“Oh, like you’re such a good shot.”
Fade worked open the compartment door and stumbled through to find it occupied by a couple in various states of undress. They quickly pulled on their clothes and voiced their panicked apologies before they realized it was Foster Fade standing before them.
“Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Kathleen. How are you?” he breathed as he locked the door behind him. “It seems you two are enjoying the ride.”
“What are you doing in here, you monster?!” Kathleen gasped as she pulled her blouse over her chest. Her red lipstick was smeared across her pale face, like a shock of blood.
“I should ask you the same question, ma’am,” Fade replied pleasantly, fixing his tie. “Don’t you need a ticket for first class?”
“We’re only one stop away!” Kathleen’s husband stuttered.
Fade looked at him and frowned. “That’s all the time you need? That’s depressing.”
Din’s voiced crackled through the receiver. “Who are you talking to?”
“Some old friends. I’ll call you back,” he said before hooking the handset back on his vest.
“Get out of here!” Kathleen shrilled.
Fade clapped his hand over her mouth and held a finger over his. Her husband moved to protest but Fade clapped his other hand over his mouth as well.
“Mr. Kathleen,” Fade whispered to the husband.
“George,” he muffled a reply from beneath Fade’s hand.
“Whatever. You look like a respectable man, a fan of the second amendment and all that ridiculousness. You wouldn’t happen to have a firearm on you? Mine proved to be ineffective.”
George puckered his brow. “Are you mad?” he breathed.
“Yeah, I thought it was a long shot. No pun intended. Okay, maybe a little.”
“What are you doing here?” Kathleen moaned.
“Hiding,” Fade whispered. “Did we not go over this? Sorry about that, I got caught up. Someone’s trying to kill me, and believe me, I’m not doing this to sell papers. Suffice to say I’d very much like to play the quiet game right now. Winner gets a dollar.”
Outside the compartment, Fade heard the last crash of wood as the assassin made his way into the car. Several seconds passed before Fade heard the slow, methodical creaking of footsteps walking up the corridor, briefly pausing at each compartment door. Spots began to form in front of his eyes and Fade discovered he was holding his breath.
There was another step, a creak of the floor, a knock on a door, and another step closer.
Fade felt his arms begin to quake, whether from exhaustion or fear didn’t matter, he needed to remain stiff, a statue, silent and immobile. He pinched his eyes shut as his breath stuttered out his lungs. As a boy, Fade had read a lot of stories about heroes, men who would sacrifice themselves for the safety of others, who would face death with a smile or some other ridiculousness. Fade was not that sort of man. He very much enjoyed the daily discovery of being alive and would be remiss if his streak was suddenly cut short.
More footsteps, louder as they approached.
Fade glanced down at the light radiating from beneath the door and waited for the eclipse.
Just a matter of moments now…
Fade could guess the next set of actions. The shadows would pass, one foot at a time. The assassin would knock, two soft raps. Fade and his undressed companions would hold their breath and wait for him to walk past. But the assassin would come back, one compartment at a time and there would be a click of metal followed by the whisper of bullets. Fade was as sure as nitroglycerin made dynamite.
His eyebrows pricked up at the thought. He glanced over his shoulder at the window; the trees and hills had given way to metal and brick. No, he decided. The risks outweighed the benefits.
The shadows moved beneath the door, one at a time. They stood there for a breath, a heartbeat, before a soft knock came at the door.
“Mr. and Mrs. Kathleen,” Fade murmured. “Now would be a good time to duck.”
“What?” Kathleen breathed.
“Duck!” Fade shouted, shoving the couple to the ground.
There was no sound of gunfire, only the snap of wood followed by the clinking of raining glass as the window shattered. Fade covered his head, the tiny shards lancing at the back of his hands.
“Someone’s shooting at us!” Kathleen shrieked.
“Your powers of observation never cease to amaze.”
