The Manhattan Hunt Club

CHAPTER 21

It wasn't pleasure-it was the absence of pain that Jeff noticed most when he awoke. He wasn't cold.

He wasn't in pitch-darkness.

He wasn't aching in every part of his body.

At first he thought the softness of the mattress beneath him and the warmth of the blanket that covered him couldn't possibly be real. For one brief moment he dared to imagine that when he opened his eyes, he'd be back in his apartment on West 109th Street. Heather would be scrambling eggs on the stove in his tiny kitchenette, and the morning sun would just be brightening his bedroom. In a few minutes he'd be out running in Riverside Park.

Then he opened his eyes.

He lay still, staring up at the bulb that hung from the ceiling. No, its glare was nothing at all like the delicate colors of dawn outside his bedroom window. Finally, he raised his hand to shield his eyes from it.

Next he became aware of a low rumble-a rumble that grew steadily until the whole room was vibrating around him. After it faded away and silence once again fell over the room, he sat up, the sheet and blanket falling away from his body. Only then did he notice Jagger sitting on the bed opposite him, watching him. As the big man's eyes moved over his torso, Jeff reached for the sheet and started to pull it back up again.

"What you think-I'm some kinda fairy?" Jagger growled.

Jeff shook his head. "You just surprised me." He looked around, spotting his clothes-obviously washed and neatly folded-in a pile on the floor next to the bed. He glanced back up at Jagger. "You do that?"

"I'm not a maid, either," Jagger said.

"Then who-"

"Who cares?" Jagger asked. "All I know is I'm hungry, and I smell food. You gonna get dressed, or wander around naked?" Heaving himself to his feet, Jagger moved through the makeshift bathroom into the living area beyond.

Left alone, Jeff flopped back down on the soft mattress. He lay there a short while before realizing that the part of his fantasy concerning scrambled eggs was more than just a dream, for he could actually smell them. And he could smell bacon frying, too. Throwing off the covers, he pulled on his clothes, then followed Jagger, pausing only long enough to throw some water on his face and to use one of the large cans to relieve himself. Then he went through the door leading into the main room.

There were half a dozen people in the room. Tillie was standing at the stove, a large spatula in her hand. A young woman, no more than eighteen years old, was sitting on the sagging sofa, nursing a baby. Around the table were three men, somewhere between thirty and fifty. One of them, who was sitting, looked drunk, and the other two had the glazed look of habitual drug users and were on their feet, each holding a knife as they eyed Jagger, who was clutching the railroad spike in his right hand.

Cowering near the door that led to the tunnel outside the room was a frightened girl who appeared to Jeff to be about fifteen, maybe even younger.

"Maybe it ain't him," Jeff heard the drunk man say, his words slurring. "Maybe Jinx is wrong."

"I'm not wrong," the girl near the door said. She was clutching a sheet of paper in her hand. "Why don't you look yourself?" Her eyes shifted to Jeff. "Shit! They're both here!"

As Jeff watched, Jagger took a step toward one of the men with the knives, but they both tensed, and Jagger restrained himself, his eyes darting from one to the other.

Jinx's eyes widened. "He'll kill you!"

"Jag?" Jeff asked. "What's going on?"

Jagger's eyes didn't leave the two knife-wielding men as he spoke. "She says she got some kind of paper with my picture on it, and these guys are sayin‘ we gotta leave."

Jeff's gaze shifted from Jagger to Jinx.

"A picture? What kind of picture?" He started toward her, but stopped as Jinx shrank back against the wall, and one of the junkies spoke.

"You touch her and your guts'll be on the floor before you even know what happened."

Jeff held his hands up in a gesture of peace. "Hey, let's just take it easy, okay? Nobody's going to hurt anybody. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on, that's all."

"You gotta get ‘em out of here, Tillie," Jinx said. "You know-"

"I know this is my place, and I decide what's gonna happen here," Tillie cut in. Her eyes bored into Jinx as if daring the girl to challenge her. "And you keep in mind that I can kick you out, too, young lady."

For a moment Jinx looked as if she might try to argue with Tillie, but then deflated like a leaking balloon. "All's I want you to do is just look," she said, her voice taking on a wheedling note.

