Bagabond felt something strange about the man. She didn't usually try to read humans; it was too difficult. Their minds were complex. They plotted, schemed. Slowly she knelt beside him and extended her hand.
The man woke up, caught sight of the dirty street person about to touch him, and jerked away.
"Wha' you want?" She stared at him.
He realized he was naked and hauled himself to the entry of the cave passage- He heard a deep growl, recoiled, barely evaded a swipe from the claws of the biggest cat he'd ever seen. For a moment, he felt himself sliding into the darkness inside his mind. Then he was into the main tunnel and gone. The cats were crying with questions, but Bagabond had no answers. Almost, she thought. Inside his mind. I almost felt… what? Gone.
Bagabond, the calico, and the black searched for another hour, but they found no more trace of the strange scent. There was no monster in the tunnel.
The transients, derelicts, bag ladies, and other street people began their day early, when the best cans and bottles were to be found. Rosemary had slipped out of the penthouse early as well. She had barely slept, and that morning, knowing what was almost certainly happening behind the closed doors of the library, she wanted to get out quickly. The dons were declaring war.
Central Park with its trees, bushes, and benches was heaven for a certain portion of the street people. This sunny morning, Rosemary was looking for a few she had undertaken to help. As she reached the second park bench beyond the stone ridge, a man in tattered clothing hid a bottle in a bush beside the bench and jumped to his feet. He wore an olivedrab fatigue jacket with a less-faded place on one shoulder where the joker Brigade "cannon fodder" patch had once been sewn. Rosemary had suggested it was not prudent to wear the patch this far uptown.
"Hello, Crawler," said the social worker. Somewhere in his late twenties-Rosemary couldn't tell from the vet's sunburned face-he had taken his nickname from his Army job in Vietnam: tunnel crawler. He'd re-upped twice. Then Crawler had seen enough.
"Hey, Rosemary. You got my new goggles yet?" Crawler wore a makeshift pair-cheap 14th Street sunglasses, the eyepieces built up with dirty white adhesive tope. Underneath, Rosemary knew his eyes were dark and overlarge, extraordinarily sensitive.
"I've requested the funding. It will be a while before we can get them. You know red tape-just like in the service."
"Shoot." But the derelict still smiled as he fell in step beside her.
Rosemary hesitated, then said. "You can still check in with the V A., you know. They'll fix you up."
"Fuck no," said Crawler, sounding alarmed. "Guys like me, they go in a VA. and they never come back out." Rosemary started to say, "That's nonsense," but thought better of it. "Crawler, do you know anything about the underground? You know, the subway tunnels and all that?"
"Some. I mean, I need the shelter. I just don't like bein down there. 'Sides, there's creepy stuff goin' on down there. I hear things about alligators, stuff like that. Maybe it's all from winos with the d.t.'s, but I don't wanna find out."
"I'm looking for someone," said Rosemary.
Crawler wasn't listening. "Only the really weird people live down there." He mumbled something… even stranger than down on the East Side-you know, the Town.
"She lives down deep." Crawler pointed at the crone sitting on the ground under a maple tree. She was a hundred yards away, but Rosemary could have sworn there were pigeons sitting on the woman's head and a squirrel perched on her shoulder. Rosemary cocked her head and looked back at the little man. "That's just Bagabond," she said. "No need to worry about her…" Rosemary realized that Crawler was no longer with her. He was panhandling a well-dressed businessman getting exercise by walking to work. She shook her head in mixed disapproval and resignation.
By the time Rosemary turned back toward Bagabond, the pigeons and squirrel were gone. Rosemary shook her head to clear it. My imagination really is working overtime, she thought, walking toward the bag lady. just another lost soul. "Hello Bagabond."
The old woman with stringy hair turned her head away and stared across the park.
"My name is Rosemary. I talked to you before. I tried to find you a nice place to live. Do you remember?" Rosemary squatted down on the ground to speak at Bagabond's level.
The black cat she had seen before came up to Bagabond and began rubbing against her. She stroked its head and murmured incomprehensible sounds.
"Please talk to me. I want to get you food. I want to get you a good place to live." Rosemary held out her hand. The ring on her third finger glittered in the sun.
The woman on the ground drew her legs up against herself and clutched the plastic trashbag filled with her treasures. She began rocking back and forth and crooning. The black cat turned to look at Rosemary and she flinched against its glare.
"I'll talk to you later. I'll come back and see you." Rosemary rose stiffly. Her face tightened, and for just a moment, she felt like crying to ease the frustration. She only wanted to help. Someone. Anyone. To feel good about something.
She walked away from Bagabond and back toward Central Park West and the subway entrance. Her father's war council had frightened her. She had never liked what he did, and her entire life seemed to be a search for escape and redemption, atonement. The sins of the fathers. Rosemary wanted peace, but whenever she thought she could get it, it retreated beyond her grasp. C.C. had been a last chance. So was each one of the derelicts she failed to help. There was a key to reaching Bagabond. There had to be.
Rosemary descended the steps, waited, dropped in her token, walked down the second stairway onto the platform in a daze. The blast of cool air entered the station followed by the AA train. Rosemary barely glanced up from the floor and moved stiffly toward the nearest car.
As she was about to step onto the train, her eyes widened and she stepped back into the crowd, drawing glares and a few curses for breaking the flow. That last car. It had more of C. C.'s lyrics painted on the side in a shade of red that reminded her of blood. C.C. had always been something of a manicdepressive and Rosemary had always known her mood by what she wrote or sang. The C. C. who had written these words was depressed beyond even Rosemary's experience:
Blood and bones Take me home
People there I owe People there gonna go
Down with me to Hell Down with me to Hell
Approaching the car, Rosemary saw words she knew had not been there seconds ago.
Rosie, Rosie, pretty Rosie Leave this place Forget my face Don't cry Rosie, Rosie, pretty Rosie
"I'm going to find you, C. C. I'm going to save you." Rosemary again fought to get into the car she now realized was covered with fragments of C.C.'s songs, some that she recognized, others that had to be new. Once more the car rejected her. Breathing hard, eyes wide, Rosemary watched the car move into the tunnel. She gasped as the side of the car was suddenly covered with tears of blood.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God…" Rosemary absurdly remembered the stories of saints from her childhood. For just a moment, she wondered if the world was ending, if the wars and the deaths, the jokers and the hate, truly prefigured the Apocalypse.
It was noon.
American B-52s were bombing Hanoi and Haiphong. Quang Tri was shaky, as the North Vietnamese were on the march. In Washington, D. C. , politicians exchanged increasingly frantic phone calls about a recent burglary. The question in some quarters was, is Donald Segretti an ace?
The midtown Manhattan rush was ferocious. At Grand Central Station, Rosemary Muldoon looked for raggedy shadows she could follow into the darkness of the under ground. A dozen blocks north, Jack Robicheaux plied his regular trade, clattering through the permanent darkness on his small electric cart, checking track integrity in tunnel after tunnel. And somewhere under the abandoned 86th Street cutoff, just beneath the floor of the south edge of Central Park Lake, Bagabond drifted on the edge of sleep, warmed by the cats and other beasts of her life.