The Hanging of Samuel Ash (24 page)

He dialed Division and leaned back in his chair. When Eddie answered, Hook said, “Eddie, Runyon here.”

“You been on vacation or something, Runyon? I ain't heard a word out of you.”

“I've been kind of busy, Eddie. I pulled Moose Barrick in for derailing cars and stealing freight. Caught the head honcho who has been running the pickpocket scam, and listened to Frenchy bitch for three hundred miles. Other than that, I haven't been doing a damn thing.”

“I need you in Wellington. Someone's breaking car seals out there.”

Hook ducked down to check the window.

“Someone's always breaking car seals somewhere, Eddie. It's not exactly an emergency. Anyway, I have a hotbox on that junker caboose. I need her towed in and repaired.”

“Goddang it, Hook, how come you're always where you ain't needed?”

“I'll have Junior check it out when he comes through Wellington. He's clearing the line back from KC, making sure we've rounded up the last of those pickpockets.”

“He's not there to do your job, Runyon. You were supposed to keep him out of trouble, teach him something.”

“It will be great experience for the kid.”

“I don't want nothing happening to that boy, you hear.”

“Why don't you pay off that loan to his old man, Eddie? He's got you by the balls, and you can't stop dancing.”

“What loan? What the hell you talking about?”

“I'm not one to preach, Eddie, but there's a rule I live my life by: never a lender nor borrower be. I suggest you think about that. Got to run now, Eddie. There's work to be done.”

Hook checked the window once again before dialing Popeye.

“Clovis,” Popeye said.

“This is Hook, Popeye.”

“When did you get back in town?”

“I'm in Carmen.”

“I heard you nailed old Moose.”

“That's right.”

“The son of a bitch,” Popeye said.

“Listen, Popeye, you heard from Junior Monroe?”

“I never did get that money, Hook. Guess you misplaced the address.”

“I'll pay you soon as I get back. Jesus, you'd think it was a lot instead of just two dollars, and I always pay you back, don't I?”

“I think it's three, Hook, and mostly you just wait until I forget altogether. You probably owe me a couple of thousand, truth be known.”

“About Junior Monroe?”

“Yeah, he called in.”

“Well?”

“Says he's thinking about giving up yard dogging after that ride on the stock train to Kansas City. Says he's thinking about not being a persecutor, too.”

“Prosecutor,” Hook said.

“Whatever. So, I says, ‘Yard dogging is less work for the money than about anything else you can do, Junior.'”

“When he calls in, tell him someone's busting car seals over in Wellington. I need him to check it out.”

“I'll tell him.”

“And I'll get that two dollars to you soon, Popeye. Don't you worry about a thing.”

*   *   *

Miss Feola's secretary looked up. “Mr. Runyon,” she said. “Miss Feola is expecting you. Please go on in.”

A crucifix hung on the wall behind Miss Feola's head, like the rising sun, and a Roman missal lay open on her desk.

Her hair, pulled back in a bun, highlighted the perfection of her widow's peak. The room smelled of incense, sandalwood maybe. She stood and reached for his hand.

“Mr. Runyon, my apologies for not being able to see you yesterday.”

“I should have called,” he said.

“Please, sit.”

He pulled up a chair and dropped his prosthesis below the rim of the desk.

“You've only just arrived at Agape, then?” he asked.

“Yes. I'm from the East, actually, Italian, as you probably have surmised from my name. I'm still trying to find my way around.”

Hook reached for his cigarettes and then put them back into his pocket.

“And did you work for an orphanage back East?”

She smiled, a smile that lit up her eyes. “I lived in a nunnery there. I found I didn't have the temperament for such a life. This work struck me as a logical alternative, though I failed to imagine how different living in a small town could be.”

“I'll be damned, a nunnery.”

“And you're the Santa Fe railroad bull?”

“That's right,” he said.

“And have you always been a railroad bull?”

“No, I was a baby for a while, but folks don't much take to babies with hooks.”

She looked at him, her brow furrowed. “Really.”

“So I took up bumming on the rails. Had the temperament for it alright, but the pay didn't work out.”

“So that's how you became a railroad bull?”

“It was either that or being the president,” he said. “And that job had been taken.”

“I've never known a railroad bull,” she said.

“We don't hang out at nunneries much.”

She folded her hands in front of her. “Are you ever serious, Mr. Runyon?”

“It's Hook,” he said. “And I'm dead serious about finding Samuel Ash's people. I had been led to believe he lived here in Carmen at one time. So far I have found no one who ever heard of him. I thought to come here on the outside chance of a lead.”

“Well, I took the opportunity to speak with Mr. Eagleman, the cook, and Buck, the farm manager. None has heard of a Samuel Ash. I'm sorry we can be of no help.”

“Have they all been here awhile?”

“Why, no. The cook came on just before me. It's my understanding that Mr. Eagleman and Buck have been here for many years.”

“Skink tells me the turnover in children is considerable.”

“Yes, you could say that. It
is
an orphanage.”

“It's possible they may have forgotten this Samuel Ash, then?”

“Possible, I suppose, but it hardly seems likely.”

“Perhaps there are records we could check?”

She placed her chin in her hand and dropped a finger across her lips.

“There are records, of course, but confidential. Mr. Eagleman secures the files in his office. The records are private, as you must appreciate. Like I said, this is an orphanage, Mr. Runyon, and these children have been placed here for many reasons, some of which are quite sensitive. While under our care, their privacy has to be protected. Even
my
access is limited to certain background information.”

She looked at her watch. “I'm sorry we were unable to help. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment in Avard and need to get there before dark.”

“Avard?”

“That's right. Do you know it?”

Hook stood. “I'm living there, temporarily, I mean. In fact, I'm hopping a short haul back today, providing there's one headed out.”

