socializing and such.”
Everything suddenly went dark and I clutched the edge of the desk. Two seconds later, the lights went back on and I realized we had gone underground, into the vast tunnel system that fed an endless flow of trains below the Hudson River, across to Manhattan to be routed around Penn Station for the trip northeast. For a little while, we might arguably have a claim to proper jurisdiction.
“So, let me ask you about a guy I’m looking to talk to, Kris,” Mike said.
“Okay.”
“He’s a performer. Maybe worked with the troupe a few months back. Maybe still does.”
She sat up straighter and listened attentively.
“He’s a tall guy, very thin. Has dark hair, keeps it long — sometimes tied back like a ponytail. Don’t know what kind of artist he is, but he moves real smooth and graceful.”
Kristin Sweeney wasn’t smiling at Mike any longer. She had her right arm raised to the wall next to her before he finished his description, and was pounding on it with her fist as he spoke.
“He’s got bad skin, some kind of blisters—”
“I don’t know a guy like that, but why do you want to talk to him anyway?” She was quick to answer, and there was almost a snarl in her voice. “About those girls? About?”
The door opened and a hulking six-foot-six-inch man put a foot forward in the room. He had the torso of a comic-book strongman.
“Nico,” Kris said. “Thanks for coming in. These guys are cops.”
If someone had posted a Doric column in the doorway, it would have been easier to work my way around it and out of the room.
“Nico Radka. Pleased to meet you.”
So he was the Czech performer in the next room, whose surname had been on the whiteboard. To the rescue, as Kristin had hoped.
“Mike Chapman. Alex—”
“Nico, they’re all into asking questions about some missing girls and stuff. That’s why I was answering them at first. Now they want to know if we got a guy that looks such and such. Tall, ponytail, red face or something. Maybe you should find Mr. Delahawk. I don’t know anyone like that.” She was talking to Mike but staring at Nico Radka, as tense as if Mike had struck a nerve underneath a bad tooth.
“Why don’t you step out with me, Mr. Mike?” Nico asked the question politely, almost as though he was giving us a choice.
“We met Mr. Delahawk on the way in. He has no problem with helping us,” Mike said, foolishly assuming that we wouldn’t encounter the manager in our passage through the cars.
“Very well then. We shall get him.” The young man’s accent was thick. So were his lateral deltoids.
“What’s your gig, Nico?”
“Tumbling. Acrobatic tumbling.” Nico turned sideways to wriggle his way down the narrow corridor of the train as it emerged from beneath the river and hurtled north on the tracks that ran parallel to the Jersey Palisades. “Come, please. Lock your door, Kristin. Is best you do.”
We followed Nico down the length of the hallway, across a platform with protective railing on both sides that linked to the next car.
This one seemed to be divided into two suites, obviously larger than the cubicles in which Kristin and Nico lived.
“So you know this guy I was talking to Kristin about?” Mike asked.
“Which guy?” Nico’s head went from side to side as he walked toward the rear of the car but continued to turn back to Mike, whether to answer questions or make certain we were staying in line behind him.
“One of your buddies. Tall and lean, ponytail—”
“Why you want to know who we know? Somebody does something wrong?” His muscled arms braced against the window as the train rocked along the tracks.
We hadn’t been so lucky with our first contact after all. Kristin and Nico had joined forces to circle the wagons around their extended family the moment she figured our interest had shifted from finding missing women to fingering one of the men in their troupe.
“We’re looking for people, that’s all. We think one of your friends may have known them.”
The first whiteboard we passed bore the names RAMON AND RAMON under the hand-drawn images of two stars. I heard Mike ask Nico who they were.
“Illusionists, Mr. Mike. Best in the world.”
Good enough to occupy half a train car. The other label at the far end said THE FLYING ZUKOVS. Again, someone had added a sketch, this time of a stick figure hanging from a trapeze.
Nico opened the door to pass into the next wagon. On the platform, which was like a small open vestibule, a man sat in a folding beach chair, looking at the scenic vista as we raced along the Hudson River.
We entered another dormitory-style car, and I scanned the names of the eight occupants as we hurried past.
Another platform and there was the brass nameplate, a more permanent fixture than in the other cars: FONTAINE DELAHAWK.
Nico faced the door and rang the buzzer.
Mike saw a chance to get around him, grabbed my hand, and pulled me in the direction of the next twenty- odd cars in the long train as we heard the deep voice of Delahawk ask who was at the door.
I looked over my shoulder as I ran behind Mike. Nico appeared to be stunned as he waited for Delahawk to open up for him. We were already through the rear of the car — a solo apartment — and into the next one.
Here the names were also illustrated by an amateur artist. The four suites seemed to hold the all-important costume designer and three performers who worked with animals.
“Keep running, Coop,” Mike said as he led the charge forward. “Let’s get as deep into the company — as many cars back as we can — before Delahawk lumbers along. We just need to talk to somebody. Anybody who’ll point us in the right direction, or tell us we’re off base.”
I paused to catch my breath. “We can’t be too far wrong, Mike. Kristin only called for Nico, only knocked on the wall to summon him, when you described our suspect. She was eating out of your hand till that very moment.”
We were on the move again, working our way back through the train. Three cars later, Mike stopped to adjust to the darkness as we entered another subterranean tunnel. We were crossing under the narrow strip of water that would take us east and out of Manhattan, into the Bronx, for the trip to New England.
I was leaning against the window and skimming the eight names on the whiteboard that faced me. One of them was familiar, not just because it was more American than the foreign surnames. I repeated it to myself silently, then said it aloud. “Bellin.”
“What?”
“That name. Bellin.”
“Yeah?”
“Daniel Gersh,” I said. “You told me to call his mother this morning.”
“So?” Mike was ready to move ahead. He pushed off from the wall.
“That’s her name now. Bellin. His stepfather is Lanny Bellin.”
Mike made an abrupt about-face and stepped in front of me to open the door to the suite of cubicles.
“It’s the fourth name on the list,” I said to him.
He counted three doors and banged his knuckles once on the fourth one, twisting the handle at the same time. I was at his shoulder, peering in.
Reclining on the single bed, listening to his iPod and looking almost as surprised as I did, was Naomi’s brother, Daniel Gersh.
FORTY-TWO
