The World Beneath (Joe Tesla)

by Rebecca Cantrell

  At the 68th Street/Hunter College station, he’d climbed onto a platform, hoodie pulled low over his face to keep the surveillance cameras from recognizing him, although a man coming out of the tunnels with a golden Lab was already distinctive enough that they didn’t need facial-recognition software to identify him. He stared at the friendly blue station sign with its green border and took a few deep breaths before joining a mass of people heading toward the stairs leading outside.

  Each step seemed harder, and the crowd shifted him against the right-hand wall, the side reserved for the injured or weak. He fell in behind an elderly woman with a nimbus of thin white hair that shivered like dandelion seeds in the wind coming off the subway. She struggled with each step, but hauled herself upward. When she reached the step bathed in gray sunlight, she neither stopped nor slowed, but moved up to the next step, and the next. Behind her, Joe stopped.

  His heart raced. Sweat drenched his T-shirt and ran down his back. His breath puffed out in front of him in rapid clouds. When he grabbed the cold railing to keep from falling, he realized that his hands were numb. A feeling of dread consumed him.

  He would die here on the steps.

  Edison tugged at his leash, but Joe didn’t have the strength to move. The dog took the leg of his jeans in his mouth and pulled him down a step. Joe watched Edison. The dog stood one step below him with a mouthful of wet jeans. He set his front legs far apart and dragged Joe down another step. His implacable strength comforted Joe. He released his hold on the railing and let the dog guide him through the stream of people back into the tiled tunnel and the dark safety of the platform.

  He couldn’t go out there.

  After that, he’d led the dog back down the tunnels to the abandoned janitor’s closet where they now sat. A dark, wet circle on his knee showed where Edison had taken hold of him. The dog deserved better than a master who was stuck down here until the cops caught him or he got hit by a train. “You’re a great dog, you know that?”

  Edison cocked his head. Clearly, he didn’t think that this was news.

  “OK, Yellow Dog,” he said. “Why would the CIA come to talk to me about a murder in the New York subway?”

  Edison yawned.

  “Don’t yawn. That’s the most interesting piece,” he said. “Think about the jurisdiction, Edison. For a simple murder, the cops would have come on their own. For a complicated murder, like the work of a serial killer who killed in multiple states, they might have also brought along the FBI. But they brought the CIA. Why?”

  The dog flopped onto the dusty floor, obviously not interested in analyzing the case.

  “Some partner you are.” Joe pulled treats from his pocket and handed them to Edison. Soon, he would have to sneak out and get them both real food.

  He pulled out his laptop, felt ridiculously thrilled to see an electrical outlet in the corner, and compiled what he knew about the case. Not much, really. One man beaten to death recently, two men and a child bricked in decades ago. In spite of everything, it felt good to be doing something meaningful again.

  Rebar was the key. Joe needed to find out why he’d been killed, and why the CIA cared. How had he known that the car was there? Had he found the treasure that he’d expected to find inside?

  Joe remembered the footprints in the dust and how the man had clearly searched the skeletons’ pockets. The car itself might hold the answer.

  He struggled to understand why the CIA would care about an event that far in the past. It was more likely that Rebar had been wrong about the car, that he had been chased because he’d known something from the current day, maybe had had proof about an activity that the agency desperately needed to keep secret. The answer must be in the documents that the man who had chased him had asked about.

  The shaky video he’d taken of the crime scene was still on his computer. Maybe the answer was in there. He hesitated before opening it. He didn’t want to see the blood-spattered scene again. He hadn’t watched much television as a child, or movies, and he still found such images unnerving in a way that he’d never been able to explain to his college peers who’d grown up immersed in a world of simulated bloodshed.

  Still, he’d have to fight his squeamishness, because he wouldn’t allow himself to be intimidated. He took a deep breath and clicked the Play button. The video started with footprints in the dust and moved to take in the skeletons that had been dragged into the center of the room. The skulls had both fallen off and rolled to rest against the far brick wall. The person who’d moved them clearly hadn’t cared about the skulls. He must have been looking for something they’d carried in their clothes.

