He rubbed his eyes. He squinted. The image remained. He murmured to himself, "Que pasa?"
It was a bleak landscape he was looking at; one man, a politician, had once compared it to the surface of the moon. The comparison was as much true as poetic.
The rubble of decades of neglect lay here, stretched out over a thousand acres or more. It was normally as still and as motionless as it was bleak.
This morning, it was alive. It moved. The rubble itself seemed to rise up, split into twos and threes, and walk about. Then fall back. Only to rise up again in another place.
But that is what the old man saw. And his eyes were bad. He heard this: ". . . the others, the ones who stayed." And, ". . . survivors, Elena . . ."
And ". . . our island . . ."
He heard more, but thought nothing of it. He spoke no English.
From The Rhinebeck Post: September 27th:
NOSTALGIA CORNER REMEMBER THE STREAKERS
It's the late 70's, you're walking to the library or to your favorite restaurant, you're minding your own business when—whoosh!—from out of nowhere come a half dozen bare bottoms. You gasp. And it's over. The bare bottoms (and God knows what else) are just a memory. "Lord," you say to yourself, "I've just been streaked!"
Remember that?
The good ole days, right?!
Well, they're back!
And they're back with a vengeance!
At least a dozen of the little heathens, all in a line, were reported a week ago on Route 87, just north of Purling, New York—a small town 75 miles north of here—and, in Leeds, several more were spotted in front of the Town Hall, of all places.
Of course, these "sightings" took place in the dead of night, so apparently these streakers are, alas, somewhat less than courageous . . .
From The New York Times, September 29th:
BODY FOUND IN NEW CROTON RESERVOIR A MYSTERY
The nude body of a boy apparently aged twelve or thirteen found floating in the New Croton Reservoir, near Westchester, twenty-five miles north of Manhattan, is baffling investigators. Initial efforts at identifying the boy—who is described as a dark-skinned Caucasian with light blue eyes and very dark, shoulder-length hair—proved futile, and an autopsy performed at Bellevue Hospital by Dr. Urey C. Birnbaum, Chief Pathologist, was, sources say, "inconclusive." The same sources also explained that according to certain confidential documents, the boy's "physiology" is, in several ways, unusual. The sources could not elaborate further.
Asked about the cause of the boy's death, a spokesman for the Coroner's Office explained that the boy "probably drowned," although he would not rule out the possibility that the boy may have been a victim of child abuse.
Dr. Birnbaum . . .
Chapter 41
A thousand deaths happened that day. Most of the deaths went unnoticed, except by those that killed and those that died. The city survived because of the dead; the dead made room for the living, and the children and grandchildren of the living.
Near the edge of the city, at the perimeter of a landfill, in a place where they would not be seen, two brothers laboriously dug a deep hole and then dumped the body of a going-on-middle-aged hooker into it. The hooker had died at their hands; the reasons didn't matter.
In Harlem, a man barely in his twenties leaped from the top floor of his tenement house and died instantly when he hit the pavement, fifteen floors below.
On East Houston Street, in The Bowery, a sanitation engineer standing too far out in the street, waiting for his co-worker to return with a load of garbage, was clipped by a passing taxi and sent sprawling head first into a street sign. He broke his neck.
In the Holland Tunnel, a woman on her way out of Manhattan to visit her daughter in New Jersey, began swiping furiously at a bee on the inside of her windshield and hit another car head-on. A gasoline tanker, just behind her, jackknifed into the wreckage and exploded within seconds. The resulting inferno killed a dozen people, and sent another dozen to various hospitals in Manhattan.
In Greenwich Village, a four-year-old boy playing with his father's .38 pointed the weapon at his mother, said "Bang!" and pulled the trigger. The bullet lodged in his mother's lung; she died four hours later of massive hemorrhaging.
These were the kinds of deaths that happened regularly in Manhattan. And those who paid attention to them would merely shake their heads and cluck that accidents happened all the time, there was really nothing anybody could do about it, or they'd whisper that the Mafia had its hands into everything, or proclaim that they'd never have a gun in their house.
