1
Detective Frank Corelli of the New York City transit police sipped the first cup of coffee of the morning and sniffled loudly. How the hell had he caught a cold when the weather the past three weeks had broken all heat records? Jesus! A sudden sneeze caught him off guard, and the explosive exhalation scattered a handful of week-old reports onto the grimy floor of the oversized broom closet that was laughingly called headquarters.
“Hey, Frank, there’s an easier way to deal with reports. Watch.” Francis Xavier Quinn-just “Quinn” unless you wanted your nose broken-Scooped up the papers and dumped them unceremoniously into the wastepaper basket next to Corelli’s desk. “That way they don’t create a public nuisance, if you get my drift.” Quinn perched himself on the edge of the desk and flashed a warm smile. At thirty-five he was four years older than Corelli, but his freckled Irish good looks and his irrepressible sense of humor most often made him seem the younger of the two detectives.
“I appreciate your help, Quinn, but how do we explain missing TA documents to Dolchik?” Captain Stan Dolchik was their immediate superior. Corelli knew Quinn agreed with his appraisal that Dolchik was a pompous, ignorant bastard.
“Oh, yeah, Dolchik.” Quinn ran his hand through his fiery red hair and thought a moment. “You wouldn’t have to explain. Dolchik is sure to find them. You know, rooting around in garbage is his favorite hobby. There’s only one place to put the reports where he’ll never think to look if you really want them to be missing.” Quinn retrieved the papers, squared them neatly on the desk, and dropped them into Corelli’s “in” basket. “The prick will never find them there.”
Corelli cracked up. “You know, Quinn, without you around here, life would be a lot duller.”
“And without you around, Detective Corelli, life would be a lot simpler.” Quinn deflected the compliment in his usual bantering way, but he was blushing furiously. He’d liked Corelli from their first handshake a couple of years before. Since then the feeling had grown into a solid friendship. Corelli was straight-arrow, an okay guy who forswore the bullshit that so many TA cops-particularly the detectives-handed out. But then, most of the other guys hadn’t become cops for the reason Frank had. Frank Corelli was a man with a mission, and Quinn respected him for it.
“Face it, Quinn, life would be a whole lot simpler all around if we just got out of this rotten job altogether.” His voice suddenly grew serious; it was time to get down to business. “What’s been going down since I got sick?” Four days out of work was a record.
“The usual shit-a spate of purse snatchings, a couple of assaults, and someone tried to knock over the Eighty-first Street token booth.” Quinn yawned with exaggerated ennui.
“So…”
“So Lou Jacobs was checking out the john for perverts. When he returned to the platform, he caught the kid red-handed.”
Corelli shook his head. “Won’t they ever learn?”
“Times are rough, Frank. Hunger and anger is a bad combination.”
Anger. For a moment Corelli tasted the bitter gall that signaled the presence of his personal demon. Five years he’d lived with a blinding rage. Christ, was it really that long since Jean was taken from him? It hardly seemed possible. Five years. When the hell would the pain ever go away? Or would it ever?
“Lots of people are hungry and even more are angry, Quinn, but they don’t go around ripping off their neighbors. Most of the easy targets in this city don’t have much money themselves. Christ, when I think of the number of old ladies these punks manhandle to get a few bucks for the movies…”
“Yeah,” Quinn replied listlessly. He’d heard Corelli’s sermons too many times before to pay much attention now. “So, how ya feeling?” He veered the conversation toward a safer topic.
“Like shit,” Corelli admitted. “But I’m needed here.”
“You and an army. The City Council should change the name of Labor Day to Sitting Duck Day.”
“Did Dolchik get in any extra men?”
“Three. But with our roster down by four, that still makes us one short.”
“Who’s not here?”
“DiBattista and Amory are on vacation. Harper’s still in the hospital and Valeriani is still… out.” Quinn pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket and began assailing his front teeth. “Need I say more?”
“I’ve heard too much already.” Corelli’s stomach began to twist into a tight knot. “How the hell can we do a good job when we’re understaffed? Don’t those fucks downtown realize the city is being taken over by the yahoos?”
“Tell it to the Marines, Frank.” Quinn slid off the desk. “Glad to see you’re back.” He ambled away to a desk he shared with three other cops.
