Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles)

by S. M. Stelmack

  Wandering down the platform she spied what she took for the correct door, an innocuous steel portal, no different from others in the station, located exactly where Seline had said it would be.

  Lindsay hitched up the backpack, where it was already cutting a groove into her shoulders. This was nuts. Jack and Reggie were right. She had about as much street smarts as the Pope. She had no idea how to talk to people down here or how to find her way around. She’d get lost or robbed or murdered. Then an image of Seline rose in her mind, buried alive beneath the frozen streets, cold and starved. It was as she told Jack: she had no choice but to go on. Besides, if a whacked-out crackhead could survive down here, surely she could. She suppressed the niggling voice that said that perhaps you had to be a whacked-out crackhead to survive in the tunnels.

  Or Jack Cole.

  A train arrived, and she watched as people shuffled onto it. The doors closed, and with a rush of stale air the subway cars moved on, leaving her momentarily alone on the platform. Time to do it. She strode to the door and banged her fist against it. There was a pause, then it unlocked and opened a crack, giving her a glimpse of the tall, shadowy figure behind it.

  “Hi there,” she smiled, doing her best to appear confident. The door swung wide open, and her smile vanished. Staring down at her, his brow furrowed, stood Reggie.

  “You!” they said simultaneously.

  Reggie launched in. “What the hell are you doing here, woman? This ain’t no place for you.”

  Lindsay gave back. “I told you I was going to look for my niece. What, you thought I was kidding?”

  “Sheeet. Come over here.” Closing the door behind him, he dragged her by her arm to a nearby bench.

  “Let go of me!” she demanded, digging in with her heels. It was as if she was hitched to a moving truck. He plunked her down, the weight of the backpack easing off but its bulk arching her back so bad her butt perched on the edge of the seat.

  “Lady, you gotta be as blonde as you look. You’re like your niece. You don’t listen to nobody.”

  “You knew her. You let her go down there. Why not me?”

  Reggie was already looming over her and now he bent until he was a foot from her face. It was like having a falling building suspended above her. “Because it’s my fault. I should’ve turned her back, like Jack said to, but I didn’t. She was a good person. Came here to help people who ain’t got nothing. And now I gotta live with that.”

  Guilt twisted his features. Lindsay understood because it clawed away at her, too. She also understood something of what hadn’t been said during their last conversation. “Jack doesn’t know you let her through, does he?”

  Reggie straightened, crossing his huge arms across his steel girder of a chest. “A man makes mistakes.”

  “And a real man does something about them.”

  Their gazes locked in a fearsome stare-down. He looked away first. Lindsay smothered a triumphant smirk. “ So how about you open up that goddamn door and I’ll pay you double the toll.”

  The whites of his eyes stood out against his dark skin. “You think you can bribe me? That’s an insult. I run an honest business.”

  “Then let’s do business.” She started to stand, but Reggie blocked her way.

  “I ain’t helping nothing by letting you go down there. If Jack was with you it might be another story. Things the way they are, it ain’t happening.”

  “I asked him and he said no!”

  Reggie shrugged fatalistically.

  Lindsay struck at his pride. “Are you going to let some white man boss you around? He’s half your size, with a peach pit for a heart. What’s he got over you?”

  Anger swelled his enormous body, his arms lifting away from his side as the pressure of the emotion ballooned him. “Jack Cole is twice the man that anyone could hope to be and just because he don’t want to do what you asked ain’t no reason to diss him.”

  This time Lindsay didn’t even try to stare Reggie down. The man obviously had his loyalties screwed up. Not knowing his story, however, she couldn’t argue against his having them. She looked fixedly at the door, then up at the man. Once again he had his arms folded like a stubborn bouncer.

  “Okay, then. Care to suggest how I might sway your hero into going with me?”

  Reggie rolled his gaze upward as if seriously thinking about it. “Jack’s his own man. Won’t be easy.”

  “I tried money.”

  “Yeah. He don’t care about that.”

