by Susan Dunlap
It swerved, clipping her bumper. The pick-up bounced. She yanked the wheel sharp right. Her window was open. “Biiiiittch!” cut in through the wailing of horns and wind and the sound of her own breath. “Damn right!” she yelled as she pulled around the truck and two trailers to the front of the RV line into the clear northbound lane.
The dark and the silence startled her. There was nothing to do now but drive. She expected police sirens; none came. There was no train whistle, just silence. 10:46. Two minutes to go almost two miles. The road was empty; she floored the pedal, but the old truck barely jolted forward. Sweat poured off her face, ran down her back; her breath was thick and short, her hands stiff on the wheel. She rattled forward, looking neither right nor left, barreling through intersections, swinging around a station wagon, her foot jammed against the gas pedal.
The road ended without warning at a T. On the far side were woods, and nearer the road, weeds and railroad tracks. Empty tracks. 10:52. No train. No Malloy getting on. No Bentec hopping off. Just trees, and naked tracks. Could the train really have come four minutes ago, on time, and be gone? She followed the tracks to the left a quarter mile or less. It wasn’t empty there.
She turned and drove slowly by the clutch of vehicles. Pickup trucks sat parallel-parked very legally. There had to be a dozen, all in a line facing east. At the head of the line was one flatbed big enough to haul away a railroad container. In every truck a man sat in the driver’s seat, as if ready to go. The drivers could have been buddies fresh from a bar across the street. Sitting in their dark cabs, the men could have been taking a moment to get themselves oriented before driving home. No one but her would guess they were waiting for the train.
A train whistle up the track cut her speculation. She was beyond the trucks when it struck her she was going downhill, down the Richland grade. The men were waiting at the top, the spot where Malloy would get off. But where would he get on the train? She stepped on the gas and headed slowly west, paralleling the track, unsure now just what her plan was.
The whistle shrieked, louder now, closer. The road dropped downhill. She downshifted the old truck and swung left around a curve.
In the distance one startlingly bright light shone on the tracks. The train’s engine light. The train was stopped.
Sixty-Three
AS LIZA STARED OUT the window into the blackness, a tall, sandy-haired man—Malloy—materialized into the rhomboid of light from the window and strode toward the front steps into the car.
She nodded toward Bentec. He moved into a defensive position. When Malloy stepped into the car he’d see a four-foot-long compartment to his left; he would not see Bentec flattened against its far wall. When Malloy moved down the aisle Bentec would pounce. It was her chance; she had to be ready. She stooped behind the seat halfway down the aisle, five yards beyond Bentec.
Malloy pulled the door open. Cold wind shot through the car. “Liza,” he demanded. “Come here.”
She froze. Bentec smiled and she felt colder yet. Peering through the hand hold at the end of the seat she watched as Malloy stepped inside, and scowled in her direction, unsure just which seat she was hiding behind.
She didn’t move, barely breathed. She had to get Malloy moving slowly, checking seats, give Bentec time to strike.
Malloy eyed the middle of the car. He started forward. In three more steps he’d pass the compartment wall and Bentec would move. She braced to move.
Bentec’s voice rang out. “The money? Where is it?”
Malloy jerked to a stop. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the deal breaker. Bring me the money or it’s off. Got that?”
“First give me Liza Silvestri.” A whine of excitement undercut Malloy’s small-town cadence. His voice terrified her almost as much as his demand.
“She’s all yours, Malloy. Do whatever you want with her. As soon as I get the money.”
Each man could see the other’s hazy reflection in the windows now. Neither moved: Bentec tense at alert; Malloy, icy, figuring his odds. Bentec just wanted her dead. With Malloy it would be much worse. With him she’d have no chance.
Malloy waved a hand in the doorway. A brown duffle, huge, slid in behind him. “One of two,” Malloy offered. “Now where is she?”
Bentec smiled. “Get your ass up here, Silvestri.”
If she didn’t move; made him move through the car looking for her…
“She’s hiding in the middle, Malloy.”
There was no use in putting it off. She took a breath, and stood up.
Malloy’s face tightened in suspicion. “Silvestri! Move!”
