Phin Baylor cracked a smile. “Now you’re on track.”
“You tell him anything? You give him a list of the ones you could remember?”
“I told you I wasn’t looking for more trouble, Mike.”
“What’ll buy us that same list from you, Phin? A hundred bucks?”
“That might get me thinking.”
“Start thinking out loud.”
“Stay out of all those active tunnels where O’Malley’s had you scrambling around. If Brendan Quillian’s still in this city, then he’s in some sandhog ghost town. An abandoned space. Nothing there but him and the rats.”
Mike was listening intently.
“And one thing for sure. He’ll need it to be deadly quiet, Chapman. Brendan’ll want the place to be silent as a tomb.”
45
We paid our informant enough to keep him in cheap beer for a week and started the drive back to Manhattan.
“Pick up Teddy O’Malley and meet us in Coop’s office. We should be there by six for some sandhog brainstorming.” Mike was on the phone with Mercer. “Peterson put a detail on him when we saw him leave Trish Quillian’s house this afternoon. Get in touch with those detectives. They should know exactly where he is and bring him in.”
I waited until Mike finished to call Battaglia and ask him to appeal to the mayor’s office to get some juice for what we needed to do. I wanted experts-if not tonight, by tomorrow-from every city agency that had tunnels and construction projects, people who knew exactly where every one of them was. DEP, Transportation, Port Authority. I told Laura to reserve the conference room so that we could spread the crew out with maps in order to chart together every deserted dig in the five boroughs.
Traffic snarled the Deegan Expressway and the Triborough Bridge crossing, slowing the ride back into the city. We were stalled in gridlock just above Canal Street as it approached 7 p.m., both impatient to get to my office and start a fresh look at Brendan Quillian’s options.
“It’s like Saddam’s spider hole, Coop. We’re sitting on top of it, somewhere. We just need to find the right opening.
“You got Teddy yet?” Mike called Mercer again to let him know we were getting closer to Hogan Place. “What do you mean those mopes lost him? Jeez. I should have followed him myself. Did you leave a message on his cell?”
Mercer answered and Mike spoke again. “Good.”
He listened and then exploded as he pulled the car over to the curb and threw his laminated plaque onto the dashboard. “Shit! How could they lose him in the subway? There? It makes no sense. Meet us at the entrance to the City Hall Station…Yeah, the East Side one-that old kiosk right across from the Municipal Building. Fifteen minutes, half an hour. Bring company, Mercer. Coop’s with me.”
Bring company was a command Mike rarely gave. I got chills at the idea that he thought we needed backup.
He took a small flashlight from the glove compartment and stuck it in his rear pants pocket, got out of the car, and started jogging lamely to the intersection of Lafayette and Canal streets, just a block ahead. It was the entrance to the downtown #6 train-the Lexington Avenue local. Pedestrians walking north from the hub of government offices and courthouses slowed our southbound run, and I caught up with Mike as he headed down the steps into the station.
“Stay with me,” he called out to me. He swiped his MetroCard to get through the turnstile, then swiped again so I could get in, too.
“What did Mercer say?”
“Those jerks lost O’Malley after tailing him all afternoon. He left his car a few blocks from the station, then got on the six going downtown. Took it one stop to the Brooklyn Bridge,” Mike said. “The dicks got off there, but never saw Teddy again.”
“You mean they lost him in the crowd?”
“They told Mercer they saw him on the platform-and no, it wasn’t even that busy. But when the group of people cleared, O’Malley was gone.”
“Doesn’t everybody have to get off the train there? You can’t go any farther south, can you?”
The Brooklyn Bridge stop of the IRT #6 train was the last station on the route from lower Manhattan, at the foot of the great bridge, all the way uptown to Pelham Bay Park.
“Not unless you ride the loop,” Mike said.
The train pulled into the station and opened its doors to admit us. Tired workers on their way home rested their heads against the windows behind them, while several reading books and newspapers glanced up. I walked briskly behind Mike, moving through three cars to get to the front of the train, behind the motorman’s cab. I grasped on to poles and straps as I moved ahead, the train rolling from side to side as it barreled forward.
Mike turned to reach for my hand as we stepped into the front car.
“What’s the loop? What are you talking about?”
We were face-to-face. I grabbed on to Mike’s shoulder to steady myself.
“Just the kind of place we’re looking for, only Mercer didn’t have the advantage of our conversation with Phin Baylor. And Teddy O’Malley may have led us there unwittingly.”
“Where?”
“City Hall Station. The ceremonial terminal of the first subway system in New York. Maybe the most elegant station ever built.”
“But it’s closed. It’s been closed for fifty years. You’ve been inside it?”
“It was reopened briefly, to prepare for its centennial in 2004. We had to check it out as part of our Terrorist Task Force duties. The commissioner ordered it shut down again pretty quickly after 9/11. It’s directly under City Hall-too risky to chance an attack.”
“And the loop?”
“When all the passengers are disgorged from the Number Six at the Brooklyn Bridge platform, the empty train makes a sharp right turn off the local tracks onto a loop. The cars go onto the actual track of the original City Hall Station. That one was way too short to handle the longer modern subway cars, so it’s only used for a turnaround.”