There were three more shots and Fade heard the familiar click-click of an empty cartridge. With moments to spare, Fade jumped up and knocked away the remaining bits of glass with his elbow. The assassin began slamming his body against the door. “Stay down!” Fade instructed as he threaded his leg through the window. “If he comes in tell him to meet me upstairs. Don’t worry, he seems to be a nice assassin so he probably won’t kill you.”
“Upstairs? Upstairs where?!” George shouted.
“Where else?” Fade shouted back when he felt a gloved hand clamp down on his throat.
Chapter 3
TERMINAL
Luke chased Din toward the Lounge’s exit. His gut and heart seemed to be at war with one another, twisting and thrashing with violent abandon. “Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?” Din replied without looking back over her shoulder. “To save Fade.”
Luke opened and closed his mouth, unable to find a legitimate reason to protest but wanting desperately to find a way to convince Din to stay. He took a couple more steps toward the exit before he finally managed, “Din, I—”
Din turned around and shrugged. “Well, are you coming?”
Luke’s mouth clamped shut. “Excuse me?”
Din gestured toward the door with the phone. “Are you coming? Lord knows what Fade’s gotten himself into and I can’t do this on my own.”
It wasn’t until Luke met Din’s ice-blue gaze that he understood the offer, the equivalent of getting asked to join the Freemasons, Skull and Bones, and the Diogenes Club all at once.
Luke nodded brusquely. “Yes! Your car or mine?”
Din flashed a grin. “Mine, definitely.”
***
“Come now, Mr. Fade, you didn’t think I would let you get away that easily?” the assassin growled as he pressed his gloved fingers down onto Fade’s trachea while George and Kathleen cowered in the corner.
“I had hoped so, yes!” Fade choked as he struggled to free himself. Spots began to form in front of his eyes, little planets bursting into life. “That was a lie, actually,” Fade admitted. “I was trying to lure you onto the roof of the train and give you some dramatic speech while I figured out a plan to defeat you.”
“All I want is a name, a simple name,” the assassin snarled, tightening his grip on Fade’s windpipe.
Fade winced in pain. “I can’t really answer… if you’re… choking me.”
The assassin whispered into Fade’s ear, “Tell me and I will make this as quick as possible.”
“Not quick enough!” Fade lifted his legs, kicked his feet against the compartment wall, and threw his body backward. Fade and the assassin tumbled through the door in tandem; wood, metal, and glass splintered into the air as Kathleen let out a warbling shriek. What little breath he still had left in his lungs shot out on impact, but the assassin’s hold was broken. As the rainstorm of shards pounded down, Fade rolled away and stumbled to his feet.
“There’s only one way you’re getting off this train, Mr. Fade,” the assassin said calmly as he stood, his sidearm already in hand.
“Come on, now!” Fade shouted. “If you were really going to kill me you already would have!”
“Mr. Fade, you’re absolutely right,” the assassin said with a smile, as he aimed the gun inside the compartment.
***
“This is your car?” Luke gasped.
“Yup,” Din said nonchalantly as she tossed the phone on the back seat. The car was parked behind the Lounge, its smooth, streamlined ice-blue finish glinting in t
he twilight. The engine alone was the size of most sedans, the wheels—all six of them—capped with mirrored chrome, while twin metal piping ran off the engine beneath the driver and passenger doorways, leading into the swooping rear of the vehicle.
“It looks like an Auburn 8-100 Speedster, except with more…”
“Fade made the upgrades himself.” She shrugged. “I think he was bored.”
Luke pointed to the two cylinders placed above the back wheels. “Those are rockets.”
Din nodded in assent. “Those are rockets.”
“Those are rockets and they are on a car. Why are there rockets on a car?”
“To go faster,” she replied as if she’d been asked whether two and two still made four. “Get in, I doubt we have much time.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a machine gun hidden in the engine,” Luke said as he shut the passenger door behind him.
“Ha! Machine gun hidden in the engine. Don’t be ridiculous…” She turned the key and the car roared to life. “It’s in the glove compartment.”