  Joe scanned through the video but didn’t see any identifying indicators that would help him to figure out the men’s identities. Because of the way that the soldier’s body was positioned, he couldn’t see the front of his shirt, where his name might have been sewn on. These people must have been important (hence, the train car), and they must have been considered dangerous, maybe because of chemical contamination or biological infection.

  As if he’d known his later self would want to know, the film focused on the tiny skeleton, the one that he’d assumed belonged to a child. Unlike the others, this one wore no clothes. And its legs looked wrong. He enhanced the image and zoomed in until the images got grainy. The spine didn’t look right. It had several extra vertebrae. A tail.

  Joe’s heart lightened when he realized that the bones didn’t belong to a dead child, but rather a monkey. That explained why it was naked, but it didn’t explain why someone had bricked the poor creature up deep under New York City.

  Maybe it was a pet. Maybe it was more sinister, like an escaped lab monkey. Had they used monkeys for testing that long ago? If so, then perhaps the men, and the monkey, had been infected with a disease. And, now, maybe Joe was, too. He shivered.

  The goal was to identify Rebar, not to solve the crime, but he’d come back and watch the video later and search for more clues. In the meantime, he fast-forwarded past the rest of the room to the part where he’d filmed Rebar’s body.

  Nausea rose in his throat at the rats cowering in the corners. Edison kicked in his sleep, as if he dreamed of running.

  “Good instinct, boy,” Joe told him.

  He forced himself to look at the battered face. The skull had been crushed. There wasn’t enough intact bone to support a face. He wouldn’t be able to identify him from that.

  But he had more to work with. He could search through surveillance video of Grand Central and get a picture of the man before he’d gone into the tunnels. He could use that to identify him just as he had identified Vivian Torres.

  For that, he had to get online. Not tonight.

  Instead, he tried to put the pieces together. An hour later, he was no closer to an answer; he kept nodding off. He shut down his laptop and unfolded Edison’s blanket. When he’d grabbed it, he hadn’t thought about why. Now he knew—he’d need it to get through the night.

  The comic books made a serviceable pillow. He bunched them on the floor in the corner and spread the blanket next to them. He turned off the light and pulled the blanket up like a sleeping bag. Edison lay down on the covers next to him. The dog’s warm form comforted him, and he had to live up to his no-self-pity rule. He’d gotten himself into this mess, he would get himself out. He just needed to figure things out, and he was good at figuring things out.

  He’d better be.

  Chapter 16

  November 29, 7:32 a.m.

  Underground maintenance room

  Subway system

  Joe woke to utter darkness. For a second, he wasn’t sure if he’d opened his eyes. His back ached, and his right arm was asleep. Edison’s relaxed breathing was the only sound. He smelled dog and mold.

  Slowly, it came to him. He wasn’t home. He was in a maintenance closet somewhere in the subway tunnel system—he wasn’t sure where. He wasn’t lost, but he wasn’t found, either.

  No point in dwelling on that. He turned on
his laptop to check the time: 7:30 a.m. Late enough to give up on getting more sleep and time to figure out how to get breakfast for himself and Edison without being arrested.

  With cracks and pops, he stood. His back told him that it had not enjoyed sleeping on cold tiles all night long, and that it never wanted to do so again. Even Edison made a grunting noise when he got up, as if he’d missed his dog bed.

  It took only a minute to turn on the light and gather up his belongings. The blanket, he bunched in his arms. He’d need it for cover in the tunnels.

  “Let’s go, Edison.” His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the tiny room, and he lowered it. “Let’s go on a mission for food and Internet, the staffs of life.”

  The dog shook himself and walked to the door.

  “Heel.” Joe didn’t know what they would face out there, but it would be easier if Edison stuck close. “And stay there.”

