by John Godey
“I desire to inform you that hijacking that underground flier, you know, is a revolutionary sabotage action of BRAM. You know? Striking swiftly, you know, and ferocious, a storm-unit task force of BEAM have use this means to convey upon the white downtrodders the determination, you know, and aim of the Movement to hit Charlie where he live, namely, the pocketbook. The money obtain through this revolutionary expropriation act will be used to further the revolutionary aspirations of BRAM toward the Black Brother, wherever he may be, you know, and further liberation for the Black Man. And Woman. Right on?”
The subeditor who was taking the call asked Brother Williamus to supply some details, as yet unknown to the general public, to prove that his organization was indeed responsible for the hijacking.
“Sheet, man, I tell you detail, then you know as much as I know.”
Without such details as evidence, the subeditor said, it would be possible for anybody to claim credit for the crime.
“Anybody else claim credit is a motherfucking liar. And don’t you come on with that crime jive. It an act of, you know, purely political revolutionism.”
“Okay, Minister,” the subeditor said. “Do you have anything to add?”
“Just this one thing: BRAM urge black brothers all over the country to emulate this political act and hijack they own subway train, you know, to put down white capitalism. Provided they is a subway in they town.”
A second caller came on the line at once, speaking in an accent that in some eerie but compellingly authentic fashion combined the modulations of Brooklyn and Harvard Yard.
“Powuh to the pee-a-pul! On behalf of the Central Committee of the revolutionary students’ and workers’ mobilization, SWAM, Students and Workers of America Mobilization, I inform you that the rip-off of the subway train is the work of SWAM. Further, it is merely the opening gambit, or skirmish, if you will, of a blueprint for revolutionary terror drawn up by the Central Committee of SWAM to terrorize the running dogs of the repressive and exploitative pig ruling class of America and bring it to its knees.”
“Are you familiar with BRAM?” the subeditor said.
“Bram? There’s Bram Stoker. Who wrote the film Dracula?”
“This BRAM is a black revolutionary movement. One of their officials phoned a moment ago, claiming credit for the subway hijacking.”
“With all fraternal respect and deference to the black brother, his claim is a fucking lie. I repeat categorically—it is a revolutionary rip-off of SWAM, the first act of a terrorist anti-pig program—”
“Yes. I will ask you, as I did the previous caller, to authenticate your claim by citing details of the holdup not yet revealed—”
“Entrapment!”
“Do I take your answer to be no?”
“You’re insidiously clever, you pig jackals of the running dog press. Will you use the story?”
“Maybe. My boss will eventually make that decision.”
“Your boss! Man, can’t you see you’re as much exploited as the worker and peasant? Except that the mailed fist is concealed in a silk glove. Get your head together, man, recognize that you’re just in a slightly more privileged boat than your brothers in the factory and the field.”
“Thank you for your call, sir.”
“You don’t have to call me sir, man. You don’t have to call anybody sir! Get your head together….”
In all, the Times received over a dozen calls from such claimants, the News an equal number, the Post a few less. In addition, each paper was besieged by people offering pejorative characterizations of the hijackers, clues to their identity and plans for overcoming them; people requesting information concerning relatives and loved ones who might conceivably be passengers on the affected train; and people tendering their opinion on the question of whether or not the city should pay the ransom, on the philosophical, psychological and sociological motivations of the hijackers, and, above all, on the wickedness of the mayor.
The switchboard at City Hall was inundated. Public relations men, clerks and even secretaries were detailed to handle these calls, with instructions to make no commitments and, above all, to avoid irritating the callers to the detriment (the qualifying word “further” was tactfully omitted) of the mayor.
“If the city pays these bandits off, it will be an open invitation to every crook and crackpot in the city to hijack something. I’m a homeowning taxpayer, and I don’t want my money used to coddle criminals. Not one penny for tribute! If the mayor knuckles under, he has lost my vote and the vote of my family in perpetuity.”
