Hosts, Page 2

  Sandy slid to his left, leaving half of his butt off the edge of the seat to give her plenty of room. She took the bait and slipped in next to him. She didn't look at him, simply opened her book and began to read.

  Instead of rejoicing, Sandy felt his insides tighten. What now? What to say?

  Relax, he told himself. Just take a deep breath, figure out what you can about her, and see if you can find some common ground.

  Easy to say, but so hard to do. At least for Sandy. He'd never done too well with women. He'd been to a couple of the campus counselors when he was a student and they'd both said the same thing: fear of rejection.

  As if someone needed a Ph.D. to tell him that. Of course he feared rejection. Nobody in the whole damn world liked rejection, but that didn't seem to stop people from courting it by coming on to each other with the lamest, sappiest lines. So why did the mere possibility of rejection paralyze him? The counselors liked to tell him the why of the fear didn't matter so much as overcoming it.

  Okay, he thought. Let's overcome this. What have we got here? We've got a book-reading Goth chick heading uptown on the 9 express. Got to be a student. Probably Barnard.

  As the train lurched into motion again, he checked out her book: Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut.

  Bingo. Film student. Columbia.

  Okay. Here goes.

  He wet his lips, swallowed, took that deep breath…

  "Going for your film M.F.A., right?" he said.

  And waited.

  Nothing. She didn't turn her head, didn't even blink. She did move, but just to turn the page of her book. He might as well have used sign language on a blind person.

  But he knew he hadn't imagined speaking, knew he must have been audible because the GPM opened one of his eyes for a two-second look his way, then closed it again. Reminded Sandy of Duffy, their family cat: a one-eyed glance—two would require too much energy—was the only acknowledgment that chunky old torn granted when someone new entered his presence.

  So now what? He felt like he was back in high school after asking some girl if she wanted to dance and she'd just said no. That had happened only once but that once had been enough to stop him from ever asking anyone again. Should he retreat now? Slink away and hide his head? Or push it?

  Push it.

  He raised his voice. "I said, are you going for your film M.F.A.?"

  She looked up, glanced at him with dark brown eyes for maybe a whole millisecond, then went back to her book.

  "Yes," she said, but she spoke to the book.

  "I like Hitchcock," he told her.

  Again to the book: "Most people do."

  This was going nowhere fast. Maybe she'd warm up if she knew he'd gone to Columbia, too.

  "I graduated from the School of Journalism a couple of years ago."

  "Congratulations."

  That did it, Sandy, he thought. That broke the ice. She's really hot for you now. Shit, why didn't you just keep your mouth shut?

  He racked his brain for another line. He'd already been given the cold shoulder; nothing left to lose now. He'd swum beyond his point of no return, so he had to keep going. She was either going to let him drown in a sea of rejection or send him a lifeboat.

  He smiled. Just the kind of crappy imagery his journalism professors had tried to scour from his brain. One had even told him he wrote the most cliché-ridden prose he'd ever read. But what was the big deal about cliches? They served a purpose in journalism, especially tabloid journalism. Readers understood them, expected them, and probably felt something was missing if they didn't run across a couple.

  The sudden blast of music from the front of the car cut off the thought. Sandy looked around and saw that the wild-haired guy in the fatigue jacket had turned on his boom box and cranked it up to full volume. It was pumping out a sixties tune Sandy half knew—"Time Has Come Today" by the Something-or-other Brothers.

  Back to the film student. Maybe he should dazzle her by mentioning his great job at the city's most infamous weekly tabloid, The Light, where his degree from one of the country's great journalism programs landed him an entry-level position one step above the janitorial staff—except in pay. Or how he's been doing interviews at every other paper around the city trying to move up from The Light and no one's calling back. That'll impress her.

  Oh, hell, go for gold and let her put you out of your misery.

  "What's your name?"

  Without missing a beat she said, "Lina Wertmuller."

  Not just unfriendly, she thinks I'm an idiot. Well two can play that game.

