A man named Carter Barefoot stood just to the left of Wanamaker. Carter had always assumed because of his last name, that he was part Indian, though his red hair suggested otherwise. He was barely five-and-a-half-feet tall, wiry, in his early forties. And he was scared. He'd seen what had been done to Lou, and it wasn't hard to imagine that he would be next, merely because he was male and therefore a threat. He was living in The Stone because he was penniless, and surviving on whatever menial, part-time or temporary work he could scrape up.
Standing very stoically next to Carter Barefoot, hands folded in front and his eyes straight ahead, was a stocky, sixty-five-year-old man dressed in a tattered, although clean, gray pinstriped suit with only a T-shirt on beneath. He called himself "Mr. Klaus." He was not scared. He expected that The Ravens would kill him sooner or later, but he was not scared. For very good reasons, death meant little to him. He supposed that he would accept it with thanks.
The rest of the nine people standing side by side in The Stone's lobby included a bag lady who called herself "Ms. Ida Cooper," a former longshoreman named Bill Meese, who was clutching a $125.00 pension check in his quivering, skeletal right hand, a seventy-five-year-old former radio personality, Wilson Gruscher, who had bid goodbye to radio three decades before, a sixty-five-year-old gray-skinned black woman who called herself "Aunt Sandy," and, to the far left of the group, clutching her pension check to her ravaged bosom, sixty-eight-year-old Connie Tams. She was saying over and over to herself, mentally, her hard gaze on one of The Ravens who'd been put in charge of guarding the little group, May your mother's eyes scald in hell!
Snipe appeared suddenly from the emergency exit stairway, the sixteen-year-old just behind him. He moved very slowly, with consummate grace, to a position about ten feet in front of the center of the group. He stood very still, hands clasped behind him, as if he were a drill sergeant inspecting his platoon. He looked first at Mrs. Dyson, who looked away, then at Wanamaker, Carter Barefoot, "Mr. Klaus," Ida Cooper, Wilson Gruscher, "Aunt Sandy," and Connie Tams. He held his gaze on each of them for half a minute, his mouth set in a tight, nearly horizontal grin. Finally, he said, "I wanta know one thing from you and it don't matter who tells me: I wanta know if this is all there is or if there's more of you."
"Yes," said Carter Barefoot at once; several pairs of old eyes settled quickly and condemningly on him. "There's Mrs. Haritson, too."
Snipe's grin broadened until what was left of his teeth were clearly visible. "Yeah, I know about Mrs. Haritson."
"Oh," said Carter, obviously disappointed that he had not been much help.
"And the super ain't here no more," Snipe went on. He paused, glanced again quickly from one face to another, saw some questioning looks, a look of shock on Carter's face. "He's down in the basement—he's food for the rats."
Snipe heard a gasp from Aunt Sandy. He caught her gaze, held it a long moment, then looked away. "Any of you think you wanta be food for the rats, too?"
Carter Barefoot answered humbly, "No, sir."
Ida Cooper shook her head briskly.
The rest of the group stayed quiet.
Snipe's grin faded. He told them angrily, "I said, 'Any of you think you wanta be food for the rats, too?!'"
There were a few no's, a few heads shook. Mr. Klaus stayed quiet, as did Wanamaker. Snipe stepped quickly over to Wanamaker; he looked him squarely in the eye. Wanamaker stared back: His view of Snipe was just a vague, oval patch of pink skin and dark hair because he was wretchedly farsighted. Snipe hissed at him, "Yer name's Wanamaker, ain't it?"
Wanamaker nodded once.
"You wanta be food for the rats, Wanamaker?" Wanamaker said nothing.
Snipe repeated, in exactly the same tone he'd just used, "You wanta be food for the rats, Wanamaker?"
Wanamaker hesitated a moment then shook his head ever so slightly.
"Huh?" said Snipe.
Wanamaker shook his head more briskly.
"You wanta be food for the rats, Wanamaker?" Snipe said again, in exactly the same tone he'd used the first and the second time.
