The Manhattan Hunt Club

CHAPTER 22

Keith and Heather spent the entire morning downtown, moving from one public building to another, showing their identification and passing through the metal detectors so often that the process had become automatic. Everywhere they went, they met the same response- or, more accurately, the same lack of response.

To the city bureaucracy, it was as if the homeless problem had simply been solved. "Oh, there are still a few of them," they were told over and over again by blandly pleasant faces-both male and female-who sat behind bulletproof screens designed to keep them safe from the public they were employed to serve. "It's the strong economy, you know- anyone who wants to work can find a job. There just aren't as many as there used to be."

Or they heard: "The tunnels under the city? Are you nuts? You'd have to be crazy to live down there! I mean, there's no light, or water, or anything, is there?"

Eventually they gave up, grabbed hot dogs from one of the kiosks between the Municipal Building and Police Headquarters, then went down into the subway to head uptown.

"You know, they're right," Heather said as she glanced around the platform where they waited for a train. There was one person softly strumming a guitar, its case open in front of him, but everyone else seemed to have somewhere to go, something to do. "There really aren't as many of them as there used to be-a few years ago there were panhandlers everywhere. You couldn't get away from them."

A train rolled into the station, and they stepped into a half-empty car. As they sank down onto a bench, Keith said, "I think maybe I owe you an apology."

Heather's brows rose. "Me? Why?"

"Well, you know I wasn't too crazy about Jeff going out with you-"

"We weren't just going out," Heather cut in. "We were going to get married."

Keith sighed. "And it didn't matter what I thought, did it?"

Heather shook her head. "We'd made up our minds."

"Well, as it turns out, I guess Jeff was right, and I was wrong." His face flushed. "I guess that's what I wanted to apologize for-I thought you were just a spoiled rich girl. I even thought you might have been using Jeff as a way to piss off your father-a little rebellion before you settled down with a Park Avenue lawyer named Skip. But that's not it at all, is it?"

For the first time since Jeff had disappeared, Heather found herself smiling. "Daddy'd hate to hear you say that. To hear that maybe he failed after all the years of trying to spoil me…" She almost laughed, but her smile faded as she remembered where they were going, and why. "What if we don't find him?" she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

Keith had no answer. The silence that fell over them wasn't broken until they emerged from the subway at Sherman Square and started west on Seventy-second toward the Hudson. The wind off the river put a snap in the air, and Heather buttoned up her light Burberry trench coat as they crossed West End Avenue. A quarter of a block farther they came to the foot of Riverside Drive. Directly ahead lay the entrance to the West Side Highway, and beyond the end of the ramp was the highway itself, a rush of traffic streaming in both directions. To the south lay one end of the huge new Trump development that stretched for nearly a mile along the river. To the north, Riverside Park stretched away into the distance, a belt of green that ran two and a half miles up to 125th Street.

"She said she'd be south of the marina," Heather said, ignoring the light and crossing Riverside Drive. "Come on."

Keith followed her into the park. She took them along a path that wound under the West Side Highway, and as they emerged at the top of a steep incline falling away to the river, Keith's eye caught some movement on the railroad tracks that he could glimpse to the south. There were several pairs of them, running under the highway and the park, only partially visible through the columns that supported the highway that covered them. Though there was a tall fence separating the tracks from the narrow strip of parkland between them and the river, the concrete wall behind the tracks was covered with graffiti.

"Those are the tracks from Penn Station," Heather told him. Two shabbily dressed men who were sitting at the base of one of the columns looked up at them. "And those must be two of the people who live in the tunnels." As if in confirmation, the two men lurched to their feet and walked along the tracks toward the mouth of the tunnel. Just before they disappeared from view, one of the men raised his left hand and extended its middle finger.

The gesture was enough to tell them how they could expect to be received by the locals.

They went down a steep ramp to the right. Halfway down Heather paused and pointed to a small tent that had been pitched on a level patch no more than fifteen feet off the path, separated from it by a metal railing. In front of the tent was a rickety-looking table holding a Coleman stove and a chipped enamel dishpan.

A woman clad in a long, mud-stained skirt and a much-mended man's flannel shirt was carefully sweeping the dirt in front of the tent.

