She unfolded it, her heart pumping. The black ink was freshly blurred. Whoever left the note and slipped it under her door had been here just minutes ago. Since the thunderstorm began. The handwriting was almost as familiar as that of her own. With morbid fascination and eagerness Yvonne read it.
You’re dead, fucker. I know you’re a cop.
Yvonne stared at it. She put the note down on the table, paying it no more attention as if it had been an old, discarded grocery list. She stood unmoving for a while, deep in thought. In a strange way she drew inner satisfaction from the unexpected letter.
All right. So that’s the way it is. Perhaps for the better. No more secrets between us. We know each other too well, don’t we?
Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, she proceeded to take off her wet clothes. She sat down to eat the beef and vegetable platter as though there wasn’t a single worry in her mind. Calm, untroubled. She watched the evening news, searched through the newspaper television guide for something interesting to see. Nothing caught her fancy. She played music on the radio instead.
She stretched out on the couch, pillows behind her head, and read again a number of carefully prepared Armageddon files. The orchestra strained in a crescendo over her. The only thing different about the night was that she kept her loaded gun close at her side. Very close.
XXVII
“Yvonne, are you all right?” Warren’s voice sounded concerned.
“Of course I am. What time is it? I must have dozed.” Her gun was at her side, safety off.
“Listen to me. I want you out of that place — now.” She sat on the edge of the couch, straining the cord of the wall phone. “What are you talking about? Out of what place?”
“Ellen Booker’s apartment. Look, you know damn well what I meant. Get packing right away.”
“Warren, have you gone crazy?”
“No more games, Yvonne. Just be out of that place in half an hour. I’ll come and get you.”
“No you won’t.” Her voice was firm. “We put too much work and effort into this to just walk away now. What’s the matter with you?”
“I’ll tell you what’s the matter. Just received a call from the coroner’s office. A body was found in a building only a few blocks from your own. Decomposing. It was the smell that made some neighbor call the police. They broke the door down to get inside.”
“What has any of this got to do with me?” She struck a match, reached for a cigarette. It was a few minutes before midnight, she saw.
“They have an identity on the victim. His name was Sam Battaglia. Lived in the area all his life. No known enemies, no sign of break-in. HQ did a fast canvass on the streets. Not so many days ago he picked up a woman at a restaurant. Local spot. Continental Cafe.”
“I’ve passed it. So?”
“So, the owner of this place says he remembers this Sam being there late. Striking up a conversation with this unknown woman. That was the last anyone ever saw of Sam Battaglia. From the sketchy description the owner could give, it fits Vanessa Santiago’s down to a letter.”
“That only means my hunch was right. She’s close, Warren. Very close. You’ve confirmed it.”
“Shut up and listen to me, will you? This guy, Battaglia, he wasn’t just killed. He was mutilated. Did a real number on him. Vicious — and psychotic.”
“All the more reason why we’ve got to stop Vanessa. Now. While we still can.”
“She’s insane, Yvonne. Completely out of control. We think the only reason she went home with this Battaglia was to have a place close by to Ellen Booker’s apartment. Probably using it as a safe house until Ellen returned. Killed the poor slob for no apparent reason at all. Then shared his place with the corpse — until you show up.” His voice was becoming increasingly alarmed. “Don’t you understand, Yvonne? She’s out there, all right. Thank God we found the place she’s been using. Maybe now we can track her — ”
“Listen to me, Warren. I’m staying put. Running out won’t solve anything. We knew what we were facing. If she’s going to be stopped, I have to stay. If I run, she runs. Then what do we do? Wait for another corpse to be discovered?”
“Yvonne, you’re irrational as Armageddon. This isn’t just a case we’re talking about. This is your life.”
She paused. “I know that.”
“Have you seen anything, heard anything?”
She stared coldly at the note on the edge of the table. “Uh-uh. Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Nothing, Warren. But now you’ve alerted me. I’m ready.”
