An American Bullet

by John Stonehouse

  The station waiting room is four glazed-brick walls, scuffed seats, no staff, no ticketing. The windows are track-side, looking out onto the line.

  In a wall-recess at one corner is a payphone. Whicher checks there's only one way in and out.

  The place is empty, just the two of them inside.

  Lauren crosses the room, her footsteps echo from the vaulted ceiling.

  “Do you think...” She inclines her head at the phone. “Do you think you could give me a moment?”

  “I'll be right outside.”

  He steps out, stands in the lee of the station wall, out of the wind. Scans the intersection that forms a 'T' with the main street north, away from the track.

  A stop light hangs from an overhead cable. But nothing's moving on the road.

  On the white-over platform, groups are standing around, smoking, walking up and down.

  The marshal watches snow swirling in the train yard lights. A parked freight load stretches to the distance, beyond the grain elevators, into the dark.

  He squares his hat, steps around to where he can see through the window into the waiting room—Lauren’s inside, speaking into the phone.

  He moves away from the building, feels the wind against his exposed skin.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he sees her putting down the phone.

  She’s not making a second call.

  She crosses the room, steps outside, looks around, sees him. Pointing a finger at the train, she starts to walk back across the platform.

  By the side of a coach car, Whicher sees an attendant, cigarette trailing from his hand.

  Lauren reaches the open door of the train, she climbs on.

  Whicher motions to the crew man. “Any word on that hold up?”

  The man peers at him. “We should be moving shortly, sir. Conductor says there's another train ahead on the line.”

  “Another train?”

  “Freight load,” the man says. “They need to get the switch working, get the other train through before we head on up.”

  The marshal nods. “Guess I'll take a walk,” he says. “Then turn in.”

  He moves along the length of the train all the way to the back.

  At the end, he stops. Takes off the Resistol, shakes snow from it. Sucks down the cold air.

  A truck is out on the street, it slows at the intersection. The marshal watches it a moment, turns around, heads back.

  At the door to their car, he knocks his boots against each other, climbs on.

  He enters the carriage.

  The lights are dim.

  Their seats are empty.

  “Mister Houghton? Sir, this is Gail. I have a marshal here, that needs to speak with you.” The female attendant listens on a carriage intercom phone. She studies Whicher’s badge, a frown across her brow. “Yes, sir. A marshal.”

  Ten minutes.

  For ten minutes he's been up and down the train.

  Lauren’s case is stowed exactly where it was in the baggage rack. There's no sign of her anyplace, he's checked the bathrooms, been in every car.

  She’s nowhere on the platform, not in the station.

  The attendant nods, puts down the receiver. “Sir, you can go forward, the conductor's up with the engineer...”

  Whicher hustles along the car, snatches open the door to the next carriage. He strides on toward the head-end of the train.

  A suited man in an Amtrak cap steps into the far end of the corridor.

  “Are you the conductor?”

  “I'm about to give the word to pull out of here,” the man says. “Dispatch at Commerce City want us moving east—we need to get up the line, we need to leave...”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Two blocks up into town on Main Street, Whicher surveys the few stores fronting onto the road. Beyond the stone columns of a bank are businesses, an old movie theater, a Masonic lodge, a bar still open. He eyes the cars and trucks angled in at the curb.

  At the train track, flashing lights from a police cruiser streak blue across the snow in the yard.

  Forty-five minutes.

  Forty-five minutes she’s been gone.

  She's not on the train, he’s searched every space, every crew room, every sleeper car and roomette—McCook police and the train staff in tow.

  Lauren's nowhere.

  The image of her is in his mind—finishing up her call, stepping out of the waiting room, crossing the platform, climbing onboard.

  He saw her get on.

  He runs down the sloping street, hands burning from the cold.

  Five minutes and the train is leaving.

  He reaches the intersection with the track-side road. Enters the station waiting room, checks it's empty. Shuts the door.

  Unzipping his coat, he fishes out a number from his jacket. He crosses to the payphone.

  He keys the number, lets it ring, over and over.

  The call picks up.

  “This is Whicher.”

  The marshal listens to his own voice echo back off the bare walls.

  The clock above the door in the waiting room shows one o'clock in the morning.

  “McBride.”

  “She’s gone,” Whicher says. “About an hour ago. She disappeared. I think she’s walked.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Nebraska.”

  “Did anybody—intervene?”

  “I don't know. I don't think.”

  “Is there a chance you could find her?”

  Whicher stares through the window at the train in the falling snow. “Maybe. Law enforcement are here...”

  “What’ve you told them?”

  “Not much.”

  “Don't tell them who she is,” McBride says.

  “Can we arrest her?”

  “You can arrest her—she's giving immunized testimony, she can't up and walk.”

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere in a full-out storm. She has to be someplace inside. Some hotel, motel, she can’t be out-of-doors. Local cops are going to know about whatever places there are.”

  “You think she's run, you think she's run out? You think somebody could have gotten to her?”

  Whicher pushes back the Resistol.

  “Jesus Christ,” McBride says.