Keith felt embarrassed even to watch her attempt at housekeeping. The woman looked up as they passed, but when Heather smiled at her, she quickly turned away, pretending not to have seen them.

Fifty or so yards ahead they saw Eve Harris. She was sitting on a bench, talking to a woman wearing a paisley skirt, a purple blouse, and a tattered Navy pea jacket. As Keith and Heather approached, the councilwoman rose to her feet, but the woman with her eyed them suspiciously. "These are the people I was telling you about," Eve said to her, reaching out to take Heather's hand and draw her forward. "Heather Randall and Keith Converse. And this," she went on, turning to her companion, "is my good friend, Tillie." She glanced at her watch. "I've told Tillie what you want to talk to her about, and she says she'll listen. But there's no guarantee she can help you. Understood?"

"Understood," Keith agreed.

Apparently satisfied, Eve Harris leaned down, gave Tillie a hug, and kissed her on the cheek. "You take care of yourself now, hear?"

Tillie made a shooing gesture. "Don't you worry ‘bout me," she said. "I been taking care of myself more years than I can count." But despite the gruffness of her words, she smiled, exposing a mouthful of ruined teeth. "You stay out of trouble, okay?"

"Don't worry about me," Eve assured her. "I can take care of myself as well as you can take care of yourself."

"Well, if that's the best you can do, you're in trouble. Now get on out of here and let me tend to these two." Tillie's smile vanished along with Eve Harris, and when she turned to survey Keith and Heather once again, her eyes were filled with suspicion. "She said you're lookin‘ for someone. Who?"

"My son," Keith said, sitting down on the bench beside her. "His name is Jeff Converse."

Tillie pursed her lips, then shook her head. "What makes you think he's in the tunnels?"

"A man named Al Kelly told me," Keith replied. "He saw him going in with a man called Scratch."

Tillie shook her head again. "I don't think so," she said. "No, I don't think I know a thing about either of them."

A girl wearing jeans and a flannel shirt appeared at Tillie's side. She eyed Keith and Heather closely. "They messin‘ with you, Tillie?"

Tillie shook her head. "It's okay-they're just looking for someone." She reached deep into an inside pocket of her pea jacket, and when her hand came back out, it was filled with money. She shoved it at the girl. "You take Robby shopping after school, okay? Get him what he needs so the other kids leave him alone." The girl took the money, peered at Keith and Heather one more time, then started away. "Jinx?" Tillie called out. The girl stopped and looked back. "You bring receipts, and change. And they better match, too." Rolling her eyes, Jinx darted away, and Tillie heaved herself to her feet. "Better be gettin‘."

"But we just-" Heather began, but Tillie didn't let her finish.

"I told you everything I got to say. Miz Harris wanted me to talk to you, and I did. If I was you, I'd go on back to wherever you came from. There's things people like you don't know nothin‘ about, and never will. That's just the way it is." She turned away and started down the path.

As Heather watched her go, the faint hope that had been flickering inside her for the last few hours was almost extinguished. But when she turned to face Keith, his eyes were alive with excitement. "She knows something," he said, his voice low and intense. "She knows something, but she won't tell us."

"Why shouldn't she tell us?" Heather protested. "If she knows-"

"She's like the rest of them," Keith replied. "The men on the tracks and the woman in the tent. Didn't you hear her?

She said ‘people like you.' That's what it's all about-they won't talk to us because we're not like them."

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Heather asked.

"You don't do anything," Keith said. "But I get a change of address."

Pushing her wire shopping cart, Tillie walked slowly along the paths of Riverside Park. She wasn't in a hurry-hadn't ever been in a hurry, really. Except when she was young. She'd been in a hurry then. Too much of a hurry. She was going to be an actress, and she'd come to New York when she was eighteen, right out of high school. She got a job as a waitress and started going to auditions, but nobody gave her more than a walk-on. But she kept trying, always certain that in just another year she'd finally get her break. At first it had been fun-she had friends who wanted to be actors and actresses, too, and some of them had actually gotten jobs. One of them was on a soap opera now-in fact, Tillie still saw him sometimes when he and his friends from the show ate picnic lunches in the park. Of course, she never spoke to him, and he'd never recognized her, and that was all right.

The trouble had started thirty years ago, when she was twenty-five. It hadn't seemed like trouble back then: all she'd done was fall in love with a man-not just dated him, but really fallen in love with him.

