The Blonde

5:20 a.m.

Kowalski made it up to the platform as the train doors started to close. He got hung up at the token booth. Two fucking dollars for a subway ride? The clerk, an obese man who probably needed to be forklifted into the booth, pointed him in the direction of a token machine across the station. Yeah. He had time for that. Kowalski slid the guy a ten, told him to keep the change, buy a Slim-Fast. Hopped the turnstile to save time.

The doors were closing.

He made it in.

Almost.

His left forearm was caught outside the doors.

The one holding the gym bag containing the head of Ed Hunter.

“Oh fuck me,” Kowalski said.

“Frankford train making all stops. Next stop Church Street.”

The train sped forward. If he didn’t find a way to pull his hand, along with the bag, into the car, it would smack against the metal gate at the end of the platform. The one that would be upon him in, oh, a matter of seconds. Probably snap his forearm in half. Maybe not sever it completely. No matter what, it was going to hurt. But even worse, he’d lose Ed. He hadn’t carried him all night just to leave him on the platform of an elevated train.

The train accelerated.

“Fuck me” Kowalski said again.

And he wasn’t the kind of guy to say “Fuck me” lightly.

Kowalski threw the bag up in the air, aiming for the top of the train, toward the back. His other wrist cried out in agony. This might have been spur-of-the-moment rationalization, but Kowalski thought he recognized these cars. He’d ridden them in Korea once, years ago. For all he knew, Philadelphia might have bought them used from Korea, then refurbished them—or not.

Point was, the cooling and heating system at the top had a generous space right in the middle of the housing. Enough to catch a decapitated head in a gym bag like a softball in a leather glove.

Kowalski knew this because he had once been forced to ride on top of a Korean subway car. Years ago. Ah, the glory days.

Then again, he might have been rationalizing. He was no subway car expert. Maybe this was a completely different model.

At the last possible second, Kowalski pulled his left hand through the doors, feeling the rubber guards burn his skin. The gate whizzed by. Then he steadied himself and scanned the windows, looking for a bag tumbling down the side of the car and hitting the steel tracks. Awaiting an El train racing in the opposite direction to burst it open like a balloon full of gray cottage cheese.