Wild Cards Part 38

Bagabond nodded and moved in the other direction.

In a profound darkness barely relieved by darting beams from the caving helmets worn by armed men, Don Carlo Gambione surveyed the desolation that was his kingdom.

His lieutenant sounded almost apologetic. "Don Carlo, I fear our troops became too enthusiastic about their task."

Don Carlo looked down at the bodies illuminated in the light from the Butcher's flash. "Zeal in a matter such as this," he said, "is no vice."

"We've found their headquarters," said the Butcher. "Our men discovered it less than an hour ago." He stabbed a finger at the map. "About 86th Street. Under the park. Close to Central Park Lake. It looked inhabited. That's when I called you."

"I am grateful," said his leader. "I want to be present when the flame of our enemies' ill-conceived brushfire rebellion is extinguished. I knew there must be a reason why they should rise up now." Don Carlo's voice rose as well. The Butcher stared at him.

"I want their heads," said Don Carlo. "We shall set them on spikes at Amsterdam and 110th Street." Wide, his eyes shone ferally in the electric lamplight.

The Butcher gently put a hand on the Don's wrist. "We'd better go uptown now, Padrone Padrone. I told the men to wait in place, but they are so-enthusiastic."

For a moment, Don Carlo's gaze swung around wildly at the bodies littering the dirty concrete. Rags soaked with blood. "Such tragedy! The pain, the pain . . ." He stared directly down at the corpse at his feet. It was a white man, the gangling arms and legs sprawled out like the limbs of a broken marionette. There was no peace in the lined, sun-scorched face. Only agony reflected in the too-wide dark eyes. Smashed makeshift goggles lay in the blood pooled from the man's head. The don unconsciously nudged the shoulder of the faded fatigue jacket with the toe of one polished boot. "This one was a true jungle-joker . . ." His voice trailed off.

Don Carlo looked away. He drew himself straight, taking strength from the almost-holy knowledge of what he must do. He leaned closer to the Butcher's sober face. "These things we do . . ." he said. "It is sad, very sad. But sometimes we must attack and even destroy the way of life we love in order to preserve it."

Despite his bravado-why am I trying to impress that raggedy woman?-Jack took his time moving into the tunnels. The long ride back up to the park had returned to him his limp and considerable pain. Whenever he heard a noise, he froze. The calico showed remarkable patience. She ranged fifty feet or so ahead and then returned if it was clear. Jack wished desperately he could talk to her.

The sounds now were not imaginary. They grew louder. Jack began to hear unintelligible shouts. He jumped at every gunshot or explosion. He stopped using the flashlight because he was afraid someone would see it. The calico stayed a few feet away now. Jack had rubbed dirt on his face to cut down reflection.

Boots scuffed against the concrete floor just ahead of him. He started to back up and ran into one of the hunters, who was as surprised as he was.

"What the h.e.l.l! Joey! Joey, I got one!"

The man in the hardhat with the attached light swung the b.u.t.t of his gun at Jack's head.

"Where is he, Sly?"

The rifle-b.u.t.t had just grazed Jack's skull. He managed to sprint out of the light and up an apparent dead-end pa.s.sage. Jack tried to mold himself to the wall and wished he could change into something useful, like concrete or dirt. As the thought crossed his mind, he recognized the itching that meant he was getting scaly. Jack fought it off by slowing his breathing and exerting control. That's all he needed now. Where's the calico? he thought. Bagabond'll kill kill me if that cat's hurt. me if that cat's hurt.

"He has to be down here, Joey. There's nowhere else to go." The voice sounded as if it were an inch away.

"Toss in a grenade and keep movin'. We're supposed to be sealing off their base."

"Aw, Joey, come on."

"Sly, you're crazy, man. Move it."

There was the sound of metal bouncing on rock. Jack caught a glint of light from the grenade before the adrenaline wiped his brain clean. Merde Merde was his last conscious thought. was his last conscious thought.

The blast roar was accompanied by some rockfalls, but there hadn't been as much graft in this section. The roof held.

"Check it out, Sly."

"All right, Joey. Thanks." Sly was known for being almost as crazy as Little Renaldo.

Why me, Joey wondered.

"Nothing's left. Just a few rags and a sneaker. The right one." left. Just a few rags and a sneaker. The right one."

"Come on, then. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

Neither man noticed the calico crouched on a rock projecting from the wall near the ceiling. The calico leaped down and nosed through the torn and b.l.o.o.d.y clothing. She sent the scene to Bagabond and set out to meet her.