  He reached up and flicked off the light before opening the door. He didn’t want to be visible to anyone outside. After giving his eyes time to adjust to the darkness, he walked out the door and down the tunnel. A set of stairs ran up to a metal grate. Shoes walked across over his head, dropping dirt and water down on his hair. Shoes on the feet of people walking down the sidewalk, as he used to do.

  He hurried past the grate, keeping to the side of the tracks, searching for side tunnels.

  A train neared, white headlights a beacon in the tunnel. Joe pulled Edison in front of him and curled against the wall, wrapping the blanket around their bodies so that nothing showed. He hoped that no one would notice a dark hump against the wall, nearly as much as a man with a dog.

  The blanket trick seemed to work, because he made it almost all the way to Grand Central without incident. Almost.

  A policeman stood at the tunnel entrance to Platforms 9 (scarlet) and 10 (cyan, then black). Joe shrank back in the tunnel and tried Platforms 7 (slate) and 8 (purple) with the same results. Looked like they’d staked out all the platforms. Hard to believe the cops would expend that kind of manpower for a simple murder investigation.

  He ran back toward the track that led to Platforms 16 (cyan, orange) and 17 (cyan, slate), Edison loping between him and the side of the tunnel. He had a chance to get in, but he had only a narrow window of time. Even then, it was risky.

  Jogging, he formulated a plan. A quirk in MTA’s schedule meant that one train halted in the tunnel for about two minutes every morning at 8:03 (a purple, black, and red ribbon flashed in his head) while the train in front of it finished loading at the platform. He’d seen the train sitting there one morning on a walk with Edison and had checked the schedule to see why. The tunnel system was his backyard, and he wanted to know why a train would be loitering there.

  Maybe today his curiosity would help him out.

  He arrived with less than a minute to spare and hunched against a pillar near where he hoped the last car of the train would come to a stop. He held the blanket ready to cover them. The train clattered up close, and he hid them under the blanket. Edison tensed in his arms but didn’t panic. Joe fingered one of the keys from his massive key ring, hoping.

  He felt more than heard the train stop and pulled off the blanket, standing and running toward the back. He hoped that the engineer wasn’t looking. He couldn’t do anything about the passengers, but most people kept their eyes focused inside the train, ignoring the subterranean world beyond their metal and glass walls.

  In a few strides, he reached the train’s back door. The narrow entrance was too high to reach, but he was ready for that. He vaulted onto the coupling, teetered, then caught hold of the metal door handle with one hand. A quick turn of his key, and he was inside. Step one was successful.

  Edison whined. He turned back to the open door and the tracks behind him.

  “Jump, boy!” He calculated that they had fifteen (cyan, brown) seconds left. If Edison didn’t jump soon, he’d have to climb down himself and figure out another way. He’d never seen the dog jump more than a couple of feet high. Had he ever jumped so high before? Could he?

  Edison was not one to be left behind.

  The dog got a running start, then hurtled up and into the car. Joe put his hands out to catch him before he hit the back of the small compartment that separated them from the main car. Edison lunged to the side as he landed, sliding forward and against Joe’s hands, redirecting his momentum. Smart dog.

  Joe slammed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. They were committed now.

  “Good boy.” He picked up Edison’s leash and opened the door that separated them from the rest of the train car. His plan wouldn’t work unless he got further forward in the train.

  He walked straight through the car, as if he belonged, hip inches from blue fabric seats. Most people didn’t look up from their newspapers, books, and phones, but a woman in her forties eyed him suspiciously. He walked on. Even if she called the police, the call probably wouldn’t be routed to the police at the platforms within the two minutes left before the train arrived at the station. He hoped.

  In the next car, nobody looked askance at him. They must have assumed that he’d come from the car behind them. A few smiled at Edison absently. He walked until he reached the middle of the train. Here, he would hide amongst the crowd. The sheer volume of commuters might be enough to keep the police at the platform ends from seeing the dog or recognizing Joe.

