Creepers (28 page)

"Being here's good enough, Bimbo. Thanks for the use of the hall." Willie's voice fell a half-tone and his back automatically straightened as he talked. He was on his best behavior; he was now acting in his official capacity as revered leader of Dogs of Hell. "This here is Detective Frank Corelli of the TA, in case you don't recognize him. He needs our help . . . bad." Putting it like this was the only way to enlist his men's support. Most of them had no use for die TA.

"We got a problem in the subway the likes of which we ain't never imagined. Now, before I go any further, I want you to know this is a volunteer job. If any of you wants out, that's okay by me. It don't mean nothing, and it won't stand against your record."

"Dogs of Hell don't never backs down," someone shouted.

The cries of affirmation brought a smile to Willie's face. "That's good to hear, brother, 'cause we got a ball-buster on our hands. Now, dig this..."

Quickly, expertly, Willie summarized the problem. He expected no resistance and he got none. Willie's men had grown up in a world where death came in every conceivable form and size. The uncommon was common for them; the bizarre, comfortably familiar. Willie talked about the creepers like they were run-of-the-mill muggers who happened to live down under the ground and also happened to like .eating human flesh. He talked about Baker's death dispassionately and Slade's death angrily.

"These bastards took out one of our own men. They chewed Ted Slade up like Gravy Tram. I think we owe them one, what say?" The roaring cheer was unanimous. "Now, I want you to listen to Detective Frank Corelli, if you please."

Corelli sensed the animosity in many of the men, but he ignored it. He didn't have the time to prove to them that he was one of the boys. Hoyte's stamp of approval would have to do. "Your friend Slade died on the tracks of the Seventh Avenue IRT line down below Ninety-third Street. He probably discovered something there, and I want to know what. Willie and I will be making a sweep down the tracks starting at midnight. We want you to stand guard at every station between Ninety-sixth Street and Seventy-second Street. You'll be divided into teams."

"What we looking for, man?" Miguel Esperanza chimed up from the front row.

"We want to capture one of these things alive, if that's possible."

"Then what?"

"Then we have the proof. Then we have the power."

"Sounds good to me," Willie joked, and everyone laughed.

"This is the plan; it's nine-thirty now. At midnight, all the teams of men will go to each subway station. Two or three of you go in the uptown side, same number on the downtown. The point is that we don't want to attract attention. The leader of each group will have a walkie-talkie."

"And what if something goes wrong? What if we don't bear nothing? What if you don't find one of these things, or the cops get you?" Miguel asked argumentatively.

"Then save your own asses. There's no room in this operation for heroes. Go home. Forget you ever heard my name, or Willie's," Corelli said grimly. If the cops did catch him, he was as good as dead, anyway.

After the Dogs of Hell left, Corelli grew restive. With less than an hour left before going into the subway, he still felt uneasy; it wasn't like him. He knew it wasn't fear of what he might confront in the abandoned station where Slade had met his death. It was something else. Something not directly connected with the creeper operation. He closed his eyes and focused all his energy on deciphering his apprehension.

Slowly, oh so slowly, Louise's face assembled itself in his imagination, and he knew that was it. She'd said she was okay; they both knew she was lying. Maybe he shouldn't have left her, maybe he should have stayed at Willie's until Lettie lean came back. Well, there was one way to deal with that guilt. He called Willie's number immediately, bracing himself for Lettie's voluminous alto voice. After ten rings he hung up.

"Willie, what's Lettie Jean's home phone number? She and Louise must be over at her place." But even as he dialed, Corelli knew he was deluding himself. Things never worked out that easily. Human nature wasn't as straightforward as people liked to believe. Frank knew he wouldn't call Lettie's, ask to speak to Louise, and a moment later hear her soft, soothing voice.

"How de do?" Lettie's voice boomed into his ear.

"It's Frank Corelli. Is Louise handy?"

"She should be right by your side, Mr. Corelli."

"Oh?" So, human nature hadn't failed him, after all.

