The Black Train

by Edward Lee

  “Mr. Sute? Please don’t tell anyone what I’ve said today—the nightmares and all.”

  Sute stood half in shadow now, a smoking-jacketed hulk. “It’s all in confidence, Mr. Collier. As I said before, you’re an intuitive man. You don’t want me to repeat what you’ve told me. And as with any agreement between good gentlemen, I trust that you’ll keep my secret as well.”

  It was the first time that Collier had noticed the five-by-seven framed picture of Jiff, on the nightstand. I guessed that one right, too…

  “I understand. It was nice meeting you—” Collier shook hands. “Thanks for satisfying my curiosity. It’s definitely killed this cat.”

  “It’s only a story, Mr. Collier.” Sute tried to sound jovial.

  “But one that we both know is true…”

  Sute shrugged with a smile.

  As Collier made to leave, his psyche felt like a watch spring that had popped. I’m not the Boy Who Cried Wolf, I’m the Boy Who Asked Too Much. But he knew this: he’d heard more than he could stand, and now he was going home with his tail between his legs—

  “Not just yet!” Sute was back at a bookshelf, and slid out some heavy folders. “You wanted to see these.”

  “What…are they?”

  “The daguerreotypes.”

  A rigor seized Collier.

  “Mr. Collier, I know you’ve had more than your fill of the local lore…but after hearing it all, can you really walk away without ever seeing the only existing photographs of Penelope Gast?”

  You bastard, Collier thought. He remained unresponsive for several more moments, then said, “All right. Let’s see.”

  Sute carefully slid some metal sheets from various protective folders. “Take care to only touch the edges,” Sute requested.

  Collier found the first stiff sheet obscurely bordered in black; within the border the image seemed to float. Ghostly was the best description of what Collier’s eyes fixed on: Penelope Gast gazing askance in a ruffled French-style bustle and petticoat. The embroidered bodice piece hung unlaced down the front to reveal a plenteous white bosom, starkly nippled. Collier gulped. Even in the grainy photograph, she was infinitely more beautiful than the modest oil portrait at the inn.

  “Genuine daguerreotypes were hard to come by,” Sute explained, “and outrageously expensive for private citizens.”

  Collier thought of Hollywood producers who had professional sculptors cast their wives’ nude torsos and hang them on the wall. This was the same thing for rich men of the mid-1800s. Putting one’s wife on a pedestal.

  “Tintypes were more common during and after the Civil War, but the images were inferior and tended to lose detail after time. Gast spared no expense to immortalize the image of his wife.”

  And then have her gang-raped before he dropped an ax between her legs…Collier looked at the next, this one even more racy. Mrs. Gast stood poised with a togalike garment snaking up one leg, between her legs, then around her neck. Her legs were model perfect. The toga covered one breast; her right hand cupped the other. The light long curls of her hair seemed to illuminate about her head. Did he detect the faintest freckles in her cleavage?

  He never saw it coming. The next sheet showed Penelope Gast lying totally nude across a reclining settee like an odalisque in a Turkish harem. The detail was shocking, as well as his ability to make out a single freckle just above the clitoral hood. And the woman’s pubis had been completely shaved.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I

  Collier drove. He had to clear his head. He wasn’t sure where he was driving—the airport for all he knew.

  For all he knew he was leaving Gast and its questionable horrors without even a good-bye. He could abandon his luggage, he could even abandon his laptop. Mrs. Butler already had his credit card number for the room bill.

  I’m actually afraid, he realized.

  Collier didn’t want to go back to the inn.

  The Bug swept around the snakelike turns of the side roads out of town. Did it want to get out of here, too? Then Collier’s mind jagged:

  What am I doing?

  It’s ridiculous to leave my laptop and luggage just because of a ghost story. Could he possibly spend one more night in his room, knowing what had happened in it? And the rooms on either side? Sandwiched by murder…

  Then a more rational reality touched him on the shoulder. I can’t just leave town without saying good-bye to Dominique…

  She’d think he was an imbecile, or worse, just another drooling, insincere cock-hound who fled the scene when he realized he’d never get her in bed.