“I understand that the mayor is weighing the question of paying the ransom. Weighing? What’s more important, human lives or a few paltry dollars? If one of those passengers suffers death or injury, you can tell that fine mayor of ours that I will not only not vote for him, but I will dedicate the rest of my life to exposing him for the monster he is!”
“Call out the National Guard. Send them in there with fixed bayonets, and wipe out those crooks! I volunteer my help even though I will be eighty-four next month. Things like this didn’t go on when I was a boy. I never go in the subway, anyway. I’m a fresh-air fiend.”
“Can you please find out if my brother is on the train? He said he might come over today. He usually leaves the house around one thirty; I feel it in my bones that he’s on that train. His kind of luck, all his life he’s had it. If you can find out if he’s on the train, not that I’ll worry less, he could also be under a truck….”
“God bless the mayor. Whatever he decides, I want him to know that he’s a wonderful man. Tell him I’m praying for him.”
“I am a Young Duke, you know? If there are any Puerto Rican brothers on that train, we demand the city to pay recompense for any injuries or agonies that they suffer. The Puerto Rican people are oppressed bad enough without they have to put up with lack of dignity when they go for a ride on the overpriced subway trains. And if it turns out some of the hijackers are Puerto Rican brothers, the Young Dukes demand full amnesty for them. These demands are nonnegotiable!”
“I’m not saying that the hijackers are colored, but if ninety-nine percent of the crimes in this city are committed by the colored, it stands to reason that the odds are ninety-nine to one that the hijackers are colored.”
“Pass this on to the police. All they have to do is flood the subway tunnel….”
ELEVEN
HIS HONOR, THE MAYOR
In ordinary circumstances His Honor, the mayor, might have enjoyed sitting above the battle while his subordinates debated the merits of a given subject, each astride his own hobbyhorse of bias and self-interest. But now, drowning in his runaway fluids, lightheaded with fever, he feared that his judgment would be impaired and that he might make a faulty decision, which is to say one that would be politically unprofitable. Not that he was so unprincipled as this might suggest, because he undoubtedly would—as he always did—temper expediency with decency, a fatal human failing he was helpless to rectify.
Present at his bedside, in addition to the police commissioner, the controller, the chairman of the Transit Commission, the president of the City Council and Murray Lasalle, were his wife and his physician.
Propped up on a pillow, snorting and snuffling, struggling to keep his rheumy eyes open and his wavering interest glued to the subject, His Honor, the mayor, permitted Murray Lasalle to moderate the conference with his usual mixture of sharp intelligence, impatience, and gutter toughness.
“The issue,” Lasalle said, “and we have no time to waste, the issue is whether to pay the ransom or not. Everything else—whether we have the money or not, whether or not we can legally offer it, where we’re going to get the cash, whether or not we can catch the hijackers and recover the money—everything else is secondary. And we can’t discuss it at length, or we’ll have seventeen more corpses on our hands. I’m going to allow one fast round of argument, five minutes’ worth all told, and then we’re going to take a decision. Ready?”
The mayor list
ened to the debate with only half an ear. He knew that Lasalle had already arrived at a decision and expected him to support it. For a rarity, political advantage and his best instincts coincided. The balance of praise against censure would be favorable. The Times would gravely support him on humanitarian grounds. The News would grudgingly approve, yet contrive to blame him for having allowed the incident to occur at all. Along traditional lines, Manhattan would be for him, Queens against. The well-to-do would say aye, the taxi driver nay, the black community would be indifferent. Nothing ever changed. He knew for a fact that the city had already chosen up sides on the propriety of his having the flu.
He blew his nose bubblingly in a wad of cleansing tissues, which he tossed on the floor. The doctor eyed him professionally, his wife with disgust.
“Keep it short,” Murray Lasalle said. “One minute per man, and then we turn it over to Hizzoner for a decision.”
“You can’t limit a critical discussion like this to a matter of thus-and-so-many seconds,” the controller said.
“Second the motion,” the president of the council said. Like the controller, he was regarded as being “no friend of the mayor,” a designation that cut cleanly across party lines.
