An American Bullet

by John Stonehouse

  Lauren lets out a breath.

  “Law says I have to get you to the court.”

  “That’s all I am?”

  He cuts a look at her.

  “An asset?” she says. “For the court.”

  The waitress brings their order to the table—she sets down the plates of beans and corn tortillas and spiced eggs.

  “Gracias, seňora.” The marshal dips his head.

  “De nada.” The waitress smiles, she tucks her hair behind her ear.

  Lauren picks up a warmed tortilla, breaking off a small piece.

  The waitress heads back toward the counter.

  Whicher forks up a mix of eggs and chili and pinto beans.

  “I have a brother,” Lauren says. “Anthony. He’s sixteen.”

  The marshal lets his eyes rest on hers a moment.

  “Both my parents are dead. He’s all I have. I guess I’m all he has, too, for what it’s worth.”

  He takes another forkful of food. “Go on,” he says.

  “Mom died when Anthony was only two. My dad was a heavy drinker, he died in a car wreck, ten years back. I've taken care of Anthony since he was six years old. I'm thirty-five. I’ve never been married. No kids. I'm a former accountant,” she lowers her voice, “for the Coletti family...”

  “For the mob...”

  “For businesses owned and controlled by them. In Chicago.”

  He nods. “Right.”

  “You,” she says, a note in her voice.

  Whicher looks at her.

  “I want to know about you.”

  “Ma’am? I'm not on trial.”

  She angles her head.

  He puts down the fork. Sits back a fraction in the seat.

  She stares at him.

  “I'm thirty-eight,” he says. “I grew up in the panhandle, Briscoe County, Texas.” He shrugs. “You won't have heard of it, Quitaque.”

  “Married?”

  “Nope.”

  “Brothers, sisters?”

  He shakes his head. “I joined the army out of high school, ROTC. Graduated in eighty-six.” He shifts his gaze to the window. “I served with Third Armored Cavalry. Led the battalion scout platoon. Toured overseas, the Gulf War of ninety-one. Joined the Marshals Service a year later.”

  “WITSEC?”

  “No ma’am. I'm a criminal investigator.”

  She watches him, her face entirely still.

  “I was close to Fisherville when your train got hit,” he says. “Driving back from Florence SuperMax. I have the clearance, the security clearance.” His eyes meet hers. “You again.”

  She draws a long breath. Lifts the mug of coffee, takes a sip. “I studied for a bachelor degree while my dad was still alive. Accounting. Somebody needed to take care of the family. I got a job at a decent firm. Or so I thought.”

  The waitress returns to the table.

  She sets down two plates of cinnamon pancakes and brown butter.

  “Can I get you some more coffee?”

  “Thank you,” Whicher says. “We’re good.”

  Lauren pushes eggs into a fold of corn tortilla. “I worked hard, harder than anybody else, got noticed. Moved up. I kept on going…” Her voice trails off.

  “What happened to Anthony?”

  Her face changes. “My brother is off-limits.”

  “He’s under protection?”

  She shakes her head. “Nobody can know about him.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Glimpses of I-25 show from the taxi—scant vehicles moving among the orange traffic drums.

  The fall of snow is constant as the taxi works its way into downtown, windows dark in the low-rise office units.

  Sidewalks are deserted, storefronts unlit, doors closed on the shopping malls.

  “Bus station's up on the right,” the taxi driver says. “But I don't imagine you'll be going any place.”

  “I called ahead,” Whicher says. “They got some lines still running.”

  The taxi driver shakes his head.

  Lauren DeLuca sits rigid in the seat alongside Whicher.

  Rental car offices are closed, nobody looking to lease out till the storm eases.

  The cab pulls in at a curb piled with dirty snow.

  The marshal pays the man, Lauren steps out.

  She carries her case toward a glass-front bus station—foot long shards of ice hanging from the roof.

  Inside the Greyhound bus, the heat is cranked. At the back, looking out through misted windows, Whicher eyes the few cars and trucks on the interstate.

  A radio plays snatches of news on the worst winter storm to hit the Mountain West in years.

  Lauren sits by the window.

  Eight other travelers are on the bus, none of them seated close.

  “I don't know how you think this is going to work,” Lauren says. “Look at it.”

  Traffic’s slow moving on the single-wide lanes, road crews out in both directions.

  “You cut a deal with a federal attorney, the Marshals Service expect me to get you where you need to go.”

  “You think it's that simple?”

  “You made a deal. All I’m saying. A man died already. Just to get you this far.”

  Her eyes widen. “They found Corrigan?”

  He looks at her. “They found him.”

  For a minute, neither one of them speaks.

  Whicher listens to the whine of the drivetrain, the growl of the diesel engine—noise coming up from the road.

  “No free rides,” he says.

  Heat steals into her eyes. “I never said there was.”

  The marshal looks off down the length of the bus. Three hours to Denver—three hours ahead of them, at best.

  He pushes back in the worn leather seat.

  Beneath his suit jacket, he feels the Ruger in the shoulder-holster. “I told you I took a guy out to Florence ADX, yesterday morning? I was headed home, I took the call about your train.”