She strode slowly forward, aware of each foot striking the floor, of Bentec’s impatience, Malloy’s suppressed triumph. She kept them both in sight, alert for her chance, careful not even to glance at the second seat across the aisle where her purse lay. By the front seat she stopped, waited. Bentec’s breath soured the air. She could smell the dust on Malloy’s shoes. A cold wind shot through the door. In the distance car engines roared to starts. A crossing bell sounded, ringing for the train that wasn’t moving.
“The other suitcase?” Bentec demanded.
“First the container number. What is it?”
Bentec stayed silent.
“The number!” Malloy yelled. Malloy assumed Bentec knew the container number. Malloy needed Bentec alive. The power shifted; all three of them knew it.
Bentec moved into the aisle, stood arms crossed, as if he had all of L.A.P.D. backing him up. A yard separated the men. “You produced a suitcase, I produced her. You want the number, pony up the rest of the money.”
Her throat closed. The number had been her only currency. Bentec didn’t know the number; she did. But Malloy would never believe that. She had nothing.
“The suitcase, Malloy.” Bentec shifted into an easier stance. The veteran negotiator. “Look, I know you’ve got men out there, what do you think I’m going to do, grab these cases and sprint off while your guys diddle themselves?”
Malloy stiffened, stayed dead still, then turned and nodded toward the door.
Another suitcase—a satchel—came through the door.
The satchel smacked down on the floor. In that instant, Bentec drew his gun. Malloy reached into his jacket.
“Don’t even think about it, scum. Keep those hands where I can see them.”
Malloy poked his arms straight forward.
“Good boy. Now nudge those bags forward, toward me. Use your feet.”
Malloy slid his foot forward, toe and instep under the satchel and kicked. The bag sailed into Bentec’s shins. Bentec jumped back. Liza watched Malloy reach under his sweater and begin to pull out a gun. It happened fast, but she was watching in slow motion, and because of that there was an instant in which she could have yelled out, warned Bentec, the man who had burned Wes’s house with Wes and Ellen in it.
She watched in silence as Malloy shot him.
Bentec howled, “No!” He sounded not surprised but outraged. His scream drowned out the train whistle. He banged to the floor.
Malloy glanced at him, shrugged and motioned her away, back toward the middle of the car.
She reached for the duffle.
Malloy put out a hand. “Do not worry about the money, Liza. You will not have any need of that in Hanford.”
Sixty-Four
LIZA SAT ON THE arm of the second seat in the dimly lit passenger car. Malloy had stepped over Bentec’s body and walked ten feet down the aisle. He was standing three seats away from her. He’d said nothing more and she had made no move to prod him. His whole body was quivering like a truck ready to burn rubber. He was staring toward her, his gray eyes squinting, his forehead crinkled. A small, satisfied smile pulled against the lines of his face. As he looked her up and down his face shifted, the smile changed revealing the greed beneath it. She could tell he wanted her, but not in the way any other man had lusted after her.
She sat, using the width of her body to shield the purse on
the seat behind her. To her left, in the space by the door, Bentec lay silent, just a corpse now. His silver gun had fallen inches from his fingers. The cash-stuffed satchel and the duffle were on either side of him.
Malloy paid no mind to the corpse or the bags or even Bentec’s gun.
Behind her in her purse lay Bentec’s nine-millimeter, the weapon that had failed to keep Jay safe. Small chance of turning around, rooting between tissue and wallet, extricating the gun and shooting. So many guns, so little time, she thought, and in the surreal atmosphere of the sepia-lit car, she laughed.
Malloy’s forehead bunched in what might have been disgust or pleasure. “You will photograph well. The television cameras will have zoom lenses. The wire of your cage will not be a hindrance. Yes, you will be the perfect victim.”
She tried to block his words, but she couldn’t block the icy terror in her chest.
The train jolted forward.
Ellen sat stopped at a traffic light by the railroad crossing, a two-lane road to her left. Behind her, tiny in her rearview, stood the parked trucks. Ahead were small buildings with dim lights—bars, she guessed. Across the street was a wide dark shoulder dotted with discarded cans that sparkled in the light from passing cars, and beyond that the railroad track. She could see the train, moving slowly up the grade toward her as if it had just started, the engine’s headlamp creating a moving oval of day. It was little more than a quarter of a mile away.