Wanamaker shook his head even more briskly. "No," he whispered.
"Huh?" said Snipe.
"No!" said Wanamaker, aloud. "No." He shook his head fiercely.
"You wanta be food for the rats, Wanamaker?"
"No, I don't want to be food for the rats, I don't want to be food for the rats."
"Huh?"
"I don't want to be food for the rats." He was on the verge of pleading with Snipe now. "I do not want to be food for the rats."
"You wanta be food for the rats, Wanamaker?"
"No, I don't—" Snipe planted his fist hard in Wanamaker's belly. The air went out of the old man. His hand clutched at his stomach. He crumpled to his knees and began coughing fitfully.
"They're gonna eat you alive, Wanamaker!" Snipe growled. He took hold of a scruff of the man's white hair, pulled his head up. The man continued coughing, though now with greater effort because his head was being held at a harsh and unnatural angle. "No," he managed. "I . . ."
He could manage no more.
Snipe was pleased. He let go of Wanamaker's hair. Wanamaker fell face forward to the floor, groaned, turned his face to the side, and vomited.
Chapter 31
On the Staten Island Ferry, Halfway to South Ferry
Sam Campbell had been riding the Staten Island Ferry for nearly a decade. It was a routine that was firm and set in his life: He got on, read the Times, and got off. The routine had grown comforting in its sameness.
Now, though, with his wife gone and his daughter Marsha shut away in Bellevue, it had grown chill, because it sprang from a way of life that was forever behind him. Still, he clung to the routine, as if somehow, because of its sameness perhaps, it could bring back that past.
Halfway to Manhattan, he lowered the Times suddenly and let a long, shuddering sigh escape him. "Jesus!" he breathed. At once he felt self-conscious because he could see several people, opposite him, turning their heads as if embarrassed, and a woman, just to his left, looking questioningly at him. He turned his head a little and smiled at her as if to say there was no problem. She continued to look questioningly at him. Normally, he would have been annoyed by her concern, because he was normally a very private person. But she intrigued him—not merely because she was attractive; he'd been a widower for too short a time for her attractiveness to mean much—but because there was an unmistakable air of genuineness about her. He said to her, "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"You didn't," she answered simply. He liked the sound of her voice; it was soft and pleasant and seemed to carry, even in just those two words, the same kind of genuineness he had seen in her face. "Are you okay?" she went on.
He smiled broadly, as if in apology; she liked his smile. "Yes," he said. "Just some . . . memories crowding back." He felt suddenly that he was saying too much. "I haven't seen you on this boat before."
She shook her head. "I used to take the ten o'clock. I'll be riding this one for a while. I hope."
He asked, "You work in Manhattan?"
"Uh-huh," she answered. "I'm a dance instructor . . . an assistant dance instructor. Today's my first day. How about you?"
She was making him feel comfortable. "I'm an editor," he said, without much enthusiasm.
She nodded at the Times, which was folded in his lap. "A newspaper editor?" She seemed vaguely impressed. "No. Books. Fiction—novels, mostly."
"You've been at it a long time, haven't you?" He grinned.
"Does it show?"
"Only in the way you talk about it, as if you'd rather not talk about it." She smiled. It was an open, pretty smile, very nice to look at.
He smiled back, easily. "Ten years ago," he began, "I actually sought out people to talk with about it. I really thought I was hot stuff—you know, hobnobbing with the greats and the near-greats, discovering wonderful new writers buried in the slush pile–"
"The slush pile?"
; "Uh-huh, over-the-transom manuscripts—the stuff that comes in uninvited."
"Oh," she said, and he thought he saw something playfully accusing in her big, green eyes. "The slush pile!"
He grinned. It occurred to him that he hadn't done so much spontaneous grinning and smiling since well before his wife's death. "Uh-huh. But that was ten years ago, and it didn't take me long to find out that the greats and the near-greats of this world are, after all, really–"
"Just people?" she interrupted.
"Just people," he confirmed.
