The Christmas Train Read online

  and then it would be gone.

  chapter fourteen

  The figure who entered Tom’s sleeper was dressed in black, and intent on plucking an expensive-looking pen; then Father Kelly’s silver cross was swiped. After that the thief flitted to the other first-class sleeper suites, pinching Max’s gold-plated money clip, Eleanor’s silver brush, and Kristobal’s four-hundred-dollar designer sunglasses. The last target for now was Gordon Merryweather’s suite, where the thief stole the lawyer’s fancy watch, cash, and Palm Pilot. The crimes took all of ten minutes, for the person was much practiced in the art of felony. No one observed the thefts, and by the time Regina walked down the corridor to refill the coffeepot at the head of the stairs, the person was gone, together with the loot.

  The first train robbery in the United States occurred in Indiana in 1866 along the old Ohio and Mississippi Railroad line. The two robbers, ex–Civil War soldiers cast helplessly adrift after Lee’s noble surrender, were quickly caught. Numerous robberies followed by other criminals, but the rise of the well-funded Pinkerton Detective Agency — whose men, per capita, wielded their firearms far better than the men they hunted, which included Jesse and Frank James’ gang — soon put an end to that lucrative line of larceny. The thief on the Capitol Limited had made a decent haul without one shot having been fired. Poor Jesse would have no doubt been envious.

  Tom and Eleanor stood outside the smoker car taking deep breaths to clear their lungs.

  “You nailed that guy. The look on his face, it was beautiful.” He gave her a hug that she only partially returned. “Thank God for a chessplaying rabbi in Tel Aviv. What was his name?”

  “I don’t remember,” she said quietly.

  He looked at her and all his fine spirits melted away, replaced by something vastly harder. Rabbi Somebody, Tel Aviv, the scene of the final meeting — final bloody battle was more like it.

  He shouldn’t do it, he knew he shouldn’t do it, but he was going to anyway; it was as though his mind and tongue were wired for bad timing opportunities. “Can you tell me now, since you’ve had all these years to think about it?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, why don’t we start with why you walked out on me all those years ago? That seems like a good enough place, and we’ll work forward from there.”

  “You’re saying you don’t know why?”

  “How could I? Not one thing you said made any sense.”

  “Because you weren’t listening, as usual. That’s not my problem.”

  “That’s a crock and you know it.”

  “I don’t have to stand here and listen to you raving.”

  “You’re right. Sit down on the floor and I’ll keep going. I’ve had years to prepare. In fact, I can keep raving until the good old Southwest Chief runs into the Pacific Ocean three days from now!”

  “I knew this would happen — as soon as I saw you, I knew it would. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “What exactly did you expect, Ellie?”

  “It’s Eleanor.”

  “Forgive me, I was living in the past for a moment, when you were just Ellie.”

  “You’re so incredibly maddening, so off base. Don’t you ever take off those enormous blinders you wear and see the world as it actually is?”

  “I’ve seen plenty of the world, far more than most, and I wasn’t wearing rose-colored glasses during any of it!”

  “That wasn’t my point. You saw what you wanted to see, that was all.”

  “Was it another guy, was that it?”

  Eleanor rolled her eyes and waved dismissively. “Why do men always think it’s another guy when it’s usually men who cheat?”

  “I never cheated on you! Ever!”

  “I never said you did. And I can say the same.”

  “Then why did you walk out on me?”

  She shook her head wearily. “Tom, if you don’t understand why by now, there’s nothing I can say that would clear it up for you.”

  He stared at her. “I’m sorry, I’m sort of rusty on female-encrypted speech. Can you help me out here? What the hell did you just say?”

  She shook her head. “Even after all these years you still haven’t managed to accomplish it.”

  “Accomplish what?”

  “Growing up!” she snapped.

  Before he could answer, they heard singing. The next minute the pair watched as a group of Christmas carolers, composed of both train crew and passengers, gathered around them. Tyrone had taken a break from the bar and was leading the pack with a hearty rendition of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” though in respect for the more prim members of the caroling company, he kept his pelvic gyrations within strict statutory limits. Agnes Joe was in the back, carrying the entire bass section all by herself.

  “You two want to join in?” asked Tyrone. “A lady who can slam back a Boiler Room like that is a lady I need to get to know.”

  Eleanor stalked off, arms folded across her chest.

  Tyrone stared after her and then looked back at Tom. “Hey, man, was it something I said?”

  “No, Tyrone, it was something I said.” And then Tom walked off too.