“I’ll be sending out a special detail in an hour — ”
“No you won’t! Now you listen to me. The worst thing we can do is cover this place with cops. She’ll smell it a mile away. Stay where you are and keep your mouth shut about this. Even to Winnegar.”
“Yvonne — ”
“I’m still running this unit, Warren. TTF tactics. TTFs way.”
“Your way, Yvonne.” He sounded despondent. “Is it worth it? Worth risking being killed like Link — for what — ambition?”
That was a low blow, she knew. “No, Warren,” she replied coldly. “To stop Armageddon. For everyone. But especially for Link.” Only one thing bothered her: not that Armageddon knew she was a cop — but how did she know?
She didn’t go to sleep. Two cups of coffee left her feeling alert and tense. It was half past midnight when she decided to leave the apartment.
You’re tempting fate, DiPalma, she told herself. Play it close to home. Listen to Warren. She was about to do just that. Then she thought of Link. Don’t make it easy, DiPalma. Make them earn their pound of flesh. She quickly strapped on her holster, dressed in tight-fitting designer jeans, boots, and a bulky sweater. She locked all the locks and made her way down into the street.
The fresh cold air felt good against her face. She stuck her hand inside her sweater to be sure her gun was within half a second’s reach. She glanced this way and that, deciding on which way to go. Down the more secluded streets, or along the busier ones. Her sixth sense said Armageddon would look for her along the busy ones. She headed toward the lights of Eighth Street.
Okay, fucker, let’s rock ’n roll.
The all-night coffee shops and pizza parlors were crowded. Mostly gangly youths, male and female, hanging around, loitering on the corners and spilling into the gutters. Some vagrants, some winos standing at the traffic lights trying to earn quarters from drivers by cleaning windshields with dirty rags. A police car stood unobtrusively parked in the shadows up the next block. A few prostitutes meandered from side street to side street, staring into cars. One of them was a male transvestite. Knowing the police were around didn’t bother any of them in the least. Not in New York.
Traffic was heavy along the Avenue of the Americas. Jazz clubs, Village coffee shops open and catering to the mixture of tourists and bohemian locals who kept them in business.
The pavement rumbled beneath her feet. The subway train below the surface screeched to a halt at the Eighth Street station. You could hear it loudly from above. On a whim Yvonne walked slowly toward the entrance. The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, she thought bitterly.
Behind loomed a shadow of a figure. She turned slowly, not to make any quick moves that might unnerve someone following her. She gazed evenly into the face of a fairly large man in a business suite and raincoat. His tie was askew; he seemed a bit nervous and slightly drunk. His shoulders were broad, and he stood in a stance that reminded her of John Wayne. He beckoned to her, making a gesture. “Got a place?” he asked.
He was an out-of-towner, she saw immediately. Mistaken her for a hooker. “Sure I got a place, cowboy.” He was awkward and clumsy as he pulled out a small roll of bills. “You, er, as good as you look, honey?” Yvonne didn’t flinch. “Better.”
He grinned. “Fifty if you show me how good.”
“Fifty?”
“Yeah.”
Yvonne s
tood still, feet planted firmly on the ground, legs slightly apart. One hand was on her hip.
He ambled her way self-consciously. He was obviously not very adept at picking up hookers.
“Your fly is open, cowboy,” she said. He froze looking inept. She laughed as he looked down at his zipper, turned around and walked down into the subway. As the john stood befuddled, another figure passed him by and followed Yvonne down the stairs.
She bought a token, entered the turnstile and went onto the platform. It was dirty. Lettered with old papers, plastic containers, reeking of urine and vomit. There were only a few people gathered waiting for the next train. A mixture of types, as you so often find gathered together in the city. She looked at her watch. It was almost 1 AM.
This is how it must have been that night at 135th. Street. Desolate, dismal, and disheartening. The poor, the sad, the innocent.
Her surroundings were lonely and depressing. She scrutinized the station, paying attention to someone leaning against a pole at the other end. It was the same figure who had been behind her after she left the john. She didn’t miss a trick.
