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Page 35.
Chapter 28.
 In the morning, Jeff called McCarthy. "Anything new?"
McCarthy said: "We found the van. I'm sure it's the one. One headlight out, front end mashed, traces of paint from the police car. Nobody on board, of course."
"Where did you find it?"
McCarthy hesitated. "What difference does it make?"
Jeff was amazed. "Well, if you knew where he left the van, can't you start looking for him around there?"
McCarthy laughed. "We can. We have. Sure, that's kid stuff. But you don't think he's just going to leave his van someplace significant and then just hang around there, do you?"
Jeff sighed. "Hell, what do I know? I'm just curious."
"Okay," McCarthy said, "the van's been taken to an impound lot. But the address where it was found is 105 Mercury Street. That mean anything to you?" He snorted. "It's just an abandoned vehicle, Maxxon. The forensic people are going over it with a fine toothed comb, but what the hell can they expect to find? It's the GUY I'm interested in, not his fucking van."
"Sure," Jeff said, "thanks. Keep in touch." He hung up. Puzzled, he bit his lip. He spread out a map of Raritania on the kitchen table. He located Mercury Street with difficulty. Mercury Street was a tiny thread on the map, a squiggle where Main and State met Route 54... Route 54? He thought back: Of course, that was the narrow little 1930's freeway that led through the tunnel! Well, it was worth a morning drive.
An hour later, Jeff arrived at Mercury Street. The drive took him from the suburbs into Raritania City via the tunnel, and Mercury Street was a barely noticeable turnoff as you came out of the inbound tunnel. The turnoff led into a triangular piece of sandy, brushy area of about three acres. It was strewn with trash, even a few condoms--Jeff could readily imagine that teenagers came here to park at night in better weather. A dented sign said: City Property, Do Not Enter.
Jeff, hands deep in coat pockets for it was a blustery day, crunched about on the gravel and wondered. Why had Louis Beering left the van here? Was there a special reason, or had he simply been cornered here and run? How far could he have run from here? Could he be across town by now? Or could he be hiding nearby?
A shiver crawled up and down Jeff's spine as he turned. From across the street, the windowless openings of an abandoned building stared darkly, ominously. In the hill behind Jeff was the tunnel, and from this vantage point Jeff could just see the clock over the tunnel entrance. There was another clock just like it over the other end of the tunnel, he remembered. He could hear the swish of cars and trucks in the tunnel entrance, though the traffic was hidden because the entrance was forty feet lower than level ground on this empty lot.
A curious feeling came over him, and he wiped his eyes. He felt lightheaded. When he opened his eyes, there was that pink tinge again, that feeling of being in two places (or two times?) at once. For a moment, the abandoned building looked clean and new, with sparkling windows and flowers on windowsills. After an instant, the feeling passed, and he was once again looking at a desiccated ruin.
Behind him, a small rock rolled down the rough hill over the tunnel, and he whirled. He had a prickly sensation of being watched. His thoughts wandered to the illegal revolver under his car seat, but he decided not to get it. Not yet. Cautiously, he approached the hill, which reared up about fifty feet in a long hump. Along the foot of the hill was a wire fence that looked long-abandoned, trampled flat in places. There were more warning signs, all of them rusting away.
Scrabbling over loose rocks and tall grass, he climbed to the top. The wind blew in his hair. A mist of rain stung his eyes. He could see for miles across the woodsy New York State countryside on the other side; somewhere in those trees was his own suburban home. On the other side was the graffiti-smeared afterthought of what had been a great dream during the Depression. The planned downtown looked drab, despite marble monuments, massive statues, flagpoles, signs of ambitious engineering. The clock towers hovered like widows. For a moment, Jeff felt the pinkness again, and had a puzzling kind of little dream snapshot of tiny drop-shaped cars circling in the air, of ramps among the towers... He shook his head and the vision passed.
He decided to find a phone and call McCarthy again. Perhaps by now Louis had made some effort to contact him about the book. Before he left though, Jeff stepped forward until grass turned to concrete and he was standing atop the edge of the tunnel. Below, traffic sliced in and out of the tunnel. If one became giddy--
He backed away, remembering his dark thoughts atop the clock tower. He walked down the concrete rim, until it folded away under the ground. He was about to finish the descent scrambling down rocks and grass, when something caught his eye.
A narrow concrete stairway led down, about ten steps, to a rusty door. It looked like a small service door, just big enough for a man to squeeze in, and Jeff became curious. There was no railing, and Jeff clung to the wall as he inched his way down.
A great blare deafened him, and he felt his heart flutter as he clung to the concrete. A big truck, emerging from the tunnel, had angrily signaled to a small car, and the two vehicles whirled away into the city carrying their argument with them.
As Jeff approached the door, he noted that a broken padlock lay to one side. The door itself had an old coat of Navy gray paint that had held up well for a long time, but was slowly bubbling up with rust.
Jeff pried the door open on grating hinges. Inside was a greenish glow; it took Jeff a minute or two of worried peering to realize that it was daylight piercing the clock face.
A narrow tunnel led off to the right, toward the clock works. Jeff leaned in, groping carefully to avoid spider webs. It was damp and cold inside, with a slight smell of decay. This was clearly a service entrance for the clock, but when was the last time a city worker had climbed in here? He must check with McCarthy. As he peered down the corridor toward the dark hulk of clock gears, something startled him, and he jerked back.
A large gray rat bolted toward the clock, leaving an after-glimpse of a stiff tail. Jeff had no particular fear of rats, unless they happened to be human. He knew he must get back to a phone, but this was intriguing. Just a few minutes more... He hoisted himself in, fighting claustrophobia. He had to walk at a crouch for several feet, but then he was in the clock room.
The only light was the glow coming through the milky glass clock face. The numerals were deco-Romanesque (a term he had just made up). The glass was stained green with fungus, hence the nightmarish underwater color of the air.
The clock was not quite as large as the ones he'd seen in the city's skyscrapers, but still appreciable: The size, he thought, of my Volkswagen. The gears, the wheels, the levers, and worm gear were heavily packed in grease, and the grease made faint sucking noises with each ratcheting increment of time.
Jeff walked around the narrow catwalk, noting shelves with old tools, most of them with rotted wooden handles and looking long abandoned. There was another tunnel leading off perpendicularly, and he saw the greenish glow of the other clock perhaps a thousand feet away. The tunnel was narrow and claustrophobic. No way am I going any further, he thought. He saw small shapes moving in the tunnel, rats no doubt. Narrow-gauge train tracks glistened parallel in the floor of the long tunnel. Did one transport heavy clock parts on some sort of little trolley? There was some kind of bulky object halfway down the tunnel, lost in shadows, cobwebs, spider nests, rat lairs.
He sat stock-still and listened for a few minutes. He heard the dull rush of traffic underneath the ground. He heard the steady pat-splat of rain drops on the nearby clock face. He heard the changes as the wind blew, first one way, then another, its fringes bleeding into the clock works.
No more time, he thought. He backed out of the tunnel, and in moments was back in the welcome fresh air, the freedom of the great world. But he knew he would be back.
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