Black Midnight Read online

  Black Midnight

  Graham Diamond

  © Graham Diamond 2008

  Graham Diamond has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2008 by Booksurge.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Dedication

  This book is gratefully dedicated to

  Police Officer Steven MacDonald, paralyzed in the line of duty.

  And for all the men and women of NYPD who risk their lives every day.

  Table of Contents

  I

  II

  III

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XIX

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXXI

  XXXII

  I

  New York City

  Tomorrow Morning

  The tunnel lights were strung out like lanterns. A long, dim row of pale yellow bulbs pushing back the dark. Ahead, the signal light switched from amber — caution — to green, all clear. Off in the distance, along the other side of the track, a train rumbled. Its brakes screeched horribly as it rolled into the empty subway station. A figure darted over the third rail and crouched in the shadow of a pillar. Intense eyes searched nervously at the halted express, focusing first on the glowing headlamps, then on the outline of the motorman sitting in his cab. The doors of the downtown express closed. The train rattled, lurched forward. The figure behind the pillar drew deep breaths, watching the train roar and disappear down the tunnel. Signal lights switched again: red, to amber, then green. All clear.

  When total silence resumed, the figure stood and wiped away perspiration. It was dank and sweaty in the tunnel, although above in the streets there was a mid-October chill. Quickly now, the figure moved away from the safety of the pillar and hurried along the tunnel, past the curve, and well away from the lights of the station. Panting, kneeling, the intruder placed a closely held package down onto the track and carefully unwrapped its contents. Twin metallic cylinders, eight-inch pipe, caught the glare of the bare thirty-watt bulb bracketed above in the tunnel wall. The figure drew a length of wire from inside a coat pocket. With nimble fingers the ends were twisted and the tips joined carefully to the connectors. With painstaking slow and deliberate care the cylinders were lifted and placed gently along the left rail. The spring of the timer was wound tightly; the timer began to tick quietly. Gravel was liberally sprinkled over the cylinders, removing them from view. This done, the intruder stared expressionlessly down at the package of death. Emotionlessly. A few seconds were counted off, then swiftly the figure started to run, along the uptown side of the tunnel, hugging the crawlspaces and recessions built into the subway wall for use by repair crews. The platform of the empty station stood in full view ahead. Deserted and dim, strangely alluring after the solitude of the tunnel. No waiting passengers witnessed the presence of the intruder. The single attendant on duty in the token booth was unaware of anything but his own sleepiness and the number of hours remaining on his shift.

  Harvey Minnow, age sixty-one, Transit Employee #07299, eased himself up into the motorman’s seat. He looked down at the control board and fumbled for his keys.

  “Broadway Local,” came the crackling voice over the station’s loudspeaker. “Watch the closing doors … ”

  A handful of late-night passengers began to board the five-car train. Working people mostly, on the night shifts, tired, exhaustion reflected in their reddened eyes and smileless faces. They took their seats gratefully, a few glancing at the morning editions of the newspapers, others glad just to rest with closed eyes as they waited for the long ride home. It would take about one hour and dozens of stops along the West Side of Manhattan before the final station on the line was reached: 242nd Street and Broadway in the Bronx — a run that Harvey had been joylessly making for more years than he cared to count.

  Harvey was ready to roll. He placed the skate key into the lock on the control board, flicked the master switch into the forward position. The indication dial lighted. The doors of the train slid closed. His calloused hand reached out, gently clutched at the protruding steel handle. He turned the handle away from him, regulating both speed and brakes. The handle went from Charge to Coast. The train inched forward out of South Ferry Street station and into the darkness of the tunnel ahead. The illuminated needle on the speedometer set left of the control board climbed slowly up toward fifteen miles an hour.

  It was humid inside the motorman’s cab. Smelly. Harvey listened to the numbing clackety-clack of the wheels spinning over rail, then blocked out the deafening noise as experience had taught him to do. The crackle of the dispatcher’s voice occasionally came over his intercom issuing tunnel information. Harvey relaxed back and turned on his pocket transistor radio. A rock and roll music station blared. The music was mostly a blur amid the train noises, but the sound of it made Harvey scowl. Junk. Punk music. He switched stations in disgust.

  It was a disgrace, this garbage, he thought. People growing rich off stupid kids by selling them screaming noises that passed for music. Musicians unable to sing or play becoming millionaires from their trash, while honest working folk like himself had to struggle to make a living every day of their lives. Harvey spat out from the window. He was an angry man.

  He arched his back in a fight to get comfortable, aware that the seat was purposely designed for discomfort. A motorman wasn’t supposed to relax — it might make him sleepy, cause a mishap. Keep ’em rigid. Alert and awake. That was the Transit Authority’s order. Help serve the public better, and to hell with the poor motorman whose back could no longer take the strain. He didn’t dwell on the matter. He’d learned how to cope.

  His narrow gray eyes stayed fixed to the tunnel ahead. He set his legs wide apart. The train picked up speed. Used to be that Harvey got a kick out of running his train. Gearing up to maximum speed and racing through the tunnels. Casey Jones at the throttle. No more, though. No, sir. Now he let his train rattle and rock, pushing it skillfully but mindlessly around the bends, through the darkness, into the stations. He didn’t know how many tens of thousands of miles he had logged during his years, didn’t care. Signal lights remained green; nothing ahead but clear track.

