The Warriors (15 page)

The knife! Who has the knife! Who has that fucken knife? The thought hit and their frantic looks flickered around.

Hector wink-signed. Bimbo got up and sauntered over to the door and looked out onto the platform. A few people were standing around; a woman with shopping bags had put them down and was plucking her dress free of her breasts with one hand and fanning herself with a sogged copy of a two days old
Daily News.
Bimbo leaned himself against the door, half in, half out, letting it out into his back, idle-like, so he could see inside and out. He looked down the platform at the cop's back. The buster was about two cars down now, patrolling, shoving his head into the train, trying to look unsuspicious, not making a move to alert
anyone. But something made him turn around. Bimbo ducked back in, but not before he had been seen. He went back to the middle of the car and tried to see down the train's length, see through the windows, between the cars, if the buster was still looking at them. He saw nothing. He went back and popped his head back out the doorway. The cop was standing still, hands on hips, club dangling from his wrist, staring right back into Bimbo's eyes. And Bimbo tried to turn his look into a sightsee, turning his head very casually, as though there was much of interest along the platform. Bimbo's eyes saw nothing at all, not the people, not even the other side of the platform; all his attention was focused on that transit flat, who watched him, not fooled by the act. Something was wrong now. Hinton got up and drifted down to the front of the car, took his post to look through and into the cars ahead. Dewey went to the rear of the car, looking back. Lunkface was in the center, watching the other side of the tracks to the uptown platform in case the cops were coming up that way. A train was pulling into the local side there. Hector and The Junior sat.

Hector got a penny ready, stood up and drifted out, got himself a stick of gum, quick, from the machine, and drifted back in. He knew he was being watched and he began to wonder if it wouldn't have been a good idea to have removed the insignia after all. It was too easy to spot them. But the idea disturbed him and he rejected it. Still, he kept being bothered by the idea that he was being foolish. The train pulled in on the local side of their platform; people began to come across from the local to the express. Hector took off his hat and stuck out his head. The cop, four cars away, was still standing there, observing, definitely suspicious now, impatiently shifting his head to see around the people passing in front of him. Hector got back in. The doors began to close. Hector signaled. Lunkface came up and held the door open. Hinton, at the front, saw the cop come
onto the train and gave the signal. They all ran out, ducking under Lunkface's arms. The door shut behind them. They were all laughing because they had outwitted that potato-head T-cop.

But that fuzz must have given out the alarm somehow, because even though one had been out-smarted into the departing train, another cop was coming, trotting in their direction, looking like a little fat blue clown that anyone of the men could have taken, but who was dangerous because he was The Law. They took evasive action: they turned and ran toward the rear. The cop, seeing the move, followed fast.

Hinton, being the fastest, ran first. He was going too fast to take the underpass exit, kept running, jumped off the end of the platform onto the tracks, and continued into the tunnel, sprinting uptown on the downtown track.

Dewey and The Junior ran toward the north end, ran down the underpass stairs, three, four, five at a time, turned the corner to the right, almost banging into the corridor wall, and were gone.

Hector, Lunkface, and Bimbo ran the same way, but at the end, following Hector's lead, they leaped onto the tracks, crossed to the right behind the iron pillars, taking care not to step on any of the rails, swung up onto the uptown platform, and ran south to the downtown end of the platform and upstairs and out into the street.

Hinton ran north into the darkness; he ran as fast as he could on the railroad ties, barely seeing where he was going, getting away from the station, the platform lights, the police. The heel of his right shoe was wrenched off when it caught on a tie. He kept running. He could barely see the way ahead; his heartbeat pounded stronger; his wind was soon gone; he gasped and his right side hurt. The pulse throbbed in his eyes, wavering reality, fracturing the tunnel lights into shaky intervals. He sped past a green light and a blue one, and kept fleeing for about another hundred yards before he had to stop. He turned and looked back. He was alone. The men hadn't followed him. He could see the lights of the 96th Street station; they were much further back than he thought he had run. What had happened to the others;
where were they? He waited, gasping, trying to catch his breath. If they were following, they should have caught up. No one was there. What should he do? Should he go back? But that would be dancing into the arms of the headbusters who would be all over the station by now. He knew those cops—always all over everything when it was too late. Should he wait here for a while and then go back? Or keep on going to the next station? The darkness frightened him; a train might come along and roll over him. Where was the third rail? But the cops frightened him more. He could stop—just stand still—sleep. Never move again. He couldn't. He started to walk along, limping hobble-bound because of the shoe and the queer distance between the ties.