  “So you said.”

  “They picked him up with human remains in the trunk of his car. Burnt human remains. Cutter Maitland. An enforcer for the Chicago mob.”

  She stares out of the window of the bus.

  “He made a deal with the feds to plea-down,” Whicher says. “Agreed to testify for the government. But then he skipped out. They picked him up again in Dallas. He’ll spend the rest of his life in the highest security prison in the country.”

  She shakes her head.

  “He reckoned me and him were no different...”

  “I’ll honor the terms of my deal.”

  “All the way up from Texas,” Whicher says, “the son-of-a-bitch told me we were just working different sides. Him for the mob. Me, an enforcer for the law.”

  She looks at him. “And did it bother you?”

  “It don’t bother me none. I guess. So long as too many folk don’t get confused.”

  She folds her arms on her chest. “You see everything in black and white?” She leans a fraction to look at him. “Don’t you ever get confused?”

  “Maybe.”

  She leaves her eyes on his. “Are you confused now?”

  A beat passes.

  Another.

  “How long,” he says, “did you work for them?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “All that time keeping books for the mob?”

  “That's not the way it started,” she says. “I was naive.”

  “Y’all were busted?”

  “Three of us, from my office.”

  “Anybody else cut a deal?”

  She shakes her head. “FBI have been investigating the Coletti family for years. They decided on a different approach; forensic accounting. They offered me immunity, a new identity, relocation out of state.”

  “In return for testimony to convict.”

  Lauren nods.

  “What kind of level?”

  “All the way up to the top.”

  Whicher gives out a low whistle.

  She
glances at him sideways. “It's really only blind luck? That I get you?”

  “Deaf, dumb. Blind.”

  “At least I know,” she says. “That I can trust you.”

  The bus rumbles forward, through the dull, gray of the morning.

  The marshal lets his eyes blur on a line of orange traffic drums out of the window.

  “And I'm truly sorry,” she says.

  Whicher looks at her—sees the water welled at the corner of her eye.

  “Everybody says to keep your distance—I hardly even talked to Marshal Corrigan...” Her voice catches in her throat.

  “Whatever testimony you have,” he says, “I hope it’s worth it.”

  “You mean, worth a man's life?”

  Inside the grand hall of Union Station, Whicher sits on a tall-backed wooden bench.

  The waiting room is run down, tan painted walls detailed brown.

  The ticket office is closed, kiosks boarded up. He studies signs left over from the fifties; Pullman, Rock Island, Sante Fe.

  Every major road east is blocked or severely disrupted. A thousand miles to Chicago, fifteen hours straight. The bench is hard, the grain of the wood worn smooth from long years of use. He stares at the high, arched windows, caked with snow.

  At best, the roads will be a crawl—narrow corridors cleared with salt trucks and plows. Any breakdown, any wreck, they’d be trapped for hours.

  All the airlines have pulled their schedules; flying conditions are way too bad.

  The marshal watches the street door—opening every few minutes, people coming in, going out.

  The Amtrak service is due in half an hour; the California Zephyr, still running, despite the snow. Nineteen hours. All the way to Chicago—the train running all night, all through the next day, arriving the middle of the afternoon. In time to make it to the court the following day.

  The marshal takes in the folk in the waiting room, around twenty, all told. Mostly couples, older couples, not in any kind of rush. One group that might be college friends, three young women, two men.

  A handful of single men are traveling, some with backpacks, two others dressed for business, no luggage. Nobody looks out of place.

  Whicher shifts his weight on the seat. The only people out of place are Lauren and him—in ill-fitting coats that don't belong to them.

  He tells himself they’re just a man and a woman waiting on a train. A winter's night in Denver, tickets out of a machine, nobody knows who they are.

  “You alright?” He looks at Lauren sitting beside him.

  He feels a flicker of warmth in the smile she gives.

  She holds his eye a moment. Puts her hand on top of his on the wooden bench.

  Standing by the ticket machine, Jerzy Belaski allows himself a single glance straight at her. He turns away, stifling a yawn.

  Only ever a matter of time, he tells himself.

  Following the Greyhound bus had been child's play.

  The drop-off in Denver was outside the rail station. They'd gone inside. They hadn't come back out.

  He’d ditched the stolen Chrysler, found a side entrance, checked with a rail employee—the only service coming through was headed east—bound for Chicago.

  A block out from the station, he found an outdoor store, bought a backpack, bought another winter coat, nondescript, fawn.

  In a service-alley, he transferred the gun and the parka into the backpack, slipping on the new-bought coat.

  Lauren DeLuca had never seen him before.

  The guy in the hat wouldn’t recognize him; on the train he hadn’t seen his face.

  He takes the ticket from the machine, crosses the terrazzo floor.

  At a wooden bench on the side, he settles. He takes out his cell phone, opens it.

  Two missed calls.

  Coletti.

  Two messages.

  He reads the first—I’m sending people. Where are you?

  The next; Why didn’t Jimmy call? Call me NOW.

  He stares at the waiting room floor, thinking.

  Some disturbance registers in his senses. As if eyes are turned upon him.