“What?!”
“Buckle up.”
***
“No!” Fade shouted as he plowed into the assassin, knocking him down the narrow hall. “No one is dying today!”
Fade seized the assassin by the wrist and slammed his gun hand into the side of the car, once, twice, three times until the gun tumbled to the floor. The assassin grabbed Fade’s phone vest and pulled him over. Without thinking, Fade unhooked the phone, slipped out onto the floor, snatched up the assassin’s weapon and shot him the leg.
The assassin grunted in pain, spinning on his heel and limping away at a fast clip, Fade’s phone still in hand. Fade watched as he threw open the car doors and climbed onto the roof.
“He stole my phone!” Fade said through gasping breaths. He wiped away the spit collecting at the corner of his mouth with his shirtsleeve.
“Mr. Fade…” Kathleen moaned behind him.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get him, Mrs. Kathleen… It’ll just be—oh.”
Kathleen lay on the floor, a deep wet spot of maroon on the side of her dress. Her husband cradled her head while pressing his hand against the bullet wound, blood leaking out between his fingers.
“I believe—I believe I was shot.”
Fade kept his face calm. Please, not another death, not another death because of him… “You’ll be all right, Mrs. Kathleen. Just fine, really. Looks like the bullet went through, which is always a good thing. Mr. Kathleen, could you put your other hand over… Yes, well, done, Mr. Kathleen!” Fade exclaimed, patting George on the shoulder. “Strapping man you are! Looks like we’ve got the right man for the job! Excellent. Kathleen, you’re going to be okay.” He said with a false smile. “Mr. Kathleen is going to hold down on the wound as hard as he can to stop the blood flow, and he’s going to do it because he loves you. Isn’t that right, Mr. Kathleen?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” George said, tears spilling down his cheeks.
“You two stay right here… I’m going to solve a five year old murder and make sure that man pays for this.”
“Solve a murder?” Kathleen whispered. “How?”
“With wit and guile, Mrs. Kathleen!” Fade said with a thin smile. “Wit and guile.”
***
Din tore through evening traffic toward Grand Central Terminal, running her car over sidewalks and through stoplights, ignoring the cries of pedestrians and whistles of police. It was just like Foster to get himself into trouble on a simple excursion. She couldn’t even be afforded one night off with the man she was—Well, the man she was with. Luke wasn’t wrong, not completely. Din’s relationship with Foster was something close to marriage, deeper than friendship and spiced with near constant frustration. She liked him quite a bit, perhaps in some sense loved him in the way that life with him was almost, but not quite, as undesirable as life without him.
“Are you going to fill me in on whatever the heck is happening?” Luke shouted over the roar of the engine.
“I don’t like to do exposition this late in the game,” Din responded as she narrowly avoided an old nun. “Slows things down when there should only be action, action, action.”
“Open up the machine gun so we can keep it interesting!”
Din snorted despite herself. “A few years ago a man very close to Fade died up in the small town of Black Rock. The death was ruled natural causes, but Fade was certain it was murder, so he planted a story that would draw the killer out of the woodwork.”
“And I take it his plan worked.”
“Oh, they always work… eventually, though sometimes I kind of wish they didn’t.”
There was a sudden flash of light followed by an audible bang that rattled the car.
“Holy hell!” Luke screamed, shielding his eyes. “What was that?!”
Din didn’t bother to glance up at the fireball. “Take a guess!”
***
The cityscape of New York rushed by, the smoke filled air tossing Fade’s long red hair over his face as Grand Central Terminal barreled into view. The assassin stood atop the train engine smiling, unaffected by the wind or swaying of the train, Fade’s phone still in hand. Well, this was certainly making a mess of things. But at least it would make a fantastic story. Fade holstered the assassin’s gun on his belt, adjusted his tie, and walked hopped on to the engine until he was only a few feet away from the assassin.
“For the record, coming up here was my idea first!” Fade said over the rush.
