Part 36 (1/2)

By the time Rosemary turned back toward Bagabond, the pigeons and squirrel were gone. Rosemary shook her head to clear it. My imagination really is working overtime, she thought, walking toward the bag lady. Just another lost soul.

”h.e.l.lo, Bagabond.”

The old woman with stringy hair turned her head away and stared across the park.

”My name is Rosemary. I talked to you before. I tried to find you a nice place to live. Do you remember?” Rosemary squatted down on the ground to speak at Bagabond's level.

The black cat she had seen before came up to Bagabond and began rubbing against her. She stroked its head and murmured incomprehensible sounds.

”Please talk to me. I want to get you food. I want to get you a good place to live.” Rosemary held out her hand. The ring on her third finger glittered in the sun.

The woman on the ground drew her legs up against herself and clutched the plastic trashbag filled with her treasures. She began rocking back and forth and crooning. The black cat turned to look at Rosemary and she flinched against its glare.

”I'll talk to you later. I'll come back and see you.” Rosemary rose stiffly. Her face tightened, and for just a moment, she felt like crying to ease the frustration. She only wanted to help. Someone. Anyone. To feel good about something.

She walked away from Bagabond and back toward Central Park West and the subway entrance. Her father's war council had frightened her. She had never liked what he did, and her entire life seemed to be a search for escape and redemption, atonement. The sins of the fathers. Rosemary wanted peace, but whenever she thought she could get it, it retreated beyond her grasp. C.C. had been a last chance. So was each one of the derelicts she failed to help. There was a key to reaching Bagabond. There had to be.

Rosemary descended the steps, waited, dropped in her token, walked down the second stairway onto the platform in a daze. The blast of cool air entered the station followed by the AA train. Rosemary barely glanced up from the floor and moved stiffly toward the nearest car.

As she was about to step onto the train, her eyes widened and she stepped back into the crowd, drawing glares and a few curses for breaking the flow. That last car. It had more of C.C.'s lyrics painted on the side in a shade of red that reminded her of blood. C.C. had always been something of a manic-depressive and Rosemary had always known her mood by what she wrote or sang. The C.C. who had written these words was depressed beyond even Rosemary's experience:

Blood and bones Take me home

People there I owe People there gonna go

Down with me to h.e.l.l Down with me to h.e.l.l

Approaching the car, Rosemary saw words she knew knew had not been there seconds ago. had not been there seconds ago.

Rosie, Rosie, pretty Rosie Leave this place Forget my face Don't cry Rosie, Rosie, pretty Rosie

”I'm going to find you, C.C. I'm going to save you.” Rosemary again fought to get into the car she now realized was covered with fragments of C.C.'s songs, some that she recognized, others that had to be new. Once more the car rejected her. Breathing hard, eyes wide, Rosemary watched the car move into the tunnel. She gasped as the side of the car was suddenly covered with tears of blood.

”Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d . . .” Rosemary absurdly remembered the stories of saints from her childhood. For just a moment, she wondered if the world was ending, if the wars and the deaths, the jokers and the hate, truly prefigured the Apocalypse.

It was noon.

American B52s were bombing Hanoi and Haiphong. Quang Tri was shaky, as the North Vietnamese were on the march. In Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., politicians exchanged increasingly frantic phone calls about a recent burglary. The question in some quarters was, is Donald Segretti an ace?

The midtown Manhattan rush was ferocious. At Grand Central Station, Rosemary Muldoon looked for raggedy shadows she could follow into the darkness of the underground. A dozen blocks north, Jack Rob.i.+.c.heaux plied his regular trade, clattering through the permanent darkness on his small electric cart, checking track integrity in tunnel after tunnel. And somewhere under the abandoned 86th Street cutoff, just beneath the floor of the south edge of Central Park Lake, Bagabond drifted on the edge of sleep, warmed by the cats and other beasts of her life.

Noon. The war beneath Manhattan was starting.

”Let me quote to you from a speech given once by Don Carlo Gambione himself,” said Frederico ”the Butcher” Macellaio. He grimly surveyed the groups of capos and their soldiers gathered around him in the chamber. In the '30s, the huge room had been an underground repair facility for midtown transit. Before the Big War, it had been closed and sealed off when the T.A. decided to consolidate all maintenance yards across the river. The Gambione Family had soon taken the s.p.a.ce over for storage of guns and other contraband, freight transfer, and occasional burials.

The Butcher raised his voice and the words echoed. ”What will make the difference for us in battle will be two things: discipline and loyalty.”

Little Renaldo was standing off to one side with Frankie and Joey. ”Not to mention automatic weapons and H.E.,” he said, smirking.

Joey and Frankie exchanged glances. Frankie shrugged. Joey said, ”G.o.d, guns, and glory.”

Little Renaldo commented, ”I'm bored. I wanna go shoot somethin'.”

Joey said a little louder, so the Butcher could hear, ”Hey, are we goin' to roust some rummies, or what? Who's fair game? Just the blacks? Jokers too?”

”We don't know who their allies are,” said the Butcher. ”We know they wouldn't act alone. There are traitors from among our own race helping them for money.”

Little Renaldo's manic grin widened. ”Free-fire zone,” he said. ”Hoo-boy.” He tugged his boonie hat down snug.

”s.h.i.+t,” said Joey, ”you weren't even there.”

Little Renaldo gave him a thumbs-up. ”I saw that John Wayne movie.”

”That's the word from the Man, huh?” said Joey.

The Butcher's smile was thin and cold. ”Anybody gives you problems, just waste 'em.”

The groups began to move out, scouts, squads, and platoons. The men had their M-16s, pump scatterguns, a few M-60 machine guns, grenades and launchers, rockets, riot gas, sidearms, knives, and enough blocks of C-4 to handle any kind of heavy demolition.

”Hey, Joey,” said Little Renaldo. ”What you gonna shoot?”

Joey slapped a magazine into the AK-47. This weapon wasn't from the Gambione armory. It was his own souvenir. He touched the polished wooden stock. ”Maybe a 'gator.”

”Huh?”

”Don't you read any of them rags that's been talking about the giant alligators down here?”

Little Renaldo looked at him doubtfully and s.h.i.+vered. ”The jungle-jokers are one thing. I don't want to go up against no big lizards with teeth.”

It was Joey's turn to grin.

”No such things, right?” said Little Renaldo. ”You're just s.h.i.+ttin' me, right?”

Joey shot him a jaunty thumbs-up.