The Insane Train (16 page)

As soon as they were under way, Hook asked Baldwin and Helms to meet him in the supply car. Helms sat down and folded her hands in her lap.

She lifted her chin. “I hope this is important, Mr. Runyon. It's time for medications, and we're quite shorthanded.”

“I wouldn't have requested the meeting did I not think it necessary,” Hook said.

“We've had another breakdown?” Baldwin asked, looking up through his brows.

“No breakdown,” Hook said.

“Then what is so urgent?” Helms asked.

“Before I left Needles, I requested that the sheriff do a little checking on my behalf,” Hook said.

“Checking?” Baldwin said.

“For one thing, I asked to have an autopsy conducted on Elizabeth.”

Helms stood. “What on earth for?”

“Sometimes you get a feel,” he said. “Turns out Elizabeth didn't commit suicide. She was strangled, dead before she went off the trestle.”

“Good God,” Baldwin said, dropping his forehead into his hands.

“Are you suggesting murder?” Doctor Helms asked.

“People don't strangle themselves,” Hook said.

“But who would want to kill Elizabeth?” Helms asked.

“I also requested a criminal check on Frankie Yager.”

“Frankie?” Helms said.

Hook rose and walked to the window of the supply car. Outside, the empty beauty of the prairie raced past. Frenchy had the bullgine wound tight.

“I have a responsibility here,” he said. “When someone dies on my train, I take it personally.

“Yager has a background of petty thievery, and he forged his transcript. He also sent his dean a threatening letter.”

“Oh?” Baldwin said. “I don't remember seeing anything about this when he applied with us.”

“The usual background checks were done,” Helms said. “None of this came to light.”

“He most likely forged his application here as well,” Hook said.

“Surely, you're not suggesting that Frankie had something to do with that girl's death?” Baldwin asked.

“At the moment, I have no proof of anything,” he said.

“Well, it is railroad business,” Baldwin said. “I see no reason to exclude anyone on this train from questioning.”

“I must get back with the medications,” Helms said. “Is the supply cabinet open?”

“Yes,” Baldwin said.

Steadying herself against the pitch of the car, Helms counted out the meds. Her shoulders were bent forward of the rest of her body as if she carried a great weight. Hook decided he had no clear idea of her age.

She closed the door to the cabinet, paused, and then reopened it to retrieve pills from a green bottle high up on the top shelf.

When she got to the door, she turned, “I want it understood that my inmates must not be interrogated, Mr. Runyon. They are ill and not able to defend themselves.”

“It's patient safety that concerns me the most, Doctor Helms. Perhaps you could ask Frankie to come to my caboose when you get back?”

 

Hook lay in his bunk dipping into Clarke's
Bloody Mohawk
, which he'd found under the seat in one of the outfit cars. His eyes had grown weary under the dim lantern light. Eddie had promised to upgrade the caboose with an electric generator, but it had never come to pass.

When he rose to put his book away, someone knocked at the door. He opened it to find Frankie Yager, his hair whipping from the wind that blew between the cars.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked above the clatter of the wheels.

“Come in,” Hook said.

“It's time for bathroom breaks in the ward,” he said, stepping in. “What do you want?”

“A few questions,” Hook said.

“Look, Runyon, I got my hands full running them criminals back and forth to the john. You got something on your mind, maybe you could just get on with it.”

Hook lit a cigarette, his match flaring in the black of Frankie's eyes.

“Alright,” he said. “Turns out you weren't altogether honest about your history when you applied for a job with Baldwin.”

“Ain't your business, is it?” he said.

“Shoplifting,” Hook said. “Important stuff like that.”

“You called me down here for that?”

“And then there's a matter of forging your transcript and sending a little thank you note to the dean.”

Frankie scoffed. “No one ever proved that was me,” he said. “Now, if you're through, I got to get back.”

“I'm not through,” Hook said.

Frankie squared his shoulders. “You are far as I'm concerned.”

Hook put his cigarette out in the tray.

“Don't let this arm fool you,” he said. “I'm not one of your boys you can push around.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“About that girl that died,” Hook said. “I'm not sure it was an accident, you see.”

Frankie turned to open the door. Hook slammed it shut with his foot.

“I'm not finished,” he said. “Turns out someone strangled her before throwing her off the trestle.”