She had had a plan. But now she didn’t know if this was even the right train. She was a practical woman and no practical woman made a decision on data like that.
And yet, if Liza—
If the guns—
The train was picking up speed.
If it got to the top of the grade, with Malloy’s men there—
The whistle blew. In a minute the engine would be in the crossing. All thoughts of planning vanished. She hauled the crumpled newspapers up onto the seat beside her, pulled the cigarette lighter out of the glove compartment and set the papers ablaze. Flames leapt up so fast they startled her.
She hung a right, onto the tracks, pulled on the brake and jumped clear.
Running all out, she raced across the tracks, away from the street. Metal shrieked against metal—the train’s brakes fighting hundreds of tons of metal, the engineer fighting to stop before he hit the burning truck. The great horn blared panic; the vibrations smacked her. Under the trees, she turned back, panting. The cab of the old yellow truck was burning red. Flames reached out the window like arms of wild children.
Without waiting to see if the train could stop in time, she raced alongside. In the dark she slipped on a jumble of rocks and barely righted herself. Her breath was coming in bursts as she ran, looking up at blank-walled container car after container car.
Wheels squealed; the train lurched to a stop.
The railroad car jolted forward, boomeranged back, slinging Bentec’s corpse against the front seats. Luggage flew. Metal shrieked on metal. Liza smacked back into the seat. Sirens screamed. Malloy stumbled back against a seat. He caught himself. Liza rolled onto the floor. Her purse shifted but the heavy nine-millimeter held it on the seat. The butt was sticking out. If she could pull the purse after her—
Malloy yelled, “Don’t!”
He stepped closer. His gun was still in his right hand. He braced that arm against the seat back, and reached for the purse.
The train gave one more great jolt. Malloy grabbed the top of the seat, his eyes fixed on her purse. Metal scraped, clattered. Bentec’s silver gun was sliding down the aisle. On the far side of the aisle. Too far. There was no chance—She reached toward it. Malloy looked from her to it, and lunged for it.
Liza turned, grabbed the nine-millimeter, still half in the purse, and shot with both hands on the trigger. Shot again and again and again till the clip was empty.
Malloy shifted. He looked merely uncomfortable, then his bent knees collapsed and he fell back against the seat and slid to the floor. He uttered no cry.
Ellen yanked the passenger-car door open. Bodies. Blood, redder than blood should be. And Liza, lying in it like a rag, pale, lank, two-dimensional, that huge gun Jay had given her in her hand. “Oh, no! Liza! No!”
Liza pushed herself onto her side. “Omigod, Ellen. I thought you were dead. The fire Bentec set? I thought you died. You and Wes escaped!”
“I escaped.”
Liza pointed to Malloy’s body. “He’s dead. I shot him till the gun just clicked.”
Ellen pulled her onto the seat, hugged her hard and felt Liza shaking in her arms. The gun was still in Liza’s hand. Ellen pulled it free, wiped it as best she could, and tossed it near Bentec. “We’ve got to get out of here. Those bags, are they the money?”
Liza nodded.
“Grab one.” Bentec’s body blocked the way. Ellen looked down at him, the man who killed Wes. She braced her hands on the seats, swung her foot all the way back, and kicked him as hard as she could. It wasn’t enough, not nearly. “Come on, Liza, we’ve got to move.”
She opened the outside door. Sirens shrieked. It sounded like every police car and fire engine in Washington. Brakes squealed. Car doors slammed. She jumped to the ground and dragged the duffle after. Now, in the dark she could make out people running across the street forward toward the engine, toward Wes’s old yellow pick-up that was sending up spumes of red and black.
“It’s gonna blow,” a man yelled. “Hurry.”
She turned to see Liza jump from the train and lurch as the satchel yanked her toward the ground.
Metal doors banged—trucks. Where had all these people come from? Now she could see men running not toward the engine but back toward the passenger car. Terror spiked down her spine. “Oh, Jeez, Malloy’s men.”