Tillie pursed her lips and she seemed about to refuse, but then put the spatula down and took the paper from Jinx's hand. Unrolling it, she studied it for a moment, her eyes flicking between the paper and both Jagger and Jeff.

"You boys want to tell me why you were in jail?" she asked.

Jagger's eyes narrowed. "I didn't do nothin‘."

Tillie's eyes shifted to Jeff, and he could see that she hadn't believed Jagger.

"I was convicted of attempted murder," he said.

Tillie's eyes narrowed. "Did you do it, or not?"

Jeff shrugged. "It doesn't make any difference. I was charged with it, I was convicted of it, and I was in jail for it."

"How long they give you?"

"A year."

Tillie's brows lifted in apparent disbelief, but her gaze shifted back to Jagger. "How ‘bout you?"

"Life," Jagger said.

"For?" Tillie's eyes never left Jagger as the question hung in the air.

Jagger seemed to ponder the statement for a long time, then he frowned. "They said I killed a couple people. And they said I killed a guy in jail, too. But I don't remember. I don't remember killin‘ nobody."

Tillie looked back at the paper she'd taken from Jinx, then passed it to Jeff. Though it was badly creased and smeared with dirt, he could see it clearly enough.

There were two photographs, one of Jagger, the other of himself. Beneath them there was a brief description of the charges that each of them had been convicted of. Below that were printed four words:

THE HUNT IS ON

"You can have some breakfast," Tillie said. "After that, you're gonna have to leave."

"How can they call themselves ‘New York's finest'?" Heather Randall asked, spitting the last three words out as if they'd left a nasty taste in her mouth. "If they're too afraid of the people who live in the tunnels even to go in, how can they call themselves police, let alone anyone's ‘finest'?"

Eve Harris leaned back in her chair, took off the half glasses she used for reading, and pressed her fingers against her temples in a vain attempt to stave off the headache that was starting to creep up out of her sinuses. She almost wished she'd refused to see the two people who were now sitting angrily in the chairs on the other side of her desk. Heather Randall was perched on the edge of her seat, while Keith Converse was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, chin resting on folded hands as his eyes bored into hers. She knew he was silently challenging her to do something about the story he'd started telling her yesterday, and which had taken an even stranger turn this morning. She'd intended simply to have her assistant give Keith Converse the message that she'd been unable to find out anything about a man called Scratch, and be done with it. But when he'd shown up at her office instead of merely calling-and brought Heather Randall with him-she changed her mind. Even Eve Harris did not readily turn away the daughter of the Assistant District Attorney, given that there might well be a time when she would want a favor from him.

Sighing, she stopped massaging her temples and looked first at Heather, then at Keith. "I can understand your frustration. In fact, I can empathize with it. Lord knows, the police haven't always been my best friends over the years. But on the other hand, I'm not sure you understand fully what they're up against."

"A bunch of homeless people," Keith told her, "who they seem to think are all drunks, junkies, or nutcases." He smiled grimly. "And that's a quote from someone at the Fifth Precinct, a guy named-"

"I don't even want to know," the councilwoman cut in. "It doesn't make any difference, since most of them would agree."

"Which means they wouldn't have bothered to talk to any of them when they were investigating what happened to Cynthia Allen, right?"

Eve Harris's expression became guarded. "I thought you were looking for your son, Mr. Converse. If you're really after a retrial-"

"We're just trying to find out what's happening," Heather broke in, seeing that they were on the verge of losing Eve Harris entirely. "I know we heard something in the subway station last night. I can't swear it was Jeff-I suppose it might have been anybody. But Keith is sure the body they showed us wasn't Jeff's, and no matter what Cindy Allen says, I'll never believe that Jeff was trying to do anything but help her that night." She shook her head. "Maybe we're wrong- we probably are-but we have to try to find out. And all we know is what Al Kelly told Keith."

Eve's brows lifted and she looked at Keith. "You remembered his name."

"Why wouldn't I?" he countered.

