The Stingray Shuffle

by Tim Dorsey

  34

  Serge had his new digital camera ready, aimed out the window of the dining car, as the Philadelphia skyline came into view. Click, click, click. Running through to the lounge car in case it had a better vantage, taking pictures out windows along the way. Click, click, click…

  That’s when he saw it. He couldn’t believe his luck. It was just sitting there in the aisle. A silver briefcase. It was next to a table full of people. Serge stayed cool, pocketing his camera. He scrunched down as he walked and dipped his left shoulder so his hand was at the same level as the briefcase handle. He snagged it without breaking stride and kept going, keeping the briefcase an inch off the floor as he moved away. When he was out of view, Serge brought the case to his hip and walked swiftly back to his sleeping compartment. He closed the door fast behind him, twisting the lock and pulling down the shades. He set the briefcase on the floor and tried the latches. He expected them to be locked, but they just flipped open. Serge broke into a broad smile. “We meet again!”

  He raised the lid. His face changed.

  “What the hell?”

  He began removing plastic guns, plastic handcuffs, rubber knives, rubber candlestick holders, fake passports, packets of play money. He got to the bottom of the briefcase and removed a stack of stapled Xeroxes. He read the cover and riffled the pages.

  “Scripts?”

  Another skyline in the distance. The Silver Stingray pulled out of the Wilmington station, back into the snow. A bunch of guys in blue tuxes and Dee Dee Lowenstein stood in the aisle of the last sleeping compartment.

  “We better find Tanner,” said Spider. “We’re supposed to go on in a few minutes and we still don’t have our scripts.”

  They noticed for the first time that a large group of people had gathered behind them, suspiciously quiet. The performers looked at them. The people stared back and smiled. Some had notebooks and pencils out. One wore a T-shirt: “Mystery lovers do it by the book.”

  “This is creepy,” said Preston. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They went up to the next sleeping compartment and looked back. The doors opened and the group came in, slightly larger now. The performers headed for the next sleeper car. The group followed, picking up new members along the way. The performers walked faster; the crowd stayed with them. Preston hit a button and the automatic doors opened to the next car.

  They were practically running when they reached the dining car. They turned around. The door in the back of the compartment opened, and in they came.

  “Who the hell are they?” said Spider.

  “What do they want from us?” said Andy.

  Another voice: “There you are!”

  They turned. It was their agent, Tanner Lebos, sitting at one of the tables with Ralph Krunkleton.

  “Get over here!” Tanner bellowed, making an exaggerated waving gesture.

  They approached the table. The crowd followed.

  “I got your scripts right here…” Tanner’s hand felt around next to the table but only found air. “Hold a sec.”

  Tanner stuck his head under the table, then came back up. “The scripts! They’re gone!”

  “Maybe you left them back in the sleeping car?” said Ralph.

  “No, I’m sure,” said Tanner. “I always know where that thing is—it’s my favorite briefcase.” Then Tanner started talking to himself, reenacting recent events. “Okay, I sat down, turned and put the briefcase right there, opened the newspaper…”

  “There’s got to be a simple explanation,” said Ralph.

  “No chance,” said Tanner. “Something bizarre has happened. This is a real puzzle.”

  “Kind of like a mystery?” said Krunkleton.

  Tanner glared. “Not now, Ralph.” He went back to recreating his morning. “Then I reached for the salt…”

  An Amtrak porter walked through the sleeping compartment, knocking on doors. “Tickets. Check your tickets…”

  He knocked on the number seven berth. “Tickets…”

  “It’s unlocked.”

  The porter opened the door and saw Serge sitting on the top bunk, legs dangling over the side, a conductor’s hat on his head and an electric control box in his hands. On the floor, a miniature train chugged around a small oval of track.

  “I need to check your ticket.”

  Serge pointed at the train. “It’s coming around.”

  The porter bent over and plucked the ticket sticking out of the logging car as it went past his feet. He looked it over—“Thank you”—and stuck the ticket back in the logging car on its next pass. “Having a nice trip?”

