Big Machine (38 page)

Solomon Clay arrived. He watched Snooky’s stunned face closely, then turned to Adele.

“You told him.”

She said, “He had a right to know.”

Snooky, still leaning against the car, spoke softly. “How?” he asked.
“How?
”

Solomon smiled. “We’re onto something at the Library, Snooky. Let me show you.”

The two men moved. Mr. Clay led Snooky by the shoulder, and this made Snooky look so young. Solomon pointed back at her. “You stay with the car.”

Adele said, “I bet I won’t.”

He glared. “What did I tell you about that tone?”

Snooky found himself again. Shook Solomon’s hand from his arm. He said, “She’s a grown woman and she can come if she wants.”

Solomon pouted like Snooky had snuck a sandwich into his dinner party. He sped to the front of Albertsons in a rage. Before following, Snooky took out his car keys, opened the trunk, and found a small black case. He opened it, and Adele saw a pistol. Snooky slid the pistol into the front pocket of his jeans.

“Solomon was there for me,” Snooky said. “I know he can be hard to take, but I respect him. And I trust him.” He patted his gun through the denim. “But I’m no fool either. Don’t worry, Adele. I’m still in control.”

Adele wanted to believe Snooky, very much, but he wasn’t like the Dean or Solomon Clay. Ruthless. Hustlers. Street veterans. Pros.

Was it progress that now black boys
and
white boys, yellow girls and brown ones, could be born so privileged that they never doubted themselves? So coddled they considered themselves infallible? Pity them. They dive into chaos where others have the common sense to run away.

As Adele walked behind Snooky, she realized her mission had changed. Before, she’d wondered if she’d have to kill to protect the Washburn Library. But now she wondered if she’d have to kill to protect Snooky Washburn.

THE NEWSPAPER
of record for Garland’s homeless population is the
Avenue Edge
, a collection of articles, essays, poems, harangues, and doodles sold by the homeless themselves on corners and in front of candy
stores, coffee shops, and in parking lots. The salesmen with charm earn bills, and the ones without get bubkes. It’s a dreadful feeling to end your day with just as many copies as when you started, so imagine the good fortune of our man in front of Albertsons that particular morning. A disagreeable guy. Glowering. Utterly without hope of generating even a quarter that day, and he lucks into Solomon Clay.

He said something to Solomon, the same grumble he’d inflicted on the Albertsons employees who’d opened the store, and on every customer that morning, but this time his grumble worked. The man passed him a twenty-dollar bill and slipped a copy of
Avenue Edge
from between those gangly fingers.

Adele and Snooky passed the homeless peddler, but he didn’t try getting money from them. He was too busy staring at the bill in his palm.

Adele went inside the supermarket and followed the others down the shampoo aisle. Solomon Clay at the front, Adele Henry in the back, and between them one member of Garland’s aristocracy.

At the end of the aisle they passed a refrigerated egg display, and Solomon Clay went through a pair of brown industrial double doors. They reached a medium-size package room, dirty concrete walls and flooring, racks of packaged bread ready to be shelved, boxes of vegetables ready for their bins.

There was a large elevator door there. Solomon Clay pressed the button, and they got in. When the doors opened again, they were in a sub-basement. Lightbulbs hung on wires from the ceiling, and the wires were frayed.

The three of them walked in the same order and did it quietly. The smell of mildew brushed their noses. Adele swatted in front of her face because there were flies. Finally they reached two locked gray metal doors.

The Devils’ Well, she thought.

Solomon Clay opened the doors. She expected them to creak, but they moved silently, like they’d been freshly oiled. There was a smaller room inside. An incandescent vapor-proof aluminum light hung on a wall, but it only lit the manhole cover in the middle of the floor. Solomon Clay touched one of the darkened walls, found a shelf and two metal keys that looked like large red soda pop tabs. He inserted the keys into the manhole cover and pulled the lid up.

There was one black equipment kit tucked into a corner of the chamber. Solomon Clay grabbed it and climbed in.

“You don’t have boots or anything?” she said to Solomon. “Something I could wear over my outfit, to protect it. Even a plastic bag for my hair?”

Solomon spat down into the darkness. “Maybe you’d like Snooky to carry you around?”

As Solomon descended, he muttered, “You could sit on his face.”

THESE WEREN’T SEWERS
. Adele figured that out pretty quickly. Just as soon as she noticed the complete lack of human waste. They were in a wide tunnel, filled with muddy but fresh water that came up to her knees. Like canals. She thought of Joyce Chin, who might’ve appreciated knowing the old Spanish cook hadn’t lied. These catacombs were quiet and dim, but only two people shrank. Down here, Solomon Clay bloomed.

“The first time I found my way down, I never wanted to leave,” he said. “I wonder if each of us gets made for a certain kind of environment. Like it’s not even up to you. This is just where you’re supposed to be.” He carried a flashlight. Each of them did now. Solomon waved his to and fro.

“These tunnels feel homey to you?” Adele asked.

“I don’t mean standing in water. I mean down below instead of up there.”

Solomon touched the ceiling, and his light stabbed at the surface like a lance. His case had been full of trusty little items like this: flashlights, batteries, bandages, even face masks.

But Adele didn’t feel like entertaining the philosophical jabbering of Solomon Clay. Instead of responding to him, she said, “So it’s really true, Snooky?”

He looked back at her and nodded somberly.

“Yes, Adele. I guess it is.”

She hadn’t wanted to hear him say it. The Dean could, Mr. Clay could, but it wasn’t true until Snooky did.

“Are you running out of money?” She didn’t care if the question sounded coarse.

“That,” Snooky said. “And patience.”

