The Animal Hour (13 page)

At the Animal Hour.

Yes. She started moving. She hardly confessed to herself what she was thinking. She only knew that she had to hide the gun. And, strangely enough, it sent a thrill through her. A coursing bolt of … maybe fear, maybe anticipation. She wasn't sure. She didn't want to think. She wanted to hide the purse, the gun.

She moved. The policeman's silhouette came closer. His footsteps sounded loudly on the gravel of the tracks. His flashlight beam stretched out to touch the edge of her shoe. She moved away from it quickly. Stepped over the rail. Ducked under the platform.

“Lady?” The cop was only a few feet away. He must have heard her moving. “Lady, is that you?”

She knelt down next to the alcove. The smell from inside it burned her nostrils. A juicy smell, sour and organic. It brought her stomach up into her throat. Something was in there, giving off that stench. She could see it against the far wall, some dead hump of something.

She swallowed hard. She stripped her purse off her shoulders.

“Lady?” He was almost beside her. Another step and his flashlight would sweep right over her. Pluck her right out of the dark. “Are you there?”

She screwed up her face. She held her breath. Turned half away. With a gasp, she shoved the bag into the alcove, stuck it into the pile of muck at the far end. She felt the clammy goo close over her hand, over her wrist, her sleeve. The stench washed over her. She shoved the purse in deep.

“Take it easy, lady,” the cop said tensely.

But then he stopped. She heard the gravel crunch as he pulled up. She heard another sound too: a loud click. A track switch turning over. Nancy pulled her hand free. Looked up over her shoulder. A faint glow was beginning to spread over the swirling graffiti on the walls again. A faint wind was beginning to blow.

“Oh shit,” the cop whispered.

And another cop called from the darkness: “Here comes another one! Damn it! The downtown local!”

“Dumb fucks! They're supposed to stop them,” came a third voice.

“Goddamn it,” muttered the cop standing over her. “I hate this fucking city.”

He was backing away from her now. The glow was growing brighter on the walls. The police were shouting to one another, but the rumble of the oncoming train was drowning them out. The ground was shaking under her flats. The wind was whipping her face. The white headlights broke up out of the tunnel as the train pounded toward her. The local train. Her track this time. For another long second, she could only stare as the lights closed in, as they bore into her.

Then she ducked into the alcove. The juicy stench enveloped her. The air shivered and throbbed and roared with the on rushing train. She opened her mouth, strangling on the smell. The entranceway went white with light. She pulled her knees into her chest.

And then the train shot past the arched entrance. The streak of its silver sides, the churn of its flashing wheels. She pulled back, her head to the wall. All she could hear was the roar and blast of it …

And then a screech. It knifed through her. And what a screech—intolerably loud—the fingernail of God on the blackboard of heaven. On and on, the sound piercing her until she cried out in pain. She held her ears. She closed her eyes.

The screak tailed off. The shaking ground began to settle. The thunder died away.

She opened her eyes. The train had halted—right in front of her. Shivering, she peered out at it through the archway. She was looking up at the coupling between two cars.

She heard the cops' voices in the distance. “Oh, nice going.”

“Fuckheads.”

“I hate this city.”

She sat still in the cramped alcove. Her legs drawn up, her arms around her knees. Her eyes teared with the stench. The smell of her own urine mingled with it. She was miserably aware of the chafing sting on her bare thighs.

She heard the policemen. Their male voices shouting commands.

“You gotta move it in. Move it in.”

“You want it in the station?”

“No, I want it in my living room. Bring it into the fucking station. These dickheads.”

“We're bringing it into the station! Right.”

And Nancy sat still. Gazing blankly at the haunch of the enormous creature before her. The sharp gleaming wheels, motionless now. The safety chains dangling from the coupling.

They're about to move it into the station
, she thought.
They're going to pull the train into the station and the doors will open and passengers will get out.
She gazed up at the coupling between the cars. She thought:
any second now.
She wanted to move. She wanted to climb out of the alcove and up onto the train. She could hide among the passengers. She could get out with them and escape …

But she couldn't bring herself to do it. It was too crazy—she would fall—she'd be killed. Still, she kept thinking:
The train will pull into the station any second.
And then she would have to come out of the alcove. With her hands up. And the police would surround her. And the idea that the police—these men—would see that she had peed on herself … She wanted to curl up like scorched paper and crumble to ashes.

Any second
, she thought.

She came out of the alcove. Quickly. Uncurling. Ducking under the arch. She ducked again, down lower, twisted up under the safety chains. There was an iron rung on the side of one car. She took hold of the coupling floor, lifted her foot to fit it to the rung.

The subway jolted. It started to move.

Nancy cried out. She was sliding backward, off the coupling. The subway chugged slowly. She gripped the coupling floor but she was sliding off. Down to the tracks, down beneath the train, the big wheels.

Oh please.

Grunting with the effort, she pulled. Dragged herself up. Poked her toe into the rung. She grunted and struggled to haul her body back onto the coupling. Her arms strained. Her breasts were crushed painfully against the metal. The train bucked and cantered toward the station just ahead.

Then, with a cry, she made it. She was up on the coupling's edge. Rolling onto her side, rolling against the car door. She reached up and seized ahold of its handle. The train whistle shrieked. The tunnel walls gave way to the light of the station. Nancy fought her way to her feet, crying with the effort. With a muscular shove, she pushed the door in. Staggered into the car. And it was …

Well, she could hardly believe her eyes. She pulled up short, blinking. It was as if she had come into another world, a world as sweet as harp music. The inside of the subway car was clean. The metal fittings were shiny. The fluorescent lights were bright, making everything soothingly clear. There were handsome businessmen here, natty in their suits, substantial behind their copies of the
Times.
There was a mother cooing to her baby in its carriage. A pair of German tourist boys chuckling thickly.