  Even if he never saw her again, he couldn’t have her think that.

  I need something good to happen. He laughed and the wind mussed his hair. Hey, God, can something fucking GOOD happen to me today?

  But why should God do anything for him?

  His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten today and it was well into the afternoon. But when he considered the mutt’s last meal in the Gast House, he doubted he’d have any appetite for a long time…

  A sign told him the interstate exit for the airport was only five miles distant. Christ, do I even know what I’m doing? He pulled into a last-chance rest stop with a gas station and Qwik-Stop. At least try to eat something, he forced himself.

  He thought of the most racist clichés inside; the clerk wore a turban and could’ve passed for a suicide bomber. “One dollar six cents!” he was yelling at an unkempt woman with smudges on her face. She had four quarters on the counter and was trying to buy a hot dog in a foil bag. “But it says a dollar each!” she cried. A dirty toddler stood at her side. “I just want to split a hot dog with my kid!”

  Collier watched as he poured himself a coffee from the back of the store.

  “Tax!” the clerk sniped in his radical accent. “Now get out! You cannot pay so you must leave or I call police! You homeless go somewhere else! Why you come to my store? In my country you be sterilized and put on work farm!”

  “Fucker!” she wailed. She grabbed a handful of ketchup and relish packs and ran out with her kid.

  Collier’s hand went unconsciously to his pocket, for change. But then his cell phone rang. Shit! I told Evelyn I’d call her! For most of the time he’d been in Gast, he’d left the phone in his room, but now he saw a dozen missed messages stacked up. Several were from his soon-to-be ex-wife but he also noticed even more from Shay Prentor, his producer. And that’s who was calling now.

  “Hi, Shay—”

  “Justy,” came the distant voice. “Been calling for two days, my friend. Does the Prince of Beer not want to talk to his good friend and producer or does he not know how to charge his cell?”

  “Sorry—” Why’s he calling? “I’m out of town right now.”

  “Yeah, your lawyer told me, said you were in some bumfuck place in Arkansas, or West Virginia—”

  “Tennessee.”

  “Justy, Justy, it’s pretty much the same thing. Moonshine and incest, cruelty to animals…”

  “It’s not quite that bad. A town called Gast…”

  “Oh, yeah, you can bet I’ve heard of that. Jesus Christ, Justy, what are you doing there?”

  Collier knew something was wrong; Prentor only called him “Justy” when he wanted something. “I’m finishing a book—you know, for my other career, which I need desperately now since you’re dumping my show. Why are you calling? You need me to clean out my desk, like, right now?”

  “Oh, Justy, Justy, you’re a regular bebopper with that wit. I just wanted to tell you the bad news—”

  “What could be worse news than ‘you’re fired’? You laid that line on me a week ago.”

  “No, no, the bad news is Savannah Sammy’s Sassy Smokehouse just dropped from number three to number four.”

  Collier frowned. “Shay. How is that bad news for me?”

  “Not for you, for him! That cocky cracker!” Prentor unreeled fuzzy laughter. “The good news for you is that we just tabbed the ratings for yo
ur last six shows, and you’re now number three.”

  Collier almost dropped the phone in the coffeepot. “I thought I was eleven—”

  “Not now, my friend. Your show has officially caught on. I’m not jiving you, Justy. You’re actually only a few points off of number two. Emeril ain’t happy, I can tell you that.”

  Collier couldn’t think straight. “So I’m getting renewed?”

  “How’s this for an answer, Justy? Fuck yes. Three-hundred-thousand-dollar re-sign bonus and an extra half point in your kick, and that’s from the VP. I’m looking at the piece of paper that guarantees it. It’s this thing called a contract, which we really need you to sign right now. So when am I going to have your smiling face on the other side of my desk, and a pen in your hand? Fly back now. What, you have to be in Tennessee to write a book about beer? My daddy always told me there wasn’t anything in Tennessee but steers and—”

  Collier stood in shock, the phone printing against his ear. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Shay. But…what about the guy you hired to replace me, the San Francisco Seafood Psycho? I heard you signed him up for twenty-six episodes right off the bat.”

