Two Trains Running

by Andrew Vachss

  * * *

  “You can pay six hundred dollars for a suit,” the man with the rawhide skin and dirty-water eyes said, fingering the sleeve of his alpaca jacket. “And it could still be a bargain. A real work of art, all hand-tailored. Takes a whole team to make something like that. You have to see the design in your head, draw a pattern, cut the cloth perfectly, sew each stitch by hand, fit it and refit it until it hangs on you just right. . . .”

  The spotter sat behind his tripod, listening with the patience of his profession. The rifleman’s eyes watched the speaker’s hands.

  They’re not two men, they’re one man with two bodies, the man in the alpaca suit thought to himself. Put them next to each other in a lineup, you couldn’t tell one from the other. “But one loose thread,” he said aloud, “and the whole thing could be ruined. It’s not the thread itself, you understand; only if someone were to pull on it the wrong way. The thing about a loose thread, dealing with it is no job for an amateur.”

  The speaker glanced around the top floor of the warehouse, as if waiting for one of the other men to speak. The spotter didn’t change position. The rifleman breathed shallowly, dropping his heart rate as offhandedly as another man might wind a watch.

  “Now, even the best professionals can disagree on something like that,” the speaker continued. “One member of the team looks at the suit, says, ‘We can fix it.’ Another one, he says, ‘No, we need to snip it clean.’ The first tailor, he says, ‘You do it my way, there won’t be a trace—we can weave it back in; it’ll be as good as new.’ But the other one disagrees. He says, ‘That loose thread, it’s like a cancer. Just because you can’t see it, that doesn’t mean it won’t eat you alive. Only thing you can do is cut it out, at exactly the right spot, or the whole beautiful suit, the one we all worked so hard on, could get ruined.’ ”

  The rifleman and the spotter listened, growing more and more immobile with every word.

  “Now, let’s say the tailors, they’re partners,” the speaker said, his low-pitched voice just a shade thicker than hollow. “Equal shares in the business. They both worked on the suit; they both want it to be perfect, but, now that something’s gone wrong—potentially gone wrong—they can’t get together on how to fix it. It’s like America: you let everyone vote, but, somewhere along the line, the big decisions come down to one man. So, with a suit like I just told you about, it’s not up to the tailors to decide how to fix it. No, that’s up to the customer, the one who ordered it made in the first place.”

  The man in the alpaca suit shifted position, moving his hands behind his back.

  “You’re a minute-of-angle man, aren’t you?” he said to the rifleman.

  “I’m better than that,” the rifleman said, “and you know it. I can do a hundred yards on iron sights and a bipod. Give me the right scope, I could work a quarter-mile.”

  “You have everything you need?” the man in the alpaca suit asked.

  The rifleman and the spotter nodded together, synchronized gears, meshing.

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 09:10

  * * *

  “What may I tell Mr. Gendell this is in reference to?”

  “A legal matter,” Dett said into the phone.

  “Yes, sir, I understand,” the receptionist said. “But if you could be more specific, so we would know how much time to set aside for your appointment . . . ?”

  “Fifteen minutes is all I’ll need,” Dett said.

  “Well, sir, we often find that the client’s estimate is—”

  “It’s a real-estate transaction,” Dett interrupted. “A very simple one.”

  “Well, let’s say a half-hour, shall we?” the receptionist said, brightly. “Mr. Gendell won’t be available until around four this afternoon. Would that be—”

  “Perfect,” Dett said.

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 09:13

  * * *

  “You come see me on your lunch break, Rosa Mae.”

  “I will, Daddy. Did you speak to—?”

  “I tell you all about it then, girl.”

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 09:15

  * * *

  “What we need is a fulcrum,” Beaumont said.

  “What’s a fulcrum, Roy?” Luther asked.

  “Well, let’s say you got a big rock that you need to move,” Beaumont replied. “Way too heavy for even a few strong men to budge. What do you do?”

  “Put something under it,” Luther said, promptly, making a fist of one hand and placing stiffened fingers beneath, at a forty-five-degree angle. “Then you push down,” he said, bringing his stiffened fingers parallel to the ground to raise his fist.

  “And you put a barrel under the stick, so you can lever it up easy, right, Luther?”

  “Right!”

  “Well, that’s exactly what a fulcrum is, see? The balance point everything turns on, so you can move a big weight.”

  “What weight are you talking about, Beau?” Cynthia asked.

  “Ernest Hoffman,” the man in the wheelchair said. “Because, right now, we’re against the wall. Shalare says he’ll get Dioguardi to back away, and, after the elections, stay away. Maybe he will; maybe he won’t. That’s the future. If we say ‘no’ now, if we don’t promise to deliver, there’s no ‘maybe’ left. So we have to go along. But even though Shalare’s been working the whole state, I don’t think he’s gotten to Hoffman.”

  “Why not?” Cynthia said.

