I found myself slowly recalling the words of the song he was singing, mouthing them as the old man continued. I knew them from my childhood, from a music style I had hoped would never rear its ugly head again-disco. “I Will Survive.”
The man finished the chorus and closed the distance between us by half. Now his scent was overpowering.
Connor shoved his crossword into the space between us while he dug deep into his pocket. He fished out his wallet and flipped it open as the man started to sing his next verse.
“Crap!” Connor muttered. He held up his wallet so I could see. Outside of a variety of credit cards and ATM receipts, it was empty. “Pay the man, kid.”
I nodded and pulled out my own wallet. “I’ve only got twenties.”
“So give him one!”
“Don’t you think twenty is a bit much for an old seventies disco song?” I asked.
“Just do it!” Connor whispered urgently. “Trust me on this; we need his help. Goes by the name of Gaynor. Or that’s what he lets us call him anyway.”
The man called Gaynor landed in front of us now. I coughed as a fresh wave of his stench rolled over me like a blanket. I held my nose and attempted to breathe through my mouth only, but still the strong scent remained. All the while, Gaynor’s cup rang outclink clink clink! and the man did a little two-step shuffle, jumping maniacally back and forth from foot to foot.
I slipped the twenty into his cup, and immediately Gaynor stopped singing to let out a dry cackle. Up close, his features showed the signs of more years than one mortal lifetime could possibly know. Luckily, we rarely dealt with the possible. His eyes danced momentarily toward the cup and he thrust his fingers in and fished around until he pulled out the twenty.
“Oh ho-ho!” his dry voice cackled merrily. “Your little gentlemen’s club must be wantin’ to know something pretty bad there, eh?”
Connor looked at the weathered old man and smiled gently. “Good to see you, too, old friend.”
“Eh!” said Gaynor, looking disgusted. “Enough with the ‘old friend’ crap. You in some kind of fucking comic book? Save your road-movie dialogue.”
“Sorry,” Connor said. I could hear the annoyance barely hiding itself behind his apology.
“And don’t apologize!” Gaynor shouted. “It makes you sound weak…”
The belligerent way he handled Connor was something I shouldn’t have found funny, but I couldn’t help laughing, which switched his attention to me. Gaynor turned as fast as a striking snake and crouched down. His manic eyes locked with mine and his earthy smell overwhelmed me, causing the laughter to die on my lips.
“You find that funny, do you?” he asked. His eyes scurried back and forth across my face. I felt the sudden urge to squirm out of my seat and dash as far away from the man as quickly as I could, but with the handrail to my left and Connor to my right, that was impossible.
“No,” I replied, hating the sound of weakness in my own voice, “I don’t find that funny…particularly.”
I turned my head as far as I could to avoid his gaze. I couldn’t explain it rationally, but I wanted nothing more than to make this creature go away.
Yes, creature. Although he looked human, no human moved like he did or could have caused this sensation in me unless it fell under the category of supernatural. It didn’t matter how human it looked, it was still otherworldly-and that meant that it fell within my bailiwick in Other Division to deal with. I so didn’t want to.
“The kid’s new here,” Connor offered. “Give him a break, will ya?”
Gaynor turned his attention back to Connor. I felt my intense discomfort fall away.
The subway train pulled into Lexington Avenue, and the doors slid open. The platform was full of people, but none of them stepped into the car. En masse, they faltered for a moment as if something was repelling them, and then quickly made their way to another car. As the doors slid shut with the familiarbing bong, our car was just as empty as it had been. The train lurched out of the station.
“Twenty won’t buy you much time, ya know,” Gaynor said, twisting the bill in his shriveled but powerful-looking hands. He stood up and tucked the twenty into one of the side pockets of his coverall. He pushed his hat back to an almost impossible angle and scratched at the mad tangle of gray curls covering the front of his head. “Better get crackin’!”
“We’ve come about a wooden fish,” Connor said. He pulled out a pen and picked up the newspaper, sketching a rough image of the item stolen from Irene’s. “It’s about the size of a dinner plate and we think it’s sacred or something. No one at the Department can make head or tail of it. We haven’t come across any references to it in any of our research so far, but it was important enough for a group of cultists to nick it from under our noses.”
“Ahhh,” Gaynor said. He snatched the paper from Connor’s hands. Was that recognition I saw in his eyes-or madness? “No idea what it is, eh?”
“None, I’m afraid.”
Gaynor let out a sigh as he lowered himself to the floor of the train car and arranged himself cross-legged. He sat quietly as he gathered focus. Seconds later, his jaw fell open and his eyes rolled back into his head, reminding me disturbingly of my narcoleptic great-grandfather after Thanksgiving dinner.
The deeper Gaynor fell into a trance, the faster the train rocked and careened beneath Manhattan. The lights of the tunnel flicked by faster and faster outside. I had never been on a train shooting along so fast. I felt a little queasy and decided that if I were ever in Japan, I would avoid their bullet trains at all costs.
“Did we just go express?” I whispered to Connor, but he only shushed me.
The overhead lights flickered out, and the backups sprang to life, giving the car a ghostly glow. Gaynor’s shadow rocked back and forth with the sway of the train, looking as if he might fall over any second. Then his voice exploded over the roar of the train.
“That which you seek,” Gaynor boomed out, “is far more important than you know.”
His voice was no longer his own. It spoke with a calmness and clarity that clashed with his mad beggar appearance. I waited for Gaynor to say more, but he offered nothing else. Several manic moments passed before I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What is it?” I shouted over the din of the rocketing train. “Do you know what the fish is or what it does?”
The words sounded weird even to me, but believe it or not, I had said more foolish things in my time with the Department. I watched Gaynor for any sign of reaction, but he simply rocked back and forth. I assumed from the blank look on his face that the old man simply hadn’t heard me. I leaned forward in the dimly lit car, hoping to catch a glimpse of some sort of reaction. I was inches from his face when his eyes sprang open and a faint blue glow radiated from deep within them.
“That which lies within is not for me to know,” he said.
As the train car sped and shook, one of the ceiling vents came loose and clanged noisily to the floor beside us. Connor leaned toward Gaynor.
“Whatcan you tell us?” he asked.
“That which you seek…” Gaynor’s lifeless face said. “Its true purpose is known to only a few, but only one will lead you to it. Follow the Vegas trail and all will become clear.”
The overhead fluorescents flickered to life, and the lightning speed of the car finally started to slow until it resumed its normal pace. The old man’s head slumped forward onto his chest. He was drained from whatever force had been working through him. Connor looked bored, but I wasn’t.
Consulting this type of wild oracle was new to me. It had been a lot more nerve-wracking and exciting than the pamphlet back at the office-So You Want to Channel the Powers-made it out to be.
Gaynor came to and adjusted his hat before scooping his coffee cup up off the floor. He leapt to his feet.