Carnage (6 page)

A cold wind was blowing through the arteries at the heart of Manhattan.

The snow was falling softly now, just a few scattered flakes, but a thick layer covered the ground, making the roads and pavements look higher than they were.

Lamar’s ear was glued to his cell phone: the invention of the century for the police.

He kept being passed from one person to the next at MTA, the New York transit authority, before getting hold of the direct line for one of the managers, who told him how to get to the abandoned subway station on 91st Street and assured him someone would meet him there with the keys.

Lamar’s reasoning was very simple.

If Chris DeRoy had been spotted buying candles after leaving his place, there was a chance he might belong to the cluster which met in the disused subway station. If it turned out he was barking up entirely the wrong tree, he’d only have wasted his own time, and at least he could rule out a line of inquiry.

After parking the car, Lamar walked to the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 91st Street, where a man in an MTA uniform was waiting for him, his hands in his pockets. Lamar introduced himself. The subway worker, Carl, had a small moustache and was carrying a few extra pounds.

Carl led the way to a building, unlocked a heavy door and started down the stairs. Within a few seconds, they had left the icy gusts of air outside for the sheltered maze of the abandoned station.

‘The reports I’ve read say kids come down here a lot,’ began Lamar, ‘but how do they get in? I’m guessing they don’t have their own keys.’

‘Oh, there’s no shortage of ways in. The old entrances have been blocked up but kids break through them all the time. It’s like a block of Swiss cheese down here, with ways in and out all over the place, leading to the sewers, underpasses and even the cellars underneath some buildings. But, you know, I sometimes think to myself maybe we should be thankful they’re messing around down here, out of everyone’s way!’

Carl sniggered to himself.

They walked quickly down the concrete steps, with only Carl’s Maglite torch to light the way. The walls were plastered in colourful graffiti. Empty alcohol and soda bottles littered the ground, like apocalyptic flora growing from the bunker’s soil.

‘Don’t you worry, we can get a light on in just a minute!’ Carl cheerfully announced.

‘I’d rather we didn’t. It might scare off the guy I’m looking for.’

Carl stopped in his tracks and cleared his throat.

‘Oh, so you’re here to arrest somebody? OK, I, er …’ Sensing his unease, Lamar pre-empted him.

‘How about you head back up, Carl? I’ll meet you where we came in. Don’t worry, I’ll find my way.’

Carl agreed instantly.

‘O-o-h, and … um …’ stuttered Lamar, ‘call this number if I’m not back within the hour.’

He handed Carl one of Doris’s business cards, which he carried with him at all times.

Carl swapped his powerful flashlight for Lamar’s little torch and scurried up the steps.

Left alone, the detective took his cell phone from his pocket to check for a signal. Nothing. Now he really was on his own.

He carried on down a dank, dirty corridor that stank of urine until he came to one last stairway down. As he put his foot on the first step something glinted in the torchlight.
Lamar was forced to stretch out his leg to avoid hitting the obstacle in his way. The sole of his shoe skidded on the step and he flailed his arms about to try to restore his balance. He swung round, eventually finding his footing again, his legs four steps apart. He shone the light closer to see what had almost tripped him up.

It was a long row of empty glass bottles, lined up perfectly.

Lamar could see he had narrowly avoided stepping into a trap. Or, rather, a warning sign. If somebody came down the stairs, they were very likely to knock over the bottles, sending them toppling noisily down.
I must be getting close.

He took his gun out of its holster and forced himself to go on.

Finally he reached the platform. A succession of graffiti-scrawled pillars lay between him and the shadowy passageways leading off to the left and right. He kept close to the wall, sweeping his torch over the darkness to try to pick out a figure, or at least something to indicate someone had been here not long before.

An amber glow emerged from one of the tunnels, where subway trains had once rattled by. Lamar edged closer, treading as softly as he could. He turned off his torch in order not to be seen, creeping forward almost on tiptoe.

He reached the end of the platform and slowly heaved himself down onto the tracks. The light was flickering less than thirty feet away from him.

Candlelight …

Lamar raised his gun. He knew it was against procedure – he could shoot accidentally if startled or overcome with nerves. But it was a risk he was willing to take. Better that than the first bullet finding him.

Eventually an alcove came into view, where a few candles were burning on the ground. A figure huddled in a blanket sat with his back against the wall, holding a bottle in his hand.