Nancy stared.
Look at them
, she thought. All these good, calm, regular people going about their lives.
And look at me!
What must she look like to them? Her clothing torn, her hair disheveled. Her face and hands covered with filth. What must she
smell
like, for God's sake?

Quickly, she tugged her trench coat closed in front of her. She prayed to the merciful mother of the Lord that the pee wasn't showing through the front of her skirt.

I'll become a nun, I swear, just dry that pee, merciful Mother …

And now, the train was coming to a stop. She could see the tiled station walls, the waiting faces outside the window. She thought she spotted some uniforms out there too. Some granite brows under blue caps. Badges. There was nothing for it now though. She had to brass it out. Go through with her plan and walk out with the others. She straightened. Lifted her chin. Clutched that trench coat tightly shut. And then …

painted lips, painted eyes,
wearin' a bird of paradise …

… she paraded—practically sashayed—into the midst of the other passengers.

No one even looked up at her. They went on, reading their papers, cooing their coos, chuckling their guttural chuckles. She took hold of a shiny support beam, as if it were the staff of Columbia. Her head thrown back, she stood at attention as the train sailed into the station.

Oh, it all seems wrong somehow,
cause you're nobody's sweetheart …

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.” It was the voice of the motorman over the intercom.

Nancy swallowed hard.
Don't let him say it.
She tilted her chin back even farther.
If he announces there's a fugitive … if he says they're looking for someone …
She held her breath, staring straight ahead.
They'll see. Everyone will see. I'm meat, I'm dead, I'm through …

“Your attention please,” the motorman continued. “This train will be sturfing in stazit fif noreen mozens due to a poleaxe on da traz.”

Nancy looked up. The other passengers looked up, narrowing their eyebrows. They tried to make out the man's garbled words through the intercom's distortion and static.

“I repeat,” said the motorman, “we'll be sturfing fif noreen mozens due to a poleaxe on da traz.”

“Well,” said one businessman with a shrug, “if there's a poleaxe on da traz, sturf we must.”

Nancy closed her eyes.
God bless the Metropolitan Transit Authority!
She opened her eyes, braced herself as the train halted. She really might make this, she thought. She really might just walk right out with the other passengers. Walk right past the cops. Right home. To sleep this off, to get some help. To see her mother …

The motorman repeated his announcement once again, just the same as before.
Who says this ride isn't worth a buck and a quarter?
Nancy thought.

And with that, the doors slid open. The passengers came out of their seats. Surged toward the exit. She held back just a second until she was surrounded by a cluster of suits. Then she came forward. Stepped boldly through the door, onto the platform, part of a crowd of passengers, hidden in the crowd.

Instantly, steel hands gripped her. She was slammed back against the wall of the train. One cop grabbed her around the throat. Two others yanked her arms behind her back. They wrestled Daddy's little button into handcuffs while a fourth cop stepped forward with his .38 drawn. He shoved the black muzzle of the gun up under Nancy's right nostril.

“All right, you nutty cunt,” he said, “where's the fucking rod?”

Nancy's head fell back. Her coat … Oh God, it was falling open, the pee … Her eyes rolled up in her head until only the whites were showing. Everything seemed to whirlpool away from her, a black swirl of faces, a dizzying murmur of words.

Well, she'd been right about one thing anyway, she thought, as she felt her legs folding under her. This
was
turning out to be kind of a lousy day.

C
autiously, Perkins moved into the ransacked mews. He slid his feet through the shattered glass and marble. His eyes flicked to the far corners of the room. The corners were deep in shadow. Anyone could have been hiding there. Watching him. Perkins lifted his fist to the side of his chin, to be ready for an attack.

“Zach?” he said again, softly.

He moved slowly to the stairway, his fist cocked.

He reached the foot of the stairs and peered up into the darkness. He saw the gray shape of the newel post on the second-floor landing. Not much else was visible. He found the light switch on the wall beside him, flicked it. Up and down, up and down.

But here there is no light …

Nothing. His eyes went down over the runner again. There were stains on every step, all the way up, as far as he could see in the dark. The stains were reddish brown on the tan runner. They might have been chocolate stains or catsup. But Perkins knew they were blood. Someone had come down these stairs—or gone up them—dripping blood.

He stayed where he was, at the foot of the stairs, for a long moment. The mews was quiet. The alley outside was quiet. He could hear his heart beating. He could feel the tightness in his throat. He did not want to go up there. The cops were the thing. He ought to call those cops. But Zach …

He had this picture in his mind of Zach on the floor in the bedroom. Their old bedroom upstairs. Zach on his back, reaching up.
Help me, Ollie.
Zach bleeding.

Don't worry, Mom. Don't worry anymore.

He started up the stairs, breathing through his mouth, keeping his fist raised. He kept his back turned to the wall. He kept glancing behind him to fend off a surprise attack.

But here there is no light,
save what from heaven is with

the breezes blown …

The shadows on the landing above resolved themselves. The phone table in one corner. The doorway into the dark bathroom. The hallway to right and left.

He came up onto the landing and turned left. He could see dimly down the passage. He could see the bedroom door etched in gray light, as if a window were unshuttered in there. And now the stench hit him again. He had become used to it; he had stopped smelling it. But now, as he rounded the corner, it came over him in a fresh, dark wave.