“Thanks.”
“Dumbrowski. Joe Dumbrowski. Friends call me the Brow. Sure beats the first part of my name, huh?” he said with a chuckle. He slid his nightstick back in its holster. “Don’t forget the rules, now. This world down here ain’t forgivin’ to foreigners.”
Geoff nodded, checked his watch as Dumbrowski walked away, then heard a thunderous rumble in the distance. The floor began to shake. A train was arriving down below on the IND platform. Geoff broke into a trot and along with a handful of people who came seemingly from nowhere, headed to the uptown platform. He descended the stairs quickly. Just as his foot touched the platform, the shrill honk of the train sounded and its twin beacons emerged from the murky depths of the tunnel. The long graffiti-smeared train screeched to a halt and opened its doors, allowing passengers to exit.
Instinctively, Geoff looked up at the sign on the side of the train to make sure it was the “A” train, though he didn’t need to check since no other subway line ran this far north. He entered the second car.
Geoff had his own “rules of the rails,” born of his generally cautious nature. He made it a practice never to get into the first car, since he’d surely be crushed to death if there was a collision, or the end car, since that was the least occupied and presumably the most dangerous. This strategy had worked well for him over the last seven years. In spite of the considerable amount of crime in the subways, not only had he never been accosted, he had never even witnessed a serious incident.
Geoff sat down on one of the long benches just inside the doorway. The car was about half full, mostly people on their way home from work downtown. The neighborhood north of Washington Heights, known as Fort Tryon Park, remained a fairly stable enclave for elderly German Jews as well as those of the Hasidic sect, an ultra-religious group of Eastern European descent whose literal interpretation of the scriptures often put them at odds with the rest of Judaism.
A young, heavily-bearded man with a pasty complexion, wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, a white shirt, the tails of which hung below the border of his drab, black jacket, flew through the doors, large briefcase in hand and horn-rimmed glasses ajar, narrowly escaping the capture of his shirt tails in the double-doors as they slammed shut. The man took a deep breath, adjusted his glasses, and sat down with a loud thud next to Geoff.
“Almost got me that time,” he said with a sigh as he wiped his sweat-beaded brow.
Geoff smiled and nodded. The last thing he ever did in the subway was strike up a conversation. Not that he felt threatened by the man in any way, but conversations attracted attention, and that was not what you wanted to do in the subway, unless of course you were looking for trouble.
Across from Geoff was seated an elderly Italian woman, black kerchief on her head. Protruding out of a Macy’s shopping bag at her feet was a copy of the evening’s New York Post with its usual sensational headline: “Central Park Psycho Explodes.” The caption underneath read, “Girl Hostage Clings to Life,” and was followed by a large, somewhat grainy picture of a man.
It was not the headline so much as the picture that attracted Geoff’s attention. It was obviously an old photo taken in happier times. The man was tall, big-boned, easily six feet plus. He wore a kelly green Parks Department uniform and stood holding a rake in front of the Tropic House at the Central Park Zoo. His dark-skinned face was plump, somewhat pockmarked, and it bore a spirited, broad smile. Hardly the look of a psychopathic killer.
Geoff knew that man. He could not remember the details, nor the man’s name. Geoff was poor with names, but his visual memory was excellent, bordering on photographic. He’d remember soon enough. The specifics about the face would abruptly interrupt whatever else he was thinking about like a flashing neon sign. Simpler yet, he’d grab a copy of the paper on the way out of the station and find out who the man was.
The train pulled away from the station with a great lurch and accelerated, its jerky movements causing the heads of the passengers to sway back and forth like erratic metronomes. The rhythmic chugging of the steel wheels on the ancient tracks created an almost hypnotic beat and set Geoff’s mind wandering. His thoughts raced through the day’s events, a veritable kaleidoscope of visual images. He thought of Jessica clinging to life, tubes extruding from every orifice, a bolt sprouting from the top of her head. All because she had convinced her grandmother to take her to the Zoo that day. All because some lunatic, some lunatic Geoff knew, snapped and went into a murderous frenzy the instant their paths crossed.
