by Tim Green
“I asked a question.”
“There is no disc,” Jake said, choking out his words. “I didn’t have time.”
Slatten eased his finger off the nerve and relief washed through Jake, even though the choke hold remained.
“You tell American Outrage to sniff for their stink somewhere else. What you did to that grave is a felony.”
Slatten let go of Jake’s neck and moved toward the door.
“You’ll slither out this time, but now you’re marked. You cross my path again, you’ll be locked up.” Slatten opened the door and started to leave, then stopped and looked back. “I’ll have a restraining order by noon.”
The door closed quietly. Jake sat for another thirty minutes before one of the troopers came in and unlocked the cuffs. He tossed Jake’s wallet and keys onto the table next to the makeup.
“Free on my own recognizance?” Jake asked, rubbing the blood back into his wrists and then picking up his things.
“You rather spend the night and see the judge in the morning?” the trooper asked. “I’d be feeling lucky if I were you that these people don’t want the publicity.”
“Yeah, that’s what I hear,” Jake said, slipping on the coat and pulling the camera bag over his shoulder. “You know where I can get a lotto ticket?”
The cop huffed and shook his head as if Jake were an idiot. They drove him back to his car and Jake gave them a sarcastic thanks for the lift, waving as they drove away. When their lights were out of sight, he got into the car, set the camera down, and began searching for his cell phone. He went through the entire car, twice, then scoured the immediate area, thinking it might have fallen out when he broke and ran. Finally, he got in and drove the short distance down the hill to the train station parking lot. When he got out, he heard the hiss of the train. He craned his neck and, over the low brick wall, saw the train down on the far tracks, a train headed toward Poughkeepsie.
Jake took off running. He burst into the station and out over the bridge leading to the platform. As he ran, he could see the train was already moving. He slammed open the door and dashed down the steps, but by the time he hit the platform, the last car was nearly a hundred yards away. Jake looked around. Except for the long shadows creeping away from their steel girders, the platform was empty.
Jake pulled the torn suit coat tight and shivered.
He walked slowly back up the steps. The old stone station was empty, too. No one sat waiting on the high-backed oak benches. The vending machines stood silent. The ticket window was dark.
There was a pay phone on the wall. Jake dialed Sam’s cell number and got no answer, so he dialed Judy. She babbled something Jake couldn’t understand. He raised his voice and told her to calm down.
“I don’t know, he’s not here,” she said.
A surge of nausea washed over Jake.
“The train came through,” Judy said, “and they said it would have gone through Rhinecliff at 10:01. I don’t know, maybe he missed it. There was a 10:22 to Albany, but that’s going the other way. There’s also an 11:05 through there to New York. I thought I’d wait for that.”
“Well, the 11:05 just left,” Jake said, looking at his watch and seeing that it was 11:08.
“Oh, thank God,” Judy said. “I’m sure he’s on it.”
“Christ.”
“I didn’t know what to do. I tried to call you.”
“I’ll try his cell again,” Jake said, looking around the empty station. “I’m sure he’s on the train that just left. Who knows why he missed the first one. Maybe he had trouble buying a ticket.”
“No worries,” Judy said. “I’ll wait right here.”
Jake tried Sam’s phone again, but it went right to voice mail. Sam was terrible with his phone, leaving it off, forgetting to charge it, so it didn’t mean anything that he couldn’t get through. Even though Jake was constantly reminding him, it wasn’t unthinkable that he’d forgotten. There was another possibility. Sam could have frozen and might simply be hiding somewhere in the shadows. Jake replaced the phone and walked back down to the platform. He looked both ways, willing Sam’s shape to emerge from the bushes, and bellowed Sam’s name.
The only sound that came back was his own voice echoing down the tracks.
60
JAKE STOOD FOR SEVERAL MINUTES, thinking, and then realized the distant rumble was another train coming down the tracks from the south. His pulse quickened at the thought that Sam had somehow made the first train, missed Judy at Poughkeepsie, and was now coming back. As the brilliant light from the engine wavered into view, Jake heard the sound of a car door from the parking lot between the station and the tracks.
