Nausea rose in his throat at the rats cowering in the corners. Edison kicked in his sleep, as if he dreamed of running.
“Good instinct, boy,” Joe told him.
He forced himself to look at the battered face. The skull had been crushed. There wasn’t enough intact bone to support a face. He wouldn’t be able to identify him from that.
But he had more to work with. He could search through surveillance video of Grand Central and get a picture of the man before he’d gone into the tunnels. He could use that to identify him just as he had identified Vivian Torres.
For that, he had to get online. Not tonight.
Instead, he tried to put the pieces together. An hour later, he was no closer to an answer; he kept nodding off. He shut down his laptop and unfolded Edison’s blanket. When he’d grabbed it, he hadn’t thought about why. Now he knew — he’d need it to get through the night.
The comic books made a serviceable pillow. He bunched them on the floor in the corner and spread the blanket next to them. He turned off the light and pulled the blanket up like a sleeping bag. Edison lay down on the covers next to him. The dog’s warm form comforted him, and he had to live up to his no-self-pity rule. He’d gotten himself into this mess, he would get himself out. He just needed to figure things out, and he was good at figuring things out.
He’d better be.
Chapter 16
Joe woke to utter darkness. For a second, he wasn’t sure if he’d opened his eyes. His back ached, and his right arm was asleep. Edison’s relaxed breathing was the only sound. He smelled dog and mold.
Slowly, it came to him. He wasn’t home. He was in a maintenance closet somewhere in the subway tunnel system — he wasn’t sure where. He wasn’t lost, but he wasn’t found, either.
No point in dwelling on that. He turned on his laptop to check the time: 7:30 a.m. Late enough to give up on getting more sleep and time to figure out how to get breakfast for himself and Edison without being arrested.
With cracks and pops, he stood. His back told him that it had not enjoyed sleeping on cold tiles all night long, and that it never wanted to do so again. Even Edison made a grunting noise when he got up, as if he’d missed his dog bed.
It took only a minute to turn on the light and gather up his belongings. The blanket, he bunched in his arms. He’d need it for cover in the tunnels.
“Let’s go, Edison.” His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the tiny room, and he lowered it. “Let’s go on a mission for food and Internet, the staffs of life.”
The dog shook himself and walked to the door.
“Heel.” Joe didn’t know what they would face out there, but it would be easier if Edison stuck close. “And stay there.”
He reached up and flicked off the light before opening the door. He didn’t want to be visible to anyone outside. After giving his eyes time to adjust to the darkness, he walked out the door and down the tunnel. A set of stairs ran up to a metal grate. Shoes walked across over his head, dropping dirt and water down on his hair. Shoes on the feet of people walking down the sidewalk, as he used to do.
He hurried past the grate, keeping to the side of the tracks, searching for side tunnels.
A train neared, white headlights a beacon in the tunnel. Joe pulled Edison in front of him and curled against the wall, wrapping the blanket around their bodies so that nothing showed. He hoped that no one would notice a dark hump against the wall, nearly as much as a man with a dog.
The blanket trick seemed to work, because he made it almost all the way to Grand Central without incident. Almost.
A policeman stood at the tunnel entrance to Platforms 9 (scarlet) and 10 (cyan, then black). Joe shrank back in the tunnel and tried Platforms 7 (slate) and 8 (purple) with the same results. Looked like they’d staked out all the platforms. Hard to believe the cops would expend that kind of manpower for a simple murder investigation.
He ran back toward the track that led to Platforms 16 (cyan, orange) and 17 (cyan, slate), Edison loping between him and the side of the tunnel. He had a chance to get in, but he had only a narrow window of time. Even then, it was risky.
Jogging, he formulated a plan. A quirk in MTA’s schedule meant that one train halted in the tunnel for about two minutes every morning at 8:03 (a purple, black, and red ribbon flashed in his head) while the train in front of it finished loading at the platform. He’d seen the train sitting there one morning on a walk with Edison and had checked the schedule to see why. The tunnel system was his backyard, and he wanted to know why a train would be loitering there.
Maybe today his curiosity would help him out.
He arrived with less than a minute to spare and hunched against a pillar near where he hoped the last car of the train would come to a stop. He held the blanket ready to cover them. The train clattered up close, and he hid them under the blanket. Edison tensed in his arms but didn’t panic. Joe fingered one of the keys from his massive key ring, hoping.
He felt more than heard the train stop and pulled off the blanket, standing and running toward the back. He hoped that the engineer wasn’t looking. He couldn’t do anything about the passengers, but most people kept their eyes focused inside the train, ignoring the subterranean world beyond their metal and glass walls.
In a few strides, he reached the train’s back door. The narrow entrance was too high to reach, but he was ready for that. He vaulted onto the coupling, teetered, then caught hold of the metal door handle with one hand. A quick turn of his key, and he was inside. Step one was successful.
Edison whined. He turned back to the open door and the tracks behind him.
“Jump, boy!” He calculated that they had fifteen (cyan, brown) seconds left. If Edison didn’t jump soon, he’d have to climb down himself and figure out another way. He’d never seen the dog jump more than a couple of feet high. Had he ever jumped so high before? Could he?
Edison was not one to be left behind.
The dog got a running start, then hurtled up and into the car. Joe put his hands out to catch him before he hit the back of the small compartment that separated them from the main car. Edison lunged to the side as he landed, sliding forward and against Joe’s hands, redirecting his momentum. Smart dog.
Joe slammed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. They were committed now.
“Good boy.” He picked up Edison’s leash and opened the door that separated them from the rest of the train car. His plan wouldn’t work unless he got further forward in the train.
He walked straight through the car, as if he belonged, hip inches from blue fabric seats. Most people didn’t look up from their newspapers, books, and phones, but a woman in her forties eyed him suspiciously. He walked on. Even if she called the police, the call probably wouldn’t be routed to the police at the platforms within the two minutes left before the train arrived at the station. He hoped.
In the next car, nobody looked askance at him. They must have assumed that he’d come from the car behind them. A few smiled at Edison absently. He walked until he reached the middle of the train. Here, he would hide amongst the crowd. The sheer volume of commuters might be enough to keep the police at the platform ends from seeing the dog or recognizing Joe.
When the train pulled in, Joe hung back to let a few people by. He couldn’t go first. He needed a critical mass of people on the platform before he exited the train. When he judged there were enough people there, he pushed to the door and out. He didn’t dare to be the last one off the train, either.