“Look,” Lasalle said, “while we’re futzing around, those killers down in that drab, dirty hole are ticking off the minutes until they start shooting hostages.”
“Drab, dirty hole, is it?” the TA chairman said. “You’re talking about the longest, busiest, and safest subway system in the entire world.”
The Transit Authority was a complicated state-and-city combined operation, and the chairman was unequivocally the governor’s man. He was not a popular figure in the city, and the mayor knew that he could pin at least part of the blame on him if anything went wrong.
“Let’s get started,” Lasalle said, and nodded to the police commissioner.
“Well, we’re mobilized to the fullest extent,” the police commissioner said. “I can go down in there with enough firepower and chemical devices to wipe them out. But I couldn’t guarantee the safety of the hostages.”
“In other words,” Lasalle said, “you’re for paying the ransom.”
“I hate to give in to criminals in a thing like this,” the police commissioner said, “but so far as the innocent being slaughtered with the guilty, it would be Attica all over again.”
“Vote,” Lasalle said.
“I abstain.”
“Shit.” Lasalle turned to the TA chairman. “You’re up.”
“My entire concern,” the chairman said, “is with the safety of my passengers.”
“Vote.”
“A refusal to pay up would cost us the faith and trust of our passengers. We’ll lose some revenue anyway, for a while. We must pay the ransom.”
“Pay with what?” the controller said. “Is this coming out of your budget?”
The chairman smiled bitterly. “I’m tapped out. I haven’t got a penny.”
“Neither have I,” the controller said. “I advise Hizzoner not to make any commitments of a financial nature until we know where the money is coming from.”
“I take it your vote is nay,” Lasalle said.
“I haven’t yet expressed my philosophy on this thing,” the controller said.
“No time for philosophy,” Lasalle said.
“But I don’t doubt there’s time for her philosophy?” The controller inclined his head stiffly toward the mayor’s wife, who had once spoken of him as “a Scrooge without hope of redemption.”
With a curling lip, the mayor’s wife responded in the argot she had learned in her days as a Wellesley undergraduate and, unlike her husband, became proficient in. “He fucking-aye-right better be.”
“Thank you, Madam Mayor,” Lasalle said. He nodded to the president of the council. “Your turn.”
“I vote nay for the following reasons—”
“Okay,” Lasalle said. “One abstention, one aye and two nays. I vote aye, and that makes it two-two. Sam?”
“Wait a minute,” the president of the council said. “I want to explain my decision.”
“No time,” Lasalle said. “People’s lives are at stake.”
“I’m going to explain my reasons,” the president of the Council said. “First and foremost, I’m for law and order. I’m for waging warfare against criminals, not coddling them with large sums of money.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Lasalle said.
“I have one more thing to say.”
“Goddammit,” Lasalle said. “Don’t you people know we’re up against a lethal deadline?”
“The second thing I have to say is this,” the president of the Council said. “If we pay these criminals off, we’ll be setting up a situation like the airlines. Knuckle under to these gangsters, and everybody and his brother will be hijacking subway trains. How many million dollars can we afford?”
“Which we haven’t got,” the controller said.
“And so, Mr. Mayor,” the president of the council said, “I urge you to vote in the negative as far as paying ransom is concerned.”
“As before,” Lasalle said, “two yesses, two noes, and one abstention. That leaves the deciding vote up to Hizzoner.”
“And if it had turned out three to one against?” the controller said.
“It would leave the deciding vote to Hizzoner,” Lasalle said flatly. “Sam. Will you wrap it up, please?”
The mayor sneezed suddenly and forcefully, floating a fine spray into the air. It amused him to see everyone flinch. “I thought you had it wrapped up, Murray.”
“Don’t play games,” Lasalle said, his eyes narrowing. “If you care a damn about those poor captive citizens—”
“Coming from you, that’s a laugh,” the mayor’s wife said. “You spell citizen V-O-T-E.”
The mayor was taken by a strangulated fit of coughing. The doctor, observing him critically, said, “This man is in no condition to be pressured. I won’t permit it.”
