38

“Mooney,” I said urgently, moving forward in my seat until he had to meet my eyes or turn his face to avoid me, “I’m trusting you on this.”

“Carlotta, the bastard isn’t giving us a hell of a lot to work with.” His voice was flat and lifeless. I remembered hearing it like that before, when he’d phoned the wife of a young cop wounded in action. His colorless monotone gave nothing away, surely not the deathbed gravity of the rookie’s condition.

We were parked in an unmarked unit on Boston Common, outside the entryway to Park Street Station, largest and busiest of Boston’s subway stations. Shoppers lined up for tokens at the outside booth; more swarmed down the steps to take places in another line inside. The newsstand vendors grabbed quarters and dispatched folded Globes and open tabloid Heralds. The Fens serial killer was still front-page stuff. Hot-dog and balloon men sold their wares to hordes of tourists. Mooney was behind the wheel. I rode shotgun. Ana was in the backseat, sandwiched between Joanne Triola and a scowling Walter Jamieson.

Harry Clinton’s call had come an endless ten minutes late. By that time Mooney was seated next to me at the kitchen table, the phone was tapped, and a horde of headphoned technicians lurked outside in a phone-company truck, bent over high-tech consoles, trying to trace the call. It was a crazy long shot, but nobody wanted to let the chance to shake out the equipment go by.

“Keep him on the line,” Walter Jamieson had urged when the phone finally sounded. He was sitting across from me at the table. I wasn’t pleased about having him, but Mooney’d brought him along.

It was a dumb thing to say. I knew I was supposed to keep the creep talking.

I’d tried, but he wasn’t in the mood. “Have the girl at Park Street Station, three this afternoon, first level outbound, where the C train loads. The station has to stay open. Any barricades, any construction work, anything unusual, the deal’s off. You walk Ana in. No guns. No cops. You’ll get instructions.”

“Let me—”

He’d hung up and I’d finished saying “talk to Paolina” in my head.

His voice had been projected on a speaker, so I hadn’t needed to repeat the message. He’d sounded brisk and efficient. None of the mania of the earlier call showed, none of the frayed nerves.

“Cool,” Jamieson had observed. “Very much in control.”

“If he was in control, he’d be gone,” Mooney’d said. “This stunt is crazy. He’ll never get away.”

“He will if it’s a choice between him and Paolina,” I’d snapped. “I wish I’d stayed the hell out of this.”

I wished I’d raced to the cops the minute I’d heard about the Hunneman plant. But I’d been afraid I’d lose Paolina, afraid Marta would carry out her threat and move away if the factory closed.

I might lose Paolina anyway, I thought.

“I’ll remind you the next time.” Mooney must have seen the look on my face. His voice petered out and he’d averted his eyes, staring at his wrist-watch as if it had secrets written across the dial.

“Three o’clock. Right at the beginning of the Park Street rush,” he’d commented gloomily. “We can rule out firepower. The commissioner gets flack for high-speed chases on deserted highways. He’s not going to go for staging some High Noon shootout at Park Street Station.”

“Clinton’s one smart, crazy bastard,” Jamieson had said admiringly.

“Maybe if you’d mentioned you suspected him—” I’d said.

“Maybe if you’d told us anything—”

“Shut up,” Mooney had thundered. “We haven’t got the time.”

We didn’t. We had less than three hours.

Mooney worked the telephone, notifying the INS and the FBI and the commissioner’s office, bringing in only those who needed to know, only those he trusted most. A slow infiltration of the subway stop began—a vendor here, a cleaner there.

“Not too many cleaners,” I protested. “He’ll know they’re phonies.”

The rep from the MBTA looked up indignantly. Mooney placed a restraining hand on my arm.

Marta was at Lilia’s. At first I hadn’t wanted to tell her. What’s the use? I’d said, bad news keeps. I’d almost felt she didn’t deserve the truth, not after deceiving Paolina for so long. But she had a right to know, a mother’s right to worry.

Mooney sent in people disguised as train conductors and token dispensers, but only at shift change or lunch break, only when the regular employee could be intercepted and fed some plausible lie about not being needed.

“He’s smart,” Jamieson kept saying. “Look what he’s done so far.”

“Right,” I snapped.

“I don’t mean the killings,” he said quickly. “But the rest—that was neatly done, you got to admit. He must have made a mint bringing in aliens, collecting from them for the trip, then hitting up employers desperate for cheap labor, collecting for protection.”

“He wasn’t as smart as Manuela Estefan,” I said defiantly.

But he was. He was alive. She was dead.