  “Because, if he had, he wouldn’t have come here asking us for anything, Cyn. A man who’s holding all the cards doesn’t have to deal a hand to anyone else.”

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 09:19

  * * *

  “Put him on.”

  “Put who on? You must have the wrong—”

  “Put Procter on, Elaine. And don’t be afraid: I’m not working for your husband.”

  The leggy redhead who had once been a pageant contestant carefully placed the telephone receiver under a pillow, then rolled onto her side. “Jimmy,” she whispered.

  “Uh,” Procter half-grunted.

  “There’s a man on the phone. He asked for you.”

  “You think your—” Procter said, instantly alert.

  “No. He, the man on the phone, he said not to be afraid of that. What should I do? If Bobby—”

  Procter sat up, pulled the redhead over his lap, and took the phone from under the pillow.

  “What can I do for you?” he said, coldly.

  “It’s what I can do for you,” said the voice Procter last heard six hours ago. “I just wanted to show you that I know things, so you’ll listen to me when the time comes.”

  “Maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do.”

  “You’ll see for yourself,” the voice said. “Need more proof first?”

  “Just get to it,” Procter said.

  “Soon enough,” the voice promised.

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 10:15

  * * *

  “Who wants him?”

  “He’s expecting my call,” Dett said. “You got thirty seconds to get him.”

  The hum of a live line was broken by Dioguardi’s distinctive voice. “You called for your answer?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s your answer, pal. Yes.”

  “Yes to what?” Dett said.

  “Yes to the noncompetition fee. The ten large. Just come by my—”

  “You’re a funny guy,” Dett said.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am. All right. How do you want to do it?”

  “Just put it in the mail,” Dett said. “I’ll give you the address.”

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 11:33

  * * *

  “Oh, I’m so glad to see you,” Tussy told Dett, her arms wrapped tightly around his chest.

  “Why? I . . . I don’t mean that, Tussy. You just seemed, I don’t know, so
surprised.”

  “It’s all my fault,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him toward the kitchen. “Even though it was me saying you couldn’t stay all night, I kept thinking about all those stories you hear. You know, how the man’s not there in the morning. . . .”

  “You’re crying,” Dett said, touching her face.

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 12:06

  * * *

  “Rufus is a good man,” Moses said. “I don’t mean that the way you young folks talk, child. I mean, he’s a righteous man.”

  “Rufus? You know he’s got all kinds of hustles, Daddy.”

  “That’s just for now, Rosa Mae. He’s got plans. Big plans.”

  “Every man who ever talked to me, that’s what he had,” the young woman scornfully said. “Big plans.”

  “Not those kind of plans,” Moses said. “Not . . . personal plans. Not for himself. For all of us.”

  “You and me?”

  “Our people, child.”

  “Oh. You mean, he’s one of those . . . ?”

  “Not one of those, girl. He might be the one.”

  “The one for me?”

  “Ah, that’s the thing, little girl. Rufus, he wouldn’t run around on you. Wouldn’t get drunk and beat you up. He wouldn’t toss the rent money across no poker table. But he’s a bound man. He’s bound to what he’s going to do.”

  “I don’t understand, Daddy.”

  “I got to be truthful with you, Rosa Mae. You put your trust in me, I got to do that. Rufus, the kind of man he is, you might only see him when you come to visit. Maybe the jailhouse, maybe the graveyard. Understand?”

  “No!”

  “Yeah, I think you do, child. I think you do. Rufus, he’s a leader. A brave man. You been in this world long enough to know what happens to a brave colored man.”

  “You don’t think I should . . . see him?”

  “I think you got to make up your own mind on that, Rosa Mae. But I tell you this: Rufus, he’s no halfway man. He wants you for his woman. Not his girlfriend, his wife. I know he’ll be a good man, loyal and true. I know he’ll take care of you. But, a man like Rufus, you can’t go to be his wife without knowing you got a good chance to be his widow.”

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 12:16

  * * *

  “I invited you,” Tussy said.

  “Sure, but . . .”

  “But what, Walker? You don’t have to run around spending money on me every second. When I asked you for lunch, I wasn’t asking you to take me to lunch. I can make something right here.”

  “That would be great.”

  Tussy walked around behind the kitchen chair where Dett was seated. She put her hands on his shoulders, and leaned forward so her lips were against his ear.

  “There’s another reason I want to stay here,” she whispered.

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 12:33

  * * *

  “Tonight,” Dioguardi said.

  “Ah cain’t do it, boss,” Rufus replied, holding the mouthpiece of the phone a few inches from his lips, projecting his voice. “No, sir, Ah jest cain’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I got business, boss,” Rufus said, putting a sly veneer over his servile voice. “You knows what I’m talking about.”

  “You can always get pussy, boy. One’s the same as the other. Take it from me—there’s no such thing as a golden snapper.”

  “Yessir, I know you saying the truth. But I done promised—”

  “You know the car wash out on Polk?”

