Hope Never Dies

by Andrew Shaffer

  47

  “Pick up, pick up…”

  The line rang and rang. After five rings, Barack answered.

  “Thank God!” I shouted, doing a poor job of staying quiet inside the first-class lavatory.

  “—but I’m not in right now, so if you’ll leave a message after the beep…”

  I listened to the beep, slack-jawed. By the time Barack discovered I’d called and then tried to ring me back, it would be too late.

  I slumped back on the toilet seat. The fact that Dan had come after me by himself—and then suggested we just “forget” the letter—had raised my suspicions. The fact that he knew about the Monster can all but confirmed them. I didn’t know if Dan was the dirty cop protecting the Marauders. I just knew that something wasn’t adding up.

  I wanted somebody with some authority to meet us at Wilmington Station to ensure that Dan didn’t go back on his word. I tried dialing Esposito but she didn’t answer, either. And I didn’t have the direct numbers to the DEA agents who’d hit the Donnellys’ home. There were any number of law enforcement agencies I could call. Getting them to believe my identity was a laughable prospect at best. There was a saying in the Biden family: If you have to ask for help, it’s already too late…

  Wait. The train was scheduled to arrive at Wilmington Station in twenty minutes. But what if it was delayed? Regular riders knew that delays were part and parcel of traveling on Amtrak. The frequent holdups were usually attributable to the freight companies who owned the tracks and gave priority to their own trains. If I could manufacture a delay, I could buy some time for Barack or Esposito to get back to me.

  Heading straight to the conductor onboard would raise Dan’s suspicions. Luckily, I didn’t need to get to the conductor directly. I flipped excitedly through my contacts until I found the number I was looking for. The Wilmington Station manager. Grant.

  There was a loud knock on the door.

  “Somebody’s in here,” I shouted.

  When I returned to my phone, the screen was dead. I tried powering it back on. No luck. I hadn’t plugged it in last night, and hadn’t charged it in the car on the way to the station. Jill had stuck one of those mobile chargers in my Christmas stocking last year, but for all I knew it was still in the stocking, somewhere in our basement.

  I’d figure out something, though. I always did.

  When I returned to my seat, Dan was missing. Probably in one of the other restrooms, I thought. Either that or he decided to hit the café car.

  Five minutes passed, however, and he hadn’t returned. I glanced around once more for him, and pulled the duffel bag down from the overhead bin. I tried to look as casual as possible as I rifled through it, but there was no disguising my panic:

  The energy drink was gone.

  48

  My most incriminating evidence was gone. I should have stopped to copy the letter before heading out of the house. I always knew my lack of forethought would land me in a pickle. I never imagined the pickle would be this big.

  The first-class car was the last passenger car on the train. That left five other cars where Dan could be waiting: four business-class cars, and the café car sandwiched in between. All of which I had precious few minutes to search. If Dan debarked in Wilmington before I could stop him, it would be his word against mine. My word carried a lot of weight…but so did Dan’s. He was a decorated officer. To accuse him of wrongdoing without hard proof wouldn’t earn me any favors.

  I charged into the next car, full of business-class passengers. A few faces looked up, but most people were in their own little worlds, pecking at their cell phones. I moved quickly down the center aisle, checking each seat.

  The restroom at the end of the car was unlocked. I checked inside just to be sure Dan wasn’t there—no dice. My luck was no better in the next car either.

  Then came the café car. At a glance I could tell Dan wasn’t there because there were only a handful of seats for passengers. I passed through as fast as I could without bending my legs. “Mallwalking,” Jill called it.

  “Virgin daiquiri, Mr. Biden?” asked the café car attendant. He had a thin, wispy mustache.

  I could have asked him to contact the conductor for me. Any of the first-class attendants could have put me in touch with the conductor as well. Unfortunately, Dan was armed. I couldn’t risk involving any of these good people in my confrontation. Dan had likely killed Taylor Brownsford to protect his secret. He might kill again.

