by John Lutz
“Yeah. The morning news,” Renz said. “Thanks to Minnie Miner ASAP.”
“That would figure. Minnie can’t stay away from murder cases. They make such compelling news.”
“Well, you can’t blame her for turning death into entertainment. That’s her job. At least we know where she stands.”
With a foot on your balls, Quinn thought, but didn’t say.
The Gremlin put down his coffee cup in disgust. He was on the balcony of his apartment, where he often took breakfast. He didn’t feel his best this morning, so it was coffee and orange juice only. No cream, no fat. He had to stay in shape. Small but mighty, he thought.
He laid the paper out flat and studied the photograph close up. Then he leaned back, satisfied. There was no way anyone could make a positive identification based on the grainy security camera still.
So what was going on? Or was it really only some good citizen who wanted his name in the papers and talked himself into thinking that the small person in the photograph was the Gremlin? And that the Gremlin was Jordan.
The more the Gremlin thought about it, the less likely anything representing a threat, or a plan, had been in evidence. He had simply parked half a block down from the restaurant and then carried his three large black bags from his car’s trunk to the passageway. Quickly he’d lifted the lid of the Dumpster and tossed inside the black plastic bags, listening to them land softly on trash that had built up for the past two weeks and now had a familiar, sickening stench when the lid was raised. That was good, because when the Dumpster was lifted and emptied in the truck, what was on top would be on the bottom, and least likely to be found.
42
Missouri, 1999
The shadow in the corner of the boxcar moved, then stood up and became a tall, potbellied man with a dark beard and gray-streaked hair grown down to his shoulders.
“You two hopped rides on trains before?” he asked.
“First time,” Jasmine said. She sounded almost cheerful, as if they were talking about learning to ride a bicycle.
The man smiled. A couple of teeth were missing, giving him a jovial, carved-pumpkin expression. “I’m Kirby,” he said. He was holding what looked like a gin or vodka bottle. He started to take a drink, then realized the bottle was empty. He skillfully dropped it on the leather toe of his shoe so it wouldn’t break on the boxcar floor and leave grass shards. It rolled whole and harmless away. The whole process looked as if he’d done it countless times before.
Jordan hadn’t moved since noticing the man. “Jordan,” he said, by way of introduction.
There was a slight dip in the rails, causing the car to lurch and sway. Everyone flexed their knees and rode it out.
Looking dubious, Kirby said, “You two sure this is new to you?”
“We’re sure,” Jasmine said.
Kirby stretched as if to show off his height and muscles in contrast to Jordan’s slightness. He looked anything but fit, yet he still held the undeniable advantage in size and strength over Jordan.
“What we gotta do right off,” Kirby said, “is get these boxcar doors partway shut so we won’t draw any attention. Y’unerstan’?”
“Sure,” Jasmine said. “We wanna look like the other boxcars, but not so much that we won’t have enough hiding space to stay outta sight.”
Kirby smiled at her, looking like a happy pumpkin with selectively missing teeth. Then he aimed his smile at Jordan. “This is a smart and sexy little gal you got here.”
Jordan didn’t know what to say to that. Simply muttered, “Thanks.”
Jasmine looked at him, as if for the first time a balance had shifted. He seemed scared, and that scared her.
She wasn’t the only one scared. Jordan wished he had a weapon. A stout club. Even a gun. The only thing he had that could do damage was his folding knife in his jeans pocket, with its four-inch blade. He knew it would take too long to fish the knife out of his tight jeans and open it with both hands.
He was standing near one of the wide-open doors, his feet spread wide so he could maintain his balance in the swaying boxcar. Outside, only a few feet from him, green scenery glided past.
“You kids’ll get used to it,” Kirby said.
“Used to what?” Jordan asked. He saw that Kirby was now standing closer to Jasmine.
“Bein’ on the road. It’s hard till you know the ropes, then you catch on.”
“To what?” Jordan asked.
