About the Author: Cam likes to spend his time reading, wrestling, and hanging out with friends.
I didn’t even want to be sitting in a subway stop, freezing to death on a Saturday night. I would have much rather been at my house or anywhere but the city hall subway in the middle of a thunderstorm getting caught up in some organized crime bullcrap.
*****
“God damn it, Eric!” After I had beat Sully for the eleventh time at pool that night, I think he was starting to get annoyed. “You cheated!”
“What? No I didn’t,” I say defensively “your just pissy because you suck at this game!”
“Well remember I can still kick your scrapy ass in real life.” Sully snaps. I keep on expecting Sully’s mom to yell down the stairs “Watch your mouth Sullivan!” but I remember his parents are out of town on some business trip. They trust Sully enough to stay home alone, which is not a good idea at all seeing how Sully has now thrown a party with every Junior and Senior from his school here.
“Want another beer?” Sully challenged from the kitchen
“Your know it! ” I replied. I know I shouldn’t have been drinking any beer, being how I’m sixteen, but how could I refuse such an easy challenge. After I pound back another beer Sully and I start to talk about playing a game of beer pong. Then a group of girls walk by and with another cup of courage in our system we start our stride over. Just then I look down at my phone seeing the battery is at 7% and I see the time.
“Damn it it’s 10:30! Gotta get going! seeya on Monday Sully!” I shout over my shoulder as I grab my jacket and run up the stairs and out the door in a hurry.
The harsh city light hurts my eyes. On the street it quickly darkens with a light drizzle of rain. I pass by apartments and storefronts in a hurry to get home before my parents. I reach into my pocket to pull some money out for a cab, but I’m not surprised to find that I have none. Lost a bet. My next option would to be to call my parents for a ride, but given my circumstances I don’t think that’s a option. Cursing my luck I turn onto broadway when the rain starts to pick up. In a matter of minutes my hoodie, jacket, and jeans were soaked, and it feels like I have puddles forming in my shoes. With water dripping into my eyes blurring my vision, I run down the sidewalk and come across the entryway to the city hall subway stop.
As I hurried down the steps I can instantly become grateful for the ten degree difference because I was cold. I walk over to a wall and sit on the ground shivering trying to warm up. As I wait for the rain to die down I push the hair out of my eyes and get a good look at the station, because it’s been a long time since I had been in a subway. We always drove or took the bus because they were cheaper.
I get up to walk around, hoping the movement will pump some warmth back into my legs. With a loud crack coming from the thundering sky outside I realise this storm is going nowhere anytime soon. The platform I was calling my temporary home is made from concrete with yellow support beams coming out of it and white brick on the side of the tunnel. There are tracks on each side of the platform I notice. As I’m looking around I notice a camera on the ceiling though I doubt someone's watching a sixteen year old on a saturday night at 11:00. With the storm still raging outside, I quickly become bored. Still far from damp, I take of my jacket hoping it will dry faster. As I walk farther down the platform the dumbest idea pops into my head, stopping me in my tracks.
“It might just be the beer talking, but seeing how it’s warm and dry down there I think I should continue my walk down the tracks. At least until the next stop. Is that okay with you Mr. Cameraman? Oh is it okay if I call you Cam for short? Sorry, that was inappropriate we should keep this relationship professional.” As I jump down onto the track I shake my head in disbelief.
“Wow, okay that last part was definitely the beer talking.”
*****
Looking back on this, I could have died if a train came cruising through at 100 miles per hour or I if I touched the infamous third rail that could have electrocuted me to death. In truth I had absolutely no idea where I was going or what I was doing. I was planning on going back to the platform, but it was like I was possessed. It was like I subconsciously knew there was something there, something that was going to get me in a lot of trouble.
*****
Eight minutes pass until I reach a part in the track that has no lights. I can’t see at all so I use my other senses. My feet have gotten in the rhythm of how far apart the ties of the track are and I’ve tried to keep one hand on the wall to help with balance.
I keep going.