  He thought about going after Eleanor and resuming the “discussion” but couldn’t find the energy, and he was afraid too, more of what he would say than she. On the way back to his compartment he heard laughter drifting up from the lower level of his sleeper car. Laughs — he could use some right now. He hurried down the stairs and headed right, following the sounds. These were less expensive sleeping accommodations, smaller than his and with no shower, but each compartment had a toilet and a drop-down sink. At the end of the corridor, he saw Regina and the Tarot card lady standing outside one compartment and talking with someone inside the space.

  Regina saw him and waved him over. When he walked up he saw that there was an older woman sitting on a seat in the compartment. Then he noticed the wheelchair folded up and placed against the facing chair situated against the other wall. He turned and studied the Tarot card lady. She still wore her multicolored headdress, but she’d taken off the dumbbell shoes and was in slippers. That made her about four inches shorter, and she turned out to be rather petite. Up close she had intensely luminous blue eyes filled with both mischief and charm, and a warm smile. He noted that the compartment across the hall had a brightly colored beaded door, where the curtain had been pulled back and secured. He also thought he smelled incense, although he assumed that would be strictly against Amtrak policy.

  “I’m assuming those are your digs,” he said to her.

  “Why, Mr. Langdon, you have psychic powers of your own,” she said with a throaty laugh.

  “How did you—” He stopped and looked at Regina. “Okay, no aliens need apply. You told her.”

  Regina said, “Meet Drusella Pardoe, Tom, and you don’t have to tell Drusella anything, she already knows it.”

  Drusella put out a dainty hand. “My good friends call me Misty. And I already know that we’re going to be good friends, so you just go ahead and call me that.”

  Misty had a Southern accent augmented by something a little spicier. “New Orleans?” he said.

  “By way of Baltimore. Very good, Tom.” She drew closer to him, and he concluded that the incense smell was actually Misty’s perfume.

  “Misty used to be a CPA there in Baltimore,” said Regina.

  “I found I had a gift for numbers, and gifts should be used for a higher purpose than the avoidance of taxes, don’t you think, Tom?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “You’re right, he is cute, Regina,” said the wheelchair lady. She was just finishing up her dinner, which was on a tray in front of her.

  “I didn’t know there was room service on this train,” said Tom smiling. “I had to schlepp to the dining car.”

  “Oh, sure,” said the lady, returning the smile. “You just need one of these things, and Regina will bring your meal right to you.” She pointed to her wheelchair.
r />   “Where are my manners,” said Regina. “Lynette Monroe, Tom Langdon.”

  Lynette was about sixty-five, with long silver hair and elegant features, still a very attractive woman. She seemed full of good spirits despite her disability.

  “I hear you’re working with those film people, Tom,” said Regina.

  “Is that really Max Powers?” asked Lynette. “I love his pictures.”

  “That woman with them,” said Regina, “on the passenger list it said Eleanor Carter, but I think she’s really a movie star or something, traveling, you know, incognito. That lady has class. And she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Is she a movie star, Tom?”

  “Actually, I know her, and she’s a writer, not an actress. Although I wouldn’t disagree with you about the classy part or the drop-dead-gorgeous thing.” Her sanity, however, was not something he could vouch for right now.

  “You knew her, like before today?”

  “Yes, years ago. We did some reporting together.”

  “I heard it was a little more than that,” said Misty.

  Tom stared at her. “What do you know about it?”

  “Word travels faster on a train than anywhere else except maybe church. People overhear things. You know” — she drew even closer to Tom — “such tight quarters and everything.”

  “You mean people eavesdrop,” he said.

  “Well, that’s a less polite way of putting it. My motto is, If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, come find Misty and tell her all about it.”

  “I have to go now, ladies,” he said, gently disengaging himself from Misty.

  Regina picked up Lynette’s tray. “Me too.”

  As they walked off, Misty called out, “Oh, Tom?”

  He turned back, and she fanned out her Tarot cards. “I just have this little premonition that we are connected somehow.”

  “Misty, he has a girlfriend in LA he’s going to visit for Christmas,” said Regina. “She does the voice for Cuppy the Magic Beaver on TV.”

  Tom stared at her, stunned. “How do you know that?”

  “Agnes Joe told me.”

  Tom looked at the women, exasperated. “With you two, what do we need the CIA for?”

  “Now, Tom,” drawled Misty, “a grown man needs a grown woman. Cartoons can’t keep you warm at night, sweetie.”