He kept stopping and listening for trains. A hole in his right sock kept widening and his toe began to rub on the leather. He listened. He heard his choky breathing distorted by the tunnel echo. Everything rumbled steadily, but seemed too faint to mean that a train was approaching. What was it then? Something dripped; something else rustled. Rats? But he was used to those. Always rats wherever he lived. He slowed. There were coffin-shaped niches painted white, along the sides. A man could stand there if trains came along. He was still sweating from his run, but at least it was cool here and it didn't bother a man to move. After a while the chilliness of the air became something felt on his skin, crawly, and that made him sure something was happening—he didn't know—as if he was in a haunted place. Foolishness. Junior kid-stuff. He laughed. The echo of that snort-laugh shocked him; distorted, he didn't know what it was for a second.

He walked on. He turned around. He could still see the station back there. How far was it to the next station? He couldn't remember how long it had taken that train to come down. Couldn't be too long, he decided. But the tunnel seemed to darken as he went; the chill increased; the steady rumble grew not so much louder, not so much as if something was coming his
way, but as if the whole earth was vibrating, making weird noises.

Suppose the cops had seen him run up the tunnel? What if they had sent the word ahead to lay in wait for him? Wouldn't it be silly to keep on? All that walk to fall into their hands at the end of it. How they would laugh at him. How cool was that, how smart? Stop? Wait: sleep a little? Still, Hinton thought, you couldn't be sure. He wondered what had happened to the others. They might have gotten away and just not seen him. Maybe they thought the cops had him. The thought buckled his knees, made him tired enough to lay down. He touched the pin and the cigarette in his hat and thought, No, Papa Hector would never allow that. If they were free, they would be waiting somewhere for him. Where? Surely not at the 96th Street station. At 42nd Street where they were supposed to change for the Coney Island train. He kept going.

But if they were all captured, then it was serious. He was really alone. They would take the Family to the Station and hit them around a little, and get names and addresses, find out about the whole operation, that he had gotten away, maybe even about the man they had killed. When he got home, they would be waiting for him, like they had more than once waited for his half brother, Alonso. It might be simpler to just go back and give himself up. It might be in his favor, but it wouldn't be manly if he did. They would laugh him down and point him out as a betrayer, and he would be out of the gang, alone. And if he was alone, they would always be coming down on him. It had cost him enough trouble to get into the gang and become a brotherson. He couldn't give that up. He kept walking.

Something hit his hat. Bats! There were always bats in caves and tunnels, everybody knew that. Vampire bats! Bloodsuckers. He looked up. He shrieked—clusters of them! The shriek echoed up and down, dying slowly like the high twitters of millions of
bats. He cowered, kneeling on a tie, unable to move. But they didn't fly down on him. He waited. He suddenly scuttled. They didn't pounce on his back. He stopped, out of breath again, and looked up, his hand held in front of his face. He saw thick hanging paint peels, crumbling plaster, stalactites. He took off his hat. There was a big water splotch on it where some limey water had fallen. Maybe the tunnel could cave in. He shook his head to shake out the fears and walked on fast, lurching and tripping. A matter of going on, keeping calm. He would soon be to that station. He would take the train and go on down to the transfer point and meet his family there. He brushed his hat. The pin was a little off center and he tried to adjust it. He moved on, taking deep breaths to keep control. His ankle and toe hurt because of the shoe.