  Sandy stuck out his hand. "Glad to meet you, Lina. I'm Henry Louis Mencken, but you can call me H. L."

  To Sandy's shock she lifted her head and laughed. He'd made a funny and she'd laughed. What a wonderful sound, even if he could barely hear it over the blasting music.

  And then the name of the group behind the song came to him: the Chambers Brothers.

  Suddenly—other sounds. Shouts, cries, screams, and people stumbling, scrambling past him in a mad rush toward the rear end of the car.

  "It's time now!" cried a voice. "Yes, it's time."

  Sandy turned and saw the Asian in the fatigue jacket standing before the door at the front end of the car. His black eyes were mad, endlessly, vacantly mad, and he clutched in each hand a black pistol that seemed too long and too thick in the barrel. Then Sandy realized they were equipped with silencers.

  Oh, Christ, he thought, shock launching him to his feet, he's going to start shooting.

  And then he saw the bodies and the blood and knew that the shooting had already begun. Images flashed through his instantly adrenalized brain as he turned to run—not everyone from the front of the car had made it to the rear; the first to be shot lay where they'd fallen…

  … like the Korean guy, maybe Sandy's age, with rust-colored hair and a Nike swoosh on his cap, sprawled on the red-splattered floor, facing Sandy with his headphones still on his ears, blood leaking from his nose, and black eyes staring into the beyond…

  … like the heavy black woman in the two-piece sleeveless gray suit over a black polka dotted white blouse with starched pristine cuffs, lying face down, still twitching as the last of her life ran out from under her wig and stained the copy of Rolie Polie Olie that had spilled from her Barnes and Noble bag…

  … or the others who'd hit the deck and now huddled and crouched and cringed between seats, holding up their hands palm out as if to stop the bullets, and pleading for mercy…

  But they were asking the wrong guy, because the man with the guns was tuned to some other frequency as he shuffled along the aisle, swinging his pistols left and right and pumping bullets through the silencers. Phut!… phut!… phut! The sounds barely audible through the music as slugs tore into heads and tear-stained faces, sometimes right through the supplicating hands. He moved without the slightest hint of urgency, looking for all the world like a suburban homeowner on a sunny Saturday morning strolling his lawn with a can of herbicide and casually spraying the weeds he passed.

  And somewhere up there, up front, someone's bowels had let loose and the stink was filling the car.

  Brain screaming in panic, Sandy ducked and swung around and saw the GPM crouched behind his seat, facing the rear of the car, and he must have lost it because he was shouting something that sounded like, "Doesn't anyone have a goddamn gun?"

  Yeah, asshole! Sandy wanted to say. The guy standing in the aisle has two, and he's coming your way!

  Turning further Sandy came face to face with Lina or whoever she was and knew the naked fear in her blanched face must have mirrored his own. He looked past her at the rest of the screaming, panicked riders crammed like a mass of worms into the rear of the car, the nearer ones wriggling, kicking, biting, clawing to get further to the rear and the ones at the very back battling with all they had to stay where they were, and suddenly Sandy knew what the others had already discovered—that once you got back there you had nowhere to go unless you could find a way to o
pen the rear door and jump onto the tracks at who-knew-how-many-miles an hour and hope that if you were lucky enough not to break your neck when you hit, you wouldn't land on the third rail and get fried to a cinder.

  He saw a brown hand snake upward at the rear of the press, grip the red emergency handle, and yank down…

  Yes!

  Saw the handle come free as the cord snapped.

  And just then the Fifty-ninth Street/Columbus Circle station lit up around the train but it didn't slow because oh shit it was going to skip Sixty-sixth Street as well and not stop until Seventy-second.

  Seventy-second! No wonder the gunman was in no hurry. He had his prey cornered like cattle in a stockyard pen and could slaughter them at will—kill just about everyone before the train reached its next stop.

  Sandy saw only one chance to save his life. If he could get to the rear there, worm his way through the massed crowd, even if he had to do it on hands and knees—he was thin, he could do it—and get as far back as he could and crawl under a seat, maybe he could survive until Seventy-second Street. That would be the end of it. When the doors opened the gunman would take off or blow his own brains out, and Sandy would be safe. All he had to do was survive until then.