  Serge nodded without looking up from his controls. “Me ride big choo-choo.”

  “That’s nice,” said the porter, closing Serge’s door. “…Holy Jesus!”

  Back in the dining car, tables began filling up. Waiters set ice-water glasses on the linen and flipped open order pads. “Poached salmon or prime rib?”

  “What are we going to do without scripts?” asked Frankie. “Look—they’re already arriving.”

  “I got it,” said Tanner. “You all have regular acts, right?”

  They nodded.

  “Do ’em,” he said. “That’ll hold us till tomorrow. We’ll find the scripts and write it all in as back story.”

  Plates of fish and beef arrived. People buttered rolls. Preston and the others claimed the big rounded booth at the front of the car. When most of the people were finished eating, Tanner stood and tapped a glass of water with a spoon.

  “May I have your attention. I want to thank you all for coming to this special production of The Stingray Shuffle…” Tanner paused until the clapping tapered off. “Since most of you have read the book, there really wouldn’t be a whole lot of suspense. So we’ve played around with the story a little. The killer might not be who you think. And you’ll definitely never guess who ends up with the five million dollars! With us tonight to bring the story to life are some of the finest entertainers in the business. Starting from my left, direct from Reno, Nevada, Frankie Chan and His Amazing Shadow Puppet Revue…”

  The women at table number five ordered another round of blue cabooses.

  “I’m having so much fun,” said Maria. “This was a great idea.”

  “Where’s Serge?” asked Rebecca.

  “He’ll show up sooner or later,” said Teresa. “If I know him, there’s no way he’ll miss this.”

  “…And finally,” Tanner announced, “the reason all of us are here. The author of classics we’ve come to know and love—let’s give a big hand for the one and only Ralph Krunkleton!…Ralph, stand up!”

  Ralph stood self-consciously and waved to the applause. Baltimore went by the windows.

  A half hour later, Frankie Chan was wrapping up his big finale, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in hand shadows. The ovation was deafening. Frankie went back to the booth and bummed a cigarette.

  “You hear that applause?” he said. “We should have been doing this from the start!”

  “Who’s up?”

  “Dee Dee,” said Spider.

  Dee Dee Lowenstein took the stage and launched an uncanny rendition of “South American Way.”

  Serge walked up the center aisle of the dining car in a burgundy smoking jacket. “It’s murder, I tell you! This man has been poisoned! Nobody leave the room!”

  Dee Dee stopped singing and someone turned off her boom box. The audience began taking notes. Some filmed with camcorders. Serge pulled the script from his back pocket. “Wait a minute. There’s no Carmen Miranda in this scene.” He went back to the sleeping car.

  Someone turned the music back on, and Dee Dee brought the house down with a medley from Carmen’s Hollywood years.

  The applause was off the meter. Dee Dee headed back to the rounded booth. The Washington Monument went by. “What a great room!”

  “Preston, you’re up.”

  The Great Mez-mo took the stage. “I need some volunteers.”

  Nobody res
ponded. “You gals,” said Preston, pointing at table number five. “Come on up here.”

  The women declined, but the audience was behind Preston: “Get up there!”

  A few minutes later, Paige was scraping invisible poop off her shoe, Teresa said she swam out to naval carrier escorts, Sam quacked, and Rebecca begged Preston for his autograph.

  Preston walked up to Maria.

  “Are you a lesbian?”

  “No,” Maria said, trancelike.

  He handed her a blow-up doll. “Then pretend this is one of the Baldwins.”

  The crowd roared.

  Three hours later, Books, Booze and Broads were still in the dining car. They barely held a quorum.

  “Where did the time go?” said Paige.

  “Better yet, where did Rebecca and Sam go?” said Maria.

  “I can guess where Sam is,” said Teresa. “But Rebecca must have had some kind of luck we don’t know about.”

  The Great Mez-mo closed the door behind him in his sleeping compartment. Rebecca looked around in wonderment. “I can’t believe I’m actually in Brad Pitt’s room!”