  “That Misty is a piece of work,” Tom said to Regina after they had climbed the stairs.

  Regina smiled. “Oh, she’s just Southern friendly is all. She doesn’t mean any of it. Well, at least not all of it. We’re good friends.”

  “I take it she rides the trains a lot.”

  “Oh yeah. She tells people their fortune, reads their palms, does the card thing, all for free. She usually takes the Crescent train out to D.C. right on to New Orleans. Has a little shop in the French Quarter just off Jackson Square. I’ve been there; it’s cool.”

  “And Lynette? That was nice of you to take her food.”

  “Well, trains aren’t easy to get around in a wheelchair. She has MS, but she never lets it get her down. We have a great time.”

  “You really seem to get to know your passengers.”

  “They mean a lot to me. Actually—”

  “You little thief!”

  They looked up, and there was Gordon Merryweather.

  “Excuse me?” said Regina.

  Merryweather stomped toward them. “I’ve been robbed, and I’m betting you did it. In fact, you’re the only one who could have done it. I’ll have your job, and you’ll be spending Christmas in prison,” he roared.

  “Hold on,” said Regina, “I don’t appreciate your tone, or your accusation. If you’re missing something, I’ll take a report and we’ll file it with the proper authorities.”

  “Don’t read me the little speech,” snapped Merryweather. “I want my things back and I want them back right now.”

  “Well, since I don’t know what those things are, or who took them, that would be a little difficult, sir.”

  Tom stepped between them. “Look, Gord, I’m not a big-time lawyer like you, but I do know that people are innocent until proven guilty. Now unless you have direct evidence of who took your stuff, then you’re slandering this woman in front of a witness, and that can be a costly thing, as I’m sure you know.”

  Merryweather eyed him. “What do you know about slander?”

  “Name’s Tom Langdon. I’m an investigative reporter. Won a Pulitzer, in fact. I wrote one story about an American lawyer in Russia who was doing some really bad things. He’s currently writing his own appellate briefs in prison. And if I’ve found one thing that’s even mightier than legal papers filed in court, it’s a story in the newspaper that the whole world can dig their teeth into.”

  Merryweather took a step back and then snapped at Regina: “My Palm Pilot, two hundred in cash, and my Tag Heuer watch. I want them back before I get off this train in Chicago, or heads will roll.” He stalked off.

  Both Tom and Regina let out long breaths.

  “That guy is a trip,” said Tom. “Maybe he heard Max Powers is on board and he’s auditioning to play Scrooge.”

  “My mother taught me to love everybody, but she never met Gordon Merryweather.”

  “I take it you’ve run into him before.”

  “Everybody who works on this train has.” She paused. “Thanks, Tom. Thanks a lot.”

  “Hey, you would have done okay all by yourself.”

  “Did you really win a Pulitzer?”

  “No. Actually I won two.”

  “Wow, that’s impressive.”

  “Not really. All you have to do is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.”

  He walked off to his compartment to get some sleep.

  chapter fifteen

  Eleanor went directly to her compartment, closed and locked the door, and drew the privacy curtain. She sat down slowly on the bed, which Regina had made up during the mealtime. She flicked the light off and sat there in the dark. She could now look outside and watch the snow coming down even harder. It didn’t bother the Cap much; the train seemed to be going at full tilt. They flashed by clusters of modest houses and then dense woods and the occasional creek cutting through the earth. Smoke curled from the chimneys of the homes, seeming to write secrets in the tangle of snowfall, messages Eleanor couldn’t decipher. Her fingers moved across the cold glass, marking her own intricate symbols on the smooth surface. She began to softly cry, placing her head against the pillow Regina had placed in the corner, her body curling up in despair.

  As she looked out the window, in her mind’s eye, the landscape changed dramatically. As Tom had earlier, she was now transported to Tel Aviv over Christmas. She’d been so happy, and yet so miserable there, that the schizophrenic quality of her existence had come close to driving her insane. And maybe it had on that Christmas morning when her future with a man she loved had disappeared. She still remembered so vividly how she’d looked back at him as she was heading up the escalator at the airport, and how he’d simply turned away and left her. At that memory, the tears started to spill, and the tight control with which she’d come to lead her life eroded to nothing. She’d thought him incapable of doing this to her ever again, and yet he had, with no more than a look and a word or two. She was helpless.

  There was a knock on her door and she tensed. She wasn’t ready to see him again, not right now, possibly not ever.

  “Eleanor? You’re not sleeping, are you?”