Terminal City (Alex Cooper)

by Linda Fairstein

  “What?” Mike said.

  “That’s the amount of land that Vanderbilt and his successors bought up. Penn Station? That’s got less than thirty acres. We go on forever, or so it seems. We control track up to 97th Street, all buried now under Park Avenue. Try keeping your eye on that.”

  “And below us? Is there something under the lower concourse? What’s the secret basement you mentioned?”

  “The levels beneath are the deepest in New York City. Think of a ten-story office building turned upside down. We’re talking the underbelly of Manhattan.”

  “Isn’t there a new subway coming in?” Mercer asked.

  “Yes, the Long Island Railroad is building a link that will land even deeper. Sixteen stories down, not ready till 2019.”

  “But digging right now?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So there are men down there, connected to this terminal?”

  “Every day. Hundreds of men working on that. It will enable another eighty thousand folks to come through here, from Long Island, without them having to go to Penn Station like they do now,” Ledger said. Penn Station was Amtrak’s facility on the west side.

  “So when trains ‘terminate’ here,” I said, “how does that work? Where do they go if they don’t just pass through to the next stop, like all the other stations?”

  Ledger told us. “They’re backed out onto another track, which takes them to a wheelhouse, where they turn around, make a complete loop underneath the terminal, and then get set up for the trip out.”

  “And a wheelhouse is . . . ?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. The trains pull out and go around—used to be called a ‘roundhouse’—on a circular track underneath the building, and come back facing north again, for the next ride.”

  Mike’s eyes were scanning the room, now staring up at the zodiac figures on the celestial ceiling, until he shifted his gaze to the many-storied arched windows that stretched for the length of a football field above the concourse.

  “Talk access up there,” he said. “What’s all that glass?”

  I took several steps back to lean against the information counter and look up.

  “Windows, Detective.”

  “I know that, Don. But there’s a helluva lot of them.”

  “When the terminal was built, there was only one way to ventilate it. Fresh air.”

  “You mean that those things open and close?”

  On either end of the concourse, east and west, were three gigantic windows, hundreds of feet overhead. I don’t think I had ever seen bays of windows as large as these.

  “Had to be that way a hundred years ago. Light didn’t come from anywhere else but the street. It was the primitive days of electricity, so lighting the terminal was a daunting task. Not a bad place to hide up top, if you don’t get vertigo.”

  “Hide? It’s all glass.”

  “A bit of an illusion, Detective Chapman. Those are actually catwalks up there. Glass boxes, if you will.”

  I strained to see what Ledger was talking about.

  “So there’s one layer of glass, the windows that open over Lexington Avenue, many flights up, of course. Then there’s actually a walkway, made entirely of glass brick, which runs across the entire width of the building. Look down through it and you’d think you’re about to fall twenty stories to the terminal floor.”

  I got queasy even listening to the description.

  “But nowhere to hide,” I said, squinting to look up at the glass panes.

  “You’d be wrong about that,” Ledger said. “The second long pane of glass faces the interior, over the concourse. Those windows open, too. So natural air flowed through, as well as a great amount of light. But see those pillars in between each of the arched windows?”

  The pillars extended from the top of the staircases on either end of the building up to the arch where the vaulted ceiling rose over the concourse.

  “Sure,” Mercer said.

  “The catwalks go clear from one side of the building to the other. Easy to hide a small posse behind those pillars. Give you a bird’s-eye view of the entire floor, if your stomach doesn’t get butterflies from standing up there.”

  “Butterflies?” Mike asked.

  “Standing on a piece of glass in the sky? I never liked it much. One of the architects walked me through ages ago. I got kind of nervous midway out when I made the mistake of looking down. ‘Form following function,’ he kept saying, to move me along. ‘All done for a plan, Don. Air and light. Now just keep walking.’” Ledger imitated the man’s Southern accent, laughing at himself as he talked.

  “But what do they connect? Why are they there, and how would one get up inside them?”

  “Used to be several offices in the corners at the top, just beyond the windows. One end with desks for the station managers, another in which the engineers had a lounge. They could catch up on their sleep on cots. I don’t think anything up there is used much these days, since the big renovation. It’s too remote to be practical now.”

  “Getting there?” Mercer repeated.

  Ledger had to think. “You need a key, any way you look at it. That situation room you were all just in?”

  “The imaginary seventh floor, the one that’s twenty flights up,” Mike said. “Those dark, snaky hallways leading to it?”

  “Yes. You can climb down to the catwalks from the situation room. And there’s a stairwell that goes from landing to landing, but it’s kept locked on every level, too.”

  “Add it to tomorrow’s list,” Mike said.

  I took a few steps forward to turn around and look at the glass-enclosed, glass-bottomed catwalks on the other end of the terminal. A woman racing for a midevening train bumped against me hard and practically spun me around.

  “Watch where you’re going,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  Two suits carrying briefcases and walking briskly passed on either side of me. The automated lady on the loudspeaker reminded people to take all their belongings with them and not litter the terminal.

  “Those lightbulbs,” I said, holding on to Mercer’s arm as I looked upward again. “They’re all bare. There must be hundreds of them.”

