Reliquary (Pendergast, Book 2) (Relic) Page 31

  His calculations were interrupted by a strange rumbling noise. It stopped, then came again, so deep it seemed more vibration than sound. The noise level around him dropped for a moment: apparently, others had heard it, too. Suddenly, two blocks down the long empty length of Broadway, Smithback saw a manhole cover lift from the asphalt and fall back onto the street. A cloud of what appeared to be steam drifted skyward; then an impossibly dirty man clambered up, sneezing and coughing in the glare of the streetlight, filthy rags of clothes fluttering loosely around his limbs. For a moment, Smithback thought it was Tail Gunner, the haunted-looking man that had taken him to Mephisto. Then another figure emerged from the manhole, blood flowing freely from a cut on his temple; another followed him, then another.

  There was an audible intake of breath at Smithback’s side. He turned and saw that Mrs. Wisher had faltered, staring in the direction of the wild-looking men. He quickly drew alongside her.

  “What is this?” she said, almost in a whisper.

  Suddenly, another manhole cover popped free closer to the march, and a series of gaunt figures clambered out, disoriented and coughing. Smithback stared in disbelief at the bedraggled group, unable to tell age or even sex beneath the matted hair and crusted dirt. Some held pipes or ragged pieces of rebar; others carried bats and broken police batons. One was wearing what looked like a brand-new police cap. The crowd of marchers nearest Broadway had stopped and were staring at the spectacle. Smithback could hear a low undercurrent of sound: worried muttering from the older, elegantly dressed people, scoffs and hoots of derision from the young white-collar turks and desk jockeys. A cloud of green mist sighed out of the IRT station beneath the Circle, and more homeless emerged, scurrying up the steps. As additional bodies clambered out of manholes and the subway, a ragged army began to form, looks of blinking bewilderment quickly turning to hostility.

  One of the ragged men stepped forward, glaring at the front rank of marchers. Then he opened his mouth in an inarticulate roar of frustration and rage, a long piece of rebar held over his head like a staff.

  A great cry arose from the throats of the homeless, who raised their hands in answer. Smithback could see that every hand held something—rocks, chunks of cement, pieces of iron. Many had cuts and bruises. It looked like they were preparing for a battle—or had just come from one.

  What the hell is this? Smithback thought. Where have all these guys come from? For a moment he wondered if it was some kind of organized massscale robbery. Then he remembered what Mephisto had told him as he’d crouched down there in the dark: we will find other ways to make our voices heard. Not now, he thought. This is the worst possible time.

  A wisp of smoke drifted closer, and several of the nearest marchers began to choke and gasp. In an instant, Smithback’s eyes began to sting painfully, and he realized that what he’d thought was steam was actually tear gas. Farther down the empty stretch of Broadway, Smithback saw what looked like a small group of policemen—their blue uniforms torn and grimy—stumble up a subway staircase, then stagger in the direction of the distant squad cars. Shit, something big’s happened down there, he thought.

  “Where’s Mephisto?” one of the homeless yelled out.

  Another voice rose up. “I heard he was paddied!”

  The mob grew increasingly agitated. “Goddamn cops!” someone shouted. “I bet they beat his ass!”

  “What are these scumbags doing, anyway?” Smithback heard a young voice behind him ask.

  “Don’t know,” came an answer. “Too late at night to cash a welfare check.” There was scattered laughter and hooting.

  “Mephisto!” The chant began to rise among the ragged crowd before them. “Where’s Mephisto?”

  “The mothers probably murdered him!”

  There was a sudden commotion among the Wisher marchers on the side of the street nearest the Park, and Smithback turned to see a large subway grating being forced open, and more homeless boiling up from below.

  “Murdered!” one of the ragged army was screaming. “The bastards murdered him!”

  The man who had stepped to the front pumped his rebar. “They won’t get away with it! Not this time, they won’t!”

  He held up his arms. “The mothers gassed us!” he cried.

  The tattered mob screamed wildly in response.