Jamieson cleared his throat. “Anyhow, what I meant to say is that he’ll check out the area, go downstairs, wait for a few trains, see if everything’s running right. Anything out of the ordinary, he’s gone.”

And the beauty of Park Street as a switch point was that he could go just about anywhere. Down to the lower level and out through any one of half a dozen exits. Onto his choice of Green Line or Red Line trains. Inbound, outbound. Through tunnels, up steps, across tracks.

“Carlotta,” Mooney said at about a quarter to three, startling me out of my trance, “take Ana for a little walk. Back in ten minutes.”

“Huh?”

“He could be out there now. Here on the Common. I want him to see her with you. You can test the wire.”

I shrugged. It didn’t make much sense to me, but I was itchy from the enforced idleness of the car, willing to do anything to stretch my legs.

“We may take off, but we’ll be back here in ten,” Mooney promised. “Don’t go downstairs until you check in with me.”

Ana and I got out and walked toward the Park Street fountain. The brass basin was dry, the way it is most of the year, with the carved fishes gasping their surprise instead of spouting water. A rain-coated man with a wireless mike called sinners to repent for the love of sweet Jesus Christ. Nobody paid him any more attention than they’d pay a strolling violinist in a crowded restaurant.

I wondered for the seventeenth time about a gun. I’d decided not to take one. Because I was afraid I’d use it. A subway station is no place for guns. If I had one, I might rely on it. I might lose my self-control, endanger Paolina—I knew all the goddamned reasons, and my hand still ached for a weapon.

“You okay?” I asked Ana. Dumb question. I asked it to see if the techs could pick up what I was saying.

“Sí.”

The man she feared most in the world was waiting down in the guts of the station for her. Sure, she was okay.

The wire worked fine above ground. It was underground that static ruled. Mooney said it might work. It was worth the chance.

It wasn’t worth wiring Ana. It would just make killing and dumping her quickly more attractive to Clinton. So it was up to me to keep the cops informed while convincing Clinton the cops were nowhere around.

On the main path across the Common, two tall black guys ran the regular three-card monte scam. The faces changed from year to year, the game remained the same. I did a quick crowd scan, picked out the shill in maybe ten seconds. He glanced up and recognized me from my cop days, grinned hesitantly, relaxed as I strolled on by.

We retraced our steps and circled the fountain twice. The sky was clear blue broken by wisps of cirrus. The church steeple was dazzlingly white. All the sounds seemed muted, separate. I felt like I was walking in fog, like no one could see me. People rushed by and I wondered if anyone could read the horrors in my mind. I wondered if Harry Clinton could see us, perched somewhere in the distance, eyes glued to binoculars. I wondered which of the hot-dog vendors was a cop.

I wondered where the wire techs were. No telephone trucks. Clinton would have been on to that in a flash.

The car pulled up in front of us. I put a cold hand on Ana’s arm and without another word we walked toward it. I got in the front door. Ana got in the back.

“Madre de Dios,” she muttered, inhaling sharply.

Jamieson was no longer in the backseat. Instead there sat a woman who could have been Ana’s twin. Her sister, at least, I thought, staring at her more closely.

“What the hell?” I said to Mooney. “Oh, no, this isn’t going to—”

“Carlotta.” It was Joanne Triola talking now. “This is Sergeant Ramirez, on loan from Lowell. We weren’t sure we could get her here in time. She’s undercover Narcotics.”

She was wearing the same green blouse, the same rust-colored skirt. Ana was removing her raincoat, handing it over.

“Her height and weight are almost the same. She’s wearing a wig. No way is Clinton going to spot the substitution.”

“Mooney,” I protested, “you promised. Nothing funny until Paolina’s away.”

“I can’t give him Ana,” Mooney said.

“Mooney—”

“He needs distance, Carlotta. To get away. He’s not going to get close to you. It’s too goddamn dangerous for him. From a distance she’s perfect. Just keep the bastard at a distance.”

“Yeah, but …” I began, thinking of a hundred, a thousand, a million things that could blow up in my face, in Paolina’s face.

“It’s time.”

“Goddammit, you could have told me before. You should have said—”

“What good would it have done, Carlotta?” Joanne chimed in. “This is the way it’s going to be.”

Ana was staring at her look-alike, her savior. The two of them rattled away in Spanish. Ana’s eyes lost their haunted look.

Mooney said, “You okay, Ramirez?”

“Ready.”

The church clock tolled three.

“You’re on,” Mooney said.

