Reliquary

= 6 =

IN THE SMOKY recesses of the Cat’s Paw bar, Smithback wedged himself into a narrow telephone booth. Balancing his drink in one hand and squinting at the buttons in the dim light, he dialed the number of his office, wondering how many messages would be waiting for him this time.

Smithback never doubted that he was one of the greatest journalists in New York. Probably the greatest. A year and a half ago, he’d brought the story of the Museum Beast to the world. And not in the usual dickless, detached way: He’d been there with D’Agosta and the others, struggling in the dark on that April night. On the strength of the book which quickly followed, he’d secured this position as Post crime correspondent. Now the Wisher thing had come along, and none too soon, either. Big stories were rarer than he could have guessed, and there were always others—like that stain-on-the-wall Bryce Harriman, crime reporter for the Times—out to scoop him. But if he played it right, this could be as big as the Mbwun story had been. Maybe bigger.

A great journalist, he mused as he listened to the phone ring, adapts himself to the options offered him. Take the Wisher story. He had been totally unprepared for the mother. She’d been impressive. Smithback found himself embarrassed and deeply moved. Fired by those unfamiliar emotions, he’d written a new article for that morning’s edition, labeling Pamela Wisher the Angel of Central Park South and painting her death in tragic colors. But the real stroke of genius had been the $100,000 reward for information leading to the murderer. The idea had come to him in the middle of writing the story; he had carried the half-written piece and his reward idea straight into the office of the Post’s new editor, Arnold Murray. The man had loved it, authorizing it on the spot without even bothering to check with the publisher.

Ginny, the pool secretary, came on the line excitedly. Twenty phone calls about the reward, all of them bogus.

“That’s it?” Smithback asked, crestfallen.

“Well, there was, like, this really weird visitor for you,” the secretary gushed. She was short and skinny, lived in Ronkonkoma, and had a crush on Smithback.

“Yeah?”

“He was dressed in rags and he smelled. God, I could hardly breathe. And he was, like, high or something.”

Maybe it’s a hot tip, Smithback thought excitedly. “What did he want?”

“He said he had information about the Wisher murder. He asked you to meet him in the Penn Station men’s room—”

Smithback almost dropped his drink. “The men’s room? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“That’s what he said. You think he’s a pervert?” She spoke with undisguised relish.

“Which men’s room?”

He heard papers shuffling. “I’ve got it right here. North end, lower level, just to the left of the track 12 escalator. At eight o’clock tonight.”

“What information, exactly?”

“That was all he said.”

“Thanks.” He hung up and checked his watch: seven forty-five. The men’s room in Penn Station? I’d have to be crazy or desperate, he thought, to follow up a lead like that.

Smithback had never been inside a men’s room at Penn Station before. Nobody he knew would ever go in one, either. As he opened the door into a vast, hot room, suffocating with the stench of urine and old diarrhea, he thought that, in fact, he’d rather piss his pants than use a Penn Station men’s room.

He was five minutes late. Probably the guy’s gone already, Smithback thought gratefully. Assuming he’d ever been here in the first place. He was just about to duck back outside when he heard a gravelly voice.

“William Smithback?”

“What?” Smithback looked around quickly, scanning the deserted men’s room. Then he saw two legs descend in the farthest stall. The door opened. A small, skinny man stepped out and walked up to him unsteadily, his long face grimy, his clothes dark with grease and dirt, his hair matted and knotted into alarming shapes. A beard of indescribable color descended to twin points near his belly button, which was exposed through a long ragged tear in his shirt.

“William Smithback?” the man repeated, peering at him through filmy eyes.

“Who else?”

Without another word, the man turned and moved back toward the rear of the men’s room. He stopped at the open last stall, then turned, waiting.

“You have some information for me?” Smithback asked.

“Come with me.” He gestured back toward the stall.

“No way,” said Smithback. “If you want to talk, we can talk out here, but I’m not going in there with you, pal.”

The man gestured again. “But this is the way to go.”

“Go where?”

“Down.”

Cautiously, Smithback approached the stall. The man had stepped inside and was standing behind the toilet, prying back a large piece of painted sheet metal that, Smithback now saw, covered a ragged hole in the dirty tile wall.

“In there?” Smithback asked.

The man nodded.

“Where does it go?”

“Down,” the man repeated.

“Forget it,” said Smithback. He started to back away.

The man held his gaze. “I’m supposed to bring you to Mephisto,” he said. “He has to talk to you about the murder of that girl. He knows important things.”

“Give me a break.”

