The Manhattan Hunt Club

CHAPTER 5

If Jeff had slept at all, neither his body nor his mind had benefited from it. The thin pallet that separated him from the cold metal of the bunk felt no softer than the steel itself; his left hip was numb, his whole back felt sore, and his left shoulder ached from the weight it had borne through the long hours of the night. Every muscle in his body felt weaker now than when he'd lain down last night, as if he'd been running for hours instead of sleeping. His mind felt no better than his body, for as the endless minutes crept by, the terrible reality of what had happened to him only tightened its grip on his consciousness. At first his mind had refused to accept the truth, still clinging to some frayed shred of hope that even now that the trial and the sentencing were over, something would happen to free him from the surreal world in which he was trapped. But as the sounds of the night-the shouts and curses of angry prisoners, the clanging of barred doors as the night watch plodded through its routine-kept sleep at bay, hope had finally ebbed away, and the truth at last began to twist his mind as surely as the cold cell and hard bunk had wracked his body.

Maybe I should've just killed her, he told himself. At least then it would have been his word against a dead body's. Wouldn't that be something? Walk away from a murder instead of going to jail just for trying to help. Well, fuck it-the guys he'd met in jail were right: once they busted you, it was over. It didn't make any difference whether you'd done something or not-it was the cops against you, and the cops always won.

So he'd get through it. He'd do his time, and stay out of trouble, and get out as soon as he could. And then-

But he couldn't even think about it. All he could think about now was the yawning chasm that lay ahead. A chasm he was about to be thrown into, empty except for cell blocks, boredom, and constant fear.

As the clamor of voices and clanging cell doors rose around him, he sat up and pulled on his clothes-the same clothes he'd been wearing for a week, which Heather had brought him when she took the other clothes home.

The clothes she'd have been picking up today, except that today he was being moved to Rikers.

Numbly, his body functioning more by rote than by conscious decision, he began following the morning routine, until an hour later he was standing in front of one more in an endless series of locked doors. Two C.O.‘s flanked him, but no other prisoners were in sight. Then the door opened and he stepped outside.

He was in the sally port between the Detention Center and the Criminal Courts Building. Though dawn hadn't yet quite begun to break, the darkness in the heavily gated courtyard was washed away by floodlights, and he could see the bridge connecting the two buildings spanning the courtyard two flights up. A bus sat near the door to the Courts Building, from which the last of this morning's first batch of prisoners from Rikers Island were being unloaded for their day in court. For the next several hours they would wait in the holding areas or the feeder pens, exactly as he had waited during the endless days of his trial. Just before going into the building, the last of the prisoners turned and stared at Jeff. Understanding exactly where Jeff was being taken this morning, he smiled and ran his tongue suggestively over his lips. With a wink at Jeff, the prisoner finally responded to the officer's nudge and disappeared through the door to the courthouse.

Sitting a few yards from the bus, with two more C.O.‘s flanking it, was a windowless black Ford van. "Pretty fancy," one of the officers next to Jeff remarked, his lips twisting into a sarcastic smile. "Your very own limousine."

Jeff kept his mouth shut; he'd learned by now that when the guards made jokes, he wasn't included.

As the two guards from Detention escorted him toward the van, the other two opened its back door. Ducking his head, Jeff climbed inside, sliding onto the first bench he came to. Ahead of him was a heavy black-painted metal grille separating him from the next bench, which could only be accessed from the side door. Ahead of that was another grille, another bench, yet a third grille, and then the driver's compartment. As Jeff sat on the bench, his wrists still cuffed, the door slammed behind him and he heard a padlock drop against the back panel.

A minute later, one of the officers slid behind the wheel and the other climbed into the passenger seat.

Though it was barely visible through the three sets of thick mesh grilles and the windshield, Jeff saw the big gate ahead of the van swing open, and a moment later the truck passed through and turned right. A block later it turned left, then went straight ahead for three blocks. As it made another left turn, Jeff caught a glimpse of a sign.

Elizabeth Street.

In the last few minutes before dawn, the street was all but deserted of any traffic except a few lumbering trucks, and as the lights ahead turned green, the van began to accelerate. But several blocks later it began to slow again.

The driver turned right, and finally Jeff knew where they were going-straight ahead he could see the Williamsburg Bridge.

The light at Bowery turned green, and the van surged ahead as the officer behind the wheel once more hit the gas pedal.

As they were crossing Bowery, however, something crashed against the van, smashing into the sliding door on the passenger side. As the door caved in, the van itself skidded sideways and spun around. It sheared off a fire hydrant, then slammed into the front of a building on the west side of Bowery. Knocked off his seat by the first impact, Jeff bounced off the grille in front of him. A moment later his shoulder slammed into the side of the van, and as his back twisted a sharp pain shot from the injured shoulder down his arm.

Now a cacophony of shouting voices rose over the sound of water pouring down onto the wrecked van from the geyser of the broken hydrant, and then the back door was jerked open. "Out, fuckhead!" a rough voice commanded as the cage door opened.

His head spinning, and half blinded by the blood streaming from a cut on his forehead, Jeff stumbled out of the van.

He stood unsteadily on the street. Water from the hydrant was spraying everywhere, and a crowd of shabbily dressed people seemed to have materialized from out of nowhere. As people milled around, someone grabbed Jeff's arm and whispered urgently in his ear, "Don't talk-don't think-don't do nothin‘! Just follow me, and maybe we can get you out of here!"

His brain as fogged with pain as his eyes were with blood from the still-streaming wound, Jeff didn't hesitate. Knowing only that for the first time in months he was free from the claustrophobic confines of barred cells, locked holding pens, and sealed transport vans, he sucked the cold predawn air into his lungs and shambled across the intersection toward the subway entrance that lay only a few yards away.

Only at the top of the stairs leading to the subterranean station below did he pause. Around him lay the shadows of the fading night. The geyser of water still shot into the air from the sheared-off hydrant. Below him lay the brilliantly lit, windowless crypt of the subway station.

If he ran, he could vanish into the darkness and quiet.

He could be alone, for the first time in months.

The darkness, the quiet, and, most of all, the air pulled at him, but just as he was about to take the first step, everything changed.

A siren, then another, shattered the silence. An instant later a third one wailed to life.

All of them were coming toward him, closing on the surrealistic scene before him.

Then it happened.

The van exploded, and as the fireball rose into the air, instinct took over. The mass of the subway entrance protecting him from flying debris, Jeff stumbled down the stairs into the station.

It all occurred in only a few seconds. The man who had pulled him from the van was already leaping over the turnstiles of the deserted station. Jeff followed, running down the next two flights of stairs and hitting the platform just as a downtown train ground to a stop. The doors opened and Jeff started toward it.

"You fuckin‘ crazy, man? Transit cops'll get you in five minutes flat!" the man he'd been following said. Pulling on Jeff's arm, he hurried toward the far end of the platform. "Come on," he yelled. "Quick, before another train comes!"

Jeff staggered after him, his mind still too numb to think clearly, but when they came to the end of the platform, he stopped short. There was nothing ahead except a blank wall.

He turned and looked back the other way. The train was just pulling away, its taillights quickly disappearing. There was only one other person on the platform: a derelict sitting on the floor, leaning against a pillar. He heard something next to him, and when he turned, the man he'd been following seemed to have disappeared. But then came the voice again:

"Move, damn it!"

At the same time, Jeff heard footsteps pounding down the stairs at the far end.

As they grew louder, he leaped down onto the tracks and raced into the tunnel.

The darkness swallowed him in an instant.