“Of the Number Six?”
“Yeah, the local makes the tight curve and reappears on the uptown side-completely empty-for the ride north. In the process of looping around, it goes underground deep enough to cross under the express tracks, below grade.”
“A typical sandhog job, dug into the bedrock,” I said. “And a phantom subway station. There was even a photograph of the Quillian boys at City Hall with their father in the living room of Trish’s house.”
“You saw that? Fits Phin’s theory. Figures Brendan’s old man would have gotten them in for a visit. Transit used to give tours of the place until a few years back.”
The train jolted to a stop and the motorman announced the end of the line.
Mike charged forward, displaying his gold shield.
“You gotta get off here, buddy. I don’t care who you are. Take your date and go,” the motorman said, turning back to his controls and sliding the panel shut behind him.
Mike blocked the closing door with his body. “We’re coming with you.”
“I can’t ride nobody around. It’s the rules. You oughta know that,” the young man said, his annoyance turning to anger. “You’re making me late.”
“And you’re making me mad. Move it.”
“I could lose my job over this.”
“Go slow,” Mike said, as the car lurched ahead, around the curve into a darkened tunnel. It was listing to the right side, and I balanced myself against the railing of the first bench.
“Stop it. Right here.”
“First you wanna ride with me, now you want me to shut it down. But I can’t,” the motorman protested.
“I’ll bet you can,” Mike said, lifting his jacket back far enough to reveal the revolver on his hip.
Another sudden stop and the doors opened.
“Jump down, Coop. Be careful.”
I held on to the door handle and lowered myself to the platform, trying to adjust to the blackness around me. Mike followed as the motorman closed the doors and pulled away, the lights from within the cars fli
ckering to reveal the arched ceilings over the narrow walkway, and the deep blue-and-tan glass lettering of the words CITY HALL.
The last rumblings of the long train grew more distant. There was nothing but darkness around us and the exquisite silence of a tomb.
46
Mike and I stood in place for several minutes without exchanging a word. I was listening for any sound, any noise at all to suggest someone else was anywhere within this great vaulted space. Slowly my eyes began to adjust to the blackness that surrounded us.
I whispered into Mike’s ear, “You have a plan?”
He nodded, holding his forefinger over his lips, then pointing to row after row of brick arches overhead. He mouthed a single word: “Echoes.”
I didn’t think he could get any closer to me, but he leaned in and cupped a hand over my ear. “I know where this leads. Good place to hide.”
My pulse was racing and the stillness of the abandoned station was unnerving. “Do you know how to get out once you’ve found it?”
I could see Mike’s white teeth. “I never go in unless I do. And Mercer’s up above, watching over you. We move when you hear the sound of the next train.”
It was almost six minutes before the headlights of the silver subway car cast a beam that bounced off the curved wall, followed a fraction of a second later by the noise of the steel wheels.
Mike walked quickly, still limping, to a staircase twenty feet ahead and climbed the first few steps, turning sideways and pressing against the handrail as the train passed through. I did the same thing.
I looked above me for the source of whatever natural light seemed to bathe the lower steps. I guessed that the glass skylight in the ceiling must have been situated in the park in front of City Hall, capturing and filtering the remaining rays that marked the end of the long June day.
From this vantage point, I could see the beauty of the original architecture. The tunnel was entirely without angles, the structural vaults and smooth curves continuing in a semicircle until they disappeared out of sight in both directions. Brass chandeliers without bulbs dangled from the tiled ceiling that they’d once illuminated. I tried to calm myself by studying the elegance of the century-old design, but Mike tugged on my arm and I was ready to advance with him deeper into the darkness again.
Another dozen steps and we reached the top of the staircase. Mike removed the flashlight from his pocket and shone it around the edges of the steel enclosure that sealed off the exit, pressing against it with his left hand at the same time.
“Dead end,” he said. “C’mon.”
He must have seen the anxiety in my troubled expression.
“There’s four of these doors, Coop. I know there’s still an opening in one of them. I’ve been through there.”
He shone the light so that we could descend. “Wait for the next train to go past. I don’t want any nosy motorman to see us and decide to stop,” he said when we reached the halfway mark.
Minutes later, another local hurtled through the loop to turn and begin its uptown run.
Mike led me along the platform to a second set of steps, also brightened by a second skylight.
He took the first three stairs, then stopped and focused his light on the old cobblestone. “This is the one.”
“How do you know?”
“Rat droppings. More likely people have come and gone this way-more likely there’s something to eat inside. There are guys who call themselves creepers, Alex. They find these abandoned spaces and make ways to break into them, just for sport. If I had a nose like a rat, I’d have made first grade the year I came on the job. The crawl space is up here. I’m pretty sure of it.”
He backtracked and flipped open his phone. “Mercer? Can you hear me?” he said. “Yeah, it’s breaking up because I’m in the tunnel. Inside the old City Hall Station. Call Peterson. We mapped this all out for the task force a couple of years back. Have him cover the exits and entrances…What? What? Can’t hear you.”
Mike started up the steps again. He turned and saw me looking over my shoulder at the train tracks. He held up his thumb like a hitchhiker on the road. “Out?”
