The Manhattan Hunt Club

CHAPTER 25

"You better get to gittin‘ or you're gonna be late for school."

Robby, carefully leaning forward so he wouldn't spill anything on his new shirt-a real new shirt, instead of a used one from the thrift shops-finished his bowl of cereal and eyed the chipped coffee mug in front of Tillie.

"Don't even think about it," Tillie said, not even bothering to look up from the two-day-old newspaper she was reading. "You want to stunt your growth?"

"Come on, Tillie," Robby begged. "Lots of the kids drink coffee. They bring it in thermoses and-"

"And you're not lots of kids," Tillie broke in, trying to fix Robby with a glare, but unable to resist winking at him instead. "Tell you what-one sip, and no more arguments? You go right off to school?"

Robby's eyes widened with disbelief. "Really?" he breathed.

Robby gazed at the mug reverently, almost certain someone would either snatch it away from him at the last second or hit him.

Or both.

Tillie could recall the night Jinx had first brought him to the co-op. He'd been so frightened that she stayed up all night, sitting next to his bed, holding his hand. For a long time, certain that he was going to find himself abandoned on the streets again, Robby had refused to go anywhere, and when anyone went near him, he flinched as though anticipating a beating. Tillie began to suspect that his parents had actually done him a favor by abandoning him. When school had started, at first he refused to go. The only way Tillie could convince him to take the risk was by promising that someone from the co-op-someone he knew-would always be on the sidewalk right outside the school. Half a dozen people had taken turns that day, and finally the school called the police to complain about the number of homeless people hanging around. But Robby had survived the day, and gotten safely back to the co-op, and soon it was enough if someone walked him to within a block of the school and met him at the same place afterward. Everyone in the co-op knew they risked her wrath if Robby was left alone, even for a minute.

Slowly, very slowly, Robby was starting to trust people again. Now, as he gazed warily at the steaming mug of coffee, Tillie pushed it a little closer. "It's okay-it won't bite you. But it's hot, and you might not like it."

Robby picked up the mug and held it to his lips. As the liquid touched his tongue, his eyes snapped open and he put the mug down so fast he almost slopped it down his front. " Yuck! Who could drink that?"

"I guess not you," Tillie observed, retrieving the mug. "Now get along with you-you're gonna be late. Jinx, do something with the boy."

But Jinx, who was sitting across from Robby, wasn't listening. Her eyes were fastened on the torn and stained newspaper that was only partially flattened out on the table in front of Tillie. Her eyes were focused, in particular, on a picture that had a moment ago been covered by Tillie's mug.

It was a picture of Jeff Converse.

"Can I see that?" she asked, pulling the paper toward her before Tillie could answer.

"May I see that," Tillie corrected, but Jinx hardly heard her as she quickly scanned the article:

… DIED WHEN A STOLEN CAR RAMMED THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION VEHICLE IN WHICH HE WAS BEING TRANSPORTED…

… SENTENCED YESTERDAY AFTER BEING CONVICTED OF ATTEMPTED RAPE AND MURDER…

… THE VICTIM, CYNTHIA ALLEN, CONFINED TO A WHEELCHAIR SINCE MR. CONVERSE'S ATTACK ON HER, HAD NO COMMENT…

… APPREHENDED IN THE 110TH STREET MTA STATION…

The memory of the woman she'd seen last night suddenly came back to Jinx.

The woman in a wheelchair.

The woman Bobby Gomez had been mugging when she'd seen someone running toward them.

It had happened in the 110th Street station!

"This isn't right," she said, not realizing she was speaking out loud. "He didn't do it…"

"What do you mean, he didn't do it?" Tillie countered. " ‘Course he did it! If he didn't do it, how'd he get convicted?"

"But I was there," Jinx protested. "It was Bobby Gomez!" She told Tillie what she could remember about that night, but when she was done, Tillie shook her head.

"Just because Bobby Gomez tried to mug someone don't mean this guy didn't do nothin‘," she insisted, tapping Jeff's picture with her finger. "Folks get mugged in the subway all the time-I've seen it happen a dozen times."

"But it's 110th Street," Jinx insisted. "And last night I saw the woman Bobby beat on-she was in a wheelchair!"

Tillie's expression hardened. "Now you listen to me, young lady. You're only fifteen years old, and even if you were right-which you're not-I still wouldn't let you have nothin‘ to do with that man." Ignoring the storm brewing in Jinx's eyes, Tillie plunged ahead. "He's gonna be dead by this time tomorrow, and there's nothin' you can do to stop it. Once the hunters are on to someone, that's it! You want to be there when they find him? Now just get on with taking Robby to school, and forget about that guy-I never should've let him in here at all."

