All those thoughts and a million others banged around inside my head as I followed the square-shouldered, barrel-chested Duffy through the heart of the Mainliner. The miles fell away under the wheels and yards of train carpeting were gobbled up by our shoes. I counted three cars, two sleepers and one day coach, before Duffy slowed down cautiously in the last coach like a lion getting close to a peacefully grazing deer.
The normalcy and quiet atmosphere of those cars was curious. The sleepers had been peaceful, with only a quizzical blonde popping her head out of one curtained berth and popping it right back in as we approached. You know the type. They hear a noise, take a quick peek and duck into their holes again. Never bothering, never calling anybody to see what’s the matter. The day coaches were even more natural.
People; singles, and young and old couples were all seated on their soft, hard-backed seats, like people always do riding on a train that ploughs through the darkness of the night with nothing to look at through the windows. Just talking, trying to sleep sitting up, reading the papers and looking at magazines with pictures in them, smoking cigarettes, pipes and cigars, munching candy or nibbling at already-cold, tasteless sandwiches. Or chatting about Chicago and the reasons for going there. Making friends or making enemies. Making new ties or cutting old ones. We’re a crazy civilization all right. Sometimes we act like so many animals in the zoo, that I don’t need any scientist to tell me I descended from an ape that swung through the trees and subsisted mainly on bananas. I like bananas as it is.
The complete normality of the cars figures. A deluxe train like the Mainliner, made separate, liveable worlds out of each passenger car. It wasn’t too odd that other cars might not know what happened in the Club Car or the corridor outside Compartment B. Gunfire can sound like anything at all when it is removed from your world. And Dean and Spider must have calmed down sufficiently to proceed as if nothing had happened as they passed through. Only the redhead, Marlene Kelly, might have flounced along angrily. And nobody would have made anything unusual out of that. The men would have admired her swinging hips, and the women would have been green-eyed with the sight of her perfect figure and wealthy duds. But that would be all. She too must have continued on uninterrupted.
Duffy grunted inaudibly as we stepped out of the last day coach into the small square areaway that was an entrance as well as an exit. I closed the coach door behind us, and wind whistled through the tiny cracks beneath our feet. The heavy door before us was wide and had no window. Red and green lettering above the frame gave me the news of the day. BAGGAGE ROOM TRAIN PERSONNEL ONLY DO NOT ENTER.
Duffy put his ear to the door and shook his head. Muffled noises mushroomed behind the heavy frame. Duffy gently tried the knob. It was a sliding door but it didn’t slide open. It was locked. The muffled noises continued. But now I could make them out. Even with the clicking of the wheels and the whoosh of sound accompanying the Mainliner’s speedy roar through the night, the sounds were unmistakeable.
Click, rip, click, rip, click, ripppppp!!!
If you’ve ever tried to open a wooden crate with a crowbar or a claw hammer, you know what I mean.
Somebody was undressing The Violent Virgin by chopping her out of her wooden dress.
But Duffy was first, last and always a railroad man. An official of the line. He cupped his horny palms to his lips and bellowed.
“Come on out of there! This is Duffy talking!”
The clicking and ripping noises stopped. A fast silence followed. Duffy looked at me, fumed impatiently, then cupped his palms again.
“Peters! This is Duffy! Open up!”
There was more silence.
Then it was broken the hard way. Instinctively, I jerked Duffy to one side as two shots thundered behind the door and chewed holes out of the metal frame right before our eyes.
And a dog started barking. Long, loud and frightened.
Schnapps didn’t like gunfire anymore than I did.
Duffy swore. For a second he sounded louder than the rising blast of the Mainliner’s horn. Duffy stopped cursing, the horn sound trailed off into the night. And Schnapps stopped barking. Silence followed until the steady rip and click of somebody using a tool on the wooden crate began all over again.
I looked at Duffy.
“What car comes after the baggage car?”
He frowned. “Two more day coaches. Then the caboose. Then nothing. That’s it.”
My eyes searched the areaway. “Any other way of getting in there besides this door?”
Duffy’s grin was something I’d seen on a battlefield in Germany.
