2

Corelli made his way through the holiday crowds in the Fifty-ninth Street station. As he sidestepped a Puerto Rican family with children, radios, umbrellas, and beach chairs in tow, he realized he no longer saw people anymore, only crowds. This depersonalization was more self-defense than callousness. Since Jean’s death he’d shied away from all involvements of any kind. There were no women in his life save an occasional and usually unsatisfactory one-night stand that began in a crowded First Avenue bar and ended with a phone number and a promise to call that was as worthless as a thirty-five-cent subway token. Jean had been everything to Corelli and if she were still alive he wouldn’t be underground every day trying to keep order in a city where the law was a joke and where human life was frequently no more than an obstacle between some punk and whatever he craved at that moment. If Jean were still alive.

But Jean was dead.

Corelli was waiting for Willie Hoyte. He was also waiting for Jed Thornbeck, the reporter from West Side News. Moments later a group of black kids ran screaming up the stairs. Corelli watched them closely until they were out of the station. Then he picked up another target-a young white man dressed in a pale tan summer suit, blue button-down oxford-cloth shirt, and red tie. He looked like he was searching for an ivy-covered wall to lean on. He paused, caught Corelli’s eye, then moved directly toward him.

“Mr. Thornbeck?” Corelli correctly guessed. “Name’s Corelli, TA police.” He shook Thornbeck’s hand. “Willie Hoyte should be along any minute.”

“Are you the official police spokesman?”

“The department has nothing official to say, Mr. Thorn-beck.”

Thornbeck nodded. “Even I know you and the Dogs of Hell don’t see eye to eye on most everything.”

Corelli smiled at Thornbeck’s ingenuousness. The boy was in the wrong business; he should have been pushing ladies’ toiletries door to door. “I suppose by ‘you’ you mean the department.” Thornbeck’s eyes widened in agreement. “Keeping tabs on a quasi-police force like Dogs of Hell has its problems, as you well know. For one thing, they don’t report to anyone but their own leader.”

“And you’d like them to be under the thumb of City Hall?” He opened a notebook and began scribbling in it with enthusiasm and a stubby pencil.

This kid has been watching too much television, Corelli thought. Or too many old “ace reporter” movies. “Without official recognition, those kids have no more power than anyone else in the subway. And the punks know it Hoyte has been lucky so far. No one’s been seriously hurt. There have been a few confrontations, of course, but one of these days the Dogs of Hell are going to run into a nut who doesn’t want to get pushed around by some junior G-men. And they’re going to get their balls cut off.”

“Sounds like you care about them, Detective Corelli,” the reporter editorialized with wide-eyed innocence.

“Of course I care, you schmuck,” Corelli exploded. “You think I’d be doing this lousy job if I didn’t?”

Shit, he’d blown it. He’d only been talking five minutes and already he’d mouthed off, after he’d promised himself to keep a lid on his anger. But stupidity always got the best of him. Whether it came from the babylips of some young reporter or from between the snarling teeth of one of the misfits who used the subway as a playground, stupidity touched a core of rage in Corelli that had formed at the trial of Tommy Washington, the punk who’d killed Jean.

“Why’d you do it, Tommy?” the prosecutor asked.

He shrugged and rolled his eyes.

“Come on, son. You don’t just stab someone for no reason at all.”

“She wouldn’t give me her purse. I asked her real nice and she said no.”

“So you stabbed her?”

“She began screamin’. I don’t likes to hear womens scream. They’s supposed to be quiet.”

“So you had to make her quiet.”

Tommy Washington nodded.

“And you stabbed her?”

“It was like stickin’ my blade in butter.”

Stupidity. Dumb, animal stupidity. A conscienceless following of an inner voice that says nothing matters but I want, I want, I want.

The Dogs of Hell marched up the stairs and across the station in a tight pack, Hoyte at the forefront. Though they didn’t walk in unison, there was an air to their demeanor and carriage that gave the impression they were at least thinking in tandem. Each one wore the green signature jacket which, in the heat, looked noticeably out-of-place. Hoyte’s eyes fixed on Corelli and he quickened his pace.

“’Morning, Corelli,” Willie said with a totally insincere smile. “Glad to see the TA’s so efficient when the media are around.” He maneuvered his way between the two men and turned his back on the detective. “Mr. Thornbeck? I’m Willie Hoyte.”