  The next compartment: “Oh yes! Oh no! Oh yes!” Sam grabbed Serge by the back of the head. “Oh God! Oh God! Tell me what you’re thinking about!…”

  “The Great Train Robbery, The California Zephyr, The Wabash Cannonball, the Rock Island Line, Casey Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, Soul Train…”

  35

  Ivan and Zigzag listened to Jimmy Cliff on the stereo of an orange ’72 Dodge Charger. Zigzag rocked slowly with the rhythm, but Ivan wasn’t convinced.

  “What’s so great about this music? It just makes me antsy.”

  “You need to learn how to relax, mon.”

  It was after midnight. Ivan changed lanes, passing some farm equipment infarcting the southbound side of Interstate 95. They drove under a big green sign. Richmond, 1/4 mile. Ivan took the exit ramp; Zigzag unfolded a map and navigated through the city to the train station. They skidded up to the curb and ran through slush to the Amtrak window.

  “Two tickets to Miami, The Silver Stingray.”

  “It’s sold out,” said the clerk.

  “What about cancellations?” asked Ivan. “Standby?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said the ticket man, pointing down the tracks. “It just left.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us in the first place?”

  The pair dashed out of the depot and jumped back in the Charger.

  Zigzag pulled the map from under his seat and flicked a lighter to see.

  “What now?” asked Ivan.

  “We might be able to get on in Fayetteville, or maybe Charleston.”

  “You heard the man. It’s sold out.”

  “That’s never stopped me and Louise here,” said Zigzag, producing a shiny .380 automatic from the glove compartment.

  “We can’t just go in there blazing! We don’t know where he is on the train. If we cause any commotion at all, he might jump off and we’ll never see the money.”

  “You got a better idea, mon?”

  “Well, if we try to get on at a depot, we risk problems from the Amtrak people, and they’re the last ones you want to mess with. Plus, the train will be stopped, so it’s easier for him to hop off. Which means we’ll have to get on the train between cities, while it’s moving. It’s the only way we can…” Ivan stopped and stared at Zigzag, who was lighting a joint the size of a bowling pin.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Hopping on board the ganja train.”

  “Look at the size of that fucking thing!” Ivan glanced around in traffic to see if there were any cops. “Are you nuts?”

  Zigzag exhaled, a small cloud enveloping their heads. “You’re the one who wants to jump on a moving train.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “It’s suicide.”

  “I’m not talking about shooting ourselves out of a cannon at the thing. There are ways to trim risk. I just haven’t figured out the right method yet.”

  Zigzag grinned. “I have an idea, mon.”

  The sleeping berths were wide enough for sex, if you had the right motivation. But there wasn’t remotely room for a couple to sleep together.

  Serge was in the top bunk, Sam on the bottom. She had fallen off fast after the lovemaking, but Serge was still wide open. He was way too wound up from being on a train. Plus, Sam snored like a lumberjack.

  A little after two in the morning. Serge lay on his back, head propped with two pillows, looking sideways out the window as The Silver Stingray rolled through the backside of Virginia, rhythmic clacking, a faint train whistle ten cars up, then the crossing guard, the red-and-white bar across the road, caution lights flashing above a metal sign with buckshot dents, two pickups waiting on the other side of the gate. America was on the move, and it was moving away from the train tracks. Serge saw what was left behind, the late-night scenes repeating, Virginia becoming North and South Carolina. Raleigh, Southern Pines, Hamlet, Camden. Crime light, barbed wire, warehouses and liquor stores, alleys, a flashlight in the face of someone pulled over by police, then another tiny train depot from the 1940s hanging on for life, bleary travelers under the cantilevers. Serge hit radio buttons until he found jazz. Perfect. Watching America go by. Homeless people rubbing hands over oil-drum flames to the melancholy of Thelonious. He got out his new digital camera and rested it on his stomach, switching on the tiny monitor, replaying scenes from the last twenty-four hours. The gray Philly switching yards, the Maryland slums, the upscale parks in D.C., the Marine Corps hangar with the president’s helicopter, the blur of a freight train passing the other way, a citadel, a rocky trout stream, a riverboat, a carnival, a fire station, a little girl with pigtails skipping rope in front of a church, a restored Victorian home in an anonymous town with train tracks running down the center of Main Street, and everywhere, smiling Americans waving back at the train like a Ford truck ad. Serge finally came to the last picture in the camera’s memory and stopped: An old guy with a long white beard standing next to the tracks in the middle of nowhere, operating a big Hasselblad camera on a tripod, taking a picture back at Serge, his own future.