“Sure, kid.” His horny thumb indicated the train door behind me. “Step out that door. Small iron hand ladder will get you to the top. Then you walk along about thirty feet. There’s a trap door in the roof of the car. It’s used for lowering freight sometimes. But this train is doing better than sixty miles an hour and with those characters in there with loaded guns it’d be like a paratrooper dropping right in front of a firing squad.”
I holstered my .45 and buttoned my coat. “It would be. But I can’t stand around here doing nothing. See you, Duffy.” I stepped toward the door. The dizzy flash of trees and dark ground whipping by wasn’t exactly comforting. Even through a glass window.
He didn’t try to stop me. He stayed to one side of the big metal baggage room door and watched me ease the heavy train door to one side. A rocket of wind and whining slipstream thundered in at us, tearing at our clothes, sending our ties streaming past our necks.
It was suddenly cold. I could feel the night air raiding my body, funnelling cold fingers up my warm legs and arms. Duffy, .32 on the ready, had one last thought for me. I noticed he had checked his watch.
“You got ten minutes, Noon. We hit a tunnel in exactly ten minutes–counting that emergency stop we had. You better be in the car before then. Just in case you can’t get in, squash down thinner than a pancake. There isn’t much clearance in tunnels when a train’s as big as this one.”
“Thanks, Duffy. It’s been a pleasure knowing you.”
His answer was lost to me as I stuck my head out into the roaring wind. Half of me was in the car and the other half out as I explored and found the small iron hand ladder just above me and to the right of the door. I put a nervous shoe on a narrow rung, anchored it firmly, tightened my hand hold on a bar above it and swung out into space.
For one teetering second, I was free in space with the forward roll of the train and the angry wind buffeting me with giant invisible hands. Then my body swung into the curved body of the car and banged like a swinging door. Me and the train were inseparable now. I was glued to the steel side like an ardent lover.
The steel sides were cold, numbing. But I didn’t look to the left or the right. I climbed. It was a short distance to the top but I wanted to get there before my fanny got sliced off by something up ahead. My frozen fingers clasped and unclasped, my leather shoes dug in. I climbed. It probably took only four or five seconds but like those things are, it seemed ages. The wind kept howling, my ears felt like two large seashells of roaring noise, my suit billowed like a paper bag around me. And the night was dark, dark, dark.
I made it to the top in the best hobo tradition. The iron ladder ended in a curve running into the roof of the car. I crouched on my knees, throwing my arms around a low, square buttress that jutted upward like an air-conditioning unit. I caught my breath and looked around, the tingling dying in my cramped limbs, the excitement cramping my chest and kicking my heart around like a garbage can.
Up ahead, the long body of train cars stretched like a beautifully fashioned caterpillar. I saw a splash of light here and there. Overhead, a million stars winked on and off. It was a lovely night. The Mainliner was humming along the rails Chicago-bound and Ed Noon was hugging the roof, baggage car-bound. I checked the skyline. Oceans of dark treetops and darker woods rustled by in a never-ending panorama of countryside at night. It was a wilderness of darkness. I tried to peer up ahead fo
r the discomforting sight of a mountain looming in the night. Duffy and his tunnel. Now I knew how the lookout must have felt the night he spotted that iceberg squatting as big as you please in front of the Titanic.
I pushed it out of my mind and pushed away from the buttress, stepping on the narrow band of roofing that ran down the length of the car like a taut rubber band stretched around the long side of a rectangular box. The catwalk. Made for walking along the tops of cars. For train men, unwanted hoboes and insane private detectives.
I raised myself gingerly, braced my feet and got my sea legs. But I stayed in a half-crouch, putting up as little front as possible against the flying wind. I lowered my head and moved forward, half-running half-springing when I had to. Like Jesse James all set to knock over a St. Louis iron horse. But this was a stainless steel horse. And I didn’t want to mess it up with my Type B blood.
Thirty feet, Duffy had said. It felt more like sixty. The wind played with my hair, made a flag out of my tie and pounded my clothes. But I kept on going. I was painfully aware of the time now. Duffy had said ten minutes and then Hello, Tunnel, Hello. It seemed like a half hour since he had told me the good news.
