The train exchanged crowds at 42nd Street and rumbled off into the artificial night once more. As it sped along, Lya tried to imagine what it must have been like to be on the train that was lost so many years ago. Perhaps the story had become distorted over time, and lost had been substituted for crashed? Or perhaps there was more to it than anyone suspected? Maybe there was a cover-up, a conspiracy to keep the public from knowing what had actually happened. After all, the subway was fairly new back then, and the city did not want to let people know anything that might discourage them from using the trains.
The 34th Street station appeared outside the dirty car windows, and more passengers drifted to the doors, flooding out as others rushed into the vacuum they left behind. Then the train accelerated quickly, and the trip south through the tunnels drew out as the train gathered speed, not slowing down again until it reached West 4th Street underneath the Village. Then it lurched forward, devouring the emptiness of the underground, burrowing under Canal Street, Park Place, and Nassau Street.
There were fewer passengers than seats by this time. Most people had no reason to go to Brooklyn at this hour, but Lya knew that the trains coming in the opposite direction would be jammed to capacity. Under the East River, the train sloped downward noticeably, then leveled out, gathering speed, rocketing up into the bedrock of King’s County, otherwise known as Brooklyn.
The Jay Street station suddenly leaped out of the darkness, and Lya left her seat. She stepped out onto the platform and went up the stairs to a grimy concourse, where signs directed questing observers in every direction at once. She decided the best thing to do would be to get up on the street and work things out from there.
The Transit Authority was housed in a fairly modem structure in the midst of several far older buildings at 370 Jay Street. It formed part of a loosely planned complex of government offices, including Borough Hall itself, where the various commissioners, directors, and coordinators played out the game of administering to the city’s vast needs.
Lya entered through the main doors and sought out the information desk, where a young woman answered her questions efficiently and sent her to the second floor, where the Transit Police had their headquarters. The woman told her to ask for Sergeant Otis Oliver, who was director of public relations.
“Do you have an appointment?” asked the clerk on the second floor. He was a middle-aged man with a narrow, Celtic face and a neatly creased blue uniform.
“No, I don’t,” said Lya. “Is he busy?”
The clerk laughed. “Sergeant Oliver busy? That’s a good one.”
“Well, may I speak with him?” Lya had no interest in office politics.
“Sure, lady. Who should I say wants to see him?”
Lya gave him one of her cards from the TV station, and his eyes locked on it for a second, then returned to her face with renewed attention. “Oh, yeah, you know, I thought you looked kind of familiar. Miss Marsden, right? Nice to meet you. I watch you on the tube a lot.”
“Yes, thank you very much.” Lya smiled grimly and waited. If she gave him any play, she would never get to see the sergeant.
The clerk gazed at her for a moment in an, awestruck way, then suddenly snapped out of it. “Oh, yeah, you want to see Oliver. Hang on.” He dialed the sergeant, explained Lya’s presence, then hung up. “Have a seat, Miss Marsden. He’ll be out in a second or two.”
Lya waited not less than ten minutes before a large, broad-shouldered, almost bald black man came through the reception-area door. He had large eyes, a carefully trimmed mustache, and a gold tooth in his smile.
“Miss Marsden, what can I do for you?” He held out his beefy hand and gently shook Lya’s.
“I was wondering if I might have a few minutes of your time, Sergeant. I’m doing a story on the subways, and I thought this would be a good place to start.”
Sergeant Oliver frowned. “Ma’am, this ain’t about that ‘slasher’ guy, is it?”
Smiling her most disarming smile, Lya touched his forearm. “I assure you, it has nothing to do with that. Could we talk for a few minutes in your office? I promise I’ll explain everything.”
Oliver melted under the beaming smile and the touch. He nodded, and escorted her down a long hall lined with milk-glass-paneled doors to a small cubicle near the end. She entered and found a chair amid the usual clutter of desk, filing cabinets, and bookcases.
