The Lady And The Tiger 6

The train station had been built around the turn of the century. An art deco masterpiece meant to usher the city into an age of prosperity. As the decades had drawn on, that optimism had suffered a thousand cuts and counting. Cuts to the city budget, to the police who patrolled for vandalism, to the schools that made citizens out of children instead of thugs, to the hospitals that treated the mentally ill instead of letting them wander the streets.

Now, in a new century, the station was a testament to the past it had suffered through instead of the future it looked forward to. Drug-addled homeless lined the walls, sleeping off as much of their life as they could afford to. The towering windows were greased with the graffiti that had outbreaks on the curving walls. The geometric chandeliers were burnt out or smudged with pollution, their full glory locked behind refurbishment no one had or would get around to. The comfortable leather chairs had suffered the incontinence, emotional and fecal, of countless unappreciative visitors—many of them too poor to afford a ticket, taking their anger out on what was to them a mocking reminder of a life they could not attain.

Jason screwed up a scowl, entering the beautiful, degraded space. You just had to let your eyes unfocus to see the potential. The sprawling space like a ballroom surrounding the ticket booth, a pillbox that formed the foundation of a soaring clock tower, festooned with statues of eagles that formed a motif with the painted mosaics on the domed ceiling. Then his eyes focused and he saw the burn marks where someone had thrown Molotov cocktails against decorations that'd done nothing but bring beauty into the world. 

He saw a cockroach skitter by his foot and took some small satisfaction in stomping it. If only he could do the same to the human cockroaches who didn't seem able to live in a place without making it a giant urinal.

“I don't see Eddie anywhere,” Harleen complained.

“That's why it's called looking, not seeing. Keep your eyes open.”

They filtered through the throng. The crowd was thick with holiday traffic. Most of them were civilians. Their idea of crime was going five miles over the speed limit. They kept their heads down, trying to avoid the violent few among them that would haplessly go to jail to get back at anyone who gave them offense. It made it hard to get a look at faces; heavy winter clothes concealed the shape and size of bodies.

Jason was annoyed. With it being so hard to tell which one was Eddie, he had to keep an eye on Harleen to see if she'd noticed him. But he didn't trust her to be particularly observant, so he kept looking for anyone who matched Eddie's description himself.

The crowd jostled them, milling around from one destination to another. The smell of body odor and bad breath joined the overlaying scent of decay. Jason pushed his way to Harleen’s side. The tiny girl was pressed into him by the crush of bodies.

“Any of them look familiar? A coat? A hat?”

“It's not like he wore a coat with big-time embezzler written on the back.”

“What's his full name?”

“Edward Eygma, why?”

Jason cupped his hands around his mouth. “Edward Nygma!” he shouted.

His voice echoed off the arching walls. Most ignored him, as they would any nut who started screaming at random. Some turned out of curiosity.

Harleen’s face lit up. She pointed exuberantly, jumping up and down. “That's him! He's there! Over there!”

Jason saw the man. In a flash, he committed his face to memory.

Seeing Harleen, Eddie's face went scarlet. He turned to run, but a small man, he was straitjacketed by the press of bodies all around him. 

Jason was a big man. He shouldered through the wall of overweight flesh that stood between him and Eddie. It gave for him. Eddie had to dart between bodies, duck down to get between legs.

“Move, move, move!” Jason barked, shoving his way ruthlessly through the crowd.

Some pushed back at him. Jason pushed harder, spilling someone onto his back. 

“Watch it, bro!”

“Rude motherfucker...”

“I'll kick your ass, buddy!”

Jason ignored them all. His eyes were only for Eddie as the man wiggled through the crush of bodies. He saw Eddie drop down onto all fours, disappearing in the surrounding crowd. Jason poured on the speed, pressing ahead like an earthmover and forcing forward the entire crowd before he broke through.

A mass of bodies collapsed to the floor before him. Jason callously stepped on top of them, spotting Eddie on his hands and knees from the elevated vantage point. Thirty feet separated them, and now the crowd was getting out of the way, jamming themselves against the walls to stay out of Jason's path.

He tucked his head and charged forward. Eddie squawked, jumping to his feet. He ran so fast that his feet slipped around on the laminated tile. 

Jason weaved through the thinning crowd. Some good Samaritans snatched at him. Jason ran right over them. Eddie grew ahead of him. He saw Eddie reach the edge of the platform, dropping down onto his hip and sliding over the side. A pained squeal bobbed up from his landing.

Someone grabbed a handful of Jason's jacket. He shoved the man on his ass and threw himself to the floor, sliding on his belly up to the edge. Below, on the tracks, Eddie was picking himself up. Jason stretched out his arm and seized Eddie by his scarf. He yanked the man up against the platform.

“Let go of me! What are you, some sorta child? You're not supposed to do this on the tracks, there are so many rules against it!”

“Harleen wants a word with you, Ed.” Jason got a fistful of his collar and pulled him against the wall.

“Oww! Careful, you thug, you're going to break something! I'll sue!”

“Why? You don't need the money when you have Harleen’s.”

“No, that's my money! I earned it! All she did was sell what I invented and she did a shitty fucking job of it too, since the whole company's gone belly up.” A train whistle sounded, the noise rolling over the station like a thick layer of molasses. Eddie's head jerked around. He and Jason saw the Amtrak on the way. “Geez fuck! Let go of me!”

Jason hauled him upward, difficult as Eddie made it with his twisting around. “I don't think you want to be on the track right now.”

Eddie didn't listen to him. He kicked at the wall and made himself flip around like a fish out of water.

“Jason!” The cry was from Harleen.

Jason looked over his shoulder. Harleen was easy to make out with her coat falling open, two heavies grabbing hold of her and pulling her away.

“Shit,” Jason breathed.

Eddie pulled harder against his hold. Jason instinctively tightened his grip. The train rushed towards them, snorting its horn again.

“She's not gonna need the money when Scarpetti’s guys get through with her,” Eddie crowed.

Some people could be so annoying about being right.

Jason slammed him against the wall and tossed him away. The train blared again and in the space of the sound, he was up and running back the way he'd come.

Jason quickly caught sight of Harleen being dragged away. She was up on the second floor, being forced into a restroom. Jason thrust himself onto the nearest elevator and forced his way upward, pushing aside everyone in his way. They dropped luggage; it clattered to the steps, crashing downstairs or popping open to unfurl packed clothes.

Ahead of him, people rushed forward to get out of the way, climbed up onto the railing. Jason reached the second floor in seconds. He ran full tilt for the bathroom. The door opened up before him. A thug stood in the doorway.

Jason stopped short. Over the thugs shoulder, he caught a glimpse of the restroom. Two other thugs had Harleen pinned against a stall. And above them, a window showed the white swirling around the air outside.

“Walk away, pretty boy,” the thug said, pulling open his jacket to show a pistol in his waistband. “Whatever this cunt is offering you, it ain't worth it.”

The bathroom door had closed behind him.

“Why threaten me with something you can't use?” Jason asked, and lunged forward, driving a punch into the man's belly.

The air exploded out of him. He doubled over, wrapping himself around Jason's fist. Jason lugged his unprotesting body into the women's restroom. It was thankfully empty. Jason marched him to the stalls and flung him into one. The thug landed on a toilet.

Gasping for air, he tried to peel himself upright to reach his gun. Jason lashed out with his boot, forcing him back into the flush valve. Another kick battered the metal with his body. Yet another bent it, letting out a spray of water.

The thug was helpless now. Jason grasped his skull with both hands and dashed it against the tile wall. The back of the man's head went from oblong to flat.