From Potter's Field

20

The March Against Crime began on time with fifteen church groups and a miscellaneous contingent of men, women and children who wanted to take their neighborhoods back. The weather had worsened and snow blew on frigid winds that drove more people into taxis and the subways because it was too cold to walk.

At two-fifteen, Lucy, Commander Pe

'Why hasn't anyone called?' Lucy complained.

'He hasn't been sighted,' said Commander Pe

'I assume the parade has started,' I said.

Commander Pe

She and Lucy were wearing headphones that plugged into the base station on the console. They were on different cha

'All right, all right,' Commander Pe

Then the number seven platform was on black-and-white TV. We watched a figure in a long dark coat. He wore boots, a hat and dark glasses, and stood back from other passengers at the platform's edge. Lucy brought up another subway survey on the screen as Commander Pe

'Which way is he bound?' I asked.

'South. He's coming this way,' Commander Pe

'He's on the A line,' Lucy said, studying her monitors. '

'Right.' Commander Pe

Lucy said, 'We'll check one station after another.

We don't know where he might get off. But he's got to get off somewhere so he can go back into the tu

'He has to do that if he comes in the Second Avenue way,' Commander Pe

Lucy manipulated the closed-circuit television monitors. At rapid intervals they showed a different station as a train we could not see headed toward us.

'He's not at Forty-second,' she said. 'We don't see him at Pe

Monitors blinked on and off, showing platforms and people who did not know they were being watched.

'If he stayed on that train he should be at Fourteenth Street,' Commander Pe

But if he was, he did not disembark, or at least we did not see him. Then our luck suddenly changed in an unexpected way.

'My God,' Lucy said. 'He's at Grand Central Station. How the hell did he get there?'

'He must have turned east before we thought he would and cut through Times Square,' Commander Pe

'But why?' Lucy said. 'That doesn't make sense.'

Commander Pe

'No, there's been no call,' came Wesley's reply.

'Our monitors have just picked him up at Grand Central,' she explained.

'What?'

'I don't know why he's gone that way. But there are so many alternative routes he could take. He could get off anywhere for any reason.'

'I'm afraid so,' Wesley said.

'What about in South Carolina?' Commander Pe

'Everything's ten-four. The bird has flown and landed,' Wesley said.

Mrs. Gault had wired the money, or the Bureau had. We watched while her only son casually rode with other people who did not know he was a monster.

'Wait a minute,' Commander Pe

It drove me crazy that we could not stop him. We could see him and yet it did no good.

'It sounds like he's changing trains a lot,' Wesley said.

Commander Pe

The train's stopping,' Lucy a

We watched people in the monitors and did not see Gault.

'All right, he must be staying on,' Commander Pe

'We've lost him,' Lucy said.

She changed pictures like a frustrated person flipping television cha

'Shit,' she muttered.

'Where could he be?' The commander was baffled. 'He's got to get out somewhere. If he's going into the pharmacy, he can't use the exit at Cooper Union.' She looked at Lucy. 'That's it. Maybe he's going to try. But he won't get out. It's bolted. But he might not know.'

She said. 'He's got to know. He read the electronic messages we sent.'

She sca

'Damn,' Lucy said. 'He should be on the number six line. Let's look at Astor Place and Lafayette again.'

It did no good.

We sat without talking for a while, looking at the shut wooden door that led into our empty station. Above us, hundreds of people were walking sodden streets to demonstrate they were fed up with crime. I began looking at a subway map.

Commander Pe

A terrible thought occurred to me. 'He could do the same thing here. We're not as close to the pharmacy, but we're on the number six line too.'

'Yeah,' Lucy said, turning around to look at me. 'The walk from here to Houston is nothing.'

'But we're closed,' I said.

Lucy was typing again.

I got up out of my chair and looked at Commander Pe

'Base station to unit two,' Lucy was saying into the radio.

'Unit two,' Wesley said.

'Everything ten-four? Because we've lost him.'

'Stand by.'

I opened my briefcase and got out my gun. I cocked it and pushed on the safety.

'What's your ten-twenty?' Commander Pe

'Holding steady at the pharmacy.'

Screens were flashing by crazily as Lucy tried to locate Gault.

'Hold on. Hold on,' Wesley's voice came over the air.

Then we heard Marino. 'It looks like we've got him.'

'You've got him?' Commander Pe

'He's walking into the pharmacy.' Wesley was back. 'Wait a minute. Wait a minute.'

There was silence. Then Wesley said, 'He's at the counter getting the money. Stand by.'

We waited in frantic silence.

Three minutes passed. Wesley was back on the air. 'He's leaving. We're going to close in once he gets inside the terminal. Stand by.'

'What's he wearing?' I asked. 'Are we sure it's the person who got on at the museum?'

Nobody paid me any mind.

'Oh Christ,' Lucy suddenly exclaimed, and we looked at the monitors.

We could see the platforms of Second Avenue station, and HRT exploding out of the darkness of the tracks. Dressed in black fatigues and combat boots, they ran across the platform and up steps leading to the street.

'Something's gone wrong,' Commander Pe

Voices ricocheted on the radio.

'We've got him.'

'He's trying to run.'

'Okay, okay, we've got his gun. He's down.'

'Have you got him cuffed?'

A siren went off inside the control room. Lights along the ceiling began flashing blood red, and a red code 429 began flashing on a computer screen.

'Mayday!' Commander Pe

'What's happening?' Lucy demanded into the radio.

'I don't know,' Wesley's voice crackled. 'Something's wrong. Stand by.'

'That's not where it is. The Mayday isn't at Second Avenue station,' Commander Pe

'Davila?' I said numbly. 'Jimmy Davila?'

'He was unit four twenty-nine. That's his code. It hasn't been reassigned. It's right here.'

We stared at the screen. The flashing red code was changing locations along a computerized grid. I was shocked no one had thought of it before.

'Was Davila's radio with him when his body was found?' I asked.

Commander Pe

'Gault's got it,' I said. 'He's got Davila's radio.'

Wesley's voice came back, and he could not know of our difficulty. He could not know about the Mayday.

'We're not sure we have him,' Wesley said. 'We're not sure who we have.'

Lucy intensely looked over at me. 'Carrie,' she said. 'They're not sure if they have her or Gault. She and Gault are probably dressed alike again.'

Inside our small control room with no windows and no people nearby, we watched the flashing red Mayday code move along the computer screen, getting closer to where we sat.

It's in the southbound tu

'She didn't get the messages we sent.' Lucy had it figured out.

'She?' Commander Pe

'She doesn't know about the parade or that Second Avenue is closed,' Lucy went on. 'She may have tried the emergency exit in the alleyway and couldn't get out because it's been bolted. So she just stayed under and has been moving around since we sighted her at Grand Central Station.'

'We didn't see Gault or Carrie on the platforms of the stations closer to us,' I said. 'And you don't know it's her.'

'There are so many stations,' Commander Pe

'Gault sent her to the pharmacy for him,' I said, more u

'CAIN,' Lucy muttered.

'Yes. That and he's probably been watching.'

Lucy had our location, the Bleecker Street local stop, on closed-circuit TV. Three of the monitors showed the platform and turnstiles from different angles, but one monitor was dark.