“Christ,” Lasalle said. “Wives and pill pushers. Sam, don’t you realize we haven’t got an alternative? We have to get those hostages out of there safe and sound. Do I have to remind you—”
“I know all about the election,” the mayor said. “I just don’t like the way you’re hectoring everybody. I’d like to see a little democracy around here.”
“Wise up,” Lasalle said. “We’re trying to run a city, not any goddamn democracy.” He looked pointedly at his watch. “Sam, you better get off your ass.”
The mayor turned to his wife. “Darling?”
“Humanity, Sam, everything for humanity.”
“Go ahead, Murray,” the mayor said. “Arrange for the payoff.”
“I said that ten minutes ago.” Lasalle pointed his finger at the police commissioner. “Pass the word to the bad guys that we’re paying.” To the controller: “What bank do we do the most business with?”
“Gotham National Trust. I hate to do it, but I’ll phone—”
“I’ll phone. Everybody downstairs. Let’s move it.”
“Humanity,” the mayor’s wife said to her husband. “You’re full of the stuff of humanity, darling.”
“He’s full of it, all right,” Lasalle said.
RYDER
Even with the light in the cab turned off, Ryder knew he presented an easy target. He didn’t doubt there were police in the tunnel, hidden and watchful, and that several of them, lined up on the broad front window, would have him squarely centered in their sights. But unless the police decided to fight it out instead of paying the ransom—in which case he would simply be the first of many to die—or one of the snipers gave in to an irrational impulse, he was running no greater risk than the other three in their more sheltered positions. His cover was circumstance, and it gave him reasonable protection. As in war, he asked no more and would accept no less.
He had little patience with romantic or idealistic concepts of war. Such descriptions as “held out to the last man,” “fought
with utter disregard for their safety,” “against overwhelming odds” struck him as being the pathetic rallying cries of losers. He knew the classic examples, most of them from wars of antiquity, most of them monuments to inept planning, idiot pride or miscalculation: the Light Brigade, the Alamo, Pickett’s Charge, Thermopylae. All these were military mistakes. Holding out to the last man meant that you were wiped out; utter disregard for safety needlessly multiplied your casualties; fighting against overwhelming odds implied being outmaneuvered (true, the Israelis had won the Six-Day War, but they had nullified the other side’s numerical advantage by being there fustest with the mostest). He accepted the idea of sacrifice for his little command, but only for tactical advantage, never for glory.
His “command”—an ironically fancy name for the little band of misfits he had recruited so casually. Except for Longman, he hardly knew them; they were bodies chosen to fill the ranks. Actually, it was an open question whether he had recruited Longman or Longman had recruited him. A little of both, perhaps, the distinction being that he had volunteered and Longman had been a reluctant draftee. If Longman’s fear was stronger than his fascination, it was nevertheless unequal to the combination of fascination and greed, and this had brought him in—and kept him in.
In a way, Ryder realized, he had enlisted Welcome and Steever to balance Longman, who was intelligent, imaginative, and a coward. He had found them through the man who had sold him his armament, like himself a former mercenary, who had been forced to retire after he had been badly shot up. Now he was a dealer in weapons, with a warehouse in a run-down area of Newark and a hole-in-the-wall office on Pearl Street. His blind was a business as a factor of hides and skins, and his office, in addition to a hundred-year-old desk, contained a phone, some stationery, and floor-to-ceiling bins of leathery skins that he dusted once a month for appearance’s sake.
Submachine guns were no great deal for him to supply. If you wanted them badly enough, he could get you tanks, armored cars, howitzers, land mines, even a two-man submarine complete with torpedoes. When the arrangement was completed for the sale and delivery of four Thompson submachine guns and some sundries, the dealer fished up a bottle of whiskey, and the two refought some old battles (including a number in which they had been on opposite sides). At one point the phone had rung, and after a brief but argumentative conversation, the dealer had hung up and said in exasperation, “One of my boys. Crazy as a coot.”