The Taking of Pelham 123

by John Godey

  “Forget it,” he said.

  “I only wasted one all afternoon,” Welcome said. “I wouldn’t mind another notch on the gun.”

  “No,” Ryder said.

  “No,” Welcome said in mimicry. “Suppose I decide that’s what I want to do?”

  “We’re wasting time,” Ryder said. “Let’s get started.”

  “By the numbers, right?” Welcome said.

  Longman said, “You’re sure it’s clear up there?” He tilted his chin upward. “The cops will take off?”

  “Yes,” Ryder said. “They’ll follow the train.” He heard the rasp of impatience in his voice, and paused. “Ready? I’m going to give the commands.”

  “Commands,” Welcome said. “Real chickenshit.”

  Ryder ignored him. The precision drill had been a matter of necessity, not choice. In rehearsal, with each man on his own, one or another of them kept slipping up on details, and so he had devised a simple by-the-numbers routine. He had also decided against entering the emergency exit chamber at this point, against the possibility that some passerby looking through the grate above the escape ladder might see or hear them.

  “Submachine guns,” Ryder said crisply. He put his gun down on the roadbed. Steever and Longman followed, but Welcome still held his, fondling it possessively.

  Steever said, “Come on, Joey, you need two hands to work.”

  Welcome said, “What are you, the assistant captain?” But, reluctantly, he put his gun down.

  “Hats and masks,” Ryder said.

  The reappearance of their faces came as a shock, and Ryder thought: These seem less real than the masks. It surprised him, when Welcome spoke, to hear his own sentiments echoed.

  “Tell you something,” Welcome said, “you all looked better with your masks on.”

  “Disguise,” Ryder said.

  He had removed the wads from his face before putting his mask on, and Longman had removed his eyeglasses at the same time. So it remained only for Steever to take off his white-haired wig, and Welcome to strip off the moustache and elaborately curving sideburns.

  “Coats,” Ryder said. “Remove, turn, put back on.”

  Each of the navy raincoats was lined with a reversible material. Welcome’s was a light beige poplin waterproof, Steever’s a medium gray with a black fur collar, Longman’s a tan herringbone tweed, his own a pepper-and-salt Donegal tweed. He watched closely as they reversed the coats and buttoned them up over the bulging money jackets.

  “Hats.”

  They took their hats from their pockets. Welcome’s was a powder-blue low-crowned golfing hat with a narrow red-and-navy-blue band, Steever’s a gray with a short upturned brim, Longman’s a gray Astrakhan Russian hat, his own a sporty brown cap with a short brim.

  “Gloves.”

  They peeled their gloves and dropped them.

  “Handgun in coat pocket? Check.” He waited. “Okay. Wallets. Show the ID card and shield.”

  He hoped they would have no reason to use them, but it was conceivable that a cop or two, remaining on the scene, might question them. If so, they were to say they were part of the force stationed in the tunnel and present their police credentials, which had been even more expensive to obtain than the submachine guns.

  “Can’t you go a little faster?” Longman said.

  “This character is scared of the sound of his own farts,” Welcome said.

  “Almost finished,” Ryder said. “Pick up smg’s, detach magazine, put in pocket. Put smg down again.” It was a simple precaution; he just didn’t want to leave armed weapons behind.

  All four bent for their guns, but only three began to remove the magazines.

  “Not me,” Welcome said, smiling. “I’m taking my little fast shooter along with me.”

  GRAND CENTRAL TOWER

  Marino, his voice ringing in the stillness of the Tower Room, said, “Pelham One Two Three just passed Fourteenth Street station and is proceeding toward Astor Place station.”

  “Any idea of the speed?”

  “Well,” Marino said, “it’s moving along. I would guess it’s in series.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Say about thirty miles an hour. Can the police cars keep up with them through the traffic?”

  “We don’t have to do that. We’ve got cars in position all along the route. They pick up as the train hits their area.”

  “They’re now about halfway between Fourteenth and Astor Place.”

