Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [77]
Just after Allegheny, Lonergan noticed that the green-eyed girl was on the car too.
He saw her often, and wondered about her. She was pretty, but her clothes were worn and frayed. She wasn’t a flapper or a hooker. But clearly she worked for a living. Her hands were gloveless and rough. Lonergan never saw the station she used to enter the train. He hoped it wasn’t the Tenderloin. There were very few good reasons for a young girl to be out riding the El this time of night.
Lonergan pretended to glance at the advertisements above the girl’s head and saw that she glanced at him—briefly. Had she recognized him too, from previous trips? Maybe she saw the blue slacks with the yellow stripe and realized he was a cop. Maybe she felt safer making a night journey with a cop sitting nearby.
A short while later the El pulled into the Torresdale station. Lonergan steadied himself and this time anticipated the jolt. When the train stopped, he was able to keep his body perfectly still.
Lonergan stole another glance at the girl and wondered if they’d ever talk, or acknowledge each other’s presence. Or maybe they’d just keep each other company in polite silence.
He decided he’d be her guardian angel. He’d protect her, even if she never spoke a word to him. She wouldn’t have to ask him, or thank him. He’d be looking out for her, though, from now on. Lonergan would stay awake and find out where she got on the train. She’d ride the El unmolested.
At the very least, it was something for an off-duty cop to keep his mind occupied with in a rumbling car full of drunks.
The doors opened. The green-eyed girl looked to her right. Lonergan followed her gaze to the concrete platform. No one there. The door closed. The El jerked forward and began making the steep incline to the Church Street station. The green-eyed girl looked to her left and nodded.
Maybe that wasn’t a nod. Maybe it was just the jolt of the El.
Lonergan heard movement further down the car. A man in a black duster stood up from the bench. Something heavy fell at his feet, like a length of rope. Lonergan followed its length up to the man’s hand and realized what it was. A whip.
“Wallets and purses,” the man barked.
Lonergan stared at him, unbelieving.
The man handed a small sack to the bleary-eyed passenger sitting closest to him. “Put them in there. Nobody do anything or I’ll cut your face open.”
Was this man trying honestly to pull a hold-up on the Frankford El with a blacksnake whip?
Then Lonergan thought about it. Relatively few people on the train, but one or two of them might even be flush from a night in the Tenderloin. And they were all captive. The incline to Church Street was probably the longest stretch between stations—there was enough time to do what he wanted, and nobody could run away. And then at Church Street, he could run down the stairs to street level and disappear into Frankford.
“Don’t you hear me? I will cut your faces open!”
For a few long seconds nobody moved. The passengers were either too drunk or stunned to react. It probably seemed like a lousy fusel oil fever dream. The El chugged its way up the incline. The entire world seemed to tilt a few degrees.
Lonergan instinctively reached for his hip and felt the space where his holster should be. He stopped carrying his gun too—Marie had forced him to keep it locked up at the station, against regulation. She didn’t want the boy to find it. Too many stories in the newspapers about children shooting themselves with their fathers’ guns.
“Shall I show you?”
No gun meant that Lonergan should just sit tight. Let this man take what he wanted and leave.
The bandit pumped his arm. The whip was a dark blur as it traveled a quarter-length of the length of the car and ripped into a passenger’s chest. His body convulsed. The Stetson fell from the top of his head. He screamed, and then the girl sitting next to him—the green-eyed girl—slid a few inches away. The whip had almost hit her.
Everyone