  Another glance at the gunman showed him pointing one of his pistols down at someone Sandy couldn't see. The only visible part of the next victim was a pair of hands raised above the back of a seat, a woman's hands, mocha colored, nails painted bright red, fingers interlocked as if in prayer.

  Even more frightening was the realization that this faceless woman and the GPM appeared to be the last living people between Sandy and the killer. Panic took a choke hold on his throat as he turned and lunged toward the rear of the car—oh sweet Jesus he didn't want to die he was too young and he hadn't really begun to live so he couldn't die now oh please not now not now—but the film student was there, half in, half out of a crouch and he slammed against her, knocking her over, and they both went down, Sandy landing on top as they hit the floor.

  He was losing it now, ready to scream at the bitch for getting in his way, but more important than screaming was knowing right now, right this instant where the gunman was, so he looked back, praying he wouldn't see that impassive bearded face looming behind the muzzle of a silencer. Instead he saw the GPM, whose face was set into grim lines of fury and whose eyes now were anything but mild, and he was muttering, "Shit-shit-shit!" and pulling up the cuff of his jeans where something leather was strapped and then he was yanking a metallic object from the leather and Sandy saw it was a tiny pistol. At first he thought it was one of those old-fashioned Derringers women and gamblers carried in westerns but when he saw the dude work the little slide back and forth he realized it was a miniature automatic.

  And now the GPM—Sandy was finding it hard to think of him as generic anymore but didn't have any other handle for the guy—was on his feet and moving toward the killer and Sandy wondered, What's he think he's going to do with that little pop gun? and then it went off and after the dainty little phuts of the killer's guns the sound was like a cannon in the confines of the subway car and the bullet must have caught the killer in the shoulder because that was where his fatigue jacket exploded in red, knocking him back and spinning him half around. He screamed in pain and stared with eyes full of shock and wonder and fear at this guy coming at him from out of nowhere. Sandy couldn't see the GPM's face as he worked the slide to his pistol again, just the back of his head and not much of that thanks to the knit cap, but he did see the woman who'd been the next intended victim crawl out from where she'd been cowering on the floor and scrabble past the dude on her belly, her teary eyes showing white all around, her lipsticked mouth a scarlet O of terror.

  Then the killer started to raise the gun in his good hand but the GPM was still moving toward him like an eagle swooping in on a field mouse, had that little pistol raised and it boomed again, the recoil jerking his hand high in the air, the second bullet detonating another explosion of red, this time in the killer's other shoulder, knocking him back against one of the chrome hang-on poles in the center of the aisle where he sagged, both arms limp and useless at his sides, and gaped at the relentless man moving ever closer. He roared and lunged forward, whether to head-butt or bite the GPM no one would ever know, because without pausing, without the slightest hint of hesitation the GPM leveled that toy pistol at the killer's left eye and let it boom again. Sandy saw the killer's head snap back and the impact swing him halfway around the pole before he lurched free to do a loose-kneed pirouette and collapse, half sitting, half sprawled against one of the doors, very, very, very dead.

  And then the GPM was working the little slide on his little gun again, and a fourth boom, this into the tape player, reducing it to a thousand flying black fragments and stopping its incessant cries about time having come today.

  Stunned silence in the car after that final report—only the rattle of the wheels and the whistle of the wind racing past.

  Saved!

  The word batted around the inside of Sandy's head, bouncing off the walls, looking for purchase on the disbelieving, rejecting surfaces. Finally it landed and took root as Sandy accepted the glorious possibility that he would see tomorrow.

  And he wasn't alone. Cheers and cries of joy arose from the multitude packed like sardines at the rear of the car. Some were on their knees, tears on their faces and hands raised to heaven, thanking whoever or whatever they called god for deliverance; others were laughing and crying and hugging each other.

  "We're alive!" the film student under him said. "What—?"

  Abashed, Sandy rolled off of her. "Sorry."