I found the hatch. In the tight darkness, my shoes came up short against it. I halted and fell on it softly, letting my knees brace its comforting bulk. I put my numbed fingers around the square rim of the lid. My eyes were straining into the up-ahead darkness now. For a mad second, a large patch of solid darkness threw me into a panic. My fingers clawed at the hatch rim. Then the patch split into a thousand little patches of blackness and a huge sigh split my chest apart. I took a deep breath and examined the hatch cover.
It was as simple as they can make them. Like the old-fashioned rooftop covers. You unhooked it, raised it and it settled to one side on a hinge-rod affair that kept it propped open until you dropped it in place again. The few inches I elevated it convinced me of that as bright electric illumination spilled out at me and the night.
Talk about now or never. I flung a look ahead again. This time I didn’t panic. This time I knew for sure. This time I knew just how much time I had. And it wasn’t a helluva lot.
Rising on the forward skyline, as prominent as the upthrust spire of the Chrysler Building, a mile wide formation of mountain prodded into the overhead twinkling sky. The outline of it was as distinct as the landlord’s expression when you’re two months behind in the rent.
I didn’t know what the picture was beneath my feet. Didn’t know how many guns I was going up against. Literally didn’t know what I was dropping into. But the picture up ahead was far more frightening and far less desireable. And I had reached the end of the line.
The tunnel looked to be a thousand yards ahead. But you can’t tell for sure at night. And no chance was worth not taking when the odds are life or death.
I didn’t wait a second longer. I wanted to raise some kids before I died.
I raised the lid of the hatch quickly and quietly, poked my head into hanging view like a Jack-In-The-Box, flung my body in at right angles to the floor and blazed away with my .45 at the one overhead light that illuminated the baggage car.
Glass shattered, sound volleyed, a woman screamed and I had a flashing tableau of startled faces before darkness closed in on the car. Spider, Dean, Marlene Kelly and an unidentified other face flashed up at me in the split second interval before the blackout.
And I dropped through the roof of the baggage car, my shoes finding the one vacant place on the floor I could use.
Gunfire rolled around the baggage car, its bright orange bursts giving enough light for everybody.
Enough light to die by.
CHAPTER NINE
The baggage car was a dark room in a photographer’s studio. And plenty of things were developing. All of them quick, noisy and rapid-fire. Guns were going off like firecrackers and the bright orange flashes licked out at the darkness. Right at the spot where I had come down from the roof like a paratrooper dropping in on a picnic.
Only I wasn’t in the same spot anymore. I had rolled on the floor, spreading out in the best deportment of scatter rugs. I hadn’t stopped rolling until I smacked up hard and short against something heavy and wooden and solid. I didn’t have to check it with my fingers. It was the big wooden kimono of The Violent Virgin.
Finally, somebody got some sense and decided that shooting aimlessly in the dark was a risky occupation. The gunfire turned off like a radio. I could hear Schnapps whimpering in the silence, could hear Marlene Kelly moaning in a subdued feminine contralto. That and other things.
Spider cursed and Dean shouted something about “a cessation of speech insuring physical safety” or some junk like that. Whatever he wanted, he got. Spider shut up. And suddenly in the darkened baggage car, conversation wasn’t worth a plugged nickel.
Only Schnapps kept talking in his own dog’s way.
I could hear low, forced breathing and someone changed position somewhere in the car. But only the sound of the Mainliner’s steel wheels and the roaring wind from the open hatch cover filled the car now.
With the heavy crate for covering, I felt brave. Plus that, I couldn’t see myself crouched in a blacked-out car for hours with a bunch of people who were trying to shoot me up. I eased myself in closer behind the crate and kept my .45 trained toward the spot where Spider’s curse had come from.
“Gentlemen,” I called softly. “Let’s have a conference.”
For a long interval, nobody said anything. Then I heard Dean’s girlish, silly laugh in the darkness. He stopped laughing long enough to say something.
“And Thor descended from the heavens, bringing with him gifts of sound and fury …”
“God damn him!” Spider snarled.