The ground began to tremble, and when the train sounded its horn, Jake jammed a finger into each ear. The train clacked past, then hissed and squealed to a stop. The doors slammed open and Jake looked up and down the line. A conductor got out way up front. Toward the back, a fat man in a disheveled business suit stumbled off, spilling the contents of his briefcase. Jake watched him, then noticed a different man in black slacks and a black golf shirt wearing what looked like a tan fishing vest. His eyes were fixed on Jake as he walked toward him along the length of the platform. He hadn’t come down the stairs from the station, so he must have climbed over the parking lot fence. The man covered one ear with his hand and began speaking into his lapel. Jake backed away. When he turned, he saw the conductor’s pants leg as he disappeared back onto the train.
At the same time, around the corner of the station stepped a second man with an identical tan vest. Jake looked at the stairs leading up to the station bridge, a narrow trap if a third person was up there. He spun toward the back of the train. The first man stepped right through the fat man’s papers without looking down.
The engine’s horn sounded twice. Jake jogged toward the second man and paused outside an open door. The horn sounded again and the doors began to close. Jake waited until they were nearly closed before he shot through sideways.
Only a couple of faces glowed up at him from the seats as he sprinted through the car toward the front where the conductor had been. He saw the shape of the second man flash past, running for the door he had just entered, but the train hissed and lurched into motion. Jake smashed the black rectangular panel that opened the door between cars and darted through the coupling and into the next car before he looked back. The train picked up speed.
He turned and saw the handful of people in the car staring. Jake straightened up and began walking forward again. From the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He turned and froze. The second man was sprinting alongside the train, his left arm raised and bent at the elbow to steady the long black pistol in his right hand. Jake threw himself to the floor instinctively. At the same moment there was a pop and a cloud of shattered glass filled the car.
The passengers burst out screaming, and when Jake looked up he saw a bloody hand clinging to the window frame. The train was running now, but not nearly as fast as Jake’s pounding heart. The man’s other hand shot into the window, hooking at the wrist and still gripping the silenced handgun. Jake grabbed for the gun, got hold, and started pounding on the other hand with his fist. The man held on.
His short dark hair whipped in the night air and he looked at Jake with the wide burning eyes of a lunatic. He worked slowly against Jake’s grip. Jake kept pounding, dumbfounded that the man could hang on even as blood jetted out from the sides of his hand with every blow.
Without warning, someone grabbed Jake from behind and shoved. He felt the wind. Smelled the hot metal. Heard the grinding roar of wheels. Saw his feet rolling over his head as his legs flipped over the top of him. Bolts of pain shot through his back as he bounced and rolled on the ground. Then he stopped, and in the fog he tasted cinders and the blood filling his mouth.
When his vision came into focus, the two men stood over him in the darkness. The second man still held the pistol. The train moaned away down the tracks. The first man grabbed Jake by the shirt with his bl
oody hand, raised him up, and swung the pistol in a wide arc.
Jake saw stars.
61
THE TRAIN SWAYED AND BUCKED. The sound of the conductor’s voice squawked down from the speaker that they were arriving in Albany, jarring Sam from his trance. He peeked over the seat, stealing a glimpse of the watch on the wrist of the businessman sleeping with his head against the window, his suit coat for a pillow. It was eleven-fourteen. In the window, he could see the ghost of his own image imposed over the approaching lights of the capital. The events that had landed him there replayed themselves again, a video loop in his brain.
After Jake had sprinted off under the helicopter’s spotlight, Sam counted to twenty, leapt from the car, and dashed into the shadows of a front lawn before he turned to watch the progress of the helicopter. It hovered above the houses halfway to the main road. Its broad beam swept to and fro as it cut tight circles in the night sky. Sam touched the mini DVD in his pocket and turned to run when he heard the squeal of tires rounding the corner.
