Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (42 page)

We
continued downward, sobered into silence again by the frail relic. The stairs
seemed to stretch endlessly away past the pale rim of light to the center of
the earth. I lost my sense of time. I thought we had been moving senselessly
downward for an hour, but when I looked at my watch at the third landing I saw
we’d spent only seven minutes on the stairs.

At
the end of the fourth flight we came to a closed door. Water had spilled around
it and was lapping at the bottom step. We sloshed through it to the door.

A
couple of rats were climbing through a grate at its top. While Mr. Contreras
grabbed the handle and pulled I used my pole to try to keep the rats away from
him.

He
had trouble shifting the door against the water. I finally abandoned my battle
with the rats to help. Sticking a hand through the gap at the jamb, I yanked
while he pulled. Panting, we managed to heave it open.

On
the other side lay the tunnels. We waded past the threshold and stood
ankle-deep in water to look around. We had used only one flashlight coming down
the stairs so as to conserve our batteries. Now we turned on both to get a
better look.

Our
flashlights danced on the greasy surface of the water. A few rats were swimming
toward us. They moved to the open door and disappeared up the stairs.

Trying
to ignore them I looked up and down the tunnel. Moving slowly, kicking through
the water, I found rails in the middle of the floor. The walls, made of set
stones, rose about five feet above our heads to form a vaulted ceiling.

“Now
what? You reckon they’ve gone on to safety someplace?” Mr. Contreras’s voice
echoed dully against the stone like the clanging of an ancient bell.

“I
don’t reckon anything. I don’t even know if they’re down here. That mitten we
found shows some kid was here, but how long ago?” I stuck a nervous hand into
the fetid water to feel the current; water was rising from the right of the
door. “If they got surprised by the water they’d have moved away from it. We
don’t think they went into the building. Why don’t we go up the tunnel a ways?

If
the water gets to our knees we’ll come back.”

I
wiped my hand over and over on a tissue before putting my work glove back on.
Mr. Contreras surveyed me and then the water, then grunted agreement.

“We’d
better figure out some way to tell when we’re back, in case the place is
littered with identical doors,” he added.

We
didn’t have paint or any kind of marking. Finally I tore a strip from the
blanket and tied it around the grating of the open door. The rats should be too
busy climbing to safety to stop to eat a scrap of cloth.

Using
our poles to steady ourselves we waded up the tunnel. Mr. Contreras turned off
his flashlight. Every now and then we checked the water level. It wasn’t rising
fast, but I couldn’t suppress a sense of panic. What if we got trapped down
here? We could drown and never be discovered.

“You
know, cookie, I’ve had a good life,” Mr. Contreras announced, his thoughts
apparently running on the same track as mine. “I had a good marriage—Clara was
the best, she really was. I’m sorry you never met her—you two would really’ve
hit it off. But I don’t think I was ever as happy in my young days as since you
moved into our building. What’s it been—six years now? The things you get up to—if
any of the guys in my local is doing something half this interesting this
morning—breaking into a building—looking for a runaway family—I’ll eat a pipe
wrench, threads and all.”

I had
to laugh. “You’re having a good time and I’m scared out of my wits worrying
about drowning.”

“Yeah,
you get scared—you ain’t no robot without feelings—but you don’t let fear stop
you. That’s why I admire you so much. I sure am going to hate it if one or the
other of us has to move away from Racine Avenue. Specially if it’s me and I end
up with Ruthie out in Elk Grove Village.”

We
came to a bend in the passage. On the other side of it the water was swirling
in tiny whirlpools and starting to rise faster around our ankles, reaching
midway to our calves. I hesitated, then plunged onward. Mr. Contreras looked at
the water, shrugged, and followed.

After
fifty feet or so we came to an intersection with another tunnel. Water was
pouring from the right-hand shaft into our shaft. That explained the
whirlpools—that flow was meeting the tide rising behind us. I had no sense of
direction down here, no idea where we were in relation to the breached wall or
how water was flowing, so I didn’t know if we were walking to or from the main
source.

“Can
you stay here a minute?” I said. “I want to see what this left-hand fork looks
like.”

He
turned his flashlight on again. “When you’re ready to come back, turn off your
light. You’ll see mine. Just head for it. And holler every thirty seconds or
so, so I know you’re okay.”

I
turned in to the left fork, dutifully shouting out every ten paces. After
thirty steps the water seemed to be lower. Another fifty and I was standing in
sludge. Shining my light ahead I could see dry ground as the tunnel curved away
from me.

I
tried calling out to the old man to join me, but the bouncing of sound from the
walls made me doubt whether he would hear me. I made my way back to him.

The
water was halfway up our calves by the time I reached him. “You want to try
this? If we don’t find anyone in ten minutes we can call it quits.”

“Sure,
cookie. We’ve come this far with a whole lot of trouble and nothing to show for
it. We might as well go a bit more just to see.”

I
tied another strip of blanket to a bracket that hung at the intersection.

As I
looked back I could see a row of similar hooks—perhaps they’d been used to hang
lanterns when the tunnel was in regular use. Above the hook I could see faint
lettering. I stood on tiptoe to look: Dearborn and Adams, I deciphered.

We’d
gone two blocks west and one block south in the twenty minutes we’d been down
here.

My
flashlight was beginning to dim. I switched it off and let Mr. Contreras lead
the way with his. The water had moved a bit farther up the left fork, but once
we were on dry ground we moved fast. On the other side of the bend a shadowy
mass suddenly started moving away from us. I couldn’t make it out, but the
motion was definitely human.

“Hey,
wait up!” I called. “Mrs. Hawkings? Jessie? It’s V. I. Warshawski. I’ve come to
help get you away from the water.”