“I liked the Emerson bit better, Dean,” I said. “Look–why don’t we talk this thing over?”
That seemed agreeable to Dean. Spider was still fuming.
“To what tenets do you ascribe, Mr. Noon? Pray tell us.”
“I’d suggest prayer as long as you asked me. But let’s talk. You guys are killing people and running wild. Now you’re holed up in a baggage car holding hostages and ripping your own property apart looking for a hunk of expensive ice called The Blue Green. It doesn’t make sense.”
Dean’s voice was suddenly guarded in the darkness. And I wondered how he knew my name. Opal and I had never mentioned it.
“What conclusions do you draw, Mr. Noon?”
“You’re lying. Both of you. The statue is on this train and maybe you didn’t expect it to be. I’m not sure you really own it. I don’t believe you or Spider own anything. Opal was skipping and you caught up with her. I’m sorry I interrupted your unpacking routine with the crate. You think maybe the stone is in there, huh? And you didn’t think so before.”
Spider swore again. Dean chuckled.
“You seem a veritable storehouse of information, Mr. Noon. Do you suppose anything of further prognostication?”
“I’ve got loads of that junk. Did you know that Fat Harry is on the train? Or didn’t you have anything to do with his disappearance?”
That really got me some silence. Deep, hard silence. Somebody in that baggage car was doing an awful lot of thinking.
“Better make up your minds fast,” I called again. “Before Duffy starts worrying his head off about me and rings in the marines. He’s on the other side of that door now wondering if I’m still alive.”
It was true. Everybody could hear Duffy pounding and yelling on the door. He stopped pounding and yelling when I shouted I was okay.
Suddenly, Dean spoke up again.
“A truce, Mr. Noon. An armed truce. Spider will light a hurricane lamp that is positioned in our end of the car. You will allow him to do so. If you attempt rashness, I personally will fire my first bullet into the beautiful lady by my side. And you alone will be solely responsible for Miss Kelly’s demise. Listen closely, Mr. Noon.”
I didn’t have to listen closely. Marlene Kelly’s shriek of pain more
than certified her closeness to Dean and the fact that he had virtually twisted her arm off. Schnapps growled at the sound of his mistress’ voice.
“Thanks for the Basic English, Dean,” I said. “Spider can light the lamp.”
Spider did. I heard a wooden match scrape the floor and a flare of light ignited the darkness then settled down to a tiny glow. Then he must have fixed the burning match to the kerosene lamp. Light started to grow in the car, then spread out in a wide, steady fan of illumination that reached into the darkest corners of the car. Things started to fill out. Large suitcases, tagged steamer trunks, a crate of tools, several bins of newspapers, long tiers on either side of the car filled to the overflow with the private property of the passengers. All those things and others.
The large crate I was behind towered a good seven feet above the floor and had been set close to the big sliding doors in the center of the car. Over a canted wooden desk in the corner, I could see a big, burly young guy stretched out across the angle of the board, with blood from an ugly head wound staining his face and the floor at his feet. It was Peters, Duffy’s man. He looked like he was out for the duration and six.
The large crate had a great, gaping hole in one side with the slat boards split and sticking apart, the splintered wood showing like savage saw teeth. On the floor nearby, a crowbar lay where it had fallen. That’s all I had time to see. The car had come lighted almost magically. And there were still Spider and Dean to worry about.
They were thinking about me too. Dean was chuckling. I didn’t like his laugh at all. Laughing killers with intelligence, however warped, scare the hell out of me. They’re so damn unpredictable.
“Parley it is, Mr. Noon. Throw your gun down on the floor where we can see it.”
This time I laughed. Loud enough for him to hear me.
“A fair exchange is no bargain. Yours first. Then mine. The odds are all in your favor anyway.”
They took it out of my hands. I don’t know how long we would have wrangled about it. I didn’t even know if it was smart talking things over with a pair of crazy killers. But there was the rich redhead who had blundered into things because she was so high-handed and so worried about her dog. They had her and even if she didn’t mean a thing to me, I can’t stand to see real good looking dolls all bloodied up and wasted on death.
The Case of the Violent Virgin Page 7