The World Beneath (Joe Tesla) (8 page)

Still, he’d done a good job. As much as he knew that he could demand the rest of his fee and move on, a niggling doubt in the back of his mind told him that he must stay a few more days and search for the papers. He would play with Erol and enjoy the pleasures that New York had to offer.

A bark broke through his concentration. Ozan froze, listening.

Another bark. Someone with a dog was behind him, by the murdered man.

Now he had a difficult decision to make. Should he stick to his original plan and leave, or should he go back?

If the man with the dog was a friend of 523, he might have passed him the classified papers.

Their retrieval wasn’t mandatory, but Ozan liked to be thorough.

He turned around and headed back down the tunnel toward the barking dog.

Chapter 9

November 28, 5:20 a.m.

Tunnels

Edison at his side, Joe hiked through the tunnels toward his destination. The only illumination came from his flashlight—a bubble of brightness that disappeared a few paces ahead of and behind them. Unlike the tunnel on which his house sat, which was covered with simple planks, sharp stones covered the ground here. Two lines of silver tracks ran down the tunnel’s center, and a third rail sat to one side. Remembering his training, Edison avoided the third rail and walked by the opposite side track.

Joe had paced around his house for a couple of hours, wanting to go back and check out the abandoned train car again, but afraid that Rebar would still be there. Then he’d tried to sleep. Eventually he’d given up and convinced himself that he would just go and take a peek. If Rebar was still there, he’d go to bed and try later. The trains would be running soon, and that would probably chase Rebar back outside.

It seemed like a good plan in his well-lit parlor with the electric fire crackling by his feet and stout steel doors between himself and danger. Now, in the tunnels, where a crazy man with a hammer lurked, it seemed like the worst kind of stupidity.

Still, for the first time in a long time, Joe had a mystery to explore.

As they drew closer to the field of tracks where he and Edison usually played fetch, he slowed. Edison stuck close to his heels, as if sensing that this was serious business.

He’d run. At the first sign of trouble, he’d run. If he maintained enough distance between them, Rebar wouldn’t catch him. Besides, the man was probably long gone. Joe wished that he believed his own words.

When he reached the tracks, he examined the spot where he’d seen the abandoned train car. It was dark. He relaxed. Rebar had taken his lantern and gone home, wherever that might be. Joe could poke around the skeletons and the train car and try to figure out why a homeless veteran had known about it and broken it open. He’d even be able to film it for later analysis.

Then he would call the city and report it. Someone ought to identify the dead men. Their families might have been waiting decades to learn their fate.

Joe walked toward the pillar. The bricked-in structure was behind pillar nine. Scarlet flashed in his head. Nine.

Slowly, the tunnel grew darker. The faint glow of the old-fashioned light bulbs faded behind him until he could barely see where he was going. But he didn’t put on his night-vision goggles. If Rebar was there with a light, he could blind Joe in an instant. Instead, he counted on Edison to find the way forward.

His heartbeat quickened when he passed the pillar. A slow glance around in the dark didn’t reveal anyone, so he switched on his flashlight. His beam picked out a distant pile of broken brick. He’d found the room that Rebar had broken open.

He shone his light around in a circle to see if Rebar was still there. Near as Joe could tell, he was alone. Still, for several minutes he scanned the area. No sign of movement. No unusual sounds.

Slowly, he crept forward to the pile of broken bricks, anxious to see the secret room again but beset with an uneasy feeling. What if Rebar was inside with the light off and his hammer ready?

Joe hesitated before he pulled out his phone. He kept his phone in a special cell phone holder. He called it his pocket-size Faraday cage, because it blocked incoming and outgoing signals. Nobody could reach him, and even the cell phone towers didn’t know where he was. As long as he kept the phone in there, he was off the grid.

It didn’t matter down here. There was no signal anyway. He filmed the pile of bricks, the darkness beyond, and the floor. Edison touched his nose to his knee, and Joe jumped. He took a deep breath and listened for trouble. He heard only a faraway train, Edison’s rapid breathing, his own pounding heart, and rocks rolling underfoot—nothing amiss.