“I don't know anything about it,” he said. “I've been up there taking that scum on piss breaks. Don't believe me? Ask Helms.”

“Maybe you ran into Elizabeth on one of those breaks,” Hook said, watching his eyes. “Maybe you decided to have a little fun and it got out of hand.”

“And maybe I didn't,” he said, his eyes darting in the lamplight. “Anyway, they said she had a tumor the size of a grapefruit, so what the hell difference does all this make?”

“And so you just helped her along a little?” Hook said.

Frankie lowered his arms and clinched his fists at his side.

“Maybe she likes freaks, Runyon. Maybe you had her all to yourself.”

Hook reached for him, clamping Frankie's ear in his prosthesis, yanking him over. Frankie squealed, and his face turned red. Mixer growled, his hackles rising.

“I don't like you much,” Hook said. “Go ahead and give me a reason to feed your fuckin' ear to the dog.” Shoving him to the door, he said, “Now, get out of my caboose.”

After he'd gone, Hook sat on the bunk listening to the clack of the wheels. Mixer rested his chin on Hook's knee and studied him, his brows peaking this way and that.

“I should have let you eat the son of a bitch,” he said.

Hook poured himself a coffee, which begged for a dollop of shine. He read a little again, but he couldn't get the image of the girl's body out of his mind.

He blew out the lantern and turned on his side. He thought about Yager, his eyes, the smell of him, like stale bread.

The wail of Frenchy's whistle lifted as night closed over them. Hook dozed and awakened and then fell into a sound sleep, the weariness of the days washing in like a tide. Sometime in the night, he awakened again. This time the moon shined down from the cupola and cast shadows up the walls of the caboose.

He sat up, rubbing his face. Mixer groaned and curled up in a ball. Something didn't feel right, something adrift and unsettled. On nights like this, thoughts roamed through his head like lost ghosts, returning again and again to drive away his rest.

Finally, he rose and put on his prosthesis and then his sidearm. He'd take a walk through the cars, make certain all was well. Maybe then he could sleep.

 

The women were all asleep, Andrea as well, her coat folded under her head. He thought once to touch her face, but then resisted, unwilling to wake her. Seth, too, slept at the far end of the car, his legs drawn in the fetal position across the seat. He mumbled something in the darkness and then turned on his side, snoring softly.

He found Santos watching the moon through the window, his boys all sleeping. They had adjusted to Santos's silence, finding in him an even hand.

Roy joined him for a quick cigarette between the cars, but neither spoke much as they smoked and watched the moon edge through the black sky.

Hook opened the door between supply and the security car, the wind whipping at his legs, the moonlight skimming along the tracks. When he reached for the grab iron to pull himself over, he spotted the figure slumped across the coupler, its arms dangling only inches above the tracks below.

Hook's heart chugged as he leaned down to pull the body back onto the platform. The ties flicked beneath him, and the wheels screeched under the enormity of their load. The body rose and fell on the coupler as it sawed back and forth between the cars.

He worked his arm under the torso and pulled with all that he had in him, but the body, still warm and malleable, slumped like a sausage, throwing him off balance. He snared the grab iron with his hook a second before being sucked into the chaos below. He maneuvered the body back onto the platform. Leaning on a knee, he caught his breath before turning it over.

Frankie Yager, or what had once been Frankie Yager, stared up at him with a singular blank eye. The other eye, having been gouged from his head, swung like a pendulum under the pitch of the car. A white liquid pooled in the vacant socket.

A crushing wound had opened the side of Frankie's skull, and there was the smell of butchery and body heat in the wind. Hook's stomach lurched, and he turned to clear his head. Frankie's ear had given way to the horror of the blow, settling down to where his jaw once hinged. The blow had drawn a macabre smirk across Yager's face, one that caused the hair on Hook's neck to crawl. Whoever had killed Frankie Yager had done so with zeal.

As he tugged the body back into the car, he struggled to make sense of it all. There were few on board capable of such a deed, and they were all in the security ward. He unholstered his sidearm and checked the clip. The killer could be anywhere, but if Hook could find him, the therapy would be quick and final.

He double-checked the safety on his sidearm as he approached the security-ward door. In all his years as a railroad bull, he'd not seen such brutality inflicted on a victim. To open a man's head in such a fashion must have taken repeated and violent blows.

