Rough Justice (20 page)

In the kitchen, a pot of noodles boiled on the stove. It hissed and overflowed, unattended, in the quiet room. I crawled under it, making my way beneath the windows.

The inches came hard. It hurt to breathe. There was blood running from my hand where the woman had cut it. One of my cheeks had been scraped raw when I'd slammed into the wall. There was pain everywhere. I knew I would not make it all the way.

Slowly, I scrabbled across the floor. After the kitchen, there was a hallway. It was long and dark. There were no windows, so I dragged myself to my feet and started stumbling along as quick as I could. I followed the hall to the front door.

The woman's purse was looped around the knob, the way she'd said it would be. I opened it, clawed through it. Found a brass circle loaded with keys.

I pushed the door open, peeked out. I saw a hall of doors, other apartments. There were two elevators right in the center of it. A red lightbulb shone above the door to the stairwell. I slipped out quickly and hurried toward it.

As I moved along the carpeted path, the doors to 193 two apartments opened. Eyes peered out at me, ghostly. No one spoke. I ignored them, moving as fast as I could, fingertips dragging along the brown wall.

I reached the red light. I hauled back on the heavy metal door, slid into the well. The moment I was inside, I heard the footsteps, rising to meet me.

I heard Watts's voice: “… enough backup to take over Long Island now.”

And an answering growl: “Everyone saw him run for it.”

“Asshole,” said Watts. “Endangering innocent fucking people …”

On tiptoe, I climbed the stairs to the fifth landing. I waited there, crouched on the next step up, fighting against my heavy breathing. I heard the two cops stop on the landing below me.

“This is it,” said Watts.

I peeked around the corner in time to see him go through the door. He was with Rankin now. Saint Francis might still be in Mrs. Hooterman's apartment, or he might be stationed outside.

I pulled back as Watts and Rankin went through the door, out of the stairwell.

Then I was moving again. Tumbling down the stairs, my feet dancing out in front of me. I was coughing as I passed the first floor. I continued on down to the basement level.

The stairs ended in a small cellar. A tight concrete space laced with shadows. A dull light spilled from a doorway around a corner. The laundry room probably. I could hear a washing machine chugging and gurgling. Right in front of me, a corridor twisted away between concrete pillars. At the end of it, I saw a set of wooden doors, padlocked together in the center.

I came away from the stairwell. I crept forward, feeling for the smallest key on the brass ring. I wove carefully between the pillars. Past them. To the doors. I fit the woman's key to the padlock.

“Hello?”

I spun around. An old man stood at the entrance to the laundry room. A flowered sheet dangled down between his two hands. He was staring right at me.

I pressed back. The shadows streaked my face. “It's just me,” I said. “I have to go out for a minute.”

The man looked at me unsurely. Then, unsurely, he nodded. “Seeya later,” he said.

“Right,” I answered. I turned my back on him, twisted the key. The padlock snapped open. I pushed through the wooden doors, out into the alley and the cool night.

The alley ran through the darkness toward Lexington Avenue. It was a thin path cluttered with garbage, dank with its smell. A streetlamp just beyond my view sent a dull streak of light over the pavement. I stood still a moment and let the key ring slip from my hand. I heard the chink of it as it hit the ground. Then I took a breath and followed the light toward the street.

A horn blared as I came out from between the buildings. I looked right, toward Eighty-sixth. The glow of red flashers whirled over the corner building. In the distance, more sirens bayed to each other like wolves.

On the sidewalk across from me was the entrance to the subway, the Lexington line. There were cabs cruising by me, heading downtown. I ran my hand over my mouth. It came away slick with sweat. It was hard to come down, hard to think. Impossible, it seemed like, to figure the angles.

But then, there was only one place I figured I would be safe. And the subway was the fastest way to get there. It was my best shot, the toughest to trace, the hardest to stop. After another second, I came out of the alley shadows. I made my move.

I jammed my hands into my pockets, ducked my head behind my jacket collar. I took long strides as I headed for the corner. It was hard to keep my legs going. They felt leaden and wobbly at the same time. The sirens got louder. The buildings on the far side of Eighty-sixth began to flash red, too. I got to the corner and saw the “Don't Walk” sign glaring at me from across the way. I started to jaywalk across.

Now the sirens were screaming. They were throbbing in my ears. With a sudden glare of twirling red, two cop cars broke through the intersection, raced across Eighty-sixth. They were past in a moment. I heard their sirens die away—as if they'd pulled to the curb right behind me and stopped. I didn't look back. I just kept walking.

A step. A step. Another step. I made it to the far side. My legs felt like they were ready to buckle. But now the stairs to the subway were right in front of me. I could see down into the entranceway. There was a short flight leading to a concrete landing, then more stairs around the corner going down into the station. I forced myself on, not looking left or right.

I was a yard away, a step away, I was reaching out for the banister with a shaking hand—when another siren started up, close by. Without pausing, I glanced around. I saw a cruiser a half-block north, speeding down toward me on Lexington.

Just then, my hand touched the cold subway banister. I yanked myself in. I went tripping down the stairs fast as I could. Touched the platform, spun around the corner fast.

A cop was coming up the next flight toward me.

He was a littly guy. Round-faced Italian with a heavy black mustache. I saw something flicker in his eyes as we headed toward each other. Something mechanical and coplike. I didn't miss a step as I skittered past him.

I hit bottom. The underground hall. Token booth ahead to my left. Turnstiles to my right, the train platform and the tracks just beyond them. I drove my legs toward the token booth. There was a line of three or four people there. As I came toward them, there was a low rumble. Then it broke into a sudden roar. A train shot into the station. About twenty people on the platform crowded toward it. The people at the token booth pressed closer together, buying their tokens as fast as they could. I kept moving toward them.

