by Mark Dawson
“Hey,” Charlie said.
Milton opened his eyes.
“You asleep?”
“Just resting my eyes,” he said.
“What’s your stop?”
“Euclid.”
“It’s next.”
Milton looked up as they flashed out of the blackness of the tunnel and into the artificial brightness of the subway station.
“You had a good time?”
“Better than that. Loved it. I’m very grateful.”
Charlie waved his gratitude away. “It was nothing.”
Milton reached out for the metal rail and pulled himself upright. “This is me.”
The train slowed down and then stopped.
“I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow night?”
Charlie offered his hand and Milton shook it.
“I’ll be there.”
He stepped down onto the platform. The chill enveloped him at once, a reminder of how cold it was and how much colder it promised to get. He did up his coat. The train pulled away and soon it had disappeared into the maw of the tunnel, leaving Milton to stare across the empty track to the lines of dirty beige tiles and the single word—EUCLID—repeated over and over.
He made his way to the stairs and trotted up to the mezzanine.
24
Freddy needed to use the restroom when he got off the train. He went to the mezzanine and followed the signs. The men’s room was inside a wooden door with a metal kick plate that had been dented and scratched by years of misuse. He pushed the door open and went inside.
The restroom had a line of five porcelain basins along the left-hand wall with a long horizontal mirror above them and then three urinals. On the opposite wall were five cubicles. The first cubicle was missing its door, the toilet in the second one was blocked—Freddy couldn’t get out of it quickly enough—and the floor in the third and fourth was covered in urine, and Freddy wasn’t about to walk in that in his new sneakers. The cubicle at the end was empty and reasonably clean. He went inside. The door was spring-loaded and it closed by itself. He put the football on the cistern, unzipped his pants and urinated.
His mind drifted back to his father. He was nervous about going home. His dad might be angry with him for going to the game alone, but Freddy knew he would be okay with anger; at least he would be able to talk to his father if he was angry. But his stomach lurched as he thought about the more likely scenario: that his father was drinking again. There had been many occasions over the course of the last year when Freddy had had to care for Manny after he had gotten drunk. He had done things that a child should not have had to do: undressed him and put him to bed; helped him go to the toilet; washed his soiled clothes; cleaned up the mess that always accompanied his worst excesses.
But lately his dad had been really trying, and things had gotten better—so much better. Freddy had been hoping that those bad days were over. He never wanted to go back to them, ever.
He zipped up, went to the basin, washed his hands and went to the door.
It opened suddenly, catching him on the shoulder.
A man barged inside. He looked Dominican, like him. He was big, wearing a Patriots jersey beneath a leather jacket, and his hair was long and unkempt, reaching down from underneath a bandana to beyond his collar. He looked unwell, and he stumbled past Freddy without apologising and made straight for the nearest basin, where he bent over, held on with both hands, ducked his head down between his arms and vomited. Freddy guessed that he was an addict; he had seen plenty of those in the house across the street from them. Rubbing his shoulder, he turned on his heel, slipped out the door, and made his way quickly to the exit.
The station was quiet save for two men who were paying their fares. The sight of the man at the basin had made him think unhappily of his father again, and he felt his forehead crease with anxiety. Freddy spared the men no attention as he pushed through the turnstile and made his way into the chill outside.
Carter and Shepard hurried into the station. González was ahead of them. Carter knew that they had to move quickly. The longer they waited, the more difficult it would be to get to him. If they let him get onto a busy train, it was going to be impossible to take him out without causing a fuss.
They watched as González diverted, crossing the space to a door marked “Men.”
“It’s our lucky day,” Shepard said quietly, inclining his head toward the turnstiles. “You see the booth? She’s asleep.”
“What about the cameras?”
“Not working.”
“Sure?” Carter asked.
“One hundred per cent.”
González shoved the door and went inside. Carter watched as a young boy in a Giants jersey came out. The boy rubbed his shoulder and turned to look back into the restroom with a look of annoyance on his face.
“Ready?” Shepard said.
The kid went by them.
“I’ll do it,” Carter said. “Stay on the door.”
He waited a moment, looked left and right, and then made his way across the mezzanine to the men’s room.
The restroom was filthy. González was bent over the basin, leaning heavily on his arms. Carter smelled the stink of his vomit. He reached down into his boot and took out the flick knife.
“What’s up, José?”
Startled, González looked up at him in the mirror. He looked away again, but not quickly enough to hide the fear in his eyes.
“Hey, Bobby,” he said. “Small world.”
“You okay? Looks like you’ve been sick. What’s up?”
González spat a mouthful of phlegm into the dirty basin. “Had fried chicken from Ramon’s place. Fucker never cooks that shit properly.”