  When the train pulled in, Joe hung back to let a few people by. He couldn’t go first. He needed a critical mass of people on the platform before he exited the train. When he judged there were enough people there, he pushed to the door and out. He didn’t dare to be the last one off the train, either.

  He kept Edison close and let the crowd draw them along the platform toward the exit. He couldn’t see the policemen and hoped that he wasn’t visible to them, either. As for Edison, all those many legs on the platform would conceal him. With luck, the policemen weren’t watching the departing crowd too closely. If they spotted him, he still had a good chance of getting away before they worked their way through the crowd.

  Joe and Edison reached the main floor without incident. Joe led the way up the stairs to the west balcony. From on high he took a quick look at the people moving through the giant room below. None seemed to notice him and wouldn’t even see Edison from down there. Good.

  He headed over toward the elevator by The Campbell Apartment. He hated taking the elevator, with its camera, but he didn’t think that anyone would be monitoring that camera. They probably hadn’t expected him to get past the platforms. He made it safely to the elevator and pressed the button to go to the floor of the Vanderbilt Tennis and Fitness Club, his workout facility.

  Once he got into the gym, Joe felt safer. Inside, it looked like any other gym—a counter at the front to sign in and receive a towel and locker rooms to the right for men and left for women. Across from those were the weight room and tennis courts.

  The young man at the desk, Brandon, recognized him. Nothing in his greeting seemed different from any other day. Brandon looked like Joe—the same height and build with the same short dark hair and blue eyes. Brandon, too, was a programmer, working his way through college, and Joe had arranged an internship for him at Pellucid the following summer. He wore a bright blue Pellucid baseball cap to work every day.

  “You’re up early, Mr. Tesla.” His accent was pure Bronx.

  “I’m busy later,” Joe said. “I thought I’d better get a workout in while I can.”

  Brandon nodded. Joe normally kept strange hours, dropping in at any time from when they opened at six a.m. to when they closed at one a.m. He was grateful for that now. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  On the desk next to the sign-in sheet rested Brandon’s phone. It was the same brand as Joe’s, but without a cover. If Joe could switch their phones undetected, the phone might inadvertently trick the police into following Brandon. Joe rejected the idea. The switch might get the young man into trouble, and the police would kn
ow about Joe’s connection to the health club.

  “Could you do me a favor?” Joe asked.

  “Always, Mr. Tesla.”

  Joe slid two twenties across the desk. “Get me a bagel and coffee for breakfast and get Edison a steak from Ceriello? You can keep the change.”

  Not that there would be much change. Ceriello steaks were expensive.

  Brandon put a “back in a minute” sign on the desk and headed out.

  Joe made for the locker room, dropping the towel over his shoulder. He unlocked his locker and took out shampoo, shaving cream, and a razor. He lingered longer than he probably should have under the water, loving how it washed away the smells of night on the floor with the dog and how the hot water relaxed his tense muscles. Plus, under the shower he could pretend that this was just another ordinary day.

  After he got out and dried off, he had to face the reality that, among other things, he had no clean clothes. He sniffed his workout shirt and then the shirt he’d been wearing all night. No contest. The workout shirt smelled better. He pulled it over his head, wishing for clean clothes. No luck there, but what the gym had, which was better than clean, was Wi-Fi. After all, the fully connected businessman had to be able to access the Internet between sets.

  Clean and dry, he sat on the wooden bench in the locker room and logged into the Wi-Fi with Edison curled on the tile floor at his feet. He’d gotten through a couple of computers to hide his location by the time Brandon came back with breakfast. He even brought a plate for the steak and a bowl of water for Edison. A good kid.

  In a few minutes he had hacked into the Grand Central video surveillance archive. This time he wasn’t searching for Vivian Torres’s embarrassing rescue. He was searching for Rebar, trying to figure out when he’d come through the terminal, or if he’d come through the terminal at all on his way down to the tunnels. There were hundreds of other entry points—old access doors, the platforms at the subway stations, and who knew where else? Still, it was a place to start.