Wild Cards Part 36

By the time Rosemary turned back toward Bagabond, the pigeons and squirrel were gone. Rosemary shook her head to clear it. My imagination really is working overtime, she thought, walking toward the bag lady. Just another lost soul.

"h.e.l.lo, Bagabond."

The old woman with stringy hair turned her head away and stared across the park.

"My name is Rosemary. I talked to you before. I tried to find you a nice place to live. Do you remember?" Rosemary squatted down on the ground to speak at Bagabond's level.

The black cat she had seen before came up to Bagabond and began rubbing against her. She stroked its head and murmured incomprehensible sounds.

"Please talk to me. I want to get you food. I want to get you a good place to live." Rosemary held out her hand. The ring on her third finger glittered in the sun.

The woman on the ground drew her legs up against herself and clutched the plastic trashbag filled with her treasures. She began rocking back and forth and crooning. The black cat turned to look at Rosemary and she flinched against its glare.

"I'll talk to you later. I'll come back and see you." Rosemary rose stiffly. Her face tightened, and for just a moment, she felt like crying to ease the frustration. She only wanted to help. Someone. Anyone. To feel good about something.

She walked away from Bagabond and back toward Central Park West and the subway entrance. Her father's war council had frightened her. She had never liked what he did, and her entire life seemed to be a search for escape and redemption, atonement. The sins of the fathers. Rosemary wanted peace, but whenever she thought she could get it, it retreated beyond her grasp. C.C. had been a last chance. So was each one of the derelicts she failed to help. There was a key to reaching Bagabond. There had to be.

Rosemary descended the steps, waited, dropped in her token, walked down the second stairway onto the platform in a daze. The blast of cool air entered the station followed by the AA train. Rosemary barely glanced up from the floor and moved stiffly toward the nearest car.

As she was about to step onto the train, her eyes widened and she stepped back into the crowd, drawing glares and a few curses for breaking the flow. That last car. It had more of C.C.'s lyrics painted on the side in a shade of red that reminded her of blood. C.C. had always been something of a manic-depressive and Rosemary had always known her mood by what she wrote or sang. The C.C. who had written these words was depressed beyond even Rosemary's experience:

Blood and bones Take me home

People there I owe People there gonna go

Down with me to h.e.l.l Down with me to h.e.l.l

Approaching the car, Rosemary saw words she knew knew had not been there seconds ago. had not been there seconds ago.

Rosie, Rosie, pretty Rosie Leave this place Forget my face Don't cry Rosie, Rosie, pretty Rosie

"I'm going to find you, C.C. I'm going to save you." Rosemary again fought to get into the car she now realized was covered with fragments of C.C.'s songs, some that she recognized, others that had to be new. Once more the car rejected her. Breathing hard, eyes wide, Rosemary watched the car move into the tunnel. She gasped as the side of the car was suddenly covered with tears of blood.

"Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d . . ." Rosemary absurdly remembered the stories of saints from her childhood. For just a moment, she wondered if the world was ending, if the wars and the deaths, the jokers and the hate, truly prefigured the Apocalypse.

It was noon.

American B52s were bombing Hanoi and Haiphong. Quang Tri was shaky, as the North Vietnamese were on the march. In Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., politicians exchanged increasingly frantic phone calls about a recent burglary. The question in some quarters was, is Donald Segretti an ace?

The midtown Manhattan rush was ferocious. At Grand Central Station, Rosemary Muldoon looked for raggedy shadows she could follow into the darkness of the underground. A dozen blocks north, Jack Rob.i.+.c.heaux plied his regular trade, clattering through the permanent darkness on his small electric cart, checking track integrity in tunnel after tunnel. And somewhere under the abandoned 86th Street cutoff, just beneath the floor of the south edge of Central Park Lake, Bagabond drifted on the edge of sleep, warmed by the cats and other beasts of her life.

Noon. The war beneath Manhattan was starting.

"Let me quote to you from a speech given once by Don Carlo Gambione himself," said Frederico "the Butcher" Macellaio. He grimly surveyed the groups of capos and their soldiers gathered around him in the chamber. In the '30s, the huge room had been an underground repair facility for midtown transit. Before the Big War, it had been closed and sealed off when the T.A. decided to consolidate all maintenance yards across the river. The Gambione Family had soon taken the s.p.a.ce over for storage of guns and other contraband, freight transfer, and occasional burials.

The Butcher raised his voice and the words echoed. "What will make the difference for us in battle will be two things: discipline and loyalty."

Little Renaldo was standing off to one side with Frankie and Joey. "Not to mention automatic weapons and H.E.," he said, smirking.

Joey and Frankie exchanged glances. Frankie shrugged. Joey said, "G.o.d, guns, and glory."

Little Renaldo commented, "I'm bored. I wanna go shoot somethin'."

Joey said a little louder, so the Butcher could hear, "Hey, are we goin' to roust some rummies, or what? Who's fair game? Just the blacks? Jokers too?"