  “They destroyed our homes!”

  Another roar came from the mob.

  “Now we’ll destroy theirs!” He flung the piece of rebar at the glass facade of a nearby bank branch. There was a splintering crash as it burst through the window and fell into the lobby. An alarm began to whine, quickly drowned out in the ocean of noise.

  “Hey!” somebody beside Smithback yelled out. “Did you see what that asshole did?”

  The homeless mob, screaming, poured a rain of missiles toward the buildings lining Broadway. Smithback, glancing up and down the avenue, watched as more and more homeless persons rose from manholes, vents, and subway exits, filling Broadway and Central Park West with their incoherent rage. Over their cries, he could make out the faint, insistent blatting of emergency vehicles. The dark pavement glittered brightly with countless shards of broken glass.

  He jumped in surprise as he heard Mrs. Wisher’s amplified voice ring out. She had taken the microphone and turned to address the marchers. “Do you see this?” she cried, her voice echoing off the tall facades and rolling into the dark, silent Park beyond. “These people are intent on destroying the very thing we’re here to preserve!”

  Angry cries began to arise from around her. Smithback looked around. He could see large groups of older marchers—Mrs. Wisher’s original followers—talking amongst themselves, pointing back toward Fifth Avenue or Central Park West, moving hurriedly away from the approaching confrontation. Others—the younger, brusquer element—were shouting angrily, moving toward the front.

  The television cameras were milling around, some focused on Mrs. Wisher, others on the homeless mob now moving up the street, scooping up fresh projectiles from trash cans and Dumpsters, shouting their anger and defiance.

  Mrs. Wisher looked across the sea of marchers, stretching out her hands briefly, then drawing them together as if to rally the group behind her banner. “Look at this rabble! Are we going to let this happen, tonight, of all nights?” She gazed across the crowd, half questioningly, half imploringly, as a tense silence gathered. The front lines of homeless paused in their rampage, startled by the booming, omnipresent sound of her voice, echoing from a dozen loudspeakers.

  “No way!” slurred a young voice.

  With mingled awe and dread, Smithback watched as, very slowly, Mrs. Wisher raised one arm above her head. Then, with commanding deliberation, she brought it down, pointing a manicured finger directly at the swelling lines of homeless. “These are the people that would destroy our city!” Though her voice was steady, Smithback sensed a ragged edge of hysteria.

  “Look at these bums!” screamed a young man, pushing through the front rank of marchers. A noisy group began to form a knot behind him, ten feet from the now-silent ranks of the homeless. “Get a job, asshole!” he shouted at the leader.

  The ranks of mole people fell into a deathly, ominous silence.

  “You think I work my ass off and pay taxes just to give you a free ride?” he screeched.

  An angry murmur swept through the crowd of homeless.

  “Why don’t you do something for your country, instead of just living off it?” the man screamed, taking a step toward the leader and spitting on the ground. “Homeless piece of shit.”

  A roar of approval rose from the marchers.

  A homeless man stepped forward, waving the ruined stump of what had been his left arm. “Look what I did for my country!” he shrieked, voice breaking. “I gave everything.” The stump flapped back and forth and he turned toward the young man, face distorted with rage. “Chu Lai, ever heard of it?” The mole people pressed forward, an angry buzz rising fast.

  Smithback glanced at Mrs. Wishe
r. Her face was still set in a hard, cold mask, as she stared at the homeless. He realized, with growing disbelief, that she really believed these people were the enemy.

  “Kiss my ass, welfare bloodsucker!” a drunken voice yelled.

  “Go mug a liberal!” shouted a beefy young man, to a burst of raucous laughter.

  “They killed my brother!” one of the moles, a tall, skinny man, said angrily. “Fragged for his country, Phon Mak Hill, August 2, 1969.” He stepped forward, raising his middle finger in a violent gesture at the beefy man. “You can have your damn country, asswipe.”

  “Too bad they didn’t finish the job and blow your ass off, too!” the drunken man yelled back. “One less scumbag roaming the streets!”