"Sure 'nuf. I stopped over to chew the fat awhile, and Louise was jes' as restless as a cat on a hot tin roof. She finally picked up the phone and called you--'least I thought it was you." The shadow of a doubt crept into her voice.

"Then she went out?"

"Like a bat outta hell. Shoot, I figured you whispered some lovin' words in her ear, Frank." Lettie's voice definitely meant to be more than friendly.

"Dammit," Corelli swore under his breath. "If you see her, Lettie, don't let her outta your sight."

"Sure thing, Frank," she cooed again before hanging up.

Corelli grabbed his coat and was at the front door before Willie had a chance to ask where he was going. Frank wasn't exactly sure where Louise had gone, but he had a good idea. Goddammit! He should have kept closer watch on her. She'd been acting flaky ever since last night . . . ever since she'd first heard about the creepers . . . and imagined her daughter with them.

"Where the hell you goin'?" Willie yelped as Corelli opened the door. "It's gettin' late."

"I'll meet you at Ninety-sixth Street at midnight."

"And if you ain't there?"

"Ill be there," Corelli insisted.

"Jes' speakin' hypothetical-like...if you ain't?"

"Then you and your men get the hell outta there. You got that?"

Willie thought a moment, then calmly began toying with the gold chain around his neck. He got it, all right. If Corelli wasn't there, there wasn't going to be a party. Well, this time, Willie Hoyte was going to look out for number one. He was going into the tunnel, Corelli or no Corelli. "Hopes you find her," he said benignly.

"That makes two of us," Corelli said as he ran out the door, closer to panic than he wanted to admit.

Louise had finally broken. The nightmare had finally become reality for her. And she'd fled, irrationally, terrified, from the safety of Willie's apartment out into the night. And if her final destination was where Frank feared, her life was in more danger than she'd ever know.

As he leaped into his car, Corelli only hoped it wasn't too late to save her.

Chapter 14

Louise sat huddled in the far corner of the AA train as it rattled downtown. Her walk from Willie's apartment to the subway had terrified her. Like so many New Yorkers, Louise had no concept of the extent of the devastation that neglect and poverty had taken on uptown Manhattan. All the way to the station she had thought of the bombed-out ruins of postwar Europe. The streets were littered with rubble, trash, and bricks; the buildings were rife with decay and despair. It was a netherworld she never wanted to see again.

And everywhere she walked, there were the eyes--the eyes of the young black men hanging out on the street corners, drinking and drugging, trying chemically to escape the grinding hopelessness of their lives. They clung to their blaring gigantic radios, feeling less insignificant in the teeming, faceless streets. They made love openly to the girls and women who, drawn by their own restlessness and the promise of a drink of cheap wine, descended from the tenements into the street. With each step Louise took, those eyes followed her; curious, resentful, lustful eyes that saw she didn't belong up here among them. Her demeanor proclaimed it, her walk, her clothes, but mostly the fear on her face.

Yet she made it to the subway unscathed, her breath scorching her throat la time with her accelerated heartbeat. She was sweaty from the fear, and a thin trickle of perspiration from her armpits eased down her sides, sending a cold shiver through her body. As the subway stopped at the station, Louise decided she'd better get used to the fear, for in the next hours it would be her only companion, her only friend. Corelli and Willie were uptown, and Louise was downtown, under the city, searching for Lisa on the tracks.

The train pulled into Eighty-first Street, slowed, and stopped. She sat at the far end of the train purposely. She needed time alone, time to walk down the platform at Seventy-second Street until she was exactly where she and Lisa had stood four days ago on Labor Day. The doors opened, one passenger waiting on the platform entered the train, and on the conductor's signal, the doors closed and the train left.

Three minutes later Louise was alone at Seventy-second Street. The station was dank and dirty, but cooler than it had been on Labor Day. She remembered that crushing heat and the feel of her sundress clinging to her legs and torso. Oh, she'd been so hot that day. So short-tempered and irritable. And Lisa had been so fun-loving and free.