Liza nodded. She pointed to a dark van. “Over there, get behind it. Hurry.”
Ellen ran around the bumper and crouched down.
Liza dropped the satchel next to her and stood panting, staring down at it. “The bags, they’re too big. We can’t run with them. You’re going to have to bring the truck here.”
Ellen collapsed against the van. “I can’t believe it. What was I thinking? Oh, Liza, I’m so sorry.”
“What?”
“See the fire up in front of the train? That’s our truck.”
She didn’t know what she expected from Liza then, but Liza merely glanced toward the fire and said, “No, Ellen, that was our old truck. There are trucks all around us. You’ll find us a new one.”
“Right. I will find us a new one.” She moved clear of the van and fell in behind a man with a dog headed toward the fire. She shifted toward the road, eyeing pick-ups, checking for empty cabs, listening for engines idling.
She slowed, letting the sightseers pass.
“Get back!” a man yelled ahead, but men and women still rushed toward the fire.
A dark pick-up idled. She skidded to a stop, checked the cab. Empty.
She reached for the driver’s door, then caught herself. This wasn’t right. Ahead was the right vehicle. She ran three yards to a pick-up with a shell on the back. The engine was idling and the truck was facing her, facing in the direction of the train’s passenger car, facing west. She stepped up into the cab, pulled off the emergency brake and shifted the truck forward till she came to Liza. “Hop in.”
Sixty-Five
ELLEN HUNG A U in front of a van and headed back east, barely missing three stragglers lopping toward the fire. At the intersection the light turned red. She ran it.
“Hey, show some restraint!”
“This from you, Liza?” Ellen squeezed her shoulder. “God, I’m glad…I’m just so glad you’re alive.”
“Alive and likely to be in jail if you don’t watch the speed limit. Just because you stopped a train you think you’re invincible?” There was a wildness to Liza’s voice.
Ellen was just as ungrounded. “We just need to put some distance between us and the train. Then we’re okay. No one’s going to rep
ort this truck stolen.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. That’s why I chose this one. Pointed west, with the engine running. And Idaho plates. This little truck belongs to one of Malloy’s men and you can bet he’s not going to the police.”
Liza let out a laugh. “Ellen, I am proud of you.” She was wedged in between the duffle bag and the satchel. She clambered over one and planted a kiss on Ellen’s cheek. “I can’t believe it, that we’re really here, alive, we’re free, together.”
Tears gushed down Ellen’s face.
Liza stretched awkwardly over the luggage and hugged her. Behind them a bus honked. Liza jerked back but Ellen held her there a moment longer, feeling her breath on her face, her arms quivering around her, the warmth of her.
The bus honked again. Ellen gave her a squeeze and let go.
Liza slumped back and the wildness was gone from her voice as she said, “Wes would be proud, too. You really did stop the train with the weapons on it. You did that. He’d be real proud.” Her voice cracked. “Oh, God, Ellen, I’m so sorry. He was such a great guy. He was…”
Ellen swallowed hard. “The best.” She reached over and took Liza’s hand. It was ice cold. She had to keep her eyes on the road and now she was glad of it. She had never considered herself an emotional person, but she felt so much—love, misery, fear, and the beginnings of hope. She really was on the verge of losing control. Beside her Liza huddled between the bags and said nothing.
A light turned red. The car ahead stopped and there was no question of running this light. “One good thing, Liza,” she said, taking comfort in facts, “we don’t need to worry about the container on the train. In L.A. they know all those weapons are missing. Once the cops ID Bentec they’ll look for the guns.”
“And for us.”
“They don’t know what we’re driving.”
“But they do know where we are.”
She shot a glance at Liza, this woman who was suddenly thinking ahead, watching out for pitfalls, this practical woman. But the bedraggled blonde nestled amidst the luggage looked almost like a child. The aura of sophistication that had surrounded Liza from her first step onto St. Enid’s was gone. The traffic light turned green; cars moved, and oncoming headlights flashed on Liza’s face, showing it wan, slack, as if the muscles no longer connected in the same way, as if they were balanced precariously between her past and future.