In which Lorelei Price gets on a Subway Train...
24
And hot as hell it was. August in New York City was not the most comfortable of times.
The people had changed, yes. If they had no idea she was a cop they were different, kinder as if what had happened two summers before had made people warmer, more humane, taught them that treating others with just a few more ounces of respect made one’s day just that little bit more pleasant.
She knew better though. That was one of the perks of being a cop. You knew better about people. They weren’t being any nicer for some Mister Rogers, Strawberry fucking Shortcake reason. It wasn’t rainbows and unicorns in the Big Apple after those buildings fell. No, they were different now because they were scared. They were like dogs that had received one great big beating and still remembered it. They slinked about with their tails between their legs, their eyes darting back and forth, terrified. New York was different, but it would turn right back into the goddamn cesspool it had always been soon enough when it find it‘s balls again.
She made for the subway station, practically leaping across the street from the precinct, avoiding yellow death machine after yellow death machine. They honked and screeched out their obscenities in six different languages. There you go, she grinned morosely. There was the New York she knew and loved. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck the whole goddamned world.
Dammit, she needed that shower. The shower, maybe some nice cookies ‘n cream and a Mathew Mcconaughey movie. Hopefully one where she got a good look at that glorious ass of his. Maybe after that she’d regain some of her hope for the human species. Maybe.
She dropped a couple of quarters in Old Blind Bill’s cup and flashed her badge at Raul the security guard at the rail entrance. He flashed her back a bright white grin in response, the guard not the bum, and held open the gate for her. Bill couldn’t smile even if he wanted to.
“Good afternoon Detective Price, going home early tonight?” Raul asked in between Colgate grins.
“I need me some Matt tonight, Raul. Been a hell of a week.”
“I hear ya, Maam. That it has.”
“Let’s hope it gets better,” she continued, actually trying to let some of that false optimism become some of the genuine article. It really wasn’t that much worse than usual. Besides being dreadfully single, making enemies with one of New York’s last remaining real gangsters and having your boss hate you with all his being, there really wasn’t much else to complain about. At least she still had Matt and cookies ‘n cream.
The train was already there, filthy dented and ugly, just like the rest of this city and packed full with those who like her today, took off from work just a little earlier than rush hour. She got in and quickly found her seat, picking one at the end of the car and away from all other warm bodies.
As she sat there, others rushed in behind her, taking their seats. An elderly couple approaching three centuries of life there, a couple of hoods here, a large well muscled black man in a business suit a few seats away, two punk rockers right out of the eighties right behind him. Not always having been a New Yorker herself, having lived the first twenty one years of her life across the river in Jersey, she still appreciated the absolute strangeness and the contrasts of the people that lived in the great Babylon.
Appreciated but nonetheless wanted nothing to do with it today. Today she just wanted to get home and so she found herself praying that they stayed over there and not over here. Please, oh please, please, please, she just wanted to sit by herself for the damned thirty minutes it would take for her to get home.
But as the car doors stayed open and body after body entered the cage of steel, she sighed angrily and realized that her fond wish just wasn’t going to be granted tonight and she’d almost definitely be stuck sitting next to some gawking idiot, some foul smelling vagabond or worse yet, a mom and her loud obnoxious little rugrats.
Sigh.
Then he entered the car, the man with the Yankees baseball cap and the glowing blue eyes.
End Part 24
If you find yourself interested in the whole damnedable thing and wanna throw me a few bucks, here's a link to it on Amazon.
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