"Most people don't," Eve replied. "To most people, the homeless don't have any identity at all-it's easier to ignore people if you know nothing about them. As long as you don't know the facts, you can assume anything you want- whatever condition they're in, it must be their own fault." Her eyes shifted to Heather. "That's why people won't even look them in the eye-you look in someone's eyes, and you might see things you don't want to know. So it's easier just not to look." When Heather didn't disagree, Eve abruptly shifted gears. "Why are you coming to me?" she asked. "Why not go to your father?"

Heather's demeanor clouded. "As far as my father is concerned, Jeff is-" Her voice caught and she couldn't bring herself to utter the word. Then she started over again. "My father doesn't believe in reopening cases. He thinks it's a waste of time. And when I called Jeff's lawyer this morning, he said he'd tried to talk to a few people in the subway station, but they wouldn't talk to him. He thinks we're wasting our time, too."

Keith, who had been watching Eve carefully as Heather spoke, stood up.

"I think we're wasting our time here, too," he said. He turned to Eve. "Look, Ms. Harris, whether you help us or not, we're going to talk to the people who live in the tunnels. I'll go into them myself if I have to. Yesterday you seemed like someone who'd help me. If you're not going to, just say so."

As Heather stood up, too, Eve Harris made her decision. "I didn't say I wasn't going to help you," she said, looking at her calendar. "I'm meeting someone at one o'clock this afternoon. If you can meet me at Riverside Park at one-thirty, I'll see what I can do. I can't promise you anything-these people can be very… well, let's just say they can be very skittish. And understandably so. But at least I can introduce you to someone who knows a lot about what goes on in the tunnels." She held up a cautionary hand at the excitement she saw burning in Keith's eyes. "But that's all I can do. I'll be just south of the marina, and I'll try to make the introduction. After that, you're on your own. Deal?"

"Deal," Keith replied.

"Then I'll see you at one-thirty."

Jagger's eyes fixed malevolently on Tillie. "If we don't wanna go, I don't see any way you're gonna make us." The muscles in his neck, shoulders, and arms were bunched into hard masses, and though he was still sitting at the table where he and Jeff had sat down to eat, he looked coiled tight, as if ready to spring. Standing at her stove like a general at a command post, Tillie appeared totally unaffected either by Jagger's demeanor or his words.

"This is my place," she said. "I decide who can stay and who can't."

"What do you mean, your place?" Jagger challenged. "This ain't nobody's place. It's nothin‘ but a fuckin' hole, for Christ sake. You don't own it, and if we want to stay here, that's how it's going to be."

"Maybe I better explain to you how things work down here," Tillie replied, still seemingly unmoved by the menace in Jagger's voice. "You know what a family is?" She paused, waiting for Jagger to reply, but he met her words with silence. Her eyes, sunk deep in fleshy sockets, narrowed. "I asked you a question. You got a hearing problem?"

Jagger half rose from his chair. "Fuck you, old woman."

"Take it easy," Jeff cautioned, putting a hand on Jagger's forearm. The girl called Jinx was still standing near the door opening out onto the tracks, looking as if she might bolt at any second. The two junkies were eyeing Jagger balefully as they kept the knives steadily moving in their hands, flicking first one way, then another, like the tongues of snakes readying to strike.

"You guys take it easy, too," Tillie said, her eyes shifting from Jagger to the two addicts. "Lester, didn't I explain the rules to you and Eddie before I let you join?"

One of the men lowered his knife, but didn't put it away. "I know the rules," he growled. "And so does Eddie. But this guy gives me the creeps."

"So cut him up somewhere else," Tillie said. Her eyes shifted to Eddie. "You got about two more seconds, Eddie."

For a moment Jeff wasn't certain if the man named Eddie had even heard Tillie, but then he snapped his switchblade closed and slid it into his pocket.

"Come on, Lester," Eddie said. "Let's go see if we can find Gonzales."

"Just don't bring it back here," Tillie told them. "You understand?"

Though neither of them spoke, Lester nodded, and a moment later they were gone, disappearing through the door without a word to anyone.

"So now that the muscle's gone, who's gonna back you up?" Jagger asked, dropping back onto his chair.

"They'll be back," Tillie told him. "And even if they don't come back, there'll be plenty of other people around." Jagger's lips twisted into a contemptuous sneer, but Tillie only shrugged. "You think you're pretty tough, don't you?"

