#2 Victor He woke to darkness so complete he was disoriented for a moment, his mind searching the black silence. Finally he stretched cautiously as he remembered where he was. He sat up and felt for the gun where he’d put it between his hip and the wall where he could reach it. He breathed more easily when his hand found it. He slipped it into his belt at the small of his back then stretched again. Cocking his head, he realized that he wasn’t wrapped in complete isolation. The rumble of a train vibrated through the rock of the tunnel walls like the thump of neighbor’s stereo with the base too loud. He pushed back his sleeve and peered at the luminous dial of his watch. Eight o’clock. He hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep, but it was enough, considering. He unzipped the Yankees jacket and reached into one of the pockets of the photographer’s vest under it for the small flashlight. Clicking it on, he untied the end of the rope around his ankle and began to roll it up, crawling behind it out of the coffin-sized pocket off the main cave, where it ended stretched across the entrance behind the burglar alarm pyramid of empty beer cans. There wasn’t much chance any of the wandering underground population of New York’s homeless got this far off the beaten track, but right now, even one person stumbling across him in the dark would be one too many. He stood, stretching again. Most of the cave was high enough for him to stand as long as he didn’t straighten too much. It was colder out here. The damp, underground air felt like it could grow mold on his lungs, but he took a couple of deep breaths to expand his chest, then swung his arms to get the blood circulating. When he began to feel human, he got down the Coleman lamp from the ledge and lit it, then put the mini-flashlight back in the vest pocket. The glow of the lamp spread through the cave. "It’s just like you said, Pop," he murmured. Jeez, how the old man had entertained him and Rick with stories of building the subways. Pop’s last job was this long-awaited but doomed-from-the-start Second Avenue line. Begun back in the 1940’s, it was postponed almost thirty years before it was resurrected briefly then put on permanent hold in ’75. "Not one damned track!" Pop used to yell in the same tone he used when the Yankees lost in extra innings. "Damn murdering politicians, that’s who killed it. Hizzoner, our beloved mayor. ‘Not a priority.’ Not for him when he’s got a car and chauffeur he needs to go somewhere. What does he care he puts six-seven hundred family guys outta work." Pop went to his grave ranting about "his" tunnel. Victor always figured it helped push him into eternity by skyrocketing his blood pressure every time he got riled up about it. Gone more than twenty years now, probably turning in his grave knowing Victor was down here now seeing everything just they way he said. Using the cave his crew had dived into that day when an old rotted beam collapsed and dumped a couple of tons of rock down almost on their heads. "You never seen six guys move so fast!" Pop laughed like the whole thing was big joke on fate because no one got killed. Pop and his partner had found the natural cave in the rock only days before and begun smuggling down six-packs of beer and stashing it in the cave for their breaks. The beer kept the six of them going until the dust settled and they could find a way out. Found it while the rescue effort was still getting organized above ground. Pop would grin and throw out his chest at that point of the story. Houdini couldn’t’ve got out faster!" Outside the cave, Victor felt his way along the wall to a tunnel beam. Good solid steel, this one. One his old man had put it in to replace the original wooden ones. Keeping one hand on it so he wouldn’t get disoriented in the utter blackness, he unzipped his pants and urinated, then walked back to the cave. The angle of the rocks made the light inside impossible to see until you were right on it, He’d checked that last week when he brought down his supplies. Still he’d use any light sparingly. In the pitch-black tunnel, even the glow of a match would carry a long way. He’d considered hanging a blanket over the opening, but it would deaden small sounds in the tunnel. The last thing he needed was to give the advantage of surprise to anyone coming across his hiding place by accident or design. The beauty of this abandoned subway tunnel no one knew about it except a few subway buffs who ran a museum over in the old Court Street station in Brooklyn and the dying breed of old subway workers like Pop. He ate a cold breakfast of cereal and canned milk, using the single-portion box as a bowl and eating fast enough so the milk didn’t leak through. When he finished, he shook out the last drops of moisture and bent the box closed into a tight packet and put it in his pocket so he could toss it in a trash can on the street somewhere. The less litter he had down here the better. No sense laying a trail so the damned rats would find him. Gathering the few things he’d need for the day, he turned out the lamp and used the flashlight to make his way along the tunnel, heading downtown rather than using the crawl space he’d come in through last night. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the Twenty-third Street station. They were probably still cleaning up what was left of the guy who had been unlucky enough to fall in front of a train. Not to mention the homicide crowd that would be combing the area where last night’s shooting happened. He wondered if the cops had connected the two yet. He came out into the daylight at Fourteenth Street. As he walked past a news kiosk on the corner, he glanced at the dailies lined up on the serve-yourself shelf. He forced his feet to keep moving when he saw the Daily News headline in three inch letters: MOB BOSS SHOT. Shot… not slain… He resisted the impulse to buy a paper so he could read the whole story here and now. Union Square Park wasn’t far. He’d be invisible there, blend in with the bums and winos who hung out there, and where some average Joe Citizen would have tossed his already-read newspaper into one of the trash cans. How could the bastard still be alive? Maybe that was an early edition of the paper, the story written by some eager-beaver reporter who got to the scene before Macci was pronounced dead. It would take a while to bleed to death if his ticker or a main artery didn’t take a bullet. If he had lived even five minutes, Victor hoped to hell they were the most painful minutes anyone on the face of the earth ever spent. Fishing coins from his pocket, he bought a cup of steaming coffee from a street vendor near the park, then rescued a copy of The News with only one corner soggy from a trash basket. He sat on an empty bench in the middle of the park a safe distance from the busy sidewalk and skimmed the story. Ambushed…unknown assailant…critical condition….chest and head wounds…under police guard in Bellevue Hospital…passenger identified as Alfie "Fingers" Polk dead…driver seriously wounded, also under police guard…Police fear possible mob war… He sipped coffee then turned pages looking for an article about the dead man in the subway. He didn’t find one. one. He put the paper aside and drank the hot coffee, his gaze scanning passersby and the people in the park. How hard would the cops look for the gunman? Not nearly as hard as Macci’s people would, that was dead sure. He’d pick up the Post this afternoon and read the later coverage. His gaze swept the area again, noting new faces and those who’d been there since he arrived. It paused, went on, then came back to a woman several benches away. Something about her… He slumped and let his head drop forward as if he were sleeping, and studied her through half-closed eyes. She was middle-aged, dressed as if she lived right there on that bench, but he couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong with the picture. She must have raided someone’s rag bag. The pants and shirt were paint-spattered, the shoes, too. The outfit wasn’t anything she would have picked up at charity shelter or a rummage sale. Even the Sally or Goodwill wouldn’t recycle crap as far gone as what she was wearing. But that wasn’t it. He frowned, studying her intently. When she looked around nervously, he sat motionless until her gaze returned to her lap. Her hands! That was it. They didn’t match the rest of her. They were clean, soft looking, and the nails manicured. When she moved, the sun glinted on the pearly pale pink polish. Interesting. And curious. He glanced at her face again, trying to think where he might have seen her. Wherever it was, it was a long time ago or he’d be able to bring a picture into focus. He didn’t know her, he was sure of that much, but neither was she someone who’d passed by only once. Could she be an undercover cop? He worried that possibility for a few minutes then discarded it. Someone on the force wouldn’t overlook a detail like the hands. Her hair wasn’t right, either. She wore some kind of bandana over it, but a neat fringe of gray-brown permanent showed along the edge. When she picked up her plastic WIZ bag and shuffled off, he watched her head west on Sixteenth Street. He was almost curious enough to follow to see where she went, but he stayed where he was for several minutes after she was out of sight. He had things to do. The first was to make sure Rick was far enough away from any lethal fallout from last night before he moved to step two of his plan.