He had ducked down and wiggled into some high shrubs. A silver Audi jammed on its brakes and nearly sideswiped Jake’s car. Two men jumped out carrying guns, aiming them at the car and creeping toward it. They hollered between themselves in a foreign language. One yanked the door open and aimed the gun inside. He slid in and began rummaging through the glove box, then searched under the seats before getting out with something in his hand that he showed to the other and then put into his pocket. The two of them checked the trunk, then one of them cursed and kicked the car door shut.
Both of the men had looked around, searching the narrow street with their eyes. One had short dark hair and the other was a scraggly blond. Sam felt his insides freeze as the blond’s eyes passed over the bush where he hid. A small noise escaped his throat as the man started walking his way. Sam’s muscles tensed and he shifted his head, ever so slightly, looking for the best escape route.
But when the man hit the sidewalk, he had turned downhill toward the train station. A horn blast suddenly broke the night air, the train from Albany on its way to New York. As it rumbled into the station, the blond shouted to his partner and started to run down the sidewalk toward the station.
The dark-headed man jumped into the Audi, spun around and drove down the hill, shrieking to a stop outside the station. Sam lost sight of the blond. He wormed through the hedge and ducked through the shadows, working his way downhill.
Light flooded the small lot outside the old stone train station. Only a handful of cars rested there. The Audi waited with its engine running. Sam saw no sign of the two men, but he did see the end of the train sticking out from behind the station. The train’s horn sounded, twice, then a third time before hissing and slowly gaining momentum. As it clacked away, a man in a suit emerged from the station, then a woman, then an older couple, making their way toward the parking lot.
One by one, the people got into their cars and headed for the blocked exit. The first car, a small Mercedes, sounded its horn at the Audi. Then the man got out and looked around. Another car sounded its horn, too. Finally, the two men came out, their guns nowhere in sight. The man in the Mercedes said something to them, but they acted as if they hadn’t heard a word, climbed back into the Audi, and drove away.
Sam had waited ten minutes in the shadows, scanning the area. He saw no one, took a deep breath, and ran across the lot.
Inside, the ticket window was dark. Sam’s footsteps echoed off the high ceilings as he crossed the lobby and mounted some steps to the ticket machine. He studied the schedule on the wall. The train he just missed must have been the 10:01 to Poughkeepsie. The last one going south until 11:05. He looked at the clock. 10:17. A train to Albany should arrive in five minutes. He’d be going the wrong way, but he wanted more than anything to get out of Rhinecliff and away from the men in the silver Audi. He looked around, then fed Jake’s credit card into the slot. The machine churned out the ticket, then the card. Sam snatched them both and hurried out of the station.
He hadn’t waited on the platform, but around the corner of the building where he could watch the lower parking lot. It hadn’t been long before the distant groaning of a train grew louder and the ground began to vibrate through his sneakers. He let the train come to a full stop, took one more look around, then dashed across the platform and in through the open doors of the closest car.
He found a seat by the window and pressed his hands and nose to the glass. As they pulled out, the barren platform stayed that way. With the train underway, Sam shut his eyes until a small chirping noise startled him. When it sounded again, he dug into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. The chirp was his low battery alert, and for the first time all the warnings Jake gave him about keeping his phone charged made sense.
He had dialed Jake’s number, but could get no service. He kept trying, frantic to let Jake know what happened and his change in plans. Finally, he got through. The phone rang once, then Sam’s phone shut down. The battery was dead.
That was an hour ago.
When he reached Albany, he’d get off and find a pay phone.
62
THE TRAIN SLOWED and they pulled into the Albany station. Sam darted through the stragglers and into the station. He ran his father’s credit card through the pay phone and placed his call. He got his dad’s voice mail.