Geoff’s mind drifted to bittersweet thoughts of Sarah. She had kept him emotionally honest all the years they were together, in touch with his human side. Geoff had felt torn between his real desire to help people and the analytical approach to disease he was taught in med school and residency, patients readily sorted into lists of differential diagnoses, operative procedures. The gall bladder in bed one, the brain tumor in the ICU. A faceless ward of patients, their lives layed out on three by five cards. Geoff worried that without Sarah, he was becoming the prototypical surgeon, becoming cold and clinical like his father had been.
Geoff met Sarah at Harvard, at a Christmas party, their junior year. Geoff was attracted to her at first glance. Tall, about five-ten, with smooth, olive complexion, Sarah’s golden blonde hair was tied back in a French knot. She wore a strapless, black and teal dress that accentuated her broad shoulders, curvaceous bust and long, slender back. She carried herself with confidence. Sarah’s physical attributes aside, the beauty of her personality was what finally most attracted Geoff. She was bright, caring, sensitive, down to earth. And unlike Geoff, spontaneous. Life with Sarah had been intimate and exciting. They moved in together their senior year, stayed in Boston to attend their respective graduate schools, their relationship stronger for having survived the rigors of medical and law school.
Sarah chose to become a public defender right out of Harvard Law and was assigned to the Superior Court in lower Manhattan. Highly principled, a champion of social causes, she was somewhat left of center politically. She challenged Geoff to remain in touch with his patients as people first, forced him to pause and reflect when he became detached.
He thought back to one particularly stressful time, an ER rotation at the end of Geoff’s first year at the NYTC. She’d pulled him out of the ER, away from the house staff lounge—fortunately Dr. Spiros wasn’t around—dragged him home for a candlelight dinner, made him watch a film, “The Doctor,” then, her lips soft and sensuous, the warm glow behind her hazel eyes, ripped off his scrubs and made passionate love to him on the living room couch. Sarah had always known, better than he, just when he needed her most. Their life together seemed like a dream to him now, a mirage evaporated into thin, desert air.
“Lousy shvartze!”
Without warning, Geoff was yanked from his sweet daydream back to the grimy, cacophonous reality around him. A black teenager, boom box resting on his shoulder, untied Air Jordan’s on his feet, had just entered the subway car through the end door and turned up the volume. He danced around the car to the rap tune, timing his pirouettes to jive with the haphazard jolts of the train as much as with the music. A captive audience. Several of the passengers watched with curiosity, but most—Geoff included—looked downward or at their newspapers and avoided eye contact.
Dumbrowski’s Rule Number One.
The man sitting next to Geoff became more restive. He smacked his lips in disgust, grabbed his briefcase off the floor, placed it securely in his lap. His mumbling became a thunderous command. “Turn down that music!”
The other passengers cringed. The youth turned up the volume full blast and continued his elbow-flailing, finger-snapping lip-synch.
Those who had attempted to ignore the situation now glared at the teenager, hoping he’d walk through to the next car and make himself someone else’s problem, though most knew better. He was seeking disruption and
recognition. He had achieved his goals here in this car.
He continued his routine, meandering toward Geoff and his seat-mate. Geoff’s pulse began to race. A confrontation was brewing, and he had the unenviable ringside seat. Squat and soft in the middle, the Hasidic man was obviously no match for the brawny teenager with the box.
The youth was barely two feet away now, music blasting. He sauntered forward, paused in front of Geoff and the Hasid, removed the boom box from his shoulder and thrust it in the older man’s face. “Hey, mutha’ fuckin’ Jew, don’t you dig rap?”
Geoff looked at the man next to him. His face had turned a deep crimson, and the veins in his neck bulged so far they appeared ready to burst. His entire body quivered with something more than fear, and his hands clutched something inside his now partially open briefcase.