  Where the celestial mural met the marble columns that held up the vaulted ceiling of the terminal, there was a string of bulbs that illuminated the entire circumference of the building.

  “Four thousand of them up there,” Ledger said.

  “But they’re bare. No shades, no covers.”

  “In 1913, gaslight was still the way most of this city was lit. The Vanderbilts were showing off, as well they could.”

  “They had just converted all their New York Central trains from steam to electricity,” Mike said, “and now they could make their grand terminal electric, too. Just leave the bulbs exposed. Was that the plan?”

  “Indeed it was.”

  “Somebody actually gets up there and changes them?” I asked.

  “Not a job I want any more than you do,” Ledger said. “What looks like a layer of crown molding beneath the bulbs, edging the marble columns? Well, you can’t see it from this angle, but it would hold all of us inside that molding. You can climb out into those pockets—they’re man-sized, all right—from the catwalk. Walk the length of the terminal. Unscrew every one of those bulbs and replace them when they burn out.”

  “I’ll pass,” I said.

  “Where are all those people going?” Mike asked.

  There had been a steady stream of walkers—not just businesspeople, but also teenagers and families with children, well-dressed travelers and scruffy-looking women and men—a typical cityscape in motion.

  “I told you,” Ledger said. “That’s the way to the subway. Grand Central Station, the IRT line.”

  Mike started off in that direction, to the southeast c
orner of the concourse, and we all followed behind him.

  “How many ways up from that subway platform, from the station to the terminal?”

  “A whole bunch of stairs, Detective. And elevators. Escalators from the lowest floors, too. Actually, the new LIRR feed is so deep it’s going to take passengers four minutes to get up to this level.”

  “And ramps,” Mike said. “This place is full of ramps. Can’t imagine anyone was thinking about handicapped people in 1913.”

  “They weren’t,” Ledger said. “These wide ramps were the genius of the original architects.”

  I was trying to keep up with Mercer’s long strides, but it seemed I was constantly bumping against someone who was in a greater hurry than I.

  “Think of it. A passenger gets off a train, whether a century ago, or today. It’s possible to get from the door of the railroad car to any level of the terminal—or to the street and even to a hotel or office building—without encountering a single step,” Ledger said. “It was ingenious for the period, and just as much so now.”

  I’d been in this building thousands of times and made my way up the graded ramps, some as wide as a boulevard, to get to 42nd Street from commuter trains, without ever giving a thought to their purpose.

  “This great terminal is all about movement,” Ledger said. “It was not only designed to be seen as a huge monument to the glory of commerce and transportation in its day, to be appreciated for its beauty—which it still is now—but also to be the most glorious example of moving people through spaces to their destination.”

  Mike had turned his head to listen to Ledger, colliding with a young man determined to catch up with his traveling companions. He picked up the lead again. A subway train must have just pulled in and disgorged its riders, who charged toward us from steps below.

  I felt as though we were minnows swimming upstream against a bigger pod of fish. Guys on their way home or to a second job or dinner or a club or a romantic assignation brushed against me from both sides.

  “Keep up, Coop. Your ass is dragging,” Mike called to me over his shoulder.

  “You want to know why I hate the subway? This is part of it. It’s not even rush hour and I feel like I’m caught in a whirlpool.”

  Mercer was cool with it. “Mike just wants to see how many exits there are. This would be the fastest way out of Midtown if someone was up to something bad in the terminal. You wait here. We’ll grab a look and be right back.”

  I stepped to the side and tried to catch my breath.

  I could still see the top of Mercer’s head over the line of emerging subway riders coming from the opposite direction. Corridors led off three ways, like forks in a road. A large newsstand obstructed my view, so I started to move to the side of it.

  From behind me I thought I heard someone call me. I knew Mike was several hundred feet in front of me, but I looked back to see who had said the word “Coop.”

  As soon as I swiveled around, the man who had spoken was on me, pressing my body against the cold marble wall under the archway leading to the IRT steps.

  He ripped off the do-rag that had been wrapped around his head and tried to grind his hips against mine, whispering to me as I pushed hard back at him. “Your time is almost here, Coop.”

  I kneed him in the groin as dozens of people passed us by, probably assuming a suitor was keeping a rendezvous with me in the terminal.

  I slapped him across the face, and he let go of me, laughing as he covered his forehead and eyes with the rag, and ran toward the same subway entrance that Mike, Mercer, and Don Ledger had gone to check.

  “Mercer!” I screamed as loud as I could. There was no one near me now. There wouldn’t be a crowd till the next train deposited its passengers. “Mercer! It’s Raymond Tanner. Stop the bastard, will you? It’s Raymond Tanner!”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “How would he know I’m in Grand Central Terminal? How could he possibly figure that out?”

  I was sitting at the counter of the Oyster Bar with Mike and Mercer almost an hour later. They were watching me drink a second Dewar’s on the rocks. The first one hadn’t touched me.

  “Rocco says there’s footage of us all over the six o’clock news,” Mike said, “rushing into the building when we got the call about the girl’s body.”