The two of us got out of the car. Me from the front seat, her from the rear. Just like last time. Except different.

We waited in line, bought our tokens, went downstairs. Ramirez huddled into Ana’s raincoat.

I blinked, heading from the bright daylight into the artificial cave. The stairs were jammed with people and I kept my gaze on those closest. I didn’t want Clinton edging up to me before I was ready, seeing the fake Ana. How well had he known the woman? God, if he’d had sex with her at that camp in Texas, I hoped he’d done it in the dark.

I stared at Ramirez. Ana’s face was a little broader, younger. They both had round brown eyes. The hair was perfect.

We pushed through the turnstiles alongside shoppers hefting paper bags, students with backpacks, suited businessmen stealing an early march on the commuter crowds.

The C trains, heading outbound to Cleveland Circle, loaded on the right side of the main platform, halfway down, in front of a refreshment stand that sold newspapers, doughnuts, coffee, popcorn. I took a deep breath. The popcorn oil smelled rancid.

Ramirez and I took up a position in front of the stand. She turned automatically to face me. It was a good move, averting her face from the majority of the crowd. I wanted to ask her first name. It didn’t seem like the time or place for small talk.

After eight minutes that felt like eight hours, a young black kid in a leather jacket came up to me and said, “You Carlotta?”

I nodded. He handed me a folded sheet of paper and ran off.

I read the typed instructions aloud. I didn’t have much faith in the wire. The train noise was deafening. I could barely hear myself.

The note said, “You and the girl board the next train. Stand rear door right side. Both hands on pole. Don’t talk to strangers. Get off at Arlington. Bring this message with you.”

So much for crumpling the note and throwing it on the ground for one of Mooney’s cleaners to find. If the wire wasn’t working, nobody would know where we’d gone.

A young man was pushing a broom nearby. I said to Ramirez, “We’re going to Arlington.” The broom pusher didn’t look up. I hoped he’d heard. I hoped he was one of Mooney’s guys.

The next train was crowded. We had to push and shove our way on. An elderly lady glared at me as I shoved past her. I kept an arm on Ramirez’s shoulder. We didn’t speak. I wondered how much they’d had time to tell her.

More people piled on at Boylston. I was still busy examining the crowd that had boarded at Park and previous points. Clinton wasn’t on the train, not standing up anyway. Maybe seated behind the barrier of torsos. Maybe in another car. Maybe already at Arlingon. I hoped so. Distance, keep him at a distance.

I thought of all the cleverly concealed cops watching the exits from Park Street. Would Mooney blow their cover and try to run them over to Arlington? How many exits were there from that station? Damn near as many. Four on the corner of Boylston and Arlington. Then there was the tunnel to Berkeley Street. And the trains.

We got off with a burst of others at Arlington, stood while the crowd rushed around us, some making for the exits, some piling onto the train. A hand touched me from behind. I whirled, saw nothing, heard a voice from the level of my waistline.

A small boy tugged at my shirt. “Man said give you this.”

Again a sheet of paper. I read it aloud. If Clinton was watching, I hoped he’d think I was reading it to Ana.

“‘Look across the tracks.’”

I stopped, did. They were there. He had Paolina by the hand.

“‘Look across the tracks,’” I said again. “‘Walk up the staircase, stay at the top where I can see you. I’ll send Paolina when you send the girl. Then go back down and get on first train.’”

Damn. I glanced to my left. The staircase loomed some sixty feet away. There was an identical staircase on Clinton’s side of the tracks. Both led to the fare collector’s plaza, a concrete island the width of the subway tunnel. I remembered the setup at Arlington Street; the staircase landings were only forty feet apart. I stole a glance at Ramirez.

Why couldn’t we pull the switch now, me sending the fake Ana up the stairs, him parting with Paolina at the same time?

I answered my own question. Because that way both Ana and Paolina would be out of sight for a few seconds during the crossover, because Ramirez could grab Paolina, take shelter in a fare collector’s booth, run for an exit.

We started to walk toward the stairs. Ramirez stayed to my left. It looked natural, and I silently applauded her for keeping out of clear sight. But once upstairs, at forty feet, maybe less …

I wondered if Ramirez was armed, wired. Hell, I didn’t know anything. Damn Mooney. Damn their convenient timing. The staircase seemed to stretch forever. I kept my eyes right, focused across the tracks where Clinton and Paolina were mimicking our movements. He had his hand in the pocket of his light jacket. The pocket bulged.

There was a very brief moment when we lost sight of each other. I said “Staircase, Arlington Street Station. Gun in jacket pocket” as fast and as loud as I could.