These were the kinds of deaths that people could deal with.
In a sense, they were a form of entertainment. They were, at least, understandable. And they were mundane. So they frightened no one.
Part Two
ASSAULT ON
MANHATTAN
Chapter 42
Approximately one-and-one-half million people live on the island of Manhattan. It is shaped roughly like a heelless shoe, viewed from above, with the ankle at its northern end, and covers about thirty-one square miles, eight of which are inland waterways.
Manhattan is the smallest of New York City's five boroughs—Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island. Several ethnic and cultural areas have sprung up on the island, including—looking south to north—Chinatown, near the island's southern tip; Greenwich Village, about a mile north; Stuyvesant, a half mile east of Greenwich Village; and, a mile and a half northwest, the Garment District, then the Theater District. East of Central Park, there is the Upper East Side and Yorkville. Northwest of Central Park, there is Morningside Heights, home of Columbia University. And east of Morningside Heights, Harlem. East of Harlem is East Harlem.
The Harlem River cuts the island off from land at its northern end. On the west, it is separated from land by the Hudson River, and on the east by the East River. Upper New York Bay is at its southern end.
Peter Minuet purchased the island from the Manhattan Indians in 1624, for twenty-eight dollars worth of trinkets.
A first-time visitor to the island is struck first by the very pace of things. Business is the business of Manhattan, and it is accomplished with all possible speed. If you are walking, you walk fast, with your head down, and you talk to no one. If you are driving, you drive fast and, of necessity, view other drivers with a cool, if not always quiet, disdain. The rule of thumb that applies in Manhattan—both to pedestrians and to drivers alike—is: If you get there first, you have the right of way.
The first-time visitor to Manhattan also is struck by the attitude of New Yorkers. Publicly, it is a thin-lipped, stiff-legged stoicism that says very loudly, I'm minding my own business, you mind yours. If you want to run around naked, for Christ's sake, it's okay with me, as long as you don't invade my space. It is an attitude which first-time visitors often mistake for rudeness. It is not rudeness. It is survival. In a city the size and complexity of Manhattan, no one can afford to mind anyone's business but his own. To do otherwise would be to risk one's sanity.
The first-time visitor is also struck by the order of things. The drivers drive like maniacs, sure, and the pedestrians are not much better, and there's nothing but foul air to breathe, and thousands of miles of pavement, and millions of square yards of buildings to look at, and a constant din of cars, and people . . . But still everything looks as if it's preordained. Everything seems to work! There is order to the chaos! For some first-time visitors, it is a very, very disconcerting experience. There cannot be such order in a place like this. It's not natural. But, of course, there has to be order in a place like this because if there wasn't, it would fall apart.
Chapter 43
At The Stone: September 30th
Winifred Haritson leaned forward slightly in the bold aluminum-and-blue vinyl kitchen chair. She sipped delicately at the soup Georgie MacPhail had prepared for her, then looked up at him and smiled an anemic little smile. "Thank you, Georgie. You're a good boy."
Geo
rgie wasn't at all sure he liked being called "a good boy," but he smiled back. "It's all right, Mrs. Haritson," he said. "I cook for my mom and my little brothers a lot, too."
"You'll get back to 'em, Georgie. Don't worry."
He shrugged. "Yeah, they'll be okay for a couple more days, I guess. I sure wish I could call 'em up, though."
"Just go on out and use a pay phone, Georgie. Just go on out the way you come in. That bunch"—Snipe and his lieutenants—"won't see ya."
"We don't have no phone, Mrs. Haritson. We used to . . ."
"Maybe you can write her a letter. Nothin' says you can't write her a letter, Georgie."
He grinned a strange, lopsided grin. "I can't write, Mrs. Haritson."
She looked vaguely puzzled. "You can't write, Georgie? Twelve years old and you can't write?"
His grin grew more lopsided. "I never had no time to go to school, Mrs. Haritson."
