Terminal City

TWENTY-SEVEN

Don Ledger was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. He had undone his necktie and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt. Not only was he terribly overheated, but he also had a chronic heart condition and was experiencing palpitations.

I was crouched in front of him, wiping his brow with Mercer’s handkerchief. His distress had put my own concerns in perspective.

“We’ll be fine, Mr. Ledger. It’s just the heat and the lack of fresh air. The guys will have you out of here in no time.”

“Water,” he said. “Do any of you have water?”

“We didn’t bring any, sir. Would there be any around?”

“I don’t know. I-I haven’t been down here in months.”

Mike and Mercer had taken turns manipulating the doorknob and trying to dislodge it, but something was holding it in place.

Cell phones were useless. M42 was too far underground and encased in solid steel foundations to get any service. The cords to the receivers of the two in-house phones that were attached to the wall near the exit had been sliced and rendered useless.

“How long till someone misses you, Mr. Ledger?” I asked.

“Nobody misses old men like me. They’ll think I’ve wandered off to cool down in some bigwig’s air-conditioned office.”

Mike was jogging away from me, down the long row of machinery. I assumed he was looking for something he could use as a battering ram, or some other way to contact the world above us.

“Are you okay if I leave you for a couple of minutes?” I asked Ledger.

He held one of his hands out to me. “Do what you have to do, young lady.”

I gripped it tightly and forced a big smile. “Somebody must have to oil one of these converters every now and then. We just need to breathe deep.”

I stood up and watched for a few seconds as he put his hand on his chest, as though to measure his own heartbeats. Then I walked to the next aisle of supersized devices and got out of sight of Ledger before starting to trot in pursuit of Mike.

He heard me coming and turned around to wait. “How’s Ledger?”

“Scared more than anything, I think. He’s anxious and very dry, and he’s mostly feeling guilty that he led us into this desolate basement.”

“There’s a secretary up there, in the office next to his. I’m hoping she starts missing him soon.”

“Then I suppose I should be grateful you flirted with her.”

Mike wiped his forehead with the back of his hand before running his fingers through it. “A little bit long in the tooth for me, but she liked the blarney. I got there before Ledger got in. She clearly has a soft spot for him.”

“Are we screwed here?”

“D’you see the size of this place, Coop? It’s not like we’re going to run out of oxygen.”

“But-”

“I’m just going up and down the aisles to see what’s around. I’m not expecting anything lethal,” Mike said, holding on to my elbow as though to steady me. “Look, I know you’re claustrophobic, and I wish-”

“I feel like I’ve been sealed into one of the pyramids,” I said, trying to make light of the situation.

“You picked a place that might actually hold all of your worldly goods, babe. Smart move. You can stack all your boxes of shoes over in that corner. And if you play your cards right, you could go across the River Styx after a three-way with Mercer and me.”

“My dream come true, Detective Chapman. Till then what do we do?”

“You’re doing it. Keep Ledger preoccupied,” Mike said, turning away from me, “and see whether Mercer needs anything.”

I started back toward the door. Mercer was pounding his large fist against it from time to time and yelling at the top of his lungs every minute or so. I didn’t think there would be anyone or anything out there to hear him, except for a passing track rabbit.

I took my position again next to Don Ledger. I started to tell him stories about adventures that Mercer, Mike, and I had been through together-lighter ones than murder-and how they had always managed to get me out in one piece.

Almost ten minutes elapsed before Mike shouted to me from the farthest corner of the room.

“Hold your calls, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.”

“I’ll be right back, Mr. Ledger. Mike must have found something.”

I sprinted in the direction of Mike’s voice and saw him kneeling at the end of the first row of antique converters. As I got closer to him, I noticed a dark blanket spread out on the floor. Mike pulled a pair of vinyl gloves out of his pocket and put them on.

“Looks like we’ve got a nester,” he said.

The blanket was doubled over to create a makeshift sleeping bag.

“I can’t imagine anyone getting in here.”

“We have a Houdini on our hands, Coop,” Mike said, lifting a corner of the blanket with two fingers. “He got a steamer trunk packed to the gills with a body in and out of the Waldorf, probably knows these tunnels better than the rats, worked his way onto a private varnish to murder another vic, and knows as much about M42 as Nazi saboteurs. That should limit the cast of characters.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What?”

“The piece of paper under the edge of the blanket, Mike. See it sticking out from underneath?”

He reached for the small gray card that almost blended in with the concrete flooring. He flipped it over and we could both see the photograph of the dead girl on Big Timber.

“Shit,” Mike said. “Lydia Tsarlev. Nineteen years old. Student ID from Westchester Community College.”

It was becoming harder to breathe by the minute.

“These assholes really like their souvenirs, don’t they?” He got to his feet and put his arm around my shoulder, staring at the picture as we headed back to Mercer. “They really like their trophies from a kill.”