“The Transit Department uses a special lightbulb with a left-handed thread. To discourage theft. They won’t fit an ordinary socket.”
“I got no idea what you’re talking about.” She hurried away from me down the platform, not once looking back. I waited until she was safely in the ladies restroom.
An uptown express roared through as I started down the narrow metal ladder at the end of the platform. A pathway alongside the tracks led away into darkness. At distant intervals along the tunnel wall the feeble glow of low-wattage bulbs marked the way through the gloom. Between trains it was very quiet, and I surprised several rats scuttling among the cinders on the track bed beside me.
The subway tunnel was like an endless cave. Water dripped from the ceiling, and the dirty walls were slick with slime. Once, a downtown local sped past, and I pressed back against the clammy wall and stared up at lighted cars flashing only inches from my face. A little boy kneeling on the seat spotted me, his bland expression expanding with astonishment. His car was gone even as he started to point.
It seemed as if I had walked many more than five city blocks. There were occasional alcove openings with conduits and metal ladders leading up. I hurried along, my hands in my pockets. The checkered grip of the .38 felt rough and comforting.
I didn’t see the abandoned station until I was ten feet from the ladder. The soot-covered tiles gleamed like a ruined temple in the moonlight. I stood very still and caught my breath, my heart bumping against the Leica hanging under my jacket. In the distance, I heard a baby cry.
FORTY-FOUR
The sound echoed in the darkness. I listened for a long time before deciding it came from the opposite platform. Crossing four sets of tracks didn’t look like fun, and I debated the risks of using my penlight before remembering I’d left it at home.
Distant lights from the tunnel gleamed along twin ribbons of track. Although it was dark, I could make out rows of iron girders like shadowed tree trunks in a midnight forest. What I couldn’t see were my own feet, and I felt the lurking menace of the third rail, lethal as a hidden rattlesnake in the gloom.
I heard a train approaching and looked back down the tunnel. Nothing in sight on my track bed. It was an uptown local, and when it passed through the abandoned station, I took advantage of the cover to step between the girders over two sets of third rails. I followed the trackbed of the downtown express, measuring my pace to the spacing of the ties.
The sounds of another train alerted me. I checked my rear and felt an adrenaline surge. The train was highballing down the tunnel. I stepped between the girders separating the express tracks and wondered if the motorman had me spotted. The train roared through like an angry dragon, spitting sparks from its clattering wheels.
I made a final third-rail crossing, and the deafening noise covered any sounds of my climbing onto the opposite platform. As the four red lights on the rear car flickered out of sight, I was flat against the cold tiles of the station wall.
The baby was no longer crying. At least not loud enough to be heard over the drone of chanting. It sounded like gobbledygook, but I knew from my afternoon’s research that it was Latin in reverse. I was late for church.
I got the .38 out of my pocket and eased along the wall. A faint, ephemeral curtain of light hung in the air ahead. Soon, I could discern grotesque silhouettes swaying in what was once the entrance alcove of the station. The turnstiles and gates had been removed long ago. From the corner I saw the candles: fat, black candles arranged along the inner wall. If this was by the book, they were made from human fat, like the ones in Maggie Krusemark’s bathroom.
The congregation wore robes and animal masks. Goats, tigers, wolves, horned creatures of every variety, all chanting a backwards litany. I slipped my pistol into my pocket and took out the Leica. The candles surrounded a low altar draped in black cloth. A cross hung upside down on the tile wall above it.
The presiding priest was plump and pink. He wore a black chasuble embroidered with cabalistic symbols in a riot of gold thread. It was open down the front. Underneath he was naked, his erection trembling in the candlelight. Two young acolytes, naked under their thin cotton surplices, stood on either side of the altar swinging censers. The smoke had the acrid sweetness of burning opium.
I took a couple of pictures of the priest and his pretty young punks. There wasn’t enough light to do much more. The priest recited the looking-glass prayers, and the congregation responded with howls and grunts. An uptown express came rattling through, and I counted the crowd in the flickering light. Seventeen including the priest and the altar boys.