After a while he saw that the tracks gleamed away in a curve till they were chopped off by the swell of the turning wall. The tunnel would be in a worse darkness than here; worse because the station lights would be cut off. What if a train was bearing down on him right now and he couldn't hear it because of the tunnel wall? Did he dare go on? He half-turned. The lights of the 96th Street station were far away, barely visible now, clustered, gay, festive, tight little light strings vibrating like sparklers. He had come so far now that even the side lights illuminating the tunnel ran together at the far end. Then surely, Hinton thought, the station must be just a little further, probably just around the curve. But he stood there for a while, afraid, fighting it out, not wanting to go; afraid to leave the station lights once and for all. He was being silly. A punk kid, he told himself. It was only a matter of keeping on till he came to the station. There
couldn't
be a train coming; he'd hear it. He moved again.

The curve was longer than it appeared; it unrolled slowly as he came along it. He kept turning around to look at the 96th Street station. He tripped, fell on his palms, got up and kept
going. After a while the lights were all gone. He felt alone in a darkness greater than any he had ever known before. It closed in more and more as he kept going.

There was a little light ahead. Slowly he came up on it, trying to keep close to the center pillars. He came to and passed a glass-windowed room off to the right, on the side of the uptown tracks. Men in overalls were sitting around a table, playing cards. Two were laughing. There were some beer cans on the table. It looked cool and pleasant there. He stumbled and made a noise as he passed and froze behind a pillar. They didn't seem to hear anything, since they didn't turn to look. He almost wished they'd notice him, take him in, give him a glass of beer. Not really, he thought, they were all white men, the Other. Even though it
looked
nice there, how could you be sure? He forced himself to keep walking and left the light behind.

The rails hummed. The dripping became louder, more frequent now, building up into the sound of water running. The chill became harder, a little stiffer in his face. Was there a train coming? The loneliness increased; he had never been as alone as this, never as cut off. Little sounds accumulated till there was a constant murmur keeping pace with him. He had to tell himself that his fear was a silly fear, not a man's fear. Not fear of what there was, but a little boy's fear, a terror of what wasn't. A Junior fear. He had to be a hard man, like the others—Arnold, Hector, Bimbo, Lunkface, Dewey, Ismael. These were never afraid. After all, he remembered with pride, he hadn't been spooked by that corpse and ghost jazz in the cemetery like that Junior, had he? No, he hadn't!

But by now he should have come to the station. How far could it be? And he tried to quick-march. Footsteps multiplied off the walls. Many people, or a many-footed something seemed to be walking just behind him. He stopped a second-fraction after. It was still, except for the perpetual humming. He felt as
though a great multitude had stopped with him too. He listened for breathing; he heard only his own. He moved on: they walked with him. He reminded himself again; it was a matter of keeping order and staying disciplined and thinking of the thing after—connecting with the men, for instance. And, anyway, he joked with himself, he was probably in the coolest part of the city. He made himself laugh but stopped. If he laughed someone might hear him. He smiled. He tried to cheer himself with the thought about the way the Family eyes would bug when he told them, “Man, let me tell you where I was and what I did.”

A roaring came, filling the tunnel; he looked around for it: a train was passing on the uptown track. It was on him and the pounding and shaking and echoing was painful around him, and he jumped into one of the niches. It was childish, he scolded himself. The train was on the other side and if it had been here, he would have been killed before he had time to be scared. He stepped out between the rails and looked at the lights rattling by on the other side of the pillars. People were sitting in there; he could see the backs of their heads, and he began to run after the train, shouting at it. But no one turned around to look at him. Then the train was gone.

He stopped running. He walked on again. No, there
was
something there, someone. He thought of singing, but all he could think about were the moaning rhythms of a rock'n'roll hymn, and that was childish. Besides, if the cops
were
waiting up along the line, why give himself away? Anyway, who believed that religion shit? His mother said gospelly things all the time, but that was when she wanted something out of someone.