It took a long while for the train to pull into the station. She got on the next to the last car, took a seat near the sliding doors. The windows were grimy and smeared. Graffiti covered the walls. The train pulled out of the station. Yvonne leaned back, pretended to close her eyes. She surveyed the car. Ten other passengers. A few white, a few black, a few Hispanic. One Oriental. As the train made its first turn the lights dimmed briefly. Then the fluorescent bulbs flared brightly again. Achingly the train began to pick up speed. The noise was horrific to her hears. She hated the subways; had come to loathe them. It was hot in the train. Sweaty. Almost like summer, with the stench of filth.
One of the younger passengers got up and clung to the handhold. He seemed sick. His pimply young face was ashen white. A junkie, in need of a fix. A black woman riding with her young daughter changed seats to get away from him.
Opposite, a man in laborer’s clothes sat reading a novel. Near him sat a high-school-age couple. They both seemed slightly high. The boy had his arms around the girl. His eyes were dreamy and half shut. The girl sat cradled and hunched, her hands gripped together, staring down at the floor and hardly ever shifting her gaze.
Someone new came into her car from another. A very tall black man carrying a guitar case. He took a seat in the corner, stretched out long basketball legs. He paid no attention to anyone else; he sat fondling his instrument case, lost in thought or music.
How odd a group we all are. How different. Nothing in common at all. No, that’s not true. We’re more alike than we think. We all choose to live in this sewer. To ride this train.
Someone put on a radio. A few eyes darted toward the leather-jacketed young man, others shifting away, afraid even to look at him the wrong way. It was the towering musician who got up, said something above the din of screeching train and screeching music that made the youth turn it down. On the other end someone lighted a cigarette.
The train pulled into the next station. Yvonne changed cars. Again she took a seat near the doors, again she pretended to doze. The mixture of late night passengers was almost identical, only this car had several more women, and several children. One in a baby carriage.
“Next stop Fourteenth Street. Change for the local … ”
The train rumbled on. Yvonne looked at the advertisements clinging to the walls. Some of them had been defaced, others ripped. She smiled a sullen smile as she saw one announcing the coming trade fair at South Street Seaport.
It was a straight run to Fourteenth Street. The train roared at its maximum. Suddenly, there was a screeching. The engineer pulling hard on the breaks. The lights dimmed, went off. A woman nearby screamed. Yvonne leaped to her feet, grabbed for the handhold. The emergency lights flickered on and off, then back on. The train’s wheels screamed defiantly.
“Oh, God, we’re going to crash!” a man shouted.
“It may be a bomb!” another called out.
The word bomb sent everyone huddling or scurrying up. The car lurched forward frantically, then came to a seething halt. Off went the lights. The only brightness came from the dim yellow bulbs in the subway tunnel. The light seeping through the windows was just enough to make out outlines of the frightened riders.
One of the children started to cry. Loudly. His mother smothered him in her arms. Yvonne could hear her saying, “Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry.”
“We’re stuck,” said someone.
A girl was whining. Soft sobs in the darkness. A garbled message came through on the train’s intercom. Everyone looked about in confusion. No one understood a word being said.
“It’s all right,” a man in shirtsleeves said aloud. “We’ve only stopped. Probably because of work crews on the track.”
“Hear that, darlin’?” said the woman to her crying child. “It’s only for a minute. Then we’ll be going home.”
An elderly man stood up, addressing the one in shirtsleeves. “How do you know it’s a work crew? I’ve been riding these trains most of my life. Even when a train stops the emergency power stays on. Where’s our power?”
“That’s right,” called out a frightened woman. “Where are the emergency lights?”
“Oh God, I’m scared.” It was a middle-aged man dressed in worker’s clothes. He was sweating profusely; kept mopping his brow with a handkerchief as he plaintively looked about. The air was close and dank. “I … I don’t think I can breathe …
Someone came to his side, eased him down into a seat. “Easy fella, easy.” The middle-aged man gratefully acknowledged the help. “I’ve had bypass surgery, you know … ” He slumped in a faint.
