Cemetery Dance

Chapter 45

D'Agosta and Pendergaststood on the corner of 214th Street and Seaman Avenue, watching the progress of the march. D'Agosta was surprised at the minuscule turnout — he estimated a hundred people, maybe less. Harry Chislett, the deputy chief for this district, had shown up and then, when he saw the size of the crowd, had left. It was proving an orderly affair, sedate, placid, almost somnolent. No angry shouting, no pressing against the police barricades, no rocks or bottles flying out of nowhere.

"Looks like an ad for the L.L. Bean catalog," said D'Agosta, squinting through the sunlight of the crisp fall day.

Pendergast was leaning against a lamppost, arms folded. "L.L. Bean? I'm not familiar with that brand."

The marchers flowed around the corner at West 214th Street, heading toward Inwood Hill Park, waving placards and chanting in unison. Leading the fray was Alexander Esteban, bandage still on his forehead, along with another man.

"Who's the guy holding hands with Esteban?" D'Agosta asked.

"Richard Plock," Pendergast replied. "Executive director of Humans for Other Animals."

D'Agosta looked curiously at the man. Plock was young, no more than thirty, soft, white, and overweight. He walked with determination, his short legs earnestly pumping, toes pointed outward, his plump arms swinging, the hands flapping at the apex of each swing, his face set with determination. Even in a short — sleeved shirt in the chill fall air, he was sweating. Where Esteban had charisma, Plock seemed to have none. And yet there was an aura about him of solemn belief that impressed D'Agosta: here was clearly a man with an unshakable faith in the rightness of his cause.

Behind the two leaders came a line of people holding up a huge banner:

Everyone seemed to have his own agenda. There were many signs accusing the Ville of murdering Smithback and Kidd. Beyond that, the protesters were all over the map: vegetarians, the anti — fur and anti — drug — testing crowd, religious extremists protesting voodoo and zombiis, even a scattering of anti — war protesters, meat is murder, read one sign; friend not food, fur is dead, animal torture is not spiritual. Some held up blown — up photographs of Smithback and Kidd, side by side, with the caption murdered underneath.

D'Agosta looked away from the blurry photographs. It was getting on toward one pm. His stomach growled. "Not much happening here."

Pendergast did not reply, his silvery eyes scanning the crowd.

"Lunch?"

"I suggest we wait."

"Nothing's going to happen — these people don't want to wrinkle their button — down pinpoint oxfords."

Pendergast gazed at the passing crowd. "I would prefer to remain here at least until the speechifying is over."

Pendergast never seems to eat, thought D'Agosta. In fact, he couldn't remember a single time when they had shared a meal outside of the Riverside Drive mansion. Why did he even bother to ask?

"Let's follow the crowd to Indian Road," said Pendergast.

This isn't a crowd, D'Agosta thought.It's a damn Sunday gathering. He followed Pendergast down the sidewalk, feeling disgruntled. The "crowd" was beginning to gather in the field at the edge of the baseball diamonds, along the road to the Ville. So far, all according to permit. The police hung back, watching, the riot gear, pepper spray, and batons already stowed back inside the vans. Of the two dozen squad cars originally dispatched, more than half had already left the scene to return to their normal patrols.

As the group milled about, chanting and waving their placards, Plock climbed onto the baseball bleachers. Esteban stepped up and positioned himself behind him, hands folded respectfully across his chest, listening.

"Friends and other animals!" Plock cried. "Welcome!" He used no megaphone, but his strident, high — pitched voice carried all too well.

A hush fell on the crowd, the ragged chanting dying away. This crowd of yuppies and Upper West Siders, D'Agosta thought, was no more likely to riot than the ladies at a Colonial Dames tea. What he really needed right now was a cup of coffee and a bacon cheese — burger.

"My name is Rich Plock, executive director of the organization Humans for Other Animals. It is my honor and privilege to present to you our organization's chief spokesman. Please give a warm welcome to Alexander Esteban!"

This seemed to rouse the crowd somewhat, and as Esteban stepped to the top of the bleachers the clapping and chanting intensified. Esteban smiled, looking this way and that over the small crowd, letting the noise continue for a minute or two. At last, he put out his hands for quiet.

"My friends," he said, his deep rich voice the polar opposite of Plock's, "instead of giving a speech, I want to try something different. Call it a cognitive exercise, if you will."

There was a shuffling of the crowd, a ripple of feeling that they were here to protest, not listen to a lecture.

D'Agosta smirked. "Cognitive exercise. Look out, here comes the riot."

"I want all of you, every one of you, to close your eyes. Take yourself out of your human body for a moment."

A silence.

"And put yourself into the body of a little lamb."

More shuffling.