It took her about fifteen minutes to explain her intentions, starting with Lane Carter’s tales at the party and how they had grown into an idea for a feature. “… and I assure you that it will be a favorable piece, Sergeant. In fact, the subway system will only be a part of the whole feature. I plan to see people in the Sewer Department, the utilities, everybody connected with the New York underground.”
Sergeant Oliver smiled for the first time, obviously relieved that she was not, at least on the surface, another reporter looking for a cheap shot at the subway system. “That’s a fascinating idea, Miss Marsden, I’ve got to tell you that. It’s funny—when I first started out with the department, oh, about twenty years back, I used to have a beat up in the Bronx, and I heard some of the old-timers talk about that train—the train that ‘got lost,’ as you said.”
“Really? Can you remember any of the details?”
“Not offhand. But I could check it out up in Records. Listen, why don’t I take you on a two-cent tour—give you some facts on the place, a little history. If you have any specific questions, I’ll try to answer them, and we’ll end up in Records and see what gives. Okay?”
Lya smiled warmly. “That would be fine, Sergeant, thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Oh, that’s okay, Miss Marsden. This way, please.”
Lya followed Oliver through the second floor of the building, where all the police functions of the Transit Authority were carried out. With her tape recorder running, she picked up some pertinent facts about the underground rail system. The oldest part, the IRT division, was opened to the public in October of 1904 when the first train was operated by then-Mayor George B. McClellan. The mayor drove the train all the way up to what was then the end of the line at 145th Street. Since those early years, the subways had added two other divisions—the BMT and the IND—and become a vast underground network beneath the city’s streets and buildings.
“We now have about 750 miles of track, give or take a mile or two,” said Oliver as they walked through a bull-pen area filled with desks and clacking machines. “This is Teletype, by the way. We have a direct line to NYPD, and we exchange all calls and APB’s.” He cleared his throat, and started on the statistics again. “During rush hour, there are between 800 and 900 trains running—”
“Really? How do you keep track of them all?”
“I’ll show you that when we go upstairs, don’t worry about that. Plus we have a minimum of 7000 cars operational at any one time, not counting what’s in maintenance. Each car is driven by four 100-horsepower traction motors, picking up more than 600 volts from the third rail. The average speed of the trains is about 50 miles per hour, although they can run much slower or faster, given certain conditions.”
Lya listened carefully, already thinking of how she could weave these facts into her introduction to the subways. He was telling her things that few New Yorkers knew, she was certain, answers to questions that had probably crossed many commuters’ minds. Lya herself was surprised to learn that there were more than seven hundred miles of track beneath the streets. It was hard to imagine so much tunneling beneath the city. Plenty of places to lose a train, she thought.
The next stop was the Trainmaster’s Office on the third floor. Actually, the office consisted of several large rooms filled with consoles and operators all hunched attentively over their boards.
“This is called Command Center,” said Oliver, gesturing into the large central room. “We’ve got three divisions in here—one for each of the three separate ‘lines’ in the city—each one controlled by a desk trainmaster. Each desk-t has
a group of dispatchers who watch over and control trains in specific geographic sections, all arranged in a grid out across the whole network. The dispatchers are in communication with all the separate tower rooms throughout the system. This place is where all the calls come in, but each part of the grid has its own ‘tower’ and group dispatchers. Like Grand Central, City Hall, Penn Station, Grand Concourse—there’s quite a few of them.”
“Do the towers talk to the trains?” asked Lya, trying to get everything straight in her mind.
“No, the tower personnel monitor the progress of every train in their sector. All trains are in radio contact with Command Center here. If there are special problems, then Command Center relays to the tower room where the trouble might be. Plus there are telephones in all the tunnels, spaced every 500 feet or so. That way if a disabled train has a power loss, the motorman can still contact his tower or Command Center. He just walks down the tracks and picks up the phone.”