Now it was Jagger who shrugged. He said nothing, but tilted his head slightly, as though the question wasn't worth answering.

Looking almost sad, as if she felt genuinely sorry for Jagger, Tillie scooped a huge serving of scrambled eggs out of the skillet, added half a dozen slices of bacon to the plate, and set it down in front of Jagger.

Jagger eyed the food suspiciously. "Thought you wanted us out of here."

"I told you that you could eat first," Tillie said. "I don't send anyone away hungry. You can get enough of starving outside." She fixed another plate and set it in front of Jeff, then filled a chipped mug with thick-looking coffee from a pot on the stove's back burner. After that, as Jeff and Jagger began to eat, Tillie dropped onto a chair next to the drunk and put the mug into his hands. She had to shove it back when he pushed it away. "Swear to God, Fritz-it ain't any worse'n the Sterno you drink."

"Come on, Tillie," Fritz whined. "This stuff tastes like shit!"

"Maybe it tastes like shit, but at least it won't kill you," Tillie retorted. Her gaze shifted to Jinx, who still hadn't moved from her spot by the door. "Sit down and have something to eat. These guys aren't gonna hurt you. Are you?" she added, glancing at Jeff and Jagger.

Jagger looked up from his plate and seemed about to speak, but Jeff didn't give him a chance. "We're not going to hurt anybody," he said, smiling at Jinx.

Her fear appearing to ease, Jinx went to the stove, put what was left of the eggs and bacon on a plate, and warily took the seat next to Tillie.

"Robby get to school okay?" Tillie asked.

Jinx nodded. "But he didn't want to go. He says some of the other kids are picking on him."

"Why would anyone want to pick on Robby?" Tillie asked. "He's a good kid."

"Clothes," Jinx told her. "He says the other kids tell him he looks like he's homeless."

"Assholes," the woman on the sofa said bitterly. The baby had fallen asleep in her arms, and now she laid him gently on the sofa, got up, and poured the last of the coffee into a tin mug. "Why can't they just leave him alone?"

"Who's Robby?" Jeff asked.

Nobody spoke, and everyone in the room except Jagger, Jeff, and the sleeping baby glanced at Tillie.

"Just a kid," she said. "He's about eight. Been living here for a while now."

"He lives here?" Jeff echoed. "A little boy?"

Tillie rolled her eyes. "What kind of dummy are you? Why shouldn't a little boy live here?"

"Do his parents live here, too?"

Jinx and the mother of the baby exchanged a quick glance. "I don't think you ought to tell him. If they get out-"

"They aren't getting out," Tillie said. "Did you ever hear of any of them getting out?"

"No, but-"

"No buts," Tillie cut in, and looked directly at Jeff. "They told you, didn't they? About the game?"

Jagger finished eating and pushed his plate aside. Jeff felt him tense, and again placed a restraining hand on the big man's arm. "They told us if we get out, we'll be free. They said all we had to do was get to the surface-"

"Doesn't matter what they said," Tillie interrupted. "They're going to kill you. That's why you're down here."

Jeff felt his stomach clench. "But why?" he demanded. "Why would anyone want to kill us? Who are they?"

Tillie's eyes bored into Jeff. "How would I know? Nobody sees them. Nobody even hears them. But we all know about them. And once they've made up their minds, that's it."

"But if we get out, they'll leave us alone?"

Tillie shrugged. "That's what they say. But I never heard of anybody getting out once the hunt's started." Her eyes flicked from Jeff to Jagger. " ‘Course, I don't ever remember them hunting two at a time, either. Maybe if you stick together, you can do it."

Jagger abruptly leaned forward, his fingers closing on Tillie's wrist. "But what if we don't go anywhere?" he asked, his voice low and menacing. "What if we just stay here?"