  Somebody looking at him.

  Had the guy in the hat started to look?

  A cluster of lights move beneath a road bridge—flashing, wide-set, pulsing left to right.

  Lauren DeLuca shelters beneath the roof that spans the platform.

  Whicher listens to the sound of clacking rails above the muffled noise of the city.

  A train horn splits the night air.

  The locomotive approaches along the base of a high-rise office building—plow blade mounted to its front—the blue and silver paintwork of the cars just visible.

  Pieces of packed snow fall silent from the wheels to the ground.

  The train slows, the sound of the engine shakes the air. The California Zephyr pulls in to Union Station, brakes squealing.

  Doors on the lower floors of the cars open. Attendants step out, holding their jackets in the bitter wind.

  A handful of passengers step down from three of the cars.

  The Denver travelers move toward the train, the marshal picks up Lauren’s case.

  They walk fast to the nearest open doorway.

  A carriage attendant holds out his hand.

  Whicher pulls two tickets from his pocket.

  The attendant checks, waves them onboard.

  Looking up and down the platform, the marshal nods.

  Nobody following behind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The coach car seat is pushed as far back as Whicher can get it. All the carriage lights are dimmed, people trying to sleep as best they can.

  The sound catches his attention first, high pitched. Metal on metal.

  He pushes himself upright. Feels the train start to slow.

  Lauren's asleep in the seat beside him. Beyond the window, outside in the black, snow still falls.

  He checks his watch—just before midnight.

  Five hours out of Denver.

  The marshal raises his seat to the upright position, feels the retardation of the train.

  A voice comes on the Tannoy; “McCook...”

  Lauren stirs, her face registering the sound.

  Whicher stares out of the window, at lights now showing, track-side lights, buildings looming from the dark.

  “Next station is McCook, Nebraska.”

  Lauren keeps her eyes closed.

  Whicher thinks of getting up, of going forward—to the head of the car, to where there's hot coffee.

  He checks around him, nobody's stirring. He's awake, now—he needs to stay awake.

  The lights beyond the window slow. He looks at Lauren, sleeping, mouth part open, blond hair in disarray. He lets his gaze rest a moment on her face, feels the stir in his pulse.

  Reaching for his hat, he stands. He starts along the central aisle-way, among the dozing passengers.

  At the connecting corridor he finds the table set with flasks of coffee.

  He takes a cup, pours himself a measure, adds cream.

  The train slows to a complete stop.

  Whicher takes his cup to the window, looks out at a station building—lit up. It's twenties-era, in dark brown brick. Behind it, a street runs parallel.

  Store fronts crowd an intersection—grain elevators line the track to the east, picked out in the train yard lights.

  No passengers are waiting to board.

  He can’t see anybody getting off.

  A connecting door opens—an attendant enters the corridor.

  Whicher nods.

  “Problem up the line,” the attendant says. “Conductor’s saying twenty minutes. They've got a frozen switch up ahead.”

  Whicher takes a sip of coffee. “We’re waiting here?”

  “A storm like this, it can take a while.”

  “What is it, ice?”

  “Could be packed snow,” the man says. “It'll stop the rail from moving if it’s deep.”

  Whicher looks out o
f the window.

  “They get a crew out with a bunch of blow torches, they’ll free it,” the attendant says. “It can take time, if it’s the middle of nowhere. If you want to get off, it's okay. If you want a smoke. Or you want to get some air. We're not going to be moving.”

  Whicher fits a plastic lid to the coffee cup. He steps through the connecting door, heads back into the coach car.

  At the end of the aisle he can see both seats are empty, his coat spread out where she was sitting.

  He moves down the car, looks around, he can’t see her. At the end, he passes through the next connecting door.

  She's nowhere in sight.

  Cold air is streaming in, the train door is open—a group of college-age kids standing on the white covered platform.

  He stares out of the train, alarm rising.

  “What are you doing?”

  A female voice.

  He spins around.

  She's coming out of the next coach car.

  “I had to use the bathroom.” She studies him a moment. “I woke up, the train had stopped.”

  “I went to get coffee,” he says. “There's a problem up ahead on the line.”

  Lauren stares out of the door at passengers starting to walk around on the platform, pulling on coats. “Is it okay to get off?”

  He doesn’t reply.

  “Do you think they have a phone in there,” she says, “a call box?”

  The marshal shrugs.

  She gazes into the night air, at the falling snow. Lowers her voice. “Look, I’m not allowed to see people. But I can speak with them. I promised to try to call somebody.”

  “It's late.”

  “It won't matter.” She rests her eye on his.

  “Who?”

  “I'm not supposed to discuss that,” Lauren says. “Not even with people like you.”

  Whicher breaks off looking at her, to stare out into the frozen Nebraska landscape.

  “If I called from here...” Lauren says. She makes a gesture at the empty country stretching off into the black.

  Twenty-four hours, Whicher tells himself. Twenty-four hours since they broke the trail.

  “Nobody’s going to know,” she says. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  The marshal steps into the open doorway of the car. “Five minutes,” he says. He climbs down from the train.