  My only hope was that I could talk him into doing the right thing. If I could appeal to him, as his friend…

  “Just getting some exercise,” I said with a nod. I scanned every face in the next car, but there was still no Dan. Had I passed him already? There was zero possibility he’d jumped off the train—that was suicide even at twenty miles an hour, let alone a hundred and twenty. Had he forced himself into the power car at the head of the train?

  Impossible, I thought. He wouldn’t risk drawing that kind of attention. Dan might have been a criminal, but he wasn’t crazy. He was planning to get away with this. To walk off with the mother lode. His only obstacle was…me.

  I stepped into the vestibule between the last two cars. As soon as the door behind me closed, I was blindsided with a bear-hug tackle from the left. My lungs went flat like a couple of whoopee cushions. I didn’t recognize my assailant until he had me pinned against the exit door. It was the speed-demon biker—with the southern accent, who I realized was in all likelihood the one Finn called “Texas.”

  Dan stepped through the automatic doors.

  “I know what you’re thinking right now, Joe. You’re thinking, Why, Dan, why?”

  “Something like that,” I said, gasping for air under the weight of the biker.

  Dan refused to look me in the eye. “I’m retiring next year, and it terrifies me. The state pension fund is depleted. I’ve got no savings. I’ve been shot and stabbed more times than I can count, and I can count pretty well for a blue-collar guy. What kind of thanks do I get? A Christmas card every year from Joe Biden, champion of law enforcement. Not signed. Not even a paper card. An e-card.”

  “I can take you off the mailing list,” I said.

  “Look at you! You’re a decade older than me. You were the freaking vice president of the United States. What do you have to show for it? A house in the suburbs, that you still owe money on. A vacation home on a bed of rocks that can only charitably be called a beach. A couple of cars that you haven’t paid off. You’ve got nothing.”

  “I have a family. I have a legacy.”

  “I had a legacy once, too. But a legacy doesn’t pay the bills. A legacy doesn’t put food on the table. A legacy will get you a room in Baptist Manor someday, and not much more. That’s why I started taxing these bastards.”

  “The Marauders?”

  “All the criminals. You want to do business in my town, you need to pay for the privilege. Finn decided to go into business for himself, and that’s where his troubles started.”

  I was seething inside, but had stopped pushing back against Texas. He was too big. Too strong. My only hope was to conserve my energy.

  Dan went on: “As soon as I found out he had a sick wife, I knew he was a liability. And when the duffel bag went missing…well, he forced my hand. I can’t skim money that isn’t there.”

  He wrenched the phone from my pocket. As soon as he saw it wouldn’t power on, he smiled. He knew there was little chance I’d called somebody for help. If I had, I wouldn’t have come looking for him.

  “You killed Finn,” I said.

  He stuffed the phone back in my pocket, where it nestled next to my Medal of Freedom. “Taylor roughed your friend up in his motel room. He was in bad shape when I arrived. He was bleeding like a burst pipe all over the floor. He still wouldn’t talk, so I hit him one time. One time! And his head caved in like a rotted pumpkin. It’s
scary how fragile our bodies become as we age, isn’t it?”

  “So you laid him on the tracks and staged it to look like an overdose. Pretty sloppy work,” I said. The longer I kept him talking, the greater the chance that somebody would cross through the vestibule between cars.

  “No one was ever going to take a second look, not in that part of town. And then the next conductor found that printout with your address in his travel orders…and things started to get complicated. Until I read the letter today, I thought you had a hand in this mess. I honestly wasn’t sure where the bag ended up.”

  “Drugs are one cookie jar I’ve never stuck my hand in. You should know that. You and I were friends.”

  “Friends?” he shot back. “I worked security for your rallies a few times when I was off duty. You weren’t a friend. You were a job.”

  He couldn’t have known what I’d been going through with Barack, but his words stung nonetheless. Maybe adults weren’t meant to have friends. We could have acquaintances, and we could have coworkers. We could have bosses and employees. But friends?