Geoff caught the man’s eye. His gaze was maddened beyond mere anger, a frightening stare. Was Geoff sitting next to a lunatic, or was this just an irate citizen whose tolerance had reached flash point? Geoff knew the wisest thing for him to do now was to get up and walk through to the next car, but the man might need his help.
“This is what I think of you and your rap, filth!” The man jumped up from his seat and fired an Uzi sub-machine gun at the black youth, propelling him to the opposite side of the car, splattering blood onto walls and nearby passengers. The teenager landed with a loud thud at the feet of the Italian woman with the shopping bag, who was now wailing and praying aloud.
Shrieking men and women rushed to still-closed doors, knocking each other down, trampling those who had fallen. A five-year-old child, who had escaped her mother’s grasp, ran and hid under a bench, screamed wildly. Utter chaos.
Pop-pop-pop. Another round of machine gun fire and loud howling. Geoff, behind the man, held onto a pole in the corner of the car. He looked about to see if anyone else had been hit. The sound of the automatic weapon pierced the air again, followed by more screams and crying. A goddamned war zone.
“Everyone sit down!” yelled the man as he fired the machine gun over their heads, blowing out the windows and sending shards of glass flying. The wind rushed through the car, blowing papers all around. The sounds of screeching wheels on the old tracks and the train rushing through the tunnel at high speed reverberated loudly off the narrow tunnel walls and into the car.
Geoff had to do something. He needed a plan. His knife was no match for an Uzi, and he had no intention of dying in a New York subway. He looked at the Hasid. Throughout it all, his wide-brimmed black hat had remained in place. He stood in the center of the car, his foot on the shoulder of his conquered adversary, the machine gun resting on his knee. His face was still reddened, his shirt saturated with sweat. His breathing was labored, and saliva sprayed from the corners of his mouth as he exhaled. He appeared for all the world like a rabid dog, only instead of just teeth, this madman had a machine gun.
“All of you are gentiles, heathens, believers in a false God. The day of judgment is upon us! The Lord spoke and proclaimed to the Children of Israel that on the Day of Judgment the Messiah would deliver you to the Promised Land. Your time is now! Who will be the first to join the fallen Goliath and meet your maker on Judgment Day?”
He slowly panned the room with his machine gun, his right index finger twitching as it curled around the trigger.
The subway jolted to the left as it turned. The deranged man stumbled, but quickly regained his balance. Geoff lost his footing and fell to the floor. He stood and grabbed a commuter strap. Something red caught his eye, and he knew what he had to do.
“Well?” said the man, his maddened eyes now staring in Geoff’s direction.
Geoff stabilized himself against the corner wall, reached upward, grabbed the emergency brake, and pulled with all his strength, ripping the handle off its cord.
The train screeched to a halt. The occupants of the hijacked car flew violently forward. There were more screams, passengers hid under seats and behind whatever they could find. The Hasid fell to the ground, his back against the wall, but he still clutched the Uzi.
Geoff released the commuter strap and lunged at the deranged man. The gun was aimed in Geoff’s direction. Geoff deflected the barrel upward, and it fired as they collided, bullets piercing the ceiling. More shots went off, fired wildly around the car as they struggled for control of the weapon. Geoff was amazed at the madman’s strength.
A loud crash exploded through the door to Geoff’s right, and the Hasidic man pulled free from Geoff.
“Everyone hit the deck!” A man burst into the car, his service revolver drawn and aimed at the Hasid. “Drop it, pal!” The officer approached the man slowly, arms extended, his revolver aimed directly at him all the while.
Geoff stared in disbelief. Fucking Dumbrowski. The Texas Ranger.
The Hasid let go of the Uzi, and Geoff grabbed it. The man lunged at Dumbrowski. “Send me to my maker!”
“Hold it right there, Goddamnit! I said freeze!” Dumbrowski had no choice but to fire his service revolver.
The man’s body jerked backward spasmodically with each shot. Blood frothed from the corner of his mouth as he slumped to the floor of the subway car.
