Full stop.
Something’s wrong.
There were too many people milling around at this time of the morning.
Three detectives climbed up on a bank of concrete and scanned the heads of waiting straphangers, looking for the blonde with an Xon her back. Six men circled around to the other side of the track to search the rest of the crowd, then returned, heads shaking.
The woman was not here.
The surrounding passengers had the makings of a mob, feet stamping, voices rising, tempers close to exploding in the hot muggy air around the shuttle bay. Most had wandered away from the track, but hopefuls still stood on the edge, eyes fixed on the dark tunnel with a New Yorker’s certain knowledge that watchers, not switchmen, made the trains come.
The crowd was still growing, not conversing but growling, voices rumbling in one sentiment, Death to all transit workers – kill them all. Here and there, a passenger went off like a firecracker, screaming obscenities. It could only be a matter of minutes before the first punch was thrown. This vast space would become a bloodbath from wall to wall.
Near the police booth, a band of musicians were unpacking instruments and plugging in amplifiers. This was the city’s emergency response to impending violence among disgruntled subway riders.
Janos folded his cell phone. ‘We got uniforms at the exits. No sign of her yet.’
Detective Desoto had disappeared into the mob, and now he was running back to them. ‘The good news? A suicide. A jumper got himself smeared across the tracks. All these people are from the rush-hour crowd. That’s how long they’ve been waiting.’
‘And now the bad news,’ said Riker.
‘They just finished cleaning up all the blood and guts. The shuttles are on the way. We’re gonna lose the whole crowd in five minutes flat.’
Deluthe understood this worst-case scenario. What were the odds that any of these stressed-out citizens would miss a ride out of hell to talk to a cop? ‘Can’t we just stop the trains?’
Desoto gave him a look that asked, What hick town are you from“? ‘Maybe you didn’t hear me, kid. The last guy who stopped the trains is dead.’
‘We got five minutes,’ said Riker. ‘Deluthe, you work the passengers near the track. Hit on the women. Men are useless. They only see breasts, not backs. The rest of you guys are with me.’
The detectives moved in tandem, walking toward the small band of musicians. Their body language changed as they drew closer to the light Latin tempo intended to soothe ugly tempers with the soft strings of a guitar and a bass – and a drummer with nothing to do.
While Deluthe was taking statements of ‘I didn’t see nobody’ and ‘I don’t know nothin“, Riker was taking a guitar away from one of the teenage musicians.
Deluthe watched the action through breaks in the crowd near the track. The senior detective’s hand flew up and down the neck of the electric guitar, playing riffs of rock ‘n’ roll, and he was good – damn good. The younger passengers were drifting toward the music, fingers snapping, heads bobbing to the beat – reborn.
The musicians were playing backup as Riker was gliding and sliding, strings zinging, the crowd cheering. He ripped out notes in a one-handed frenzy as he rolled the other hand toward the band to jump up the tempo. The bassman’s fingers moved faster and faster. The drummer went insane with his sticks, smashing cymbals and beating on skins.
Janos pulled a woman from the crowd, and now they were gyrating, twirling and writhing. Other detectives grabbed strange females, danced them ragged and discarded them quickly. All the people were in motion; the place was rocking, cooking, jumping. The beat vibrated across the concrete and came up through the soles of Ronald Deluthe’s shoes.
The crowd formed a ring around Riker, hands clapping, whistling high and shrill. Janos swung a new partner around, then lifted her high off the floor and let her go – airborne. She squealed with delight when he caught her. Riker ripped out another riff, and the crowd went wild. A shower of coins chimed into an open guitar case, and the band went demonic, pushing the tempo, faster, harder, louder. The trains came; the people stayed – stoned on music. The detectives changed partners and fired questions, never losing the beat.
Two hands shot up with high signs.
Finale.
Riker made a cutthroat gesture to the band, and the music died suddenly, as if a door had closed upon it.
And the world stopped moving.
The musical detective wiped the sweat from his eyes and took a deep bow to thunderous hand clapping. He turned to Janos, hollering to be heard above the racket, ‘What’ve you got?’
‘A woman spotted the X. Our blonde didn’t cross over. She stayed on the downtown Lexington line, and she was crying.’
‘She’s going home,’ yelled Desoto. ‘Yesterday another woman saw a blonde with an X on her shirt. Now here’s where it gets a little weird. She was fighting off a gang of dead flies in the station at Astor Place, and that’s where she got off the train.’
Deluthe moved against the flow of boarding passengers and fought his way out of the mob in time to see the squad of detectives flying into the pedestrian tunnel. When he emerged from the subway at street level, the other men were piling into their vehicles. The caravan drove off, sirens squealing, red lights spinning. And the young policeman was left standing alone on the sidewalk, breathless, as if he had also danced to the music of Sergeant Riker’s band.
CHAPTER 15
The blinking light on the answering machine was pulsating to the beat of a human heart – Stella’s. The message could only be from the police. They would want to know why she had blown off her appointment at the SoHo station, and she had also missed the morning try-out for a play. Her agent had given her one last chance to redeem herself, a late evening audition, and it was not the standard cattle call. This time, she would be one of four actresses up for the part.
And Stella had nothing to wear.
The contents of her closet and drawers were strewn about the apartment in piles of thrift-shop clothes and hand-me-downs. When she wore these garments, they changed her into something lesser, lower. And now, in her mind, she had already failed the last-chance audition. Before day’s end, she would have no career, no agent and no point in living. Stella sat on the edge of the sofa bed, then fell back and stared at the ceiling, eyes wide, unblinking, playing dead -just getting used to the idea.
The brand-new suit jacket lay on the floor, marred with another X. She had discovered the stain on the subway after removing the jacket to sew on a button. And now her eyes were raw and red from crying. The rent money was gone, and she could not ask for more. The egos of the Abandoned Stellas had been worn away so long ago; they would never understand the fragility of hers and the great importance of a magic mantle of pale blue linen.
She could not go home to Mom and Gram, though she pined for them. Tomorrow, she would send another postcard, another lie: Fame and fortune can only be hours away. Then she would find a job as a waitress and never tell them that their worst fear had come true.
Another thought overshadowed failure and the loss of home – the stalker. She could not go to the police for help, not after spinning a lie to get her name in the papers. That woman, Forelli, would have informed them by now. She imagined the police department as a colony of telepathic spiders, all busy weaving traps to catch her. Adding to her crimes against them, she had missed the SoHo interview for vandalized blondes. And now that she had a suit jacket with a legitimate X, she was no better off. The cops would never believe it was the real thing.