It followed me.
I backed up farther. It continued to follow me, gnashing its teeth in the process. Looking down, I studied the small puny objects in my hands.
I’m going to need some bigger weapons.
Suddenly, it lunged at me.
I thrust my machete at its head.
But nothing happened.
Abruptly, the alligator reared to the side. As I watched it struggle, I realized that thick ropes were wrapped around its neck and attached to long sticks. My eyes traced the sticks back to their origins and for the first time, I noticed numerous shadows in the darkness.
Chase’s guys. This just gets better and better.
But as the seconds passed, I began to doubt my initial impression. The shadows were quiet and still. They didn’t try to kill or capture me. They just seemed to watch me.
I heard frantic whispers from Beverly, imploring me to return to the relative safety of the passage. But the alligator dominated my focus.
My pistol lifted into the air.
I took careful aim.
“Stop right there.”
Startled, I turned to the side and saw a man pointing a shotgun in my direction. A thick cigar dripped from his lips, its end burning a reddish hole in the darkness.
He was a walking contradiction. He stood tall, yet hunched over. His body was strong, yet withered. He stared at me with a face that was at once both handsome and haggard. He looked a little like a former professional wrestler who’d fallen on hard times.
Very hard times.
But one look into his menacing, angry eyes told me that he wasn’t the sort of man to be overlooked.
“That thing’s a killer,” I replied angrily. “It deserves to die.”
He chewed on the cigar. “I know she’s a killer. That’s the whole point.”
“I…”
“If I were you, I’d shut up. You’ve got ten guns trained on you as we speak.”
I glanced at the shadows and then back at him. “What do you want?”
“I want you to get out of the way.”
Slowly, I maneuvered away from the man and the alligator. After reaching the passage, I climbed back over the crumbled concrete. As I joined Beverly, the other shadows started walking south through the tunnel, propelling the gator ahead of them.
The man kept his shotgun aimed at me. As the others vanished into the darkness, he slowly edged away, following their path. “Leave these tunnels now. And don’t ever come back.”
“I’m not leaving,” I replied. “Not yet. Not until I find something.”
He stopped and chomped his cigar for a moment. “I know why you’re here. And I know what you hope to find. So, let me give you a piece of advice. Stop looking. If you don’t, you’ll die.”
Chapter 43
What the hell was that? Some kind of urban alligator wrestling league?
I exhaled deeply through my nose. My body sagged and I realized that I’d been holding my breath for over a minute.
A strong whiff of smoke caught my attention. I turned it over in my mind, trying to place it. It seemed familiar yet distant.
I glanced at Beverly. “That’s definitely not something you see every day.”
“Wow,” she muttered. “I mean, wow. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light but…wow.”
I sniffed again. “Do you smell that?”
She didn’t respond. Glancing over, I saw that her head poked out of the passage with her face turned south.
“Did you hear me?”
She withdrew her head. “That’s the biggest alligator I’ve ever seen. It must’ve been…”
“Just pay attention to me for a second. Do you recognize that smell?”
“Smoke,” she said after a minute. “It’s cigar smoke.”
“My thoughts exactly. I smelled the same thing after we woke up on that island. I guess we know who kept us from drowning.”
“I wouldn’t mail your thank-you cards just yet. That is, unless you want to shower your appreciation on a bunch of murderers.”
“Murderers?”
“In case you didn’t notice, they seemed awfully familiar with that gator.”
“How does that make them murderers?”
“They don’t want to kill it. Otherwise, they would’ve already done so. Maybe it’s their pet.”
“No one keeps an alligator as a pet.”
I looked out into the main tunnel again, but the alligator and its wranglers were long gone. Why were they keeping the gator alive? Did they know about it before it started to attack people? And most importantly, where did they intend to take it?
Turning around, I headed for the rear of the passage. Stopping just short of the wall, I knelt down. The beam from my flashlight illuminated the carved map of Manhattan. The deeply etched lines that ran across its surface captured my attention. I traced their path, beginning in Battery Park City and extending north. At Union Square, I studied the line as it branched into two separate lines. One continued past Central Park to East Harlem while the other one veered off to the west before turning north again.
Seeing nothing, I leaned in closer and shifted my beam backward, following the lines back to Battery Park. When I reached Union Square, where the two lines joined, I noticed a bit of tiny lettering carved out beneath the space.
“Beach’s Tunnel,” I read aloud. “Beach. You don’t suppose it refers to Alfred Ely Beach?”
“Who?”
“I studied him while researching these tunnels.” I rubbed my jaw, deep in thought. “He was an inventor of some renown. In 1869, he unveiled an invention that shocked the world…New York City’s first subway tunnel.”
“You know way too much about these tunnels.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you just know too little.”
She glanced at the map. “Do the lines match his work?”
“I’m afraid not. Beach’s tunnel was short, more a curiosity than an actual means of transportation. It started on Warren Street, and curved around Broadway, eventually reaching Murray Street. All told, it ran three hundred feet with a nine foot diameter.”
“Did it use a third rail?”
I shook my head. “The tunnel was a giant pneumatic tube. A large rotary fan blew a railcar from one end to the other. Then, the fan was reversed, sucking it back to the original station.”
She smiled. “Its hard to imagine New York before subway tunnels.”
“It was a nightmare. Streetcars and carriages raced down crowded streets at reckless speeds. You can imagine the number of accidents. So, after London opened its subway in 1863, New Yorkers started clamoring for one too.”
“And Beach got the honor to build it?”
“He did it on the sly,” I replied. “Back then, Boss Tweed ruled Manhattan like a king. Beach knew Tweed would never give him a chance, especially since Tweed got kickbacks from the streetcars. So, he got a permit to build a pneumatic mail tube under Broadway. But instead of a skinny tube, he constructed one big enough to fit his subway car.”
“That’s pretty ingenious.” Beverly tied back her hair. “He probably figured that public approval would force Tweed’s hand.”
“That was his plan. People lined up around the block just to get a glimpse of it. The New York Herald called it Aladdin’s Cave, and marveled at how people could miraculously transport from one end of the tunnel to the other.”
“Tweed must’ve blown a gasket.”
“Tweed was an opportunist. He tried to capitalize on the invention. But he wasn’t Beach’s only enemy. The Astors and a whole bunch of rich folks were petrified that subway tunnels would undermine their properties. Beach didn’t stand a chance. By the time he got the political go-ahead, popular support had waned and the Panic of 1873 had dried up funding sources.”