Lya nodded, then looked up at what Oliver had called the “Model Board.” It was a huge, illuminated, electrified schematic map of the entire rail system. Trains were indicated by lights of different colors moving along the illumined tracks. She would have to come back to the Jay Street offices with a camera crew and get a picture of the board, and of some of the routine operations. She would also want to go down into the tunnels with a camera. Lya asked the sergeant about that possibility.
“Sure, I could get it cleared for you. There are plenty of places where you wouldn’t be in the way.”
“That’s great. Thank you, Sergeant. Now, what about those records? Didn’t you say we could check on that missing train?”
Oliver smiled and his gold tooth shone. “Yeah, that’s right, let’s go back downstairs. I’m kind of interested in that myself.”
The Records Department was a hybrid of two ages. Filing cabinets, shelving full of bound dispatch logs, and computer terminals all snuggled together in the small, windowless area. “We’re in the process of dumping all this stuff into the computers, but it’s going to take a while,” said Oliver. “Do you know what year this was supposed to have happened?”
“No, I don’t, but I would imagine it was pretty far back. Before 1920, I’d guess. I’m going to check the newspapers’ files, too. I was thinking that the best way to start might be to talk to a few of the oldest employees you have in the Transit Authority. Could you possibly get me some names and addresses from the personnel records?” Lya smiled her most cunning smile and the Sergeant nodded, indicating that she should wait for him at the vacant desk.
He walked over to one of the clerk’s desks, spoke animatedly for a minute or two, and then motioned for Lya to follow him and the frowsy-looking woman. He introduced Lya to the older woman, who nodded silently without expression and began typing on a computer keyboard. Her request for a list of employees approaching retirement age appeared on the monitor, and the computer informed her that it was being processed. Within seconds, the names, addresses, and departments of various workers flashed on the screen. The woman keyed in a request for hard copy and a nearby printer started whirring and clicking. Fifteen seconds later the clatter ceased, and the clerk ripped off a printout and handed it to the sergeant. Without saying a word, the woman shuffled back to her desk, ignoring Lya completely.
“Is she always that charming?”
Oliver grinned. “Well, she’s efficient, and I guess that’s what counts. Here, this might help.”
Lya accepted the printout and scanned it quickly. The list was comprehensive and contained more than forty names of men and women who would be retiring within the coming year. Along with names, addresses, and departments, there were also data on length of time on the job, birth dates, and other facts that would help Lya single out the right employees to interview.
“This is excellent, Sergeant—exactly what I’ll be needing. You’ve been very helpful, and I’ll probably be contacting you again.”
“Miss Marsden, you can come see me anytime!” Sergeant Oliver smiled broadly. “By the way, if you do this thing for TV, are you going to use any cameras in here?”
“Yes, I was thinking about it. I’d like to get a picture of the Command Center, and the Model Board would look good on TV …” Lya let her voice trail off, giving Oliver his chance, since she knew what was coming next.
“Oh, yeah, the Model Board, that would look nice … well, uh, I was wondering, Miss Marsden, if there was any chance that maybe … well, that maybe I could be part of the show … you know, just a shot of me answering a question or two … ?”
For a moment, big, broad-shouldered Sergeant Oliver looked to be no older than nine years old. Lya smiled and touched his arm very lightly. “Well, Sergeant, I think something could probably be worked out. I think that’s a good idea.”
“You could? You do?” The gold tooth shone brightly as Oliver breathed deeply and smiled. “Why, thank you, Miss Marsden. Thank you very much!”
Lya checked her watch and saw that it was getting on toward 11 A.M. She should get back to midtown, grab some lunch, and go to the studio for a talk with Jerry, her producer. She allowed the sergeant to escort her to the elevators, thanked him again, and promised to be in touch, then descended the levels to the Borough Hall station.
As the clock crept toward the lunch hour, secretaries and other office functionaries were starting to appear in the corridors and stairways leading to the trains, but as Lya turned a corner and passed through the turnstiles leading to the northbound tracks, she became aware of being totally alone. Just for an instant. It was silent. It was cold. And she was alone.