She stuck her hand out. "My name's Joyce Dewitte. What's yours?"
He took her hand, shook it, held on to it for a few moments because he liked the firm, warm touch of her skin. "Sam Campbell," he told her.
"It's good to meet you, Sam Campbell." She hesitated, looked away momentarily, then looked back. She smiled again, warmly. "Would you like to have supper with me, Sam Campbell?"
He smiled back, hugely pleased. "Yes," he answered. "Yes, I would like to have supper with you."
The boat docked at South Ferry fifteen minutes later.
Chapter 32
In the Bronx
Georgie MacPhail worked the night shift. He had worked the night shift for several years. He left his apartment in the Morrisanii neighborhood by 1:00 A.M., and got in by 6:00. They were hours, he'd found, when people were least apt to be awake and/or sober.
He allowed himself a total of an hour commuting time—a half hour each way—and took the subway exclusively. It was quick, dependable, and cheap, all very important considerations.
Tonight he was working the South Park Apartments, a big, rambling complex on the lower east side of Manhattan which had lax-to-nonexistent security, and a good percentage of dayworkers and drunks. It was the drunks who usually forgot to latch their doors and lock the foldaway iron grating that was a fixture on practically every window in Manhattan.
Georgie was an accomplished acrobat; it was a talent he'd developed because of his work. Had circumstances been remarkably different, he might easily have been a future Olympian with fawning, proud parents, and a promising future endorsing exercise mats and sneakers.
He weighed in at eighty-eight pounds, but his heavily muscled legs could easily have supported several times that much. His arms were long, and incredibly strong; he had, in fact, once challenged his Uncle Jim—a beefy man of thirty-five—to a bout of arm wrestling. After nearly ten minutes of struggle, Georgie finally lost, but he made his uncle feel very weak indeed, and angry that a twelve-year-old had proved to be such tough competition. "You're sure a lean, mean son of a bitch, aren't you, Georgie!" he'd said. And Georgie said to him, "I ain't mean, Uncle Jim. I ain't mean to no one."
Tonight, at the back of the South Park Apartments, he sensed that he was going to have trouble. His senses were usually correct. He didn't know what kind of trouble he was going to have (trouble getting in, trouble keeping himself hidden, trouble with the cops) and the feeling wasn't strong enough that he'd consider going somewhere else, but it was an uncomfortable feeling, like wearing unwashed underwear, and he thought that he should finish this night's work quickly and put it behind him.
As a cat burglar, Georgie had several self-imposed restrictions. Most importantly, he would never burglarize someone who was obviously poorer than himself. That was simply fair play. He also never carried a gun. Guns were meant to kill people, and Georgie wanted harm to come to no one. His third rule was that he would never take anything too large to safely carry out of the building, and then safely carry or conceal on his way home, in front of the transit police. Cameras were good targets, as were portable radios, headphones, jewelry, watches, and the literally hundreds of other items he could shove into a pocket, hang around his neck, hold to his ear, or put around his wrist. Georgie wasn't greedy. His needs were simple—to feed himself, his mother, and his two brothers; to pay the rent; and to have a little bit left over to go to a movie every now and then, or to the Bronx Zoo, which he was fond of telling visitors to the city was "the best zoo there ever was." His philosophy and outlook were unique in the world of cat burglary. His methods, however, were more traditional.
Beneath his "work clothes"—tonight, a loose-fitting, ragged though clean, dark red flannel shirt, and black, early-sixties vintage, double-knit slacks—he was smartly dressed in a crisp, apparently brand new Izod polo shirt, and clean, also apparently brand new, designer blue jeans. His thinking was the soul of logic: If the transit police, or any other police, for that matter, saw a kid who was obviously poor carrying an eight-hundred-dollar Nikon, they'd look twice, and maybe ask some questions. But if that same kid looked like some kind of Mama's boy from Riverdale—the Bronx's most fashionable neighborhood—then the Nikon would be right at home. Consequently, the pretty-boy outfit. His shoes—impeccably brushed Wallabees—were good for climbing and for staying quiet, and also completed the outfit. Georgie went through lots of "working clothes" (which he wore, in the first place, to keep his pretty-boy outfit clean) because it was sometimes not possible to carry them back home, and so he had to toss them into the nearest trash can.