She thought a moment, then said, "I'll write it for you, Georgie. How's that sound?"
Georgie considered it. "No," he answered. "Thanks anyway, but for sure I'll be back before a letter could reach her."
Mrs. Haritson touched his hand lightly, as if to comfort him. She lowered her head. When she looked up, there was a look of grim resignation on her face. "Georgie, you know . . . the elevator shaft . . . I mean . . ." She could not ask the question point-blank.
He did not want to answer her, but realized that if he'd learned anything in the last day and a half, ever since taking shelter in The Stone, it was that this old woman could easily spot a lie. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. A woman. Some old woman. She looked like a bag lady."
Mrs. Haritson sighed. "That'd be Ms. Ida Cooper. She probably didn't have nothing to give 'em so . . ." She stopped; her lower lip started quivering. "What am I going to do, Georgie? What am I going to do?" It was a question she'd asked more than once in the last day and a half and it made Georgie very uncomfortable, because he had no idea how to answer it.
Chapter 44
At Bellevue
It is unsettling to wake up in a place you don't recognize. It is unsettling, as well, to realize that you've misplaced several days of your life, that no matter how hard you try, the details and even the very substance of those days will not come back. As if the memory itself, in panic, has pushed them away.
That was the position that Jim Hart found himself in on the morning of September 30th, and it scared the hell out of him. It was clear that he was in a hospital room. A private room—small, and cluttered with equipment. Two plastic tubes snaked into his nose from a large, cream-colored, rectangular device beside the bed. Several monitors just above the bed beeped and hummed rhythmically. His sheets were very clean and crisp.
He had no feeling of pain. He felt, in fact, quite buoyant, and free of physical sensation, as if he had taken an overdose of Valium. He guessed, correctly, that he had been sedated. And he guessed, also correctly, that without the sedation he would probably be experiencing a very great deal of pain now. That scared him. He supposed that he had awakened because the sedative was wearing off.
He watched as a male nurse entered the room, checked the tube connections, went to a closet, rummaged around in it a moment, turned and looked at him a second. A scowl appeared on the nurse's face. He hurried from the room. Jim had read the name on the man's name tag: Mr. Searles. And, just above it, in small, light-blue block letters, the words, Bellevue Hospital. He thought, What in the hell am I doing in Bellevue? And, as if sent specifically to answer that question, a doctor came into the room. She was tall, thin, sallow-complexioned, and looked extremely efficient. She smiled pleasantly. "So, you're back with us?" she said.
Jim supposed that he nodded slightly.
"You gave us all a bit of a scare, you know." Jim heard what sounded vaguely like a British accent, though it could just as well, he thought, have been an affectation. "That bullet lodged very close to your spinal cord, Mr. Hart, and if you have to have a bullet lodge somewhere, that is not the best place in the world to have it lodge."
Jim opened his mouth a half inch, then closed it.
"No, no," the doctor warned, "don't try to talk just yet. There's plenty of time for that. There are lots of people waiting to ask you lots of questions."
Jim breathed a name. "Marie."
"Marie?" the doctor asked. "Is that your wife? Your girlfriend?"
Jim felt himself nod once. Then he closed his eyes tightly against the pain that shot through him.
"Mr. Hart?" the doctor asked urgently. "Do you have pain, Mr. Hart?"
The pain dissipated. He shook his head slightly.
"Mr. Hart, can you point to where you experienced the pain? Can you do that for me?"
Jim shook his head again, more vigorously, straining at the plastic tubes snaking into his nostrils. The doctor put her hands on the sides of his head. "Try to lie still, Mr. Hart. We'll get these things out of you before long, but in the meantime you must lie still. Please point to the area where you experienced the pain."
"My head," Jim whispered huskily.
This seemed to upset the doctor. "Christ!" she murmured. Jim shook his head again. "Where are they?" he whispered.
"Who, Mr. Hart? Where are who?"
"No," he whispered. "Them. The children."
The doctor pursed her lips in annoyance. "Christ!" she said again. "Mr. Hart," she went on, pressing a button above the bed, "we're going to sedate you again."
