Jeff Rovin - Vespers

“You’re right. But until we know for sure, I want you out of here.”

“Robert, that’s crazy! This is a scientific puzzle. Let me do my job!”

“You did the job you came out here for,” Gentry replied. “You saw the guano on the tracks. You took pictures. That’s enough.”

“No! My job isn’t finished until we’vefound the bats. Can you feel the air coming from behind the wall?”

“Yes.”

“It’s warm and damp. This is where the bats have gone. Ihave to go in and look around.”

“Maybe later,” Gentry said. “After I’ve checked it out.”

“This is insane! I’ve picked my way through quicksand fields, I’ve explored caves with just matches-”

“That was the wild. This is New York.”

“Oh, please!”

“Listen to me,” Gentry said. “Those tunnel people Arvids was talking about can be extremely territorial. I used to bump into them when I was down here. There might also be structural deficiencies behind the wall that we don’t know about.”

“The detective is right about those things,” Arvids said.

“I’ll take my chances,” Joyce replied.

“I’m sorry,” Gentry said, “but that’s not an option.”

“I don’t believe this-”

“It’s nothing personal,” Gentry said.

“No, it’s insulting!”

Gentry excused himself. He went over to one of the lockers and got a flashlight. He tested it, then walked back to Arvids. “Let me have the radio.”

Arvids handed it to Gentry.

Joyce’s lips were pressed tightly together. “And what exactly are you going to do inside?”

“Look for bats.”

“Look for bats. And how are you going to read what you see? Genera, guano color, maternity roosts-”

“I’ll make very careful observations and report back. That’smy job.”

“It won’t be enough,” she said. “You won’t be able to tell an invasive species from an indigenous one, a sick bat from a healthy one. You need someone who knows what to look for.”

“You can come back later-”

“If you do find bats and they’re anything like the Westchester bats, there may not be a later.”

“In that case, your being there won’t help.”

“I disagree. I’ve had to improvise in the field.”

“Me too. Look, I understand and I’m sorry.” Gentry glanced at Arvids and cocked his head toward the main tunnel.

The young officer backed away from the crane. “Come on, Dr. Joyce.”

Joyce balled her fists. “Gentry, don’t!”

He said nothing.

“This is moronic!” Joyce turned away from Gentry. She faced the main tunnel then swung back around to Gentry. “Don’t do this. I hate it. God, I hate it.”

“I’m sorry,”Gentry said, “but I’ve been down this road before-”

“So have I!”

“-and no one except me is taking a chance.”

“This is my field!”

“I don’t care. You’re not going with me. You’re not even staying here.”

Arvids moved gingerly toward the scientist. “Come on, Doctor.”

“You’re all the fucking same,” she said angrily. “Every damn one of you!”

Outside, another subway train passed. Then, as Arvids led a furious Dr. Joyce back down the tunnel, Gentry walked toward the crane.

Gentry didn’t like bullying good people, and pushing a young woman around left an iron-heavy weight on his conscience. He felt like he’d done that with Priscilla the entire time they were married-forced her to do what he wanted, which was not to have kids and not to have a life together because he couldn’t think of anything except bringing Akira Mizuno down. He hadn’t felt like this in a while, and he didn’t like it.

Maybe you should have blamed it on the city,he thought.You can’t let civilians into a suspected crime scene because of insurance regulations. If anything happened, she or her estate could have sued the city. It was true; it was on the books. And it would have made New York the villain, not him. Except that wasn’t the reason he’d done it.

With effort he squeezed behind the crane, where the slender woman had fit so comfortably. At the opening, he shimmied down, sliding his backside along the train carriage and feeding his legs through. It was not a place for the claustrophobic. When his feet finally reached the ground he wriggled into the dark. If the bats or some territorial tunnel people were in there waiting for him, he was going to be in serious, serious trouble. He continued worming through, until he was inside and was able to shine the flashlight around.

The room he was in was slightly larger than a garage. The walls were made of brick and the floor was a heavy iron grille. A metal staircase, like a fire escape, disappeared into the floor on the opposite side. There were open ducts and bundles of wires overhead. He didn’t see any bats, but the smell of guano was definitely stronger in there. Drops of blood led straight ahead. He followed them across the room.

He wondered what this place had been built for. Once a floor was put down, it could have been a storage room or an office for maintenance personnel. He looked up. Or it might have been designed as a power room. It was large enough to hold a large gas turbine, and the ducts could have vented fumes through the roof.

He headed slowly toward the steps, walking on the balls of his feet. What Joyce had said about the bats’ hearing made him realize that walking softly was useless. But he did it anyway so that he could hear. He shined the light down through the grate. It looked as though the rooms went down several flights. That would make sense. Everything in the station was probably built in layers to maximize space. And if this was going to be a generator room, they might have wanted access from underneath.

The smell of guano was stronger the deeper he went into the room. The drops of blood were thicker as well. They reminded him of someone who got popped in the nose and was trying to hold it in. He was going to have to go down the stairs. Before he did, he tried to call Ari Moreaux, just to let him know where he was. All he got was static. Out of communication, without a roadmap, and with blood on the floor-he knew it didn’t make sense to go ahead. But Gentry didn’t intend to go back and tell Joyce he didn’t check the place out.

He had no idea how far down the stairs went. He turned the light on the steps. He could see the bottom twenty steps below-and more small drops of blood leading down.

That could be from tunnel people fighting over food or clothes,he tried to persuade himself, without success. His sixth sense was telling him whatever left the mound in the tunnel left the blood here as well.

He held tight to the damp, rusty railing as he descended. He toe-touched each step tentatively before putting his full weight down. The stairs groaned and listed slightly to the left, toward the inside of the room, as though the entire structure were coming away from the wall. Maybe it was. It probably hadn’t been safety-checked in half a century.

The blood continued in a thickening line down the steps. As he neared the second-level landing he stopped. There was a rank, metallic smell coming from the room-not guano, something else. He brought the flashlight around. His eyes, increasingly accustomed to the dark, saw the hint of shapes on the floor. They were too large to be bats, and they weren’t moving. They were also just out of reach of his light. He continued down.

Upon reaching the landing, the toe of Gentry’s shoe bumped against something on the grate. He shined the light down. And swore at what he saw.

Within days of joining the police force, Gentry had helped lift the bloated, partially decayed body of a young woman from the Hudson River. He had entered a former crack den where a kid had died and been left to rot for nearly a week. He’d seen pedestrians who had been run down by cars and one who had been crushed under a crane. There were mugging victims who had been stabbed in the chest or side or back, and he’d once come to the assistance of an officer who’d been shot through the throat. All of those events were memorable as tragedy, and none of them had prepared him for what was in the room.