  He and Mercer had taken off after Tanner, leaving me with a stunned and silent Metro-North officer on the subway platform. They thought they had jumped on the same train with the fugitive and rode a few stops, walking through the cars to search for him. But he had somehow given them the slip. On their return, they retrieved me from a police sergeant’s room behind the row of ticket booths and walked me down the ramp to the Oyster Bar.

  “Why would anyone have news footage? It wasn’t a story then.”

  “Mike and I were running with gold shields in hand. That attracted some tourist’s attention.”

  “Forgot that.” They needed to identify themselves as detectives so they didn’t appear to be frantic citizens on a rampage, running into the terminal or any other building.

  “Some lady from New Zealand filmed it on her smartphone and sent it in when CNN ran the story of the dead body shortly after that. At least one of the local news anchors identified you using your name, fingering the link to a crime—a sexual assault or homicide—that had you as part of our team.”

  “And that brought the game out in Raymond Tanner,” I said, sloshing the ice cubes around in my glass. “Apparently my time is almost up.”

  “I could have told you that,” Mike said. “Could have wrapped myself in a turban like a—”

  “Don’t go there.”

  “Could have covered my head in a ninja mask so the facial recog software didn’t match me, either. Maybe I’d be more appealing to you, kid. Never thought of coming on to you in quite so public a place.”

  “Detective Wallace,” I said, lifting my glass toward Mercer while Mike inhaled his fifth or sixth Malpeque oyster, “would you please tell your good friend that there was nothing the least bit amusing about being molested by Raymond Tanner?”

  “You call that molested?” Mike asked. “Sounds like foreplay to me.”

  “You’re the guy who lays on ten years of foreplay and then freaks out after you kiss me once,” I said. “I don’t think you know the first thing about the subject.”

  “Okay now, blondie. You’re beginning to feel the glow of that cool amber Scotch. I love it when you get fired up.”

  “The man wants to kill me, Mike. Tanner’s a hideously dangerous rapist. An escaped felon, wanted for more violent crimes than I can remember.”

  “He’s jerking you around. You’ve got such a bad temper you rise to the bait too easy. He could have clubbed you with one of his lead pipes right here if that was his goal. Stuck a knife in your ribs. He prefers playing with you, kid. The cat tossing the mouse between his paws. He likes making it personal.”

  “Well, it works. I feel so disgusting right now. I just want to shower and get the touch of him off me, the smell of him out of my nostrils.”

  Too many women had told me too many times how violated they felt in the hands of an abuser. The idea that Raymond Tanner was stalking me—doubly ironic that the high visibility of the cases I handled made the task so easy for him—was chilling. He was skilled at evading capture, brazen enough to make his way into Grand Central just as it was about to be flooded with police.

  “Know what would help?” Mike said, pushing his plate toward me. “A bivalve. Pure protein.”

  “I’m too nervous to eat.”

  “You need to coat your stomach with something or that Scotch will bore clear through to your toenails, Coop.”

  “Who’s out on the street looking for Tanner?”

  “Everybody but us,” Mercer said. “And you need to slow down on the alcohol.”

  “So he creates a compl
ete diversion from the triple homicide, and I’m the patsy for it.”

  “Maybe not complete,” Mike said. “The A team stays focused on the triple. Scully can use minor leaguers to hunt for your lunatic.”

  “Thanks. Very gratifying. Minor leaguers on the hunt for my stalker. Maybe Scully can bring in some wannabes as well. Boy Scouts or Dora the Explorer.”

  “I just mean that the perv is making it easier for them to find him. Showing himself at the courthouse and following your every move in the media.”

  “You’d think some Good Samaritan would have noticed a madman pinning me to the wall.”

  “You’re only the center of your own universe, Coop. Must’ve looked like you were pleased the guy was jumping your bones. You are such the image of a broad running home to her blond, green-eyed peeps in some white-bread part of Connecticut, saying good-bye to the inner-city dude who’s got your number.”

  “Sick imagination, Mr. Chapman.”

  “Tanner’s breaking your concentration, Alex.” Mercer was also working his way through a dozen oysters while he tried to get me to chill. “We need your brain back in the case.”

  “It’s out to lunch.”

  “Stick on it, girl. I know that’s easy for me to say right now. We’ll find that fool,” Mercer said, reaching over and taking my hand off the drinking glass. “Vickee’s got the guest room all made up. I told Rocco we’d stop and pick up your toothbrush and some clothes for the morning, and I’d keep your mind off things overnight.”

  I looked at Mike. Why couldn’t I just stay at his place instead of being the third wheel at Mercer and Vickee’s comfortable home in Douglaston?

  “Maybe Mike could just—?”

  “Oh, no, kid. Can’t have you pawing at me all night. I’m twenty-four/seven into my work right now.”

  “And Logan will be out of his skull to wake up and see you in the morning,” Mercer said, tousling my hair.

  “Yeah, it’s not every four-year-old who has a full-on head case for his godmother,” Mike said. “Just don’t let him smell your breath when you give him a kiss. The fumes might kill him.”