But he was married, and even though he kept promising to leave his wife, it seemed that every month he had another excuse why he couldn't. He made it up to her in other ways. He paid her rent, and gave her money every week-enough so she could quit her job as a waitress.

She still went to auditions, but most of the time she stayed at home, in case Tony called her or came over.

She stayed at home, and she drank.

Vodka, mostly, because it didn't taste like anything and Tony couldn't smell it on her breath. After a while she didn't go out much at all, and her other friends stopped calling her. But she had Tony, so it didn't matter.

Then one day Tony didn't call her, and when he didn't call her the next day, either, she called him. She must have called a hundred times, but his secretary wouldn't ever let her talk to Tony, so she started calling him at home.

After a while his wife had their phone number changed. That was when Tillie started hanging out in front of the building where he worked, waiting for him to come out. He kept telling her he didn't want to see her anymore, but she knew that wasn't true-that couldn't be true, because he'd always said they were going to get married someday.

When Tony's wife-her name was Angela-made Tony stop paying Tillie's rent and giving her money, Tillie went to see her. She was only going to talk to her, explain how Tony really loved her, not Angela. She only took the knife along to scare Angela with, but the more she talked to Angela, the madder she got, and when the police came, there was blood all over Tony's apartment, and the furniture was all torn up, and Angela claimed it was Tillie's fault.

Angela wasn't hurt-Tillie was bleeding even more than she was, and crying like it was the end of the world, so they'd sent her to a hospital for a while. When they let her out, she didn't have any place to stay, but it was the middle of summer, so that night she slept in Central Park.

The next day she stayed in the park and started talking to people. Pretty soon she made friends-even more friends than she'd had before Tony-and they taught her how to get along without much money. When winter came, she and her friends moved into Grand Central Station. At first Tillie thought she'd get another job, go back to waitressing or something, but as the months passed, she never quite got around to it, and finally she stopped thinking about it. Somewhere along the line-it didn't really matter when-she moved from Grand Central into the tunnels themselves, and the longer she lived under the city, the more she liked it. Of course, she still liked coming to the surface, but it didn't feel safe anymore; the city had changed so much in thirty years. When she was out on a day like today, she tried not to get too far away from her friends. Besides, today she had business to attend to, and as she shuffled along through the park, she kept an eye out for familiar faces.

When she came to Liz Hodges's tent, she left the shopping cart parked on the path, stooped to pass under the railing, and picked her way down to the level area that Liz always kept perfectly swept. Liz, always nervous, nearly jumped out of her skin when Tillie spoke a greeting. "Nobody but me," Tillie added quickly, and Liz's fluttering hand dropped from her throat to her skirt. She could barely meet Tillie's eye as she offered her a cup of coffee.

"I'm almost out, but Burt said he'd bring me some tomorrow."

"No thanks," Tillie replied, knowing that Burt, Liz's husband, wouldn't be likely to bring her anything, since he'd died three years ago. She dug into the inside pocket of her coat and pulled out some more of the money Eve Harris had given her. "Maybe this'll help you out," she said. Almost as an afterthought, she dug into another pocket and pulled out one of the handbills Jinx had brought home the other night. "Better keep an eye out for these two. If you see ‘em, just tell any of the fellas. I don't expect they'll get this far though."

Liz nervously took the flyer and studied the two faces, then quickly handed the sheet of paper back to Tillie. "I don't know," she fretted. "I'll try, but you know me-when Burt's not here, I get frightened of my own shadow."

Tillie took the paper back, knowing that if she left it, Liz would worry for an hour over how she was going to get rid of it. She wouldn't dare set it down on her table, for fear that it would blow onto the ground, and she wouldn't be able to put it in her tent, either. Liz had a thing about any kind of litter at all, and having the flyer around her tiny campsite would drive her even crazier than she already was. "Well, don't you worry about it, Liz," Tillie said, automatically reaching out to give the other woman a reassuring squeeze on the arm. When Liz shied away from the contact, Tillie made her way back up to the path. As she retrieved her shopping cart, she saw Liz already busily sweeping away the footprints Tillie had left on the dirt around her tent. "Crazy," Tillie muttered, shaking her head sadly as she shuffled away.