Corelli stared after him a moment, then shook his head. Jesus, there I go again, spouting off about bureaucratic stupidity. No wonder Quinn beat it. He should get some kind of special recognition from the TA for putting up with two years of my shit. Still, there was a lot to complain about-two cops on vacation when they should be at work. Labor Day is a tough one. The summer is over for most people. Kids are getting ready to go back to school. Everyone is restless, looking for that one last good time before settling down to work for the fall and winter. For some it would be the last blowout-ever. If there were more cops there’d be less trouble. But two men were on vacation, one was in the hospital, and the other was “out”-on suspension.
Corelli turned his attention to the reports Quinn had filed so neatly, but after a minute of rereading the same sentence over and over, he gave in to the uneasiness picking at his brain. This time anger was overshadowed by simple, direct fear. Chick Harper was in the hospital with a bullet wound in the chest. It could have been worse. He was lucky. Still, he had a collapsed lung and a fractured rib and that was no picnic. Frank shook his head in wonder at the ease with which he accepted the ugly status quo of life as a cop in New York. “Lucky” meant being shot by some kid who’d probably never fired a pistol before. A pro would have offed Harper without batting an eye.
That was lucky? It was lucky to live in a city-in a society-where handguns were as available as a pack of cigarettes, and where they were used indiscriminately against innocent people? That’s what scared Corelli. Not that he might be the next one gunned down, but that the basic fabric of the society was unraveling. Every day it became clearer to him that people no longer held themselves-or anybody else, for that matter-in reverence. Dammit, it was the jungle reclaiming the land in an insidious and highly sophisticated form.
And what happened to Detective Joe Valeriani was the lousiest form of that creeping erosion. He’d been caught shaking down the food and newsstand owners at the Forty-second Street access to the crosstown shuttle. It was penny-ante stuff, five bucks a week to be there when help was needed. And it always was. In that particular station the churning rivers of the city’s low life formed a confluence with the homeward-bound middle-class office workers. Some punk was always trying to rip people off, and it was the TA police’s duty to protect them. Yet somehow it became Valeriani’s aim to rip off the very people he was paid to protect. To Corelli Joe was no better than a punk looking for quick cash for a fix. There was no honor in being a punk-less in being a cop gone bad.
Corelli had known Valeriani in police academy. He was honest then; a good cop. Knowing that scared the shit out of Frank. What was to guarantee that he wouldn’t go looking for his palm to be greased one day? Being a TA cop was a thankless job-both financially and spiritually. And it was getting tougher every day. The loss of integrity was a slow-moving, patient process. Corelli often wondered if Joe had felt himself going rotten, or if he just woke up one morning to discover that “us” and “them” had simply become “us.”
Half an hour later Frank had read the reports and forgotten most of them. Quinn was right; it was the usual run-of-the-mill crap that plagued the subway system day after day, year after year. Nothing special. Nothing different. Except for that one MP-missing person. What the hell was her name? That report was right on top. Penelope Comstock. Her friends probably called her Penny. Nice name. Like Jean was a nice name. He quickly shook off the thought. Not now. There was no time for reliving that night now. He lit a cigarette, and when he still found himself thinking of Jean, headed for the john.
Once inside the tiny, airless room, Corelli flicked the butt into the toilet, stretched, and stared at himself in the cracked mirror over the permanently stained porcelain sink. He’d lost a couple of pounds from being sick, but he’d needed to. Angel’s doughnuts, unlike the coffee, were something special, and two a day, week after week, had begun to take their toll. Corelli worked out three times a week at a West Side gym, but age and the erratic diet of a bachelor were giving his body-building stiff competition. Even so, he was in good shape. He flexed in the mirror, and as the hard definition of his chest and biceps pushed against his shirt, he smiled with satisfaction.
Frank Corelli stood just over six-feet-two and tried to weigh no more than two-ten. He was big, but agile; muscular, but lithe. And he looked less formidable than he actually was. That was good. Punks usually thought they could topple him, and by the time they discovered it was the wrong thing to try, it was too late.