  Friends were for children. It was time for me to grow up.

  Dan unlocked the side panel that operated the exit doors. At first I thought he was hoping to be the first one off the train. Then I realized he didn’t need to make a quick getaway. Not if Texas tossed me out of the moving train first.

  “He’s going to keep the drugs for himself,” I told the biker, trying to sow a seed of discontent. “That’s been his plan all along.”

  Texas grinned. “The fentanyl? We never found it.”

  Of course. How could I have been so blind? “You’re both working together to screw over the club.”

  Dan pressed his hand on the latch. If he opened the door right now, all three of us would be sucked out. “What can I say? If you see your shot, you have to take it. The bag was lost. The Marauders don’t need to know it was found. It’s the perfect crime.”

  “He killed Taylor,” I told Texas.

  The biker looked surprised, but not shocked. “Taylor was a moron,” said. “He was never going to earn his colors.”

  “Taylor nearly torpedoed this entire operation by picking up the watch that fell out of Finn’s pocket,” Dan said. “An idiot like that doesn’t deserve to live. He sealed his own death warrant the day he was born. You, on the other hand…” He smiled at me. “You’re too smart for your own damn good, Joe.”

  Through the windows of the exit door, I could see that we were on the outskirts of Wilmington. Soon the train would be slowing down. I just had to keep stalling. I had about as much chance as a Democrat in Alabama to stop Dan from making his getaway. If I was lucky, though, I could at least escape without winding up splattered along the side of the tracks.

  Dan nodded to Texas.

  My time had run out.

  So had his.

  I head-butted the biker in the nose with my forehead. There was a sickening crunch as bone struck cartilage. Blood erupted from his nose, and he staggered backward. I’d never done anything like that in my life. One more hit and I could take him down.

  Before I could charge him, something hard as steel pressed into my right temple. Dan’s gun.

  “You won’t get away with this,” I said. “There will be an inquiry. There will be—”

  “I don’t think so. Every year, five or six passengers open these doors while the train’s in motion. Usually they’re old and confused. Just like you. I’m sure people will come forward and testify that you’d been acting strange this past week. Delusional. Talking about conspiracy theories.”

  Dan pressed a button inside the control panel. The exit door opened with a woosh. Wind whistled into the train, popping my ears. “Goodbye, Joe.”

  Before I could even come up with some witty last words, Dan clubbed me in the temple with the butt of his pistol. Stars flashed before my eyes. I was in so much pain that all I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. You got knocked down, I heard my father’s voice say in my head. Now it’s time to get up. Get up, Joe. Get up.

  I staggered on my feet, but Dan had the advantage by a country mile. He grabbed the back of my shirt and hurled me like a shot put through the open door. My legs went out from underneath me, and the world turned upside down.

  49

  I’d heard that in our final moments, we see our entire lives flash before our eyes. But I had more urgent things to worry about. Tumbling out, I’d managed to catch the door frame with my left hand. Physics pinned my body against the side of the train. I’d been spared, if only momentarily. My Ray-Bans were laying shattered on the rocks a hundred yards back, a preview of what would happen if I let go. If I was lucky. If I wasn’t lucky, I’d get sucked underneath the train, where the wheels would have their way with me.

  My fingers were slipping from the door frame one by one. My pinky was the first to go, then my ring finger. I tried to swing a leg back up inside the train, but the high-velocity forces working against me were too strong. I needed more “core strength.” That was what Jill would have said. A year or two’s worth of daily sit-ups and crunches would tighten my abs right up.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a year or two.

  My middle finger slipped free. I was down to my final moments.

  Review or not, I’d lived a good life. I closed my eyes and pinched my last two fingers into the frame as hard as I could, hoping for another few seconds so I could make peace with my maker.

  If you’re listening, Saint Benedict, help me out, buddy. Protect my body and my soul…but mostly my body.

  My heart skipped a beat as my index finger gave way.