"Lisa, come back here"--the memory of her own petulant voice drifted back to her now as she walked slowly toward the end of the platform.

"I want to look at the pictures, Mommy," Lisa urged, sounding a little too like Dave for comfort.

"I want you back here, now!" Her anger had nothing to do with Lisa; it had to do with Dave. But, "Lisa, it's for your own safety," was the rationale for giving in to it. And when the child continued to disobey her, Louise had thought the thought that now haunted her every waking moment: If something dreadful happens to Lisa, never let it be said I didn't warn her. And suddenly Louise was standing at the end of the platform.

The memory of that vow came back with the swift judgmental clout that staggered Louise. Her tears choked her and she leaned heavily against the wall, smudging with her shoulder obscene graffiti that covered a movie poster. For the first time since becoming involved with Corelli, she cried full-out. The tears were unlike those during the first days when the shock of losing Lisa was so new; then something inside needed release, something connected with fear. Now it was simple loss. Standing on the platform, the memory of Lisa as fresh as a newly opened grave, Louise felt violated and abused.

She beat her fist against the wall until the side of her hand was numb. Then she changed hands and began again. "Oh, Jesus God," she whimpered. "Please, please let me find my baby alive. Please. Ill do anything if you just grant me this one favor."

In answer, an express train rumbled toward the station. It appeared at the far end of the tunnel, compressing the air before it until, as it careened through the station, it kicked up a tornado of dust. When the train was gone, the station was strangely silent. And Louise's tears were gone, erased by a grim determination to find and protect the child who'd been taken from her--and to survive in the offing. If the creepers were going to kill Louise Hill, they were in for the fight of their monstrous lives.

She sat wearily down on the edge of the platform, thinking ironically that her pastel skirt-and-blouse combination was hardly the outfit for tramping around in a subway tunnel. For Vogue it might be the appropriate costume; for Louise Hill, no. But she had no choice. She hadn't dressed to be an explorer, any more than she'd dressed to be a fugitive. For a moment she just rested, praying no one would come along to interfere. There was always the chance a stranger might call the police, but the greater chance was that a stranger would turn his back on the whole thing. She relaxed.

Louise's feet dangled mere inches from the slimy roadbed, and every ounce of her good breeding rebelled at the sight and smell of the garbage-strewn tracks. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw something dart through the roadbed's slushy puddles, and before her imagination got the chance to turn a humble mouse into a monster, she pushed off and landed in the muck.

Corelli had talked about the roadbed and the third rail. He said even a moron was safe if he were careful and didn't panic. Even a moron could maneuver his way south along the tracks. Panic and irrationality were the dangers down here. The subway was not an obstacle course; it was rationally constructed to allow maximum safety for the workmen. Right now Louise had to think like a TA workman who was used to being on the tracks night after night, stepping back into safety troughs, watching with only detached interest as trains passed mere inches away.

She flicked on Corelli's flashlight, sending a narrow but powerful beam ahead of her like a scout. The track behind was clear, and a quick search of the near wall revealed several troughs in which to escape should anything unexpected come along. Louise moved slowly, keeping her eyes riveted on the roadbed. One false step might mean a tumble to the third rail or an injury that precluded escape from an oncoming train that would plow into her and tear her body apart under its thundering wheels.

Louise wasn't quite sure why she was in the tunnel. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for; she didn't expect really to find Lisa down here; at least, she hoped she wouldn't now, four days later. Yet she was there. She needed to find something, some little clue to give her the courage of her convictions to continue believing her daughter was still alive. Something. Anything.

Ten minutes later Louise had made a little progress through the tunnel. The way was treacherous; more than once she lost her footing and fell, grasping toward the cold, uninviting wall to seek support. She'd expected to encounter rats, snakes, horrible things, but instead she mostly found garbage and refuse that had blown into the tunnel or had been dragged along by the undercarriage of a passing train.