Devil's Plaything - Matt Richtel [117]
“What’s that, Grandma?”
“What?”
“What do you know about your great-grandson?”
She smiles.
“Oh,” she says. “He’s going to be very curious.”
Here are the first two chapters of
THE JUGGLER,
the sequel to DEVIL’S PLAYTHING,
to be published by
Harper in 2012.
Chapter 1
I stare into the dark tunnel and find myself imagining how it would look to Isaac.
To an eight-month-old, the shadowed subway opening wouldn’t seem ominous but a grand curiosity. Shards of reflected light frame its entrance like shiny pieces of broken glass. Would Isaac try to touch them? Would he finger a droplet of misty water rolling down the jagged wall and put it on his tongue?
The cavern wouldn’t frighten my son. It would excite him with possibility and mystery.
A horn blares and I flinch. The night’s last express approaches. I’m without company on the below-ground platform but I am joined by a wicked aroma. It’s coming from a green, paint-chipped metal trash can that I’m guessing from the scent contains the carcass of an extremely dead sandwich. The trash can sits along the wall, beneath a dimly-lit poster advertising a service that promises to turn your mobile phone into a day-trading terminal. “Buy Low, Sell High, Commute Profitably.”
Isaac would love little more than exploring the contours of the iPhone with his mouth.
I turn back to the track and squint across the platform. I’m looking for the woman with the triathlete’s calves. I saw her upstairs at the turnstile, a brunette with darkly-tinted skin wearing a skirt and a look of compassion. A burly beggar approached her and she gave him some money and a kindly, worried smile.
How come all the beautiful women who look like they were born to heal the damaged are going a different direction than me on the train?
Would she be a great mom?
Would she be impressed that tomorrow I become this year’s recipient of a national magazine award for investigative reporting? Would she help me feel impressed?
A rumbling roars from the tunnel. It’s not yet my train, the K, but the nearing Express, expressing.
Over the din, I hear rustling from behind me, something heavy hits the pavement. A boot step, then another. I turn to see a mountainous man in a leather jacket materialize from the darkness, stumbling towards me. He’s the picture of a San Francisco drunk, downtrodden but wearing a fashionable coat with collar upturned, curly beard, and dark shades. Bum doubtless with a blackberry, and a limp.
I’m tempted to ask him if he’s okay as the train whooshes out of the tunnel into the station.
The drunkard lunges, or trips. He careens toward me, leading with his arms as if pushing through a revolving door.
He’s going to fall into me and then both of us onto the tracks.
Powerful palms crash against my chest, fingers claw my sweatshirt, his jacket slick with January rain. I begin to fall backwards, not two feet from the edge. I grab his beefy forearms to try to break the hold at his vulnerable wrist joints, or steer us sideways. I fail. I stumble backwards. The train’s warning horn explodes: move or die!
I feel it pass too close behind me, air-brushing my scalp.
Isaac. My son. Will I see him again?
One last tactic.
I give in. I try to pull the drunk on top of me. Our momentum abruptly changes. We fall not backwards into the train, but straight down to the pavement. My coccyx slams onto my backpack, which in turn smashes into the ground. My spine unfolds, neck extending toward the concrete. I brace for impact.
Crack. I see an instant of light, then one of black, then a hazy return to the moment. I smell something like burning tires. Then cologne. I feel intense pressure on my chest.
The mountain man lies on top of me. But I’m alive. The base of my skull must have hit the edge of the cement but just after the train passed, sparing my life.
I frantically push and kick the mountain from atop me. I claw the cement, then roll over, panting in downward dog. I run a triage check. Limbs moving, no obvious fractures. I feel sticky warmth at the back of my skull,