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To Terrance Leightner's previous piece

Terminal Prejudice

New York City, 4:48 P.M., Friday, 14 August

When the subway doors opened, it was immediately apparent to Billy Zander that there was something different, something abnormal about the usual pandemonium of early commuters. The subterranean terminal rang with the familiar echoing din of rushing feet and metallic screech, but above it rose an abberrant keen, a disconcerting wail. Hesitating momentarily to pinpoint the direction of the sound, Billy was jostled roughly on his front left shoulder by a man attempting to board the train. The harsh, fruity smell of incense from the man’s clothing struck Billy’s nostrils; he only had time to turn and spot the back of his assailant’s head before the subway doors hissed shut and the shuddering behemoth was away.

A large number of commuters remained, milling about the landing. The sound that had drawn Billy’s attention earlier was louder now and was causing many of the curious to crane their necks. Billy moved steadily toward the source. As he got closer, it became apparent it was the cries of a distraught female. Small, with mousy brown hair and wearing a light blue sundress, the woman was babbling hysterically, pulling at the clothes of passersby. Most wary and distrusting New Yorkers were giving her a wide berth, but three or four had moved in with looks of genuine concern. Nearest to her, a short, balding man in an ill-fitting business suit fumbled with his cell phone. He dropped it, and Billy watched as plastic parts skittered across the slick concrete floor of the terminal, settling around the businessman’s mud-splotched dress shoes. Then the woman was on him.

"Have you seen my baby?"

Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, and mascara trailed in thick lines down her cheeks.

"HAVE YOU SEEN MY BABY!?!"

She had hold of Billy’s sleeveless jeans vest and was shaking it with the intensity of a madwoman. Her look, however, was one of sincere distress, not that of the insane. Billy grabbed her wrists and attempted to stop her violent exhortations.

"What baby?" he asked, looking first at her face, then round at those of the small crowd that had gathered.

"She says her boy is missing," volunteered a florid-cheeked woman with a bag of groceries in her arms. "Says she stopped to buy a paper, and when she turned around, her son was gone."

"THAT’S RIGHT! THAT’S RIGHT! That’s right . . . ." The young woman’s knees gave out from under her and she collapsed, sobbing, at Billy’s feet. Her sudden fall caught him off guard, nearly toppling both of them back into the singing tracks of the subway tunnel.

"It’s true, what she says," added a thin, pockmarked teenager holding a skateboard in one hand and a rapidly diminishing cigarette in the other. "I’ve been following her up and down the landing."

"Has anyone bothered to call 911?" asked Billy, irritated by the apparent callousness of the zit-faced skater. Billy knelt awkwardly next to the stricken woman.

"I’ve got them right now," said the businessman, having resurrected his cell phone, "but I’m getting interference down here so I’m going to have to go up top."

"So go already," snapped Billy, rapidly losing patience with the ineptitude of the few "Samaritans" who had gathered. Gently pulling at the hands of the young woman, he worked to dislodge her grip on his vest. "What does your baby look like, Sugar?" he asked. "How old is he?" The young mother was in full-blown shock now, mumbling incoherently and swaying from side to side.

The florid-faced woman spoke up again: "She was screaming ‘He’s only five! He’s only five!’ just a few minutes ago. She said he was wearing a blue Rangers sweatshirt."

Billy looked around; more onlookers had accumulated now, totaling about fifteen. "Did you hear that, people? Do you think you could spare a minute of your day to help search?" He was sweating now, his initial surge of adrenaline having settled into a fear-laced suspicion that the woman’s plight was legitimate. If her son was indeed lost in the maze of stinking soles that stamped the bowels of New York City’s subway system, the window of opportunity for the child’s safe return was running out.

Brooklyn Heights Subway Terminal, 4:52 P.M.

"I’ll go down this set of escalators and meet you on the far side."

Billy hurriedly dispensed these instructions to a young man named Arlen who had agreed to an east-west sweep of the terminal with him. Arlen had on a Denver Bronco’s cap and an orange t-shirt that said "John Elway Ford." The youth was either fearless or just plain stupid to be wearing that garb in this particular subway system. Nevertheless, he had readily volunteered to help search for the little lost boy, and every person counted.

