The Chemistry of Death

Chapter 19

Joe turned on the fire in his parlor. The electric flames were artificial, but warm all the same. Their orange glow fell on Victorian-era bookcases full of leather-bound books, an antique Persian rug, and a happy dog. Edison turned in a circle before lying down close to the fireplace.

“You’re hogging all the heat,” Joe told him.

Edison thumped his tail once (cyan) as if in apology, but didn’t move.

Joe petted the dog’s shoulder and sank into a nearby leather wingback chair. He was exhausted. He’d spent a good part of his day trying to convince the police to step up patrols in the A line tunnel based on the ten (cyan, black) deaths. They hadn’t believed him and had said it was too much money and time to commit to a rich boy’s hunch. They hadn’t said it in so many words, but he’d got the message.

That meant he had to come up with a high-tech solution of his own. He’d decided to hack all surveillance cameras on the A line and run their footage through an app that would detect when someone left the platform and send him an alarm. He’d know right away if anyone entered the tunnels. Then he could call up the appropriate footage and see if the intruder was someone who had a reason to be there, like a track worker, or someone who might need help, like a beautiful blonde and a companion with evil intentions. If so, he’d send help right away. Hopefully, he could save her life and catch the man responsible for the murdered women. Not as good as regular patrols, perhaps, but better than nothing.

He’d already pulled the footage, so it was a matter of defining the areas that would trigger alarms. Since he’d done similar work at Pellucid, he had tools he could use to streamline the process and chunks of code he could reuse.

He was hard at work when a bell chimed in his front hall. That particular bell rang when the elevator moved. Someone had called the elevator up to the Grand Central concourse.

Edison lifted his head and looked at Joe as if trying to assess how worried he should be. Joe wasn’t sure either. Legally, only a few people had access to the elevator — Joe himself, Celeste and Leandro Gallo because they owned the house, and guests who could be put on a list for temporary access. He knew all those guests. That list included only his mother, Mr. Rossi the lawyer, Vivian, Marnie, and Maeve.

Joe blamed himself for not securing the lever when he arrived in the elevator. He usually pulled the lever out and used a small weight to hold it down so no one could call the elevator up again. He’d been distracted by creating his application to protect the A line and must have forgotten to set the lever.

He carried his laptop out into the hall so he could be ready if someone unexpected came out of the elevator. He took the flashlight out of his backpack. He was reminded that he’d never actually used its Taser function before.

“Do you think this Taser even works?” he asked Edison.

Edison fixed his brown eyes on the fancy front door. The door had stained glass panes — lovely to look at, but a security disadvantage. Holding his breath, Joe studied footage from the camera pointed at the elevator.

Whatever happened, he wasn’t going to run. This was his home, and he would defend it. Still, he pulled out his cell phone, ready to call Vivian for backup. He might want to defend his house, but he didn’t have to go all Wild West solitary gunfighter about it.

The doors slid open, and a short figure emerged. She wore pants with black-and-brown vertical stripes and a tight black T-shirt. A long necklace with a heart covered in tiny gears hung from her neck. Her kelly-green hair fell in locks to her shoulders. Maeve.

Joe blew out his breath with a whoosh and put the Taser back in his backpack. Then he closed the laptop, set it on the coat stand, and went out to meet her.

“Hello, the house!” She waved a black-clad arm at him and hurried over.

Joe smiled at her greeting and opened the door.

“I came down to check on my handiwork,” she said.

That’s right, she came every Saturday. In all the excitement, he’d forgotten.

She knelt at the edge of the garden then ran the back of her hand across the plants with a tender, almost erotic, gesture. Her sleeves rode up, and a delicate white wrist flashed into view. A dragonfly was tattooed on the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. It looked so realistic that he wanted to touch it to see if it would fly away.

His cell phone rang. He’d put it into his pants pocket in case he needed to make a call. Leandro’s tanned face appeared on screen. Behind him a gang of bodies undulated to loud Calypso music.

“Hey, Leandro. Looks like Florida suits you,” Joe said. “Are we still on for Monday?”

“Monday?” Leandro asked.

“For your brain scan.” Joe was always working to recruit control brains for his projects.

Maeve laughed. “No brain shall be left unscanned?”

Joe grinned at her. “Exactly.”

“Save yourself!” Maeve stood and dusted off her hands. “The mad scientist runs amok!”

“Where are you?” Leandro asked. “And who is that in the background?”