As he neared the pile of bricks, Edison snarled. Joe stopped in surprise—the dog had never made a sound like that before. His hackles stood straight, and a low growl came from deep in his chest. Edison barked.

“What is it?” he asked, wishing that the dog could answer.

Edison barked again, ending with a growl.

Joe swung the flashlight around. Still no one. He stopped and tried to listen, but Edison’s growl made that impossible, and he didn’t want to shush him. If something upset his stolid dog, Joe wanted him to make noise.

A low rumble grew to a roar. Joe jerked around in time to see a train thunder into the tunnel, across the tracks just past where they’d played fetch, and on toward Grand Central Terminal.

When the noise died away, Edison had stopped growling, but he stared at the broken wall, tail tucked between his legs but head up. Something in there scared him, but he was clearly trying to fight his fear and protect Joe if he had to.

Joe could walk away. He didn’t need to know what that room contained, not really. Doubtless, he could lead a happy life without ever looking.

Not true.

He inched toward the hole that Rebar had smashed into the brick wall and stuck his head inside. The beam of his flashlight stabbed into the room, as if eager to show him the secrets inside.

A lot had changed since his last visit.

A handful of small brown creatures moved about in the center of the room. Joe’s heart thudded in his chest. Edison’s growl changed to a loud bark that echoed around the enclosed space. A few brown bits broke off from the group and ran to the corners. His stomach roiled.

Rats.

He shone the flashlight beam on the object they’d been climbing on. He made out a tan camouflage jacket like the one that Rebar had been wearing hours before. Dark patches stained the collar and sleeves. The jacket covered a corpse. Rebar?

Any hopes that this person had died of natural causes were dashed when he saw the hammer in the dust next to the body. Stains darkened the hammer’s silver head. His light played across rusty splashes on the blue train car, lingered over streaks and smears. The man had been beaten to death.

Bile rose in Joe’s throat, and he fought it back. This was a crime scene now, and he wasn’t going to puke his DNA all over it. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Sensing his distress, Edison whined.

“Sit,” he ordered. Whatever had happened here, it was over now. He should take Edison and go immediately.

But the pull of curiosity was too strong.

He peered back through the hole to examine the rest of the car. Someone had moved the skeletons of the doctor and the soldier, dragging them from the side of the room into the center and piling them on top of each other like pickup sticks. The skeleton on top of the car had been left alone. Someone had also flipped the bodies over and turned their pockets inside out. Rebar, or his killer, must have been searching the bodies of these long-dead men.

Joe pulled out his cell phone and filmed the scene inside from where he stood, hoping that his flashlight would give enough illumination. Then he filmed the whole area, sweeping the light and camera in a circle.

He couldn’t shake a feeling of dread. He’d seen enough. He trotted back toward the well-lit tracks and home. He’d have a cell phone signal there, and he could call the police.

They had cleared the tunnel and crossed most of the unused tracks when Edison stopped, turned back toward the direction from which they’d come, and barked a warning. Joe spun, angling the light behind him. A shadow flitted to the side so quickly that he wasn’t sure he had seen it. Gooseflesh ran up his arms.

He backed toward the tracks where the trains still ran. A sound that he’d heard only on television cut through the dry tunnel air. The racking of the slide of a gun.

“Stay,” whispered a man’s voice. “Or I will put a bullet in your back.”

Joe’s heart raced, but he froze, one foot on the track, the other on a railroad tie. Edison growled and took a step toward the voice.

“I’ve never liked dogs,” the voice whispered again.

“Shh.” Joe hushed Edison. “Heel.”

This was probably the man who had killed Rebar. Options for escape clicked through Joe’s mind—run and hope for the best, charge the gun and pray for a miracle, or try to talk his way out of this. “What do you want?”

“Did the dead man ever give you anything?”

If he told the truth and answered no, would the man shoot him? “I didn’t know him.”

“I will shoot you first in your left shoulder,” the man said conversationally. “You’re left-handed, I see, and it will take them months to repair the damage, if they can.”

Joe held his breath, afraid to move.

“I can probably shoot you four or five times before you die.”

