53.

DAYLIGHT WAS JUST beginning to fade, and without the intense heat of the sun, it actually seemed a fraction cooler. Was that a breeze she felt ruffling the tiny hairs on the back of her neck? She stood out on Eighty-sixth Street for a minute and saw there were no cabs.

With so little time, she should probably just take the IRT at Eighty-sixth and Broadway, which went right to Penn Station. If she didn’t have to wait for a train, she could make it in ten minutes, fifteen at the most.

The low roar from the subway entrance told her that a train was approaching. If it was a local, which made the stop there, she was in luck. She fumbled in her purse for a token, feeling all thumbs, and raced down the stairs, barely avoiding a derelict, who had set up shop with a Styrofoam cup on a cardboard box at the foot of the stairs.

A local was slowly pulling into the station, and there was a line at the token booth. She’d never make it. She knew one of the turnstiles was contrary. Sometimes it let you through without a token. Closing her eyes, she said a prayer and nudged the turnstile with her hip. It gave, and she pressed through and onto the train just as the bing-bong chime announced the doors were closing.

It was one of the new trains—no graffiti, not much track noise, and loads of air-conditioning—and it was crowded. She joined the people clustered around a pole, holding on … one potato, two potato, three potato, four ... letting her thoughts drift. Dwayne knew ...

“I need another dollar for a soda, y’hear?” a woman yelled from the back end of the car. Her voice carried over the conversations and rumble of the train.

Wetzon looked around, but couldn’t see anybody doing the talking. A young man with shoulder-length hair looked up from his paperback and frowned. “What?” he asked. When no one responded, he went back to his book.

“Just a dollar,” the woman said. “I’d like a soda.”

“So would I,” someone called.

Laughter flitted over the car.

The woman’s voice was coming closer. “Just a dollar,” she repeated. “Just a dollar.” She had not developed a slick line of patter, so she wasn’t having much success.

“Just a dollar? Yo, she wants a dollar. Give her a dollar, man.” Three teenagers, two black, one white, were poking each other and roaring.

Wetzon kept her eyes averted, looking out the windowed door into the darkness of the subway tunnels. Now and then red and yellow lights flashed, and then they’d pull into a station for a minute, disgorging passengers, taking more on, then they’d pull out into the dark tunnel again. The train was making good time.

The begging woman said again, from somewhere behind Wetzon, “Just a dollar.” She was at the near end of the car now, and Wetzon heard the connecting door to the next car open. “You cheap mutha-fuckas, “ the woman screamed, leaving the car just as Wetzon looked up and saw her, an emaciated black woman in a filthy raincoat and rubber thongs.

A pall of uneasy silence fell on the car, then a door opened and a voice from the far end of the car said, “My name is Robert, ladies and gentlemen, and this is new for me. I’m a Viet Nam veteran. I’m a victim of Agent Orange, I have cancer, I lost my job when I got sick, my apartment burned down, and my wife died in the fire. Me and my two little kids, Robert Junior and Nancy Lou, are living in a city shelter with drug addicts and weirdos. Can you help me get out of the shelter so I can get back on my feet?” He made coins in a cup jingle. “Anything you can give me would be wonderful. God bless you.”

Wetzon sighed. He had the whole litany down, buzz words and all. Change hit metal all through the car. People were emptying their pockets for him. Guilt, perhaps, because they hadn’t helped the previous beggar. Were New Yorkers so jaded, she wondered, that even their panhandlers had to have a glitzy presentation? They didn’t cough up money for amateurs. And then, what if it were all a scam and the two panhandlers were in cahoots? They could be sharing at the end of the line at South Ferry. Sharing at the end of the line. She thought, this was the reason for the murders at Luwisher Brothers. There was a kitty—illegally gotten—that someone just didn’t want to share. It always came back to greed.

The train pulled into Penn Station as the cold began to raise goosebumps on Wetzon’s arms. The ride had taken less than twenty minutes.

She got off into the brain-numbing heat on the platform and took the down stairway marked PENN STATION, LONG ISLAND RAILROAD, skimming past people coming up, dodging around the slowpokes going down.

The air was foul with perspiration and urine. When she pushed through the turnstile and came out on the well-lit concourse, mall-like, with the cheap eateries on either side, the stale, rancid smell of buttered popcorn blocked out all previous odors.

The bagel place ... where was it? She slowed to a walk. This area under Penn Station was honky-tonk and tacky as an amusement park, with fast-food stands and gimmicky souvenir shops, news and magazine stands, even two bookstores. Something for every traveler. AMTRAK, the LIRR, the Path Trains to New Jersey, and the Seventh and Eighth Avenue subways all converged here.

There it was. The Bagel Bar, open 24 hours, spelled out in neon and blinking on and off like a goddam roadside tavern sign. No tables, of course. Just a long counter with barstools on the left and a ledge on the right, where you could eat your bagel with a schmear standing up, a phenomenon particular to New Yorkers, who were always on the run.

A maintenance man in blue overalls and an AMTRAK cap stood at the ledge working The Sunday Times crossword puzzle with a ballpoint pen. He was devouring a huge onion bagel with an inch of cream cheese topped with raw purple onions. An adventure in cholesterol, she thought as she squeezed by, quickly taking in all the other occupants. Dwayne was not one of them.

Two women sat next to one another at the counter; they were not together, Wetzon reasoned, because the one had her back turned slightly to the other and was smoking and studying the classified pages in a folded-up Newsday, a mug of coffee on her left. She spilled out of gray painter’s pants, in the rear and over the waist, breasts flopping low and loose under a tee shirt that said FREE THE NEW YORK YANKEES.

The other, much younger, wore Porsche sunglasses and had long curly red hair and a nice pale-gold suntan. She was wearing tight stone-washed jeans and a crisp white cotton blouse, its collar straight up, and gold chains; a bright shawl was tied around her waist like a sarong. She snuffled a Coke noisily through the straw and flirted with the Hispanic counterman for all she was worth.

Wetzon chose the seat at the counter farthest in and sat down, keeping her concentration on the entry way. No Dwayne. Was this going to be a wild-goose chase? It was almost ten after eight. Dwayne mentioned a nine o’clock train to Baltimore. He had to be here. She put her elbows on the counter and stuck. Damn. She pulled back, wet a tissue with saliva and wiped the sticky smudges off her elbows.

The fat woman got off the stool, took her Macy’s shopping bag, and waited. The cash register rang. The counterman gave her change, winked broadly at the redhead, and sauntered over to Wetzon.

“What’ll you have, girlie?” he asked. He looked her over and she could see him decide she didn’t hold a candle to the redhead.

“Diet Coke, please.”

“Is that all?”

“Could you wipe the counter here? It’s sticky.”

He mumbled something under his breath that sounded unpleasant and tapped her a Diet Coke, slid it in front of her, stuck a wrapped straw into it, then wiped the counter around the glass with a dirty rag.

Wetzon unwrapped the straw and discarded the wet paper onto the counter. Well, that explained the stickiness, she thought. He was a real prize. She reached for a paper napkin from the metal trap on the wall at the end of the counter and wiped up the mess. Silvestri should be getting here any minute.

Someone sat down on the stool next to her. It was the redhead. Frowning, Wetzon said, “I’m afraid I’m saving that seat for someone.”

“Yes,” the redhead said, giving her a nervous smile with shiny Paloma-red lips. “Me.”