"You were born in the spring on a farm in upstate New York — green fields, sun, fresh grass. For the first weeks of life, you're with your mother, you're free, you're snuggled in the protective embrace of your flock. Every day you gambol about the fields, following your mother and siblings, and every night you're led back to the safe enclosure of the barn. You're happy, because you are living the life God meant you to live. That is the very definition of happiness. There is no fear. No terror. No pain. You don't even know that such things exist."

"Then one day a diesel truck arrives — huge, noisy, foreign. You are roughly separated from your mother. It is a terrifying, almost inconceivable, experience. You're driven with prods into the back of the truck. The door slams. Inside, it stinks of dung and fear. It is dark. The truck lurches off with a roar. Can you try — try with me now — to imagine the terror that helpless, tiny animal feels?"

Esteban paused, looking around. The crowd had gone silent.

"You bleat pitifully for your mother, but she doesn't come. You call and call, but she is not there. She won't come. In fact… she will never come again."

Another pause.

"After a black journey, the truck stops. All the lambs are taken off the truck — except for you. Becoming a rack of lamb is not your fate. No, something far worse is in store."

"The truck drives on. Now you are completely alone. You collapse in terror, in the dark. The loneliness is overwhelming; it is, in a very real sense,biological. A lamb separated from the flock is a dead lamb — always. And you feel it, you feel a terror more powerful than death itself."

"The truck stops again. A man climbs in, wraps a stinking, blood — encrusted chain around your neck. You are dragged out, into a dark, dark place. It is a church, at least of a kind — but of course you do not know this. It is crowded with humans, and it stinks. You can hardly see in the gloom. The people crowd around, chanting and beating drums. Strange faces loom out of the darkness. There are calls, hissing, rattles shaken in your face, the stomping of feet. Your terror knows no bounds."

"You are led to a post and chained to it. The pounding of drums, the stamping of feet, the closeness of the dead air — all these surround you. You bleat out in terror, still calling for your mother. For this is the one thing you still have: hope. Hope that your mother will come and take you from this place."

"A shape approaches. It is a man, a tall, ugly man in a mask, holding something long and bright in his hand. He comes at you. You try to escape, but the chain around your neck chokes you as you try to flee. The man grabs you and throws you to the ground, pins you on your back. The chanting grows faster, louder. You squeal and struggle. The man seizes your head by the fur and yanks it back, exposing the delicate underside of your neck. The bright shiny thing gets closer, flashes in the dim light. You feel it pressing against your throat…"

He paused again, letting a silence build. "I'm going to ask you all again to close your eyes and make a sustained effort to put yourselves into the body of this helpless lamb."

More silence.

"The shiny thing is pressing against your throat. There is a sudden movement, a horrifying flash of pain — pain that you never even knew existed in the world. Your breath is suddenly choked off by a flood of hot blood. Your small, gentle mind cannot begin to fathom the cruelty of this. You try to make one last pitiful cry for your mother, for your lost flock — those sunny green fields of your childhood — you cry for your dead brothers and sisters… But nothing comes. Only a gurgle of air through blood. And now your life rushes out over the dung — encrusted floor, into the dirty hay. And the final thought in your mind isn't hatred, isn't anger, isn't even fear. It is simply: Why? "

"And then — mercifully — it is over."

He stopped. The crowd was deathly silent. Even D'Agosta felt a lump in his throat. It was maudlin, it was mawkish, but damn if it wasn't affecting.

Without speaking — adding no commentary of his own to Esteban's speech, no call to action — Rich Plock stepped down and began walking across the field with that same determined walk. The crowd hesitated, watching Plock walk away. Esteban himself seemed taken by surprise, not quite sure what Plock was doing.

Then the crowd began to move, following Plock. The short man cut across the field and reached the road to the Ville. He turned and headed down it, accelerating his determined pace.

"Uh — oh," said D'Agosta.

"To the Ville!" cried a voice in the now surging crowd.

"To the Ville! To the Ville!" came the response, already louder, more urgent.

The murmuring in the crowd became a rumble that became a roar. "To the Ville! Confront the killers!"

D'Agosta suddenly looked about. The cops were still half asleep. Nobody expected this. In a split second, it seemed, the crowd had become electrified and was in determined motion. Small or not, this group meant business.

"To the Ville!"

"Evict the Ville!"

"Avenge Smithback!"

D'Agosta unholstered his radio, tuned it. "This is Lieutenant D'Agosta. Wake up, people, get your asses in gear! The protest is not authorized to approach the Ville."

But the crowd continued to move — like the tide, not quickly, but inexorably — down the road. And now Esteban, a look of alarm on his face, belatedly joined the moving crowd, pushing his way through, trying to get to the front.

"Confront the murderers!"

"If they reach the Ville," D'Agosta shouted into the radio, "the shit's really going to hit the fan. There'll be violence!"