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Hoyte.”

For a moment Willie’s eyes widened at the formality. After a quick appraisal of the suit and tie he relaxed; this turkey wasn’t smart enough to jive Willie Hoyte. “Let’s just make it ‘Willie,’ okay? And these are some of my men.” He half-turned and proudly read the roll call of the elite corps which was always assembled to meet members of the press.

“Very impressive,” Thornbeck commented as he finished writing each name down in his book. “Now, what have you got in mind for today?”

“We’re headed for Coney Island.”

Corelli had watched the exchange with mild amusement He’d read all the reports on Hoyte-father in prison, mother working her butt off to support herself and her son, a couple of brushes with the law a few years back, but he was clean now. And smart. And Willie Hoyte had an advantage over Corelli and most of the TA cops-for a while he’d been one of them, one of the scum who caused trouble for others, for kicks. Willie understood the workings of that kind of sick mind. He’d tasted the bitter anger and the sweetness of getting revenge on his oppressors. Willie might even understand the workings of someone like Tommy Washington.

“Hoyte, you got a minute?” Corelli moved into his line of vision.

“Whatta you want, Corelli?”

“A few words, that’s all.”

Willie studied him suspiciously. Corelli and his pal Quinn were the only TA fuzz who even bothered to pretend tolerance of him and the Dogs of Hell. Still, Willie would have written him off completely were it not for a little matter of the night Corelli saved Willie’s ass-and his reputation. Willie was alone that night, off-duty, out of uniform, without his men. And he’d been mugged. Some drunken white sonofabitch plastered him up against the wall of the Ninety-sixth Street station while he waited for a train home from Slade’s apartment. Willie was smart enough to see he was helpless against this tall pile of shit, so he just gave up without a fight. He was handing over his wallet when Corelli pushed through the turnstile. He arrested the drunk, sent Willie home, and for the next two weeks Willie lived in fear each time he opened a newspaper. If word got out about the mugging, his credibility was blown. But nothing ever did appear. Corelli kept his mouth shut. And Willie owed him. Owed him big.

“Tico, you take Mr. Thornbeck downstairs. Answer any questions he has. I’ll be right there.”

Willie’s temporary second-in-command stared blankly for a moment, then began to hustle the Dogs of Hell and the hayseed reporter down the stairs. Why Willie kissed Corelli’s ass was none of his business.

“Okay, Corelli, what can I do for you?”

“You get wind of anything… unusual… going on down here?” Hoyte heard almost as much scuttlebutt as the TA-maybe more.

“Unusual like what?” A shiver of fear traced its way up his spine.

Corelli shrugged. “Can’t say for sure. People getting lost.”

“Shit, man, what’s you talkin’ about?”

“I’m talking about a woman who walked into the subway early Wednesday morning and never walked out, that’s what I’m talking about,” Corelli said hotly.

“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no womens.” Fear gripped Willie’s chest and he nervously twisted the gold cross at his neck back and forth between his fingers. “You sound kina weird, you know that, Corelli? People gettin’ lost, indeed.” Miguel had said Ted Slade got “lost” in the subway, too.

“Being called weird by you, Willie, is a compliment.” Corelli smiled easily, but he immediately grew serious again. “I want you to keep your eyes and ears open for anything out of the ordinary. Your boys are everywhere; they hear.”

“And what exactly do I tell them to look out for, Detective Corelli?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you. Now, come on.” He started toward the stairs.

“You goin’ somewhere?”

“Coney Island. For the rest of the day, Willie, I’m your shadow.”

Willie shook his head and walked swiftly past Corelli to the stairs. “You do what you want, man, but I tell you one thing for positive: no way Willie Hoyte ever gonna have no white shadow.” Despite himself, he smiled, then raced down the stairs.

Louise Hill had mixed feelings about Labor Day. On the one hand, it was a holiday and she could take a day off from work without feeling guilty about not putting in a full eight hours in her textile-design studio. On the other hand, Labor Day meant school was starting and for the next nine months Lisa, her seven-year-old daughter, would be away most of the day. It was only with the prospect of Lisa’s return to school that Louise realized how much she had come to depend on her company over the summer months.

