Hell's Gate(91)
Mac was a frequent visitor; making sure the apartment was secure and checking out her neighbors with a concern that would have amused Bob. He also contributed a new refrigerator as a housewarming present, but Yanni never plugged it in. She hadn’t gotten used to the concept of frozen or prepared foods, preferring to buy fresh meat and produce daily from the local markets. As for the fridge, Yanni removed the door and used the box as additional shelf space for an array of shade-loving plants.
On an exceptionally clear spring morning, Yanni Thorne noticed, during her walk to the Manhattan Bridge, that newspapers were headlining the latest in what were being touted as the “first ever” photographs of Earth from space. They had been snapped by Wernher von Braun’s freshly upgraded, suborbital rockets.
“Second ever,” she said to herself, recalling the ruins of the Nostromo lab and the fuzzy-looking photos she and Mac had found. “But they didn’t seem so important at the time.”
And if S?nger’s involved, they’d be wise to keep his ass far away from me, she swore.
As she did every morning—rain, shine, sleet, or snow—Yanni walked the Manhattan Bridge’s footpath into the city, and to her job, proudly wearing her Brooklyn Dodgers cap. The span could easily be crossed by train in only a few minutes, but she liked the long stroll across the bridge, because she loved the river. No matter what weather or lighting conditions prevailed on any given morning, the river was beauty, the river was peace.
Upper West Side, New York City
* * *
Who the hell designed this torture device?” MacCready asked himself.
He always had trouble closing the specimen cabinet doors at the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History. The problem was that they slid on tracks located several feet above his head, and would only close if a pair of metal pins on the cabinet frame were precisely aligned with a supposedly matching set of grooves on the door itself.
“Can I help you with that, Mac?” came a voice from behind. It was Patricia Wynters, the resident artist in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology.
“Oh, hi, Patricia,” he responded, stepping aside. “I think these pins are bent. This one’s not going to close anytime soon.”
“Let me give it a try,” the tiny brunette responded. He’d been associated with the museum, in one capacity or another, since high school and, as always, Patricia was right there whenever he needed a helping hand. Within seconds she slid the four-foot-wide door into place and locked it. “You and prehistoric horses? That’s a new one. What’s this about?”
“Oh, just a little something I can’t stop thinking about,” Mac said, smiling. Then he glanced down at his watch. The band, he thought. Dammit, I’m late.
Mac and Patricia exited the specimen room together. After a “thanks” and a “see you later” Mac bolted down the fifth-floor hall toward the elevators. After a quick jog across Central Park West, then along a tree-lined trail, he stopped outside the Central Park Menagerie. A jazz band was already playing. The “experiment” was under way.
MacCready bypassed the ticket line and headed straight for the bored-looking security guard standing just past the entrance turnstiles.
“Hey, Carl,” MacCready said.
“What’s cookin’, Mac?” the guard responded, waving him through. “Nice to have you back for a change. Oh, and Yanni’s a real sweetheart.”
“Yeah, thanks. Nice to be stationed in the city,” Mac replied. He motioned in the direction of the music. “Sounds like they started without me. Gotta run.”
“Better you than me,” Carl responded, but by then Mac had already sprinted off, accompanied by the incongruous sound of a jazzy foxtrot.
Mac found a crowd of zoo visitors standing behind the bars of the fenced-off, outdoor portion of the Elephant House. Inside the enclosure stood two elephants, their forelimbs manacled to short sturdy chains attached to pegs that had been cemented into the ground. Standing just out of stomping distance, a mook in a three-piece suit was blowing his trumpet into the trunk of one of the elephants. The animal seemed to be enjoying the attention—gently touching the instrument and rocking back and forth in time with the music.
Looking far less relaxed, the head elephant keeper, who was wearing a long blue jacket and police-style cap, stood close by—alert for any sign of trouble. Completing his ready-for-a-riot attire, the keeper held a cop’s baton—this one outfitted with a nasty-looking metal hook. Behind the trumpeteer, another musician played a stand-up snare drum, while a third wrung notes out of a saxophone. Off to one side, several lab-coat types were taking notes. Mac recognized one of them, a Professor Arthur Carrington from Atlantic Tech. At second glance, he could see that Carrington was actually posing for one of the photographers snapping away at the weirdness.
MacCready could also see Yanni Thorne, standing apart from the freak show. She was comforting the second elephant, which looked like a mountain of wrinkles compared to the svelte young lass being serenaded by the band. Still, the tired-looking creature watched the bizarre proceedings with seeming amusement. Yanni, on the other hand, who was stroking the ancient elephant’s ear, seemed to be sharing Mac’s growing feelings of disgust.
The song ended and one of the scientists hurried over to address the crowd, which was already beginning to wander off. “Ladies and gentlemen, what you have seen here today was a scientific experiment to determine the effect of music on the beasts of the jungle.”