“If this is an airshaft,” Jack said, “how come I don’t feel any airflow?”
“Because ‘bout fifty years ago, somebody covered the buildings with a single roof. Probably a dead end. You wasting you time, meng. ‘Sides, it’s not like you to get involved in this kinda thing.”
“I owe somebody a try.”
Jack tied a string around the neck of the flashlight, looped the rest of the length around his neck, and let the light dangle over his sternum where the beam splashed up over his face. A miner’s lamp hat would have been better but this would have to do. He pulled on a pair of heavy work gloves.
“Hang around, okay? In case I get stuck.”
Julio seated himself on some cases of Yeungling Lager.
“Don’ worry. I be right here.”
Jack took a deep breath, let it all out, then squeezed through the opening. He hated tight places. Especially dark tight places. He straightened inside the rectangular shaft. The crumbling brick surface was rough and craggy. He braced his hands against the wall along the wide axis of the shaft, dug the side of a sneaker into one of the countless little crevices, and began to climb.
A long climb. A three-story struggle, with a long, maiming impact lurking below, hungering for a slip. And above – the very real possibility of finding the upper end of the shaft sealed.
But it wasn’t. Jack reached the top and found a two-foot gap between the roof and the last of the bricks. Directly to his right, mated side by side to this one, stood another shaft. Hopefully leading to Costin’s.
Jack slid over the top of one and into the other. He had a bad moment when his sneakers began to slip, but he dangled by his hands until his feet found purchase. Then he began the long descent, dragging his denimed butt against the brickwork as an extra brake. The trip down was quicker. He was glad he’d thought of the gloves. Without them his hands would have been raw meat by now.
When he reached bottom he stood perfectly still and let his ears adjust.
Quiet.
He swept the flashlight around and checked out the base of the shaft. The opening was at knee level and blocked with a smooth brown surface. Jack nudged it with his foot and it gave easily. Cardboard.
With the flashlight off, he knelt and inched back the stack of cartons that formed the barrier. He peeked into the basement: empty, cavelike darkness. He listened again. Someone upstairs in the store was talking – shouting – in a high-pitched voice. Even through the floor Jack could feel the hysterical edge on that voice. Only one voice. Probably Khambatta’s partner talking on the phone to the hostage team.
Jack squeezed through the opening and stood. From this angle he could make out a faint sliver of light high up and off to his right. Had to be a doorway. He pulled the flashlight free of the string and flicked it on and off, just long enough to find a clear path through the piles of stock. Straight across the floor lay a set of steps. Jack drew the Semmerling and slid through the dark.
As he neared the other end he flicked the flash on and off again. And froze.
Someone on the steps to the door.
Jack waited, listening for movement, for breathing. Nothing. Just an occasional squeak of the floorboards above. And something else. Whoever was up there had stopped talking and was making another sound. Jack cocked an ear toward the ceiling. It sounded almost like… sobbing.
But who was on the stairs?
Jack turned on the flashlight and trained it straight ahead. A man lay sprawled, head down, one arm flung out, the other under him, legs splayed, eyes wide, staring. Very still. And wet. The front of his uniform glistened a deeper blue where a thick, dark fluid had soaked through it. His throat was a ruin and half of his lower jaw had been torn away. But deathly white and upside down though it was, enough of the face was left undamaged for Jack to catch the resemblance to Lieutenant Carruthers.
“The kid.” Louis.
“Son of a bitch!”
Another throat shot. Same style as Khambatta’s: Aim high in case the cop was wearing a vest.
Jack slipped the Semmerling into his pocket and stretched a hand toward Louis’s forehead. No question that he was dead, but Jack needed to touch him. To be absolutely sure.
The skin felt dry and thick and cold. “The kid” was very dead.
Cold black anger surged. Twenty-something years old, stopping by Costin’s for a late-night snack, and getting blown away.
“Son of a bitch!”
Jack straightened and turned off the flashlight.
What next? He’d come here as a payback, to see if he could get Carruthers’ brother out of this jam. But the kid was beyond help. So there was nothing left for him to do.
Except maybe settle a score on the lieutenant’s behalf.
But old man Costin was upstairs somewhere. Jack had known Costin since moving to the city. He didn’t like to think of the old guy held hostage, maybe face down on the floor, shivering with terror. But he could back away from that. He didn’t owe Costin – not enough to risk exposure by making a move on the remaining gunman. Better all around to leave old Costin’s fate in the hands of the hostage team.
Time to fade away. Time to head back to the air shaft.
But he didn’t move.
Just then the door above slammed open and a wide shaft of fluorescent light pinned him like a frog on a log. A high male voice began screeching at him.
“Hold it, muthafucka! Hold it or I’ll blow you away just like I did him!”
Jack turned slowly and saw a wide silhouette in the doorway. He showed his flashlight and his empty right hand.
“I’m not armed.”
Jack was glad he’d brought only the tiny Semmerling. It lay flat in his pocket.
“Yeah, right. An’ I’m Fiddy Cent. You a cop, fucka. An’ you was tryin’ to sneak up on me.”
“I’m no cop. And I was just leaving.”
“The fuck you was. There ain’t no door down here. I checked already.”
“If you say so.” Jack waved his empty hand. “Bye!”
Jack dove into the darkness to his right, rolled to his feet, and ducked behind a stack of canned goods. As a stream of curses erupted from the stairwell, he pulled out the Semmerling and crept toward the rear. Behind him he heard some fumbling against the wall, then a click and the cellar lights lit up – a few dim, widely spaced naked incandescent bulbs set among the ceiling beams. Jack got his first look at the guy as he rushed down the steps, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste.
He had a buzz-cut head and he was fat. No more than five-eight, but at least three-hundred pounds. Baby-faced with huge cheeks and tiny dark eyes barely visible above them. His skin was black as a bible and glistened with sweat. Fat. Not brawny fat, not hard fat. Jell-O fat that lurched and rolled around his middle as he moved. The sawed-off shotgun he carried looked like a toy in his pudgy fingers.
“Ain’t no use in hiding, fucka. Ain’t no way outta here.”
Then how’d I get in? Jack thought, wondering when that notion would strike Fatso.
He stayed low, listening as the guy moved through the dimly lit cellar like a bull, knocking over stacks of cans, smashing cases of bottles. The odor of gherkins began to filter through the air. Jack wondered how long it would take Fatso to find the opening.
From the rear of the cellar: “Shee-it!”
He’d found it.
And then as Jack crouched and waited, he heard a frantic scratching, scrabbling sound, like Fred Astaire on speed doing a softshoe to Motorhead. Coming from the airshaft entry. Jack crawled over to investigate.
Fatso was there. He had his head and one shoulder rammed into the airshaft opening and was trying to squeeze the rest of his body through. He grunted and groaned as his Pumas scraped madly on the dusty floor in a desperate effort to force his way in. But it wasn’t happening. He was a bowling ball trying to drop into a billiard pocket. No way.