them that it was dangerous to breathe.

  Springer experienced it differently. Now, as he surveyed the avenue, he understood the sense of power Con Ed and New York Telephone workers derived from causing such disruption: the wasting of precious time out of people's lives, the spoiling of strictly scheduled business deals. Springer assumed the role-appropriate attitude of enjoyable indifference and went about his chores.

  An orange plastic tarpaulin was rigged from the rear of the van and extended out loosely above the manhole. A metal railing-like barrier was positioned around the opening to prevent anyone from accidentally stepping into it. Some ropes that had seen considerable underground service were slung over the barrier, along with a few other things just for show.

  While Strand and Scoot were in the van starting the generator. Springer had a moment to look in the direction of Townsend's. From where he stood, the entrance to Townsend's was only about twenty-five feet away. His view was somewhat oblique, but he could see in through the ornate brass grillwork.

  Lights were on in there but Springer didn't see anyone moving about. Of course, it wasn't the sort of store that encouraged just anyone to walk in off the street to browse. A nattily attired man always stood inside tending the door. The same man for two decades, he not only knew well the face of every Townsend client, he was also infallible when it came to sizing up a stranger who wanted to enter. Perhaps it was instinct as much as years of practice that allowed him to instantly tell a tastelessly dressed tourist from an indigently dressed socialite.

  Springer glanced up to the second floor. The lights were also on in Townsend's office. Townsend was up there, no doubt, doing some slick business. Springer wished Townsend would come to the window so he could see that face if for only a second, the arrogant, censorious expression as if nothing smelled quite right. To see it today. Springer thought, would supply just that much more to go on.

  Two heavy-duty utility cords were plugged into the generator and run out to the manhole. On the end of each was a three-hundred-watt bulb within a protective bulb-shaped wire cage. One of the lights was lowered into the manhole, so Springer could see where to step.

  His feet found the steel rungs of the narrow ladder. Like a ship's ladder, it went straight down, deeper than Springer expected. He had to be careful, be sure he had a good solid foothold on each rung, because the ladder was dripping wet, slippery. The light was lowered along with him. Finally, after descending fifteen feet, he reached the bottom—and stepped from the ladder into water up to his shins. He was thankful now for the knee-high rubber boots they'd found in the truck.

  He saw that he was in a chamber about twelve feet long by seven feet wide, with an overhead clearance of a foot or so. The walls and ceiling were constructed of concrete brick. They were wet with seep. The floor was level, probably a concrete slab. The atmosphere was dank, oppressive. Springer had the eerie sensation that he was trespassing in a tomb.

  At one end of the chamber stood a transformer with power cables running in and out of it. The walls were crowded with cables, not all coiled up snakelike but an organized arrangement. Strand had shown him a six-inch section of cable like these. Each cable was an inch and a half in diameter, contained a hundred copper circuits embedded in rubber with a thick outer casing of neoprene. Brackets were bolted to the walls. These supported the junctions that the cables were connected to. The junctions were the type Con Edison people referred to as seven-way sevens, because they had seven connecting points on each side.

  To Springer they looked like huge, black, fourteen-legged spiders clinging to the walls. And they were all around.

  He saw how from the junctions the cables went to circular openings in the walls, ducts. He could not see, but imagined, the ceramic pipes that ran underground with the cables in them, thus distributing electric power to the buildings in the vicinity. The cables were identical. So were the ducts. They bore no designative markings. There was no way to tell which serviced Townsend's. Thirty or more ran in that general direction. It didn't matter.

  Scoot came down the ladder.

  Several wire baskets containing tools and other things they would need were lowered by a rope.

  They started to work.

  Above, on the avenue, Strand and Audrey didn't pretend to be busy. Characteristically, they just stood around. Every so often Audrey shined a flashlight into the manhole and peered down. She saw only murky water and heard sloshing.

  To pass time and neutralize their nerves, Audrey and Strand talked about anything. About the fascinating contrariness of the city. About the deceit of abstract art. Why, really, women had resorted to exaggerating their shoulders and pumping iron. How beautiful was the Burmese belief that a person at the moment of death becomes an invisible butterfly. Audrey brought up the subject of bilocation, the metaphysical ability of some sensitives to be in two places at the same time. Strand was commenting on that, saying that over his last three years it would have come in handy, when he stopped mid-sentence. From his pocket he brought out the stub of a chewed-up cigar and stuck it in his mouth. He closed his right eye into a vacant-looking slit.

  Audrey thought for a moment that she was being allowed the comical side of Strand, but then she too noticed the baby blue and white of the police patrol car that had pulled up.

 
Strand went over to it.

  The cop on the passenger side had the car window down only a few inches, not to get wet. He was an older cop with a perfunctory attitude. "How long ya gonna be?" he asked out to Strand.

  "I don't know," Strand replied through his teeth that had the cigar clamped.

  "Ya got everything fucked up for ten blocks."

  Strand quivered his slitted eye. Rain was running off his hard hat like a veil. "A couple more hours maybe. We got a wet transformer."

  Duty done, the cop closed the window. The light rack on the top of the patrol car was turned on for a few flashes and a sharp fragment of wail intimidated the traffic to make way.

  Strand returned to Audrey beneath the tarpaulin. "No problem," he assured her. There wasn't any reason for the cop to suspect an authentic blue, white, and dove-colored Con Edison van. And even if there was some blow-back later and that cop stepped forward with the incident, what he would remember was the bad eye and the cigar. It was a little something Strand had learned from a wise-guy in the joint.

  A short while later, Springer and Scoot came up for a break. Being on the surface again made them realize how claustrophobic they were becoming down in that chamber. It was unnerving, to say the least, to be messing around with all that voltage while standing shin-deep in water. Their faces were smudged and their hands grimy. They said they had a bit more to do.

  Audrey hurried to the corner of 55 th to a shiny vending cart that had a red and yellow umbrella over it. There wasn't room for her beneath the umbrella, so, while the vendor put the works on four hot dogs and got four Yoo-hoos from his cooler, Audrey waited in the rain.

  Her yellow poncho kept her from getting wet but the drops drumming on her hard hat were something she wouldn't want to suffer for long. She carried the hot dogs and drinks back to the van and presented them to the others like a surprise treat. Like most such hot dogs these were mostly bun, but they had that unbeatable street-comer taste. Springer forgot to shake up his Yoo-hoo, so his last few gulps of it were thick and awfully sweet.