  A loud scream startled Serge, and he bonked his head on the ceiling.

  It was Sam. “You bastard!”

  Serge hung his head over the side of the bunk. “What’d I do?”

  “You bastard!” she yelled again, talking in her sleep. There were more words, but he could only make out a few of them, and most of those were bastard. Then something about final exams.

  “What year is it?” asked Serge.

  “1973.”

  She twisted violently, a few more bastards, then: “It’s our secret, girls.”

  “What’s your secret?” asked Serge.

  The sunrise sparkled through the trees as The Silver Stingray rolled into the quiet South Carolina morning. There was still a cover of snow, but now patches of ground poked through.

  A bunch of tuxedos sat around the booth in the front of the dining car.

  “Tanner find the scripts yet?” asked Andy.

  Spider shook his head.

  Dee Dee came back from the rest room.

  “Hey! Who ate one of my bananas?”

  An empty peel sat in front of Preston.

  Dee Dee snatched her hat off the table. “If I ever catch you doing that again, I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”

  Passengers at nearby tables perked up. They put down their forks and began writing in notebooks.

  The BBB walked forward through the sleeping compartment.

  “Is it me, or does this train seem to be going faster?” asked Teresa.

  “Feels the same,” said Maria. “The important question is why Rebecca won’t tell us where she disappeared to last night. And why she’s grinning so much.”

  “I just had a dream, that’s all.”

  “What kind of dream?”

  “A Brad Pitt dream. We
’ll leave it at that.”

  The BBB left the sleeper and entered the dining car. The people having breakfast turned around and applauded.

  “You were great last night,” said a woman in a sun hat.

  “They didn’t tell us more cast members would be hidden among the passengers,” said her husband. “What a performance!”

  “What are you talking about?” said Teresa.

  “I got it all on video if you want to see.”

  “We do,” said Sam.

  They crowded around. The man adjusted the tiny crystal screen on his camcorder and played back Preston’s hypnosis show. Sam quacking, Paige scraping her shoe and so on. The BBB began to boil as they watched. But it was nothing compared to Maria’s reaction when she saw herself with the blow-up doll.

  “I’ll kill the son of a bitch! Who’s got a gun?”

  Passengers took more notes.

  Suddenly, yelling and a struggle at the front of the car.

  Dee Dee had demanded an apology about eating from her hat, and Preston had told her to go fuck herself with one of her precious bananas. Andy and Spider had to separate them. Passengers scribbled furiously.

  “Preston, enough’s enough!” said Frankie. “Sometimes it’s just not funny anymore. Like back in Bridgeport when that mob chased us out of Private Ryan. I was ready to strangle you with my bare hands.”

  More writing in notebooks.

  The book club marched angrily up the aisle, ready to read Preston the riot act. A woman in a red dress pushed by them and stormed to the front of the car.

  “Preston?”

  He turned around. “Yes?”

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” said the woman.

  Preston squinted at her face. “Should I?”

  “Albuquerque.”

  “Let’s see…Albuquerque, Albuquerque…oh, Albuquerque! I remember now. Wait, don’t help me…”—snapping his fingers—“…Helen, Helga, Heloise…”

  “Betty.”

  “I was just about to say Betty.”

  “I finally tracked you down, you worm! How dare you take advantage of me like that!”