Derailed

by Jackson Neta

  “Tell ’em tomorrow. Don’t forget my mom is in the hospital.”

  Finally, he relented and promised to cover for me. “But don’t you be late tomorrow morning. If I promise them you’ll be available first thing, you better be there.”

  I got home just after Estelle returned from visiting Mom. DaShawn had gone with Tavis to shoot hoops at Pottawattomie Park. “He phoned for permission,” said Estelle, “but I’ll be glad when you put up that hoop on the garage. Who knows who he’s hangin’ with over there in that park.”

  “I thought you didn’t want a ball thumping at all hours behind our house.”

  “Well, I don’t, but it beats not knowing where my grandson is.”

  I smiled and gave her a big hug. I think it was the first time she’d called DaShawn her grandson. It warmed my heart. Kissing her cheek, I let her go and plopped down on the sofa. “So, how’s Mom?”

  “About the same, I guess. I didn’t try to explain why you weren’t with me.”

  “Hmm. S’pose I oughta go see her myself this evening, but I hate missing my Bible study.”

  “You could probably wait till tomorrow morning.”

  “Nah. Gilson wants me to be in early.”

  “Early? Where’s this promise of comp time when you have an overnight run?”

  “It’s because we got the perp, and there are reports and paperwork and interviews I’ve gotta follow up on.”

  “You got him? Why didn’t you tell me? I’d’ve thought you’d be beatin’ a drum the moment you walked in the door.”

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t that big a deal.” No way was I gonna tell her about the guy facing me down with a gun.

  “But big enough that you’ve gotta go in to work early tomorrow.”

  “Comes with the territory, babe. Comes with the territory. Hey, what’s for supper?” I stood up. “I’ll help you cook.”

  “You’re on, mister. I was just gonna make some rice and fry up a couple catfish fillets. But one of your awesome salads would go really well with that.”

  A few minutes later, when the catfish was sizzling in the pan and I was preparing the lettuce on my cutting board, I asked, “What’s the latest with Rodney?”

  “Oh, I dunno. He lit outta here this morning before I even went to work. Didn’t say a thing about where he was goin’ or when he’d be back.”

  “Well, if he misses dinner, he’s gonna be the loser. That fish smells great.”

  Before I started mixing a dressing for my salad, I called Denny Baxter and told him I wouldn’t be able to make it to study because I needed to visit my mom. I asked him to have the guys pray for her. “You got it,” he said.

  Rodney showed up just in time for dinner and said he’d been hunting for a job all day. I nodded, pleased. “Sooner or later that’ll pay off,” I said as we sat down to eat. I wanted to give him some more encouragement, but during the meal all DaShawn was interested in was hearing me tell how I’d caught “the bad guy.”

  At first, I hemmed and hawed, unsure what I could reveal. I finally decided I could tell about the woman in the observation car and then how Corky identified the sleeping drug mule. In neither instance did I have to describe my cover as a blind man, and I definitely left out the scene where the drug dealer confronted me in my compartment.

  I was glad to have an excuse to leave the table so I could get to the hospital. When I got to Mom’s room, a nurse was helping her eat. It was kind of late for supper, I thought, but even from the door I could see she was using her right hand to spoon food up to her mouth. The paralysis on the left side of her face, however, meant that it frequently slipped out and down her chin. The nurse was patiently catching it and cleaning off her face.

  When Mom noticed I’d entered the room, she became animated, waving her hand and talking in her garbled way. I finally figured out that she didn’t want to eat in front of me. There was still quite a bit of food on her tray, so I told her I was going down to the cafeteria for some coffee and would be back later. The nurse nodded her approval.

  When I got back, Mom had finished eating and was cleaned up, watching TV. She waved me close, and I gave her a kiss, then pulled up the recliner and sat by her, holding her hand as we both watched TV.

  By nine o’clock, Mom had fallen asleep, and I switched to channel 9 to catch the early news, remembering the media truck I’d seen in Naperville had been from WGN. The broadcast kept teasing viewers with short clips about a “special eyewitness report” on a major drug bust in the western suburbs, but I had to wait through everything except the weather and sports before they got to their little three-minute feature.