  “No doubt, given his lavish lifestyle,” she remarked.

  Reggie grinned. “You haven’t seen his bed, have you?”

  “No occasion to.”

  Reggie whistled lowly. “The man’s got one nice bed.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Lindsay frowned. “You trying to give me a hint?’

  “Huh?”

  Lindsay drew herself up. “You suggesting I sleep with him?”

  Reggie’s eyes brightened. “I can guarantee that wouldn’t work on Jack—he’s off women.

  You could always try it on me.”

  “Would it get me anywhere?”

  He gave her another golden grin. “No. But I’d let you down easy.”

  Another time she would’ve grinned back. “You don’t think I’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting his help, huh?”

  Reggie shook his head. “Not even.”

  Jack had said as much. Had she really thought the answer would be any different from Reggie? What she’d hoped for was that he would open the way to Jack the same way he manned the entry to the underground. Reggie was right: desperation was making her stupid.

  And yet—. She hoisted her backpack and got to her feet. “You aren’t the only way down, Reggie. One way or another I’ll get a door to open for me.”

  Usually Lindsay ignored street people and if eye contact was inadvertently made, she’d toss them whatever was in her pocket—gum, change, soap samples. Now that she needed their help it felt more than a little awkward.

  To the first few panhandlers she gave a few dollars, asking them straight out if they knew of a way into the tunnels. That approach only garnered suspicious looks and shrugged shoulders, so to the next down-and-out person, a man with straggly gray hair and old boots with no laces, she offered fifty dollars to take her to an entrance.

  He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. “You need to talk to tunnel folk, ma’am,” he said in a slow southern drawl, running a hand through his greasy mane. “I can take you to ‘em for the fifty.”

  Beggars couldn’t be choosers. After tucking away the fifty in the many folds of his clothing, he led her on a circuitous journey through the station, gradually descending to the lower platforms. “Gotta find ‘em,” her guide explained.

  Lindsay was about to conclude that the man was taking her on a wild goose chase when he brought her to a platform where he pointed out a couple of rough-looking Hispanic teens standing with the commuters. “Them guys are tunnel folk. Y'all stay here while I talk to ‘em, okay?”

  Without waiting for her answer he shuffled over to the boys, gesturing to her when he caught their attention. The arrival of a train created too much noise for her to catch what was said, she could see the teens watch her coolly as they listened. She felt like a T.V. they were looking to lift. The doors of the train opened, people came and went, and when the train moved off, her fifty-dollar guide waved her over.

  “Okay, these here are Chase and Stray,” he said, by way of introduction. “They can take you where you want to go.”

  Chase gave her a predatory smile and ran his tattooed hand over his shaved head. Lindsay stood straighter and looked him in the eye.

  “Why you want to go down?” he asked as the older man faded away.

  “I’m looking for my niece. Her name is Seline. Seline Sterling.”

  Chase glanced at Stray picking at a sore on his chin. “Oh yeah, we know her.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. We can take you to her fr
iends. They’ll know where she is. Fifty bucks for each of us should do it.”

  Forget the T.V. She was an ATM every low-life knew the PIN for. Just punch in ‘Seline’. Though Lindsay was almost positive the boy was lying to her, there was only one way to find out for sure. “Okay,” she answered, sliding her hands into the pockets of her jacket, one of them curling around the pepper spray. With the other she pulled out a small money clip, flashing it like a badge. “You get the hundred when we reach them. Let’s go.”

  Chase and Stray looked at each other, shrugged, then led her to the far end of the platform where there was a small metal gate, the sign on it warning of danger and an alarm. Not a peep sounded as they pushed past it. She followed them down a short flight of concrete stairs where they emerged into a tunnel. Both Chase and Stray pulled flashlights out of their pockets, and Lindsay did the same.

  “Watch that third rail.” Chase laughed, looking back at her in the dark. “Six hundred volts. Fry you like bacon.”

  Lindsay shone her light on the subway rails, including the electrified third one, and edged closer to the wall.