“It’s Maeve, and I’m in my new garden.” Joe spun in a slow circle, letting the phone’s camera display her handiwork to Leandro. “Isn’t it amazing?”

“It looks like Disneyland.” Leandro sounded horrified.

“Happiest place on Earth,” Maeve called.

“For the mouse maybe,” Leandro said.

Maeve extended her middle finger at the phone and went to the box that determined the amount of water dispensed to his plants. She was forever tinkering with it.

Joe wasn’t sure what to say. He’d expected Leandro to be happy with the improvements he’d made. He was bringing life to the house and the tunnels. How could Leandro be angry about that?

“That stuff isn’t damaging the floor, is it?” Leandro asked.

“The floor can be returned to its former state of bleakness in a matter of days.” Joe took him off speaker phone to spare Maeve’s feelings.

As if she guessed his intentions, she gave Joe a thumbs-up before heading back toward the elevator. She’d only met Leandro once, but had taken a violent dislike to him, and clearly didn’t want to be part of the conversation.

Edison dropped his tail and leaned against Joe’s leg. Joe stroked his head. “She’ll be back next week. No worries, buddy.”

“I’m worried.” Leandro maneuvered away from a dancer who might have been topless, but she was gone before Joe could be sure.

“Worried about what?”

“Celeste.”

Joe’s heart sped up. “Is she getting worse?”

“She’s not getting better.” Leandro had found a quiet corner and leaned against dark blue wallpaper.

“Can I see her? I can get out.” If drugging himself and being transported unconscious counted as getting out.

“Why don’t you rent the apartment under Celeste’s? It’s open.” Leandro took a long drink of something that looked like a mojito but Joe couldn’t be sure because the image was too pixelated.

Celeste’s apartment wasn’t connected to the steam tunnels. If he moved there, he’d be trapped in the apartment building. He’d have to be dragged around like a corpse to leave. Not a long term solution. Edison bumped his knee. “I don’t think that’ll help.”

“Leave your stupid hole in the ground.” Leandro rolled his eyes. “Don’t dress it up. It’s like you’re re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic when you should get off the damn ship. It’s sinking, man.”

“Thanks for calling.” Joe was ready to hang up.

“At least think about it. If you’re stuck inside, does it really matter where?”

“Enjoy Florida.” Joe hung up, and the festive music cut off. His stone chamber sounded too quiet without it.

Leandro’s underlying belief was right. Joe should get over himself and go outside. If it were possible, he’d have done it already. His agoraphobia wasn’t something he could wish away, despite what Leandro thought, and he’d much rather live down here where he had his house, Grand Central Terminal, the Hyatt, miles of tunnels, and access to buildings connected to the underground via steam tunnels. It wasn’t the whole world, but it was bigger than a single apartment in Celeste’s building. He couldn’t let himself be tranquilized and dragged around every time he needed to leave the house.

Joe went over to the elevator and pressed the button to call the elevator back from the terminal. Once it arrived, he stepped inside and weighted the lever down. Nobody else would be using it tonight. He and Edison wouldn’t be disturbed again.

He went back to the house and ordered fifty (brown, black) sunflowers for Celeste. He dictated a card:

The woman on the phone didn’t seem to be impressed, but he hoped Celeste would like it. She liked mythology. She liked sunflowers. Maybe it didn’t have to be more complicated than that.

He left another apologetic voice mail. If he didn’t hear back from her soon, he’d have Vivian tranquilize him and drag him to Celeste’s apartment so he could apologize in person, even if that seemed to be the opposite of what she wanted. Maybe he could stay there for a while, if she’d have him.

He wanted to see her before she died. He thought of the funeral she would have that he wouldn’t be able to attend. His lonely evenings without her calls. The paintings she would never finish. Dust gathering on the canvases in her bright apartment. The world would be darker when she died. His mind veered away from that thought. She couldn’t die. She just couldn’t.

He had to do something or he’d drive himself crazy. He should do something useful: finish his A line surveillance program and go out on his first nightly patrol. That was concrete, specific, useful, and attainable.

He returned to his parlor and went back to programming. Hours flew by as he lost himself in the magical world of computer code and numbers and colors. It was almost midnight when he finished. The system was rudimentary and clunky. The different bits were hacked together without any finesse, but it was a start. He could clean it up tomorrow. For now, it gave him what he needed.

Turned out a lot of people went off the platforms and onto the tracks: track workers in reflective vests and boots, signal tower monitors in regular business casual clothes and reflective vests, and drug addicts looking for a quiet place to smoke or shoot up. He’d be getting a lot of false positives, but at least it was something.