Just a tramp
. Lamar eased back, lowering his Walther P99.

Then he saw the fingers. Quite slender, more or less clean, with no signs of age. The hand of a teenager.

Lamar stayed primed.

The shape on the floor seemed to have caught sight of the detective, lifting his head and letting the blanket slip off his shoulders.

Chris DeRoy’s dark pupils stared straight into Lamar’s eyes. The mask of the traumatised kid had fallen. Now his features were contorted by hate as his true nature was revealed.

Lamar aimed his gun at the young man.

‘Don’t move!’ he barked. ‘It’s over, Chris. It’s over.’

Christian DeRoy clenched his jaw, his face tensing with rage.

‘No son of a bitch nigger’s gonna tell me when it’s over,’ he spat back.

Something moved quickly under the blanket at chest level.

Lamar roared, ‘NO!’

Raw fear swept aside any hesitation. Lamar’s finger pressed down hard on the trigger.

The gun bellowed, spraying out hot steel.

The blanket lifted as a burst of dark liquid came spurting out of Christian DeRoy’s chest. The boy started shaking and fell sideways into the grit.

Lamar rushed over to him. A revolver appeared from under the blanket. Chris DeRoy held it limply, his eyes rolling.

The gun fired twice in Lamar’s general direction. The bullets disappeared into the eternal darkness of the tunnel.

Lamar grabbed hold of Chris’s hand, breaking several of his fingers with a loud crack. He kicked the revolver away before kneeling down beside the injured boy.

The shaking had turned into powerful convulsions.

Chris lifted his head to look at Lamar. He opened his mouth, twisted in pain and hate. He was trying to say something.

‘Don’t … touch …’

Blood trickled down his chin. Lamar couldn’t make out the rest of what he said.

The lieutenant lifted up the boy’s sweater and ripped open his shirt to look at the wound. Right in the middle of the chest. Whether through the lungs or the heart, Lamar couldn’t say.

Chris DeRoy’s legs jolted, knocking over a candle and putting out another. Suddenly the light became very dim. The flame of the candle rolling on its side went out.

Lamar could feel warm blood trickling down his hands as he knelt in the shadows.

The teenager’s breathing was fast and shallow. Then it stopped. Silence. Christian DeRoy let out a long rattle and then he too was snuffed out.

After a minute or so Lamar stood up and turned on his torch. He needed to get back up to the surface and let everyone know what had happened.

He stepped away, trying not to think about what he had just done. Killed a teenager.

On legitimate grounds of self defence.

Still meant he’d killed the kid.

He heard the sound of running footsteps crunching through the gravel towards him. Lamar pointed the torch in that direction. A man threw his arms up in front of his face to shield his eyes from the glare.

Lamar recognised the build, the crumpled suit. The figure slowly brought his arms down.

It was Allistair McLogan, the principal at East Harlem Academy.

‘McLogan?’ Lamar choked in shock.

‘Is that you, Lieutenant?’

‘What are you doing here?’

McLogan came closer.

‘What am I doing here?’ he echoed. ‘I’ve come to help one of my students, whether you like it or not!’

Lamar was baffled. He put away his gun and stepped towards the principal.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

McLogan drew level with him.

‘Chris told me everything. He called me an hour ago. You’re one nasty piece of work, Lieutenant, and racist too by the sounds of it! Picked on him because he’s a white kid, did you?’

Lamar shook his head.

‘You’ve lost me. He told you everything about what?’

‘Don’t play the fool with me!’ bellowed McLogan, pointing his finger at Lamar. ‘He told me you’ve been hounding him. You singled him out; you were determined to make things difficult for him. He was so scared of you and what you might do he ran away and came here, absolutely terrified. So he turned to me and asked me to come and talk to him, calm him down and take him back home.’

Lamar held his hand up to stop McLogan coming any closer.

‘Now wait a second, you’ve got this all—’

‘Your methods are totally unacceptable, Lieutenant! You—’

McLogan stopped, catching sight of the blood on Lamar’s hands.

‘What have you done?’

He scanned all around him, straining to see in the darkness. Suddenly he froze.

‘So that’s what I heard? Not firecrackers then, huh? It was gunfire? You … you shot him?’ McLogan asked, his disbelief quickly turning to outrage.