And best of all, Corelli didn’t look like a cop. Quinn called his buddy a handsome sonofabitch. His dark complexion, inky black hair, and piercing blue eyes combined to create a striking appearance; a moody guy who could get deeply involved-when he wanted to. Corelli’s facial impassivity was as much a part of his professional equipment as his badge. But the rare glimmer of fear or love or compassion that flickered in his eyes told that, like the old saw, they were the windows to his soul.
A thick, perfectly maintained mustache capped his heavy upper lip. The facial hair was to disguise his mouth. It was the mouth of a man who would last exactly one minute in the rotten world of subway crime, the mouth of a man who appreciated the better things in life, the mouth of a man who cared deeply about other people… the mouth of a lover.
The bathroom door flew open and bounced against the wall. Corelli instinctively braced himself as his right hand sprang across to his left hip, scant inches below his shoulder holster. His breathing grew shallow, and surprise turned to readiness.
The man blocking the doorway hadn’t missed Frank’s reflex actions. He smiled at Corelli’s hand, then let his eyes travel slowly to his face. “Shit, Frank, I’m just here to take a leak. The way you act, you’d think I was checking to see you weren’t playing with yourself.” Stan Dolchik smirked at the joke and edged into the room. Corelli relaxed and started for the door. “Don’t let me scare you out. You combing your hair or something?”
“Something,” Corelli replied tartly. In his book, Captain Dolchik was a perfect example of a man who had risen far beyond his level of competence. He was ignorant, prejudiced, and looked like a sausage with too much filling for the size of the casing.
Dolchik positioned himself in front of the urinal and kept talking. “Glad to see you’re back after being so sick. I never thought a cold was much to sneeze about. Guess you did, huh?”
They both knew nothing short of pneumonia could keep Corelli from work, but needling was Dolchik’s style. “Next to pig ignorance, the worst thing that can happen to a man is a summer cold, Captain,” Corelli replied.
“You’re a real pisser, Corelli.” Dolchik bellowed with laughter. “I never knew a man with a college degree didn’t think he was king shit.” He gave himself a few exaggerated shakes, zippered up, then flushed. “’Round here, brains is just something to get blown out of your head.” He moved to the sink and began washing his hands.
Corelli watched him with contempt. Rednecks like Dolchik still got under his skin. “What’s the story on this M.P.?”
“Which missing person are you talking about?”
“She was snatched from the Fifty-third Street IND.”
“Oh, that snatch.” Dolchik paused, realized he’d inadvertently made a joke, then bellowed with laughter once again. “Don’t take no degree to be clever, Corelli. That’s the problem with you guys.”
“Cut the shit Stan, I’m not interested in your sophomoric prejudices.” Using Dolchik’s first name was a sure sign Corelli meant business. “What’s been done on it?”
“Nothing’s been done on it, that’s what’s been done on it,” he mocked. “It was late, it was hot. The token clerk said she’d been crying. Probably ’cause she didn’t get laid. So she goes down into the station, gets spooked by something, and takes off.” He dried his hands, wadded the soggy paper towels into a ball, then tossed them into the basket “You want to make something of it?”
“She left her purse on the platform.”
“So?”
“So, it was full. Wallet comb, lipstick.”
Dolchik was clearly becoming annoyed by the conversation. “What’s bugging your ass, Corelli? I’m a busy man.”
“The report says the clerk investigated her screams. When he got down there, she was gone, but the purse wasn’t. And you want me to believe she got scared and ran away leaving the one thing women value most, a purse? It’s bullshit, Captain, and you know it.” Dolchik would cut as many corners as possible to make life easy for himself.
“I don’t know nothing, except what the investigating officer reported. He checked the roadbed, he checked the stations, he checked the goddamned cracks in the walls. She was gone. Kaput! You’re the one who’s full of bullshit, Corelli.”
“I want to pursue this further.”
“Forget it.”
“Has anyone tried to contact her since that night? Has she called in to claim her purse?”
Dolchik’s face reddened. “You understand English? I said forget it! The purse is already down at Jay Street. If she wants it back, she can go get it.” He pushed past Corelli and opened the door. “The station was quiet with you out sick, Corelli. No one busting ass, no loudmouth questions, no smart-ass answers. I like it that way, so don’t push me.” He took two long steps away, then turned back. “We got real business today; none of this disappearing-lady shit. So be in my office in ten minutes. And try to act like a cop instead of a drugstore cowboy, okay?”