Bagabond stood quietly against the far wall of the 86th Street cutoff. She petted the calico gently and did her best imitation of a harmless old woman. The black had warned her the mafiosi were coming, but they were behind her by the time she tried to retreat. Too many to fight, so she came pa.s.sively. Now she silently gazed at the shambles they had made of her place. Her single guard had his attention fixed on Don Carlo.

"Somehow they must have escaped," said the Butcher apologetically.

"I want them," said Don Carlo. He stared around at the large velvet painting in its cheap wooden frame, one corner torn: a pride of lions stalked zebras on the veld. "They were were here," he said. "Savages." here," he said. "Savages."

"Don Carlo, sir, I . . ." It was Joey.

"What?"

"It is Maria, Don Carlo. I found her wandering down here." Joey escorted Rosemary up to her father. She did not appear to see him or register anything else. Her face was vacant, almost peaceful. Rosemary was a docile rag doll, lost somewhere back in the tunnels.

Don Carlo looked at her with astonishment and then concern. "Maria, what is wrong, mia? mia? Joey, what happened to her?" Joey, what happened to her?"

"I don't know, Don Carlo. She was like this when I found her."

Bagabond looked up from under her stringy hair. "Rosemary, couldn't you stay out of this this either? Social workers . . . Too nosy." Bagabond spoke under her breath. The guard turned around at her muttering, but shook his head and returned his attention to the excitement. either? Social workers . . . Too nosy." Bagabond spoke under her breath. The guard turned around at her muttering, but shook his head and returned his attention to the excitement.

"Take care of her for me, Joey, until I finish with this." Turning to the Butcher, Don Carlo said, "Does the old woman know anything?"

"That's what we're going to find out." Light caught the blade of the Butcher's stiletto as he started toward Bagabond. Then he stopped and listened attentively.

Everyone in the tunnel was listening. The rumbling that had at first seemed to be just another train in the distance got too loud, too quickly. There were yells from the west tunnel, even a scream of pain as the subway car appeared out of the darkness, traveling where no car could possibly be, with no third rail, on ruined tracks. The car glowed with a white phosph.o.r.escence, wraithlike. The route sign read cc local. It came to a stop in the middle of the gathering. The garish designs on its sides changed so rapidly it was impossible to focus on them.

"C.C.!" Rosemary, who had been standing to one side with Joey, eluded his grasp and ran to the phantom car. She stretched out her arms as if to embrace the thing, but as she touched the side, she recoiled. Then Rosemary extended one hand to touch what was not metal. "C.C.?"

Colors radiated from the spot she touched and then vanished. The car became black and almost vanished from the sight of the watchers. Words appeared as they had before: lyrics of songs C.C. had written and only her best friend, Rosemary, had ever heard. The watchers stood, too stunned to move.

You can sing about pain You can sing about sorrow But nothing will bring a new tomorrow Or take away yesterday

Images appeared on the side of the car as if projected there. The first scene was an attack, a rape in a subway station. A hospital bed with the figure of Rosemary recognizable beside it. Someone in a hospital gown walked down fire escapes.

"That's how you got out of the hospital, C.C. Why did you run away?" Rosemary looked up and spoke to the car as if it were a friend.

The next scene showed another subway station, another attack, but the person in the hospital gown was a witness this time. She tried to stop the attack and was flung aside, hurled onto the tracks. The colors of pain and rage. The trash and just about anything else unsecured on the unoccupied platform-vending machines, discarded newspapers, a dead rat, everything everything-was sucked down onto the tracks as if pulled into the voracious heart of a black hole. A train with six cars shrieked into the station. Suddenly another car joined it. The attacker, escaping, entered the new car and-the scene turned to crimson, as though blood were washing across the phantom car. More subway stations, more crimson. Another attacker in a leather jacket, an old woman.

"Lummy?" Rosemary stepped back from the sight of her fiance caught in mid-mugging. "Lummy? " "

"Lombardo!" Don Carlo was livid at seeing his son-to-be enter the car and be slaughtered. "Joey, get Maria away from that . . . thing. Ricardo, where is the rocket launcher? You'll get your chance now. Frederico, move that old woman over by the car. I want them all destroyed. Now!"

Rosemary fought Joey as he hauled her out of range. "Christ," he said, not to her, not to anyone in particular. "It's just like it used to be in the villages. Jesus." Bagabond went quietly, holding the calico cat tightly to her.