"We don't know who their allies are," said the Butcher. "We know they wouldn't act alone. There are traitors from among our own race helping them for money."

Little Renaldo's manic grin widened. "Free-fire zone," he said. "Hoo-boy." He tugged his boonie hat down snug.

"s.h.i.+t," said Joey, "you weren't even there."

Little Renaldo gave him a thumbs-up. "I saw that John Wayne movie."

"That's the word from the Man, huh?" said Joey.

The Butcher's smile was thin and cold. "Anybody gives you problems, just waste 'em."

The groups began to move out, scouts, squads, and platoons. The men had their M-16s, pump scatterguns, a few M-60 machine guns, grenades and launchers, rockets, riot gas, sidearms, knives, and enough blocks of C-4 to handle any kind of heavy demolition.

"Hey, Joey," said Little Renaldo. "What you gonna shoot?"

Joey slapped a magazine into the AK-47. This weapon wasn't from the Gambione armory. It was his own souvenir. He touched the polished wooden stock. "Maybe a 'gator."

"Huh?"

"Don't you read any of them rags that's been talking about the giant alligators down here?"

Little Renaldo looked at him doubtfully and s.h.i.+vered. "The jungle-jokers are one thing. I don't want to go up against no big lizards with teeth."

It was Joey's turn to grin.

"No such things, right?" said Little Renaldo. "You're just s.h.i.+ttin' me, right?"

Joey shot him a jaunty thumbs-up.

Jack had lost all track of time. He knew it had been a long while since he'd shunted his track maintenance vehicle off the main line onto a spur. Something was wrong. He decided to check out some of the more obscure routes. It was as though a piece of ice pressed against a spot just north of his tailbone.

He'd heard trains, but they had pa.s.sed at a distance. The tunnels he now traveled were seldom used except for diverted routes during high congestion, track fires, or other problems on the main line. He also heard far-off reports that sounded like gunfire.

Jack sang. He filled the darkness with zydeco, the bluesy Cajun-Black mixture he remembered from his childhood. He started with the Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" and Clifton Chenier's "Ay-Tete-Fee," segued into a Jimmy Newman medley and Slim Harpo's "Rainin' in My Heart." He'd just pulled the switch and slid the car onto a spur he knew he hadn't checked in at least a year, when the world blew apart in a flash of red and yellow flame. He'd had time to sing one line of "L'Haricots sont pas sales" when the darkness fragmented, the pressure waves slammed against his ears, and the car and he took different, spinning, twisting directions through the air.

All he really had time to say was, "Wha' de hail-" as he fetched up against the stone of the tunnel's far wall and crumpled to the floor. For the moment, he was stunned by concussion and flash. He blinked and realized he could see smoke swirling, and the hand-held lights that illuminated the smoke.

He heard a voice say, "Jesus Christ, Renaldo! We weren't going up against a tank."

Another voice said, "Sorta sorry to do this one. Hate to kill anybody sounded that much like Chuck Berry."

"Well," said a third, "at least he had to be a spook."

"Check it out, Renaldo. Guy probably looks like an open can of Spam, but you better find out for sure."

"Yo, Joey."

The lights came closer, bobbing in the dissipating smoke.

They're gon' kill me, Jack thought, reverting to the dialect of his childhood. There was at first no emotion to the realization. Then the anger started. He let the feeling sweep over him. The anger escalated to rage. Adrenaline p.r.i.c.klings agonized his nerves. Jack felt the first brush of what he had used to think was the onset of loup-garou loup-garou madness. madness.

"Hey, I think I see something! Off to your left, Renaldo."

The one called Renaldo approached. "Yeah, I got him. Now I'll make sure." He raised his weapon, taking aim with the light held tight along the stock.

That pushed Jack over the edge. You chill son of a b.i.t.c.h You chill son of a b.i.t.c.h!

Pain, welcome pain, wracked him. He . . . changed changed.

His brain seemed to spin, his mind folding in on itself endlessly down into the primal reptile level. His body was elongating, thickening; his jaw thrust forward, the teeth springing up in profusion. He felt the length of perfectly toned muscles, the balance of his tail. The utter power of his body . . . he felt it completely.

Then he saw the prey in front of him, the menace.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Little Renaldo cried. His finger tightened on the trigger of the M-16. The first burst of tracers went wild. He never had the chance for a second.

The creature that had been Jack lunged forward, the jaws closing around Renaldo's waist, twisting and tearing at his flesh. The man's light spun, smashed, and went out.

The other men started firing wildly.

The alligator registered the cries, the screams. The smell of terror. Good. The prey was easier when it located itself. He dropped Renaldo's corpse and moved toward the lights, the bull roar of his challenge filling the tunnel.

"For the love of G.o.d, Joey! Help me!"

"Hold on. I can't see where you went!"