  “Okay. Keep talking to me.”

  NERVE CENTER

  At the Nerve Center a radio man handed Lieutenant Garber a message. He read it as he listened to Mrs. Jenkins. A TA patrolman on the Fourteenth Street station had reported that Pelham One Two Three had gone by without stopping.

  “…Pelham One Two Three is now about fifteen hundred feet south of Fourteenth Street station.”

  From the soft, modulated quality of her voice, Lieutenant Garber visualized Mrs. Jenkins as a slender, willowy blonde in her early thirties.

  “Keep feeding me, honey,” he said.

  CLIVE PRESCOTT

  At the desk trainmaster’s console at Command Center, Prescott gave up trying to contact Pelham One Two Three by radio. He listened to Mrs. Jenkins’ voice coming over the squawk box and speculated on its owner. About thirty-five, cafe-au-lait, divorced, cool, loving and experienced. He considered being soothed by her in expert ways, and immediately reproached himself for faithlessness to his wife.

  “…continuing to proceed downtown, estimated to be in series position speed.”

  It made no sense, Prescott thought. Inch by inch their position was monitored, so how could they hope to evade pursuit? It was dumb. But who ever said criminals were smart? And yet, thus far, they had not made a single mistake.

  He turned to the console. “Pelham One Two Three. Command Center calling Pelham One Two Three….”

  ANITA LEMOYNE

  In exactly one minute, Anita Lemoyne thought, I’m going to get hysterical. Can’t the stupid bastards count? Everyone was babbling about the hippie who had jumped out, even the old dude, who she judged to be the sharpest of the passengers.

  “Momentum,” the old man was saying. “From all that momentum he couldn’t be alive.”

  Someone else said, “What made him do it?” and then answered himself. “Bombed out. They get high and then do crazy things like that and get killed.”

  “Where are they taking us?” the boys’ mother said. “You think they’ll let us go soon, like they said?”

  “So far,” the old man said, “they have been as good as their word.”

  Anita jumped to her feet, screaming, “Don’t you dumb bastards know how to count? All four of them got off. There’s nobody driving the fucking train!”

  The old man seemed startled for a moment, then shook his head and smiled. “My dear young lady, if they all got off, we would be standing still. One of them has to be on to drive it.”

  Anita’s eyes went wildly from one uncertain face to another and rested on the mother’s. She must have been doing some simple arithmetic, Anita thought, because she looked like she was getting the message.

  The mother screamed on a sustained ululant note, and Anita thought: If that doesn’t make believers out of the rest of them, nothing will.

  TWENTY-ONE

  TOM BERRY

  Young Tom Berry’s father was bawling him out for some crime he hadn’t committed, scourging him with that cold voice that could draw blood. His mother was pleading for him, but her voice was strange. It sounded like a man’s. He opened his eyes, and pain drove his dream away, though the voices continued.

  He was lying against a pillar, off the roadbed, and he knew that he was hurt. His head, his shoulders, his chest… He put his hand to his mouth; it felt pulpy and wet. His fingers traced upward to his nose, which was seeping slowly, down into the delta over his upper lip. He probed his head and found a huge lump. The voices worried him. He lifted his head an inch or two and found
their source.

  He could not judge the distance in the dimness of the tunnel, but he could see them clearly enough, all four of them. They were ranged against the wall and they were undressing. They no longer wore their nylon masks, and their faces under the naked bulb marking the emergency exit were erratically lit: brightly on the prominence of nose and ears, hollowed by deep shadows on the flatter planes. The leader was doing most of the talking. Gradually, Berry began to realize what they were up to. Their hats and coats were different, they were disguising themselves. In their new clothing and with the police in wild pursuit of the train, they would come up through the emergency exit and simply mingle with the crowd.

  His gun. He had been holding it in his hand when he jumped. At some point it had been jarred loose. He raised himself on his elbow to look for it, then, in a sudden panic, huddled behind the pillar. They might see him, the whiteness of his face might give him away. But he couldn’t look for the gun if he kept his face pressed into the tunnel floor. Screw the gun. He could always get another gun, but not another face. He groaned, then hastily muffled the sound. Why was he here? Why had he jumped from the frying pan? Where was his head?