From what I could tell, the congregation were all naked beneath their swirling capes. I thought I spotted Krusemark’s hard old-man’s body. He was wearing the mask of a lion. I saw the flash of his silver hair as he shuffled and howled. I took four more shots before the train was gone.
The priest beckoned, and from out of the shadows came a lovely adolescent girl. Her waist-length blonde hair fell across her mourner’s cape like sunlight dispelling night. She stood absolutely still as the priest undid the fastenings. The cape slid in silence to the ground, revealing slender shoulders and budding breasts, a patch of pubic floss like spun gold in the candlelight.
I snapped more pictures as the priest escorted her to the altar. Her dull and languorous movements suggested heavy sedation. She was lowered onto the black cloth and lay on her back, legs dangling and arms spread. In each upturned palm the priest placed a squat black candle.
“Accept the unblemished purity of this virgin,” the priest intoned. “O Lucifer, we implore thee.” He dropped to his knees and kissed the girl between her legs, leaving tangled pearls of spittle shining there. “May this chaste flesh honor your divine name.”
He rose and one of the altar boys handed him an open silver box. He withdrew a sacramental wafer, then turned the box over, scattering the translucent disks at the feet of the congregation. There was more reverse-gear Latin as the worshipers stamped on the wafers. Several urinated noisily against the pavement.
One acolyte handed the priest a tall silver chalice; the other stooped and gathered bits of broken wafer off the floor, placing them inside. The congregation snuffled and grunted like rutting swine as he balanced the chalice on the perfect belly of the teenage girl. “O Astaroth, Asmodeus, princes of friendship and love, I beg you to accept this blood which is shed for thee.”
A baby’s lusty howls pierced the bestial grunting. The altar boy stepped out of the shadows carrying a squirming infant. The priest grasped it by a leg and held it high in the air, kicking and screaming. “O Baalberith, O Beelzebub,” he cried, “this child is offered in thy name.”
It happened very quickly. The priest gave the baby to an acolyte and was handed a knife in return. The bright blade caught the candlelight as they cut the infant’s throat. The tiny creature bucked for life, his cries a muffled gargle. “I sacrifice you to Divine Lucifer. May the peace of Satan always be with you.” The priest held the chalice under the spouting blood. I finished the roll as the baby died.
The congregation’s throaty moaning grew louder than the accelerating rumble of an oncoming train. I slumped against the wall and reloaded the camera. No one was paying any attention to me. The acolyte shook the limp child to catch the final precious drops. A vivid splattering glistened on the dirty walls and across the pale flesh of the girl on the altar. I wished every frame I’d shot had been a bullet and other blood darkened the forgotten tiles.
A train came crashing through, casting its bold light on the proceedings. The priest drank from the chalice and hurled what was left out over the crowd. The masqueraders howled with delight. The dead baby was discarded. The acolytes stood jerking each other off, heads back and laughing.
Tossing his chasuble aside, the plump, pink priest kneeled above the blood-splattered virgin, entering her with short, doglike thrusts. The girl made no response. The candles remained upright in her outstretched hands. Her wide-open eyes stared sightle
ssly into the darkness.
The congregation went wild. Casting off cloaks and masks, they coupled frantically on the pavement. Men and women in every possible combination, including a quartet. The stark light of the passing train cast their frenzied shadows against the subway wall. Their howls and moans carried above the violent clatter of the wheels.
I saw Ethan Krusemark cornholing a hairy little man with a potbelly. They were standing in the men’s room entrance and looked like a silent stag movie in the flickering light. I shot a whole roll of the shipping tycoon in action.
The party went on for at most half an hour. It was early in the season for subway orgies, and the cold, clammy air eventually sapped the enthusiasm of even the most ardent devil worshiper. Soon, they were all hunting for lost clothing, grumbling over hard-to-find shoes in the dark. I kept my eye on Krusemark.
