Eye Sleuth (27 page)

Quietly, not wanting to make any noise that might bring the bullies back, I walked to the closest window. Below was a neglected courtyard, bereft of trees, plants or grass. Gray earth had silted over uneven flagstones. A sliver of a narrow street was visible to the left. No parked cars, which was unusual in Manhattan. A Jack Russell on a long leash came into view, followed by a woman hurrying to keep up with her feisty pet. I smacked my hand against the window. The noise didn’t travel. Recklessly, I made a fist and pounded. The dog trotted on and its owner disappeared from view.

Frustrated, I leaned my head against the cool of the glass. A taxi drove down the street, followed by several cars, probably a traffic light changing a block away. By craning my neck, I could just make out a small slice of the building on the other side of the street. Its slabs of dark red stone were puzzling familiar. Recognition danced elusively on the edge of understanding. Trashcans were lined at the side of the road. I was turning away when the significance of the number painted on one of the trashcans hit me.

“Thirty-four,” I breathed.

Unbelievable. The two men had taken me to the empty Friends Meeting House on Gramercy Park. The building on the other side of the street was 34 Gramercy Park where Lanny lived. I was digesting the amazing fact that I was in familiar territory when I heard steps approaching.

The thugs were returning. More questions. Not willing to play passive victim, I scanned the room frantically to see where I could hide. The end bench on the third row of the mass of benches was angled out past its neighbors. Tiptoeing over, I ducked down and scrabbled my way underneath the seat then tugged at it so the bench slanted in, blocking a straight look at my makeshift hiding space. Huddled under the bench, I waited, feeling vulnerable. The key turned in the lock.

“Where’d she go, what the…?” Expletives poured out in a dazzling flow. Feet scrunched on the floor debris as the men walked close to where they’d left me.

“Check the doors. I’ll look over there.”

Over there had to be in my direction, close to where they’d left me. Steps came near. I pressed myself to the floor, shrinking down, my breathing shallow, listening as the men talked back and forth, complaining and threatening in equal doses.

“Nope, she ain’t here.”

Heavy steps echoed as one of the bullies went up to search the balcony and made a discovery that enraged them both. One of the doors on the balcony was unlocked.

The grumbling went on but the news had me thinking that escape was possible. I’d been maneuvered and manipulated and now it sounded as if I had a shot at putting a stop to that.

“Yeah? How come we didn’t see her?” The bully answered his own question. “She could of hid in one of the rooms on the way down and we passed her coming up.”

The men left noisily. Did they really think I’d escaped? I heard the door being locked, apparently not considered redundant even though a balcony door was unlocked. I counted up to a hundred. No sound of footsteps returning. It took an eternity to inch my stiff body out from under the bench. I waited some more, flexing my arms and legs, gazing up at the moon, watching heavy storm clouds that promised rain sail past the window.

Enough time went by for me to feel I could risk moving. I crept up the balcony stairs, freezing in place whenever floorboards creaked. The side of a small door near the two main doors was curved slightly away from the doorframe and I managed to yank it open after a series of tugs. The sound reverberated loudly, sending my pulse vaulting into the stratosphere. Tensely, I waited but no one came running, no shouts floated up the stairs. The hall up here was empty. Shadows were motionless in the moonlight from the tall windows.

I stepped out onto the landing and looked around. The stairs lay unguarded and inviting. Straining to catch sounds of movement inside the building I heard only outside noises––truck and car engines, horns and sirens that sang of safety if I could reach the street. Cautiously, I went down the stairs, pausing now and then to listen for my captors. I reached street level and was tiptoeing across the lobby when I heard voices outside the huge double doors. Were they coming back? No time to retreat across the lobby and up the stairs without being seen. The key grated in the lock.

I lunged for a door to the side of the front door and ducked inside a small room. It was dark and the narrow window set high up on the wall let in little light. I could just make out a narrow wooden desk against one wall and a chair near it. The desk was questionable security but I was a clear target where I stood. Ducking under the desk, I pulled the chair in front of it and wriggled back against the wall, which was paneled. It was more cover than I’d had under the bench and that hiding place had worked. If the two men gave the room a casual glance from the door, if they didn’t come all the way in they might not spot me.

I wedged myself firmly against the wall and was settling down to an anxious wait when I heard a soft click behind me. I stiffened in surprise as the click became a muffled, whirring sound. The wall behind me gave way and I tumbled back into cobwebs and darkness. Before I could move, the paneling started to slide back into position until it hit my legs and stopped. Rolling farther into the dark, I jerked my legs towards me and the paneling slid into place, closing off the outside room.

I lay straining to make sense of what was happening. My heart was thudding like a Con Ed pile driver and my tailbone was protesting—mild enough problems, given that I’d been propelled into relative security away from the two bullies. I couldn’t hear any noise on the other side of the paneling. Come to that, I couldn’t see anything much of where I was, either.

Carefully I stood. So far, so good. I raised my hand slowly and it grazed rough stone. OK, that had to be a low ceiling, well under six feet high. I started to pat along the wall to the left and felt uneven stone slabs like the ceiling. I counted as I went. Two rough but dry walls later I reached another opening, the size of a narrow door, roughly opposite the paneling I’d fallen through. I retraced my steps to the paneling and started to feel along the wall to the right. Two more walls and I ended up at the other opening again. My hidey-hole was roughly eight feet square.