Billy stepped rapidly off the bottom of the moving stairway. It was quieter down here in the bottommost tier of the subway terminal, but there was still a steady flow of nine to fivers moving in all directions. The lighting was not nearly as good, and the debris on the floor and graffiti on the the walls contributed to a seedier, more sinister atmosphere. Despite fifty people being within the reach of his voice, Billy could not hope to recruit anyone to his cause; a 6’4" black man with a pierced septum, an eight-inch afro, and a jeans vest with the giant face of Jimi Hendrix stitched on the back could not easily gain a sympathetic ear.

Billy moved quickly down a dimly-lit hallway off the main causeway. He checked for unlocked doors as he went along and bent to look in every place he felt a frightened five-year old might seek shelter. He turned a blind corner into a dead-end hall where a number of large green garbage barrels were stored in pyramid fashion along one wall. A lone bulb flickered ominously in the center of the ceiling overhead. About to turn back the direction he had come, Billy checked himself. What appeared to be the sole of a small tennis shoe was just visible around the base of the furthest barrel.

Not wanting to startle the boy with his unorthodox appearance, Billy called out a gentle "Hey there, little fellow," as he moved toward the shoe. He could see that it was a white Junior Nike with a red swoosh and that it was definitely attached to an ankle. As Billy put one hand on the rim of the steel garbage can and moved to place another on the child’s slight shoulder, he saw something that froze him in his tracks. The young boy’s head was slumped forward on his chest. His tiny hand, a brilliant five-pointed star at the cuff of his Ranger’s sweatshirt, was planted palm-down in a large pool of blood. Pulled halfway down his thighs, his pants were soaked in it, his Pokemon underwear ripped off and laying limply at his side. But that was not the real horror: the true atrocity was what lay between the child’s legs, clutched in his tiny fist. Billy turned and vomited the contents of his stomach into the garbage can.

Brookdale University Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, 6:42 P.M.

Perhaps the cops had some strategic cop reasoning for making Billy Zander and Arlen Williams remain in the bleakly sterile hallway of the university trauma center, but whatever the explanation, the two men were more than a little uncomfortable. Not quite out of earshot, the outraged voice of young Tyler Morgan’s father rose from a nearby waiting room.

"Who the Christ would do this to my boy? What kind of sick FUCK would cut off a five-year old’s PENIS and leave him to die!?!"

The sympathetic murmurings of the police detectives could be heard also, but seemed ineffective in placating the overwrought man. He continued to rage on, demanding answers that did not seem readily available. Meanwhile, in an operating room not far from the sound of his cries, a team of pediatric surgeons was fighting to save the life of his brutalized son.

Billy looked uneasily over at Arlen. The young man’s t-shirt was stained a darker orange now by what had remained of Tyler’s vital fluids. Arlen had heard the sound of Billy’s retching, and followed it to the darkened hallway. In a display of courage and swift thinking, he had ripped off his own shirt to stave what blood he could from the child’s savaged privates. That the child had any vital signs left at all had proven no less than a miracle. Once Billy had sufficiently recovered, he helped Arlen carry the mutilated child through the fiercest throng of afternoon commuters. A pair of uniformed patrol officers and a sputteringly ineffective subway security guard had escorted them to the surface, where paramedics had been quick to respond. That all had taken place a little over an hour and a half prior.

Billy stood up to relieve the pressure on his back, the result of too much time sitting in one position. They waited . . . for what? Using his thumbnail, he picked, with no slight revulsion, at a large spot of dried blood on his vest. What more could Arlen and he provide the detectives? They had directed them to the crime scene, had replayed their respective parts in the horrific event twice in the last hour. Why were they at the hospital? What good could that possibly serve? Certainly they were concerned and anxious to find out about Tyler’s chances, but a shower and a change of clothes were in order.

A thin, hatchet-faced detective named Quinn stepped out of the waiting room down the hallway and motioned for them to follow him. Arlen got up from his chair and fell in step with Billy. They made an odd pair: the tall, muscular black with the giant afro, and the shorter, lily-white Bronco’s fan with blood caked over the Ford emblem on his shirt. Neither man could resist looking through the open door of the waiting room as they passed; Tyler Morgan’s parents sat on a low couch, a hospital psychiatrist and a black-clad Catholic priest hovering over them. Mr. Morgan, visibly calmer, had his arm around his wife; Janet Morgan had her face buried in her hands. Two other detectives and a uniformed cop were standing nearby, talking in hushed tones.