Lamar was about to protest when alarm bells started to ring. McLogan was here on the pretext that Chris had asked him to come. Doing everything he could to protect the boy. Could it be … An adult in a position of influence, who might well know how to manipulate a kid.

But just as these doubts began to form McLogan’s brains exploded from the shadows, spattering over Lamar’s chest and face as a deafening shot rang out in the tunnel.

A fourth person was walking towards them.

A shape emerged in the circle of light cast by Lamar’s torch.

A pistol was pointing at him.

Lamar recognised the close-cropped hair and the round face: Frank Quincey, grinning.

‘One down!’ shouted the janitor of the school where it had all started. ‘Never could stand the jerk.’

‘Calm down, Quincey. Put down weapon away.’ He laughed.

‘Who do you think you are?’ he challenged Lamar.

‘Who are you to be giving orders to anybody? No, I will not put down my goddamn gun. And you know what? I’m going to kill you.’

Lamar tried to breathe calmly and get a handle on the situation. If he gave in to fear, all would be lost. He had to buy himself some time, find a way out of this. He had to talk to Quincey. Make
him
talk.

‘Quincey,’ he began, ‘why … why are you doing this?’

‘
Why
?
Jeez, you really are one dumb black fucker, aren’t you? Well, luckily for our future civilisation there are people like me around. And people like these kids, just waiting to be told what to do. Like Christian. Good kid, that one. Smart. Didn’t take long for him to get it. When I saw the way he looked at all the Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, I knew we were thinking the same thing. We both knew how to make the world a better place. After that, the little guy didn’t come to see me just to bum cigarettes!’

Quincey was getting himself worked up, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

‘I brought him into our group, the next generation. Kids I found on the streets, kids forgotten by our corrupt system! The little guy soon stepped up to take part in our eradication project. All I had to do was get him the weapons.’

Lamar racked his brains for some way out of the dead end he found himself trapped in. He ran over every possible escape route. Meanwhile, Quincey’s impassioned soliloquy was in full swing.

‘Imagine, Detective, a world in which teenagers started shooting down their schoolmates, not just aiming at coloured scum, but the whole damn lot of them! They’re all tainted, the liars and cheats of tomorrow! What Christian did was to set an example. Soon others will do the same and
then all hell will break loose. There’ll be armies of young people, and the police will be too scared to fire on them. We’re going to turn this country upside down, and then we’re going to make it right again!’

Quincey lifted his arm until the gun was pointing right at Lamar’s head.

‘And, in our new order, you’ll go back to being a slave. You were born subhuman and that’s what you’ll always be.’

Lamar gripped the torch in his hand, running his forefinger over the top of it.

‘Well, I say “you”,’ Quincey continued, ‘what I should have said is “your kind”. Because you’re bowing out tonight, mister.’

The light shook a little while Lamar turned the heavy torch in his hand.

‘You see, history doesn’t always repeat itself!’ Quincey said with a wry smile. ‘Sometimes the fascists win. And as for you, nigger, time’s up.’

Finally Lamar’s fingertips found what they’d been searching for. The on/off switch on his torch. Quincey was taking aim, his finger poised to pull the trigger.

Lamar flicked the switch. They were suddenly in total darkness. Lamar leapt down from the platform just as a shot whistled by a few inches from his head.

He rolled on the track and tried to scramble back to his feet to avoid losing his bearings completely. He steadied himself on his knees and took out his Walther P99.

Quincey was pacing around, searching, breathing heavily. He stumbled into something, probably Christian DeRoy’s body, and fired. Again and again.

Some of the bullets left no trace as they were fired; others left a flaming trail in their wake. Lamar aimed at the flashes of light and fired all his remaining bullets.

When Lamar turned his torch back on after ten minutes of uneasy silence, he saw Frank Quincey’s body slumped over the corpse of his seventeen-year-old disciple. Their blood mingled together deep beneath the city.

Quincey twitched. He wasn’t dead.

Lamar bolted towards him, loading another round of bullets. He held the hot barrel against the fascist’s head. Did he deserve to live after everything he had done?

The rumble of a far-off subway train travelled through the bowels of the earth. Down here, away from civilised society, away from judgement and conscience, Lamar had a choice.

He breathed in deeply, to gather his courage. Hate was flowing the other way now.