He stood to the side, slipped his arm through the grab iron, and knocked on the door. The wind churned in a torrent about him. When he heard the knob turn, he moved into the shadows and steadied his arm against the car. He leveled his weapon.

Doctor Helms opened the door. Hook reached for her and pulled her to the side. She gasped softly. He glanced into the car behind her.

“You scared me to death,” she said. “I was expecting Frankie.”

“Frankie won't be coming,” he said.

Hook stepped into the car. Moving down the aisle, he checked the restraints as he went. The men sat motionless and were unresponsive to his search. Most slept quietly in their seats. Helms followed behind him, the clip of her heels clicking on the wooden floor.

“Are you going to tell me what's going on?” she asked.

“Where's Smith?”

“Frankie took him on bathroom break,” she said. “They haven't come back yet.”

He could smell her in the darkness of the car, perfume mollified by time and travel.

“Frankie's dead,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Murdered.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “Smith?”

“Looks that way. Smith may have jumped. With a little luck, he didn't make it.”

“This is terrible,” she said. “He's quite capable of anything. No one is safe with him on the loose. I told Baldwin we shouldn't have made this trip and now this.”

“You heard nothing?” he asked.

“No, nothing. What are you going to do?”

“First, I've got to be certain he's not on this train. If he's jumped, there's little to do except wait until we reach Winslow. I'll alert the authorities there. I'll send Baldwin to help you here.”

“Smith is a dangerous man,” she said. “I told Doctor Baldwin…I told him men like this should never be released from their cells.”

“Wasn't Smith sedated?”

“Yes, but it was time for his medication, and sometimes the doses have to be increased.”

“Keep your doors locked. Don't open them for anyone but me or Baldwin. I'll alert the others to do the same. Is that clear?”

 

Hook started his search with Andrea's car. Andrea stood at the door, her hand over her mouth.

“Oh, no, Frankie? Are you certain?”

“Quite certain,” he said. “And no one has entered here?”

“No,” she said. “I've been awake ever since you walked through earlier.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I thought you might awaken me,” she said.

“Don't open the door for anyone but me, Andrea. I've got to search out the train.”

She took his hand. “I'll tell Seth,” she said. “Hook, be careful.”

“Don't worry. As far as I know, I have the only weapon on this train.”

He alerted Santos and Roy; both had been sleeping. Just to make certain Smith hadn't managed to slip in, he searched under all the seats before leaving.

In supply, he found Doctor Baldwin sitting up in his bunk, his eyes huge in the darkness.

“Smith?” he said quietly. For a moment he only sat with his head in his hands. “This will be my end,” he said. “This will be my end.”

“If he's on this train, I'll find him,” Hook said. “Meanwhile, Doctor Helms needs you in the security car.”

Baldwin shook his head and sighed in the darkness.

From there Hook worked his way to the engine. The firebox door had been thrown open, lighting Frenchy's silhouette in the darkness. The smell of heat and oil wafted back from the engine. The bakehead leaned over the firebox, soot covering his face.

Hook waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, making certain that Smith hadn't ensconced himself in the cab, before alerting Frenchy.

“What the hell you doing?” Frenchy asked. “You out to get yourself killed?”

“We got a dead man aboard, Frenchy, and his killer might still be on this train.”

Frenchy lit his cigar, the stub so short that he nearly burned his nose.

“What else is new?” he said. “Why don't you just let all them loonies loose, so I can turn this crawler around and go home?”

Hook dropped his legs over the water tank. “I figure he bailed, but I have to make certain. This guy is a dangerous son of a bitch, Frenchy. You boys don't take any chances.”

Frenchy fished a new cigar out of his overalls pocket. “The only thing scares me is a goddang yard dog coming up on me in the night.”

“Ask the bakehead what's the scariest thing he sees every day,” Hook said. “He won't have to think long.”

The bakehead grinned and pitched a little sand into the firebox to blow her out. Hook climbed back up.

“See you boys in Winslow,” he said.

On top, he knelt down against the wind. The moonlight lit the roofs of the cars. They bobbed and weaved through the night like swimming sharks. From here he could see the caboose, the light shimmering in the cupola windows.