“To where you can grab some sleep, find a meal. An’ stay outta harm’s way. Y’unerstan’?”
“Sure.”
“An’ you gotta know who your friends are.”
Kirby moved suddenly, causing Jordan to jerk his body and step protectively toward Jasmine.
But Kirby was merely moving to one of the wide-open boxcar doors.
He pushed sideways on the heavy steel door to close it, but it didn’t move.
“Sometimes they don’t close so easy,” he said. “This one slides rough. Gimme a hand, Jordan.”
Jordan made his way over, and the two of them leaned hard into the door. It didn’t budge.
“Sum’bitch is like it’s welded,” Kirby said.
Suddenly the door slid easily halfway closed and then jammed. Jordan had fallen to his knees. As he stood up, he saw that Kirby was watching Jasmine. He couldn’t keep his eyes from her.
“Only open it partways,” he said to Jordan. “Leave it about two feet from bein’ closed, then we’ll do that to the other door. That way we’ll have some cross ventilation and light in here, and we’ll still be outta sight unless somebody pokes his head in and looks around close.”
Jordan recalled how invisible Kirby had been in the shadows when he and Jasmine first got into the boxcar. Kirby had been nice enough so far, but Jordan knew enough not to eat the whole apple.
His right knee was plenty sore where he’d bumped it on the floor. He crawled over to where Jasmine sat near an open door, then sat down beside her with his back against the boxcar’s plywood side. Along with Jasmine, he stared out at the trees and fields. At the distance. He’d never been this far from home.
Kirby was sitting across from them, near where the other door was open but only a few feet.
“How far you two goin’?” Kirby asked. Here and there straw and white packing tablets lay on the boxcar’s plank floor. He had a strand of straw stuck in the corner of his mouth like a toothpick. It rotated in a wide arc as he moved his tongue around.
“All the way east,” Jordan said.
Kirby stared across the boxcar at Jasmine.
“This train’s gonna stop at Jeff City,” he said. “Then it’ll go on to St. Louis, where it’ll switch out.”
“Switch out?”
“Uncouple and sit empty till it gets hooked to another engine. We just need to avoid the railroad dicks.”
“We’ll figure out how to make our way,” Jordan said.
Jasmine smiled at him, reaching over and squeezing his wrist.
Kirby sneezed, spat out his straw, and struggled to his feet in the swaying boxcar. He reached into a back pocket as if to draw out a handkerchief.
Instead he was gripping something in a small gray cloth bag the size of a sock.
“What’s that?” Jasmine asked.
Kirby smiled, then said, “Candy.”
Only it wasn’t candy; it was gravel. And it formed a hard lump in the toe of the sock that made it an efficient sap.
43
Kirby swung the sap hard at Jordan’s head but hit his shoulder instead, said, “Sum’bitch!” and swung again. This time he missed entirely and almost fell as the boxcar jerked.
Then the girl, who appeared to be so frail, was on him like a tiger and much stronger than she looked.
“Ow! Friggin’ country bitches,” he yelled as her sharp fingernails dug hard into the sides of his neck.
He pushed her away and she fell back. Got halfway up then stumbled and fell again.
The pulsing and swaying boxcar was Kirb
y’s friend now. He could dispense with these two easily.
He turned toward the boy, but he was no longer there. That puzzled Kirby. He thought he’d hit Jordan hard enough to break a collarbone. The kid should be incapacitated.
So what’d he do? Jump outta the boxcar? Was the feisty little bastard lying in the darkness? Was he off the train and running and hiding in the night?
Jordan charged out of the blackness at the other end of the boxcar and hit Kirby at the knees; Kirby went down hard, and Jordan crawled up his back and twined an arm around Kirby’s right arm and was twisting it, causing Kirby to yelp. He tried to push himself up with his left arm so he could stand, but Jordan punched the arm out from beneath him and Kirby went face-first against the hard floor.
Kirby yelped again. Damned farm kids spend their lives at hard labor, gettin’ strong before they get smart. Twice as strong as they look. Kirby spat blood and figured he’d be lucky if his nose wasn’t broken.