“Lisa, come on or we’ll be late,” Louise shouted down the long hallway that connected the living room to the bedrooms in the back of the apartment.

“How can we be late for a street fair?” came a sweet, disembodied voice.

“Never mind being smart, Miss Hill, just shake a leg.” Louise frowned on mothers who bragged about their children, so she rarely confided to her few friends her belief that Lisa was an exceptionally gifted child. Why bother? It showed in everything the child did-in her vocabulary, in the infinite variety of her interests, even in her skill with that most rudimentary form of artistic expression: finger painting.

Moments later, Lisa appeared dressed in painter’s coveralls dyed a very vocal pink, a violet short-sleeved shirt, and red plastic sandals. She was every inch Louise’s daughter-long black hair framed mischievous brown eyes, a pert nose, and a laughing mouth. When she reached the sunny living room she stopped, leaned up against a wall, and wriggled her foot provocatively at her mother.

“What on earth are you doing?” It was a trap, but Louise asked, nevertheless.

“You told me to shake a leg. Is this one okay?” Lisa’s smile quickly became a convulsive belly laugh.

“Lisa Hill, you are the silliest girl I know.” Louise scooped her daughter into her arms and kissed her. “And I love you very much.”

“Me you too, Mommy,” she replied in their special code.

“Now, let’s do get going before SoHo gets too crowded.” At Lisa’s insistence they were going to a street and crafts fair in the downtown section of New York that had grown from a refuge for artists to a fashionably arty and expensively bohemian extension of the Upper East Side. Louise hated the self-consciousness of SoHo and usually avoided it at all costs.

“Will you buy me something, Mommy?” Lisa asked as they walked across Seventy-eighth Street toward Central Park West.

“I’ll treat you to a ride on the subway. How’s that?”

“Thanks a bunch,” Lisa replied somberly.

Louise smiled, but her daughter’s reply was depressing; she’d phrased the answer just like Dave would have. He had a way of being cute that stung later, like an internal wound that never broke the skin’s surface. Louise rarely thought of her ex-husband anymore, but when it happened, she was always surprised to discover a deep well of resentment even after nearly a year. She told herself over and over she’d pulled through the divorce just fine. She had Lisa and the big West Side apartment, a successful career designing fabrics. But the undeniable fact remained that Dave had left her for another woman. And that hurt.

At the Seventy-second Street Station, they just missed the downtown train and walked down to the steamy lower level to wait for another. With the shocking condition the transit system’s finances were in, plus the holiday, Louise knew she and Lisa might wait up to twenty minutes in the grimy station before another train came.

Five minutes of silence later, Lisa pulled herself from her mother’s grip and sauntered down the platform, ogling the obscenity-covered posters and advertisements on the wall.

“Lisa, come back here,” Louise said, her voice betraying her dampening enthusiasm as the heat began to wilt her.

“I want to look at the pictures, Mommy,” Lisa complained with a touch of defiance in her voice.

“I want you back here now!” Being in an empty subway station made Louise nervous. There were just too many horrible stories for her even to think of relaxing. “Lisa, it’s for your own safety.”

“It’s okay, we’re the only ones here,” Lisa observed as she moved still farther down the platform away from the stairway where her mother had posted herself.

Ten minutes later Louise was ready to call it a day. Her light cotton dress was soaked and her hair was matted across her forehead. Her mood had swung from cautious optimism to angry impatience. The train was late. She could barely breathe. And Lisa was being downright ornery about obeying her orders. Well, let her be stubborn! If something dreadful happened to her, never let it be said Louise hadn’t warned her.

Angry voices from the upstairs station echoed down the stairway and caught Louise’s attention. An unseen man was reviling the token clerk, who, in turn, matched insult with insult over the microphone that linked him with the world outside his booth. The ferocious, mainly sexual imprecations of the argument had an other-worldly quality that somehow fit the hot subway station perfectly. Louise listened intently for a minute or two, and when the voices ceased, she yawned and returned her attention to her daughter.

The platform was empty.

Lisa was gone.

Louise blinked, and a line of perspiration set free by the gesture trickled into her eyes and forced them shut. With two frantic swipes she cleared them and looked again. Still nothing.