Then I could see him again. He clutched Paolina by the hand, yanking her along in front of him. He paused at the top of the steps and we faced each other across the span. Too close, I thought despairingly.

Someone jostled me from behind, snapped “Excuse me.” Throngs of rushing homeward-bound commuters tried to shove Ramirez and me aside. I didn’t want to take any more steps forward. I grabbed the fake Ana and we dodged to the left. The station was dense with people. I stared across the too-narrow gulf and saw that Clinton was having as much trouble as I was with the shoving, rushing pedestrians. He was trying to keep a firm grip on Paolina, on the gun in his pocket, and still get a clear view of Ana. I could see him easily, but then we were both taller than the crowd. Paolina was practically invisible. Ana must have been nearly as hard to see.

I held my breath.

The noise level increased threefold as a rush of local high-school kids, freed from class, poured down the stairs and through the turnstiles, waving their T passes, moving to deafening rap music from a red-lining boom box. Instead of neatly splitting between the two staircases, heading inbound or outbound, they stood mid-platform, arguing and gesturing, finishing off some school dispute.

I could barely see Clinton. I heard him shout. Then I saw Paolina twisting and weaving through the crowd. Clinton yanked something from his pocket and I yelled “Down!” I hollered at full volume, with desperation behind the shout, but my voice was lost in the uproar.

Paolina was a just a flash between somebody’s legs, trying to push her way through to me. I could see that her mouth was open, but I couldn’t tell if she was screaming or what she was screaming. Clinton raised his weapon. He wasn’t sighting on Paolina. I turned and knocked Ramirez to the ground.

The first shot brought silence, the second panic. Paolina was in front of me, her arms wrapped around me, almost knocking me over. I whirled and thrust her behind me, pushing her down two steps behind a cement barrier.

“Stay here,” I yelled. “Let go.”

I stood and surveyed chaos. One of the school-kids was down. I couldn’t see Ramirez. Clinton turned, stuffed his gun back in his pocket, joined the race downstairs. Bewildered commuters stood and screamed. Guards in MBTA uniform swarmed and shouted. I caught a glimpse of Ramirez hauling herself to her feet. There was blood high on the shoulder of Ana’s raincoat. She had a gun in her hand. She sank back on the ground. I yelled, “Officer down! Officer in need of assistance!” as loudly as I could, praying somebody was picking up something from the damn machine strapped tight to my ribs. Then I pushed in close to her, grabbed the gun from her unresisting hand, and plunged through the crowd, down the staircase, after Harry Clinton.

“Get down! Get out of the way!” The stolid citizens on the staircase had no eyes, no ears. They hadn’t heard shots, just backfires, hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, just a guy racing to catch some train. Damn inconsiderate of people, rushing around, shoving on a staircase. Somebody could get hurt, dammit.

I kept the automatic at my side, pointed at the ground, invisible. Ramirez had already clicked the safety off. From ten steps up I surveyed the station platform. It was a blur, a whirl of shapes and colors. My eyes picked out bits of movement. A boy grabbed his father’s hand. A flash of red turned into a young woman’s scarf. Blue was a book bag, an umbrella. Most of the faces were in profile or turned three-quarters away, gazing down the tunnel for the headlight of the train. Where was he? Racing for the Berkeley Street exit? On a train back to Park Street? Behind a pillar? My breath was coming in starts and stops. The train rumble hammered my ears. My hand shook. I wanted to shoot the bastard, kill him. Shoot bullet after bullet into his dying body, yelling their names, Manuela, Aurelia, Delores, Amalia—

An Arborway–Huntington train lurched into the station. I watched the doors part, spilling new innocents onto the platform. I knew if I saw Clinton, I’d never get a clear shot off. I’d hit some poor kid reaching for his father’s hand.

I remembered Ramirez, bleeding on the ground. And the anonymous kid who’d fallen. And Paolina, crouched on the staircase, vulnerable.

I swallowed and shoved the safety on the automatic. My mouth tasted like metal. I crammed the gun in my pocket, turned, and raced back up the stairs, making myself small against the banister, pushing against the crowd every step of the way. The sound of approaching sirens added to the cacophony.

Paolina was where I’d left her, eyes wide and staring. A gray-haired woman was trying to comfort her, but Paolina was deaf to her soothing words. She moaned softly. I knelt in front of her, called her name. Her eyes focused slowly on my face, and then she was in my arms. I picked her up, and it seemed as if she had no weight. She crushed the transmitter into my ribs and the pain felt good.