The probability of Smith having jumped was high, as were the chances that he now resembled raw hamburger somewhere back there in the desert. Hook found the prospect agreeable, though he remained ambivalent. There would be a hell of a lot of explaining to do once he arrived in Winslow. He'd have to call in the local authorities, something Eddie hated almost as much as paying overtime.

After securing Frankie's corpse in the end of the supply car, Hook made a final run through to make certain all were safe. Exhausted, he retreated to his caboose, where he took off his shoes and collapsed in his bunk. But he couldn't sleep. His body ached from running full throttle. He checked his watch. Hours had passed since all this had begun. He replayed the night in his head. Why, out of all those men, was it Smith who managed to overcome his sedative?

He searched out his cigarettes and climbed into the cupola. Frenchy's headlight beam faded into the first glow of dawn. The steam cloud boiled into the sky like a thunderhead, its edges tipped with the pinks and blues of sunrise. Soon enough daylight would break in all its glory.

He leaned back and lit his cigarette. He needed time to think. There were moments when a man had to act to save his life. But the real commerce of a yard dog came in the thinking, those quiet hours, the consideration of possibilities. While action might save a man's life, thinking solved his cases.

Sliding back the cupola window, he let the wind blow his hair. The morning smelled clean and clear as it could only at sunrise. The chug of the steam engine rose and fell like the lungs of a great beast. He shut his eyes, his thoughts drifting and pooling. Solutions more often arrived obliquely from the corners of reason, rather than through the glare of conscious thought.

When the arm encircled his neck, he knew instantly his failure. In that moment, Robert Smith yanked Hook's head out the window of the cupola, his arm around his throat, choking off his air. Hook glanced up to see the pockmarks, the deliberate blink of Robert Smith, the tongue working at the corners of his mouth, the gore of what had once been Frankie Yager still fresh across his front. Hook struggled to free himself, but his arms were trapped inside the cupola.

Smith screwed his thumb into Hook's eye to gouge it from its mooring. Lights exploded in Hook's head, and pain flowed down his spine. Smith laughed somewhere beyond the agony, a giddiness filled with pleasure and anticipation.

Hook's strength came from deep inside him, a wellspring issuing from some primitive lobe of his brain. He could taste iron and salt and knew that if he were to live, he must move now, or he would soon enough join Frankie Yager on the dunghill.

Darkness deepened about him, and he brought to bear the resolve that had borne him through the years of danger on the rails. He twisted his head sideways, his cheek tearing under Robert Smith's grip, and slipped his prosthesis through the opening above his head.

Unable to see, he shoved the prosthesis, long since an extension of body and brain, into Robert Smith's cheek like a fishhook. He twisted and yanked and knew that he had found his mark. Blood sprayed across the window. Smith's legs slid off the caboose, but he held on against the plummeting wind, his grin frozen and grizzly.

Hook covered his eye against the rudeness of Smith's thumb, the pain having narrowed to a singular point inside his head. Smith still clung to the cupola, his knuckles white, his arms trembling, his legs dangling over the side.

Hook leaned out the window, the roof of the caboose slick with blood. Robert Smith looked up at him through his arms, his cheek loose and flapping in the wind. When Smith let go, he disappeared in a whisper, leaving behind only silence and a world reeling with the anguish of his madness.

Hook climbed down from the cupola and lit the lantern. Mixer stretched and glanced up.

“Thanks for nothing,” Hook said.

Hook looked in the mirror. Red gathered in the white of his eye, and the abrasion on his cheek seeped into his whiskers.

He went out on the caboose porch and lit a cigarette. The first rays of the morning sun lit the desolation in reds and golds, and high in the blue, buzzards gathered for the morning hunt.

He sat down on the steps, considering what to do. He could alert the others, but for what purpose now? Soon enough they would be in Winslow, and there was little anyone could do until then.

Frenchy blew his whistle to announce their approach to the depot and the La Posada Hotel.

Mixer joined Hook and pushed his head under Hook's arm.

“So now you come,” he said, pulling him in.

He'd tell Baldwin and the others, then make his report. Some effort would be made to recover Smith's body. Though by that time the vultures would have taken care of the most of it. One thing was certain, neither Frankie Yager nor Robert Smith would be giving up any information from here on out.

There were a good many loose ends, things he didn't understand, not the least of which was how a drugged inmate managed to kill Frankie Yager and nearly blind one railroad yard dog in the doing.