Lowland Rider (15 page)

"Enoch," she moaned, feeling his name in her mouth, feeling the goodness and rightness of it.

"
Enoch
." It was a prayer, a litany, a love song all in one word, beginning with an outward breath, opened by the humming
N
, ceasing abruptly, like a command from God.

"
Enoch!
" And the joy drowned her as she worshipped him, adored him, and shivered with the excitement of what she would do for him.

For him, she would savage the city.

"Aw shit, man," said Rags, peering through the graffiti-smeared glass that covered the subway map. "Son of a whore."

"What is it?"

"You know where we
goin
'?"

Jesse nodded. "Bergen Street, right?"

"Wrong. They
messin
' with the tracks again. We
goin
' out on the shithole
Fujton
Street lines. Oh well . . ."

"Oh well my ass. Can't get turned around till we get to Broadway—East New York, and then we gotta get over to Eastern Parkway station.
Damn
. What shit."

"What's wrong with it?"

"
Montcalm's
line, for one."

"The
skell
hater."

"Right."

Jesse shrugged. "Well, we're stuck on it. Just have to keep a low profile."

Rags's
face crinkled. "Huh?"

"Lay low. Pretend we're not here."

"Yeah, sure. Montcalm or his boys get on here, all the
pretendin
' in the world don't stop us from
gettin
'
whomped
."

Jesse laughed and sat back on the bench, stretching his legs out in front of him. Rags joined him, but sat erect, looking at the rear door of the car, then at the front, and back again incessantly, as if at some subterranean tennis match. "You gonna see that girl again?" he asked after a while.

"Yeah."

"Shouldn't."

"Why not?"

"She ain't one of us, Jesse. She's just snoopy,
nosin
' around, what the hell she
wanta
know anyway?”

“I guess what makes us tick, Rags."

"None of her damn business. She
jes
' better stay out of
my
face, I tell you that."

Jesse laughed. "Or what, Rags? You gonna mess her up?"

Rags gave a series of unhappy grunts. "Well, maybe. I just ain't gonna say."

"You wouldn't hurt a fly," said Jesse, shaking his head.

"You
forgettin
', Jesse?" Rags asked, his mouth grim. "You
forgettin
' I killed a boy?"

"That wasn't killing, Rags. You did the world a service."

"She makes me nervous, that's all. Knows who you are,
where
you are, knows what you done…"

"She won't turn me in. She needs me." Even as he said it, Jesse wondered if it was really true. He had sensed something in Claudia, a desire beyond mere curiosity. He felt almost as though she were still attracted to him, though their affair had ended twelve years before.

When he had first seen her at the agency Christmas party to which she'd been invited, he had been so struck by her that he asked a mutual friend to introduce him. They had chatted, made a movie date, and had become lovers within a month. The relationship, though passionate in the bedroom, was lukewarm elsewhere, and by April had run its course. When Jesse married Donna eighteen months later, he was pleased to hear that Claudia had gotten married as well. Though he had thought of her occasionally over the years, he had not seen her until she sat down next to him on the subway. He found himself wondering if he would have evaded her, had he seen her before she recognized him, and decided that he would have.

The train slowed, and he heard Rags swear beside him.

"What is it?"

"Come on, into the next car." Jesse followed his friend, then looked behind him through several windows to catch a glimpse of a dark blue uniform and the slight flash of a badge. "
Sonovabitch
," Rags muttered. "He gonna follow us straight on through.
Jes
' keep
walkin
', Jesse."

But as quickly as they moved, the transit cop moved faster, until he was less than two cars behind. "We get off?" Jesse asked.

"Not yet, not yet,
jes
' keep
walkin
'."

Suddenly, the pair of doors they were next to began to close. "
Now
," said Rags, squeezing through, Jesse right behind. On the platform, he kept walking toward the rear of the train as all the doors clattered shut and the cars began to move. Rags stopped and heaved a deep breath. "That does it," he said. "Cop's on his way to the next station."

"How'd you see him?"

"Outside. Angled way down. Made out the way he moved.
Nothin
' moves like a cop."

"We've been on the same cars with cops, Rags.”

“Not on this line we ain't."

"Where are we anyway?"

"Utica Avenue station. No Man's Land."

"What do we do?"

"Sit our asses down and wait." Rags plopped down on a bench and Jesse joined him. The station was silent. After twenty minutes they had seen no one, and no other train had come. Then, from far off, they heard footsteps echoing through the tunnel, and saw two men come around the corner. They were as thick-bodied as trees, and their skin had the flat, lusterless brown of the Chicano who never sees sunlight. The larger of the pair carried a child's red plaid book bag in a meaty hand. Despite the heat, they both wore jackets.

When they saw Rags and Jesse, they didn't slow, but walked past them, not even turning to look. At the end of the platform they stopped and stood, not talking.

Soon two more men appeared. They were blacks, and though they were thinner, the tightness of their muscles made them appear no less strong. They too wore jackets, and one of them had a brown parcel whose end boldly protruded from his pocket.

"Oh, fuck me," whispered Rags.

"What?"

"Fuckin' drug deal. Exchange."

"Those guys?" Jesse whispered back, and Rags nodded. "In front of us? Of strangers?"

"We ain't nobody. Even if we was,
this's
all been taken care of. It's a clean place for these bastards.”

“You mean no cops."

"That's right. Thanks to our friend, Montcalm. He sets it all up, the transit cops' ain't here to see
nothin
'."