  Prentor gusted another laugh. “We canceled the asshole’s contract on character breech. You get the twenty-six episodes.”

  “Character breech?”

  “It’s hilarious, man! Turns out the guy really is a psycho. Last week some critic from Gourmet came to his restaurant and complained about the crab Wellington, said the crabmeat was that fake surimi stuff. So the Psycho’s so offended he comes after the guy with a meat cleaver! No lie, Justy! It was in the paper! Almost got him, too. Took three cops to haul the Psycho out of there and book him for assault with intent…” Prentor kept bubbling laughter. “Forget about that loser, Justy. You’re the big news at the network now.”

  Collier’s hands were shaking as it finally sunk in: I’m getting renewed! I’ve still got a show!

  “And, Justy, are you ready for some really good news?”

  “I can’t imagine anything better than what you just told me—”

  “According to our latest viewer survey, the reason your ratings just tripled is because housewives are starting to watch the show with their husbands—”

  Collier frowned. “Shay, housewives walk out of the room when my show comes on. They couldn’t care less about craft beer.”

  Wheezing laughter chopped up Prentor’s next line: “They’re watching your show because they think you’re sexy! Emeril ain’t happy, let me tell you. And we know it’s on the mark ’cos last week we did a Web site poll for sexiest man on the network? You won—”

  Collier dropped his phone into the coffeepot.

  Shit!

  The clerk’s back was turned. Collier dumped the pot in the sink, and tried to pat the phone dry with paper towels. This is the best day of my LIFE! Excitement drove his heart rate so high, he knew he’d have to calm down—he could scarcely think. He rushed his coffee to the counter, fumbled for money…

  A glance out the window showed him the homeless mother sitting at the parking lot’s edge with her kid. They were sucking the ketchup and relish out of the packets. Jesus…At once he thought of Dominique spending half the day running food to the homeless, and the sermon by the minister who looked like the Skipper.

  Collier grabbed several bottled sodas, then told the turbaned clerk, “Give me ten hot dogs and ten of those cheese roll things.”

  The clerk shook his head, ringing it up. “Sir, sir, these dirty people, they are all addicted to the drugs and on welfare. It is not good to give them things. They must earn them like us.”

  Collier hated conversations, but he knew the difference. “Buddy, that woman out there’s no drug addict. Not every homeless person is a drug addict.” Being from L.A., Collier knew the difference. The panhandlers wore $200 sneakers. Homeless addicts didn’t drift to remote areas like this.

  “You are silly man to give anything to such scum—”

  “Just ring me up.” Collier held his tongue.

  The clerk shoved the bag at him. “That’s why this country is so fucked up, you give to dirty people who don’t want to work hard like I have to. In my country, we make the useless work and sterilize them so they cannot bring more babies for more welfare!”

  More stereotypes flared, but Collier just grabbed the bag and headed for the door.

  “You don’t come back to my store!” the clerk added. “You are a silly, ignorant man!”

  Collier turned. “Listen, dickbrain. I’m not silly and I’m not ignorant. I’m Justin Collier, Prince of Beer, and I have the number-three show on the Food Network, and you can pack that in your hookah and smoke it all the way back to whatever freedom-squashing, terrorist-harboring, dictatorial SHITHOLE you come from,” he said, then walked out.

  “Fuck you! I say to you—fuck you!”

  Collier was hardly bothered at all by the unpleasant confrontation. All that mattered to him right now was Prentor’s phone call. I’ve got my show back! his thoughts kept trumpeting. But his cell phone was still hot. As he strode across the lot, he tried to shake the coffee out of it. Got to call him back right now…

  The homeless woman and child were still sitting on the curb sucking ketchup. “Excuse me, miss,” Collier said and set down the bag, “but I heard what that guy in there said to you. I got you some hot dogs and stuff.”

  The smudge-faced woman looked in the bag, then burst into tears. “Oh my God, thank you, thank you! We haven’t eaten in a day! Finally someone nice comes along! God bless you!”

  They began tearing into the food.