  A bottle whipped out of the seething crowd of homeless and struck the young man solidly on the head. He staggered backward, legs crumpling, as he raised his hands toward the blood streaming from his forehead.

  It was as if the rally suddenly exploded. With an inarticulate roar, the young men surged toward the homeless. Smithback looked around wildly. The older marchers had disappeared, leaving behind a wild and drunken element. He felt himself engulfed as the younger marchers rushed forward with angry yells, moving directly toward the line of homeless. Spun around and temporarily disoriented, he looked about in panic for Mrs. Wisher and her entourage, but they too had vanished.

  Struggling, he was borne along on the tide. Over the shouting of the mob, he could now hear the sickening sound of wood hitting bone and fists smacking flesh. Cries of pain and rage began to mix with the yells. There was a sudden heavy blow across his shoulders and he dropped to his knees, instinctively shielding his head. Out of the corner of one eye he saw his recorder skidding across the pavement, kicked aside, and then crushed by running feet. He tried to rise, but then ducked down again as a chunk of concrete came hurtling in his direction. It was astonishing how quickly chaos engulfed the darkened streets.

  Who or what had forced the homeless to the surface in such huge groups was anyone’s guess; Smithback only knew that, suddenly, each side saw the other as the incarnation of evil. Mob mentality had taken over.

  He rose to his knees and looked about wildly, staggering as he was jostled and shoved from countless directions. The march had disintegrated. However, his story was still salvageable; perhaps more than just salvageable, if this riot was as big as he thought it was. But he needed to get away from the mob, gain some high ground where he could get perspective on the situation. Quickly, he looked north, toward the Park. Over the sea of raised fists and sticks he could see the bronze statue of Shakespeare, gazing down placidly on the chaos. Keeping low, he began pushing his way toward it. A wide-eyed homeless person bore down on him, screaming and raising an empty beer bottle threateningly. Instinctively he lashed out with his fist and the figure dropped, clutching its stomach. With surprise, Smithback saw that it was a woman. “Sorry, ma’am,” he mumbled as he scuttled away.

  Glass and debris crunched beneath his feet as he made his way across Central Park South. He shoved a drunk aside, pushed past a group of screaming young men in expensive but torn suits, and gained the far sidewalk.

  Here, on the fringes, it was quieter. Avoiding the pigeon lime, he clambered onto the base of the statue and grabbed the lower fold of Shakespeare’s garment. Then he hoisted himself up the arm, onto the open bronze book, and atop the Bard’s wide shoulders.

  It was an awe-inspiring sight. The melee had spread several blocks down Broadway and Central Park South. More homeless were still streaming up from Columbus Circle subway station, and from gratings and vent shafts along the edge of the Park. He hadn’t known there were that many homeless people in the entire world, or that many drunken young yuppies, for that matter. He could now see the older marchers, the main guard of Take Back Our City, streaming in well-ordered ranks toward Amsterdam Avenue, moving as far from the melee as possible, desperately trying to flag down cabs. Around him, knots of brawling people were coalescing and dissolving. He stared in horrified fascination at the flying missiles, the fistfights, and stick battles. There were a number of people down now—unconscious or perhaps worse. Blood was mingling with the glass, concrete, and debris littering the street. At the same time, much of the riot consisted of screaming, shoving, and posturing groups of people—a lot of bark but no bite. Squads of police were now at last making inroads into the crowd, but there were not enough of them, and already the riot was moving into the Park where it would be much harder to control. Where are all the cops? Smithback thought again.

  Despite his horror and revulsion, a certain secret part of Smithback felt a surging elation: what a story this was going to be. His eyes strained against the darkness, trying to imprint the images on his brain, already writing the lead in his head. The homeless mob now seemed to be gaining the upper hand, screaming in righteous anger, pushing the throngs of marchers back into the southern fringes of the Park. Though many of the moles were no doubt weakened by hand-to-mouth lives, they obviously knew a lot more about street fighting than their opponents. A number of television cameras had been smashed by the mob, and the remaining crews were hanging back in a protective phalanx, spotlights glaring out of the darkness. Others hung over the rooftops of nearby buildings with long lenses, bathing the rioters in eerie white light.