Ricardo sighted the rocket launcher carefully. Bagabond straightened.

Forty pounds of angry, wild black cat hit Ricardo squarely in the back. He fell forward as the tube tilted up and the rocket he had just fired headed for the roof. It exploded in a shower of red and gold sparks.

Rosemary pulled away from Joey and ran for the car.

Water began spraying into the tunnel. Jagged concrete blocks started to separate along their sealed junctures and then more water poured in.

"Ricardo, you idiot, you blew a hole in Central Park Lake!" Frederico the Butcher yelled at someone who was no longer an interested party. The mafiosi scattered down the tunnels in disarray.

"Get into the car. Come on!" Rosemary grabbed Bagabond.

"Maria, I'm coming for you. Hold on." Don Carlo struggled against the rising flood to save his only daughter.

"Papa, I'm going with C.C."

"No! You must not. It's cursed." Don Carlo tried to move farther and realized his leg was trapped. He thrust both hands into the chilly water in an effort to free it and grasped scaly skin. He looked down and saw rows of ivory teeth. Implacable reptilian eyes looked back at his.

Rosemary had gotten everyone on board, even the black cat. The car began to move back up the west tunnel.

"Wait. Jack's back there. Don't leave him." Bagabond tried to open the doors. Rosemary grabbed her shoulders.

"Who's Jack?"

"My friend."

"We can't go back," said Rosemary. "I'm sorry."

Bagabond sat in the rear seat, once more flanked by her two cats, and stared back at the water rushing into the tunnel behind them as they moved toward higher ground.

As the subway car climbed the 86th Street incline, the skirt of dark water followed, lapping at C.C.'s f.l.a.n.g.ed wheels. She eventually reached a rise in the tunnel where the tide behind ceased to follow. C.C. stopped, started to roll back, locked her brakes.

Her pa.s.sengers crowded against the rear connecting door, straining to see anything of what they had left in the darkness.

"Let us out, C.C.," said Rosemary. "Please."

The subway car obligingly opened her side doors with a hiss. The four of them, two human and two feline, clambered down to the road-bed and stood at this new beach. The calico sniffed at the water's edge and turned away. She whined and looked up at Bagabond.

"Wait," said the bag lady. An unaccustomed smile played for just a moment.

Rosemary strained, concentrating, attempting to peer through the darkness. The last thing she remembered seeing was her father trying to reach her, then just his face, his eyes. Finally nothing.

"There," said Bagabond flatly.

They all tried to make something out. "I don't see anything," said Rosemary.

"There."

Now they all saw something: a vee of ripples trailing from a wide, shovel-blade of a snout. They saw the pair of armor-protected eyes protruding from the water, inspecting the group on sh.o.r.e.

The cats began to yowl with excitement, the calico leaping back and forth, the black switching his tail like a blacksnake whip.

"That's Jack," said Bagabond.

After a time, the dust literally settled, the water receded, wounds were bandaged, bodies buried, and the long-suffering city crews did their best to clean up the mess at union scale. Manhattan returned to normal.

The bottom of Central Park Lake was resealed and the basin refilled. Reports of sea monsters (more properly, lake monsters) were persistent but unverified.

Sixty-eight-year-old Sarah Jarvis finally realized what hidden ident.i.ty surely must lurk beneath the surface of the President. In November 1972, she voted for George McGovern.

The fortunes of Joey Manzone rose-or at least they changed. He moved to Connecticut and wrote a novel about Vietnam that didn't sell, and a book about organized crime that did.

Rosa-Maria Gambione legally changed her name to Rosemary Muldoon. She completed her Columbia degree in social work and aids Dr. Tachyon with C.C. Ryder's therapy. She has entered law school and is contemplating a takeover of the family business.

C.C. Ryder is still one of the doctor's toughest cases, but there is apparently some progress in bringing both her mind and body back to human form. C.C. continues to create fine, sharp-edged lyrics. Her songs have been recorded by Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, and others.

From time to time-especially during bad weather-Bagabond and the black and calico cats move into the Alfred Beach pneumatic subway tube with Sewer Jack Robicheaux. It is a comfortable arrangement, but has necessitated a few changes. Jack no longer hunts rats. A common lament around the Victorian dining room is, "Wha' dis now, chicken again? again?"

Interlude Four From "Fear and Loathing in Jokertown," by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Rolling Stone Rolling Stone, August 23, 1974.