“He needs a doctor,” said a workman.
“Where’s the conductor? Why doesn’t the conductor come through the cars? Tell us what’s going on.”
“Maybe someone should go up front to talk with the driver,” said someone with a Spanish accent.
“Yeah. Get the damn motorman back here. He’s responsible for our safety.”
“Sure,” said a gangly youth. “Like that other one up at One Hundred Thirty-Fifth Street. Read about what happened to him? You wanna get our motorman, I don’t give a damn. But don’t expect me to hang around.”
The man in shirtsleeves said, “I’ll go.” He walked toward the end of the car. “I’ll go with you,” another said.
“We’re all better off staying as we are,” said Yvonne. “They’ll come for us. Panicking is the worst thing we can do.”
“Says who?” called out the angriest of the bunch, a thin-haired, slight man with a wispy moustache. “We’re trapped down here like sardines. You all read the papers. You know what’s going on. Maybe there is a bomb out there. On the tracks. Maybe that’s why we been stopped.”
“Sweet Jesus,” muttered the mother. “It’s the bomber.”
“It’s not,” said Yvonne loudly. “Listen to me. We’re just stuck, that’s all. Give it a few minutes.”
“Sure, lady. By then we could all be dead.” There was a murmuring of general agreement.
“I’m telling you there’s no bomb.”
“How do you know so much?” Fear and anger were mingling, Yvonne saw. The worst possible combination.
The man in shirtsleeves ran his hands through his hair. “There’s gotta be a way to get off this thing.” He tried to pry open the sliding doors. Two others came to assist him. The doors wouldn’t budge.
“You can’t open them,” said Yvonne. “They have an automatic lock while the train’s in motion.”
“Lady, this train ain’t in motion. And I ain’t wasting no more time discussing it.”
“Smash open the damn windows! I’ll take my chances on the tracks.” Some were starting to become ugly.
“No, don’t!” Yvonne reached out. One of the men pushed her aside. A couple of youths searched the car for something heavy. “Use this,” another said. He handed over a toolbox he was carrying. There was a
large heavy hammer inside.
“She’s right,” someone said. “This is wrong. We can’t just take over a subway train. Let’s wait for the motorman.”
“You shut up,” said the man with the toolbox. “I’m not gonna die down here like a sewer rat.”
“Everyone stand back,” called out the youth with the hammer. A steady stream of perspiration dripped down the sides of his face. When the way was cleared, he swung the hammer like a baseball bat.
Safety glass shattered and caved in with the ensuing blows. A number of passengers huddled in fear. A woman near the back shrieked. The hammer was passed on to another who began smashing against windows on the other side of the car. The double-thick glass didn’t give way easily. Spiderwebs of fissures appeared.
“Hurry up! We gotta get outta here.” They were beginning to panic. The baby was crying more loudly. His mother sat trembling, crying, silent. No longer able to soothe her child. Others became frightened. Amid the dark and the heat and the unknown fear always prevails.
“Stop right there?”
It was the tall black musician from the other car. He stood crouching in the aisle, both hands tightly wrapped around a Smith & Wesson. Beads of sweat ran down his face. “Police officer.”
The passengers froze. “We’re only trying to get the hell out of here,” called the man in shirtsleeves. “You’ve got no right — ”
“Shut up and against the wall. You, you, and you.” He indicated with the barrel of his gun for the offenders to line up. Confused and scared, they did as they were told. He glanced furtively over toward Yvonne. “You all right, DiPalma?”
She started to say yes, then stared at him. “How did you know who I was?”
“My name’s Greene. Citywide. Resnick’s put a tail on you. Been following you ever since you hit the street.”
“And blown my damn cover, too.”
“Things were getting out of control.” Undercover Officer Greene spoke without emotion. “My job was to protect you.”
Black Midnight Page 23