  A patch of blue nearby caught his attention. He glanced down to see a tight group of policemen battling their way through the crowd, batons flashing. At the center of the group was a scared-looking civilian with a bushy moustache and a fat, sweaty guy Smithback recognized as Captain Waxie.

  Smithback watched, intrigued, as the group forced its way past the rioters. Something was strange here. Then he realized what it was: these cops were doing nothing to stop the fighting or control the crowd. Instead, they seemed to be protecting the two men in the middle, Waxie and the other guy. As he watched, the knot of policemen gained the curb and jogged through a stone gate into the Park. They were obviously on a mission of some sort or other: they were heading someplace special in a hurry.

  But what mission, Smithback thought, could be more important than stopping this riot?

  He remained for a few moments, poised stiffly on Shakespeare’s shoulders, in an agony of indecision. Then, very quickly, he slipped off the statue, vaulted the low stone wall, and ran after the group into the enfolding darkness of Central Park.

  49

  D’Agosta removed the unlit cigar from his mouth, picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue, and examined the sodden end with distaste. Margo watched as he patted his pockets for a match, then, finding none, caught her eye and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. She shook her head no. D’Agosta turned toward Horlocker, began to open his mouth, then obviously thought better of it. The Chief had a portable radio plastered to one ear, and he didn’t look happy.

  “Mizner?” he was shouting. “Mizner! You copy?”

  There was a faint, lengthy squawking that Margo assumed must be Mizner.

  “Just subdue and arrest the—” Horlocker began.

  More faint squawking.

  “Five hundred? From underground? Look, Mizner, don’t give me this shit. Why aren’t they on the buses?”

  Horlocker stopped again to listen. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Pendergast sitting on the edge of a table, leaning against a mobile radio unit, seemingly engrossed in an issue of the Policeman’s Gazette.

  “Riot control, tear gas, I don’t give a rat’s ass how you do it … marchers? What do you mean, they’re fighting with the marchers?” He lowered the phone, looked at it as if in disbelief, then raised it to his other ear. “No, for Chrissakes, don’t use gas anywhere near the marchers. Look, we got most of the Twentieth and Twenty-second underground, the Thirty-first is manning the checkpoints, Uptown is laid wide open as a … no, forget it, tell Perillo I want a wildfire meeting with all the deputy chiefs in five minutes. Bring in staff from the outer boroughs, off duty, meter cops, whatever. We need more manpower applied to that spot, you h
ear me?”

  He punched the phone angrily and grabbed at another on the desk in front of him. “Curtis, get the Governor’s office on the phone. The evac went south, and some of the underground homeless we were clearing from the area around the Park are rioting. They’ve run straight into that big march on Central Park South. We’ll have to call in the Guard. Then contact Masters, we’re going to need a Tactical helicopter, just in case. Have him get the assault vehicles from the Lexington Avenue armory. No, forget that, they may not be able to make it through. Contact the Park substation instead. I’ll call the Mayor myself.”

  He hung up the phone, more slowly this time. A single bead of sweat was making its slow traverse down a forehead that had gone from red to gray in a matter of moments. Horlocker looked around the command center, seemingly blind to the scurrying cops, the transmitters crackling on countless bands. To Margo, he looked like a man whose entire world had suddenly imploded.

  Pendergast carefully folded the Gazette and placed it on the table beside him. Then he leaned forward, smoothing his pale blond hair with the fingers of his right hand.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he began, almost casually.

  Uh-oh, Margo thought.

  Pendergast glided forward until he stood directly in front of the Chief. “I’ve been thinking that this situation is simply too dangerous to leave in the hands of one man.”

  Horlocker closed his eyes for a minute. Then, as if making a tremendous effort, he raised them to Pendergast’s placid face.