Adele’s light played across the tunnel walls. They were only dirt, not concrete, but the earth had been sculpted, smoothed, hardened. Glazed by a process too mysterious for Adele’s best guess. Solomon, Snooky, and Adele sloshed through the heavy water and gave up trying to keep their clothes dry. Soon enough their wet clothes gummed up against their bodies, outlining every paunch and jiggle. Adele kept tugging her shirt off her belly. The water rolled away from them as they moved along, slapping against the tunnel walls on either side, then returning with a slurp.

“Did the Voice tell you to shut it down or something?” she asked.

“My accountant told me to.”

Snooky Washburn was doing the worst of all down in the tunnel. Kept bumping his head on the ceiling and then stooping down too low and getting water in his mouth when it splashed up against his legs. Then coughing violently enough to bring tears to his face.

And yet her sympathy only came in waves. When it ebbed, it was because she thought of his plans for the Library. He could just shut it down like that? she thought. Shut
me
down?

She realized she’d already told herself a whole story about Snooky Washburn and Adele Henry. Teammates. Partners. Maybe in love someday. All this in the span of a day. Despite Cherise. Despite the difference in their ages. And why? Because this is what she wanted. A man like that beside her. Not in front or behind. It took only hours for her to plan out their years, and yet look at Snooky over there, oblivious. Just a man who’d decided to throw her good new life away.

THEY CAUGHT UP
to Solomon in a larger chamber just a few yards ahead. Adele thought it was their destination, but three more paths led out from there. If these tunnels were roads, they’d reached an intersection. She looked up, half-expecting to find a traffic light.

Solomon Clay clapped once, but the echo in the catacombs made the sound tremendous, as if a set of great doors had slammed shut behind them.

“Judah waded in these waters, Snooky. Your ancestor touched these walls.”

Snooky looked at the ceiling. How many times had Solomon practiced these words just to make them seem effortless and improvised now?

“He had every reason to give up, to just drop in the dirt and die.”

“But he didn’t,” Snooky finished.

“That’s right. He maintained. He persevered.”

“I know where this is going,” Snooky whispered. “But I’m not changing my mind about the Library.”

Mr. Clay said, “That’s all right. I didn’t bring you down here to talk about that place.”

Solomon walked ahead again. Snooky Washburn followed him, drawn perhaps by curiosity. And what about Adele? Why should she continue?

Adele thought of all the troubles she’d faced in the past. Too many. Would that change if she ran away? Trouble comes, that’s unavoidable. Might as well have it out now.

Adele thought of Maxine Henry again. Her estranged and disappointed mother. A woman practically driven into hiding by her daughter’s criminal life. A relationship that wouldn’t be saved in a thousand years. And despite their history Adele called to that woman now as she trudged toward the Devils’ Well. This wasn’t the first time she’d prayed to her mother for protection. She’d done it in Paterson, New Jersey too.

Keep me alive, Maxine. Please be with me.

Adele continued on, behind the others, into the deeper gloom.

WELL, LOOK AT YOU
just standing around in the cold. You remember me?

You’re my special flower. That’s right
.

I’m lucky to find anything so precious growing in Paterson
.

I told you I wasn’t a cop. Will you trust me this time? Don’t run off like before
.

Climb inside. It’s fine. That’s fine
.

I want you to talk to me the whole time, okay? Call me Honeyspot. Okay?

Yes, that’s what I said. It’s funny right?

I’m like a bear, I guess
.

I find a woman’s honey and I steal it
.

EVENTUALLY THE CLEAR TUNNELS DETERIORATED
, and rubble turned the ground beneath the water into an uneven pathway. The catacombs became wilder. The air so hot that sweat bubbled out of every pore in Adele’s face. Eventually she stopped wiping it away. Tree roots cracked through the ceiling and grasped at the tops of their heads. It was as if they were marching backward in time. From the modern day, as far back as the dawn.

They walked single file and kept a quiet line. Thicker tree roots dangled down, and cordgrass grew out of the water; the tops of it brushed as high as her knees.

I SAW A MOTEL
on my way over here. Would you mind going there?

Don’t worry about the money. I want you for hours
.

Okay. You can have half of it now and the rest as soon as we’re done. That sound fair?

You know what you seem like?

You seem like a good girl to me
.

ALL ROADS END
. Aboveground or below. This tunnel stopped at a closed door.

The door was a disc, easily six feet across, and made of gray stone. An aspirin tablet for one very big headache. There was a hole as wide as the tip of a baseball bat right in the center of the disc. Solomon Clay leaned forward, put his hand into the hole, and pushed the door to the left. It rolled open with a rumble.

Snooky spoke in a hush. “Is this … really?”

“That’s right, little prince.”

The inside of the chamber looked even darker than the tunnel where they stood. An impossible kind of night, the last night. The way it’ll look when every star goes extinct.

Mr. Clay walked calmly into the open doorway, but Snooky hung back, stiff. Adele reached his side, and the man couldn’t even blink. His mouth hung open.

“Snooky,” she whispered. “Snooky, it’s all right.”

“I can’t go in there,” he said.

“You want to run?” she asked.

“I never believed it,” he admitted.

“Let’s run,” Adele said.

Now he blinked. And breathed. He looked at her. “I’ll bet you’ve been through a lot worse than this, Adele. You don’t seem scared, but I can’t even move my legs. I thought this was just a story my father told me at night to scare me. I can’t do this …”

“You can do whatever you want to, Snooky. And you’d be surprised what you can survive.”

He smiled weakly. “Can I give you this?”

Snooky pulled the gun from his pocket and handed it to her, handle first.

“The way I feel right now, I’d probably just end up shooting myself.”

Adele took it. “Think of me as your bodyguard,” she said, trying to sound cool.

But this bodyguard had to face the fact that she’d never fired a gun. The thing was as heavy as a heart attack. She must’ve been looking at it strangely.