Quinn stopped in front of a door that read "Staff Only" and gestured for Billy and Arlen to precede him. A couple of overstuffed chairs, a table, a full-sized refrigerator and a Bunn automatic coffee machine identified the room as yet another place to sit and wait.

"I thought this might be more comfortable," said Quinn. "The hospital has temporarily put this wing at our disposal."

"What the hell is going on, Detective?" asked Billy; he was fed up with the events of the past two hours, wasn’t about to get "comfortable."

"Hey! Relax. Have another Pepsi, or another cup of coffee."

"I don’t want another goddamned cup of coffee or another Pepsi. I want to know when we can get the hell out of here...!" Billy’s height and muscular presence were enough to intimidate most men, and he towered a good six inches over the wiry detective. After seventeen years as a New York City cop, however, the last eight in the special victims unit, Geoff Quinn was nearly impervious to awe. Despite that, this latest crime had his nerves on edge, and it would not take much to push them over.

"Mr. Zander, you need to step back." Something in the detective’s tone caused Billy to rethink his approach. "We’re doing what we can, but you have to understand this is a sensitive matter, not one to be resolved in a few hours."

"Uh-hem." The sound of someone clearing their throat effectively broke the tension. A silver-haired man with a neatly-trimmed mustache stood in the doorway. Quinn bristled visibly when he saw who it was.

"Relax, Geoff," the smartly-dressed man said. He crossed over to Billy and Arlen, offering his hand. "Agent John Sims, F.B.I."

F.B.I? Billy and Arlen looked at each other, perplexed.

"Geoff, get the door, will you?"

Quinn shot the suit a wicked look, but did as he was asked.

"Have a seat." Sims gestured for Billy and Arlen to sit in the overstuffed chairs against the wall.

"Can I call you Billy and . . . Arlo, is it?"

"Arlen," the youth replied sullenly, glowering a bit from beneath the brim of his Bronco’s cap.

Both men nodded in the affirmative, however.

"Gentlemen, what I am about to tell you is privileged information. You know the drill: Absolutely nothing said here leaves this room." He hesitated, as if gathering his thoughts.

"What happened to little Tyler Morgan a few hours ago is not an isolated incident." He paused again, grimly acknowledging the look of disbelief on the faces of the two men. "There have been four crimes of this exact nature in New York City in the past three months. Tyler’s case makes number five. It presents us with our first break, however, because none of the other four victims survived. The child is not out of the woods yet, but thanks to you two, he has a better than fifty-fifty chance."

He paused once more, scratching at his mustache. He walked over to the coffee machine, grabbed a styrofoam cup, and poured himself some of the steaming liquid. Walking back, he took a short sip, then nodding his head in Quinn’s direction, resumed where he had left off: "Working together with Detective Quinn and the special victims unit, we have, to this point, been unable to develop any real leads. We know his m.o., and our profilers have been able to put together a tentative sketch of the guy, but that’s about it. We know he’s caucasion, mid-thirties to late forties, and works alone. He obviously prefers crowded places to perpetrate the crime, probably not only for getaway purposes, but to participate anonymously in the melee he creates. He likely has a history of aberrant behavior as a child; either that or else he was sexually violated himself in his youth. It is quite possible he has done time in the past for similar violent acts." Sims paused long enough to take another sip of coffee, and to evaluate the reactions of Billy and Arlen.

The two men shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

"This is where you come in: You were there in a miraculously scant three to five minutes post-crime. You have not only perhaps saved the life of our only eyewitness, you may have inadvertently spotted the man yourselves, even bumped into him in the crowded terminal."

This last phrase prompted a memory in Billy’s mind, then just as quick it was displaced by a sudden movement of Arlen’s hand. The youth wanted to speak. He hesitated, then found the courage: "What . . . sort of knife did he use?" He looked over at Billy as if ashamed for having desired to know. Billy’s smooth, ebony face betrayed no emotion.

"Far as we can tell, the same implement has been used on each victim. The wounds are not consistent with a knife, however; instead, as I’m sure you remember all too well, the victim’s appendage appears to have been pulled, rather than sliced off, like with pliars, or some sort of Leatherman-style multi-tool."