“Short haul?”

“An engine with a few cars in tow going a short distance.”

“You jump on them?”

“Something like that.”

“But isn't it dangerous?”

“Only if you fall off,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Miss Feola.”

She came around the desk. “Celia, please. Mr. Runyon, Hook, I'm taking the orphanage car over now. Perhaps you'd like a lift? I'd hate being responsible for you falling off a short haul.”

“I'd hate that myself,” he said. “You mind telling me why you're going there? There's not much happening in Avard as I recall.”

“Well, I suppose I could say since you
are
with the law, aren't you?”

“More or less,” he said.

“Welfare is meeting me there with a young girl who has been orphaned. She lived with her grandmother who died a few days ago from a stroke. She has no place to go. They've asked that we take her in until things can be sorted out. I'm picking her up and bringing her back here to the orphanage.”

Hook stood. “Do you know her name?”

“Why, yes,” she said. “It's Bet, I believe. Bet Haimes.”

 

26

 

C
ELIA ADJUSTED THE
car seat and stretched a trim leg for the gas pedal and sighed. “Why is it men think it's their privilege to leave the toilet seat up and the car seat back?”

Hook rolled the window down. “It's a problem I haven't given much thought,” he said. “Consider the toilet seat. There's two choices as I see it: it's either left up or it's left down. Leaving it up could result in a certain amount of distress and effort for those who follow, I suppose. However, knowing the poor aim of most men, leaving it down might well have a less desirable outcome than putting it up.”

She reached for the key and started up the car, looking over her shoulder as she backed out.

When they'd pulled out onto the main road, she said, “There's a third solution here.”

Hook looked at her. “I can't figure what?”

“Put the toilet seat up. When finished, put it back down.”

Hook pulled at his chin. “I concede to the logic but object to the unfairness of the proposition, given men would have to both put it up and then put it down, while women wouldn't have to do either.”

Celia rolled her eyes. “You haven't been married, have you?”

“No, I haven't.”

“Well, now we know why.”

“I admit some compromise is called for, though the overall significance of the issue is in question. It boils down to no more than a point of view, as I see it.”

“That's because it's not happening to you.”

“Riding on top of a moving railcar behind a whizzer puts the whole situation into perspective, I can assure you,” he said.

Celia laughed and brought the car up to speed.

“I don't mean to be nosey, Celia, not entirely anyway, but what makes a girl decide to hide away in a nunnery in the first place?”

Hanging her arm over the steering wheel, she said, “It's hard to explain. I wanted to live purely, I suppose, with singular purpose. I wanted the path of my life to be straight and clear. I thought I could do that in the nunnery.”

“And that didn't happen?”

She shook her head. “All of my confusion and doubts and weaknesses followed me right through the gates.”

“Life's rarely clear
or
pure, no matter where you put it,” he said. “And the only straight line I know is that one that leads from birth to death.”

She pushed her hair from her face. “A philosophical yard dog? Really?”

“Don't underestimate a yard dog's sensitivity. I never busted a man in my life what it didn't give me pause.”

“I see, and what exactly does a yard dog do?”

“Solves crimes on the go, catches boes and pickpockets and renegade strikers. It's all fine blow at the pool hall, but, fact is, most hoboes are just looking for that purpose you talked about, knowing it's not where they been, hoping it's where they're going. Yard dogs are more or less on the same hunt, difference being it comes with a salary.

“Course, there are a few here and there who are escaping what they couldn't face and walking over what gets in their way in the process.”

“And they are the dangerous ones?” she asked.

Hook turned to the window to let the sun warm his face. “The danger is in not knowing which ones are which.”

They turned onto the dirt road leading to Avard. The white elevators towered on the horizon.

Celia grew quiet. “I've not picked up a child for the orphanage before,” she said. “I'm a bit nervous. She is all alone now and probably terrified.”

“I know Bet, some at least,” he said. “I'm thinking she's a tough kid and in the end will do what has to be done.”

“You know her?”

“I owe her money. It's a sure way to seal a friendship,” he said. “There, turn down the tracks to that caboose.”

“Excuse me?”

“The red caboose just down there. It's where I live.”

“You live in a caboose?”

“If you call it living. Bet's been taking care of my dog, Mixer. I had no idea about her grandma being sick.”

Celia pulled into the shade of the elm that grew along the right-of-way.

“But this is railroad property.”

“And under my watch,” he said. “Your car will be just fine here.”

Hook got out and stuck his head back in the window. “Would you care to come in?”

She checked her watch. “I've an hour before she's due to arrive. But…”

“You needn't worry, Celia. When I lost this arm, I stopped taking anything or anybody for granted.”

“Well,” she said. “For a bit then. I admit to being curious.”

Mixer bound up the tracks as they approached the caboose. Hook gathered him up and pulled his ears.

“This is Mixer,” he said. “He's a purebred son of a bitch.”

Celia stepped back. “Is he safe? I mean, he won't bite?”

“I watched him whip a pack of mongrels to a standstill in Amarillo a while back. He'd rather fight than eat, and there's nothing he likes better than eating. But he's got a soft spot for pretty girls. You couldn't be safer.”

She knelt and stroked his head. Mixer sidled in. “He's a love,” she said.

“Bet's been taking good care of him by the looks of it.”

Mixer circled Celia's legs and then headed for the shade under the caboose.

Hook swung up on the steps and took her hand to help her up.

“It's a bit of a reach,” he said. “Frenchy doesn't give a whole lot of thought to where he parks me, but the more I complain, the worse it gets.”

When she reached the top step, her hand dropped over her mouth. She looked at the casket and then at Hook.

“Oh my god,” she said. “That looks like a casket.”

“That's 'cause it is. It belongs to one Samuel Ash.”

Her face paled. “I don't understand. This is just too eerie.”