  The four hijackers were arguing. No, two of them. He placed the angry voice as belonging to the stud. The cold, uninflected voice was the leader’s. The other two were silent, looking on. Thieves falling out? Would they now proceed to slaughter each other with the machine guns? If they did, he wouldn’t hesitate to crawl over there and collar them.

  “You men—dead though you may be—are under arrest. You are entitled to one phone call each, and I hereby notify you of your rights according to Supreme Court decision…”

  Where was the gun? It could be anywhere in the tunnel between Fourteenth Street and Twenty-third. Where is my gun? He began to scrabble with his hand on the grimy tunnel floor.

  DCI DANIELS

  Through the window of Woodlawn One Four One, the faint rectangle of light that marked Pelham One Two Three wavered, liquefied. DCI Daniels rubbed his eyes.

  “They just begun to move,” the motorman said.

  “Well, what the hell are you waiting for!” the DCI shouted.

  “For your signal, like you said. You’re killing my arm, Cap’n, I can’t drive no train that way.”

  The DCI loosened his grip. “Get going. Not too fast.”

  “They sure as hell ain’t dawdling,” the motorman said. He pushed his controller, and the train began to crawl forward. “Look like they take off like a bullet. See how fast those green signals turned red? You sure you want me to go all this slow?”

  “I don’t want them to see us.”

  “This speed they sure won’t see us. Nor us see them.”

  “Then go faster, dammit, if that’s your judgment.”

  “Faster,” the motorman said. “That’s my judgment.”

  He nudged the controller to series position, and the train shot ahead, but only for a moment. The forward wheels made a faint metallic sound, and then the entire tunnel seemed to explode. The rear of the car lifted from the tracks, and hung suspended for a split second before crashing back heavily. The huge wheels glanced off the rails, and ground down on the roadbed. The car swayed and bounced crazily, and, as the motorman applied his brakes, sideswiped a half dozen pillars before it came to a stop in a haze of dust and overheated metal.

  “Sonofabitch,” the motorman said. Beside him, the DCI was holding his hand to his head. His eyes were crossed, and a thin stream of blood trickled out of his hairline and wound its way slowly down his forehead.

  The DCI pushed by the motorman and went out of the cab. There, leaning against the door to steady himself, he surveyed the car. Everyone seemed to be shouting. A half dozen cops were on the floor. Weapons were strewn about. A light, acrid dusting of smoke drifted lazily through the car.

  The DCI watched the men get off the floor, feeling curiously detached from the scene. One man was rolling from side to side, crying in oddly controlled gasps, clutching at his kneecap.

  “Help that man,” the DCI said. He was going to say something else, but lost the thread. He felt the bloody place on his head. It didn’t hurt. In fact, he couldn’t quite seem to make contact with it through his fingertips.

  “Are you hurt, sir?” It was a burly sergeant, speaking very calmly. “What happened, sir?”

  “Booby-trapped,” the DCI said. “Tell your men to sit down, sergeant. The Jap bastards booby-trapped us off the track.”

  He was amused by the curious look the sergeant was giving him. A young fella, the sergeant, too young for the big war, he didn’t understand about booby traps or recognize the stink of a grenade.

  “What I mean, sir,” the sergeant said, “what do we do? What orders, sir?”

  “We’re off the track,” the DCI said. His mind drifted. “I’ll reconnoiter. Just stay put.”

  He went into the cab. The motorman had let his metal stool down. He was sitting on it, shaking his head from side to side.

  “Report the incident, Sergeant,” the DCI said. “Find out how soon the corps of engineers can get us back on the track, or secure other transportation.”

  “Take a crew of car knockers couple or more hours to get us back,” the motorman said. “What you mean, sergeant? You a little shook up, Cap’n?”

