“And?”
“And, there’s something else going on. I can feel it. It’s like … there’s something out there after him …” Then she let it slip out “… and me.”
She stopped, embarrassed but mostly fearing that the image might actually take up its half of the conversation independently. Thankfully, seeing no further response, she retreated to her old cynical refuge. She pursed her lips and raised her hands, palms up, and gave her reflection a taunting “who knows?” shrug. She finished her toilet and her image duly rose as she stood.
She turned her back to the mirror to unlock the door. It was stuck. She jiggered it and then slammed the door with one knee. Beneath the banging and the metallic rattles, she heard a splash of water. This was followed by a liquid, squelching sound, and a soft splish, as if a foot was stepping carefully into water. Her mind imagined that her “second” was crawling out of the mirror and wash basin to meet her. Only it wasn’t anything like her own image anymore. It was some deep-sea gargoyle rising behind her. At any second a pallid, fish-fingered arm would piston out to grip her shoulder. She couldn’t turn to look. Not to see that. Her hands jiggered the lock over and over, like some dumb wind-up toy, until it fell open and she stumbled out. Turning to kick the door closed, she saw only an innocent wet spot on the floor.
Nerves, she thought, just settle down.
As she re-entered her car, she heard the doors at the other end swoosh. A small figure, not a child, looked back from the shadows and disappeared into the next car. She looked at her seat row and began to move fast down the aisle. The train rocked and creaked. She made her way toward her seat, two-arming along the aisle seat backs for balance. 9-11 Man was still snoring. She looked down at her nest, her sanctuary. Something was wrong. Her backpack was now on the seat next to the aisle.
Her hands were like frightened birds as she reached down and picked it up. Makeup and toiletries spilled out of the newly open side pocket. Her pocketbook, still with money and IDs, lay on the floor. Jess’s journal had been rifled, but appeared to all be there. Then she panicked. The valise! For a moment she forgot where it was. She edged backwards to its hiding spot. She tore at the blankets.
It was exactly where she left it. She checked the clasp, then opened it. The contents were just as she’d left them. She blew in relief and took it back to her seat. Just a petty thief, she thought.
She pondered this for a few moments, and then went to the emergency phone and called the conductor. After awhile, he arrived and conducted a desultory and inconclusive search of the train. She didn’t talk about the valise. She didn’t tell him that, just maybe, this was no random snatch and steal attempt. Who would believe such a thing?
Maybe someone who believed in these ancient documents and the Dark Lord’s words. Someone who knew about his goals and his many emissaries. But that’s not me. I’m jumpy, but this is just a storybook, she reassured herself.
At dawn the train, chugging and spent, labored into Penn Station. The platform was packed with day-trippers, commuters and visiting families.
As other passengers began reaching for their bags, Cadence stayed nested in her seat, tidied up now and still opposite 9-11 man. They exchanged knowing nods and smiles in comment on the passengers walking down the aisle toward the exit door.
When it was time, she got up and reached out and shook his hand.
“Julian, it’s been nice traveling with you. I hope you find your place to finally get off the train.”
He smiled in return. “You know, I’m feeling more confident about that. I’m going back to the Midwest. Maybe … oh … Topeka. That seems safe.”
“I think it would be great. Who knows? Take a day and sleep in a bed at a hotel or a bed and breakfast. Let the train just go on without you. Listen to it click-clack and whistle away. Leave your burden on the train. Just let it go.”
He nodded. People were waiting for her to clear the aisle.
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
She trundled down the aisle, hesitated at the exit door. Below her was the step stool. New York, here I am! She stepped down and kept going along the platform, her feet already lighter.
Rumbles of other trains and the incomprehensible sounds from the P.A. speakers mixed with the shuffle of the crowd with rollerbags and sneakers and clackety heels. The crowd broke; she saw daylight and headed for it.
She surfaced, bag in hand, to meet a mild Indian summer afternoon. A sweep of fresh air, alive with moisture and carrying the myriad smells of the city, swirled around her. As she breathed in the energy of that wind, she felt the city’s trademark, the palpable, buzzing presence of possibility. Anything might happen here. There would be no easy bargain but there would be commerce. That alone gave her hope. Here, her pent-up energy could be focused. She could get down to the real search.
Her little map from the Algonquin website said the hotel was less than ten blocks away. After four days locked up on the train, this would be easy. She picked up her bags and struck out due north. Once she got there, she would unload her stuff at the hotel and go directly to her first clue.
As the breeze kicked up and the sky darkened with an incoming thunderstorm, she found the hotel. The Algonquin was a spritely, fourteen-story dowager built in 1902. It looked smart and well-taken-care-of. She checked in on Mel’s tab, got organized and immediately left. It took her less than an hour to find the place she had travelled two thousand miles to see.
She stood alone outside the West End Bar.
A raw wind whipped sudden rain along Broadway at the corner of 110th Street. She looked at the yellowed scrap of menu in her hand.
The place right where it should be. Cadence wrestled the door against the wind and stepped inside. The place was busy, shadowy regulars installed on their usual stools. Behind the bar a man with Popeye arms bulging out of rolled-up sleeves, bathed in weird glow-light from under the bar. Gruff and balding, he fit the place.
She felt unexpectedly at home in places like this, where the dark wood-paneled walls had absorbed maybe seventy years of tobacco and beer smells, giving them back in the day, taking in more at night. Gin joint sounds filled the air — small talk, jukebox, clinking and washing, liquid pouring, imported beer bottles gasping into life as their caps tinkled off the opener.
She saw an empty bar stool and claimed it as the door opened again behind her. She could feel the wet street air swirl in and mix with the saloon smells. A figure moved in hitches and starts from the door over to the back corner, melting into a booth.
The barkeep moved towards her. “Yes, ma’am?”
She fidgeted with her bag, ordered a Manhattan, and looked up to see two things. First, the guy’s face lacked a left eye. A deep vertical scar transected the socket. Second, the hands placing the beer and glass on the bar lacked a finger. Left, ring.
“Uh …” is all she could get out for a second.
“Relax, ma’am, I’m not near the ogre I look.” His voice was friendly and low-key, which only lowered her blush to a paler shade of vermillion. He moved off to another customer and she looked at the menu scrap she had pulled from her pocket:
WEST END BAR
14423 Broadway
New York, NY
June 14, 1970