A couple seconds later, I start to hear a harsh whisper off in the abyss of the tunnel. I freeze in fear and crouch down. I know the voices are real, and not something in my head. The voices are far enough out of my field of hearing, so I can’t hear what they’re saying. As the voices grow fainter and my curiosity grows greater, I stand back up and cautiously walk forward for a couple seconds. The track makes a sharp turn, but the wall under my fingers moves away. I take a step forward trying to find the wall again and bump into a ledge. It’s about the height of a countertop, with the top of it made from tile. I pull myself up on the new found ledge and start to crawl around, getting feel of my new surroundings. That's when my hand hits something that wasn’t tile or concrete. I crawl forward even more interested. With closer inspection I realised that I was a duffel bag of some kind filled with something heavy. Feeling for a zipper, I find a pocket on the side with a medal flashlight.
As I turned it on the first thing I saw was an archway covered in green and white tile. At the top of the archway sits a white tile rectangle and metal letters spelling out the words “CITY HALL”.
“Oh, so that’s where I am.” I whispered to myself.
Under the archway is a small green flight of stairs, but I have no plans of exploring this sketchy ass place. I completely forgot about the bag, with the discovery of my new location. I turn back to the track and crouch down to unzip the bag.
“Holy shit,”I gasped “That’s a lot of money!”
Inside the duffle bag were stacks of 100 dollar bills, held together by rubber bands. There was about forty five stacks. Not to mention all the stray dollars inside. All the excitement instantly ripped away my buzz, causing me to pace around the bag.
With the breath sucked out of me I gasp “Oh my god! Oh my god!”
I was acting on adrenaline and had no clue what I should do, so I decided to take the money with me. Not thinking at all I jumped down into the tracks, bag and flashlight in hand, and ran down the tracks. But my silly ass went running in the opposite direction. I’m knocked of my feet as I run into two people walking down the tracks. Looking up from the ground, I see there are two men dressed in brown double breasted suits. One is fixing his jet-black slicked back hair, and the other is lighting a cigar, but both are looking down at me with eel like smiles.
“Hey there kid. What you got there?” asked Slick.
“Hay!” a man further back in dark yelled, “What’s the hold up? You aren’t being paid to stand around like a bunch of chucklenuts!”
“Sorry Father.” they both respond
“Just gotta kid here who thinks he can take our money.” replaces the man with the cigar
“Is that so?” says a seven foot giant with a thick italian accent. “Well that’s going to be a problem.” The man stepped a few feet closer and looked down at me.
“Get up boy.” he ordered. I stumble to my feet and finally get a nice long look at him. He can’t be any older than fifty, but he has a scar running from his left temple down to the edge of his jaw, making him look a little older, and a lot scarier. He has slicked back jet-black hair just like the man in the suit, only there is gray hair running through his, and he is wearing a charcoal gray suit.
“What is your name?” the man asks.
“Er-Er-Eric.” I studer, trying to gather myself.
“Just Eric?” he pressed, his acid green eyes burning a hole into my will.
“N-No. Eric Stern.” I replied, not entirely knowing what I was getting into, but knowing that it wasn’t anything good.
“Well Mr. Stern if you could just give us our money back, I will make you an offer you can not refuse, just because you remind me so much of myself when I was a boy.” he continues, “I will give you five percent of that money and you don’t tell anyone about our little run in. Once we are done my boys here will call you a cab home.”
“Where’d you get the money?” I ask, pushing my luck.
“Well” the man chuckled “We had some friends who need to… be taken care of.”
“Well, that’s a lot of friends then. Huh?” I question, looking down at the bag of money that could take care of me forever.
“Oh yes Mr. Stern, now they’re all safe and sound at the bottom of the Hudson river with a nice pair of concrete shoes.”
All color drained from my face and I’m positive that the man and his buddies could hear my heart beating, it was that loud.
“Who were they?” I whisper just loud enough to be heard.
“Who were they?” The softness in the man’s voice is suddenly gone and is replaced by growl. “They were dumb ass people who gave me a hard time about my money!”
I had to get out of there, so just as the words left his mouth I swung the bag right at his head and ran right back the way I came, not waiting to see the results. I hear from behind me the man yelling at the men to move their asses. A couple minutes later I arrived at the new city hall subway stop. Boy, could I run fast when I was being chased by gangsters.
I climb out of the tracks, of the new city hall stop and run up the stairs out into the storming city, with a bag a cash over my shoulder.
“Sully!” I yell as I run through his house looking for him. I find him in the kitchen cleaning up. The party has ended by now, so it’s just him and I.
“Eric?” Sully ask with such confusion, “What are you doing here?”