  They walked on, flattening themselves against the concrete whenever train cars whipped past. In the narrow space the violent gusts ripped at her, threatening to drag her under the wheels. The kids saw her fear after the first train and laughed as if it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.

  “Don’t worry, baby. We’ll protect you,” Stray wheezed, his taunt ricocheting through the tunnel.

  Twenty minutes later, they were deep underground, the light from the station having long since faded to nothing. The only illumination came from the flashlights, and what they revealed was nightmarish. Lying along the tracks were scattered needles and crack vials, garbage and human feces. The walls were sprayed with graffiti of the crudest kind, and above them ran a tangle of hissing steam pipes and decayed catwalks too dense for their lights to penetrate.

  The smell was nauseating, a mixture of oil and piss, rot and mold. The only living occupants she spied were diseased-looking rats, scurrying to avoid the flashlight beams.

  This was worse than with Jack eighteen years ago. Had time so crumbled the tunnels or was it because being with him had made it better?

  “Where is everyone?” she squeaked out.

  “They’re all over the place,” Chase said in a hammed-up spooky voice. “You just don’t have the eyes to see ‘em. Don’t worry though. Almost there.”

  The three came to a fissure in the tunnel, a sort of subterranean alley flanked by rusting pipes and two oversized electrical boxes.

  “Down here,” Chase directed her, and following the two, she stepped into a chamber so small that their combined beams fully lit it.

  Six-inch blades appeared in the boys’ hands, and they circled to cut off her escape.

  “What the—?”

  “Stupid blonde bitch,” Chase grinned. “Now give us your fucking money.”

  Dammit, she should’ve known. She pulled out her can of pepper spray and took aim, then realized that with them blocking the only exit, she couldn’t push past even if they were blinded.

  They knew it, too. “Ooooh,” Chase said in mock fear.

  “Back off you bastards or you’ll be sucking down this whole can.” She held it up a little higher.

  He snickered. “Baby, you’re the only one who’s going to have something to suck.”

  “The hell she is!” The voice boomed from behind the two boys, and out of the darkness of the passage came Reggie. The kids spun around, jaws dropping at the sight of the giant.

  “This got nothing to do with you, Reggie,” Chase said, his blade wavering between Lindsay and her rescuer.

  Reggie grinned. “That a fact, Chase? Says who? You?”

  “Look, we don’t have no problem with you,” Stray interjected, his reedy voice quavering.

  Reggie swiveled his head toward him. “You do now, bitch! That’s Cole’s woman you got there. Better be glad I found you. Least now you die quick.”

  At the mention of Jack’s name, Chase and Stray looked as if Reggie had pulled out a flame-thrower.

  “We didn’t know that,” Stray whined. “We’ll leave, okay? We don’t want no trouble.”

  Reggie’s golden smile disappeared. “Too late for that, Stray. Way too late.”

  With a kamikaze yell, Chase dropped his flashlight and leapt at the man, the wild play of the beam momentarily blinding Lindsay. There was a meaty thud, followed by a sickening crack and a howl of agony. Lindsay recoiled as she saw Reggie holding Chase’s arm at a highly unnatural angle.

  Reggie hurled the boy against the brick wall, the impact cutting off the wailing. Plastered against the other side of the room Stray held up his hands in surrender, the knife clattering to the floor.

  “Please, Reggie. Please….”

  Turning from the limp Chase, Reggie seized Stray by his shirt collar and dragged him down the narrow passage back to the tunnel.

  “Man… Reggie…please… no…” Stray begged.

  Picking up the dropped light, Lindsay followed them out to the tunnel. She gasped at the sight of Reggie hauling the boy toward the third rail.

  “Time to die, bitch,” Reggie growled, heaving the boy up by his shirt until he kicked the air.

  “No man… oh God, no….”

  Reggie brought his face up against Stray’s. “Scared to die, huh?”

  The kid’s head vibrated in frantic agreement.

