Andrew Vachss: Two Trains Running

1959 September 29 Tuesday 22:28

Dett strolled the broad avenue at a leisurely pace, his eyes on the passing traffic. In the time it took him to cover a half-dozen blocks, he spotted two police cars-black ’58 Ford sedans with white doors and roofs-blending unaggressively with the traffic flow. Guard dogs, big enough to send a message without barking.

A message received, Dett noted. The wide, clean sidewalk was devoid of loiterers. No hookers looking for trade, no teenage punks leaning against the buildings, no panhandlers. Nothing but respectably dressed citizens, mostly in couples, and very few of those.

Dett stayed in motion, all the while watching, clocking, measuring. He walked down a side street, then turned into an alley opening. When that dead-ended, he retraced his steps, noting how deserted the whole area had suddenly become. He glanced at his watch: ten-fifty-seven. Somewhere in this town, action was probably just getting started, he thought. But not around here…

Relying on his memory of the street map, Dett found his way to the office building he had observed from his hotel window. Positioning himself so that he could view the back of the hotel, he noted the absence of fire escapes. He turned a corner and checked again. Sure enough, each floor had a fire exit at the end of the corridor, on either side, leading to a series of metal staircases that formed a Z-pattern all the way down to the second floor. The final set of stairs would have to be released manually.

Dett turned slowly, scanning the area. His eyes picked up another alley opening, halfway down the block. They can’t all dead-end, he thought to himself, moving deliberately through the darkness, eyes alert for trail markers.

As Dett entered the alley, blotchy shadows told him that a source of light was somewhere in the vicinity. Maybe a streetlight positioned close to the other end? As he neared what he sensed to be the exit, the red glow of a cigarette tip flashed a warning. Dett took a long, shallow breath through his nose, sending a neural message to his neck and shoulder muscles to relax, deliberately opening receptor channels he trusted to watch his back.

He slowed his pace imperceptibly, and casually slipped his right hand into his pants pocket.

Two of them, Dett registered. As he got closer, his sense-impression was confirmed. They were in their late teens or early twenties; one, the smoker, sitting on a wooden milk crate, the other leaning against the alley wall, arms folded across his chest. Jackrollers, Dett said to himself. Must be a bar just around the corner, and some of the drunks use this alley as a shortcut.

Twenty yards. Ten. Dett kept coming, not altering his pace or his stance. His ears picked up the sound of speech, but he couldn’t make out the words. The man on the milk crate got to his feet, and the two of them moved off in the opposite direction, just short of a run.

Either they only work cripples, or they’re waiting for me just around the corner, one on each side of the alley, Dett thought. He spun on his heel and went back the way he had entered, still walking, but long-striding now, covering ground. At the alley entrance, Dett turned to his left, walked to the far corner, then squared the block, heading back toward where the alley would let out.

The sidewalk was dark except for a single streetlight only a few feet from the mouth of the alley-it seemed to know it was surrounded, and wasn’t putting up much of a fight. Dett crossed the street and walked on past. Not a sign of the two men.

He was nearly at the end of the long block when he noticed a faded blue-and-white neon sign in a small rectangular window. Enough of the letters still burned so Dett guessed at “Tavern,” but the rest was a mystery he wasn’t interested in solving.

Dett spent the next hour walking the streets, noting how many of the buildings seemed empty and abandoned.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 07:06

“He came back in around one in the morning,” Carl said. He was in the breakfast nook of a modest two-story house that occupied the mid-arc plot of a gently curving block, seated at a blue Formica kitchen table on a chair upholstered in tufted vinyl of the same shade.

“Your shift-your extra shift, I might add-was almost done,” a woman said, over her shoulder, focusing on her breakfast-preparation tasks. She was tall, fair-skinned, with sharp features and alert eyes, her white-blond hair worn in a tight bun.

“Not really,” Carl said, bitterly. “You know how Berwick is. Expecting him to come in on time…”

“Well, Carl, he may not last. They all seem to come and go.”

“He’s been there almost two years.”

“Still…”

“Mother, you don’t understand. It’s not just that he’s always late, it’s that he’s so… arrogant about it. As if he knows I’d never say anything to the manager about him.”

“Well, that’s not your way, Carl. You were not raised to be a talebearer.”

“Well, still, there’s plenty I could tell Mr. Hodges about Berwick, if I wanted to. It’s not just his lack of… dignity; he’s a filthy slob, Mother. You would not believe the state he leaves the desk in.”

“I know,” the woman said. “But that’s the way the world is, son. Some people act correctly, some people don’t. We are not responsible for anyone but ourselves.”

“I know he says things about me. Some of the colored boys, I can tell, by the way they look at me.”

“Are they disrespectful to you?”

“Well… no. I don’t mean anything they say. It’s just… I don’t know.”

“Carl,” the woman said, sternly, “there are always going to be people with big mouths and small minds.”

She brought a pale-blue plate to the table. On it were two perfectly poached eggs on gently browned toast, with the crusts removed.

“It isn’t like that everywhere,” Carl said.

“Oh, Carl, please. Not that again.”

“Well, it isn’t,” the not-so-young-anymore man insisted. “In some of the big cities-”

“You have roots here,” his mother interrupted. “You have a place, a place where you belong. A fine job, a lovely home…”

“I know, Mother. I know.”

“Sometimes, I get so worried about you, Carl. Every time you go on one of your vacations, I can’t even sleep, I’m so terrified.”

“There’s no reason to be frightened, Mother,” Carl said, resentfully. “I know my way around places a lot bigger than Locke City will ever be.”

“Oh, Carl,” the woman said, “I know you can take care of yourself. I raised you to be a competent man, a man who knows how to deal with whatever situation may come up in life.”

“Then why do you always get so-?”

“I worry… I just worry that, one day, you’ll go on vacation and you won’t come back.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Why is it so ridiculous, son? With your experience, you could get a job in a place like Chicago very easily.”

“Not Chicago,” Carl muttered.

“What?”

“I said, ‘Not Chicago,’ Mother. If I was going to live someplace else, it would be far away. New York. Or maybe San Francisco.”

“I couldn’t bear that,” she said, fidgeting with the waistband of her apron.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Mother. You know I would never leave you here alone. We could sell this house, and find a perfectly fine place somewhere else.”

“Carl, if I had to leave Locke City, I would just die. All my friends are here. My own mother, your Grandmother Tel, is an old woman now. How many years could she have left? Without me driving over to her place to do for her, why, she’d end up in one of those horrible old-age homes. And there’s my church. Our church, if you still went with me. My bridge club. My gardening group. I was born and raised only a few miles from this very house. There’s some flowers you just can’t transplant; they wouldn’t survive. And your father-”