Stopping abruptly on the steps leading to the platform, Lya was overwhelmed by a rush of feeling, a sensation that communicated the oddness of the place.
The underground.
The world beneath the city. A world that seemed to pause in its rumbling, rattling, malodorous life cycle, and regard her with a cold, scrutinizing eye. It is weird down here, she thought as she stood motionless in that single moment. It was as if time had stopped, everything shutting down, so that she got the full impact of the special world of the tunnels and the eternal night.
Then, suddenly, everything was moving and sounding again, as though the universe’s mainspring, briefly caught, had let go again. There was the faraway clatter of a train in another tunnel, the clinking of tokens in the turnstile behind her, and the slap of shoes on the stairs. Lya blinked and descended to the platform, where a small batch of travelers stood by the edge, looking into the darkness for the telltale headlight, listening for the subsonic rumble.
It’s okay. It’s okay, she thought. All that business she had taken in with Sergeant Oliver came rushing back to her, and the subways began to take on a less sinister aspect in her mind once again. The radios, the monitoring screens, the Model Board, all those dispatchers and trainmasters—they all knew what was going on down here. It was all just a day’s work. Routine. The only mysterious thing about the subways, she told herself lightly, was how so much graffiti could be painted on the trains without the vandals being caught.
Then came the rumble in the platform and the clatter of sound. The A Train roared into the station, opening its doors, disgorging its cargo, waiting for a new one. Lya stepped inside and walked to one of the empty seats. The doors closed and she was carried off into the darkness.
As the train picked up speed on its under-the-riverbed journey, Lya cupped her hands against the window, shutting out the harsh fluorescent light and peering into the blackness. It was an endless passage of girders, strange little lights—blue and amber and green—a flash of a door painted white, and more girders.
But it was a strange place. It was odd how the people of the city submitted to the place in such a mindless, ignoring fashion. She was just like all the rest. You go into the subways and you just block out of your mind where you are and where you are going.
And that train. That long-ago train that nobody really knows about. Was it down here somewhere? And what about the
people? Were they still down here somewhere too?
The thoughts snaked through her mind as she continued to stare into the dark tunnel, half hypnotized by the rocking, swaying motion of the car, by the distorted sense of motion through shadowy reference points. I’m going to find out all there is to find out about this place. And if that train really was lost, if it’s still down here somewhere, I’m going to find it.
The lights flickered as the car passed over a poor contact on the third rail, and Lya pulled back from the window into the cold light of the interior. Looking around, she checked to see whether any of the passengers had been watching her.
Why should they? What do they care? No, they were all wrapped up in their newspapers, magazines, or jail-cell thoughts. The subways were like cocoons: they enveloped you and isolated you inside your thoughts. How did that work? Why did it happen?
It occurred to Lya that she was getting a bit metaphysical about the world beneath the streets, and she smiled to herself, as though to break the spell that she sensed she was weaving about herself.
But the spell would not be broken. She had the fleeting thought that she had opened the latch on a trapdoor into a hidden part of her mind. The latch was thrown, the lid was edging upward, and there was no shutting it now …
CHAPTER 6
PEAKE
“Isn’t that awful, Mr. Peake?” exclaimed the woman standing on the other side of the counter as she dug into her huge bag for her wallet.
“Uh, what’s that, Mrs. Norwood?” Melvin Peake had been woolgathering, staring through the plate-glass window of his corner grocery store out into the traffic on Queens Boulevard.
The middle-aged, red-haired woman tapped her copy of the Daily News, which lay open on the counter. “That Slasher, of course! Haven’t you seen the papers this morning? You sell ‘em, you don’t read ‘em?”
“Oh, yes, I saw that,” said Melvin, quickly bringing his attention back to the grocery items on the counter, picking each one up with the practice of many years, punching the price on his old cash register, then putting it in the bag. “Yes, it certainly is terrible. I hope they do something about it pretty soon.”
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