Billy shuddered involuntarily, barely keeping the bile down as he was forced to revisit the scene. Tyler’s poor, pathetic penis, clasped firmly in the child’s tiny fist, had looked like a piece of raw meat, like a miniature chicken leg ripped off some dwarfish roaster. It had remained in a vice-like grip in the child’s hand until the moment the ambulance doors had slammed shut and the emergency vehicle had sped off into the late afternoon traffic. Billy felt himself starting to get light-headed. His large hands disappeared into his oversized nest of hair; he bent over, put his elbows on his knees.

"I know you’ve both been through a lot already," said Sims. "But we need you to think back yet again, to replay every single moment that you can recall in the terminal, like a video in reverse. Retrace your steps, only in slow motion this time, and pick out any relevant piece of information--no matter how insignificant." The agent took a small black notepad and a pen out of his inside suit pocket, along with a mini-cassette recorder; he leaned over and whispered something to Quinn. Frowning, the detective straightened up from the table he had been slouched against, motioned for Arlen to follow him, and the two men left the room.

"Quinn isn’t too fond of me, or of bureau tactics," Sims said, pressing his lips together wryly. He set the cassette recorder on the table. The agent looked at Billy: "Anytime you’re ready."

- - - -

When he finished his statement, Billy looked up at the clock on the wall: 7:21 P.M. He shook his bushy head of hair from side to side, realizing that he had not eaten since mid-morning; this whole interrogation scene was dragging on endlessly. He could recollect nothing of obvious significance; he had once again mentioned each and every participant in the subway drama, including incense man who he now remembered had bumped him while boarding the train. Sims had noted that piece of information in his little black book, but had not done much writing otherwise.

Billy asked to be excused to go to the restroom. Sims said that was fine, and that if he was hungry, there was a sandwich machine down the hallway to the right. He opened the staffroom door, letting Billy out. Arlen was waiting his turn, and Billy noticed that he was no longer had on his bloody clothing, but was wearing a set of hospital scrubs. He still sported the Bronco’s cap. Sims wasted no time getting him inside and shutting the door.

After relieving his overstrained bladder, Billy walked out of the bathroom and turned down the hallway next to the nurses station. He noticed Quinn kicking a vending machine; the detective bent over to retrieve the triangular sandwich packet.

"Thought cops were supposed to protect public property," quipped Billy mirthlessly.

"Yeah, right," grunted Quinn.

"Anything good?"

"If you like two-day old egg salad."

"At this point, I’d eat a raw egg."

Quinn looked at the lanky African American, his eyes moving over Billy’s muscular frame, his arms like sinewy tree branches hanging from the open shoulders of his blood-specked vest.

"I got your buddy some scrubs," Quinn said, "but there’s not much I can do about your vest."

"Don’t worry about it." Billy had been about to say that Arlen wasn’t his "buddy" as Quinn so tactlessly posed, but who the hell cared. The youth had been a real help.

"The Morgan kid is in recovery," the ill-mannered detective volunteered. "Looks like he’s going to make it." He unwrapped half of a sandwich and took most of it in one bite. "Surgeons weren’t able to re-attach the penis, though; the damage was too severe. Looks like he’ll have to piss sitting down the rest of his life." Quinn continued to talk through his egg salad. "Doctor says the boy should be able to communicate sometime in the next few minutes. I’ll tell you what: if you or Williams or any of the damned hospital staff leaks any of this shit, it’s going to be one hell of a stain on the department."

Billy hesitated as he was about to punch in the numbers for a bag of chips. Something in what Quinn had just said, a word . . . . Billy quickly rewound in his mind the events at the landing again using Sim’s simple, but effective memory tactic. Stains. Cell phone man. The short, balding guy in the business suit. When the man had dropped the cell phone, Billy had noticed splotches of mud on his shoes. It was mid-August. There hadn’t been a rainstorm, even a shower, in four or five weeks. Those weren’t mud stains; that had been blood.

Billy calmly finished punching in the numbers on the machine, retrieved the chips out of the receptacle, then turned to the caustic detective: "Quinn, I think I’ve got something for you."

13th Precinct, New York City, 8:53 P.M.