  One hotel worth the name.

  Three motels, a couple of bars, according to the chief of the watch, a police sergeant, name of Tierney.

  The rail yard is empty, the Amtrak train gone—only the police vehicles remain; a cruiser plus an all-wheel-drive Tahoe.

  Whicher stands with Lauren’s case at his feet.

  He stares at the snow, still falling, drifting.

  Sergeant Tierney jogs across from the cruiser. “We got about a dozen streets classified priority,” he says, “inside McCook city-limits.”

  The marshal looks at him.

  “Emergency routes to keep clear,” the sergeant says. “Along with two highways. The road crews have done what they can, but getting around’s not going to be easy.”

  Whicher indicates the sergeant’s Tahoe; “We get in?”

  Tierney nods, climbs in behind the wheel.

  Whicher sets Lauren’s case in the back seat, eases into the passenger side.

  The officer at the cruiser gets into his vehicle, reaches for his radio.

  “I have two patrol officers on watch,” the sergeant says. “They’ll head in separate directions—one out onto the highway, past the airport, to check on a motel bar and grill. The other’s going to head west, to a motor court. It’s by a trailer park. There’s a golf and country club hotel, also—but it’s pretty damn unlikely...” Tierney moves the shifter into drive, pulls out from the yard. “We could use some photo ID.”

  “No can do.”

  “Good lookin' blonde,” the sergeant says. “Fits a lot of description, depending on how drunk you are. A name could help.”

  “She won't be using her real name.”

  “You want to let us have it anyway?”

 
Whicher gazes out along the bleak street. “Orders,” the marshal says. “Can’t do it.”

  The sergeant nods. “I got a twelve-hour shift, I may as well spend it looking for a mystery woman as any other way.” He drives a couple of blocks past the grain elevators, hits the blinker, steers the Tahoe up a ramp onto a bridge.

  Whicher takes in the sign on an overhead panel—Blue Star Highway.

  The bridge crosses the rail line. Snow is newly-plowed, piled high at the sides of the road. “What's down here?”

  “Economy motel,” Tierney answers. “I already called, checked with 'em. They say no lone females, they don't think they have any young blonde women checked in. We can find out anyway.”

  Satellite business parks sit to either side of the highway.

  Gas stations, mall developments. Warehousing, building supply.

  Whicher stares at the leafless trees around the street lamps, snow clinging to their frozen branches. He thinks again of the phone call Lauren made; no way she could’ve known the train would stop in McCook for longer than listed on the schedule—even if she called someone, who could’ve gotten out?

  He turns to Tierney. “Are any of the highways drivable—out of here?”

  “Red Willow, I reckon only the main routes,” the sergeant says. “West, over in Furnas, it's probably worse. The weather reports are saying the storm's moving east, I guess we'd have to call the state troopers.”

  “Don’t call them yet.”

  “A night like this, I don't see where a person could be.”

  Whicher nods.

  “It's like a needle in a haystack,” the sergeant says. “Inside of a goddamn snow globe.”

  Two hours.

  Two hours she's been gone.

  Jerzy Belaski sees the headlights approach from the highway—a single set of headlights turning in.

  The room lights in the motel are switched out.

  Gun in hand, he watches through the window, through a gap in the drape.

  The car is a black and white Chevy Impala. Light-bar across its roof, the words Police Department detailed on the door.

  It pulls in to the motel lot, parks in front of the check-in office.

  Belaski stands, edging up against the cold glass.

  The stolen Ford Taurus is parked around in back—out of sight from the road.

  The door of the patrol car opens. A driver steps out.

  He's dressed in uniform, all black. He puts on a cap, starts over toward the lit office.

  Before he can reach it, the check-in clerk appears, silhouetted at the office door.

  The clerk calls out something to the cop—he steps from under a porch roof, out into the snow.

  The two men exchange a word together, then fall in step.

  Side by side they start to walk toward the room.

  Belaski half-turns. “Get in the bathroom,” he says, over his shoulder. “Someone’s coming.”

  He pulls the gap in the drapes closed, moves to the bed, rips back the cover and the sheets. Kicking off his shoes, he throws his coat on a chair.

  A knock sounds at the door.

  He puts the suppressed SIG in the small of his back, in the waistband of his pants. Pulls his shirt and sweater loose, covering it.

  “Sir.” Another knock. “Sir, this is the night clerk. I'm sorry for the disturbance—I have a police officer here, he needs to ask a couple questions.”

  Belaski roughs up his hair, stares through the dark at the door.

  Another knock, louder.

  They'll have a key, they'll come in anyhow.

  “Who is it?” he calls back.

  “Police. Sir, you need to open up in there. This won't take a minute.”

  Belaski pulls the bed cover half-off. “Wait. Wait, hold on...”

  He positions himself by the door.

  “Alright,” he calls. “I'm opening up.”

  He unfastens the lock with his left hand—right hand at his hip, close to the gun.

  He looks out. “What's going on?”