  “Yeah, boss,” Rufus said, resigned.

  “I’m getting my car washed at seven o’clock. You just stand over to the side, you know, where the cars come out. They got nothing but— Uh, nobody’ll even notice you; they’ll think you work there. Everything I have to tell you, it’ll take five minutes, then you can go get your pussy . . . with money in your pocket.”

  “All right, boss,” Rufus said, allowing his voice to brighten.

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 13:04

  * * *

  “Do you think I’m . . . you know what I mean,” Tussy said. She was seated before her mirror, wrapped in a towel, brushing her hair vigorously.

  “No, I don’t,” Dett said, standing behind her.

  “Walker! Yes, you do. I’m asking, do you think I’m a nymphomaniac or something, asking you over for lunch just so we could . . . you know?”

  “How could you be . . . what you said, Tussy? You never did anything like that before.”

  “Like . . . Oh! How could you know that?” she said, smiling into the mirror. “For all you know, I invite men over to take me to bed all the time.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “But how could you know?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Dett said to her reflection. “I promise you, Tussy. Not today, but soon, I’ll tell you everything.”

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 13:41

  * * *

  “I talked to Daddy,” Rosa Mae said.

  “Then you know I did, too,” Rufus replied. “Like I promised.”

  “He scared me, Rufus.”

  “That’s his job. That’s what fathers do with their daughters.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Why, girl?”

  “Because . . . it’s not a date you want, like you said. I’m standing in front of a door, and I don’t know what’s behind it. But I can’t find out unless I open it.”

  “If you want, I can show you.”

  “What if it still scares me, after you show me? What if I don’t want . . . If I can’t . . . ?”

  “Then you walk away, Rosa Mae. If I can’t have you with me, I’ll understand that.”

  “Would you, Rufus? Would you really?”

  “Honeygirl, you have to listen to every word. I could understand it, sure. A woman like you, you could have . . . other things than what I got to offer. I’m not saying it wouldn’t hurt my heart. But, yeah, I’d understand.”

  “If something hurts your heart enough, it might make you change your mind.”

  “No, little Rose,” Rufus said. “If you counting on that, you got the wrong man. I’ve got a road to walk. I wish you would be walking it with me, right at my side. But even if you say you won’t, I still got to walk it to the end.”

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 14:04

  * * *

  “Isn’t it cute?” Tussy said, pointing at the little car in her driveway. “It’s a Henry J; they don’t make them anymore. I got it from a customer for twenty-five dollars, and Al deKay—he’s a wonderful mechanic—fixed it all up for me. Someday, when I save enough money, I’m going to get it painted. Pink. I always wanted a pink car.”

  “Is it reliable?” Dett said, slowly walking around the car, his mind clicking off potential defects.

  “Oh, it’s very good. It never overheats in the summer, and it always starts in the winter, even when it’s real cold. Mr. Bruton—he owns the Chevy dealership—he’s always after me to get a new car. But those payments . . . I would be so scared to miss one. Besides, I like my car. At least it’s not like every other one you see.”

  “I know you have to go,” Dett said, glancing at his watch. “And I know you won’t get back until late. But could I—?”

  “It doesn’t matter how late it is,” she said, standing close to him. “Just be sure to call before you come. I’ll leave the back door open, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to work tonight.”

  “That’s okay,” Dett said. “I have to work, too.”

  * * *

  1959 October 07 Wednesday 15:56

  * * *

  “Good afternoon,” Dett said to the stylishly dressed woman seated at a small desk behind a wooden railing. “I have an

  appointment.”

  She looked up from her typewriter
, adjusted her glasses, smiled professionally, said, “Mr. Dett?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re certainly on time,” the woman said, approvingly. “Please have a seat.” She stood up, tucked a ballpoint pen into her lightly frosted hairdo, and walked into a back office.

  Dett remained standing. The woman returned, said, “Come this way, please.”

  Dett walked past the railing and followed the woman’s pointing finger into a spacious corner office. The man behind the desk was wearing a navy-blue suit with a faint chalk stripe. A heavy gold wedding band on his left hand caught the sunlight slanting through the high windows.

  “Mr. Dett,” the man said, getting to his feet and extending his hand. He was slightly above medium height, with a bearish frame. Thick, tightly curled brown hair topped a clean-featured face. His eyes were the color of rich Delta soil.

  “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” Dett said, shaking hands.

  Both men sat down. Gendell spread his hands, his gesture an invitation to speak.

  “This is about a mortgage,” Dett said.

  “Oh?”

  “You seem surprised.”

  “You’re not from around here,” the lawyer said. “So I assumed what you told my secretary was a pretext of some sort. And, now that I’ve had a look at you, I still think so.”

  “It’s not about my mortgage,” Dett said. “Someone else’s.”

  The lawyer’s expression didn’t change.

  “Let’s say I wanted to pay off someone’s mortgage,” Dett went on. “How would I go about it?”