The burr of a ringing phone droned on from the plastic handset held an inch from her face. Eventually, her connection went through, and she left a message with the police tip line, the one that she’d called the day before. She relayed the information that Tesla had sent her — the identity of the murderer who had killed the young man in front of Grand Central Terminal and how to find the surveillance footage to prove it.
If Tesla was telling the truth, then the police could verify it. If he was lying, they’d know that, too. Vivian had to tell them just in case. Duty done, she hung up.
The man next to her spoke Spanish in a practically unending stream. It didn’t sound like the people on the other end got much chance to get a word in edgewise. Maybe he was leaving a message as she had done. Maybe he was even calling in to a criminal tip line. She smiled. Stranger coincidences had happened.
She checked her reflection again to make sure that her hat was down and her scarf was across her nose before re-entering the cold nighttime park. Once she’d moved out of the pool of light, she let the scarf fall.
Tesla’s agenda was opaque to her. He had to know that he couldn’t hide out from the police forever without going outside. So, what the hell was he doing?
She pushed him out of her mind and focused on her surroundings — empty paths, drifts of snow against the sides of trees, and quiet. It was too early and too cold for troublemakers, but she kept her guard up until she’d hiked out of the park onto the brightness of Fifth Avenue and over to Madison Avenue.
She turned her phone back on. It had been off for only a few minutes, but it showed a missed call from one of her best clients: Daniel Rossi. She called back.
“Have you heard from Mr. Tesla?” he asked.
She hesitated, wanting for some obscure reason to protect Tesla before realizing that he was better off with Mr. Rossi on his side, whether he knew it or not. “I believe that he sent me an email, sir. It came from my mother’s account, but contained information about the knifing that happened this morning in front of Grand Central.”
“Details?”
She filled him in on that email and the previous one where Tesla had identified the murder victim in the tunnels. He was proving to be a clever criminal investigator, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep him out of trouble. Mr. Rossi listened patiently.
The sidewalks were crowded with New Yorkers in long coats and hats, rushing to catch their trains. She fetched up inside a doorway to avoid the worst of it while she talked with Mr. Rossi.
“Do you know where he might be?” Mr. Rossi asked.
“No, sir.” Down there somewhere, unable to come out. In spite of her anger at him for messing with her mother’s account, she felt sorry for him. She didn’t see how he could get out of this.
“We need to bring him to a place of safety.”
“Sir?” She stamped her feet to get blood flowing back to them. Her toes weren’t happy that she’d stopped jogging.
“Could you carry him?”
“Fireman’s carry. Sure.” He wouldn’t like it, but it’d work. She bit back a smile. So much for protecting his dignity.
“I’d like you to find him and get his permission to render him unconscious, then bring him to my house.”
She didn’t ask where that was. Uptown. Expensive.
“Do you have any questions?” he asked.
“How should I render him unconscious?” A crack on the head? Choke hold?
“I will provide you with prescription drugs.”
Boring. “If he refuses to take the drugs?”
“He needs to be taken out of those tunnels, for his own protection.”
Vague answer. “Am I authorized to use force?”
“Try not to let it come to that. If it does, there will also be a syringe in the bag. Two — one for him and one for the dog, in case it acts up.”
So, she would be in trouble with Mr. Rossi if she left Tesla down there, and in trouble with Tesla if she injected him against his will and dragged him out. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Just like the old days in the military. “I see.”
“My understanding is that there is a high police presence in the tunnels, and that other government agencies may be involved as well. And who knows if the man who killed the young man in front of the station today is still down there. You should use caution, and avoid contact with these other parties at all cost.”
So, she’d have to figure out how to carry him out without being noticed. This just got better and better. “I understand, sir.”
What she understood was that this was likely to be a complicated extraction of an unwilling subject under the noses of trained law enforcement personnel and a cold-blooded slasher. A challenge. Vivian loved a challenge.
On the way to pick up the drugs from Mr. Rossi, she bought a simple burner phone and sent an email to her mother from her smartphone.
Hi Mom,
I got a new cell phone. It’s 212-555-0919. Call me when you get this to see if it works! Remember the number so that you can reach me if you get lost on the subway.
Talk soon,
Viv
She called her mother to explain but was too late, so she got a tongue-lashing for assuming that her street-savvy mother might lose her way on the subway.
After Vivian explained that it was a code, her mother was angry about that, too. She didn’t want her account to be used to pass coded messages any more than Vivian did, but she agreed to leave the message there, so if Joe logged in to that account and read it, he might call.
Vivian couldn’t count on him reading the email, or on him trying to cooperate. She needed to track him down.
It couldn’t be that hard. He couldn’t go outside, so he was limited to the tunnels. Of course, there were literally hundreds of miles of subway tunnels, steam tunnels, and even sewage tunnels that he could be using. She’d never be able to search them all.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Based on the information that he’d been sending her, he still had access to an Internet connection. That meant that he could be in only a few places.
Most of the shops in Grand Central Terminal didn’t provide Wi-Fi. They didn’t want their customers to linger. The Apple Store did, but only during business hours. She’d check there.
In the underground platforms, the only one with Wi-Fi that she knew of was Platform 36. She’d comb the platform itself and the area around it, although she might have trouble getting down into the tunnels there, because the place was overrun with cops. Maybe Dirk could help.
If Tesla wasn’t there, then maybe he’d gone back to his underground house (or close enough to get into his wireless router). If she made a circuit between those few stops, she’d catch him eventually.
She just hoped that no one else caught him first.
Chapter 32
Joe paused in the darkness next to the edge of the subway platform, studying the people who milled about in the everyday world. Ordinary people, waiting for their train. To them, a trip down into the subway was just a space between their ordinary worlds. They moved through it, not paying attention, intent on their real destination. For him, his whole world now existed in the spaces between.
And right now this interspace was unguarded. That was the essential part. No one was posted at the ends of the platform to watch for him and keep him from getting Edison to safety. Apparently, they’d concentrated their forces around Grand Central. They couldn’t be everywhere.