Tenkill by Shannon Kirk

Author:Shannon Kirk [Kirk,Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

One more call behind this column before I start the double dupe. I call L.R., make an urgent request, haggle fast through the particulars with her, ask that she make sure Victoria is able to safely transition from my penthouse back to the safe house, and lastly tell her my instincts don’t trust her associate Joseph P. Carmichael and why.

“I’ll look into Joe,” L.R. says.

I slip the burner back into the fanny pack and adjust my hat and plaster the sunglasses back over my progressives. Ready, I stroll from out behind the column into the belly of the station. This station is for the Orange Line, which might be the most detested of all the subway lines in Boston, even worse than the despised Green Line. And they’re not called subways here. It’s the T. Why is the T so bad? All of the stations smell, and, seems to me, none of the rusted tin cans that comprise each of the color-coded T cars have been upgraded since the pilgrims landed and held witch trials. As for running on schedule, or riding without having to push your body sideways between bodies bearing face-smashing backpacks, well, that’s like pinning your hopes on winning the lottery to get out of a terrible job. Asking Boston politicians to open the purse and modernize infrastructure, with upgraded technology, safety, good lighting, and reliability, so that regular people and women traveling alone can travel on time and safely, is like asking the city to root for the Yankees. Nobody really knows how many sexual assaults or men stalking women occurs in these poorly-lit, understaffed stations and T cars. I don’t know if I can count that high.

And I’ve got one of the men outside my penthouse yesterday stalking me in this crumbling station of screeching iron wheels, of a cauldron of heavy scents, a mixture of burnt coffee, hot summer air, smoke, and crowd scents. I step on a fresh wad of gum and pry-pull my green boot in a snap of rubber.

Scanning the track signs, I head down a dark, greasy, brown-brick stairwell built decades before my birth, to the track with the rusted orange T that will hurl me down a rat-filled tunnel with broken lightening to Downtown Crossing. There, I’ll transfer to the Red Line for South Station. At the bottom of the stairs, I casually turn and confirm that the Penthouse Man saw me stroll down these stairs. He’s trying to make it look like he’s not following me. For sure, I am confident, this guy is one of the two men from yesterday.

The screeching iron wheels are so loud, I cup my ears. But this is good, because here comes the Orange T I need. Of course the platform is full of people. People in suits, moms chaperoning camp trips to the library, women with strollers, a Swiss band dressed in Sound of Music garb. Each band member holds a space-consuming instrument. And filling in like dark matter everywhere are the year-round, ubiquitous college students, each with a seam-busting backpack.

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