Corelli watched fat-ass Dolchik waddle across the office and into his glassed-in cubicle. He was the kind of cop who gave cops a bad name with the public. Corelli headed back to his own desk. Dolchik didn’t have enough brains to come in out of the rain, and he was a prick, to boot. But he was honest. And for that reason Corelli was almost able to forgive him the rest.
There were four of them in Dolchik’s office for the meeting: the captain and three plainclothes detectives- Corelli, Quinn, and Hector Hernandez, HH to his friends and co-workers. The cramped office was crowded and Dolchik’s cheap cigar polluted what little air there was with thick strata of gray smoke. Dolchik sat behind a desk waist-deep in unfiled reports, TA memoranda, and old copies of the Daily News. Once a week he usually got a rookie to tidy up, but they were shorthanded this week and the room remained a pigsty. Several filing cabinets against the wall and two scarred and torn naugahyde chairs reserved for official visitors were submerged in the same effluvia. The only personal touch in Dolchik’s office was a carefully hidden collection of photographs from Hustler magazine of nude women apparently preparing for gynecological examinations.
“We’ve got trouble, men,” Dolchik informed the group importantly as he blew a torrent of acrid smoke toward the ceiling. “That cocksucker Willie Hoyte has been onto the press boys again. I wish someone would shut that smart-ass nigger up.” His eyes darted to Hernandez for a second to see if the racial slur would have any effect. HH was of Mexican-American descent and considered himself more white than black.
“What’s the problem with Hoyte now?” HH asked, not batting an eyelash. When he was fourteen years old, he’d killed a pig just like Dolchik who was trying to rape his sister. But that was back in Texas. And it was many years ago.
“The same thing’s always the problem with him. He’s media-happy. Hoyte’s called every newspaper in town complaining that we’re hassling him. West Side News is sending someone to follow him and his goddamned crew of pickaninnies today. We’ve got to be on our toes.”
“West Side News is nothing more than a pisshole in a snow bank,” Quinn threw in cheerfully. “There’s nothing to fear from them.”
“Don’t be so sure, Francis,” Dolchik said with a sneer. “If they come up with something juicy, the other rags will start sniffing around and pretty soon it’ll be last June all over again.” He sucked on his cigar a few times, discovered it was dead, then threw it disgustedly into an ashtray. “I want you three to keep on your toes today.”
“Such as?” Corelli asked, knowing the captain hated Hoyte because he’d labeled him “a dumb flatfoot” in a New York magazine interview.
“Such as don’t let the reporter think we don’t like Willie and his Sarrybrus.” Dolchik purposely rumbled the pronunciation of the group’s name.
“That’s Cerberus, Captain; Dogs of Hell,” Corelli corrected him. “Hoyte named his group after the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to Hades.” An appropriate name for a group of civilians who volunteered their time to protect subway passengers from crime. “It’s also the name of a popular comic book.”
“I know why it’s called Cerberus,” Dolchik yelled, “And I don’t care if it’s a three-headed prick that guards the entrance to the tightest twat in New York. Willie Hoyte and his Dogs of Hell have caused enough trouble for us already.”
“Dogs of Hell” was the informal name for Cerberus the media had concocted back in June when they sprang to national prominence after a clash with the TA cops. The thirty-five-member Dogs of Hell had been formed the year before as a local uptown group dedicated to protecting elderly subway riders from harm. Its founder, Willie Hoyte, knew as well as anyone in Harlem that many of New York’s muggings were done to blacks by blacks right on their own home turf. The old black credo of slicking together and protecting your own no longer even received lip service in the city’s ghettos. Uptown, midtown, downtown, it was every man for himself. People of every race, creed, color, and age were targets for the malcontents the city churned out like spillage from a defective sewerage plant. The police were helpless to stop the mounting subway crime, so Hoyte decided to lend them a hand.
Dogs of Hell was so successful uptown that Hoyte decided to expand. The members, in their green vinyl windbreakers emblazoned with a snarling tri-headed dog in white, soon became a common sight in the subway system. And the TA cops began to get angry. They didn’t know what to make of this para-police quasi-vigilante group that had sprung from nowhere, eschewing approval from both the city government and the police. Dogs of Hell wasn’t doing anything illegal, but they began to make it look like the ranks of the TA police were composed of a bunch of doddering bozos who couldn’t deal with crime in the subways.