“You sure that’s it?”
He smiled nervously. “Yeah. That’s it. Why you say that?”
“Don’t look like you’re pleased to see me.”
“Just surprised is all.”
“Where you going?”
“What? Now?”
“Yeah, José. Now.”
“Got girl problems. You know Hector’s woman? I been seeing her. She’s—”
Carter cut him off. “Don’t bullshit me,” he said with a grin.
“It’s true.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“What you mean?”
“I mean you’re a lying, traitorous piece of shit.”
Carter pressed the button on the shaft and the blade sprang out of the knife.
González straightened up, but, before he could move away from the basin, Carter moved in tight and drove the blade into his side. González gave a grunt of surprise and pain. He tried to back away, but he had nowhere to go. Carter stabbed him again, and then a third and fourth time. González stumbled and Carter slid in behind him, yanking back on his head to expose his neck. The blade sliced through González’s flesh, opening his throat from one ear to the other. Thick, dark blood spilled out.
González clutched at his neck, gurgling as his breath bubbled out through the gush of blood. He slumped to his knees, his eyes rolled back, and he fell sideways to the floor. Carter knelt down next to González and quickly frisked his body. He took out his wallet from the pocket of his jeans, moved to his leather jacket and found a small digital recorder. He wiped the wallet, put it back in the pocket again, and put the recorder into his pocket.
González’s breathing grew shallow and then stopped. His legs twitched once and then they, too, were still.
Carter stood up and stepped back, looking down at his hands: they were covered with blood. Stepping over González’s legs, he went to the second basin in the row, turned on the taps and rinsed the blood away as best as he could. He glanced in the mirror and saw that his jacket was stained, too. He took it off and folded it so that the blood was hidden.
Satisfied, he stepped over González one last time, opened the door, and went back outside.
“Done?” Shepard asked.
“Done. We clear?”
“No one
around. You find the recorder?”
Carter tapped his pocket and nodded. “We need to book,” he said.
25
Freddy was thirty seconds down the road before he realised.
The ball.
He had left it in the cubicle. He had been so worried about what he would find when he got home that he had clean forgotten about it. If someone else found it, they’d take it for sure. He turned around and retraced his steps, then broke into a jog. Catching that ball was the best thing that had happened to him for months, and he was damn sure he wasn’t going to lose it now. He hadn’t been away for long; the odds of someone getting to it first were slim, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
One of the gates was open. The woman in the booth had her eyes closed and might even have been asleep; he hurried through and headed for the men’s room, and then stopped in his tracks.
There was a man standing by the door to the bathroom. He was older, black, and wearing jeans and a heavy jacket. He had greying hair that was receding all the way to the back of his head, deep lines on his face and a beard that was flecked with white. Freddy was bad at judging age, but, if pressed, he would have guessed that the man was in his fifties. He recognised him from before: it was one of the men he had passed as he had left the station a few minutes ago. There was something weird about the way he was standing there, as if he was guarding the door. It made Freddy uneasy. He diverted to the map of the subway on the wall and pretended to study it.
A few moments later, he heard the squeak of the restroom door as it was opened and then a snatch of conversation, too quiet for him to make anything out. He heard footsteps on the tiled mezzanine floor and stood stock-still, as though he was concentrating on the map. The footsteps went by and he heard the turnstile as it rattled around.
Cautiously, Freddy turned away from the wall and looked back. There were two men: the black guy and a white guy. They had their backs to him. The white guy wasn’t wearing a jacket; it looked like he was carrying it under his arm.
Once they were out of sight, he turned and made his way over to the restroom. He put out a hand, swung the door open, and stepped inside.
Milton climbed up to the mezzanine. He saw the sign for the men’s room, crossed over to it and pushed the door open.
The first thing he saw was the body.
It was a man. He was big and well built, with light brown skin and black braids that fell out from beneath a bandana to snake around his head on the floor. He was wearing a leather jacket, a New England Patriots jersey, loose-fitting trousers and a pair of crocodile-skin cowboy boots, visible up to the ankle where the hem of his right trouser leg had ridden up. He had fallen over onto his right-hand side, resting on his arm as if he had just lain down for a nap.
The door was on a spring-loaded hinge; it bumped into Milton’s shoulder as it closed. He stepped farther into the room until he could take a better look at the body. The front of the jersey was sodden with blood. There were rips in the fabric—Milton counted ten without giving it a close inspection—and blood had run down and pooled over the floor, spreading out in thick rivulets that covered the grout between the tiles. Milton knelt down next to the body. His eyes were open, staring blankly ahead. There was an ugly gash that ran from one ear to the other, a line that opened his throat right across his larynx.