  “Then you better be spreading the word ‘bout Cole’s woman. I find you, or any other man, messing with her then I’m going to have myself a third rail barbecue. You get me?”

  “I get you, man, I get you.”

  Reggie tossed Stray aside, letting the youth sprint off into the darkness.

  “Thank you,” Lindsay said, as she slid the can of pepper spray back into her pocket.

  Reggie turned on her. “Those were kids, woman! You still think you got what it takes to find your way down here?”

  Lindsay shook her head. “But I still have to try.”

  The shoulders on the big man drooped, and he let out a long sigh. “You’re one dumbass blonde. Even a blind man could see you’re going to need help.”

  * * *

  “You told them what?” Jack demanded of Reggie.

  They were in the kitchen of the basement apartment, Jack leaning against the counter beside a full cup of coffee, Reggie on the wooden chair holding a half-drunk one.

  “I had to tell ‘em something. Nobody’s going to mess with her if they think she’s yours. She even looks like your type, y’know? Kind of classy and…clean.”

  Jack rubbed his eyes. It had been a little past midnight when Reggie had shown up. Not that it mattered. As usual he hadn’t been able to sleep, though this time it was from thinking of something new. Lindsay.

  Although it hadn’t been the first time he’d thought of her in eighteen years, it had been the first time he’d let himself think of her—really think of her—since the disaster of his return nearly a year ago. Even when Seline had turned up all those months back, he’d kept memories of Lindsay at bay. Her showing up at his piss-poor place, looking so damn good and so damn needy—it had shook his already precarious purchase on sanity.

  The New York girl who’d been his best friend had grown into the woman he always knew she’d become: smart, tough, beautiful. And successful. She wore those designer clothes as if they’d been made for her alone. She made success seem as if it were her right, that failure wouldn’t dare cross her path. Even that heart-wrenching accident had made her stronger.

  And then Reggie had pounded his way in hours ago and told him about what had nearly happened to her, and he got the shakes so bad he’d had to set down the coffee cup. To have all that bright, bold beauty, all that made Lindsay so…exclusive, to have all that wiped out by those punks, sent jolts of fear through him every bit as bad as when he’d been trapped beneath the city. He wished to hell she’d never shown up. He couldn’t give her what she
needed. There were things that could crush a person, things worse than death that could snap even the strongest spirit. Once he would have marched into hell itself to help her, but a big part of him had died on just such a journey. He’d been broken, and he was beyond fixing.

  “I know where you’re heading with this, Reggie, and I’m telling you right now, I’m not going down there.”

  Reggie sucked in his lips until there was a thin dark line. “And I’m telling you, that woman’s not quitting. Even after tonight, she’s still going back down there. Not many people would do something like that. I only ever met one other.”

  “And look where it got me,” Jack said, reaching for his coffee. This time he got it all the way to his mouth and down again steady enough.

  Reggie looked down at the floor. “I know a lot of people who lost everything. Lost ‘em to meth, crack, booze…you’re the only one who lost ‘em for another living soul.”

  Jack shook his head. “Shit. Don’t go there.”

  “She gave me her number, and promised she wouldn’t go down till I called.” Reggie paused. “She also said she’d be trying again tomorrow night if she don’t hear from us. Don’t think she won’t.”

  “She always was pigheaded,” Jack muttered.

  “Yeah? High school, she said. She an old girlfriend or something?”

  “No. We were…good friends. Then I moved and we lost touch.” Patching it together, he realized she’d stopped answering his letters around the same time as the accident. Now he could understand her need to move on. Back then, he was filled with hurt. He’d looked forward to her visiting him, and he’d entertained fantasies of them taking their friendship to a whole new level. “I had heard she’d gotten married.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I don't think she is anymore,” Reggie observed. “No wedding ring. No talk of a husband. You'd think if she had a man she'd have said something.”

  Jack had noticed that, too. He didn’t want to think about why his eye had traveled to her bare finger twice, to confirm. He wondered what the lousy cretin had done to screw up a life with Lindsay.