In June two of its members were subduing a young Hispanic purse-snatcher when three TA cops intervened. In the ensuing melee, the mugger escaped and both Dogs of Hell sustained a beating that required treatment in a local hospital emergency room. The cops claimed they hadn’t seen the signature jackets, and the injured men claimed the cops singled them out in an overt act of police brutality. The story caught the eye of local New York newspapers and magazines, and within two weeks Willie Hoyte and Dogs of Hell were front-page news. National coverage followed soon after.
“This Hoyte is nothing but a glory hound,” Dolchik continued, “and he’s dangerous. I don’t want any trouble today. It’s Labor Day and the shit is going to hit the fan, so let’s not let the reporters get anything to report, okay?”
The three detectives stared at him in silence.
“Quinn, I want you to stay at the Circle here. There’ll be a lot of downtown traffic on the way to the beach. A lot of the boys will be working the crowds looking for marks.” Columbus Circle was a main interchange for the Eighth Avenue IND and the Seventh Avenue IRT lines. The station was a hodgepodge of shops, greasy spoons, and service areas that stretched under four city blocks.
“Hernandez, I want you on the AA shuttling from 125th Street to Fourteenth.” This run was where the most trouble was likely to occur today. To HH and his cohorts it was known with little affection as the “shit chute.” Being assigned to it was generally considered punishment.
“And last-and least-Corelli. You stick by Hoyte’s side all day. I want you there when he’s talking to the reporter, when he’s on the move, when he shakes off the last drop of piss after taking a leak. Today, you’re his shadow. Got it?”
Corelli only smiled. Dolchik needed an articulate spokesman to deal with the press. It was the only time the captain deferred to Corelli’s education.
“Okay, now get moving. The system’s crawling with blues so there’s plenty of help today.” Mentioning cops in uniform was pure bullshit, but Dolchik sometimes forgot who he was talking to and his official persona took over. “And, Corelli, if that shithead Hoyte as much as drops a gum wrapper on the platform, I want you to pinch him. He’s nothing but trouble.”
With a deft flick of the wrist, Willie Hoyte sent a buckwheat pancake sailing toward the kitchen ceiling. It arched lazily just high enough so he had to glance up to track it, made one midair turn, then floated down, where it hit the edge of the frying pan and split in two. One half of the maimed flapjack slid back into the bubbling butter of the skillet, the other half oozed down into the stove’s burner well, where it was immediately incinerated by the gas flame.
“Sheeeit,” Willie howled in disgust as he dragged the smoking remnant from the burner. He’d made flapjacks perfectly a thousand times before, and this mishap infuriated him. Not only was his jerkoff second-in-command, Ted Slade, nowhere to be found on this important morning, but he was going to be late to meet his men if he didn’t haul ass out of the house soon. But first Willie wanted his momma to have a good breakfast. Of all the people in the world who worked hard for their daily bread, Celia Hoyte topped the list.
He turned off the burner and discarded the pancake. The three warming in the oven would have to do. With the care and skill of a downtown caterer, Willie removed the plate and centered it on the tray set out on the kitchen table. His eyes scanned the setup-knife, fork, spoon, linen napkin, a half-grapefruit with brown sugar, flapjacks, a small pitcher of real maple syrup, and a bud vase with a single rose-it was all there. Momma was sure to like it. If nothing else, it meant today was a holiday, and that meant she didn’t have to work.
As he washed his hands, Willie tried vainly to avoid the small photograph of his father that confronted him from the windowsill over the sink. It was no use. Ralph Hoyte’s brilliant smile and flashing eyes were too provocative. Willie finally gave in and began the ritual of staring his father down in absentia. Everyone said Willie was the spitting image of Ralph, but he didn’t see any likeness. Ralph was broad and well over six feet; Willie was slender and barely five-eleven. Ralph’s skin was as dark as pitch, a throwback to his African ancestors; Willie was so light-skinned he was embarrassed that in his face could be read the proof of two hundred years of mistreatment by-and interbreeding with-whites. Were it not for the same cat-green eyes and the ingratiatingly sly smile, Willie and Ralph Hoyte were as opposite as night and day. More so now that Ralph was doing time for armed robbery.
