Douglas Preston - Reliquary

D’Agosta looked at Waxie. Beads of sweat had sprung up along his upper lip, and his dough-colored jowls, usually firm, were starting to sag. “This is your jurisdiction, not mine,” D’Agosta said. “Just think how good it will make you look if this turns out to be big: taking charge right away, visiting the scene personally. For a change.” He fingered his jacket pocket for a cigar, then decided against it. “And think how bad it will look if these deaths are connected somehow, and the press starts talking about how you just looked the other way.”

Waxie scowled at him. “I’m not running for mayor, Vinnie.”

“I’m not talking about being mayor. All I know is, when the rain of shit begins to fall like it always does, your ass will be covered.”

Waxie grunted, looking somewhat mollified.

D’Agosta could see Hayward’s light playing down the tracks toward them, and soon the woman appeared again out of the gloom.

“Almost there,” she said. “It’s one more down.”

“Down?” said Waxie. “Sergeant, I thought this was the lowest level!”

Hayward said nothing.

“So how are we supposed to go down?” D’Agosta asked her.

Hayward nodded in the direction from which she’d come. “North along the tracks about four hundred yards, there’s another staircase along the right wall.”

“What if a train comes?” Waxie asked.

“This is a deserted stem,” Hayward said. “No trains have come along here in a long time.”

“How do you know?”

Hayward silently played her beam along the rails beneath their feet, illuminating the thick orange rust. D’Agosta’s eyes traveled up the flashlight beam until they reached Hayward’s face. She did not look very happy.

“Is there anything unusual about the next level?” D’Agosta asked quietly.

Hayward was silent for a moment. “Ordinarily, we only sweep the upper levels. But you hear stories. They get crazier the lower you go.” She paused. “That’s why I suggested backup,” she said pointedly.

“People living down here?” Waxie asked, sparing D’Agosta the necessity of a reply.

“Of course.” Hayward made a face as if Waxie should know better. “Warm in the winter, no rain or wind. Only people they have to worry about down here are the other moles.”

“So when was the last time they rousted that level?”

“They don’t roust the lower levels, Captain.”

“Why not?”

There was a silence. “Well, for one thing, you can’t find the deeper moles. They’ve got night vision, living in the dark. You hear something, and by the time you’ve turned around, they’re gone. They only do a couple random sweeps a year with dogs trained to find bodies. And even they don’t go that deep. Besides, it’s very dangerous. Not all the moles come down here just for shelter. Some come to hide. Some are running from something, the law, usually. Still others are predatory.”

“What about that article in the Post ?” D’Agosta asked. “It said there was some kind of underground community. Didn’t sound all that hostile.”

“That was under Central Park, Lieutenant, not the West Side railyards,” Hayward said. “Some areas are tamer than others. And don’t forget that article mentioned something else. Something about cannibals.” She smiled sweetly.

Waxie opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again, swallowing loudly.

They began moving down the tracks in silence. As they walked, D’Agosta realized he was unconsciously fingering his S&W Model 4946 double-action. Back in ’93, there’d been some controversy in the department about moving to a 9-millimeter semiautomatic. Now D’Agosta was glad he had it.

The staircase, when they reached it, was fronted by a steel door canted at a crazy angle across the doorframe. Hayward pulled it open, then moved to one side. D’Agosta stepped through and immediately felt his eyes begin to water. A smell like ammonia violated his nostrils.

“I’ll go first, Lieutenant,” Hayward said.

D’Agosta stepped aside. No argument there.

The lime-coated staircase descended to a landing, then made a turn. D’Agosta felt his watering eyes begin to sting. The smell was searing, indescribable.

“What the hell is that?” he asked.

“Piss,” said Hayward matter-of-factly. “Mostly. Plus other things you don’t want to hear about.”

Behind them, Waxie’s wheezing became more pronounced.

They stepped through a ragged opening into a dark, humid space. As Hayward played her light about, D’Agosta saw that they were in what looked like the cavernous end of an old tunnel. But there were no tracks here: just a rough dirt floor, scattered with pools of oil and water and the charred remains of small campfires. Garbage lay strewn everywhere: old newspapers; a torn pair of pants; an old shoe; a plastic diaper, freshly soiled.

D’Agosta could hear Waxie blowing hard behind him. He was beginning to wonder why the Captain had abruptly stopped complaining. Maybe it’s the stench, he thought.

Hayward was moving toward a passage that led away from the cavern. “Over here,” she said. “The body was found in a cubby down this way. We’d better stay close. Watch out you don’t get piped.”

“Piped?” D’Agosta asked.

“Someone reaches out from the dark and whacks you over the head with a pipe.”

“I don’t see anyone,” D’Agosta said.

“They’re here,” Hayward replied.

Waxie’s breathing became more labored.

They began following the passage, moving slowly. Hayward periodically pointed her light along the sides of the tunnel. Every twenty feet, a large rectangular space had been cut into the rock: work and storage areas, she explained, of railway crews a century before. Filthy bedding lay in many of the cubbyholes. Frequently, large brown rats, disturbed by the light, would stir among the trash, waddling away from the flashlight beams with insolent slowness. But there were no signs of people.

Hayward stopped, removed her police cap, and drew a damp strand of hair back into place behind one ear. “The report said it was the cubby directly across from a collapsed iron catwalk,” she said.

D’Agosta tried breathing through his hand, and when that didn’t help he loosened his tie and pulled his shirt collar over his mouth, as a kind of mask.

“Here it is.” Hayward shone her beam on a rusted heap of iron struts and I-beams. She swept the flashlight across the tunnel, locating the cubby. From the outside, it looked just like the others: five feet across, three feet deep, cut into the rock about two feet above grade.

D’Agosta stepped closer and peered in. Naked bedding lay askew, caked thickly with dried blood. Blood was also spattered about the walls, along with bits of something that D’Agosta didn’t want to think about. There was the ubiquitous packing crate, tipped over and partly crushed. The floor of the cubby was lined with newspapers. The stench was beyond description.

“This guy,” Hayward whispered, “was also found without his head. They identified him from prints. Shasheen Walker, thirty-two years old. Rap sheet as long as your arm, a serious user.”

At any other time, D’Agosta would have found it ludicrous to hear a police officer whispering. Now, he felt somehow glad. There was a long silence while D’Agosta played his own light around. “Did they find the head?” he asked at last.

“Nope,” said Hayward.

The foul little den showed zero signs of a police search. Thinking he’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, D’Agosta reached into the cubby, took hold of a corner of a filthy blanket, and jerked it back.

Something brown tumbled out of the folds and rolled toward the nearest edge. What was left of its mouth was wide open in a frozen scream.