  The cop steps forward. “Sorry for the disturbance, sir. You checked in here an hour or so ago? That right?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “This is the only room,” the clerk says. “The only one we've let tonight.”

  “Are you alone?” the cop says.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re traveling through?”

  “Headed for Denver,” Belaski says. “The weather got so bad, I had to just quit.”

  “You mind opening the door?”

  “I got nothing with me,” Belaski looks down at himself. “I had to sleep in my clothes.” He steps away from the door, opening it wider.

  The cop turns on the light. “You checked in on your own?”

  “I told you,” the clerk says.

  The cop steps in, sweeps an eye over the room.

  Belaski feels the SIG against the muscles at the base of his spine.

  “Alright, well,” the cop says. “I'm sorry we had to bother you tonight, sir. We got a situation is all. But I want to thank you for your cooperation.”

  Belaski nods.

  The cop glances across at the bed, turns, starts to walk away.

  The clerk spreads his hands. “Police department called,” he says. “They said they wanted to know any late arrival.”

  Belaski shrugs, steps forward, closes the door.

  He waits, listening. Turns off the light.

  Thirty seconds pass, a minute. He puts a finger to the drape, eases a gap.

  The cop is back behind the wheel of the Impala. The clerk returning to the office.

  The Impala backs around, drives off the lot, out onto the highway.

  Belaski glances over his shoulder. “Alright,” he says. “You can come out now. They're gone.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A crimson disc of sun creeps over woods to the east of the city. It's coming on eight in the morning, daybreak, the depths of winter on the plains. Outlying Nebraska lies buried beneath feet of driven snow. From the second-story window of the law enforcement building, Whicher sees both highways out of town.

  A couple of hours sleep he’s managed—restless on a police department couch. Lauren DeLuca has simply vanished into thin air. No sign of violence, nothing out of place. No blonde seen running in the snow. No blood on any tracks.

  The marshal stares out at the highway east, vehicles moving on it, now—lights trailing into the distance.

  Down at street-level, a car catches his eye, a police vehicle turning in from the strip.

  He takes his hat from a desktop, puts it on. Buttons the white shirt at his throat, fixes his necktie in place.

  Everything they could have done, they’ve done—short of putting out a stop order, making it public. They’ve searched in every locale known to city police. His gaze shifts to the window, to the fire-like sky. Sun rising indifferent across the fields, above the winter sticks of wood.

  A muffled voice sounds from somewhere in the building.

  “Marshal?”

  Whicher steps out into a hallway.

  “Marshal are you up there?”

  He hears a sound from the stairs.

  Sergeant Tierney is half-way up, hand wrapped around the metal banister. “Somebody had their car stolen last night—they just reported it. Taken from a house on East 5th.”

  “Where the hell’s that?”

  “Right over from the train station,” the sergeant says.

  The marshal runs a hand over stubble at his jaw. “The station?”

  Tierney nods. “Real close. Like a few hundred yards...”

  “We get over there?”

  The sergeant taps his pants pocket. “I already got my keys.”

  A brick road is just visible beneath the scrape of ice and snow and dissolving salt. Sergeant Tierney steers the police Chevy past a white-over truck lot.

  Whicher eyes the motionless hulks, standing frozen.

  Tierney swings the SUV into a tree-lined street.<
br />
  Board-side houses line the road beyond a post and rail fence.

  “This is East 5th?”

  “This is it.” The sergeant pulls over at a run-down house, the driveway empty.

  He shuts off the motor. The two men step out.

  The front door of a screened-gallery opens.

  A woman appears, wearing jeans, a sweater, a wool scarf.

  Whicher steps onto the pristine snow in the driveway.

  “Aileen Brennan?” Tierney says.

  The woman folds her arms across her chest. “I already told the police department all the details.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the sergeant says. “The vehicle is a Ford Taurus?”

  She nods. “A GL Sedan.”

  Tierney takes out his notebook. “White in color. Eight years old.” He reads off a license plate number.

  “They broke in the back door,” the woman says. “They took the keys from the kitchen.”

  “You didn’t hear it?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Whicher looks at her. “It was parked here on the yard?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “My husband parked it at the curb,” she points out into the street. “It’s been leaking oil, messing up the driveway.”

  “How far away from the house?”

  She indicates a spot thirty yards off.

  “Is your husband here?” Sergeant Tierney says.

  “He went to work. A neighbor had to give him a ride.”

  “Last night,” Whicher says, “what time y’all turn in?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Ten, ten-thirty.”

  “The car was still here then?”

  “Rod went to look out,” she says, “my husband. He wanted to see what was going on with the storm. He came down this morning, there was glass on the kitchen floor, the door was unlocked. He couldn’t find anything missing. Then he saw it,” she says. “He saw the car was gone.”

  Steam rises from a cup of coffee on the plastic-topped desk in the police department. Whicher dials the Albuquerque number. He glances at the door to the office; it's shut.

  The marshal checks his watch—Mountain Time in New Mexico, an hour behind Nebraska.

  The call answers.

  “McBride.”

  “Sir, it’s Whicher...”