Dweena Gets Even
A series of dull thumps punctuated with rat-a-tats jolts me out of a meandering plotless dream. Dweena’s ringtone. 5am? Early for her. “What’s up?”
“Meet me in front of your building. Bring your maps. I’ll fill you in on the way downtown.”
***
A black SUV the size of a New York City studio apartment pulls up to the curb. Too big, fucking things oughta be illegal in this city. I get in, Dweena aims the monster downtown and hits the accelerator hard.
“What’s with the vehicle?” I ask. “No diplomat plates?” Dweena specializes in relocating illegally parked diplomat cars.
“No time to be picky. Boosted the first vulnerable vehicle. My friend Rex still works where I used to. He told me the firm’s three founding partners are going down big time for fraud and a bunch of other stuff. The same three framed me years ago for what they did. Being innocent, I got off, but it was a close call. No surprise the creeps are still at it, only this time their crimes are so outrageous and sloppy the authorities got wind of it. Rex and a couple of others on the support staff have been testifying. Bust is happening later this morning.”
She jerks her thumb to indicate a bag on the floor. “Cameras and press credentials to get shots of the action.”
The cameras are professional, press credentials are legit, sort of. Along with Sir Loin Ghost Steer of MePa, Dweena makes a zine about her neighborhood, Oxtail to Retail, Tails of NYC’s Meatpacking District. That reminds me, “Is Sir Loin here?”
“Hey, Two-Gs,” says Sir Loin. “I’m here. Gonna stay in invisible mode if it’s okay with you.”
“No problem.” Invisible mode is good. Sir Loin is a cool guy, but the sight of his sawed-off head floating around dripping blood, protruding tongue, and Xed out eyes is not what I want to see so fucking early in the morning. “Dweena, why bring me? I’m a lousy photographer.”
“Yes, but you are a tunnel expert. Back when I was with the firm, before they screwed me, noise and vibrations sometimes shook the building. A lot of us thought the bigwigs hired sandhogs to dig below the sub sub-basement, to make a safe room or an escape route, just in case. They claimed it was only the building settling, not exactly comforting, and definitely not true. I mean, why would a bunch of scheming liars ever tell the truth to lowly support staff? So, Two-Gs, what do you know about tunnels running under lower Manhattan?”
“Plenty. Anybody digging down there could’ve run into abandoned subway tunnels, burial grounds, old water tunnels, sewers, pretty much anything. Do you know that there are still ancient pneumatic tubes that once moved mail under the city?”
“No kidding,” says Sir Loin.
“Yep. The tubes moved the mail fast. There’s a whole lotta stuff going on beneath the surface. Dig, enlarge, join, repurpose existing tunnels, that’s a clever way to make an escape route.”
“Rex and I figure that when the shit hits the fan, the sleazoids are gonna try to use the tunnels to get away. We need to figure out places they might surface and try to get them to come out where we think they’ll most likely get caught. If we get lucky, I’ll get good pix and videos. Perp walk. Wheee!”
Sir Loin says, “Once you figure out the best possible exit I’ll herd the bad guys there. Nice change to be doing the herding instead of being herded. I’ll make creepy sounds, whisper weird stuff in their ears, flash visible mode off and on, you get the idea.”
Dweena smiles. “So that’s the plan.” She finds a parking space close to the building’s front entrance.
“Is there a back way out?”
“Sure, but the authorities will be stationed there too, so if I’m wrong and the lowlifes come out that way, they’ll get caught. My bet is on them using the tunnels though.” Dweena and Sir Loin get out of the vehicle, leaving me alone to concentrate.
I start up my laptop and stare at the tunnel maps I’ve been collecting for years, look for likely uncharted connections and possible exits. I create an overlay of current streets. Next I close my eyes and let it all soak into my brain, then I turn off my brain to let instinct take over. A few minutes later I get out of the car.
“I have a hunch. You gotta understand it’s just a hunch. There many possible connections and exits. I narrowed it down to two, and one of them is a fucking humdinger, Federal Plaza.”
***
“Okay,” says Dweena, “Now I need to alert the authorities that the guys they’re after might actually walk right into their arms, to make sure some of them stick around home base. I’ll call Turner, my cop friend—“
Sir Loin butts in. “—your acquaintance.”
“—Right. My acquaintance from the local precinct. He’s retired now, but he still knows people who know people in all kinds of law enforcement. She makes the call. “Good morning, Detective, it’s Dweena. You trust me, right? . . . Okay, you sort of trust me, sometimes, maybe. Well, trust me this time. Your brother-in-law, didn’t you once tell me he was a—”
I tune out and check my maps again to be sure my hunch is the best possible hunch. It is. Still, it’s only a hunch.
“I’m outta here,” says Sir Loin. “Just because I’m a ghost and can go through walls and floors, doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’ll take a while to get down to the sub sub-basement and find the tunnel exit. It won’t be marked ‘secret escape route’ so I’ll have to poke around. Once I find it, I’ll wait and hope the dirtbags show up.”
***
My hunch turned out to be right. The news media got tipped off to the bust, but waited outside the building where nothing was happening except some authorities went in and then came out a little later. Empty-handed.
Meanwhile, over in Federal Plaza Dweena got some great shots of the perp walk. She was delirious with glee.
***
Dweena sold the rights to some of her photos and videos to news media, local and national. It was a huge story. “Finally,” she said, “after all this time I got even.”
“Me too,” said Sir Loin. He couldn’t shut up about the thrill of herding and scaring humans. He hoped they were ancestors of the humans who’d herded and scared him. Or the ones who slaughtered him. Or the ones who let his spine fall off an offal truck where it moldered in the middle of Horatio Street for two days and twenty-three hours.
The bad guys went to prison, ten to twelve, no time off for good behavior. Nobody ever believed their stories about being chased by the bloody head of a steer.
Me, just glad know my hunch turned out to be right. I’m updating my tunnel maps. Never know when they’ll come in handy.
Tubular