“I have a problem.” I explained as I put the bag on the counter and unzip it, showing Sully its contents.
“Holy shit Eric,” he gasped “Where did you get that?”
So from there I told Sully all about the abandoned City Hall and the mobster guys who were going to drown me if I didn’t get out of there. I crash in their guest room after hours of cleaning and talking with Sully.
The next morning I wake up, realizing I never called my parents last night. I get out of bed and go down stairs to use Sully’s home phone. It rings three times then goes to voicemail. I call again-voicemail.
“No one there?” Sully asks from the stairs.
“Yeah,” I respond, “it’s weird, they should be home and it 9:45 they would be up.”
“Maybe they’re out looking for you.” Sully suggested.
“I don’t think so,” I respond, “They’ve never gone looking for me before. They’ve always called, knowing I was here, but there isn’t even a voice message. I’m gonna go home real quick, let my parents know I’m still in one piece. Is it okay if I borrow some money? I ask.
“Sure.” Sully replise, “We can’t use any of the money in the bag seeing, how it’s dirty money.”
When I first enter my apartment it looks all good, but as I started to walk farther down the hall I see signs of a struggle.
“Mom! Dad!” I yell as I go through the rooms of our small apartment. When I look inside my parents room I find I note held into the wall by a knife the size of my forearm.
The note read “Bring money to pier 81 for parents at 10:00 tonight.” and under it in all caps it wrote “COME ALONE”. Taking the knife and the note with me I run back outside and call a cab, which is really hard when you have a knife in your hand.
When I get to Sully’s I show him the note and knife and tell him about my apartment, filling in every detail.
“I’m going to the police.” I say.
“What? It says ‘come alone’, do you want your parents to die?” Sully cries
“We need to tell the police about this.” I repeat “They’ll know what to do.”
Sully and I take the bag of money and the note to the police and after two hours we figured out a way to get my parents back without them being harmed, but it’s risky.
It’s dark out, but there is a warmness in the air. I take a cab to pier 81, were I’m greeted by the smell of the Hudson river and a nearby restaurant. Pier 81 is mostly used for docking large yachts. I see the two men dressed in brown suits, and behind them is the tall man with green eyes and the scar
“Hey, look it’s our old pal Eric.” Says one. They both have their hair slicked back and neither one is smoking, so it’s hard to tell who’s who.
“Where are they?” I demand, getting right to the point.
“Did you bring the money?” One asks. I drop the bag at my feet.
“Now where are they?” I ask again
He side steps revealing my parents tied up in ropes, gagged, and blindfolded. They aren’t moving, but I can tell their unhurt because I see they’re breathing.
“Now just hand over the money and your parents won't have to sleep with the fish tonight.” Says the man with the scar.
As I toss the bag to dumb and dumber, I sigh with relief knowing my family will be safe now. Just then I hear one of the men say, “I think I see a cop!”
Suddenly, we are blinded by lights everywhere. There are three helicopters and their searchlights on the yachts, all of which are pointed at me, my parents, and the mobsters. Police cars have blocked off the pier with their cars so there’s no escape for the stunned mobsters.
“Put your hands in the air and step away from the hostages!” Yells a policeman over a megaphone.
Four cops run onto the pier and handcuff the three goons. There are policemen who cut my parents free, then EMT’s put them on stretchers and take them to the ambulance, and drive off to the hospital. A man in a blue police suit, who I assume is the police chief, walks over to me and shakes my hand.
"Thank for the help son.” he says
“You just helped catch one of New York's most notorious organized crime leaders, Anthony Vito who is wanted for multiple state and federal charges. We have some questions though, as will the reporters.”
I look over to see camera crews and reporters already filming the man with a scar, or Anthony Vito’s arrest.
Later that night I’m in an interrogation room, but not the ones you see on TV. It has a nice wooden desk and two chairs, the one I’m sitting in and the one the police man is sitting in on the other side. I have been asked to write down everything that has happened to me. For a while I had no idea how to start, then I just pick up my pencil and tried to remember everything. After a while of thinking hard it finally began like this: “I didn’t even want to be sitting in a subway stop freezing to death on a Saturday night. I would have much rather been at my house or anywhere but the city hall subway in the middle of a thunderstorm getting caught up in some organized crime bullcrap.”