Robert Bennett - The Company Man

Garvey could not imagine their numbers. To his eye they had seemed limitless. Still no one spoke. Then Garvey turned around and walked over to a bench and sat.

When the message came to Samantha and Hayes they were on their last interview of the day, awaiting a McCarthy, Franklin. The man from the front desk walked in and handed a telegram to Samantha, who read it and handed it off to Hayes and began quickly putting on her coat.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Bridgedale, apparently,” she said.

“Oh? Why?”

“To meet a Mr. Shroff. Any idea who that is?”

“One of Brightly’s men. Newspaperman, usually tips us off about things going on in the city.” He scooped his scarf off the floor and added, “Which probably doesn’t bode well at all.”

They hurried out to the street, where Hayes tried to pay a cabbie an enormous amount of money to take them across town. With some persuasion Samantha managed to convince him to try a trolley for a fifth of the cost, yet when they began to enter the trolley lines the ticket vendors and conductors turned them away.

“No rides today,” one said. “No trolley today.”

“Why on Earth not?” said Samantha.

“All lines are down. No platforms taking any passengers.”

“Yes, but why?”

He shrugged. “Can’t say. Official broadcast came through about an hour or so ago. We’re all shut down. You’ll have to take a motorcab, or walk if you can.”

“This is the first time in my memory, short as it is, that the trolleys have been wholly shut down,” said Samantha as they walked back to the street. “What could have happened?”

Hayes simply shrugged, irritated to have been made to walk so far.

They took a cab to Bridgedale and the address specified in the message, yet they found it surrounded by a thick, babbling crowd that shielded everything from view. The police had made a large clearing at the front, cutting off the street at either end and shutting down one intersection. Horses and purring cars bucked back and forth as they tried to negotiate their way out, swears and shouts ringing over the buzz of the crowd. People huddled close to one another in the chilly air, bobbing where they stood to glimpse through brief cracks in the groups in front of them. Steaming breath unscrolled up from the crowd in a hundred places, giving it the strange impression of a ticker tape parade.

“What in hell is this nonsense?” said Hayes as they climbed out.

Bystanders couldn’t tell him, shrugging and shaking their heads. Soon he was flagged down by Shroff, who was so short he had to jump to make his hand seen over the crowd. Hayes worked over and pulled him close and said, “What the hell is going on?”

“Trouble,” Shroff said. “Big trouble, down in the underground. Someone’s dead.”

“Dead? Who’s dead?”

“Don’t know, really. Cops have the entire area cordoned. They beat the hell out of one ass who tried to push through. Pardon my language, ma’am,” he said to Samantha, and tipped his hat. “I bet there’s a lot of them, though.”

“A lot of who?” asked Hayes as he slipped through the crowd. Shroff and Samantha struggled to keep up.

“The dead,” said Shroff. “But no one knows how many or who.”

When they finally got through they found they faced the trolley station entrance, the big rusty tin T hanging over the steps. They could see nothing down below except for the faint lights of the station.

“Looky there,” said Shroff, and pointed. “There’s your detective friend, eh?”

Garvey was standing at the top of the steps, speaking to another officer who was leaning against the railings. He looked paler and grimmer than usual. He kept his face at a sharp angle to the underground station, like he did not want to look inside or perhaps smell its curious breeze.

“Yeah,” Hayes said. “There he is.” Then he tugged off a glove, stuck his fingers in his mouth, and whistled piercingly.

The police and some of the crowd looked up. Garvey blinked and did the same and saw Hayes standing in the front. His grimace deepened and he strode over and said, “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I think,” said Hayes. “Only there’s truncheons in the way.” By now he was flush and grinning with excitement.

Garvey thought for a moment, then said, “I guess it’d be worth you seeing.” He nodded to the patrolman, who let Hayes pass but kept Samantha behind.

“Who’s that?” asked Garvey, gesturing to her.

“My assistant,” said Hayes.

“Your assistant? You have an assistant?”

“Sure. She’s new. Secretarial duties and such.”

“God. I got to pity you, lady. Come on then,” he said, and helped her through.

“Thank you,” she said to him. She stood up and readjusted her hat and blouse.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. He stopped halfway down a step and turned to extend a hand. “Don Garvey.”

Samantha awkwardly shook and introduced herself breathlessly, still fighting past the dour stares of the patrolmen.

“So what’s going on, Garv?” asked Hayes.

Garvey began to lead them down the steps of the station. “I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t.”

“Rumor has it people are dead.”

“Rumor has it right.”

“Was it an accident?” asked Samantha.

Garvey stopped and looked at her. “A what?”

She faltered under his sharp eye, then rallied. “An accident. A trolley accident. Like a derailing.”

“Oh,” he said. “No. Not an accident. That’d be the reasonable conclusion, wouldn’t it? But no.”

“Then what?” said Hayes.

Garvey said nothing. He just motioned them farther down into the tunnels. Hayes glanced to the side and saw bile and chunks of half-digested beef drying and curling on the station floor.

“Bad one?” he asked.

Garvey said, “The worst I’ve seen.”

They walked down the platform, ignoring the curious glances of the other officers. Then a shout rang out: “No. Not him. No.”

They turned. Collins was striding toward them, a half-dozen officers in tow like furious ducklings. Collins pointed at Hayes and said, “Will someone please explain to me what in God’s name this little shit is doing back here? It had better be plenty impressive, too. I mean it.”

Garvey stepped forward into Collins’s path. Even though Garvey was tall in his own right, Collins loomed over him like a storm cloud. He glared at Hayes over Garvey’s shoulder, but Hayes dawdled on the platform and looked down the tunnel with a mildly interested eye. Samantha gripped her briefcase and looked to him for some excuse for their intrusion, but he was barely aware of Collins’s furious outburst, let alone her frantic looks.

“I invited him here,” said Garvey quickly. “I gave the order to let him through.”

“I guessed that,” Collins said. “What in hell did you think you were doing, bringing a mad thing like that into a scene like this?”

“I thought he could help.”

“Help? Help with what?”

“Unions. He might know something. He almost always does.”

Collins turned to Hayes. “And? Do you know anything?”

“I don’t even know what the hell is going on yet,” Hayes said. “Did you say this is union stuff, Garv?”

Collins gave Garvey a warning look. Garvey winced. “I think it is,” he said slowly, reluctantly. “I think it’s got to be.”

“Don’t go stirring up shit you can’t shovel, Garvey,” said Collins. “Don’t go doing that now. Not at a time like this.”

“Let’s at least show them to him,” Garvey said. “Just to see.”

“See who?” asked Hayes.

“Our passengers,” said Garvey. Then he grabbed Hayes by the arm and dragged him down the tunnel to where a darkened trolley car sat in the shadows. Behind them Collins shouted at Samantha and the other officers to stay back. Garvey hauled him through the broken bronze doors of the trolley, Hayes fumbling with the steps, and suddenly he was aware that there were people in the darkened trolley car with them, sitting silently in the seats or lying on the floor. The coppery taste of blood filled his nose and mouth and he suppressed a gag. Then Garvey flicked the light on and Hayes saw the trolley car fully.