This is wrong! I don’t deserve this! I need to be left alone!
But he knew he was too late. He couldn’t surrender to himself. And nobody else was listening.
Here came the girl again. What the hell was she doin’ now? Wrestling with both of them. Almost like she was attacking Jordan.
But that notion was dispelled when her teeth sank into Kirby’s bare heel, and he was angry with himself now for using the sock as a sap and then missing his target. Friggin’ Jordan kid should be the one down with his head split open.
What was the bitch doin’ with Jordan now? Tryin’ to take his pants down? What the hell? Was fighting for her life getting her hot?
Despite his bruises and bite marks, Kirby was feeling more confident. Jordan might be on top, but he was weakening. Jasmine kept clawing at him like she was trying to work down his Levi’s.
What she would do then, only God knew.
Then he realized what Jasmine was attempting to do.
Sum’bitch!
Jasmine felt another fingernail bend back and tear as she clawed at the rough denim of Jordan’s jeans. She grabbed the edge of a side pocket, gripped and pulled, and the fingernail felt as if it had torn completely loose.
She felt the wetness of blood.
It made her fight all the harder.
Jordan was squirming around now, understanding and trying to help her. He couldn’t help much. One of Kirby’s arms was pinned beneath him, the other bent back and pinned by Jordan, but he was a powerful man and still plenty dangerous.
“You kids stop this right now!” he yelled. As if they’d attacked him and started the hostilities.
Jasmine got three fingers into Jordan’s side pocket and felt the smooth handle of the folding knife he always carried. She was elated. If she could just work the knife all the way out of the pocket, she could use one hand to open it with her teeth, then this struggle would end and that would be the end of Kirby.
How she hated him at that moment. He’d attempted to steal their future for whatever he could loot from their cold dead bodies.
Their future!
Her blood served as a lubricant. She worked, worked with her mangled fingers and felt the handle of the knife clear the edge of the pocket.
It was halfway out.
“You kids stop this now!”
“We ain’t kids,” Jordan said.
“And we ain’t gonna stop,” Jasmine added.
“I’m warnin’ you!” Kirby yelled. “You’re gonna be in a lotta trouble!”
“For doin’ to you what you were gonna do to us?” Jasmine said. And the knife was free.
Jasmine gripped the knife as best she could in her uninjured hand. Like most folding knives it had a groove along the back of the blade where you could hook your fingernails into it and pull the blade open.
“A lotta trouble!” Kirby chose for his last words.
Jasmine didn’t have the fingernails for this task. She gripped the knife carefully by its handle, holding her torn nails so they were under the least possible pressure.
Kirby knew death was on its way and bucked powerfully.
Jasmine was straddling him now, staring at a pulsing blue artery in his neck. She fixed her eyes on it, knowing the knife would go directly to its target. Drew her knife hand back and gripped it hard.
Too hard.
The blood from her torn nails had made the smooth knife handle even smoother, and too slippery to hold.
Jasmine felt it slide out from between her fingers like a watermelon seed. She made a futile grab for the knife, praying even that she could catch it by the blade.
But Kirby had worked his pinned arm free and grabbed at the knife while it was suspended in midair. He couldn’t get a grip on it but he knocked it away. It went skittering across the boxcar floor, out of everyone’s reach.
Kirby used his free arm to punch Jordan in the side of his head, then shoved him away along with Jasmine. He started to crawl toward the knife. Jordan was only half conscious, and Jasmine was winded
“I’ll show you little pissants somethin’ now!” Kirby wheezed.
Jasmine was terrified that he was right. He was closest to the knife, and could move faster and was stronger than either of them. She and Jordan were as good as dead.
Until her hand closed on a sock full of gravel.
She started crawling faster toward Kirby, not toward the knife itself. That puzzled him for a few seconds.
A few seconds were enough.
The first blow with the makeshift sap dazed Kirby.