Chapter 8
“A Hasidic Jew, can you believe it?” Geoff stepped out of the shower at Stefan’s apartment in SoHo, exhausted and still astounded by the evening’s events.
“Not just any Hasidic Jew, Geoff.” Stefan raised his voice enough for Geoff to hear him on the other side of the bathroom door. “The crazy man who blew away that poor black kid and almost killed you was a rabbi. Samuel Levinow was a prominent leader in the Hasidic community.”
Geoff put on a pair of surgical scrubs, entered the living room. Stefan handed him a tall glass of ice water. “How did you find that out so quickly?” he asked. He drank half a glass of water, set the glass down on the coffee table.
“I heard about it on the news just before you came. I was worried sick about you.” Stefan removed a Kleenex from his pocket, wiped his forehead, adjusted his wire-framed specs. He sat down on the couch next to Geoff. “I called the hospital, and Karen Choy told me you had left hours ago. Then the news bulletin came on TV. I knew you were involved in some way. I called the police. They told me you were there giving a statement.”
“A statement? Is that what they told you?” Geoff shook his head with annoyance. “It was more like an interrogation. I was beginning to wonder who the criminal was.”
Stefan looked Geoff squarely in the eyes. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters now.”
The two brothers were remarkably different. They had grown closer after their father’s death several years before, first by necessity, then by mutual desire. Geoff—handsome, successful, Rhodes scholar, ex-Navy Seal. Mister perfect, his brother called him. Stefan—brilliant, albeit eccentric, computer whiz, M.I.T. drop-out. Bill Gates with a pony tail.
Stefan had been his mother’s favorite—she had died while they were in college—in spite of his sexual orientation. Ostracized by his surgeon father, whose paternal focus had been on Geoff’s medical career, Geoff had tried to fill the void, acting as much as a father to Stefan as a big brother. With both their parents and Sarah gone, Stefan was the only immediate family Geoff had left.
Geoff stared off into space, shook his head. “I just don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“The guy seemed normal when he sat down next to me. He even tried to strike up a conversation. Now you tell me he was a rabbi? The last kind of person in the world I’d expect to do something violent or crazy.”
“You said he was taunted by that black kid playing the loud music,” Stefan said. “Maybe he was mugged in the subway once before and felt as though his life was in danger. The old fed-up-citizen-transforms-into-subway-avenger story.”
“It’s not normal for a rabbi to carry a
machine gun in his briefcase for protection. Besides, in another minute and he would have blown us all away. The man was crazy. He simply snapped. I saw it in his eyes.” Geoff leaned forward, reached for the glass of water, downed the remainder.
“Does it really matter why the man went nuts, Geoff? It’s over, and you’re alive to talk about it.”
Geoff took a deep breath, rubbed his temples. “I guess you’re right,” he said.
Stefan patted Geoff on the leg. “Look at you. You’re exhausted. Let me put you to bed. You have rounds in five hours.” He stood, walked to the linen closet, removed a blanket and a pillow, set them down on the coffee table. Stefan pulled Geoff up off the couch, and they opened the bed. Stefan unfolded the blanket, fluffed the pillow.
Geoff collapsed onto the couch. “This has been a very strange day,” he said. “I haven’t even told you about how things went at the Trauma Center, especially the odd e-mail message I received. I need you to look at it. I don’t know where to begin.” His lids were now at half mast.
“You can tell me all about it in the morning. Now get some rest.” Stefan stood, turned out the light, left the room.
Sleep ignited dreams so vivid and powerful, Geoff’s heart began to race fiercely, his breathing becoming labored. Sunday afternoon at Central Park Zoo. The sun’s rays bathed Geoff and little Jessica with warmth and brightness. They were sitting on a grassy field playing games, having a picnic lunch. Jessica’s favorite, peanut butter and honey on white bread, crust removed.
The Endorphin Conspiracy Page 6