  A few more passengers boarded at the next station. Harvey knew his run would be smooth and uneventful all through lower Manhattan, at least until he reached Fourteenth Street. And if there were to be any real problems they would most likely come when he pulled into Forty-Second Street. Times Square. Crossroads of the World. Sewer of the world was more the truth, he told himself. Times Square was the central station of this entire line where, even at this hour, tens of passengers would be jammed along the edge of the platform waiting for his arrival.

  Harvey glanced at his watch. It was 2:50 AM. His shift wouldn’t be over until 8:00. More than five hours and four more boring runs to go. Harvey cursed.

  His train pulled into Forty-Second Street two full minutes ahead of schedule. There, a whole circus of the dregs of humanity awaited him. Derelicts, drunks, bag ladies, addicts, punks, and God only knew what other assorted human garbage would board along with his nocturnal regulars. The regulars were like him, decent folk. Night workers from New York’s endless stream of restaurants, theaters, bars, and the like. It would be a couple of minutes until the Dyre Avenue Express pulled into the opposite track, mingling its passengers with his. Harvey
spent these idle moments daydreaming about the coming weekend. His son Gregory was due to graduate from Albany State this June. For months now Harvey had been preparing himself for the occasion. This Friday night he’d be loading up his car, driving, and spending the weekend with his son. Their first time together since the summer. A good kid Gregory had turned out to be. Honest, studious. Harvey’s pride. Seemed they didn’t see very much of each other anymore. Especially since Agnes died.

  Greg and Agnes had been close. How much she loved the boy. He sighed with her memory, how unfair life was, how she had to be taken away from them. Damn, she’d sure be pleased if she could see Gregory now. They’d worked their butts off for their son. Gave him a decent home, taught his respect, love. It had paid off in the end, though, been worth every bit of the struggle. A college graduate in the family. Think about it! If Agnes were still alive she’d burst into tears, he knew. Babbling on how it seemed like only yesterday when — Harvey smiled inwardly. Yeah, he still had some good memories.

  “Watch the closing doors. Watch the closing doors … ”

  The loudspeaker voice snapped him from his musing. He glanced from the window. One transit cop got off the train, another boarded. Automatically, Harvey’s hand went back to the steel handle, releasing it from its safety locked-in position. His train rumbled back into the tunnel.

  At Fifty-Ninth Street another cop boarded. Harvey was glad. If both cops stayed with him at least until Dykeman Street, the first of the regular elevated stops, then there’d definitely be no trouble tonight.

  Just last week some greasy punk had tried to snatch a purse from one of his regulars. Pulled a knife. The hysterical passenger had panicked, run screaming through the cars with the train at full speed. Her assailant chased her all the way to the front car, just as Harvey was pulling into the station. Luckily, a transit cop was on the platform. The doors opened. The cop saw the thief, the punk lunged for the cop. Gun drawn, the patrolman crouched and fired once. The punk flayed backward, a bullet smack in the middle of his chest. Blood splattered across the windows and walls as he lay groaning. Harvey never found out if the punk died from the gunshot — but he hoped he did.

  He shook his head bitterly with the recollection. Subways weren’t the same anymore. Nothing was the same. Whole city had deteriorated. Become a cesspool. Filthier by the day, lawless, trains scrawled with graffiti, stations reeking with the stench of urine and marijuana.

  Entire system was crawling with scum. Like cockroaches. No respect for authority, for anything. Pitiful. And no one, especially the lying politicians, was able to do anything about it. Thank God Gregory would never have to work down here. Thank God his son had enough smarts.

  The signal lights switched to cautionary amber. Harvey instinctively eased back on the steel handle and made the curve slowly. Wheels screeched, lights flickered in the cars. He saw a bank of repair workers leisurely move away from his track toward the recessions. They waved at him, put their hands to their ears as his train rumbled past.

  Less than a year to go before his took his retirement, Harvey reminded himself. His surgery had opened his eyes. Life was too short, too precarious. A good pension waited for a thirty-year man, and there was no point in his hanging around to wait for sixty-five. His money was well earned and deserved. Screw the Transit Authority. Let the system rot. Go to hell with the city. He would be gone. He already had his eye on a cozy little place upstate. A gentleman’s farm. A large garden to tend, grass and trees everywhere. A fireplace. Maybe even grandchildren to visit pretty soon. That’s all Harvey yearned for now. Gregory was a man; his part was done. Now he could live for himself. Such a shame, though, that Agnes couldn’t share it with him.

  An express rumbled along the center track as Harvey’s local reached Ninety-Sixth Street. A group of teenage bums disembarked and turned up the volume of their monster radio as they headed for the exit. Disco music screamed across the station. Harvey stared hard at them as they strolled away. Little shits, he muttered.