Milton thought quickly. Out of habit, he had scoped out the security at the station; the ticket clerk had seemed to be sleeping, and he didn’t believe that there were any cameras outside that would have recorded his presence. The mezzanine had been quiet, too, and he wouldn’t have made much of an impression upon anyone who had seen him. He looked down at the body again. The last thing that he wanted was to be involved with the police. He could just leave. That was an option. Someone else would discover the dead man. He could leave it to them.
But what if he was seen? How would he explain his behaviour? He wouldn’t be able to.
He would have to call it in.
He heard a sound from the direction of the cubicles.
He paused and listened.
He heard it again.
A quiet, half-strangled sob.
He felt the tingle of adrenaline as he turned back to face into the restroom.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
There were five cubicles. Save the first, each cubicle was shielded by a green wooden door.
The first cubicle was empty. He clenched his right hand into a fist and tried the second door, pushing it back with the fingertips of his left hand. That stall was empty, too.
He moved to the third and then the fourth.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
Still nothing.
He pushed the door to the last cubicle. It opened.
There was someone inside.
A young boy, crouching down on the floor to make himself as small as possible.
“Hey,” Milton said. “It’s okay. You don’t need to worry.”
He was wearing a Giants shirt, a pair of denim trousers and a pair of white sneakers. Milton doubted that he was any older than thirteen.
“Hey,” he said, putting out a hand. “It’s okay. Relax.”
The boy stood. He was clutching a football to his chest.
“Were you in here when…” Milton let the words drift off, their meaning still obvious.
The boy shook his head.
“What’s your name?”
He said nothing.
Milton put out his hand. “I’m John.”
The boy shrank away.
“Take it easy. I’m on your side.” Milton’s attention was drawn to the ball and the Giants jersey. He stood between the boy and the body, blocking as much of it from view as he could. “You just been to the game?”
The boy looked at him, his eyes wide with fear; Milton thought he saw a tiny inclining of his head.
“Me too. You a Giants fan?”
The boy nodded, more noticeably this time.
“What about the ball? Is that for real?”
“Yeah,” the boy said in a quiet voice. “OBJ threw it into the stand.”
“After he caught that bomb? And you caught it?”
He nodded.
Milton put out his hand again. “Like I said, I’m John. What’s your name?”
“Freddy,” he said quietly.
He reached out and tentatively took Milton’s hand.
“All right, Freddy. We need to get out of here, okay? There’s no need for you to look. You just close your eyes and I’ll guide you to the door and then we’ll be outside. Is that going to be okay with you?”
The boy swallowed and nodded.
“Come on, then.”
Milton gently pulled the boy by the hand to set him moving, making sure he stayed between him and the dead body in the event that he opened his eyes. Milton had seen dozens of dead men and women before, many of them in that state because he had, for one reason or another, been given their files and the order to terminate them. He was inured to the sight of death and blood, but he found—to his slight surprise—that he didn’t want the boy to have to look. He concentrated on guiding him to the door, opening it and then gently ushering him outside.
The restroom was unheated, but it was still several degrees colder as they stepped out onto the mezzanine. The ticket clerk was still dozing inside her booth, swaying gently back and forth with her eyes closed. Milton told the boy that he could open his eyes now and, still holding onto his hand, he led the way to the booth so that he could report what he had found.
26
Milton and the boy were shown through to a small office in the station where they were told to wait until the police arrived. The clerk—Milton saw from her name badge that she was called Felicia—evidently had no idea what she was supposed to do. She had gone into the restroom despite Milton’s insistence that she would be better to just call the cops and, when she emerged again, she looked as if she was going to be sick. Finding a dead body in your place of wo
rk was not, perhaps, something that she had been trained for.
“Felicia,” Milton said in a kindly voice, “do you know what to do?”
“I ain’t got no clue.”
“You need to call the police.”
“Yeah. The police. I’ll do it now.”
“Before you do, you need to make sure the body isn’t disturbed.”
“How do I do that?”
“Do you think you should close the station?”
“Close the station?” she exclaimed, as if that was the single most ludicrous thing that she had ever heard. “Are you crazy? I can’t close the station. They’ll fire my ass before my feet can touch the ground I go and do something like close the station.”
“Then maybe you could lock the restroom door? The police will be unhappy if anyone gets inside before they come.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Lock the door. That’s what I’ll do.”
Milton watched through the window in the office door as she went over and turned a key in the lock. She found a free-standing out-of-order sign and placed it on the floor in front of the door. She seemed pleased with this little flourish of individuality and, when she returned to the office, she bustled around with the self-importance of someone who has remembered that she was in a position of authority.
“Felicia,” Milton said, “could we get a warm drink for the boy? He’s had a shock.”