“Hey!”

It came from the stairs behind me. The cop's voice. I looked back. He wasn't in sight yet. He hadn't come back down.

But he called again: “Hey!”

I swerved from my course. Turned away from the booth. Headed for the exit gates, reaching into my jacket for my wallet at the same time.

The train stopped. I heard its brakes squealing. The people on the platform gathered around the doors.

“This is the express train,” the announcer said. “This is
not
the local train. This is the express, next stop Fifty-ninth Street.”

I grabbed the exit gate, pulled it open. Held my wallet up above my head as if I were flashing identification. The subway's doors slid open.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the cop come down out of the stairway behind me. But he hesitated there, unsure he'd made his man.

“You there! Excuse me?” he called.

I was through the gate. I was heading along the platform to the train. Now the cop knew.

He shouted: “Hey! Hold it!”

The last passengers crowded onto the train. I flew in after them.

“Hey!”

The doors slid shut behind me. The train gave a jerk. It began to move.

I knew I should hide my face. I knew I shouldn't look back. But I couldn't help it. I raised my eyes to the window.

The cop had not reached the platform yet. He was standing at the exit gate, staring at me. He started to turn back to the booth.

The train rolled out of the station, into the dark.

Sweat poured off me now. My mouth hung open. My heartbeat seemed to be rocking everything in-side me. I moved—I staggered—to a seat. Dropped into it. I leaned my head back, my eyes closed. I felt the jar and rhythm of the racing train.

After a moment, I thought of my scraped cheek, the blood drying on my hand. I was disheveled, conspicuous. I opened my eyes, looked around the car. No one seemed to pay me any mind. The train rattled through the long tunnel. The walls at the window were a blur of blackness. I passed my gaze from one passenger to the next. None of them looked back at me. A bearded young man, earphones in his ears, read a textbook, bobbing his head to music I couldn't hear. A husky black man stared at the
Star
wearily. A brown woman in nursing whites sat motionless in a corner, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes trained on an ad for Combat roach killer.

My gaze passed over each of them. My heart beat. The sweat rolled down my brow. But none of them seemed to notice me. None of them met my eyes. My gaze moved on to the storm door—the door that led out between this car and the next. I could see through its window and through the window of the car beyond. I could see the people in there, too. I could see them in their seats, hunched over their papers, holding up their books, staring at the ads posted above their heads.

And I could see a patrolman walking down the aisle between them, checking the face of everyone he passed as he came closer and closer and closer to my car.

22

The subway broke out of the tunnel, into the station at Seventy-seventh Street. It pounded past the waiting people without breaking stride. The billboards, the white tiles on the station walls, whipped by in a haze of color. We plunged quickly into the tunnel again.

The cop in the next car was halfway down the aisle now. He'd stopped for a second to rouse a drunk, get a look at him. He was a tall, chunky fellow, this cop. He didn't smile. He didn't look like he had ever smiled. I sat still as he came on again methodically. His steady progress made him seem inevitable.

Still, I worked my way to my feet. I turned my back on him and stumbled up the length of the car. There were other cars ahead. No cops in there. Maybe I could just stay away from the guy until the train reached Fifty-ninth. Maybe I could get off there, slip away.

Not very likely. I'd been spotted. The cop on the train wasn't the only one who'd been alerted. There were sure to be others—plenty of others—waiting for me when the train pulled in.

All the same, with a grunt, I yanked open the heavy storm door. I stepped out between the cars.

The wind of the tunnel washed over me. The couplings jolted this way and that beneath my feet. The train wheels rumbled. The tracks spat sparks. The guard chains swung dizzily to and fro. Beyond them, there was a little gate, but it didn't do much. If you went past those chains, there was plenty of room to fall to the tracks.

To steady myself, I reached out and grabbed the handle of the next door over. I let go of the door behind me and it slid shut. I braced myself to push into the car ahead. Then I stopped. As I looked into the car through the window, I saw two more cops enter it from the far side.

They were an unpleasant pair. A fat one and a skinny one, both with hot, heavy-browed eyes. Their mouths were thin and wicked. They kept their hands to their holsters as they started down the aisle. One by one, they checked the faces of the passengers. Coming toward me just as steadily as the guy behind me was.

As I watched them, frozen, the train took a hard turn. My knees bent, my foot slipped. I clung hard to the door handle with both hands to keep from flying out into the racing blackness. I had to get off the couplings, back inside. But as I glanced over my shoulder I saw that the first cop was now coming into the car I'd just left. I was caught. An android linebacker behind me. Ahead of me, Laurel and Hardy from Hell.

The steady roar of the tunnel became a sudden loud, rattling crash as we coursed out into the Sixty-eighth Street station. The station lights flashed at me between the cars, making me wince. The train seemed to speed up. It rocked back and forth hard. I was jarred to the side. The door handle slipped from my grasp.

I tumbled to the right, across the couplings, into the chains. I gasped. Grabbed hold of them, reached desperately for the car to steady myself. Now, as I held on, I could see Patrolmen Fat and Skinny through the window. They were almost to the end of the aisle. They were maybe twenty seconds from coming out the door, out to where I was.

I let go of the car wall, grabbed the swaying chains with both hands. I crouched down and began to ease my legs out underneath them. As they went out—out into the nothing, out into the speed and the noise and the nothing—I turned over, still gripping that chain. The links burned my palm. My muscles ached, weary, loosening. I lowered my legs down behind me, feeling with my feet for something—anything—other than that screaming, empty air.