  Then a hand grabbed my wrist. My eyes snapped open. It was Texas. My first thought was that he was trying to pry me loose, but he reached out his other hand for my forearm. He was pulling me toward him. With one great burst of energy, he yanked me into the train and we both fell to the floor.

  Dan’s gun was tucked into the front of the biker’s jeans, digging into my hipbone.

  Dan was slumped in the corner, eyes closed.

  “The name’s Jeremy,” Texas shouted over the hiss of the tracks and the wind. His southern drawl was far less pronounced, on account of his busted nose. “I’m with the Drug Enforcement Agency.”

  “So you were following us yesterday.”

  He shook his head. “I had no idea that was you driving that Escalade. Not until you showed up at the clubhouse.”

  “Good thing I didn’t back into you. That would have really put a dent in your operation. And your bike.”

  He grunted in the affirmative.

  I lifted myself off him. “Waited long enough to save my ass just now, didn’t you?”

  “To be fair, you gave me quite the stinger,” Jeremy said, pinching his nose.

  “You have the drugs?”

  “They’re in Capriotti’s jacket.”

  The train was drawing closer and closer to the station. We were going slower than usual, though, and decelerating at a rapid pace. “Did you ask the engineer to stop the train?” I asked Jeremy.

  He got to his feet. “I couldn’t risk contacting anyone.”

  “Maybe the open door triggered an alarm. Or maybe…” I braced myself against the wall. I searched the horizon. Not sure what I expected to see. A fleet of cop cars? A helicopter packed with Navy SEALs? The forty-fourth president on the back of a unicorn?

  Instead, what I saw was a blur of leather and denim as Jeremy tumbled out of the train. His body smashed into the rocks along the tracks and was out of view within seconds. The Acela couldn’t have been going more than thirty or forty, but even that was thirty or forty miles per hour too fast when it comes to falling out of a locomotive.

  I turned around. Dan was on his feet, feeling the back of his head. He looked at the fresh blood on his fingers. “He got me good.” Dan grinned. “I got him better.”
<
br />   The train came to a smooth stop in the middle of the warehouse district, stomach-churningly close to where Dan and Taylor had staged Finn’s “accident.” The conductor came over the intercom and asked everyone to remain in their seats. Dan and I wouldn’t be interrupted, unless an Amtrak employee decided to move between cars.

  Outside, beneath the low hum of the overhead electrical wires that powered the train, I could hear a cacophony of sirens growing in the distance. Dan could, too. His eyes flicked from me to the open door. I was standing between him and freedom. Papa Biden told me never to back someone into a corner, where the only way out is through you.

  Papa Biden had never met a stone-cold killer like Dan Capriotti.

  The keys were still hanging out of the control panel to my right. If I hit the correct button, the door behind me would close. Dan would be trapped. Trouble was, there were half a dozen buttons. Hit the wrong one, and the other exit door behind Dan might open instead, letting him waltz his way to freedom.

  “How’d you know I was lying?” he asked. Neither of us were in any kind of shape to duke it out. He was still bleeding badly from the blow Texas had given him. He appeared woozy, like he was concussed. The hit I’d taken to the temple wasn’t as bad. Still, if he slipped past me, there was no way I could catch him in a footrace. Not with my bad knee.

  “You first,” I said. “What’s my tell?”

  “Easy. You’re a politician. You’re all phony. I can tell when you’re lying because you move your lips.”

  “If that’s how you see me, then you were right. We were never friends.”

  Dan grinned. I couldn’t believe this was the same guy I’d met at Earl’s just a few days earlier. All the time I’d known him, he’d been wearing a mask. One of us was phony, and it wasn’t me.

  “You want to hit me,” Dan said, goading me on. “I’m not armed. I’m already bleeding. A couple of hits is all it would take. I’d drop easy, just like Finn Donnelly.”

  “I’m not like you—I’m not a killer. Texas. Finn. Alvin—”