The man continued to stare at him. “You can trust me,” he said simply.

Somehow, despite the filth and the drugged eyes, Smithback found himself believing the man. “What things?”

“You have to talk to Mephisto.”

“Who’s this Mephisto?”

“He’s our leader.” The man shrugged as if no other information was necessary.

“Our?”

The man nodded. “The Route 666 community.”

Despite his uncertainty, Smithback felt a tingle of excitement. An organized community underground? That would make good copy all by itself. And if this Mephisto really knew something about the Wisher murder… “Where exactly is this Route 666 community?” he asked.

“Can’t tell you. But I’ll show you the way.”

“And your name?” he asked.

“They call me Tail Gunner,” the man said, a small gleam of pride flaring in his eyes.

“Look,” said Smithback. “I’d follow you, but you can’t expect me to just crawl into a hole like this. I could get ambushed, mugged, anything.”

The man shook his head vehemently. “I’ll protect you. Everyone knows I’m Mephisto’s chief runner. You’ll be safe.”

Smithback stared at the man: rheumy eyes, running nose, dirty wizard’s beard. He had come all the way to the offices of the Post. That was a lot of trouble for a guy who looked both broke and homeless.

Then the image of Bryce Harriman’s smug face filled his mind. He imagined Bryce’s editor at the Times, asking him again how come that hack Smithback had gotten the story first.

He liked that image.

The man known as Tail Gunner held back the large piece of tin while Smithback clambered through. Once they were both inside he carefully maneuvered it back into place, propping it closed with some loose bricks.

Looking around, Smithback found himself in a long, narrow tunnel. Water and steam pipes ran overhead like thick gray veins. The ceiling was low, but not so low that a man as tall as Smithback couldn’t stand upright. Evening light filtered in through ceiling grates spaced at hundred yard intervals.

The reporter followed the stooped, low figure, moving ahead of him in the dim light. Once in a while the rumble of a nearby train would fill the dank space; Smithback could feel the sound more in his bones than his ears.

They began walking northward along what seemed to be an endless tunnel. After ten or fifteen minutes, Smithback began to feel a nagging worry. “Excuse me,” he said, “but why the long walk?”

“Mephisto keeps the nearest entrances to our community secret.”

Smithback nodded, making a wide detour around the swollen body of a dead dog. It wasn’t surprising these tunnel dwellers were a little paranoid, but this was getting ridiculous. They’d walked far enough north to be under Central Park.

Soon, the tunnel began to curve gently to the right. Smithback could make out a series of steel doors set into the thick concrete wall. Overhead a large pipe ran, water dripping from its padded covering. A sign on the padding read DANGER: CONTAINS ASBESTOS FIBERS. AVOID CREATING DUST. CANCER AND LUNG DISEASE HAZARD. Stopping and digging one hand into his rags, Tail Gunner extracted a key and placed it in the lock of the closest door.

“How’d you get that key?” Smithback asked.

“We have many skills in our community,” the man replied, pulling open the door and ushering the journalist through.

As the door shut behind Smithback, the blackness of night rushed forward to meet him. Realizing how much he’d instinctively relied on the dim light that had filtered down from the grates, Smithback had a sudden feeling of panic.

“Don’t you have a flashlight?” he stammered.

There was a scratching sound, then the flaring of a wooden match. In the flickering illumination, Smithback saw a series of cement steps leading downward as far as the matchlight penetrated.

Tail Gunner snapped his wrist and the match went out.

“Satisfied?” came the dull, monotonic voice.

“No,” Smithback replied quickly. “Light another.”

“When it is necessary.”

Smithback felt his way down the staircase, his hands spread on the cool slick walls for balance. They descended for what seemed an eternity. Suddenly, another match flared, and Smithback saw that the stairs ended in an enormous railroad tunnel, its silver tracks gleaming dully in the orange light.

“Where are we now?” Smithback asked.

“Track 100,” the man said. “Two levels down.”

“Are we there yet?”

The match flickered out, and darkness descended again.

“Follow me,” came the voice. “When I say stop, you stop. Immediately.”

They ventured onto the tracks. Smithback found himself fighting down panic once again as he stumbled over the iron rails.

“Stop,” came the voice. Smithback halted as another match flared. “See that?” Tail Gunner said, pointing to a gleaming bar of metal with a bright yellow line painted next to it. “That’s a third rail. It’s electrified. Don’t step on it.”

The match died out. Smithback heard the man take a few steps in the close, humid darkness.

“Light another!” he cried.