“All I wanted was a name, Mr. Fade. It would have been so much simpler if you had just given it,” the assassin called back.
“Simpler?! Simpler how?!” Fade shouted back. “With an injection behind the ear? Make it look like I had a heart attack?”
The assassin tilted his head, but remained silent.
“You never needed to ask me his name! You already knew it!” Fade growled. “You knew it when you killed him five years ago. See, that’s one thing you got wrong. You think you’re hunting me? It’s the other way round, buddy.” Fade drew the gun from his belt. “I’ve been hunting you.”
The assassin smiled. “Ah, so he did reach you did he?”
“Do you know who he was?! Do you know who he was to me?!” Fade screamed, pulling back the hammer. “He was the only family I had left!”
The assassin started to laugh. “Please, Mr. Fade. You won’t kill me.”
“I already shot you once.”
“Ah, but you didn’t aim at my head. A killer would have done that… I however…” He held up the vest and continued. “You thought I wasn’t paying attention… You see, impressive as this is, I know it isn’t just a phone. A little rewiring and it’s also a bomb.”
Fade’s expression curdled. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t? I already did!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the assassin slid the vest across the roof just as the train barreled into Grand Central Station. Fade felt the heat before he heard the blast. The train car flew out from beneath him as metal twisted and glass exploded and the world turned into a subterfuge.
***
The blast tore the engine car in half, kicking the wheels off the rails. A tidal wave of panic ripped through the train as metal squealed and glass shattered, mixing with the passengers’ screams. People and luggage were tossed around like glitter in a child’s snow globe. In the cab, the driver was dead before he felt the flames. The train stormed toward Grand Central with an unmitigated fury. Several tons of brick erupted out as the train jumped off the rails at the end of its intended platform and plowed through the wall into the main concourse in a flurry of destruction. The train’s wheels screamed against marble floors, echoing in the cavernous space, as the mechanized beast slid to a stop centimeters from the information desk.
Minutes passed. Inside the ruined platform powdered stone clouded the air, coating the space with unnatural silence.
Dizzy, Fade hung off the side of the train, his
arm hooked in an open window. He dropped painfully to the ground, coughing up clouds of dust as he wobbled to his feet, eyeing the destruction around him with an overwhelming sense of what he would describe as proud embarrassment. A thin trail of blood ran down from his nostril. Fade absently wiped it away with his sleeve as he stumbled forward. He ran a hand through his hair and winced at the large welt at the back of his skull.
He walked over to a shattered compartment window and shouted. “Mr. and Mrs. Kathleen! How are you doing up there?”
An arm shot out from behind and clamped around Fade’s throat. “In all my years, Mr. Fade, I’ve never dealt with someone as troublesome as you,” the assassin hissed as he pulled Fade into the shadows. His face was singed a bright red, his once immaculate suit steaming from the heat.
“Thank you.” Fade tried to worm his fingers between his throat and the assassin’s arm, but the hold was too tight. Black and red splotches formed in front of his eyes, his lungs stinging. “Can’t we just be really impressed you survived?” Fade grunted through choked breaths. “Because I sure am…”
The assassin tightened his grip. “If I can’t get it from you, I’ll just ask your pretty little ghostwriter—”
There was a sudden crack of gunfire, echoing in the dust. The assassin fell back and Fade collapsed to his knees, holding his throat.
“You stopped answering your phone,” Din said as she appeared from the cloud, lowering her gun.
“He blew it up,” Fade croaked in reply.
“Of course he did,” Din sighed.
“You’re late,” Fade muttered as he dusted off his jacket.
“Glad to see you too,” Din replied dryly as she placed her gun in her handbag. She nodded at the train wreckage. “Looks like you made a mess.”
“You’re surprised?”
“Wait, wait…” the man next to Din suddenly said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, but I can only suspend my disbelief so far… How the heck did you survive?”
The New Adventures of Foster Fade, The Crime Spectacularist Page 19