“Lisa?” she yelled, at the same time falling into a walk that quickly became a trot “Lisa? Where are you?” There was another stairway at the far end of the platform. She was probably there playing a trick. Some trick, scaring her mother half to death! “Lisa, are you hiding from me, honey?” She heard the panic in her voice and with that recognition was instantly engulfed in terror. “Lisa, where are you?”

She was running full out now, sailing past the graffiti-covered posters Lisa had been examining, barely noting the same obscenities that, shouted out, had distracted her a few fateful minutes before.

“Lisa, dammit, you’d better come out or…” Louise’s voice shattered the heavy silence. There was no place for her to hide. She had to have left the station, unless…

Louise scrambled to the edge of the platform and nearly tipped onto the tracks from the momentum of her flight. She scanned the roadbed north, then south, almost hoping to see her daughter’s body there; bruised, perhaps, but still within reach, within safety. The tracks were vacant. She peered far into the tunnel, thinking for a moment she’d caught sight of some movement, something that fleetingly captured her peripheral vision. There was a flutter of gray against the blackness, then nothing.

The rumble of an approaching express train grew, and a vortex of dank air forced from the tunnel pressed against Louise like the moist hands of a stranger. Twin lights broke through the darkness as the train roared into the station on the far track and hurtled past her. The sounds of its wheels clattering over the rails grew in an unending crescendo as the noise pierced her brain like a scalpel.

Lisa was gone!

During the infinitesimal moments she’d looked away, something terrible had happened to her daughter. It was her fault! Hers alone!

It was then, as the last car of the express vanished into the darkness of the tunnel, that Louise began to scream.

Corelli popped off the cap of a bottle of Miller’s, poured it into a chilled pilsner glass, and retreated to the small spare bedroom he used as an office and study. The beer went down smooth, constricting his throat, then releasing it with satisfaction. There was nothing like a cold one on a hot night.

He kicked off his shoes and sat down in the reclining chair to catch his breath. It had been a long, hard day. Willie Hoyte had forced that poor sucker Thornbeck to ride out to Coney Island twice before letting him off the hook. The most Hoyte could hope from West Side News was a mention in the “West Side Personalities” column. Corelli chuckled at the irony of it.

He finished the brew with one last long pull, belched grandly, then moved to his desk. There was work to do tonight He was onto something. It had started with the Penny Comstock report that morning. The thought of her disappearance had niggled him all day. Dolchik’s explanation that she’d run from an imagined bogeyman was lamebrained; it smacked of “investigation canceled due to laziness.” Or worse, a cover-up on the captain’s part. Still, the fact remained that this Comstock woman had vanished. A call to Lost Property out at TA headquarters in Brooklyn was a dead end-Penny Comstock hadn’t called about her lost purse, nor had she come down to claim it.

Corelli switched on the light over his desk, flipped on the radio to an easy-listening music station, and opened his briefcase. It hadn’t taken much to find the file he’d wanted. He’d just waited until Dolchik left for the day, then opened the captain’s office door with a credit card. Illegal? Yes. Immoral? Never with Dolchik. The file had been there, as Corelli expected it would, stuck in the least accessible file cabinet in a bottom drawer near the back. But it was there.

He turned the reddish-brown folder over a couple of times, almost afraid to open it Corelli had a gut feeling about this. His instincts told him he wasn’t going to like what he found; his sense of justice told him that was just too goddamned bad. He was a transit cop. His job was to make the subways safe for the paying passengers, Dolchik or no Dolchik.

He arranged the file right-side-up in front of him. If it hadn’t been for Willie Hoyte, Corelli would probably be reading a book now or maybe watching an old movie on television. But Hoyte inadvertently had tipped him off earlier. It wasn’t so much what he’d said as what he hadn’t said. Not how he’d reacted, but how he hadn’t reacted. Corelli took a moment and remembered Willie’s face when asked about people getting lost in the subway. Hoyte had lied when he said he hadn’t heard anything. There was recognition in his eyes. And fear. Fear most of all. Willie Hoyte at least suspected something was happening in the hell called the New York subway. And just as soon as Corelli finished reading Dolchik’s secret file, he’d know something too.

He readjusted the light to stall for a few seconds’ time, took in a deep breath, then opened the pilfered file marked “MISSING PERSONS.”