Knowing it was useless to argue with Tillie, Jinx shoved the paper back at her. But half an hour later, as she watched Robby walk down the tree-lined block on Seventy-eighth Street toward RS. 87, she was still thinking about what she'd seen in the paper, and by the time Robby disappeared into the building, she knew what she was going to do.

Jeff couldn't get the image of the dead man out of his mind. Dead, vacant eyes staring at him.

What had happened back there in that tiny room buried deep in the tunnels? What had the man done that made Jagger attack him while he slept?

When Jeff woke up, the room had been illuminated only by the faint orange glow of the dying fire in the barrel, but his eyes-now more accustomed to the darkness beneath the city than the light of the surface-had fixed immediately on Jagger, who was staring down at him with such hatred that his first instinct had been to try to scuttle away. But even as he pressed back into the hard concrete of the wall, he realized that it was the other man-the man who hadn't even told them his name-upon whom Jagger's gaze was fixed.

It was as if Jagger were in some kind of trance. When Jeff had spoken to him, Jagger had barely reacted. He'd remained crouched down, slowly rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, watching the man die. Only when the man's last rattling breath bubbled from his lips had Jagger looked at him.

The hatred in his eyes had died away, and Jeff saw something else.

Desire.

Jagger's hand had come up-a hand still covered with the blood of the man he'd just killed-and reached toward him. Just before his fingers would have touched his cheek, his hand dropped away.

Then Jagger's eyes cleared and he glanced around the room as if seeing it for the first time. When his eyes fell on the corpse at his feet, he looked puzzled, as if he didn't know what had happened.

"He was gonna do something to you!‘

But what? The man had been crazy, but he'd been far more terrified of them than they were of him. What had Jagger thought he was going to do? They'd just been lying there, and-

A memory stirred.

Something had disturbed his sleep. He'd been dreaming, and in the dream he was back in his apartment, in bed, and he could feel Heather beside him, curled around his back, nestled into him like two spoons in a drawer. Her arm had come around him as she snuggled closer, and-

– and he'd come awake when the man on whose floor he was sleeping grunted in sudden agony as the rusted rail spike sank into him.

Maybe it had been more than a dream of Heather's arm- maybe it was the man's arm wrapping around him that had cued the dream in the first place. And if it was…

He remembered again the strange look he'd seen in Jagger's eyes, and Jagger himself reaching out to touch him.

His reverie was interrupted by the sight of glowing light ahead. Not the orange nicker of one of the fires that seemed to burn everywhere in the tunnels, nor the glow of the work lights that illuminated some of the passages near the surface.

No, this was the bright light of the outside.

He picked up his pace, his pulse quickening as the shaft of light grew stronger. They found that the light came from a shaft leading up from the utility tunnel they'd been following ever since they left the body of the man Jagger had killed. Jeff had thought they were still at least a couple of levels below the street, but now he peered up the shaft and saw a large, rectangular grating through which he could make out some kind of wall rising toward the sky. They must not have been as far down as he'd thought. Since leaving the dead man, he'd become more and more disoriented.

"How we gonna get up there?" Jagger asked.

Jeff scanned the walls of the shaft, searching either for the metal rungs that were sunk into the concrete of some of the shafts they'd come across, or for the molded hand- and footholds that marked others. This shaft, though, seemed to be an unbroken expanse of smooth concrete stretching toward the tantalizing grating above. It was set at least fifteen feet above them-fifteen feet that might as well have been a hundred.

"We gotta find a ladder," Jagger said.

Jeff didn't bother to reply. Instead, he was studying the screen of the cell phone he'd found. Holding his breath, he pressed the power button.

The battery indicator still showed only one bar, but the reception indicator showed two. Even as he watched, it flickered to one.

Then back to two.

With shaking fingers he entered Heather Randall's phone number and pressed the Send button.

Her number rang.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

"Be there," he whispered under his breath as the phone rang a fourth time. "Please be-" His words died on his lips as the phone clicked and he heard Heather's voice: "Hi-I'm really sorry I missed your call, but if you…"

The answering machine! The damned answering machine! He waited for the message to end, and finally heard the signal to start speaking.

"Heather? It's me! It's Jeff! Heather, listen carefully. I'm using a cell phone, and the batteries are about to run out. I'm in the tunnels-the ones under the streets-and people are hunting for me. I can't get out and-" He broke off again, knowing how crazy it must sound. Then, as the battery beeped a warning that it was on the verge of giving out, he spoke the only three words that came to his mind: "I love you."

Cutting the connection off, he looked once more at the flickering battery indicator.

Maybe he could get one more call in.