The colors for those numbers flashed through his head—green, brown.

“You look like you’re more determined than people would think, and I bet you’ll tell me what I want after the third shot, which is quite respectable, as most people talk after one. I’m rarely wrong about these things.”

The track vibrated under Joe’s sneaker. His mind stayed surprisingly calm, working through the data that he had—Joe was exposed and in the light, the other man impossible to see in the darkness. The other man had a gun and might be a murderer, Joe was unarmed and had to think about Edison’s safety, too. The tracks hummed louder. That was what Joe had. Just that. The 5:47 (brown, green, slate) train on the Harlem line.

“Think carefully,” said the voice. “And let’s start again. Did that man back there give you any documents?”

“No. I didn’t know him.” Joe remembered the papers stuffed in Rebar’s pockets. He hadn’t seen them just now when he filmed the body. But, if this man had killed Rebar, surely he must have been the one who took the papers.

The tracks’ humming grew to a roar. A train barreled down the tracks upon which Joe stood. The engineer saw Joe, and his eyes widened. Joe was right in his path.

Out of the corner of his eye, Joe saw the shadows that concealed the man twitch. Joe was certain that he was aiming his gun.

“Heel,” Joe yelled. He spun, then jumped to the other side of the tracks mere feet ahead of the moving train. Edison’s solid form pressed close to his right leg. Joe ducked against the side of the tunnel before the train reached them, pulling Edison down, too.

The man with the gun was on the other side of the moving train, so Joe was safe from a bullet for now, but not out of danger. Yet.

The train barreled past, cars passing so close that Joe could have reached out and touched them. If he hadn’t jumped when he had, he’d have been cut to hamburger by the wheels. His body wanted to flatten itself against the side of the tunnel and wait, but his brain wouldn’t let it.

He had to use the train as a shield.

Joe ran. On one side was the unforgiving stone of the tunnel, on the other the moving train. Heat and light blasted off its metal walls. The moving air pushed him sideways, and he fought to stay upright. If he lost his footing, he would be chopped to mincemeat under the wheels.

He snatched a quick glance to the side. He needed a tunnel, an open door, anything that would let him and Edison hide or escape.

No exits.

Chapter 10

November 28, 5:46 a.m.

Tunnels

Joe ran, arms close to his sides so that they didn’t strike the train or the tunnel. The screech of metal on metal as the train braked scraped every nerve in his body. If he’d dared to raise his hands, he would have clapped them over his ears.

Silver cars whizzed by close enough to touch. The smell of metal and electricity urged him on.

Light bloomed ahead. The train slowed.

A platform.

The train arrived ahead of him, stopping with a jerk. Joe threw a glance over his shoulder. He jumped across the third rail, ducked past a pillar, and reached the stairs that led to the platform opposite where the train had stopped. Edison tore up the stairs ahead of him.

A few passengers stood waiting for the next train. Joe barreled past them and up toward the terminal itself. He and Edison didn’t stop running until they reached the lobby of the Hyatt.

Once there, he stopped. Sweat soaked his shirt. His heart pounded, and he could not stop shaking. The screech and thunder of the train still rang in his ears. He had almost died down there. A single stumble would have killed him.

Frederick, the concierge, hurried over. “Mr. Tesla, are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” Joe said.

“Let’s sit down.”

Frederick led him to his regular chair by the Starbucks stand. Tiffany was setting up for the start of her day, loading a tray full of pastries into the glass display case. Her eyes widened when she saw him.

Joe sat and examined Edison, running his hands along the dog’s body from head to tail. He was uninjured physically, but the usually mellow dog pressed against Joe’s legs, back bowed with fear.

“It’s OK, Edison,” he said. “It was close, but we’re OK.”

Edison nosed his head between Joe’s leg and the chair, and Joe petted his back.

Tiffany pressed a warm cup into his hand. “Chamomile. It’s calming.”

He realized that they thought he’d had another panic attack. They’d seen him have enough of them as he’d tried over and over again to leave the hotel by the front door. But this time his danger was external.

He took a slow sip of tea, then pulled his cell phone from its special pocket. His hands shook so that he could not dial.