Leaving the park, she headed over to Broadway. She recognized half a dozen people hanging around the subway entrance. Eddie was playing his clarinet, its case open at his feet. Tillie added twenty dollars to it and tucked one of the flyers in his pocket. Eddie winked at her but never missed a note, and Tillie moved on.

Blind Jimmy-whose eyesight was no worse than Tillie's- was just coming across the street, tapping along with his cane and clutching the arm of someone Tillie had never seen before. She moved her cart close to the curb, parking it next to a trash barrel, and listened as Jimmy ran his spiel: "I could sure use a cup of coffee, and maybe a Danish. I think there's a Starbucks in the next block. If you could just-"

But the mark-a man of about thirty, wearing a suit-was already walking away, and a second later Blind Jimmy was casting about for the next possibility. This time it was a woman of around forty, wearing a khaki trench coat. Blind Jimmy sidled up to her. "Is this Seventy-second Street?" he asked. Tillie couldn't hear the woman's response, but a second later she heard Jimmy's voice again. "If you could just help me get across, I'd sure be obliged." This time Jimmy had better luck-the woman gave him a dollar before going on her way. Blind Jimmy didn't wait for the light to turn green, but darted back across the street, which told Tillie he'd cadged enough money for a trip to the liquor store. He spotted her before he got to the sidewalk, and veered toward her. "Hey, Till? What's happenin‘?"

"Hunt," Tillie said. She stuffed one of the flyers into Blind Jimmy's hand, along with a couple of bills.

"Ain't never seen one of ‘em yet," Jimmy replied.

"Well, just keep your eye out."

"Always do," Jimmy cackled. "Al… ways… do!"

For the next two hours, Tillie walked down Broadway, giving a little money and one of the flyers to everyone she knew, and when the flyers were gone, she started back home. Most of the money Eve Harris had given her was still in her pocket, and she would dole it out slowly, making certain it did the most good. For the next week her family would eat well. The baby would have what it needed, and Robby would have new school clothes. A lot of other people in the tunnels would benefit, too; she would make sure of that.

Wherever she left some of the money, she left the flyer, too.

If this hunt was like the rest of them, it wouldn't last more than a night or two.

Three at the most.

That was the longest anyone had ever survived.

"What's that?" Jagger asked.

They were walking along railroad tracks, and though Jeff couldn't say why, he was almost certain they were moving south. He'd started counting his steps, too, so he was fairly sure they were about three-quarters of a mile from Tillie's place. They'd taken the first passage they'd come to that led away from Tillie's area and had enough light so they could see. A little while later they'd come to the tunnel they were in now, which had to be a railroad tunnel rather than one of the subways, since it had no third rail. It had been dead quiet, except for their own footsteps and the sound of their breathing.

Now, though, a faint rumbling could be heard.

A rumbling that got louder as they paused to listen.

"Train," Jeff said. He glanced around, searching for a way out of the tunnel, but there was none. In both directions the track simply stretched endlessly away, and there wasn't even a catwalk along the walls. He searched his memory, trying to remember the last time he'd seen one of the alcoves that were sunk into the walls at regular intervals.

Two hundred yards?

Three hundred?

The rumble grew louder. Far in the distance he thought he could make out a dim glow.

Jagger had seen it, too, and as the rumble grew into a roar and the glow began to brighten, he turned and started back the way they'd come.

"No!" Jeff shouted. "The other way! We have to go toward it!"

Jagger hesitated, turning back. "Are you nuts? We don't know what's up there!"

"I haven't seen an alcove for a while, so there should be one not too far ahead." The roar kept building, and then the glow began lighting up the wall to their right. Just before the engine swung so its headlight was aimed directly at them, he thought he saw what he was looking for. "Come on!" he yelled, starting to run into the stream of white light pouring out of the halogen headlight. He hurtled himself directly at the onrushing train, the roar so loud now that he couldn't hear if Jagger responded, and he couldn't risk looking back for fear of tripping over one of the ties. Though he was almost certain it had to be an illusion, the train seemed to be coming even faster now. He tried to keep his eyes on the ground ahead of him, tried to keep his stride perfectly controlled. His instincts screamed at him to run as fast as he could, to use every ounce of his energy to escape the oncoming juggernaut, but he didn't dare. If he increased his stride even a couple of inches, he'd miss one of the ties, lose his footing, and sprawl onto the tracks.