Preliminary Physician's Report:
Patient: James T. Hart, age 32
Admitted: Sept. 26
Gunshot wound; small caliber bullet lodged close to Thoracic duct; microsurgery performed:
Prognosis: Good
Patient appears to be suffering recurrent delusions. He speaks of a woman named "Marie" and of others he refers to only as "the children." Attempts at finding out who these "children" are and who the woman "Marie" is have proved largely unsuccessful.
He seems to ascribe certain magical powers to the "children." He indicates strongly that they have the ability to "appear" and "disappear" at will. He also indicates that they eat human flesh, though he has not said this in so many words.
I strongly suggest he be interviewed by a psychiatrist, as his delusions may affect his physical well-being and may impede his recovery from surgery, though his recovery appears to be progressing well.
Submitted,
Dr. Constance Wellaway, M.D.
Bellevue Hospital
Distribution: Normal
Chapter 45
At The Stone: October 1st
Snipe was getting bored. He liked the money he collected from these people. He liked being the boss. He very much liked tossing the damned bag lady down the elevator shaft (because, hell, what good was she? Everything she owned was crap she'd picked up off the goddamned street!), but still he was bored. There was Winifred Haritson's apartment still to get into, and for sure someone was hiding in the building somewhere—Snipe had heard him. But shit, he'd take care of those little problems soon enough, and that would be that. Big fucking deal! Because then where would he be? Same place he was now—stuck with eight old farts who shivered and shook whenever he got close to them (except for "Mr. Klaus." But that was okay. It was neat to watch him suffer without letting on that he was suffering. The guy was tough, that was for sure).
And there was the time problem to think about, too. Because he had another month, anyway, to keep these people in line. Another month until their checks came through again. Another month to wait around in this damned stink-hole.
He shoved a forkful of overdone Kraft Macaroni-and-Cheese Dinner into his mouth, swallowed it without chewing—to avoid the pain that chewing would cause—and barked toward the open door of his makeshift "office" (which had once been Lou's apartment), "Hey, c'mon in here, we gotta talk!"
One of his lieutenants appeared immediately and goose stepped over to the small, banged-up wooden table where Snipe was eating. Snipe inhaled another forkful of macaroni and cheese. "Wh
y you walking like that?" he asked.
The boy answered proudly, "It's the way the Nazis used to walk, Snipe!"
"Are you tellin' me yer a fuckin' Nazi?!"
"No, Snipe, I ain't tellin' you that, I just thought you'd like it if . . ."
"I don't like it. It looks like you got a broom up yer ass."
"Sorry, Snipe."
Snipe nodded at his plate, which was nearly empty. "We got any more of this stuff?"
"Sure, Snipe. I'll tell Ding to fix you some."
"Good. Tell him to make it quick. Tell him I got big plans for later on."
"Oh yeah? Like what, Snipe?"
"I don't know. I gotta think about it first."
"We gonna throw someone else down the elevator shaft, Snipe?" The boy was clearly excited. "Maybe that big guy, Mr. Klaus?"
Snipe looked annoyed. "Like I said, I gotta think about it first. I wanta do somethin' more creative than that, know what I mean? And how am I gonna be creative when my stomach's fuckin' empty?!"
"Oh," the boy said. "Yeah. Good, Snipe." He reached for the plate, glanced questioningly at Snipe, who nodded, took the plate, and quickly left the room.
On Staten Island
"How about a week from now, Joyce?" Sam Campbell asked. "A week from yesterday."
"For what, Sam?"
"To visit Marsha. Are you planning anything?"
Joyce thought a moment; "Next week?" She grinned. "No, Sam, I'm not planning anything."
Sam grinned back. "Good. It'll be around 6:30. Visiting hours start at 7:00—she knows all about you, Joyce. I think she'll like you. She makes attachments easily."
"Yes, I hope so, Sam."
"She became attached to Lynn"—Sam's late wife; he snapped his fingers—"just like that."
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