I caught up to him.
“Look, I can wave down a motorman. Get one to take you out,” Mike said softly.
I hesitated but didn’t answer.
“It’s like a rabbit warren inside. An old wooden ticket booth, subway cars that have rotted out over time, piles of old IRT station signs. If Brendan Quillian is actually hiding here, I promise I’ll call in the cavalry. I just think Teddy O’Malley is playing some kind of cat-and-mouse game with me and I want to see what it is.”
“I’m a musketeer, aren’t I?”
Mike continued up to the top of the tall staircase and I followed. This time, as soon as he flashed his light on the door, the two-foot-square opening at its base became obvious. A trapdoor lifted from the top, on a hinge, as he pressed on it.
“Can you do it?”
“Do what?” I asked.
“Crawl on your belly like a reptile. Four feet. Maybe six.”
“Remember me?” I whispered. “I’m the one who’s claustrophobic.”
“A short shimmy. Then it expands onto this huge mezzanine. Wide-open spaces that you like, with a grand staircase that floats up like a back door to City Hall. Put on your tap shoes and you can do a Busby Berkeley while I see if my hunch about O’Malley is right.”
“Won’t the mayor be surprised to see us, coming in through his basement?”
“That’s why the plan to revamp it didn’t work.” Mike knelt down and shone the light in. “Not as dusty as you’d think. Transit buffs and creepers sneaking in and out of here all the time.”
“But why?”
“Whack jobs. There are antiquated, closed-up stations-not quite as nice as this one-all over town. These train nuts love to make believe it’s the good old days. Ten of them camped out here two years ago and threw a party.”
Mike was about to kneel down when his cell phone vibrated. “Yeah? Where are you, Mercer?” He waited for an answer. “Has O’Malley returned your call? Don’t you think it’s strange that he hasn’t? A visit to Trish Quillian, and then he simply goes out of range and we lose him.”
There was a longer pause. “Coming in how? Behind us? That’ll make Coop happy. Second staircase after the train makes the curve into the station. Tell the loo this might be for nothing, but he’s welcome to join us.”
“What will I be happy about?”
“Mercer’s taking the train into the loop just the way we did. Peterson wants a team ready at the old entrance, just in case we’re onto something. And not a peep back from O’Malley. In with me? Those slacks looked ready for the dry cleaners last time you wore them.”
“In with you,” I said quietly.
Mike stretched out on the floor. “Grab my foot, you’ll feel better.”
He had become much more reckless since the tragic accident that took Valerie’s life. I didn’t know how to slow him down, and I didn’t want to leave him in this tunnel now. I was tired and confused, and hoping that Mercer would catch up with us quickly.
Mike propelled himself through the short passageway-the kind I imagined one might find at the base of an Egyptian pyramid-and I followed on my hands and knees, holding on to his good ankle whenever I could. He turned off his flashlight as his head emerged through the narrow space.
Within seconds we had entered the large chamber of the original station. He stood up and helped me to my feet.
Again, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I turned slowly in a circle to take in the enormous room that had been the crown jewel in New York’s first underground transit system-a little vaulted town beneath the city.
Mike signaled me to stand still and not to speak. Silhouettes of the token booth and a decommissioned “redbird”-one of the old painted subway cars that had been taken out of service years ago-took shape in front of us on the mezzanine level of the original station. Larger chandeliers than those on
the platform hung from the interiors of the tall arches against cream-colored tiles that glistened in the background.
But still not a sound to be heard.
Three minutes. Then five passed before Mike satisfied himself that there was no one in proximity to us and took a few more steps. He had drawn his gun and waved his left arm to motion me to fall in place behind him.
I waited as he approached the token booth. He leaned his back against the outer corner of it, then pivoted around and pointed his gun inside, the way I had seen him do on so many occasions when reconnoitering a dangerous location. It was empty.
Fifteen feet farther into the station was the redbird, left on display from an earlier renovation. The doors were open, and as I got closer, I could see that the dried bamboo strips on the seats had been gnawed through and the stuffing scattered on the floor of the car. But no one was inside.
Mike pointed off to the side and, emboldened by the quiet reception, turned on his flashlight again. There was indeed a grand staircase, and over the span in front of it, the lettering that identified CITY HALL in even larger tiles, surrounded by a bright green ceramic that lightened the drab, earthenware shades of the ones around it.
“That’s the way up to the original kiosk entrance. Let’s see if there’s still an exit to get out to the street,” Mike said.
He leaned on the railing along the wall to support his bad foot, and I climbed beside him. At the top of the landing, he bent over to rub his ankle as I made the turn and started on up. I could see the black wrought-iron framework of a doorway and was glad it was in easy reach, hoping it would be rigged for egress to Centre Street.
I stopped myself when I saw something else-almost like a padded black cushion-blocking the staircase at the very top.
“There’s something there, Mike,” I said, short of breath-from fear, not exertion.
“Give me the light.”
He took the last few steps in pairs and, reaching my side, directed the beam at the floor.
I saw the blood first. Pools of red blood-still wet, and still more oozing from the hulking frame of whoever was lying in front of the doorway.
Bad blood Page 33