  She sat up and stared at him. "God, I can't believe you did that!"

  "Please," he said, looking away to hide his shame. He saw the GPM in a crouch, picking up something from the floor, but couldn't focus on what he was doing. Sandy had to frame an answer. How could he explain the terror that had taken control of him? "I don't know what came over me. I—"

  "You shielded me with your own body!"

  What? He turned and found her staring at him, her chocolate-brown eyes wide and wonder filled.

  "I've heard of it and, you know, seen it in films, but I never believed—I mean, you were like some Secret Service agent!"

  And then her face screwed up and she started to cry… huge racking sobs that shook her fragile body.

  Sandy's befuddled brain finally registered that she thought he'd knocked her down and landed on her to protect her. What did he say to that?

  But before he could respond he heard a voice call out behind him.

  "We've got a lady who's still alive here! Somebody get up here and help her!"

  Sandy turned and saw that the GPM had turned to face the rest of the car, but he'd first stretched his knit cap down to his chin. The effect might have been comical but for that deadly little pistol still clutched in his hand. What was going on here? A few moments ago he'd had his face out in the open for everyone to see. Why hide it now?

  "Come on!" he shouted through the weave. "Someone move their ass up here, goddamn it!"

  A young black woman with cornrowed hair, wearing white pants and a blue sweater stepped forward.

  "I'm an OR tech. I know a little—"

  "Well, come on then! Maybe you can save one of your fellow ewes!"

  She edged forward, giving Sandy an uneasy look as she slipped past him and hurried to a woman who was moaning and clutching her bloody head. He understood her uncertainty. What he didn't understand was the anger in the GPM's voice.

  "Why me?" the man shouted. "Why do I have to save your sorry asses? I don't know you, I don't care about you, I want nothing to do with you, so why me? Why did I get stuck with it?"

  "Hey, mister," said a tall lean black fellow who could have been a minister. "Why you so riled at us? We didn't do nothing."

  "Exactly! That's the problem! Why didn't one of you put him down?"

  "We didn't have no gun!" someone else said.

  "And
this creep knew that. He knew he'd be dealing with a herd of human sheep. Losers! You make me sick—all of you!"

  This was scary. The dude seemed almost as crazy now as the mass murderer he'd just killed. Sandy was beginning to wonder whether they'd traded one maniac for another when the train roared into the Seventy-second Street station. He saw the GPM pocket his pistol and turn toward the door. As soon as the panels parted he leaped through and dashed across the platform. In a flash he was lost among the crowd.

  3

  Keeping his head down, Jack dodged through the people waiting on the narrow platform. Pulled his cap up as far as the bridge of his nose and kept one hand on his face, rubbing his cheeks and eyes as if they were irritated.

  Of all the luck! Of all the lousy goddamn luck! Why on my train, in my car?

  Someone in that car had seen his face, would remember it, give out a decent description, and by tomorrow his likeness would be on the front page of every paper in the city and flashing across TV screens every hour.

  Maybe I should leave town tonight. And never come back.

  But his face would be plastered all over the national news as well—Time, Newsweek, the network and cable shows. He'd be on every newsstand everywhere. Even if the likeness wasn't good, sooner or later someone would make a connection and point a finger.

  And then life as Jack knew it would be over.

  Yanked off the cap as soon as he hit the stairs, taking them two at a time while he pulled off his football jersey. Stuffed that into the hat and wadded it all into a tight little bundle. Hit street level as a bareheaded guy in a white T-shirt carrying something blue.

  Keep your head, he told himself. You've still got options.

  But did he? At the moment he hadn't a clue what they were. Knew there had to be some but right now his adrenaline-addled brain was too wired, too pissed to think of them.

  The Seventy-second Street station opened onto a wrought-iron fenced island in the middle of the perpetual vehicular chaos where Broadway forced its way on a diagonal across Amsterdam Avenue. His instincts wanted him in a full-tilt sprint away from the station, urged him to jump the fence and skip through the traffic, but he forced his legs to keep to a walk.