Willie shook his head in disgust and quickly dried his hands, suspecting he’d never forgive his father. Not that Willie didn’t understand the toll poverty can take on a man’s pride, but shit, he’d risked not only his own future but also Willie’s and, more important, Celia’s when he took part in the robbery of that liquor store. And he’d lost the gamble. He’d been caught less than an hour after the heist in the back room of the same bar on Lenox Avenue where the plans for the job had been made. No, Willie could never forgive his father-because Ralph hadn’t confided in his son before fucking up their lives. And that made Willie feel insignificant. It was a judgment he was still trying to repeal.
“What’s all this, Willie?” Celia asked as he entered her room. She’d been dozing, dreaming of the day Ralph would return.
“Breakfast in bed. What else?” He waited expectantly by the bed as she pulled herself up and fluffed the pillows.
“Boy, sometimes I wonder ’bout you. Sometimes I suspect you ain’t all there.” She tapped a finger mischievously on her right temple.
“Don’t take brains to cook, Momma, just a skillet and some grease.” He began to fidget. A fourth call to Ted Slade had been fruitless. Something was wrong; Slade was a good man, even though he was white. “Come on, Momma, let me put this down so’s I can get goin’.”
Bolstered by three pillows, Celia lay back, tingling with pleasure at the attention her only son paid to her. There was a time a while back, just after Ralph went away, when it looked like Willie would be joining his daddy behind bars. Those tense months after Ralph’s sentencing, something got into Willie. He started goin’ bad. It was as if whatever malaise had infected his father was spreading throughout the household. Overnight Willie became a problem and Celia prayed to God to deliver him from his troubles. Then, just as quickly as it’d begun, it was over. Willie had his boys riding the subways and her prayers were answered. Seeing him now all dressed up in khaki slacks, a powder-blue dress shirt open at the neck to display the gold cross on a chain he was never without, and the running shoes he seemed to live in, Celia found it hard to imagine she’d ever worried about him at all.
“You did all this by yourself?” She suppressed a smile. It wasn’t the first or even second time he’d done exactly this.
“Me? You kiddin’?” He balanced the tray on the covers over her legs. “I jes’ told the cook to assemble your favorite eats.”
“You’re a good boy, Willie. Since your father left us, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Her voice faltered for a second, but she quickly recovered. “Who else would serve an old lady breakfast in bed?”
“A woman’s good-looking as you could have her pick of men. You know that, Momma.”
“Now, don’t go spoilin’ it, Willie.” She dug her spoon into the grapefruit and took a bite. There was a time right after Ralph went away that Willie tried to talk her into getting a divorce, then remarrying. She refused to discuss it, and when he insisted, she’d slapped his face for the first time in her life.
“You got somethin’ to do today, Willie?”
“I’m jes’ leavin’. Some reporter’s goin’ to meet me downtown and tag along all day.”
“Be careful, son.”
“Momma, no one wants Willie Hoyte to stay in one piece more than Willie Hoyte himself.” He leaned over the bed and kissed her forehead. “You have a good day.”
“Honey, I already have.” She winked and dislodged a joyful tear.
Fifteen minutes later Willie stood on the south-bound 135th Street IND platform waiting for the AA train to arrive. The station was crowded with knots of people headed for the beach at Coney Island. Everyone seemed to be in a constant state of motion as they impatiently killed time until the local train arrived. Not Willie. He stood with his back rigid, his legs spaced wide apart, and his hands clasped behind his back. And despite the staggering heat and humidity, he’d donned his Dogs of Hell jacket. This was his badge of honor, his claim to fame, the proof that Ralph Hoyte’s son was somebody, after all.
As the AA roared into the station and came to a screeching halt, Willie had an overpowering premonition of danger. It was just like the feeling of dread that had gripped him the night his father was arrested. The train doors opened and the throngs pushed forward into the crowded car, but Willie remained motionless. He wanted to step back, to edge his way out of the dark gloom of the subway into the bright sunlight and the hot summer day. The doors began to close and Willie darted inside, stationing himself as planned at the center door of the fifth car. This was the position of preeminence, of power. This is where Willie Hoyte and only Willie Hoyte stood.