  One by one the stations rolled by. Next stop was One Hundred Thirty-Fifth Street. Spanish Harlem. By now more than half his passengers had reached their destinations. Only a few more minutes and he’d be at Dykeman Street, out in the open, able to breathe again. Coming out was always something to look forward to; the stink of the tunnels was hard to get out. It got into your clothes, your hair, your fingernails. Dirty jobs, working under the streets. He followed the signal lights, on the lookout for more work crews. There weren’t any.

  “Next stop, One Hundred Thirty-Fifth Street and Broadway.”

  The voice was blurred and incomprehensible to the handful of passengers still aboard. A couple of regulars lazily stood and clutched the handstraps, waiting for the stop. The train started to slow; Harvey could see the pale glow of the station lights. This was gonna be one damn fine weekend. Him and Gregory. Together. Father and son. Clean, fresh air. Country skies, chilly and pure. A few happy hours before he returned to this. And that sweet pension was only around the corner.

  Harvey saw the flash — barely. His mouth gaped wide. The world was turning upside down: iron crushing, glass smashing, the rails buckling. All in a split second. But he didn’t hear the roar of the explosion.

  Harvey’s train never pulled into One Hundred Thirty-Fifth Street station.

  II

  “Jesus Christ,” Spinrad mumbled. He waved his hand in front of his boyish face to clear away the residue of smoke. His effort was futile. As he stood in the tunnel he could hear the scream of ambulance sirens in the streets racing the casualties to hospitals. This was the worst subway disaster in memory. Spinrad balled his hands — a subconscious gesture he always made whenever frustrated or angry — then put them inside the pockets of his worn raincoat. He exhaled a plume of white cold air, shaking his head with the shock of it all. His 4:00 AM breakfast of black coffee and danish sat like a rock in the pit of his stomach. The sight of mangled steel, splayed glass, and twisted rail left him sick. Overhead, a maze of busted pipes dripped, and sometimes poured, sewer water. Spinrad bounced the beam of his flashlight from the wreckage of the collapsed front car to where a knot of local precinct detectives were quietly speaking without animation.

  The Transit Authority had shut down power all along this section of line hours before. A precautionary procedure. The tunnel should have been black. Traces of sunlight, though, were seeping down from the grills above, and with the dozens of police lanterns and flashlights beaming from every direction, the smoke-filled tunnel was lighted up like some sick joke of a Christmas tree. His worn loafers crunched over a shard of blown-out window glass. “Jesus Christ,” First Grade Detective Martin Spinrad said again.

  There were uncountable numbers of uniformed and nonuniformed cops on the scene, police department as well as Transit Authority, along with a healthy sprinkling of brass from both departments. The commissioner himself had already come and gone. Rumor said that the mayor was on his way for a personal inspection. Three of his deputies and the borough president had left long ago.

  Hands on hips, Spinrad looked around. The scene was incredible. Units from the fire department, the Bomb Squad, Arson, police photographers, staff from the coroner’s office and the district attorney. Men from Forensic were rummaging about, dusting the tracks for fingerprints, collecting blood smear samples and carefully removing shreds of clothing and other found items for later inspection and analysis.

  Spinrad had never seen anything that closely resembled this. Not all at once. It was the people from the medical examiner’s office that really gave him the chills, though. They were systematically tagging the corpses with ninety-fives, those linen-like little cards attached to the victims’ toes, neatly addressed to the city morgue, replete with blank spaces for filling in various data, time, date, circumstance of death and the like. A veritable army of paramedics and doctors from Harlem Hospital were treating the maimed. Everyone was down here — except for the news media. For now, they were kept excluded.

  The
standing order was that no reporters were to be allowed until every aspect of the initial investigation was complete. So they had been gathered together up on Broadway, coldly taking photographs of the victims on stretchers, interviewing stunned neighborhood residents, television crews giving live Minicam coverage on the disaster. A few of the more industrious reporters had somehow resourcefully managed to work their way below — only to be immediately grabbed and politely but firmly escorted back up to Broadway.

  The commissioner was fond of proclaiming how he believed in an open policy between the police and the press. It was department rule to always cooperate as fully as possible. But the traditional antagonisms remained: P.D. intent on keeping certain aspects of the investigation to themselves, the press determined one way or the other to find out the facts and report them to the eager public. The public’s right to know. Whenever police protested, claiming certain information was too sensitive to release and might jeopardize the investigation, the media was quick to reply that the department was unfairly suppressing facts out of self-interests — or worse, to cover up a bungled job. Your view on who was right usually depended on which side of the street you worked.

  So far eleven injured had been brought up from the tunnel. Minimal fatalities, three known dead. At the time of Spinrad’s arrival they were still trying to burn a hole through the wrenched and distorted steel of what had been the motorman’s compartment. A hole large enough for the corpse to be eased out. The medics on the scene announced him dead immediately. His face was so badly lacerated that recognition was impossible. His midsection had been torn apart by a steel rod, body nearly severed at the waist. “Poor bastard,” Spinrad had mumbled. His file said that he’d recently undergone open-heart surgery. Spinrad felt for him; he’d undergone similar surgery, could easily identify with the motorman. A poor jerk trying to make a living. He pulled a sour face. This bedlam was more than he wanted to deal with.