Rubbing his eyes, Billy yawned and stretched. One after the other the mug shots of convicted sex offenders flashed across the computer screen in front of him; the sordid array of scumbags seemed endless. Next to him at the table, a bespectacled crime artist manipulated a sophisticated software program on a laptop, creating a portrait based on Billy’s recollections. In a separate room, Quinn and his men were working a similar agenda with Arlen and some other witnesses, including the florid-faced woman and Janet Morgan herself. Scrappy little Tyler had come off the anesthetic, and despite the trauma of his ordeal, managed to confirm enough detail to lend credence to Billy’s lead. Sims and his fellow g-men were working their technical magic to see if they could trace the man’s 911 call, provided he had actually made it.

Billy looked back at the computer screen. The sex offender profiles seemed to be monopolized by short caucasians over forty. He could almost predict what the next picture would look like: round face, comb-over, rosy cheeks, horned rim glasses, bad dental hygiene . . . . Yeesh. He wondered what the common profile was for a 6’4" black man: Crack addict? Car thief? Axe murderer?

Sims came in: "We’ve got nothing on the cell phone so far. You have anything?"

"Yeah. They all look like him. See for yourself." Billy pulled the laptop composite away from the surprised sketch artist and over next to the latest offender he had onscreen: The two images were nearly identical. "This shit will get us nowhere. Hell, Fred here looks like the son-of-a-bitch." Billy pointed at the bemused sketch artist.

"What about the shoes?" Sims asked. "Any idea what brand or type they were?"

"Yeah," said Billy sarcastically, "they were Bruno Magli’s, just like O.J.’s. What do you take me for, a shoe expert? They were fucking brown dress shoes: Could have come from Payless Shoe Source, could have been Dolce and Gabbana. I’m through with this shit. I thought we had something; we don’t. It’s nine o’clock, and I’m going home."

"You’re halfway through the list; stay and finish it."

Billy stood up, an imposing figure. "I’m sick of looking at the pervs." He held up the base of his vest: "See this? I need a shower, and then I need some sleep. You want me here? Arrest me. Otherwise, I’m out."

Sims put both of his hands on the table. His chin fell to his chest.

Apartment of William Zander, The Bronx, New York, Saturday Morning, 15 August

In his dream, Billy was in Atlantic City. He was playing the dollar slots, and he was winning: ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Only the ringing of the bells didn’t stop this time, not even when the coins quit falling. Shit. No more cocktail waitresses. No more free drinks. It was the goddamn telephone. Billy opened his sleep-encrusted eyes, reached over and knocked the cordless off the nightstand. The alarm clock read 7:37 A.M. What the hell? Billy picked the phone off the floor.

"Who is this?"

"Zander? It’s Quinn."

Billy was none-too-pleased to hear the gravelly voice of the uncouth detective.

"Whattaya want? It’s seven o’ clock in the morning!"

"Thought you might want to know, may have caught a serious break this time."

"What is it? Spit it out." Billy was in no mood for cop games, mostly just wanted to forget the events of the previous day.

"Lady calls up this morning, says her tenant--usually the quiet type--pulls an all-nighter, then around 6:15 this morning starts throwing things around, screaming ‘It’s gotta come off! It’s gotta come off!’ and other unintelligible gibberish. So she calls 911 and some uniforms show up. The guy has a second floor apartment, starts throwing shit down at them; when I say "shit," I mean real shit. His own feces. Then he sticks his ass out the window and shits some more, and the uniforms see something hanging off his private parts. He’s got a pair of vice-grips attached to his cock and there is blood everywhere. He’s ripped big holes in his chest, apparently pulled his nipples off with the vice-grips."

"Christ. . . ."

"That’s not all. He’s barricaded himself in. N.Y.P.D., Sims, the F.B.I., the whole show have been down there for the last twenty minutes."

"And . . . ?"

"And he’s threatening to kill himself unless Janet Morgan shows herself." Quinn paused. "And you."

"Me!?" Billy wasn’t sure he had heard right. "What does he want with me?"

"Won’t say. Just keeps yelling ‘The monkey! The monkey, too!’ I could only assume he meant you . . . ."

"Shut the fuck up, Quinn, you racist prick!"