But as the train rattled into the dark tunnel, Willie’s fear began to grow.
By the time the AA pulled into the 103rd Street station there were seven men from the Dogs of Hell elite corps guarding the train. He’d picked up James, Tico, and Henry at 125th Street; Sam and Willie H at 116th Street; Buster at 110th. Miguel and Ernesto would be waiting on this platform, and Ted Slade, if he dared show his white face, at Ninety-sixth Street.
Willie scanned the station, cheered by the sight of his men stationed outside their assigned cars. Somewhere in the crowd Miguel and Ernesto were making their way toward the first and last cars, and that would do it for this ten-car train. Except for the sixth car-the second-in-command’s position. Slade’s place. Another shiver of fear coursed through Willie’s body, but he quickly shook it off as the doors closed and the train began to move.
A moment later Willie looked up and found Miguel Esperanza approaching him. Miguel was almost too short to be a Dog of Hell, but his body was solid muscle and he looked formidable, if not tall. He would have been handsome at twenty had his nose not been broken and rebroken in the numerous street fights that typified his life before meeting Willie Hoyte. Like so many of the Dogs of Hell, Miguel found that his belonging gave some meaning to an otherwise meaningless existence. But none of that mattered now. Esperanza was AWOL from his post.
“What the hell you doin’ here, Miggie?” Willie barked incredulously. “Your place is up front.” First Slade, now this.
“I gotta talk to you, Willie. There’s trouble.”
Willie pulled himself taller. “There’d better be a shitload of trouble or your ass is grass. What is it?”
“Slade’s gone.”
“What you mean, gone?” Willie swallowed hard, tasting fear. “You crazy. I talked to him last night.”
“I was with him last night,” Miguel assured Willie. “We was out ridin’ around-”
“In uniform?”
“Shit, no, man. I know it’s against the rules.” Miguel wiped a thick layer of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “We was on the Seventh Avenue express, just shooting the rails between Ninety-sixth and Forty-second. Everything was cool till Slade started staring out the window each time we pulled into Ninety-sixth. Shit, Willie, he looked scared.”
“Scared?”
Miguel nodded. “I asked him what was going down, but he wouldn’t say dick, jes’ kept looking out them windows… said he seen somethin’ outside on the tracks. He got crazy and stood right up front and put his hands like this over the window”-Esperanza leaned his head against the door’s window and shielded his eyes from the inside light-”and all the time he was just staring, sayin’ he saw somethin’.”
“Saw what, man?”
“I don’t know. He jumped off at Ninety-sixth and ran to the end of the platform, you know, at the Ninety-third Street exit, and peered into the tunnel like someone was holdin’ a bag of money up to his eyes. When he said he was goin’ on in, I left.”
“You know, Miguel, if I ever hear of you smokin’ reefer or drinkin’, you’ll be out so fast you won’t know what hit you.” Willie knew he neither drank nor smoked.
“Shit, man, I’m tellin’ you Slade got into some kinda trouble last night. I called him when I got home, and he didn’t answer.”
“There was no answer this morning, either.”
“See? You shoulda seen the look in his eyes. He was scared shitless.”
The train began to slow at Ninety-sixth Street. It was the perfect time to hustle Miguel back to his post. Willie had some heavy thinking to do. He didn’t like it at all. No way. One of his best men sees something in a tunnel, goes to investigate, and ends up gone. How? For a second Willie thought of Captain Dolchik. He hated all the Dogs of Hell almost as much as he hated Willie personally. It would be just like Dolchik to arrange a little trouble to discredit him and his men. Say, lure one of them onto the tracks and then…What?
“You get up front where you belong, Esperanza. I’ll handle Slade later; the press is waiting up ahead. Did you tell anyone else what happened last night?”
“I wanted to talk to you first,” Miguel said proudly.
“Good thinkin’.” Willie patted the younger man on the shoulder. “Keep it that way. Now, get goin’.”
The doors opened and Miguel spilled out with the other passengers. He paused for a second, turned back to Willie about to say something, thought better of it, shrugged, and disappeared down the platform to the first car.
Ninety-sixth Street came and went with no sight of Ted Slade.