There was a burst of talk on the radio as the diminished knot of police belatedly tried to equip their riot gear, to move into position and stop the crowd. D'Agosta could see that they were too few and too late — they had been caught completely off guard. A hundred or a hundred thousand, it didn't matter — he could see blood in these people's eyes. Esteban's speech had roused them in a way nothing else could have. The group was streaming past the baseball diamonds onto the Ville road, moving faster now, blocking any possibility of police cruisers getting ahead of the march.

"Vincent, follow me." Pendergast set off at a swift pace, cutting across the baseball diamonds toward the trees. D'Agosta immediately saw his plan — to take a shortcut through the woods and get ahead of the mob moving down the road.

"Pity that someone took down the gate to the Ville… eh, Vincent?"

"Don't give me shit, Pendergast — not now." D'Agosta could hear, at some distance, the chanting of the group, the shouting and yelling as they marched down the road.

Within moments they emerged onto the road a little ahead of the crowd. The chain — link fence was to their left, the gate still down. The crowd was moving at a rapid clip, the front ranks almost jogging, Plock leading the way. Esteban was nowhere to be seen. The crowd control cops had fallen far behind and there was no way to get ahead of the mob in a squad car. The press, on the other hand, were keeping up nicely, half a dozen running alongside with handheld video cameras, accompanied by still photographers and print journalists. This disaster was going to be all over the news that night.

"Looks like it's up to us," D'Agosta said. He took a deep breath, then stepped into the road and pulled out his shield, Pendergast beside him.

He turned to face the crowd, led by Plock. It was unnerving, like staring down a herd of charging bulls. "Folks!" he said in his loudest voice. "I'm Lieutenant D'Agosta, NYPD! You are not authorized to proceed!"

The crowd kept coming. "To the Ville!"

"Mr. Plock, don't do this! It's illegal and, believe me, you will be arrested!"

"Evict them!"

"Get the hell out of the way!"

"Step past me and you're under arrest!" He grabbed Plock and, though the man put up no resistance, the gesture was hopeless. The rest came like the tide, sweeping toward him, and he couldn't arrest a hundred people single — handedly.

"Stand your ground," Pendergast said beside him.

D'Agosta gritted his teeth.

As if by magic, Esteban appeared beside them. "My friends!" he cried, stepping out to face the approaching crowd. "My fellow sympathizers!"

At this, the advancing front faltered, slowed.

"To the Ville!"

In a surprise move, Esteban turned and embraced Plock, then turned to face the crowd again, holding up his hands. "No!My friends, your bravery touches me deeply — deeply! But I beg you: do not proceed! " He suddenly dropped his voice, speaking privately to Plock. "Rich, I need your help. This is premature — you know it is."

Plock looked at Esteban, frowning. Seeing this apparent disagreement between the leaders, the front line of marchers began to falter.

"Thank you for your big hearts!" Esteban cried out again to the crowd. "Thank you! But please — listen to me. There is a time and place for everything. Rich and I agree: now isnot the time and place to confront the Ville! Do you understand? We've made our point, we've demonstrated our resolve. We've shown the public face of our just anger! We've shamed the bureaucrats and put the politicians on notice! We've done what we came to do! But no violence. Please,no violence! "

Plock remained silent, his face darkening.

"We came to stop the killings, not to talk!" shouted a voice.

"And we are going to stop these killings!" Esteban said. "I ask you, what will confrontation accomplish? Don't kid yourselves, those people will meet us with violent resistance. They might be armed. Are you prepared? There are so few of us! My friends, the time is soon coming when these animal torturers will be evicted, these murderers of lambs and calves — not to mention journalists — will be scattered to the four winds! But not now — not yet!"

He paused. The sudden, listening silence was remarkable.

"My fellow creatures," Esteban continued, "you have demonstrated the courage of your convictions. Now we will turn around and march back to our gathering point. There we will talk, we will make speeches, and we will show the entire city what is happening here! We will bring justice — even to those who show none themselves!"

The crowd seemed to be waiting for Plock to affirm Esteban. At long last, Plock raised his hands in a slow, almost unwilling gesture. "Our point is made!" he said. "Let us go back — for now!"

The press crowded forward, the evening news cameras running, boomed mikes swinging about, but Esteban waved them off. D'Agosta watched amazed as — at Esteban's urging — the mob reversed direction, flowing back up the road, slowly subsiding into the same peaceable group as before, some even picking up signs that had been discarded along the way during their blitzkrieg toward the Ville. The transformation was shocking, almost awe inspiring. D'Agosta looked on with astonishment. Esteban had fired up the crowd and put it in motion — and then, at the last possible moment, he had thrown cold water on it.

"What's with this guy, Esteban?" he asked. "You think he chickened out at the last minute, got cold feet?"

"No," murmured Pendergast, his eyes fixed on Esteban's retreating back. "It is very curious," he said, almost to himself, "that our friend eats meat. Lamb, in point of fact."