  Finally, the anchor introduced the report.

  “Combined efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Illinois State Police, and the DuPage County Sheriff resulted today in the arrest of Antonio Quintero, nineteen, of Oakland, California, for possession of nearly forty-five pounds of what appears to be high-grade marijuana with an estimated street value of as much as two hundred twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  The video switched from the “talking head” of the anchor to a short clip showing a handcuffed Quintero being led away from the Naperville Amtrak station by two burly officers who tucked him into a DuPage County Sheriff’s car.

  “The arrest was made in Naperville shortly after two thirty this afternoon when Quintero stepped off the eastbound Amtrak California Zephyr train with his cache of drugs.”

  In the video, Quintero kept his head ducked and his face away from the camera.

  “According to authorities,” continued the reporter, “the DEA had been investigating Quintero since he purchased a ticket in California two days ago but only confirmed that his luggage was filled with an illegal substance when a DEA K-9 unit identified it after Quintero detrained.”

  A new video clip showed a beautiful German shepherd standing at attention by a DEA agent.

  “ ‘At no time,’ said a DEA official, ‘were train passengers or the public in any danger during the arrest.’ ”

  That was it. The “special eyewitness report” was over.

  I flipped off the TV and stood up to kiss Mom’s forehead before I left.

  As I walked down the hospital hall toward the elevator, I shook my head. Gilson had done a good job keeping me undercover. But I didn’t like the attention paid to the DEA’s K-9 agent. What if Quintero saw the clip? Would it be enough to get him thinking about the other dog that had been sniffing around him? What if he put two and two together and had enough juice to put the hit out on me?

  Wasn’t very likely. And such risks are always part of police work. So why did it bug me so much? Maybe I was just disgruntled at being denied my share of the credit. I’d worked hard to ID that guy and had to look down the barrel of his Ruger SR9 to do it. Didn’t like all the credit going to someone else, even if it was for my own safety.

  Chapter 24

  Captain Gilson was ecstatic the next morning when I knocked on his office door. He ushered me in, Corky following right at my heel. Gilson sat down behind his desk, leaving me standing there in my smartly pressed uniform like I was a kid in the principal’s office.

  “It worked, Bentley! It worked! And did you watch the news last night? There wasn’t even a hint of your involvement. Your cover’s secure.” He pushed some papers around on his desk for no apparent reason. “The DEA’s gonna be here within the hour. They want to interview you, but I don’t think it’ll be any big deal. I asked them yesterday to keep you outta court if possible, and I think they’ll be able to do it.

  Elbows on his desk, he folded his hands in front of his face. “Now, when they’re done with you—”

  “Captain, I’ll at least have to give a deposition to show probable cause for their arresting that guy.”

  “No, no, no! That’s the beauty of it. They brought their own dog. All they have to say is that their dog identified the contraband, which I’m sure he did.”

  That bitter taste rose in my mouth again, but what could I say?<
br />
  “Sit down. Sit down and relax.” But as soon as I pulled up a chair and sat down, Gilson got up and went to his wall map of Amtrak’s Midwest routes. “When the DEA’s done with you, I want you to plan some more trips. I want us to make some busts without having to rely on DEA tips. I want us to find the stuff entirely on our own.”

  He started tapping the map with his finger. “Our routes meet in Chicago like spokes of a wheel converging on the hub. And Chicago’s a big drug market; dope’s coming in from the south and west every day, but some of it goes out to the north and east too. So I want you to start riding the rails and nailin’ those guys!”

  When he stopped to catch his breath, or maybe it was to see if I was tracking with him, I decided to lighten things up a little. “First you want me to play the ol’ blind man, and now you want me to act the hobo? I don’t know, Captain. Are you typecastin’ me?”

  “What do you mean, hobo? I didn’t say anything about a hobo.”

  “It’s just . . . you know, hobos used to ride the rails? Forget it. Look, I don’t mind bein’ undercover. I’m just concerned whether this ruse’ll continue to work. But go ahead with what you were sayin’.”

