The Underground Man

17

Steve Winslow’s voice was drugged with sleep. “Hello?”

“Steve? Mark.”

“What?”

“Mark. It’s me. Mark. Mark Taylor. Steve?”

“Yeah, Mark. Hello?”

“Steve. Wake up.”

Steve Winslow hunched himself to a sitting position. He rubbed his head. “Yeah, Mark. What time is it?”

“One-thirty.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Sorry. But I thought you’d want to know.”

“What?”

“Pipeline from headquarters called. Cops brought in a John Doe.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“That’s right. Just I.D.’d him as Jack Walsh.”

“No shit. Suicide or accident?”

“Murder.”

“Murder? You’re kidding.”

“Not at all.”

“How’d it happen?”

“Guy didn’t have all the details, but apparently the cops figure it as a thrill-kill.”

“Thrill-kill?”

“Yeah. Murder for kicks. It’s the new craze with kids. Wilding, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said impatiently. “So what’s the dope?”

“Well, part of the craze is pickin’ on the helpless and the homeless. So that’s what the cops think happened here.”

“Where’s here?”

“The subway.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, it would be the subway, wouldn’t it? Anyway, here’s the dope. It was in the subway. Sixty-sixth Street Station. Broadway line. Uptown platform. North end. Bum sleeping behind a dumpster.”

“So?”

“So someone poured gasoline over him, set him on fire.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah.”

“When’d it happen?”

“Ten-thirty, eleven, somewhere in there. Homeless man, John Doe. Then they pulled an I.D. Seems the guy had a wallet in his pocket, one of the credit cards in the middle hadn’t melted too bad to read. So they come up with the name Jack Walsh.”

“Oh shit.”

“Now,” Taylor said. “The reason I called you is, as far as I know, the name means nothing to them. The cops, I mean. Jack Walsh, it’s just a name. They don’t know who he is. Just another homeless man, they got no other motive, they put it down as a thrill-kill, and-”

“I got you, I got you,” Steve said. “Jesus Christ, what a mess. You said the 66th Street Station?”

“Right.”

“Meet you there.”