The corridor was narrow, the materials old and decaying. Caught between two equally tempting morsels, the alligator twisted around in the confined s.p.a.ce. He saw flashes of light, felt a few stinging impacts, mainly in his tail. He heard the prey screaming.

"Joey, it busted my leg!"

More flashes. An explosion. Acrid smoke choked his nostrils. Irregular chunks of stone fell from the ceiling. Rotten beams splintered. Deteriorated cement collapsed. Part of the floor beneath him gave way and his twelve-foot length tumbled heavily down an incline. Smoke, dust, and solid debris rained from above.

The alligator smashed into a thin metal hatch that had never been engineered for this kind of force. The aluminum tore like ripping canvas and he toppled into an open shaft. He fell for another twenty feet before cras.h.i.+ng into a spider's nest of wooden beams. Bits of debris followed for a little while. Then there was silence, both above and below. The alligator rested in darkness. When he tried to flex his body, nothing much happened. He was thoroughly jammed into a wooden cat's cradle. A beam was wedged securely across his snout. He couldn't even open his jaws.

He attempted to roar, but the sound came out more as a m.u.f.fled growl. He blinked his eyes, seeing nothing. His strength was dwindling, shock taking its toll.

He didn't want to die here. He wished to end in the water.

Worse, the alligator didn't want to die hungry.

He was starved.

Bagabond felt something she hadn't experienced for a long time, sympathy, for Rosemary Muldoon. She knew the social worker wanted to help, but how could Bagabond tell her that she didn't need help? Puzzled by that emotion, Bagabond discovered another one. She could be happy with the caring and companions.h.i.+p of her friends, however nonhuman they might be.

She did have a warm place to sleep. Her home beneath Central Park was close to the steam tunnels. Bagabond had slowly furnished it with the best the street had to offer. A broken red director's chair was the only furniture, but there were rags and blankets deeply covering the floor. A velvet painting of lions on the veld leaned against one wall and a wooden carving of a leopard stood in one corner. One of the leopard's legs was missing but it occupied a place of honor.

Drowsing there in the abandoned 86th Street cutoff tunnel, Bagabond even remembered the person she had once been, Suzanne Melot-The surge of pain that crashed across her mind interrupted her thoughts. The strength of the cry caused the black cat to moan in pain. As the wave receded, the black sent to Bagabond the same image he had taken from the creature that had attacked the rats. Bagabond agreed mentally. Neither could she she quite nail down the image. The creature seemed to be a huge lizard, but it somehow wasn't entirely animal. And it quite nail down the image. The creature seemed to be a huge lizard, but it somehow wasn't entirely animal. And it was was hurt. hurt.

Bagabond sighed and rose. "We have to find it if we are going to have peace and quiet." The black was not in favor of this solution until another wave of anguish came. He snarled and ran into the tunnel to Bagabond's left. The calico felt only the edge of the pain as it pa.s.sed through Bagabond and the black. Bagabond replayed a little of the cry of pain and the calico flattened to the ground, ears back. The image of the black appeared in Bagabond's mind and the calico dashed down the tunnel in pursuit. Bagabond told the calico to wait for her, and they began to track both the black and the injured creature.

It took time to find them. The creature really did did resemble nothing so much as a giant lizard. It was trapped beneath a fall of timbers in an unfinished tunnel. The black crouched a few feet away, staring at this apparition. resemble nothing so much as a giant lizard. It was trapped beneath a fall of timbers in an unfinished tunnel. The black crouched a few feet away, staring at this apparition.

Bagabond looked at the trapped creature and laughed. "So there really are alligators in the sewers." The alligator twitched its tail, knocking a few bricks across the tunnel. "But that's not all you are, is it?"

There was no way she and the cats could free the alligator. Bagabond knelt and examined the timbers trapping the beast as she called her friends to help her. She reached out and stroked the alligator's head, calming him with the images she sent. She sensed the creature drifting in and out of consciousness.

The animals arrived at different times. An uneasy peace held as Bagabond directed each according to its abilities. Rats gnawed, a pair of wild dogs provided muscle, the opossums and racc.o.o.ns carried off small stones. The black and the calico aided Bagabond in controlling the volatile mix of animals.

When the smaller debris had been cleared away and timbers and boards s.h.i.+fted or gnawed through, Bagabond began hauling on the alligator. Between her tugging and his struggles, Jack fought his way free. Bagabond ended up with a very tired and bruised alligator across her lap. The black and the calico told the creatures who had helped to leave.

The two cats watched as Bagabond rubbed the underside of the alligator's jaw, calming the creature. As she stroked it, the snout and tail began to shorten. The scaly hide became smooth, pale skin. The stubby limbs elongated into arms and legs. In a few minutes, Bagabond was holding the naked, bruised body of the man they had found before. As the change took place, Bagabond realized that at some indefinable point, she could no longer control this creature or read his thoughts. Somehow she had missed the critical division between man and beast.