  “Don’t argue, Sergeant. Get on that radio and report.”

  He went out into the car, and slid the front door open. As he was crouching for the jump to the roadbed, the sergeant who had spoken to him before said, “Can we give you any help, sir?”

  The DCI smiled, and shook his head. Funny new breed of cops, spoiled by cars and partners and computers. They didn’t realize that the old-timer walked his beat alone and unafraid, and beware the miscreant who trifled with him. He dropped to the tracks and was somewhat jarred by the impact, but he straightened up quickly. Then, hands behind his back, eyes moving slowly and watchfully from side to side, he began to walk his beat.

  RYDER

  Facing Welcome in the first silence since they had left the train, Ryder heard the inexplicable sounds of the tunnel—rustlings, creakings, echoes, the faint sigh of the tainted wind. Steever and Longman were looking at him questioningly.

  “As before,” he said. “Detach magazine.”

  Almost in precise unison with Steever and Longman he removed the magazine and slid it into his left coat pocket. Welcome, smiling, shook his head from side to side.

  Ryder said mildly, “Disarm your gun, Joe, so we can get out of here.”

  “I’m ready right now,” Welcome said. “Me and the gun is going out together.”

  “You can’t take it,” Ryder said, still mildly.

  “My friend goes with me. The old firepower, you know, if the fuzz turns up.”

  “The whole point of the escape plan is to walk away unnoticed. You can’t do that if you’re carrying a submachine gun.” The argument—the very words he was using—was a replay. It had come up several times in the past weeks, but Welcome had eventually conceded—or so it seemed.

  “Not carry it.” Welcome looked at Steever and Longman as if for confirmation that he was scoring a major point. “I slip it under my coat.”

  The old record played on, Ryder thought. “A submachine gun can’t be hidden under a coat.”

  Longman said shrilly, “This is crazy. We have to get going.”

  Steever’s face was impassive, showing neither annoyance nor partisanship. Longman had begun to sweat again. Welcome, still smiling, was watching Ryder with hard, narrowed eyes.

  Ryder said, “Will you leave your gun?”

  “Shit, no, General.”

  He was still smiling when Ryder, firing through his pocket, shot him in the throat. The shot was soundless, overwhelmed by a shattering explosion northward in the tunnel. Welcome collapsed. Longman sagged against the tunnel wall. Welcome lay on his side. His legs were twitching, his left hand clawed at his throat, and his fingers were stained red. His hat had rolled away, and his long black hair
had broken down over his forehead. He was still holding the submachine gun in his right hand. Ryder kicked it loose. He bent down, removed the magazine, and put it in his pocket. Longman was leaning against the wall, vomiting rackingly.

  Ryder crouched for a close look at Welcome. His eyes were shut, his skin was the color of old paper, and his breathing was shallow. Ryder took out his automatic and placed it against Welcome’s head. He looked up at Steever.

  “He might last long enough to talk,” he said, and pulled the trigger. Welcome’s head jerked with the impact of the slug, and a bit of bloody bone flew away. He looked up again into Steever’s expressionless face. “Get Longman straightened out.”

  He unbuttoned Welcome’s coat and untied the money jacket. The edges of one of the packets of money was bloodstained. To free the jacket, Ryder held one end of it and flipped Welcome over on his face. He stood up with the jacket. Northward in the tunnel a moiling cloud of smoke and dust was suspended between the roadbed and the roof.

  Steever was supporting Longman with a hand around his waist and was wiping off the front of his coat with a handkerchief. Longman looked ill. His face was drained of color, and his eyes were red-rimmed and weeping.

  “Open his coat,” Ryder said.

  Longman stood limp and helpless as Steever tugged at the buttons of his coat. When Ryder moved toward him with the jacket, Longman looked terrified.

  “Me?” Longman said. “Why me?” and Ryder realized that his fear had passed beyond being rational and that he was afraid of everything.

  “You’re the thinnest of us. Two jackets under your coat won’t show. Hold your hands away from your sides.”