Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“Because I’m not a regular man, Rosa Mae. You know that. You know that because I showed it to you. That’s what I was trying to say, before. I asked you about… where you go and all because that’s where I want to take you.”

“Like a real gentleman? That doesn’t sound like-”

“Like Rufus? Like the Rufus you think you know, even after all the times I’ve talked to you? I swear, little sugar, if your daddy was around, I’d go and ask him before I asked you, if that’s the way you wanted me to be.”

Rosa Mae stepped back from Rufus, her amber eyes flashing, as if in sync with her pulse. “You would?”

“On my heart,” he said.

“Then you go and talk with Moses,” she said, turning on her heel and walking off.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 11:08

Dett drank four glasses of tepid tap water, then did his exercises, his mind taking him to that colorless no-place he could induce at will.

He dressed slowly. A fresh-pressed pair of chinos, a dark-green chambray shirt, oxblood brogans whose heavy construction concealed their steel toes.

Dett slipped his brass knuckles into the side pocket of his leather jacket, and dropped his straight razor into a slot he had sewn in just for that purpose. The derringer, chambered for the same.45 caliber as his other pistols, fit snugly inside his left sleeve.

He locked his room door behind him, and rang for the elevator car.

“Morning, suh,” Moses said.

“Morning to you,” Dett replied.

As the car descended, Dett asked, “You’re not going to say anything about that package I left with you?”

“Package, suh?”

“You could teach some of these young men think they’re so sharp a thing or two,” Dett said. “Another day okay with you?”

“One day the same as the other round here, suh.”

“How are you enjoying Locke City so far, Mr. Dett?” Carl called out, as Dett stepped off the elevator car and started across the lobby.

“It seems like a good place to do business,” Dett said, not breaking stride.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 11:11

“Time for another coffee break,” Sherman Layne told the clerk at the car-rental agency.

“How long a break?” the young man asked, worriedly.

“Ten minutes, tops,” Layne promised him. A quick phone call earlier that day had identified the plate on the Buick logged in by Holden as belonging to the agency. The clerk would have pulled the matching paper for him, but Sherman Layne was a man who believed in collecting information, not giving it away.

Him again! he said to himself. Changing rides, are you, Walker Dett? And what does a man like you want with Tussy Chambers?

He strolled out behind the agency building, where the clerk was puffing on a cigarette. “Ever get yourself stopped by the police?” Layne asked the young man. “For speeding, maybe. Or being parked where you shouldn’t be?”

“No, sir,” the clerk said, nervously.

“Next time you do, you give them this,” Layne said, handing over one of his business cards, with “OK/1” handwritten on the back.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 11:22

“He driving a Buick now, boss,” Rufus said into the pay phone. “Brand-new one. Shiny brown color. Let me give you the plate.”

“Who was that, Sal?” a scrawny man in a white shirt and dark suit pants asked, when the phone was put down.

“That was the future, Rocco,” Dioguardi told him. “For anyone smart enough to see it.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 12:07

“No flowers today?” Tussy said, as she stood aside for Dett to enter.

“I didn’t think-”

“Oh, don’t be such a stick!” she said, grinning. “I was only teasing you.”

“I guess I’m no good at telling.”

“Well, when I make this face,” Tussy said, turning the corners of her mouth down, “that’s the tip-off.”

“But you weren’t-”

“Walker, what am I going to do with you? That was teasing, too!”

“I…”

“I wish you could see the look on your face. Honestly! Well, come on, let’s get you some food. Just put your jacket over the back of the couch there, if you like.”

“Where’s Fireball?” Dett asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.

“Who knows?” Tussy said, airily. “He comes and goes just as he pleases.”

“You mean he can get out by himself?”

“Sure,” she said. “The back door’s got a hole cut in it for him, down at the bottom. My dad did that, a long time ago. He used to go out a lot more than he does now, but he still likes the idea that he can, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dett said. “I do know. Sometimes, all you have is the things you think about.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes alive and attentive.

“Well, things can happen. The bank can take your house-not your house, not with you never missing a payment,” Dett added immediately, seeing a dart of fear flash across Tussy’s face. “But… well, you can lose things. Like a car being repossessed, or a business going bad. But the idea of things, those you get to keep, no matter where you are.”

“Like dreams, you mean? Wishes?”

“No. More like… When I was in the army, some of the men I served with, what really kept them going was letters from home. But not everybody got those letters. The guys who didn’t, some of them built their own. In their head, like. The idea of a girlfriend, or a hometown, or people that cared about them-I don’t know-things that could have been. Or things that could come true, someday. Some guys, that was all they could talk about.”

“But if those things never happened-”

“They could happen,” Dett said, insistently. “I don’t mean fools who dreamed about being millionaires-or… there was this one guy, Big Wayne, he was always talking about how he was going to write a book. Not like that. I mean, things that really could happen, if you got lucky enough.”

“Fireball, when he goes out, I don’t think he… chases girl cats, anymore,” Tussy said. “He used to come back just mangled from some of the fights he got into with the other toms. But with that door still there, maybe he thinks he could go out and… be like he was before. Is that what you mean, Walker?”

“It’s exactly what I mean,” Dett said.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 12:36

“You have to listen to me, Uriah.”

“That’s not my name. Not no more,” the tall, rangy youth said to his sister. He was wearing a long black undertaker’s coat and matching narrow-brimmed black hat, with three orange feathers in the headband.

“I don’t care what you call yourself,” she said, firmly. “I didn’t cut out of school and come all the way over here to listen to any more of your foolishness.”

“My foolishness? It ain’t me saying those mangy-ass little white boys got themselves some real guns. Where’d you hear that, anyway?”

“I can’t tell you,” Kitty said. “But it’s from someone who knows.”

“I know you ain’t keeping company with none of those-”

“I’m not one of your little gang boys, Uriah Nickens,” she said, facing him squarely, “so don’t you dare use that tone of voice with me.”

“You heard it at school?”

“What if I did?”

“Yeah. What I thought. Those white boys think they slick, spread the word they got cannons, maybe we don’t show up tomorrow night. Punk out. Wouldn’t they fucking love that!”

“Do you have to talk that way?”

“I’ll talk… I’m sorry, Kitty-girl. You my baby sister. Always will be, no matter what the old man say. Look, I think I got it scoped out, what happened. It’s just a bluff, like I said.”

“Uriah, you know I don’t lie. Just because I can’t tell you where I heard it, that doesn’t mean it’s not true. If you go and fight, you could end up…”