Archer Mayor - The Marble Mask

“Does anyone else know?”

I could just make out his rueful expression in the dim light. “Caught me by surprise. I didn’t have time to let anyone know. They hustled you out pretty fast. I thought about doin’ a John Wayne-maybe shoot one and bust the others, but then I heard one of them say not to hurt you, so I figured it might be better to see where they led me. Besides, I might’ve got you killed.” He smiled suddenly. “And you’re kind of my meal ticket right now.”

I stood up at last and started moving around, flexing my limbs as much to get them warm as to check their condition. “We in a boxcar now?”

“Yeah. Bonded so it didn’t get checked at the border. Trust a bunch of smugglers to have a few customs people in their pocket.”

“How’d you get in?”

Willy shook his head. “Jesus Christ. What’s with all the questions? I slipped in while they were wrestling the box on board.”

I could sense his own self-doubts, which, given the man, would never find voice. A less bull-headed, more reasonable course of action would have been to identify the car I was in, locate a phone, and get the authorities to stop the train.

Not Willy’s style at all-not that I was about to complain.

“You find a way out of here yet?” I asked instead.

The real reason for his testiness became clear. “No.”

I borrowed the penlight and began exploring our prison. It was much larger inside than it might’ve looked speeding by at a railroad crossing, and aside from a few small ventilation portals letting in the dim light, as tightly sealed as the crate I’d been in minutes earlier. As far as I could tell, there was but one way in or out, and that was the car’s huge, central sliding door, which was locked.

I returned Willy’s pen to him and asked, “Got a plan?”

In reply, he squatted down, reached up under his pants leg, extracted a small semi-automatic, and handed it to me.

I peered at it in the gloom-a very nasty, compact piece. “I suppose now’s not the time to tell you this is a violation.”

He smiled benignly. “I’m handicapped. We’re exempt.”

He handed me an extra clip from an inside pocket, shoved a smaller wooden box over to one side of the large entrance to hide behind, and motioned to me to do the same opposite him. It wasn’t original or flashy, but it was a plan, and it had a hopeful element of surprise factored in. All things considered, it made me feel almost confident.

We stayed hidden on either side of the boxcar door for another hour. I got up periodically to move around, do some jumping jacks, and otherwise fight the cold. Willy sat as still as a stone sentry. By the time I felt the train slowing down, I half suspected that even given the uncertainty we faced, he’d fallen fast asleep.

The steady rhythm of wheels hitting track joints became jumbled as we entered a train yard, crossing junctions and switches, the train finally creeping as it searched out its berth. By the muffled sounds of bells, street traffic, and other trains passing by, I imagined we were enmeshed in the tangle of tracks on the south shore of the Magog River that I’d seen from Lacombe’s office window the first day I’d visited him.

At last, we came to a shuddering, clanking stop, the sudden silence feeling louder than the noise just preceding it. Across from me, Willy briefly laid his gun down before him and gave me a thumbs up.

I quietly checked to make sure I had a round chambered, slipped off the safety, and waited.

When it finally came, that first sound made me think of a rodent-slight, stealthy, and evasive. There was a delicate scratching at the hasp, followed by a small click, and then a low moaning as someone pushed gently against the heavy door. A fresh current of cold air swirled into our dark enclave as a pale slit appeared in the wall between us, gradually growing to about five feet wide, or a little larger than the width of my erstwhile box.

We’d resealed that earlier, and left it parked front and center. Now, the dark shape of a man crossed from the opening to the crate and lit up the corner of one of its sides with a flashlight.

After a moment’s scrutiny, he let out a low command in Joual, prompting another shadow with a dolly to join him from outside.

This was our moment, since as soon as these two tilted the crate on its side, they’d realize it was too light for its presumed contents. Looking across at Willy, I pointed first to him and then at the door, at me and then at the two near the box. He nodded once and we moved as a single unit.

I took five fast steps to the man closest to me, pushed the back of his head so he fell forward with both hands braced against the box, shoved my gun against his temple so his buddy could see what I was doing, and said, “Don’t move-police.”

Simultaneously, Willy had swung around to the open door, stuck his head out quickly, found a third man standing guard, and silently gestured to him with his gun barrel to join us.

We stripped them of their weapons, had them lie on their stomachs, and used the wire and duct tape that had once bound me to tie their hands and feet. Their mouths I left free.

“Who’s in charge here?” I asked them.

One of them said something fast in French, presumably not a compliment.

“No one going to fess up?” I turned to Willy and winked at him as I spoke. “Drag the big one over to the far side of the car, interrogate him any way you want. I’ll work on these two. We’ll see who comes up with the best story.”

Willy laughed. “All right. This ought to be fun.”

He holstered his gun, grabbed the man in question by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him away into the shadows.

I squatted down between the remaining two and rolled them both onto their backs so they could see me. “I hope the guy Willy’s talking to has a low pain threshold-might speed things up.”

Behind us, the sounds of Willy’s retreat faded into the distance, accompanied by several dull thumps and a few guttural outbursts from his guest.

“Okay,” I resumed. “I don’t speak French and you’re pretending not to speak English, but let me tell you how this plays out just in case one of you is a quick learner. I’m a kidnapped American police officer, in mortal fear for his life, rescued in the nick of time by a heroic fellow officer. Through a trick of fate I haven’t invented yet, we managed to get hold of at least one of your guns.” I held up the largest of the confiscated weapons. The more intelligent-looking of the two narrowed his eyes slightly, obviously confused about where I was headed.

“All the Sûreté’ll know is that we had to fight it out, killing you one by one. It’ll be a hell of a story-make me look like a hero. And the local cops’ll eat it up ’cause that’s the way they wish a lot of these things would turn out.”

I slowly pulled back the gun’s hammer.

“You’re full of shit,” the one I’d focused on said, his words straight from some American action movie and his accent sounding as if the dialogue had been dubbed into French and back again.

“You think so?”

We were interrupted by a loud noise and a sharp cry from far down the boxcar.

I leaned into the man’s face. “What’s your name?”

“Didier.”

“Well, let me tell you, Didier, I’ve been shot at, punched, drugged, and half frozen to death by you flamers, all of which has given birth to a giant case of the don’t-give-a-shits. I’m home free here-the helpless victim fighting to save his life. Even if the Sûreté does smell a rat, they’ll cut me some slack because we’re all brothers and you’re not. Face it-you’re out of luck.”

There was another yell from the gloom. Didier tried to raise his head. “What’s he doin’?”