Reliquary

“Into the pipe,” Smithback whispered. He pushed Duffy inside, then wriggled in himself, tossing the lighted flashlight into the stream before retreating into the darkness.

“Are you crazy? You just threw away—”

“It’s plastic,” Smithback said. “It’ll float. I’m hoping they’ll follow the light downstream.”

They sat in absolute silence. The thick walls of the gauging machinery muffled the tu

The foul goatish reek was thick now, and Smithback shut his eyes tightly. In the blackness to his rear, Duffy was trembling violently.

He heard splashes in the water outside the station as the things milled about. There was a low noise that sounded like snuffling, and Smithback froze, remembering the Mbwun beast’s keen sense of smell. The splashing continued. Then—with an enormous feeling of relief—Smithback heard it begin to retreat. The things were continuing down the tu

He breathed slowly and deeply, counting each breath. At thirty, he turned to Duffy. “Which way to the storm drains?”

“Out the far end,” Duffy whispered.

“Let’s go.”

Carefully, they turned around within the cramped, fetid space and began wriggling their way toward the rear of the pipe. Duffy emerged at last into the open air. Smithback heard first one, then both, of the engineer’s feet drop into the water, and was wriggling forward himself when a sudden piercing scream cut through the pitch black, and a spray too thick and warm to be water spattered his face. He backed frantically into the pipe.

“Help!” Duffy blurted suddenly. “No, please don’t, you’re go

The voice changed suddenly to a frenzied wet wheeze, then died beneath the heavy thrashing of water. Smithback, scrambling backward in mindless terror, heard a thudding sound like meat chopped with a cleaver, followed by the knuckle-crack of bones being wrenched from their sockets.

Smithback fell out the near end of the pipe, landed on his back in the stream, scrambled to his feet and ran blindly down the side tu

= 55 =

WITHIN AN HOUR of its spontaneous flare-up, the riot along Central Park South had begun to sputter fitfully. Well before 11:00 P.M., most of the initial rioters had spent their anger along with their energy. Those who had been hurt were helped to the sidelines. Shouting, insults, and threats began to replace fists, clubs, and stones. However, a hard central core of violence continued. As people left the scene, bruised or exhausted, others arrived: some curious, some angry, some drunk and spoiling for a fight. Television reports waxed lurid and hysterical. Word traveled like an electric spark through the island: up First and Second Avenues, where young Republicans gathered in singles bars to jeer and hoot at the liberal President; along St. Mark’s Place and into the Marxist corners of the East Village; over fax lines and telephone lines. As word spread, so did the rumors. Some said that the homeless and those that tried to help them were being massacred in a police-instigated genocide. Others said that leftist radicals and criminal mobs were burning banks, shooting citizens, and looting businesses uptown. Those that answered this call to action ran into—sometimes brutally—the last pockets of homeless that were still streaming to the surface, emerging here and there around Central Park, fleeing the trapped and spreading tear gas.

The original vanguard of Take Back Our City—the Brahmins of New York wealth and influence—had quickly retreated from the scene. Most had returned to their townhouses and duplexes in dismay. Others had massed toward the Great Lawn, assuming the police would quickly quell the rioting and hoping that the final vigil would go on as pla

The police moved against the rioters with caution. Already spread too thin by the massive rousting operation, much of the force was late on the scene of the riot. The police brass was all too keenly aware that influential people might still be among the milling throng, and the idea of gassing or clubbing a member of the New York elite was not something the politically conscious mayor would allow. In addition, a large body of officers had to be dispatched to patrol the adjoining areas of the city, where sporadic looting and vandalism was now being reported. And in the backs of everyone’s minds lay the unspoken, but dreaded, spectacle of the Crown Heights riot of a few years before, which had gone on for three days before finally drawing to an uneasy close.

Hayward watched as the emergency medical crew rolled Beal into the waiting ambulance. The back legs of the stretcher folded up as the officer was slid inside. Beal groaned, then raised a hand toward his bandaged head.

“Careful,” Hayward snapped to the paramedic. She put a hand on one of the rear doors and leaned inside. “How you doing?” she asked.

“Been better,” Beal said with a weak smile.

Hayward nodded. “You’ll be fine.” She turned to go.

“Sergeant?” Beal said. Hayward paused. “That bastard Miller would have left me there to find my own way out. Or to drown, maybe. I think I owe you guys my life.”

“Forget it,” Hayward said. “It’s part of the job. Right?”

“Maybe,” Beal said. “But anyway, I won’t forget. Thanks.”

Hayward left Beal with the paramedic and walked around to the driver’s seat. “What’s the news?” she asked.

“What do you want to hear?” the driver asked, scribbling on a log sheet. “Gold futures? The international situation?”

“Take your act to the Poconos,” she replied. “I’m talking about this.” And she waved her hand along Central Park West.

A surreal quiet lay over the dark scene. Except for emergency vehicles and the police cars stationed at every other cross street, there was no traffic on the immediate blocks. Pools of darkness dotted the avenue; a mere handful of streetlights remained unbroken, sizzling and sputtering. The broad avenue was dotted with chunks of concrete, broken glass, and trash. Farther to the south, Hayward noticed, the flashing lights grew much more numerous.

“Where you been?” the driver asked. “Unless you spent the last hour at the center of the earth, it was pretty hard to miss the action around here.”

“You’re not that far wrong,” she said. “We’ve been clearing out the homeless underneath the Park. There was resistance. This guy got wounded, and it took us a long time to extract him. We were pretty deep underground, and we didn’t want to jostle him too much. Okay? We came up five minutes ago at the Seventy-second Street station, only to find a ghost town around here.”

“Clearing out the homeless?” the driver asked. “So you’re the ones responsible.”