My vision adjusted and I distinguished a dim glowing line some three feet off the ground opposite me where the other opening was. The line stretched off a short distance then disappeared. Puzzled, I made my way around to where it started and ran my fingers along its faint glimmer. The stone of the wall didn’t feel any different. Some sort of phosphorescence had been applied and let off enough of a low glow so that the darkness wasn’t total.

I moved forward tentatively, hoping I was going away from problems, not towards them. I could touch both sides of the passageway, which was mildly reassuring. The glowing line didn’t end but took me round a corner where the line’s dim light stretched off in the distance. Here there were glowing horizontal bands on the floor that turned out to be markers for steps. Cautiously I made my way down the steps, running my hands lightly along the rough walls for security. Who, I wondered, had made access to this tunnel? And why?

Some years back, the neighborhood had been up in arms when a developer wanted to demolish the old Meeting House and erect a thirty-story apartment complex in its place. Lanny had been in the thick of it so I’d heard plenty about the Friends Meeting House on Gramercy Square. For years, the building had sat forlorn and empty. A sign in the front courtyard explained that in its first century, the building had been part of the Underground Railroad. The room behind the paneling in the office—the hidey-hole I’d backed into by blind luck—might have been used to hide people fleeing slavery. I’d been to places in Pennsylvania and seen similar rooms. The nape of my neck tingled. How many beside me had sought refuge in that room? Tunnels were usually not part of the Underground Railroad, although I’d read about the home of Julia and John Putnam in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where a tunnel led from a hidden cellar room to nearby train tracks.

Manhattan has a staggering number of tunnels under the city streets, many are deep ones like those under Grand Central Station that had sheltered the homeless. Someone had broken through from the Meeting House and connected with part of the city’s underground warrens. I shuffled along, wondering where the tunnel would end. Now and then, the glowing line would end and re-start a few feet on. My exploring hands found openings and it was obvious from the difference in the air flow that these were entrances to other tunnels. I didn’t risk a side trip. Whoever had marked this route had done so for a reason, the logical one being that this route led to an exit.

How long since I’d been snatched off the street a few feet from my apartment? I rarely wear a watch, the clock radio in my kitchen and a wall clock in the office are enough sight of time for me. I wasn’t cold. I wasn’t even hungry, more like numb. Major plus, I’d given the bullies the slip. The sooner I found the end of this tunnel, the sooner I’d be free. I was considering this when I bumped into a wall. I ran my hands over the surface. It wasn’t the rough stone material of the tunnel, it felt like planks; they reached up to the ceiling. Did this wooden wall mean there was an exit to the outside world on the other side? I felt around, from bottom to top, tapping, pressing. I pushed and pressed repeatedly, methodically testing every angle. Nothing happened.

“Jumping Judas priest,” I muttered.

I stepped back in frustration and tripped over a soft bundle. Kneeling, I patted the object and decided it was a sleeping bag. It felt dry and it wasn’t dusty so it hadn’t been lying there long. Did it belong to a homeless person?

Wearily I slid to the ground and sat with my back against the planks. What were my options? If I retraced my route to the Meeting House, the bullies were there. Or were they? Why would they be there if I wasn’t? How long was it since I’d given them the slip? Impossible to estimate. By the time I went back, I reasoned, the bullies would have gone. Why would they wait around? I set off, hating to have to retrace my steps but knowing I had no choice.

Thirteen

Ever notice how a return trip is faster than the trip out? Sensory deprivation may have magnified my impression of the distance I’d traveled but it felt as if only a few minutes passed before I was back in the Underground Railroad’s hidden room at the Meeting House. Anxious to avoid crashing into the paneling that opened into the office, I watched the phosphorescent line carefully as I scooted along. When the line ended, I knew I was back where I’d started. Question was, where were the bullies? No way did I want to exit and find those two waiting. Pressing my ear hard against the wall, I strained to hear voices on the other side of the paneling. I swear I could hear my blood circulating. I listened for a long time but couldn’t hear any sounds. Fine, time to make a break for it.

I felt the paneling, trying to remember how it had yielded. The first time I’d pressed against its mechanism by sheer chance. How to duplicate that? My fingers located a short groove at the top of the paneling. I put one hand in it and pushed and pressed along its length. This didn’t bring results. I eased off on the pressure, tried the light touch. Zip, nada, zero. Next I tapped on the groove and immediately the wall swung slowly in. About time. I’m not claustrophobic but damned if I wanted to linger in the eerie isolation of the tunnel much longer.

The chair and desk were where I’d left them angled across the entrance to the hidden room. Better to duck down and crawl under the desk rather than push it aside and risk making noise. First, I crouched, listening. Street noises filtered in but the Meeting House was quiet and still. I squeezed my way out from under the desk and lifted the chair out of the way, putting it down with exaggerated care. I waited. Not a sound.

The door to the hall was open a few inches. Quietly I crossed the office and peered out. The lobby was empty. A bunch of keys on a hook by the door reminded me the bullies had said one of those keys opened the front door. I grabbed the keys and risked another look at the lobby. Still empty out there. Selecting the biggest key on the ring as the logical one for the massive front door, I was about to step out of the office when I heard a door open. The sound was nearby. Was it the bullies? Had they been looking for me all this time and were just now coming out of one of the rooms off the curving staircases?