“Hey,” he said, leaving a message, “it’s Sam. I’m fine, but two guys were following us and I had to get on the wrong damn train, so I’m in Albany, but I’ve got the disc. I’m going to cab it back to the hotel. My phone’s dead, so don’t worry if you can’t get me. Hopefully I’ll see you at the hotel. Probably an hour or an hour and a half.”
Sam hung up and walked through the station, downstairs to the cab stand. Three of them waited. Sam climbed into the first and asked the driver if he’d take a credit card. He said he would and Sam asked if he could take him to the Quality Inn in Kingston.
The cabbie wore a tweed cap and he turned around in his seat, his eyes glowing white in his black face.
“Boy, you just came from there,” the cabbie said.
“I got on the wrong train.”
The cabbie snorted and shook his head. “Gonna cost you a hundred and fifty dollars to go to Kingston. We don’t go that far.”
“That’s okay,” Sam said.
The cabbie wanted to see the credit card. Sam showed it to him along with his passport.
“It’s my dad’s.”
“You’re not running away or anything?”
“I got on the wrong train,” he said. “Geography’s not my strong suit.”
The cabbie narrowed his eyes, but handed back the card and passport and put the car into gear, muttering something under his breath and shaking his head. Sam studied the lights of the capital as they crossed the river, but as they headed south and the road turned dark, he nodded off to sleep and didn’t wake until they got off the thruway exit at Kingston.
When they pulled up to the hotel, the driver asked, “You sure you’re okay, boy?”
Sam yawned and said, “Yeah. Home sweet home.”
He signed the credit card slip, adding a thirty-dollar tip, and went to the front desk.
A young man with spiked hair and thick eyebrows appeared from the back. He hadn’t seen Jake, but he didn’t give Sam any trouble about a key once he saw the passport. Sam went up to the room and got on the phone. He had no luck finding his dad. He paced the room until the rumble in his stomach got his attention. He raided the mini bar, grabbing a bag of Gummi bears and a Twix bar as well as a bottle of Sprite to wash it down with. He dug through his travel bag and found his phone charger. Cursing himself out loud, he plugged it into the wall, then turned on his dad’s computer and got to work scanning his e-mails. That turned up nothing.
He went to his dad’s contacts for Judy’s phone number. The clock read 2:03, but he picked up the phone and dialed anyway. It wasn’t until he heard the recording saying that the number was disconnected that he rem
embered his dad had an old number. Her new number was stored in his dad’s phone.
Sam paced the room—imagining that each sound he heard in the hallway was his dad coming home—until his eyelids fluttered and he stumbled. First he sat down, then he leaned over. His head hit the pillow.
Sometime later, Sam woke with a start. Someone was knocking at the door.
63
THE ACHE IN HIS SKULL drew Jake’s mind up from the dark. He felt for the egg-shaped knot before his eyes even opened, then winced and blinked. He yanked the other hand away from something cold and metal. The steel cuff’s chain rattled against a copper pipe. Gray light seeped into the dank space from the seams around a single rectangle on the opposite end of the cellar. He straightened, and his elbow banged off the solid belly of the antique water heater that anchored him to the damp floor. Panic took hold, and in a flurry of movement he jumped up, grasped the handcuff’s chain with his free hand, and tried to break free.
His hands were slick and warm with blood before his efforts waned. Along with the sting in his hands and the throb from the knot on his head, his knee also ached. Huffing, he worked his jaw. That hurt, too. A door above him creaked open, spilling a warm yellow light into the old basement, exposing dusty broken fruit crates, barrels, and rusty yard tools. Slatten came down the steps and stood before him, hands clasped behind his back for a moment, until he found a rickety wooden chair, spun it, and sat down so that his arms were propped on its back. He read Jake’s face.
“You’re okay,” he said.
“Are you insane?” Jake asked, raising his hand, the rasp of the cuff against the pipe sounding lonely in the dank space.
“I have some questions.”
Jake shook his head. “I told you at the station.”
“You didn’t tell me about Martha,” Slatten said, watching his face. “Yeah, I heard about that after they let you go. What did she say to you?”