He packed his costume in a valise and gave some of the others a hand cleaning up. The black altar cloth and inverted cross were removed, the blood wiped away with rags. At length, the candles were extinguished, and the group began dispersing in singles and pairs. Some headed uptown, others down. Several with flashlights started across the tracks to the other side. One carried a heavy, dripping sack.
Krusemark was among the last to go. He stood whispering to the priest for several minutes. The blonde girl slouched like a zombie behind them. They said goodbye and shook hands like Presbyterians at the close of service. Krusemark passed within an arm’s length as he walked uptown along the deserted platform.
FORTY-FIVE
Krusemark entered the tunnel, walking rapidly along the narrow pathway. This wasn’t the first time he’d taken a stroll in the subway. I let him get as far as the first naked lightbulb before following. I matched his pace, step for step, soundless as a shadow on my rubber-soled boots. If he chanced to look back, the game was up. Tailing a man in a tunnel was like staking out a divorce case by hiding under the hotel room bed.
The approach of a downtown train gave me the opening I needed. As the rumbling thunder of the oncoming express built to an iron crescendo, I started running for all I was worth. The train’s roar drowned the slap of footfalls. The .38 was in my hand. Krusemark never heard a thing.
As the last car shot past, Krusemark disappeared. He was less than ten yards away, and then he was gone. How could I have lost him in a tunnel? Another five strides and I saw the open doorway. It was a service exit of some kind, and Krusemark was starting up a metal ladder fastened to the back wall.
“Freeze!” I held the Smith & Wesson at arm’s length in a two-handed grip.
Krusemark turned, blinking in the half-light. “Angel?”
“Turn around and face the ladder. Place both hands on a rung above your head.”
“Be reasonable, Angel. We can talk this over.”
“Move it!” I lowered my aim. “The first one goes through your kneecap. You’ll use a cane for the rest of your life.”
Krusemark did as he was told, dropping his leather satchel to the floor. I stepped behind him and frisked him down. He was clean. I got my bracelets out of my jacket pocket and clipped one cuff to his right wrist and the other to the rung he gripped. He faced me, and I backhanded him full strength across the mouth with my left.
“You filthy scum!” I jammed the muzzle of the .38 under his chin, forcing his head back. His eyes were wide as a trapped stallion’s. “I’d like to spray your brains all over the wall, cocksucker.”
“Have you gone m-mad?” he stammered.
“Mad? Goddamned right I’m mad. I’ve been mad ever since you set your goons on me.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Bullshit! Everything you say is a crock of shit. Maybe if I rearrange some teeth, it’ll help you remember.” I grinned at him, exposing my temporary dental work. “Like your torpedoes did to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. You set me up and now you’re trying to save your ass. You’ve been lying since the first minute I met you. Edward Kelley is the name of an Elizabethan magician. That’s why you used it as an alias, not because your daughter thought it was cute.”
“You seem to know all about it.”
“I’ve been doing some homework. I brushed up on my black magic. So save the crap about how the maid slipped your daughter the tarot cards when she was in knee socks. It was you all the time. You’re the devil worshiper.”
“I’d be a fool if I wasn’t. The Prince of Darkness protects the powerful. You should pray to Him yourself, Angel. You’d be surprised at the good things that would happen.”
“Like what? Slitting babies’ throats? Where’d you snatch the kid from, Krusemark?”
He sneered at me. “There was no snatching involved. We paid hard cash for the little bastard. One less welfare mouth for the taxpayers to feed. You are a taxpayer, aren’t you, Angel?”
I spit in his face. I’d never done that to anyone before. “A cockroach is the chosen of God alongside you. I don’t feel a thing when I step on a roach, so stepping on you should be a pleasure. Let’s start at the beginning. I want to know all about Johnny Favorite. The works. Everything you’ve ever seen or heard.”
“Why should I? You won’t kill me. You’re too weak.” He wiped the saliva off his cheek.
“I don’t need to kill you. I can walk out of here and leave you hanging. How long do you think it would be before someone found you? Two days? A week? Two weeks? You can pass the time counting the trains go by.”