"Son of a bitch," Jesse said, more in awe at the smoothness of the operation than in anger. "What are they dealing?"

"Smack,
prob'ly
. Maybe this new shit, this crack stuff. Somethin' high-priced. No grass, that's too small potatoes."

Jesse eyed Rags. "How do you know all this?”

“I know. Let's get
outa
here." Rags stood up.

"Why?"

"
Why?
"
Rags's
voice squeaked. "You just look down the tracks at those boys and tell
me
why."

The four men had stopped talking quietly, and were looking up the platform at Rags and Jesse.

"You think we make them nervous?"

"Jesse, don't be an asshole. Let's go."

"Where would we go? You said this is a bad neighborhood."

"Jesse…"

Jesse reeled to his feet, staggered, and clutched at Rags. "
Whatta
fuck," he slurred, "
whatta
fuck they care?" His voice was loud enough for the men to hear, and all four of them tensed. "
Tired!
" Jesse whined, "
Jes
' wanna
siddown
,
f'crissake
." and with a moan he fell back onto the bench, his head rolling for several seconds with the impact.

The men watched for a second longer, then laughed, and directed their attention back to each other. "What the game?" Rags asked.

"I just want to watch, Rags. Maybe go into business."

"
What?
"

"The dope business, Rags."

"You gonna get into the
dead
business, boy! You thinking of messing with them?"

"The cops won't."

Rags stared stonily at Jesse. "You dead and you don't know it. You mess with them, you look at them sideways, and you a dead man."

"I already am. Dead and in hell. That's why it doesn't matter, Rags. Why I'm not scared. They can't do any worse than what's been done. Now. Which
ones'll
have the dope?"

"What you tryin' to prove?"

"Which ones?"

"The spics will. The parcel. Money's in the bag.”

“What are the spics carrying?"

"Huh?"

"You think they have guns?"

Rags snorted angrily. "How the fuck I know?”

“Sons of bitches."

"Come on, Jesse . . ."

"Which one, you think?" Jesse's words were sharp. "If just one had a gun, which one would it be?”

“Shit, I don't know. . ."

"The shorter one, I bet. The little man."

"Yeah, fuck, sure, the little man, sure. Jesse . . ."

Jesse looked at Rags with clear, cold eyes. "Get out, Rags. Get up the stairs. I'm going to make some trouble here. You stay out of it."

Rags didn't argue. He merely shook his massive head, muttered, "Fuckin' crazy . . ." and went toward the stairs from which the Chicanos had come. He looked back once, and disappeared around the corner.

Alone on the bench, Jesse sat and watched the four men at the other end of the platform. Though three of them were talking and examining the contents of the packages, the shorter Chicano was looking down the platform at Jesse. Jesse coughed wetly, spat on the concrete, lowered his head so that it fell between his knees, and did not look back up until he heard footsteps once more. The blacks had vanished around the far corner, and the Chicanos were moving toward Jesse and the stairs beyond him. Jesse coughed again, closing off his throat so that air exploded from his nostrils with a burst of noise that made the smaller man stiffen and slow, then pick up his pace when he noticed that the larger man had paid Jesse no mind.

"Hey," Jesse croaked when the pair was ten feet away. "You guys . . ." He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled sideways, blocking their way. The smaller man said something in Spanish, and put his left hand on Jesse's chest to shove him out of the way.

Jesse grabbed the wrist and hurled the unprepared and off-balance man directly against the dirty tile wall, where his head hit with a loud crack. In an instant, Jesse had ripped open the man's jacket and run his hands over the torso from armpit to waist, where he felt the hard butt of a pistol.

If the big man had not been momentarily stunned by the unexpectedness and ferocity of the attack on his partner, he could easily have brought down Jesse with his own pistol. But he barely had time to yank the .38 from his waistband and begin to aim before the gun in Jesse's hand exploded, sending a bullet into the big man's cheek. His head snapped back, his arms flew up, and his pistol sailed down into the chasm of the tracks.

Jesse's ears felt as if they'd been hammered, and it took all his will to aim and fire again. The second bullet caught the big man, still standing, in the chest. He fell at last, flat on his back, his bleeding head on the yellow warning line at the platform's edge.

Whirling, Jesse thrust the pistol toward the man from whom he had taken it, who was still lying on his stomach where he had fallen. He was beginning to move, placing his hands against the concrete beneath him to push himself up. He froze when he saw his gun in Jesse's hand.

"Give it here," Jesse said, his voice shaking.

Blood trickled down into the man's eyes, but he blinked it away savagely, glared at Jesse, and spat out a burst of Spanish.

"You know what I want," Jesse said more harshly. "Give it." He held the gun straight out in front of him, pointing directly at the man's face.

The man rolled over on his side and spread his arms apart. "Got nothing, man.
He
got it." He pointed to the dead man at the edge of the platform.

Keeping the pistol trained on the living man, Jesse went to the dead one and patted down the body. The packet was in a lined, zippered pocket in the back of the man's jacket, and Jesse, working with one hand, had to rip the cloth to get it out. He tore the tape and pushed back the paper.

There were two long, flat bags of black plastic, inside of which he could feel fine powder. Far down the tracks he heard the approaching roar of a train. It helped him decide what to do.

Jesse pressed the packets under his left arm. "Get up," he told the Chicano, "and come over here." The man got to his feet and, with effort, joined Jesse at the side of the tracks. The sound of the train was growing louder.

"Push him off."