Then Jasmine mounted him like a horse and hit him again and again and again . . .
The train was on the flat now, and in vast darkness. It speeded along, making time, toward the bright mystery of its wavering light far ahead. The train wouldn’t go anywhere but straight for miles, and the source of the light was unseen, a wavering unsteady glow up ahead and off to the sides.
Jordan and Jasmine were still breathing hard, in concert with the rhythms of the train rattling through the fields.
Jasmine said, “Let’s get rid of him.”
Jordan, leaning with his back against the swaying boxcar wall, looked over at Kirby stretched out motionless on the floor. It was too dark to see for sure, but there seemed to be a lot of blood around Kirby’s head. Kirby’s mouth was open. His eyes looked to be only half closed. His expression was that of a man slyly planning, except for the fact that he was so still. The dead didn’t plan.
Jasmine got up, her body swaying with the boxcar so she could maintain her balance. Jordan used the boxcar wall as a support helping him to get to his feet. Fighting off dizziness, he almost fell.
They made their way to where Kirby lay.
“He gone?” Jasmine asked.
“Far as we’re concerned,” Jordan said. “Time for Mister Kirby to get off the train.”
Together, they gripped Kirby by his shirt and leather belt and inched him toward the open steel door. He’d left a large bloodstain, glistening black in the darkness.
Jasmine sat down on the floor and shoved Kirby along with both feet. Jordan, with a wide stance, stood over Kirby and used Kirby’s belt to lift him slightly and shove him toward the black rectangle of the door.
They pushed together, using all their might. Kirby’s arm jammed in the door, as if he didn’t want to leave.
Then the arm came loose, and he was out in the black night, as if plucked from the train by someone or something that had been waiting for him all along. Jordan leaned out the door and looked toward the back of the train. There was Kirby, his momentum still tumbling him along near the steel wheels. Then he bounced into invisibility and the night had him.
“Dead or alive,” Jordan said, “nobody’s gonna find him for a while. And if he’s dead, or even just unconscious, it’ll take a while to figure he fell off a train.”
Jasmine knew the rails would be all the clue the police would need to tell them where the body had come from, but she didn’t mention it to Jordan. He was still shaken up and not thinking straight
.
He leaned back against the swaying boxcar wall and closed his eyes.
The train rattled on through the night.
44
New York, the present
It was a surprisingly cool morning. Quinn and Pearl were walking along Broadway toward Zabar’s to have breakfast and then buy some pastry for the rest of the Q&A personnel.
It had rained slightly during the night, but now the sky was cloudless. The colorful lines of traffic-stalled cars were punctuated by the occasional yellow cab. Sunlight glancing off concrete, steel, and glass made everything look recently washed, which in a way was the case. Here and there, glitters of dew still clung to weeds or grass that had inched their way up between edges and cracks in the pavement.
Pearl’s cell phone chimed and she walked slower and fished it out of her purse. She was afraid the caller was her mother, whom she deliberately and shamelessly saw too little of. But when she squinted down at the phone she saw the caller was her daughter, Jody.
Pearl and Quinn slowed to a near stop. A passerby bounced off Quinn, glared at him, and then looked closer and sweetened up.
“What’s up?” Pearl asked her daughter. It was a question she never asked without some trepidation.
“I went out to see Gramma at Assisted Living. She says she misses you, told me to let you know you should give her a call at the nursing home.”
“Nursing home” was what Pearl’s mother called Sunset Assisted Living in New Jersey, where she had a well-furnished one-bedroom apartment. The kind of place that would have cost a million and a half dollars in Manhattan.
“That all?” It was a short message to be coming from Pearl’s mother.
“No,” Jody said. “She wants us to buy her something here in the city.”
“You know about real estate prices in Manhattan. She’s better off—”
“No, no, Mom. She doesn’t want a better apartment—at least not now. She needs one of those folding contraptions with metal claws on the end of a long pole. For picking up objects she can’t reach.”