Edison slept in front of the electric fire. His legs twitched as he chased an imaginary ball, and his tail wagged in his sleep. What Joe wouldn’t give for dog dreams.

Not wanting to wake the dog, Joe tiptoed out of the parlor and wandered into the modernized kitchen. He needed to pack himself some food for his patrol. He and Edison would be out for about four (green) hours. He filled up a water bottle and picked up a handful of fitness bars. They tasted awful, but they were supposed to have the perfect balance of protein and carbs. He opened the Victorian ice box. He’d had a custom refrigerator built inside shortly after he moved in, but he still called it the ice box. It contained half of a cheesesteak sub left over from lunch. He’d split it with Edison. That was better than a power bar.

His fingers closed on the white paper wrapping surrounding the sandwich. The paper crackled, and he wondered if the sound would wake the dog.

Then the room went dark.

Joe’s heart started to race. He ordered himself to calm down, tried to talk himself through it. A warm nose pushed against the hand holding the sandwich. Edison.

“Hey, boy!” His voice boomed out. “Just a power outage.”

He’d never had a power outage down here before. The lights hadn’t even flickered in all the months he’d lived here. If they had, he would have had the common sense to install emergency lighting, which he hadn’t. An item for a future to-do list.

“Glad we weren’t in the elevator,” he said.

Edison nosed the ice box door shut and grabbed Joe’s shirt sleeve in his mouth. Did the dog have training for blackouts? Of course he did. Edison was trained for every emergency. He was the Navy SEAL of dogs.

“What’s the plan, Edison?”

As if he understood, Edison tugged on Joe’s sleeve. Joe took a step forward, and Edison pulled again. Joe let the dog lead him, although he didn’t think Edison could see any better than he could in total darkness. Maybe Edison was following a scent trail or his memory.

The dog led him out of the kitchen with its tile floor and down the wooden planks in the hall toward the front door. He stopped, and Joe stopped, too. Did Edison want them to go outside? Joe would need a key for the door that led to the tunnels as the elevator was probably knocked out, too.

Edison released Joe’s sleeve, then got another grip. He guided Joe’s hand to something that felt like canvas. His backpack.

“Flashlight and keys are in there,” Joe said. “Good boy.”

He unzipped the backpack, dropped in the sandwich, and pulled out the flashlight. When he clicked it on, the hall looked spooky. Oversized shadows shivered on the walls. The doors to the other rooms in the house were as dark as the tunnels outside. He’d never seen the house in total darkness before. He always left a nightlight burning in the hall so he could find his way around if he woke up in the middle of the night.

The house wasn’t just dark. It was dead silent. No hum from the air filter, no murmur from the refrigerator, no quiet thrumming of the computer fans. The only sound was his and Edison’s breathing — his nervous and quick, Edison’s relaxed. Edison wasn’t afraid of the dark.

Joe wondered what to do next. The house didn’t have a fuse box. The power supply was connected to one of the lines used for the subway trains, and he didn’t see how he could have overloaded it with his lights and laptop. Maybe something had happened with one of the trains. If so, MTA was probably already working on it, and he just had to wait it out.

Sitting in the dark reminded him that he was vulnerable in a way he hadn’t imagined, dependent on others for something as simple as light and warmth. Everyone was to some extent, but everyone else had sunlight and moonlight and the headlights of cars. He just had flashlights. He’d have to set up a backup power system.

He pulled on his shoes and his hoodie. He might as well go out into the tunnels, do his patrol of the A line, and hope the power outage would pass by tomorrow morning. He opened his front door, glad he still had an old-fashioned key to lock it with. He’d lock the tunnel doors, too. It wasn’t nearly as secure as his electronic system, but it would still keep out most intruders.

When his foot touched the first wooden step, all the lights came on, inside and out. He threw up an arm to block out the light, but it wasn’t enough. The light reminded him of being thrust all at once into a sunny day.

Brightness scalded his eyes. He couldn’t see his house, his garden, his place of safety. Terrifying light engulfed him. His heart raced so quickly he couldn’t differentiate the beats. His breathing came loud and fast.

He felt like he might throw up or die or both. Dizziness threatened to knock him off his feet. Sweat ran down his back. He started to shake.

He wanted to talk himself through it, to slow his breathing, to remind himself again that he wasn’t really going to die. Nothing came. Bright light seared his eyelids, and panic filled him.

Edison barked again and again. He should comfort the dog, but he couldn’t. He was frozen.