Where was the alcove? What if he'd already passed it?

He had to look up, had to search for it.

The roar was deafening now, and he could feel the floor of the tunnel trembling under the weight of the locomotive. Shielding his eyes with his right hand, he glanced up.

There! Just a few more strides ahead-

And then, as he dropped his hand to his side, his eyes met the oncoming beam of brilliant light and everything around him washed away in a tide of white. Rendered blind, he missed his stride, and a second later the fear of a moment ago became reality as his toe caught on one of the ties. He threw his hands out to break his fall, scraping them across rough wood, then into sharp gravel. His face hit next, and he felt a burning sensation as the skin of his cheek was torn away.

He tried to regain his feet, but with his eyes still blinded by the stab of light, he stumbled and started to fall again.

Stupid!

How could he have been so stupid? He should have gone the other way, followed Jagger. He might have been wrong about how far back the last alcove was. Maybe it hadn't been two hundred yards at all.

But it didn't matter, because the train was almost on him now. Its horn blared and the high-pitched scream of metal ripping against metal pierced his ears as the engineer tried to brake.

Then, just as he was about to go down, he felt something grab him from behind. He was lifted off his feet and almost hurled off the tracks, landing directly in the alcove he'd been trying to reach. A moment later he was crushed against its back wall as Jagger, too, pressed inside. His wind knocked out by Jagger smashing into him, he struggled to breathe as the train-its horn still blaring but its brakes now released- roared by.

By the time Jeff finally caught his breath, it was over. The last of the cars rattled past, and the roar of the locomotive, already muffled by the length of the train, began to fade away. The light on the end of the last car diminished quickly and then was gone.

Still pressed against him, Jagger finally spoke. "You okay?"

Jeff managed to nod, and the big man stepped back enough to give him some room, but not so much that he would fall if his legs failed to support him. Jagger's hands remained on Jeff's shoulders, and Jeff slowly tested his body. His legs seemed to be okay, though his right knee hurt so badly he was amazed that he had no memory of it slamming into something as he fell. The palms of both hands were stinging, and his right cheek was burning badly where he'd scraped the skin from it. But he was alive, and the rumble of the train was quickly dwindling away. "I'm all right," he managed to say. Jagger stepped back out onto the tracks. Jeff followed, his legs trembling so badly he had to steady himself against the tunnel's wall. "I thought you went the other way," he said, his voice shaking almost as badly as his legs.

"I was gonna, but I figured maybe you knew what you were talkin‘ about," Jagger replied. "Looks like maybe if I hadn't…" His voice trailed off, but Jeff knew exactly what his next words would have been.

"I owe you," he said. "Big time."

In the deep gloom of the tunnel, Jagger grinned. "So figure out how to get us out of here, college boy," he said. "You do that, we'll call it even." He glanced in the direction from which the train had come, then back the way it had gone. "Any idea which way we should go?"

Jeff nodded. "I think so. But first tell me if I'm right that before it hit the brakes, that train was speeding up."

Jagger frowned, then nodded. "So what?"

"If we both thought it was speeding up, that means it was coming from one of the stations, right?"

Jagger shrugged. "I guess."

"Don't most of the trains leave the city heading north?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Jagger growled.

Jeff ignored the question. "Because if they do, then at least we know which way we're going." He pointed in the direction the train had gone. Its rumble had almost completely faded away. "If that train was heading out, that way's gotta be north. Pretty soon it'll be running along the river. The tracks come out around Seventy-second Street-we might just be able to walk right out of this tunnel."

They headed in the direction Jeff thought was north, and this time he took careful note of how many paces he took before they came to the next alcove.

One hundred eighty-four.

"I never would've made it," Jagger said softly, and Jeff realized that both of them had been trying to measure the distance. "I guess maybe I owe you one, too."

They kept walking, moving steadily, until they came to the cross passage they'd used earlier.

Neither of them were tempted to turn into it.

A few hundred yards later, Jagger grabbed hold of Jeff's shoulder. "Holy shit," he breathed. "Would you look at that?"

For a second Jeff didn't trust his vision-it had to be a hallucination. But as they took a few more steps, he realized it wasn't a trick of his eye.

There was light ahead.

Daylight.