  “Do you need a ride to a shelter or something?” Collier offered.

  “Oh, no, thank you,” she sobbed, cheeks stuffed. “They won’t let us into the shelter so we live at the underpass right down the road. Usually the Salvation Army truck comes by and gives out sandwiches but they didn’t come last night. But thank you so much for this food!”

  Collier felt overwhelmed. Damn. What should I do? He took a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet. “Here, why don’t you take this?” he said and gave it to her.

  The woman almost sidled over in her tears of joy. “Thank you! Thank you so much—” She leaped up and hugged Collier.

  The toddler looked cross-eyed stuffing another hot dog into his mouth.

  “God bless you, sir! God bless you!”

  Eventually Collier had to urge her back. “You’re quite welcome, but I have to go now. ’Bye…”

  “Thank you, thank you!”

  Collier walked off. Was this the type of charity the minister had called for? Or did I just do it to feel good? he wondered.

  It didn’t matter.

  The exuberance of his show’s renewal slammed back. Yes-sir-ee! The sexiest man on the Food Network! He opened and closed the cell phone several times but the screen never turned on. I gotta get back to the inn, call Shay and tell him not to date the contract until after my divorce…

  Collier was five yards away from the homeless woman when he heard her voice behind him:

  “Pokey? This is Dizzy—yeah, yeah, yeah, and don’t you hang up this time, you shit!”

  Collier turned and was astonished to see the woman talking on a cell phone that looked even more expensive than his.

  “I know, I know, you told me a million times, no more rock on credit. You just meet me at the underpass and bring five rocks. That’s right, five!”

  What the hell…

  “I’m not shitting you—yes, I’ve got it! Some guy just gave me a c-note so you MEET ME in twenty minutes and bring five rocks! Holy SHIT, am I gonna crack it up tonight!” Collier felt excreted on by crows. A hot dog flew out of the kid’s hand when the woman yanked him by the arm and strode off, the bag of food forgotten.

  Collier stumbled back to the car.

  “You see! You see!” railed the clerk out front. “Ignorant, silly man won’t listen! You—how you say? Kiss my ass!”

  Collier wanted to run back to the car.

&
nbsp; “Yes! Yes—oh, look, now silly, ignorant camel’s ass of a man is getting into car painted woman’s color!” He cracked out accented laughter. “And I see your show on your stupid American television and is—how you say? Piece of SHIT!”

  Collier didn’t say a word. He simply got into the Day-Glo green vehicle and drove away.

  He didn’t go to the airport. It seemed overreactive to just bug off. He’d stay one more night, check out properly, and say good-bye to Dominique.

  Which only left his fears…

  Back in town, he checked every other hotel and bed-and-breakfast: no vacancies. He didn’t even hesitate to admit it now: I’d really prefer NOT to spend another night in that haunted-to-the-max mansion. He supposed he could sleep in the car. Or…

  Maybe Dominique would let me spend my last night at her place…

  A much more promising idea, but would she go for it? Did she trust him to respect her celibacy?

  Collier didn’t dwell on it, or anything else. Sute’s final revelations about what had happened in room three back in 1862 packed too much of a wallop. Maybe Mrs. Butler could give him another room for his final night. The memory of Sute’s daguerreotype only added weight to his decision not to return to the room…

  Do I really believe in ghosts? he asked himself.

  It was going on five o’clock now. Dominique’ll be on duty soon. When he next checked his phone, the lights came on, but the screen read NO SIGNAL. I could go back to the inn, call Shay from there, he knew, but when he pulled into the parking lot, the house seemed to grimace back at him.

  Damn.

  Did he hear a dog barking when he got out of the Bug? His gut clenched.

  It seemed to come from down the hill, where the creek coursed through the woods.

  Collier walked in the opposite direction, into town…When he passed the bank, he saw Jiff standing in line, evidently to deposit another check. Collier could guess whom the check was from, and for what.

  Collier walked quickly, so not to be seen. He followed Penelope Street to the main drag and pushed into the sudden coolness of Cusher’s. He took a stool at the half-filled bar.