A match flared. Smithback took a broad step over the third rail.

“Are there any more of those?” he asked, pointing to the rail.

“Yes,” the little man said. “I’ll show you.”

“Jesus,” said Smithback as the match died. “What happens if you step on one?”

“The current explodes your body, blows off your arms, legs, and head,” the disembodied voice said. There was a pause. “It’s always better not to step on it.”

A match flared again, illuminating another yellow-painted rail. Smithback stepped gingerly over it, then watched as Tail Gunner pointed to a small hole in the far wall about two feet high and four across, chiseled out of the bottom of an old archway that had been bricked up with cinder block.

“We go down here,” Tail Gunner said.

Smithback could feel a hot draft coming up from below, tinged with a foul odor that made his gorge rise. Interwoven with the stench Smithback thought he caught, for a moment, the smell of wood smoke.

“Down?” he asked in disbelief, turning his face away. “Again? What, you mean slide in there on my belly?”

But his companion was already wriggling his way through.

“No way,” Smithback called out, squatting down near the hole. “Listen, I’m not going down there. If this Mephisto wants to talk, he has to come up here.”

There was a silence, and then Tail Gunner’s voice echoed out of the gloom on the far side of the cinder block. “Mephisto never comes higher than level three.”

“He’s gonna have to make an exception, then.” Smithback tried to sound more confident than he felt. He realized that he had put himself into an impossible situation, relying totally on this bizarre, unstable man. It was pitch black again, and he had no way of finding his way back.

There was a long silence.

“You still with me?” Smithback asked.

“Wait there,” the voice demanded suddenly.

“You’re leaving? Give me some matches,” Smithback pleaded. Something poked him in the knee and he cried out in surprise. It was Tail Gunner’s grimy hand, holding something out to him through the hole.

“Is that all?” Smithback asked, counting the three matches by touch.

“All I can spare,” came the voice, faint now and moving away. There were some more words, but Smithback could not make them out.

Silence descended. Smithback leaned back against the wall, afraid to sit down, clutching the matches tightly in one hand. He cursed himself for being foolish enough to follow the man down here. No story is worth this, he thought. Could he get back with only three matches? He shut his eyes and concentrated, trying to remember every twist and turn that had brought him here. Eventually, he gave up: the three matches would barely get him across those electrified rails.

When his knees began to protest he rose from the squatting position. He stared into the lightless tunnel, eyes wide, ears straining. It was so utterly black that he began to imagine things in the dark: movement, shapes. He remained still, trying to breathe calmly, as an infinity of time passed. This was insane. If only he—

“Scriblerian!” a ghostly, incorporeal voice sounded from the hole at his feet.

“What?” Smithback yelped, spinning around.

“I am addressing William Smithback, scriblerian, am I not?” The voice was cracked and low, a sinister sing-song rising from the depths beneath him.

“Yes, yes, I’m Smithback. Bill Smithback. Who are you?” he called, unsettled at speaking to this disembodied voice out of the darkness.

“Mephisto,”came the voice, drawing the s of the name into a fierce hiss.”

“What took you so long?” Smithback replied nervously, stooping down again toward the hole in the cinder block.

“It is a long way up.”

Smithback paused a minute, contemplating how this man—now standing somewhere below his feet—had needed to travel several levels up to reach this place. “Are you coming up?” he asked.

“No! You should feel honored, scriblerian. This is as close as I have been to the surface in five years.”

“Why is that?” Smithback asked, groping in the darkness for the microcassette recorder.

“Because this is my domain. I am lord of all you survey.”

“But I don’t see anything.”

A dry chuckle rose from the hole in the cinder block. “Wrong! You see blackness. And blackness is my domain. Above your head the trains rumble past, the surface dwellers scurry on their pointless errands. But the territory below Central Park—Route 666, the Ho Chi Minh trail, the Blockhouse—is mine.”

Smithback thought for a moment. The ironic place-name of Route 666 made sense. But the others confused him. “The Ho Chi Minh trail,” he echoed. “What’s that?”

“A community, like the rest,” hissed the voice. “Joined now with mine, for protection. Once upon a time, we knew the trail well. Many of us here fought in that cynical struggle against an innocent backward nation. And were ostracized for it. Now we live our lives down here in self-imposed exile, breathing, mating, dying. Our greatest wish is to be left alone.”

Smithback fingered the tape recorder again, hoping it was catching everything. He’d heard of the occasional vagrant retreating to subway tunnels for shelter, but an entire population… “So all your citizens are homeless people?” he asked.