Krusemark looked a little ashen, but he kept on bluffing. “What good would it do you?” The rest of it was lost in the roar of a passing train.
“It might give me a few laughs,” I said after it passed. “And when these pictures are developed, I’ll have something in my scrapbook to remember you by.” I held up a yellow roll of film so he could get a good look. “My favorite is the one of you screwing the little fat man. I might even get an enlargement of that.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?” I showed him my Leica. “I shot two rolls of thirty six. It’s all in black-and-white, as they say.”
“There’s not enough light to take pictures down here.”
“There is for Tri-X. Photography must not be one of your hobbies. I’ll hang some of the juicier blowups on your office bulletin board. The newspapers might get a kick out of them, too. Not to mention the police.” I turned to leave. “See you around. Why don’t you try praying to the devil? Maybe he’ll come and set you free.”
Krusemark’s disdainful smirk melted into a frown of deep concern. “Angel, wait. Let’s talk this over.”
“That’s just what I had in mind, big shot. You talk, I’ll do the listening.”
Krusemark held out his free hand. “Give me the film. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
That made me laugh. “No deal. First you sing. If I like the tune, then you get the film.”
Krusemark rubbed the bridge of his nose and stared at the dirty floor. “All right.” His eyes flickered like yoyos as he watched me toss and catch the film. “I first met Johnny in the winter of ‘39. It was Candlemas eve. There was a celebration at the home of, well, her name doesn’t matter; she’s been dead ten years now. She owned a townhouse on Fifth near where they’re building that ugly Frank Lloyd Wright museum. In the old days the place was famous for society balls; Mrs. Astor, the Four Hundred, that sort of thing. But the big ballroom was used only for Old Faith ceremonies and Sabbats when I knew it.”
“Black Masses?”
“Sometimes. I never went to one there, but I had friends who did. Anyway, it was the night I met Johnny. I was impressed with him right at the start. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty, but he had something special. You could feel the power running out of him like an electric current. His eyes were more alive than any I’d seen before in my life, and I’ve been around some.
“I introduced him to my daughter, and they hit it off right away. She was already
more versed in the dark arts than me, and she recognized that special something in Johnny. His career was only getting started, and he was hungry for fame and wealth. Power was something he already had in spades. I watched him conjure up Lucifuge Rofocale, right in my own living room. That’s a very complicated procedure.”
“You expect me to swallow this?” I asked.
Krusemark leaned back against the ladder, resting one foot on the bottom rung. “Swallow it, spit it out; I don’t give a damn. It’s the truth. Johnny was in a lot deeper than I had the nerve to go. The things he did would have driven an ordinary man nuts. He always wanted more. He wanted it all. That’s why he made a pact with Satan.”
“What kind of pact?”
“The usual arrangement. He sold his soul for stardom.”
“Crap!”
“It’s true.”
“It’s bullshit, and you know it. What’d he do, sign a contract in blood?”
“I don’t know the details.” Krusemark’s haughty glance was impatient and scornful. “Johnny was alone at midnight in Trinity Churchyard for the invocation. You shouldn’t take what I say so lightly, Angel, not when playing with forces beyond your control.”
“Okay, let’s say I buy it: Johnny Favorite made a deal with the devil.”
“Lord Satan Himself rose from the depths of Hell. It must have been magnificent.”
“Sounds pretty risky, selling your soul. Eternity’s a long time.”
Krusemark smiled. On him it was more of a leer. “Pride,” he said. “Johnny’s sin was pride. He thought he could outwit the Prince of Darkness Himself.”
“How?”
“You must understand I’m not a scholar, only a believer. I attended the ritual as a witness, but I can’t tell you anything about the magic nature of the invocations or what went on during the week-long preparations preceding it.”
“Get to the point.”
Before he could get started, he was interrupted by a downtown express. I watched his eyes, and he met my gaze. Not an eyelid flicker betrayed him as he shuffled and reshuffled his story until the last car roared past.
Falling Angel Page 20