“Sloan looks terrible in a teddy,” James said, then added. “Halloween. Before your time.”
“Oh. Dear.”
“Let’s go. Light or no light—” They pushed their way into the street. The huge garbage truck waiting to turn north had left enough room for them to squeeze through. The next driver, a frightened-looking woman, had opened her car door and was standing in the street, still clutching the handle, looking confused and desperate. “There’s not enough time, is there?”
“Come with us. The subway’s still running—”
“The subway?” Her confusion increased. “Los Angeles has a subway—?”
Hu pointed past her. “It’s right there—”
The woman grabbed her purse and hurried after them. A few others followed—a black woman dragging two small children, a portly man with his arms full of file folders, the driver of the garbage truck as well.
The elevator to the lower level wasn’t working and even if it had been, neither James nor Hu wanted to risk getting stuck in it. The station’s turnstiles were frozen open for the evacuation.
The escalators weren’t working either, but there was a wide staircase and most of the travelers with baggage were hurrying down it. Hu waited with the bikes while James maneuvered Pearl’s chair down the stairs. Pearl held Fluffy’s leash, his stub of a tail wagged in excitement, he was having a great time. He looked around the platform eagerly—all these great new playmates—but even the nearest people were keeping a careful distance.
James came trotting back up the stairs, and he and Hu began working the bikes and the trailers down. A couple of people grumbled at them as they passed—but they were dragging their own bags down the steps, so James and Hu ignored the comments.
The bottom level was crowded, but not packed, not insane, not panicky. Most of the people who had thought to escape by subway had already gone. These were stragglers, people who had finally abandoned their vehicles. Many were carrying backpacks or dragging suitcases on rollers.
The overhead signs were promising trains arriving at this terminus every four minutes. Hu pointed. “See, we’ll have time.”
James started to say something, thought better of it, and shut up instead. He scanned the faces of the crowd, looking for signs of desperation or panic. He could still hear the screams and the gunshots from the Santa Monica underpass.
The Red Line and Purple Line trains were arriving so fast, one after the other, that sometimes as many as three trains would have to wait in the tunnel while the first in line unloaded. As fast as each train unloaded, it was sent out again.
The outbound Red Line trains went directly to the Hollywood and Highland station, picking up passengers there and taking them out to the North Hollywood station on Lankershim Boulevard. The area surrounding the Universal City station had already reached overload capacity.
Inbound, all the trains were staggered to pick up passengers from the most overloaded stations. As soon as any train was packed to capacity, it went straight to Union Station. It was a frustrating experience for those waiting on the platforms, watching the densely packed trains screech by without stopping, but every available train was running, and most people were able to board a train in less than twenty minutes.
The Purple Line trains were on a similar schedule, with most going directly to the Wilshire/La Cienega station, picking up passengers from the most desperate locations first.
Several trains were running direct shuttle service to the Seventh Street station, the terminus of both the Expo Line and the Blue Line from Long Beach. While many evacuees assumed they would be relatively safe this far inland, most were taking advantage of the train service departing from Union Station.
At Union Station, every available train—both passenger and freight—was loaded to capacity. Most were heading north through Glendale and Burbank, all the way to the Burbank airport, where a tent city was being set up on the top level of the parking structure. Others were heading west with stops in the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley. Ventura County was an uncertain risk. Although parts of it were sheltered by the Santa Monica mountains, there wasn’t a convenient train service. Other trains headed north to Santa Clarita, or as far east as Ontario. The closest returned for another trip as soon as they were unloaded.
Additional relocations would be necessary after the initial evacuation. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, and other cities were already making plans to receive refugees. But the initial goal was to get as many people as possible out of the disaster zone as fast as possible.
In the last half-hour before impact, police and fire rescue would withdraw their personnel and any vehicles still not evacuated. When further evacuation operations became too risky, the subway trains would also be removed to their safest locations.
The last train from Union Station was being held for emergency workers. As soon as the tsunami reached San Clemente Island, a five-minute alarm would sound and the train would pull out before the onrushing water overwhelmed the coastline. It would not wait for stragglers,
That was the plan, anyway.
Just one little glitch.
Roy Jeffers.
He did not look like a hero. He did not intend to be a hero.
He was a skinny little bastard (accident of birth), stuck behind thick glasses and a scowl. He was also a stubborn son of a bitch. He had issues with authority, and the surest way to get him to do anything was to tell him, “No, you can’t.”
Roy Jeffers had another bad habit as well. He was a rescuer.
He had a long history of opening his house in south-central Los Angeles to anyone needing a place to crash—cousins, friends, stray dogs, the occasional feral cat, and once in a while, even a girlfriend. (And once, as an experiment, a boyfriend.)
At the moment, however, he was single, about to be made homeless by the tsunami, and genuinely resentful that the evacuation was going to take a horrendous toll on those who could least afford it, his entire demographic. People of Color was the current euphemism. Among friends, he’d occasionally rant, “First we were Colored People. Then we were Negro, then we were Black, then African-American. Now we’re People of Color. Progress my black ass!” But he didn’t have a lot of friends, so it wasn’t a rant that many had heard.
Adding to his annoyance was his realization that as a driver for the Purple Line, he was servicing many of the wealthier neighborhoods along Wilshire Boulevard, where if he had been working the Blue Line, he would have been rescuing his own neighbors. Even the knowledge that the Crenshaw connection directly served part of his community did not alleviate his smoldering anger.
But—
The knowledge that the Crenshaw connection directly served part of his community had somehow transformed his annoyance into a specific commitment. He wasn’t going to abandon anybody, and he didn’t care what color they were. He was going to do the job anyway.
So when he unloaded at Union Station and his supervisor, Molly Cantway, waved to him and said, “Okay, that’s it, Roy. Take your train out to the service yard,” Roy Jeffers said no.
“There are still people out there. My people—” he insisted. “Our people.”
Cantway shook her head. “Roy, I am not sending any more trains out. There’s no time.”
“Then let’s not waste it arguing,” Roy said. “I’m going.”
“You do and I’ll fire you.”
“Ain’t gonna be no job after today anyway—”
Jeffers pushed the control lever forward. His train rolled west into the tube. Cantway didn’t know whether to be annoyed at the inevitable loss of a Purple Line train—or admire Jeffers for his stupidity.
On the other hand, there probably wasn’t going to be much of a subway system after this. After Hurricane Sandy, parts of the New York system were down for five years. This was going to be worse than that. Maybe Los Angeles would never have a subway again.