  “Well, what I meant was, I don’t think you’ll need to go very far on most routes, you know, just like down to Galesburg or Champaign, and then catch the return train coming back. You only gotta be on long enough to search with your dog.”

  With his mention of Corky, I glanced down. She was lying on the floor, chin resting on her crossed front paws. She looked up at me and over at the captain, causing the tufts of fur above her eyes to waggle like curious eyebrows. I reached down and scratched her behind the ear to assure her, This too shall pass.

  Gilson continued, “Out by the ticket counter you’ll find printed schedules for each of the routes. Use them to plan your trips for the next month. Some you ought to be able to do as day trips, but some’ll require overnights.”

  I stood and took a step toward the map, Corky rising to support me. “Look, Captain, before we get too far into this, I think we need to arrive at an understanding. When I took this job, you portrayed overnights and multi-day trips as rarities, and you even said there’d be comp time. I think we need to arrive at some mutual expectations here. Know what I mean?” I used his phrase.

  I was kicking myself for not hammering all this out in writing before I took the job. From the very beginning, Gilson had done plenty to let me see how over the top with wild ideas he was. I should’ve paid more attention to my hesitations.

  “Harry, of course. Comp time. Hey, didn’t I tell you to go home early yesterday? I don’t want to burn you out. In fact, I’m suggesting you write your own ticket here. You make your schedule. Just bring it back to me for review. The only time we can’t be flexible is if we get a call from the outside—the DEA, TSA, or some other law enforcement agency that needs our help. Then we’ve gotta step up. But you go see what you can come up with on your own. Okay?”

  “But just to set some parameters,” I persisted, “any time I’m gone overnight, I earn a full comp day, right? And I never work on Sunday—”

  “Now, now, Harry, never say never! You know emergencies come up in law enforcement. I won’t put you out there on a Sunday if you don’t wanna go . . . unless, of course, it’s absolutely necessary. Isn’t that good enough for you? I think it is. Now you go work on a plan for your next month and get back to me later this afternoon.” He put his arm out as though he was going to pat my shoulder and walk me to the door. “Okay?”

  Fortunately, his desk phone rang and he detoured. “Yeah?” Then he covered the receiver. “The DEA’s here. Go give ’em a pound of flesh. See ya later.”

  Yeah, right. But after I was done with the DEA, better believe I was gonna write myself a reasonable ticket.

  After the interview, which didn’t last more than an hour, I dropped Corky off at the kennel—don’t think she really wanted to stay there—and returned to my office with the route schedules.

  I soon discovered that most major trains out of Chicago ran once a day, but it wasn’t that simple. For instance, one Empire Builder left Chicago about two fifteen each afternoon, headed for Seattle. At 3:55 P.M., a returning Empire Builder was expected to arrive. But because the trip took some forty-three hours each way—if they were on time—two more trains passed each other in Montana that same afternoon, having left their starting cities the day before, while a fifth train was about to pull out of the Seattle station heading east.

  I didn’t want to ride the Empire Builder all the way to Montana just to catch an eastbound train to bring me home. That’d eat up two full days. I frowned. Of course, I could get off earlier, but all I’d gain would be a longer wait in a station to catch that returning train.

  Had to be a better way.

  I picked up the schedule for the Hiawatha train. It was more of a commuter service, running between Chicago and Milwaukee five times a day. Hmm. I could ride the Empire Builder as far as Milwaukee, then catch the 5:45 P.M. Hiawatha back to Chicago. Or take a morning Hiawatha out if I wanted to ride an Empire Builder back that same afternoon.

  Bingo, my first day trip! But could I check a whole train in an hour and forty minutes? Corky and I’d have to hustle.

  I tried to put together similar combinations between long-run trains and shorter commuters for the California Zephyr, the Southwest Chief, the Texas Eagle, the City of New Orleans, the Cardinal down through Indianapolis, the Capital Limited, and the Wolverine up through Michigan.