There was a pause. “We do not like that word, scriblerian. We have a home, and were you not so timid, I could show it to you. We have everything we need. The pipes provide water for cooking and hygiene, the cables provide electricity. What few things we require from the surface, our runners supply. In the Blockhouse, we even have a nurse and a schoolteacher. Other underground spaces, like the West Side railyards, are untamed, dangerous. But here, we live in dignity.”

“Schoolteacher? You mean there are children down here?”

“You are naive. Many are here because they have children, and the evil state machine is trying to take them away and put them in foster care. They choose my world of warmth and darkness over your world of despair, scriblerian.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

The dry chuckle rose again from the hole in the cinder block. “That is you, is it not? William Smithback, scriblerian?”

“Yes, but—”

“For a journalist, you are ill read. Study Pope’s The Dunciad before we speak again.”

It began to dawn on Smithback that there was more to this person than he had originally supposed. “Who are you, really?” he asked. “I mean, what’s your real name?”

There was another silence. “I left that, along with everything else, upstairs,” the disembodied voice hissed. “Now I am Mephisto. Never ask me, or anyone, that question again.”

Smithback swallowed. “Sorry,” he said.

Mephisto seemed to have grown angry. His tone became sharper, cutting through the darkness. “You were brought here for a reason.”

“The Wisher murder?” asked Smithback eagerly.

“Your articles have described her, and the other corpse, as being headless. I am here to tell you that being headless is the least of it.” His voice broke into a rasping, mirthless laugh.

“What do you mean?” Smithback asked. “You know who did it?”

“They are the same that have been preying on my people,” Mephisto hissed. “The Wrinklers.”

“Wrinklers?” Smithback said. “I don’t understand—”

“Then be silent and mark me, scriblerian! I have said my community is a safe haven. And so it has always been, until one year ago. Now, we are under attack. Those who venture beyond the safe areas disappear or are murdered. Murdered in the most horrific ways. Our people have grown afraid. My runners have tried time and again to bring this matter to the police. The police!” There was an angry spitting sound, then the voice rose in pitch. “The corrupt watchdogs of a society grown morally bankrupt. To them, we are filth to be beaten and rousted. Our lives mean nothing! How many of our people have died or disappeared? Fat Boy, Hector, Dark Annie, Master Sergeant, others. But one shiny thing in silks gets her head torn off, and the entire city grows enraged!”

Smithback licked his lips. He was beginning to wonder just what information this Mephisto had. “What do you mean exactly, under attack?” he asked.

There was a silence. “From outside,” came the whispered answer at last.

“Outside?” Smithback asked. “What do you mean? Outside, meaning out here?” He looked around the blackness wildly.

“No. Outside Route 666. Outside the Blockhouse,” came the answer. “There is another place. A shunned place. Twelve months ago, rumors began to emerge, rumors that this place had become occupied. Then the killings began. Our people began disappearing. At first, we sent out search parties. Most of the victims were never found. But those we did find had their flesh eaten, their heads ripped from their bodies.”

“Wait a minute,” Smithback said. “Their flesh eaten? You mean there is a group of cannibals down here, murdering people and stealing their heads?” Perhaps Mephisto was nuts, after all. Once again, Smithback began to wonder how he would return to the surface.

“I do not appreciate the doubting tone in your voice, scriblerian,” Mephisto replied. “That is exactly what I mean. Tail Gunner?”

“Yes?” said a voice in Smithback’s ear. The journalist jumped to one side, neighing in surprise and fright.

“How did he get back here?” Smithback gasped.

“There are many ways through my kingdom,” came the voice of Mephisto. “And living here, in lovely darkness, our night vision becomes acute.”

Smithback swallowed. “Look,” he said, “it isn’t that I don’t believe you. I just—”

“Be silent!” Mephisto warned. “We have spoken long enough. Tail Gunner, return him to the surface.”

“But what about the reward?” Smithback asked, surprised. “Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

“Have you heard nothing I told you?” came the hiss. “Your money is useless to me. It is the safety of my people I care about. Return to your world, write your article. Tell those on the surface what I have told you. Tell them that whatever killed Pamela Wisher is also killing my people. And the killings must stop.” The disembodied voice seemed farther away now, echoing through the dark corridors beneath Smithback’s feet. “Otherwise,” he added with a fearful intensity, “we will find other ways to make our voices heard.”

“But I need—” Smithback began.

A hand closed around his elbow. “Mephisto has gone,” came the voice of Tail Gunner beside him. “I’ll take you topside.”