Certain sounds attracted humans. This fact was often used in hunting. A little cry, like one of their children, would bring even the most fearful within range of attack. And the child’s cry was most easily heard by the women.
“Sh!”
“What?”
“Listen.” It came again, the unmistakable groan of a child. “You hear that?”
“No.”
Becky went to the stairwell. She heard it more clearly, coming from above. “Wilson, there’s a kid up there.” She shone her light into the dimness. “I’m telling you I hear a child.”
“So go investigate. I’m not going up there.”
The sound came again, full of imperative need.
She found herself standing on the first step, moving upward almost against her own will. Above her the decoy put his heart into the sounds, making them as plaintive and compelling as he could. He imagined himself a helpless little human child lying on the cold floor weeping, and the sound that came out of him was like such a child.
The others moved swiftly to the opposite stairwell and started down. They sensed the positions of the prey. The strong young woman starting up the stairs, the weak old man standing in the dark hallway behind her. “Come up, come up,” the decoy pleaded to her in his mind, and made the little sound. It had to be right, to be perfect, just enough to attract her, not enough to let her decide what she wanted to decide—that it was the wind, a creaking board, or something dangerous.
As she reached one landing the hunters reached its twin at the opposite end of the hall. As she rose toward the decoy they descended toward Wilson. As they got closer they became more careful. Hidden strength under the smells of fear and decay. They would have to hit this man with devastating force to get him, hit as hard as they had hit the two young ones at the dump. But their prize would be great; he was heavy and well-fed, unlike the ones they had found among these empty buildings. There was no starvation in him and no sickness to make him dangerous to consume. They loved him, lusted after him, moved closer to him. And they saw his dim shadow, his heavy slow body standing in the dark.
Then standing in a flickering blaze of light.
“What are you doing, George?”
“Lighting a Goddamn cigarette.”
Becky came down toward him flashing her light in his face. “You are lighting a cigarette. I’ll be damned. Where did you get a cigarette?”
“I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.”
“And now is a special occasion?”
He nodded, his face like stone. “I’ll be frank with you, Becky, I’ve got the creeps. I’m scared to death. I won’t get out of here without you but I think we ought to leave—now.”
“But there’s a child—”
“Now! Come on.” He grabbed her wrist, pulled her toward the basement door.
“There’s something upstairs,” he said to the Precinct Captain, who was standing in the middle of the basement as if he had been undecided about whether or not to follow the two detectives upstairs.
“I’m not surprised. The building is probably full of junkies.”
“It sounded like a child,” Becky said. “I’m sure that’s what it was.”
“That’s possible too,” the Captain said mildly. “I’ll order up a search party if you think I should. But don’t do it with just two people. It’ll take ten men with carbines, I think that ought to do it”
Becky acknowledged the wisdom of this plan. No doubt there had been a pack of junkies at the top of the stairs waiting to jump her. Or perhaps there was actually a child. If that was so the ten minutes it would take to assemble the search party would make little difference.
They went outside and got into the Captain’s car. As soon as they left, the two patrolmen who had been guarding the scene moved swiftly to their own car and got in to shield themselves from the cold. They turned on their radio so that they would again have advance warning of visits from the precinct and settled back in the warmth.
For this reason they did not hear the howl of rage and frustration that rose from the upper reaches of the tenement. Nor did they see the exodus that took place, a line of gray shadows jumping one by one across the six feet of space that separated this building from the next one.
It didn’t take long to assemble the search party. It was now four o’clock and the night men were coming on duty. Three patrol cars returned to the building. With the two men on duty there plus Wilson and Neff there would be exactly ten officers for the search. Of course as soon as the cars drew up to the front of the building you could assume that any junkies in it slipped out the back. But murder had been done here and the precinct so far hadn’t mounted a proper search. Pictures had been taken of the victims and a cursory dusting of the area for fingerprints, but that was all. In this part of the city a committed crime was just another statistic. Nobody bothered to find out the circumstances that led to the deaths of a few derelicts. And nobody doubted that the blind man had gotten mugged and then dragged off the street to die. And nobody was right about what happened.
During the search Wilson and Neff were silent. The rooms of the old tenement still bore the marks of the last residents—graffiti on the walls, shreds of curtains in the windows, yellowing wallpaper here and there. Even, in one room, the remains of a carpet. But there was no child, and there were no traces of recent human habitation.
Wilson and Neff made the reluctant patrolmen scoop up some of the fecal matter that was found. They put it in a plastic bag.
“Empty upstairs,” a voice called as a group of five came from searching up to the roof. “Nothing suspicious.”
What the hell did that mean? These men wouldn’t know evidence from cauliflower. “Take us through,” Wilson growled. “We’ve gotta see for ourselves.”
The patrolmen went with them, the whole crowd going floor to floor. Becky saw the empty rooms in better light, but her mind could not blot out those plaintive cries. Something was up here just a few minutes ago, something that had left without a trace.
They looked carefully in all the rooms but found nothing.
When they got back to the basement Wilson was shaking his head. “I don’t get it,” he said, “I know you heard something.”
“You do?”
“I heard it too, you think I’m deaf?”
Becky was surprised, she hadn’t realized that he also had heard the sound. “Why didn’t you go up with me then?”
“It wasn’t a child.”
She looked at him, at the cold fear in his face. “OK,” she said, swallowing her intended challenge, “it wasn’t a child. What was it?”
He shook his head and pulled out his cigarettes. “Let’s get the shit to the lab for analysis. That’s all we can do now.”
They left the house with the clomping horde of patrolmen. With their meager evidence tightly enclosed in plastic bags they headed back to Manhattan.
“You think this will reopen the DiFalco case?” Becky asked.
“Probably.”
“Good, then we won’t be moonlighting on it anymore.”
“As I recall we got taken off that case. Or do you recall something else?”