He got into apartments the same way most cat burglars did—up a rear fire escape, and then through a window that was neither barred nor latched. Simple. Of course, he'd spent more than a few nights just looking for the right apartment, and never finding it. And he'd more than once had to beat a hasty retreat when a just-awakened apartment dweller came into the room and hit the light. And then there were the fire escapes that would barely hold the weight of a cat, let alone an eighty-eight-pound cat burglar. And there were the apartments that were easy to get into, sure, and where the owner was sleeping off a drunk, sure, and where there was lots of fine stuff laying around—cameras and watches and so on—but it was clear that everything was marked, and marked merchandise was worthless.
But once, sometimes twice a week, Georgie got lucky, everything clicked, and he got home at 6:00 in the morning with enough merchandise to put away something for the rent and buy food.
Tonight, though, Georgie's luck would turn sour.
Chapter 33
At the Route 22A Holiday Inn—45 Miles Northwest of Manhattan
Jim Hart sat a full half hour in the driver's seat of Fred Williams' baby-blue late model Ford Thunderbird—the windows closed and the doors locked—and finally realized that he had no keys for the damned thing. Fred had the keys. And Lord knew where Fred was.
Jim leaned forward so his chin touched the top of the Thunderbird's steering wheel. He looked through the windshield at the Con Ed Building just ahead, all lit up like some huge garden Madonna. Then he looked to the left at the Empire State Building, and the twin towers of the World Trade Center far in the distance. He whispered, "I love you, Manhattan." And he smiled wistfully.
He sensed that there were faces pressed against the Thunderbird's side windows.
"What are you doing?" he heard.
The faces of the islanders, of course.
And then he heard, "Something wrong, fella?"
He kept his eyes on the Con Ed Building. He wondered what time it was. He knew that at 10:00 they turned off the lights that lit the building. Then the island would be plunged into darkness. Pitch darkness. Darkness, he thought, as black as the inside of his brain.
"Unlock the door, fella. Unlock the damned door!"
"Jesus," someone else said, "he must be roasting in there."
It was a warm morning, especially for so late in the year. Already it was eighty degrees, humid, and cloudless. It would get a lot warmer.
Jim hated the darkness. He saw things in it. Dark, formless things. Things that looked for all the world like huge, shifting mounds of black cotton.
He turned to one of the faces pressed into the driver's window. He smiled amiably. "What time is it?" he asked.
"What'd you say, fella?"
"I think he wants to know what time it is."
Jim went on, "They shut the lights off at ten. What time is it now? It
's about nine-thirty or nine-forty-five, isn't it?" He heard, "What in hell is that guy talking about?"
"He wants to know what time it is."
"It's ten-thirty, fella."
Jim shook his head slowly, the amiable smile still on his face. "No," he said. "No, that's not possible. They turn the lights off at ten."
"Jesus, he's nutty as a fruitcake."
The temperature climbed to eighty-one in that moment. Inside the Thunderbird it was much hotter than that, and Jim began to sweat.
"Your fucking watch is wrong," he heard. "It's ten-forty-five."
"I still say that guy's nutty as a fruitcake."
"My watch isn't wrong. It's a Seiko!"
"I think we should get that guy out of there."
A drop of sweat rolled over Jim's eyebrow, into his eye. He blinked, rubbed the eye, cursed. He turned his head to the right, looked out the passenger window. A woman appeared there—she was young, very pretty.
"Marie?" he said.
The woman said nothing. She looked questioningly at him.
"Marie?" Jim repeated.
"We gotta get him outa there. "A man's voice.
"My name is Carol," the woman said through the closed window. "Is there something bothering you?" Her voice was soft and soothing, too soft and too soothing for Jim to hear all of her words through the window.
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