"Look, I call it the way I see it. I’m not going to sugar-coat it for you, Zander, put some p.c. spin on it. You don’t like it, call the goddamn N.A.A.C.P. Meanwhile, this fuck is about to off himself and we’re having a civil rights conversation. You want some closure on this shit or what?"

CockSUCKER! Billy made a mental note to never again help a stranger--not in a subway terminal, not anywhere!

"I’ll be ready in five minutes. Where’s it at?"

"Throw on some clothes. I’m downstairs."

"Huh?"

"I’m on a goddamned cell phone. I just drove up outside your apartment."

Billy looked out his third-story window; Quinn stuck his arm out of the unmarked cop car. Billy put both hands on his lopsided do, and pulled--hard.

Tenant House of Nadia Rastanovich, Brooklyn, New York, 7:57 A.M.

"Looks like he’s on something other than just alcohol, way he’s tearing around that room," Sims said to no one in particular. The silver-haired agent briefly turned away from the eclectic trio next to him and spoke some tactical directives into his walkie-talkie.

Billy looked past Quinn and the terminally distressed Janet Morgan; a ring of patrol cars and F.B.I. vans formed a half-circle around a ramshackle two-story building. Cops with shotguns were leaning over the hoods of their cars and a pair of snipers with tri-pods on their rifles were on top of two separate vans, had their weapons trained at the second-story window. The window was situated on the top of an addition that protruded out about twenty feet. The corrugated metal roof slanted down at an angle, ending in a short drop to a row of arborvitae. It was evident that the psychotic man had been out on the roof; there were large swipes of dried blood on the parallel ridges of rusted tin near the base of the window.

Sims looked over at Janet Morgan, then at Billy: "Ready?"

Both nodded hesitantly.

Sims raised a battery-powered megaphone to his perfectly-trimmed mustache: "Mr. Finch. Arnold. We have Mrs. Morgan and Mr. Zander here, like you requested." He lowered the megaphone slightly; there was no movement from the second-story window.

"Mr. Finch . . . ."

"Get rid of the snipers!" The high-pitched, hysterical voice resounded disembodiedly from inside the room.

Sims waved his hands; the snipers folded their tri-pods, backed down off the vans.

"Give the speaker to the monkey!" Finch shouted maniacally, half of his body now revealed in the window. He was nude, and what could be seen of his torso was bathed in blood.

Sims handed the megaphone to Billy. Arnold Finch, moving spasmodically, peered his round, balding head out fully, then proceeded to climb out on the roof. The silver vice-grips swung pendulously from his painfully pinched and markedly undersized privates.

"I saw you at the subway, monkey. What did you think of my handiwork?" Finch thrust his pelvic region forward lewdly, the vice-grips swinging in an arc from belly to balls.

Billy keyed the megaphone: "I think you are a sick fuck and you need to die!"

Sim’s jaw dropped and he snatched the megaphone from Billy’s hands.

"Whaaat?" screeched Finch incredulously. "You goddamned monkey, you long-dicked nigger . . . you’re the reason society worships cock." The hysterical man stepped backward, slipped and almost fell in the slick sheen of blood that was rapidly spreading on the roof around his feet. Finch grabbed at something just inside the windowsill; he pulled out what appeared to be a 9mm pistol. He jammed the barrel up under his chin with one hand and grabbed the handle of the vice-grips with the other. "This is for you, Mrs. Morgan!"

Without another word, without even a scream of pain, Arnold Finch ripped off his penis. Blood sprayed out in short spurts, further coating the roof. His mouth wide, his eyes no longer reflecting any glimmer of sanity, Finch lowered the 9mm, trained it on the crowd below, and began firing.

Billy flung himself on Janet Morgan, throwing her to the ground. The window of a cop car shattered above their heads, showering them in glass. Simultaneously, a barrage of gunfire issued from the assemblage of officers. Billy looked up in time to see Arnold Finch’s ravaged body dance like a rag doll, then flop heavily on the blood-slickened roof and slide head-first off the edge into the shrubs below.

Billy helped Tyler Morgan’s sobbing mother to her feet. "It’s over," he said soothingly. She clung to him for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. Billy glanced over at Quinn and Sims: Both men were holstering smoking handguns. Shaking his head, the tall black man put his arm around the shoulders of the diminutive white woman and slowly walked away.

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