Another sip of tea. A round of deep breaths. He was an expert in recovering from moments when he expected to die. The surprise gift of his panic attacks: They had prepared him to deal with real panic.

“Thanks,” he said. “We’re OK.”

Tiffany and Frederick left him alone. He closed his eyes, willing his breathing to slow, his heart to calm.

He started to dial 911, but stopped before he pressed the Send button. In his current state, they’d never believe him. Even if they did, they’d drag him down to their offices to question him. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t go outside.

Instead, he called his lawyer, Daniel Rossi. Daniel answered immediately, one of the perks of his Pellucid money.

“There’s a situation down in the tunnels.”

“A situation?” said Daniel. He sounded as if he’d been up for hours.

Joe quietly described everything that had happened, keeping an eye on the nearly empty lobby in case someone might overhear.

“Stay there,” Daniel said. “I’ll take care of this. For the love of God, don’t talk to a single solitary other person about this until I get there.”

He hung up.

Joe fed Edison a treat and finished his tea, feeling his heartbeat slow. He was safe. It was OK. Tiffany and Frederick watched him, but they didn’t seem too worried. He guessed that was one advantage of cracking up regularly in their lobby.

His phone rang. Celeste. He hoped it wasn’t her nurse, Patty, with bad news.

“Joe,” he answered, holding his breath until he heard her voice.

“Good morning!” She sounded breathless, as if she had been the one running instead of him.

“You’re up early.” She never called before ten.

“A little bird told me that you’re in trouble.”

“How?” He’d barely even hung up on Daniel, and he trusted the attorney.

“I know people who know people,” she said.

“Daniel?” he asked.

She laughed. “He would never betray a client. And I would never betray a source.”

How much should he tell her? She had enough to worry about. He needed to protect her. “I found something weird.”

“A partial truth,” she said.

“Are you having a strong day?” Distraction might work.

“Neutral,” she said. “Zero.”

“Black,” he answered automatically. “Like the ocean at night.”

“I like that,” she said. “I’d paint that if I could.”

“It’d be beautiful.”

She let out her breath in what now constituted a laugh. “Are you going to hack into God knows where and put up black waves, like the seagull?”

“Do you want me to?” As soon as he finished meeting with Daniel.

“Not this time,” she said. “Let’s keep it just between us. A secret. Speaking of—”

A hand touched his shoulder, and he jumped.

“Just me.” Daniel held up his hands in mock surrender. “Please tell me that’s not the police.”

“I gotta go, Celeste.” He hung up, hoping that she hadn’t heard Daniel’s words.

Daniel smoothed back his unkempt hair. He looked as if he’d run the whole way. “Have you talked to anyone else? What did you tell Celeste?”

“That I found something weird. That’s all,” Joe said. “Shouldn’t I talk to the police, tell them, too?”

“Under no circumstances.”

“There’s a dead man,” Joe said. “And I was chased by a guy with a gun. Serious stuff.”

“I understood that from your call and relayed the information to Mr. Goldstone from our criminal division,” his lawyer said. “He’ll pass those details along.”

“I don’t have anything to hide.” Joe stroked Edison’s floppy ears. They were both much calmer.

“The first rule of a criminal attorney is that you never let your client talk to the police.” Daniel fiddled with his shirt cuffs. “Ever.”

“I’m not a criminal, and you’re not a criminal lawyer.”

“You hired me to give you advice. I can tell you right now that it’s never in your best interest to talk to the police. Remember how they say ‘anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law’?”

“So?”

“Notice how they don’t say it can be used for you?” Daniel’s voice was low and conversational. No one in the lobby so much as glanced at them. “Mr. Goldstone will report the crime and keep your name confidential.”

Joe had been raised in a circus, and it had been drilled into him that he could never trust the police, that people in authority would always rule against you. Maybe the old rules were right. Maybe his time in the world of pure numbers had made him naïve.

“You said on the phone that you can’t give the police a description because you never saw him and that you can’t identify his voice because he was whispering. There is nothing you can tell them that will help you, and a lot that could harm you.”

Joe had to agree.