  Unfortunately, out of those eight “spokes,” I was only able to arrange day trips on half of them. The others would be overnighters. But there were also shorter-run trains I could cover with day trips: the Illinois Zephyr, Carl Sandburg, Lincoln, Saluki, and the Illini. None of them were likely major drug avenues into Chicago, but perhaps they distributed drugs out to smaller cities.

  By three o’clock I’d put a trip plan on the captain’s desk for the month. He scanned over it, his head nodding slower and slower as he read, then he looked up at me with a frown on his face. “Where’s the Southwest Chief? You gotta know there’s a reason it’s nicknamed ‘The Drug Train’ comin’ this way and ‘The Money Train’ goin’ west. After all, it comes from LA and travels through towns in Arizona and New Mexico not that far from the border. I mean, we’ve got a detective stationed in Albuquerque for that very reason, but we can’t put him on the train. He’s too busy in New Mexico.”

  I held up both hands. “No problem. It’s just a day run. I can put it in anywhere. I’ll take the morning Carl Sandburg down to Galesburg, then catch the returning Chief that afternoon. Be home by three fifteen.”

  Gilson frowned and stroked his chin. “Three hours isn’t bad, but for your first run on that particular train, I’d like you to spend a little more time and ride it both ways. Why don’t you make it an overnighter by taking it all the way to Kansas City, sleeping over, and coming back the next day?”

  “Okay. Why don’t I swap out the . . . the Texas Eagle run. I think I had it down for next week, April 14, wasn’t it?” I pointed to the forms in his hand. “However . . .” I took a deep breath. “. . . as you can see, I’ve scheduled no more than two trips per week, one day trip plus one overnighter. Could do two day trips but not two overnighters. The rest of my time’s here in the station, not undercover. Those are my limits, Captain. Unless there’s a specific intelligence tip on a major case like you mentioned, we stick to that load.”

  Gilson leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips. But I plunged on, saying what I had to say. “We gotta come to an understanding here, Captain. Ya know, I don’t need this job. You came to me. We’re trying an experiment with this undercover K-9 thing. And that’s good. I’m willing to keep workin’ it to see how it pays off, but if a schedule like what I’ve drawn up isn’t something you can work with, then perhaps you need a different undercover man.”

  My heart was pounding as I tried to control my breathing. I’d never laid it on the line with a bo
ss like that before . . . or wait a minute. Yes I had. I’d confronted Fagan—even pleaded with him several times—to clean up his act before I went to Internal Affairs. Definitely a bigger deal than this.

  Gilson stared up at me with an I-can’t-believe-this expression on his face. I should’ve paid more attention to what I was getting into before I signed on, but he also should’ve known what I was like when he hired me.

  Seconds crept by like hours as my breathing slowed and I reassured myself that we had to get this straight. Yeah, I needed a job to cover our mortgage, but I didn’t need this job. I could get a security job or even go back to being a doorman if I had to. I wasn’t too proud for that. Of course, I’d miss Corky. In just two weeks she’d become my partner. No, more than that. I loved that dog. If I had to quit, maybe I could buy her from Amtrak . . . oh, yeah. For how much? Twenty grand?

  “Well,” said Gilson, handing my schedule papers back to me, “swap the Texas Eagle for the Southwest Chief, then have Phyllis photocopy the schedule for me. Otherwise, looks like a good start. But speaking of the Southwest Chief, sometime I want you to get all the way out to Albuquerque to meet Detective Conway. He’s a good man, about as hardnosed as you.” A slight smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.

  “Absolutely. I’d be glad to meet him.” I gave the papers a shake in the air. “I’ll have Phyllis make you a copy. See ya tomorrow.”

  Out in the hall, I blinked. What just happened? Had Gilson accepted the parameters I’d put on my job? Seemed like it. But would he remember them tomorrow or the next day? I had to admit he’d never gone back on anything—he just went forward, forward so fast you had to scramble to keep up. Ha, ha! Well, I’d scramble. In fact, from now on, I’d keep ahead of him.

  “Got some things straightened out with Gilson today,” I announced to Estelle as I hung Corky’s leash on the hook and watched the dog go check her food dish.