If Tillie was frightened at all, she showed no sign of it. "I told you before-this is my place, and I decide who lives here. I got rules, and everybody has to live by them. Robby has to go to school, and Lorena here has to take care of her baby, and everybody has to look out for everybody else. We're not too far down yet, and I figure Robby and Lorena and Jinx still have a pretty good chance of moving back to the surface someday. That's why I don't let anybody in here that's going to mess things up-I want my kids to go up, not down." Her eyes fixed balefully on Jagger. "People like you don't go up," she said. "They only go down." Her eyes shifted back to Jeff. "That's the thing about the tunnels. When people first come in, they think it's only going to be for a little while- maybe a few hours, maybe just for the night. That's how I got here. I got tired of getting run out of Grand Central for sleeping on the benches-back before they took all the benches out. I'd been watching people go down the tracks, so one night I tried it myself. First good night's sleep I'd had in months. So I started going back. I had a little nest for a while, up in the pipes. And I'd go out every day. But then they started running us out of the station. So I started looking around, and after a while I found this." Her eyes roamed over the dank concrete of the windowless walls, and suddenly she grinned. "I figured the rent was right, and it was deep enough in so the cops wouldn't bother me." She jerked a thumb at Fritz, who seemed to have dozed off. "And once I found this one, it got a whole lot better. When Fritz isn't drinking, there's not much he can't do. He's the one who figured out how to tap into the electricity, and the cable, and even the water pipes. One of these days, I'll bet he even figures out how to bust us into the sewer."

"If his liver doesn't bust first," Jinx muttered.

Tillie glared at the girl, who fell silent. She turned back to Jeff. "Everybody thinks there's nothing but bums down here," she said. "And I'm not going to try to tell you there aren't a lot of those. But there's all kinds of other people, too. Like Jinx here, who had to get away from her stepfather." She tilted her head toward Lorena, who was once again nursing her baby. "She was pregnant, and her husband beat on her. And Robby's folks just left him."

"Left him?" Jeff echoed, now finished eating.

Tillie nodded. "They got on a bus, and told him to wait at the station. But they never came back. Jinx found him on a bench, just waiting, and brought him back here."

"Why didn't she take him to-well, to a shelter or something?"

"You ever been to one of those places? All they'd have done is put Robby into the system, and God only knows what would have happened to him. At least here he knows he's got a family that loves him. Up there…" She shook her head. "What am I even talking for? Everyone thinks it's so great up there, and I guess if you got money, maybe it is. But if you don't…" Her voice trailed off. "Things aren't so bad down here, at least not right here. Soon as the baby gets old enough, Lorena'll be getting a job, and I figure in a couple of years she'll be back on the surface. And one of these days Jinx is going to go back to school-"

"High school sucks," Jinx said.

"Being stupid sucks worse," Tillie informed her. She turned her attention back to Jeff and Jagger. "I don't know what you two did or didn't do. All I know is what's on that piece of paper. So I don't mind givin‘ you some breakfast, but that's it-I don't want you messin' with my family, and you sure ain't gonna be here when the hunters find you."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Jagger demanded.

Tillie stood up and began clearing away the empty plates. "That's not my problem. That's your problem."

"Maybe it is your problem," Jagger growled. "Maybe I'm gonna make it your problem."

Tillie shook her head. "Blacky?" she called out.

Instantly, the door opened and a man even larger than Jagger stepped inside. Behind him were two other men, neither much smaller than Blacky himself.

All of them carried knives, and they looked as though they knew exactly how to use them.

"These two were just leaving," Tillie said, nodding toward Jeff and Jagger. "Want to walk them to the corner?"

Blacky grinned. "No problem. No problem at all."

Almost before Jeff and Jagger knew what had happened, the two men were behind them, and Jeff felt the tip of a knife against the back of his neck. Raising his hands and getting to his feet, he started toward the door. But then he stopped, and even though Blacky once more jabbed the knife against his neck, he turned back to face Tillie. "What about our stuff?" he asked. "The flashlights and Jagger's spike?"

Tillie mulled it over. "Fair's fair, I guess-you had it when you came in, you can take it with you." After sending Jinx to retrieve their things from the other room, she turned back to Jeff. She seemed to think something over, then appeared to have come to some kind of decision. "One thing you might want to keep in mind-in the tunnels, the deeper you go, the crazier people get. So if you have a choice, go up. But don't plan on gettin‘ out. Once the hunters are after you, nobody ever gets out."

Jinx reappeared and wordlessly handed Jeff the flashlights and the rusty railroad spike. A moment later they left the room, the door swung closed behind them, and the brightness was gone.

All that remained was the darkness of the tunnels.