The
figures continued to scuttle away from us. They weren’t moving very fast, but I
wasn’t going to make much headway in my waders. I wrenched them off and started
jogging down the middle of the tunnel between the tracks. Mr. Contreras
followed as fast as he could but I was soon beyond the rim of light. I switched
on my own flashlight again. It was almost dead, but in its feeble glow I could
avoid tripping on the tracks.

In
another minute I had caught up with the scrambling group. I grabbed the nearest
figure, a small child. He struggled briefly, then stood still and began to wail
softly. The rest of them stopped. There were more than four, but how many I
couldn’t tell in the light of my failing flashlight. Above the smell of mold
and coal and rats the stench of urine and fear rose to smite me. I swallowed a
gag.

“Let
him go. You have no business holding him.”

One
of the larger figures tried to pry my hand from his arm but her fingers were
weak and she couldn’t free the child. His own arm underneath my hand felt
frail. Mr. Contreras arrived, panting a little.

“These
them, doll?”

In
the stronger light of his flashlight I made out Tamar Hawkings, backing
soundlessly up the tunnel with her children clustered around her. The woman who’d
been trying to pry my fingers loose stayed near me. She was carrying a toddler
who started to wail in a thin, helpless thread of a voice.

“It’s
okay, Natie, it’s okay. Don’t cry; I’ll take care of you.”

“Emily?”
Her name exploded on my lips so loudly that she backed away from me.

I
stared at her astounded. If she hadn’t started to talk I would not have known
her. Her frizzy hair was matted to her head, her face pinched and gray with
hunger and filth. Her blue jeans and shirt hung on her shrunken body.

She
backed away from me. I put a hand on her arm.

“I
need to get you and your brothers to safety. You must come with me. Do you
understand?”

Too
much white was showing in her eyes. She looked feverish, her breath fast and
rasping. I wasn’t sure she could follow anything I said. I turned to Mr.

Contreras.

“These
are the Messenger children. Can you hold Joshua while I get Mrs.

Hawkings?”

He
picked the older boy up like a negligible load and cradled him against his
chest. As I trotted farther up the tunnel Mr. Contreras began crooning to the
child in the soothing tone you usually hear only from women.

When
I reached Tamar Hawkings I didn’t try to argue with her—I scooped up the
youngest of her children and headed back toward Mr. Contreras. Hawkings
followed, clawing at me and whispering invectives. Her two older children
staggered after her. When I had the group reassembled I spoke briefly.

“The
Chicago River is pouring in here. The wall between the river and the tunnels
broke last night. If you don’t get out now you may all drown. You certainly
will starve: it will soon become impossible to get aboveground to find food.
You must come with me. We’re going to have to go back through the water.

We’ll
be able to get into the Pulteney and then we’ll get you medical care. You must
come with me. If you don’t, you will all die.”

Emily
tugged wildly on my arm. “We can’t go back. We can’t go back! Tamar, don’t let
them take me back!”

“You
don’t have to go back to Fabian, Emily. But you must come with me now.”

Mr.
Contreras held both Joshua and the older Hawkings girl while I struggled back
into my waders. I fished the spare batteries for my flashlight out of a side
pocket and changed them. With Mr. Contreras in the lead bearing Joshua, we
turned back down the fork in the tunnel and headed for the water. I continued
to carry the younger Hawkings girl,holding the boy by the hand. All the
children except Emily were whimpering and Jessie’s asthma began racking her
slight body.

By
the time we got to the intersection with our tunnel, water was swirling above
Emily’s knees. Mrs. Hawkings, even smaller than Emily, was swaying against the
current. None of them had waders to protect them, and all of them were too weak
to hike back through the flood.

“We’re
going to have to do this in relays,” I said to Mr. Contreras. “Can you carry
Joshua and leave him on the stairs? I’ll stay here with these folks. If you can
make two trips alone we can manage the rest of the children between us in a
final run.”

His
face grim in the half-light he nodded agreement. “Okay, son, you and me is
going for a quick ride. No need for you to cry—we’ll have your sister to you in
no time flat. You just leave it to your uncle Sal: I’ll get you out of here
shipshape, you’ll see.”

His
voice, uttering these soothing words, mingled with Joshua’s faint cries for
Emily. The two sounds echoed and reechoed down the tunnel after his flashlight
had disappeared around the bend. Next to me Emily was trembling, tears cutting
ribbons through the muck on her face. Nathan clung to her, wailing in a soft
monotone.

The
two older Hawkings children were in water now up to their waists. I tucked the
toddler into the bib of my overall—she was so small from malnutrition that she
fit inside without difficulty—and picked up the boy. He clung to my neck like a
small monkey, his arms trembling with fatigue.

Jessie
was gasping so violently for air I was afraid she would suffocate.

There
was nothing I could do for her; I was so breathless from exertion myself I
could scarcely summon the strength to speak.

I
took my piece of rope and looped it around Tamar Hawkings’s waist, planning to
attach her to Emily. It was a battle: they were resisting me, fighting to
return to the dry ground we’d left behind.

Tamar
suddenly slipped in my grasp and fell into the water. I yanked her to her feet,
pounding water from her, struggling to maintain my hold on her children.

“Damn
you,” I panted. “You’re going to drown your children as well as yourself. Stop
fighting with me.”

She
stood sullenly, coughing the sooty water from her throat, and let me tie the
end of the rope around her. When Emily saw Tamar had stopped struggling, she
let me tie the rope around her waist as well. I held the end, leaning against
the wall to catch my breath and to spread some of the load the two children
were putting on my body. The blow on the back of my head was beginning to
throb. My cracked rib pushed against my lungs with exquisite agony.

While
I leaned there, panting, Mr. Contreras finally returned. He was staggering a
little in the water, holding on to the wall for support.