Chapter Seven

In the driver’s seat of the Toyota Tacoma, Jimmy Scardino lights another Camel from the cherry-red end of the last. “I put my lights on now?” He blows smoke. “I mean, the main beams?”

Jerzy Belaski looks at him from the passenger seat. “Keep ‘em off.”

Maybe it was the eyes—always pissed-looking. Like a pissed-off teenager. Brown hair plastered to his forehead, the hook of a nose. A hawk, what he looked like. A Polack hawk.

The tail lights of the vehicle ahead glow dull red in the distance.

“I follow the train out of the pass,” Jimmy says, “is one thing.” He points a finger out of the windshield. “A white cop car ain't the same—in all this shit.”

“You want to shut the hell up?”

Scardino clamps the cigarette in his mouth, steers the truck down the center of the road. Better not to provoke the son of a bitch. Better just to let him be. The guy was off the deep end, a mad-whack. Mean. Fast. But good at what he did—Jimmy'd seen his handiwork, didn't need to see it twice.

Anybody needed taking care of, Belaski’d do what needed to be done. But nobody liked him, back in Chicago, back in the neighborhood. Nobody among the men.

Belaski shifts his weight, takes a cell from out of his parka pocket.

He stares down into his lap—at the screen.

Not a single bar of network showing.

The city-limit sign looms out of the dark at the side of the road—Millersburg—Whicher casts an eye over the buildings at the edge of town.

Board-clad houses are set in big plots—open barns around them, rough timbered, the houses old, tall, their roofs steep-pitched.

Scant light shows in any window. Along the tree-lined route, branches hang low beneath the weight of snow.

No other car is moving.

There’s not a living soul in sight.

Whicher eyes a row of grand houses faced with stone, sees a bright-lit area ahead—a broad intersection, flurries swarming the orange-glow of the street lamps.

A handful of businesses are spaced about the main road—a grocery store, an outdoor supply. An auto shop. A bar.

Guillory points at a double-wide brick building—at the far side of a one-room church. “That's the station house.”

The town is silent, the only sound the faint whump of the tire chains on the road.

In the lots between buildings, solitary cars and trucks are covered in snow, abandoned to the night.

Whicher looks from one end of the intersection to the other.

“Winter time,” Guillory says, “the middle of the Comanche Grasslands, it'll get quiet.” He steers off the main street, pulls into the empty lot of the police department.

The marshal stares through the windshield. “How 'bout you head on in, put on the lights?”

Guillory looks at him.

“You want to give us a minute?”

The patrolman shuts off the motor. “If that's what you want.”

He pushes open the driver door, levers himself out against the wheel.

A blast of frozen air enters the cab before he swings the door shut.

Trudging through the thick snow, he finds a set of keys, opens up.

From the back seat, Lauren lets out a constricted breath.

Whicher turns around to her. “Nobody knows we're here. Sheriff Dubois said there was no way out by road.”

Her head moves lightly from side to side.

“We need to go on inside the station.” He holds up the collar of his suit jacket, pushes open the door. “The son of a bitch that took that shot at me jumped, right?”

She looks around out of the window, despite herself.

“You see him get off at that grade crossing?”

“You know for sure that he jumped?”

Officer Kyle Guillory pours coffee into three identical white mugs. The sound of a boiler rumbles from somewhere out of a back room, the radiators in the station house all ticking.

Guillory puts out the coffee, shifts hunting trophies aside on the top of a cluttered table. He flips cream and sugar sachets from a cardboard box.

Whicher takes up a mug. “I use your phone?”

“Go right ahead.”

The marshal crosses to the door of an office marked, Chief of Police. “I step on in here a minute?”

The patrolman nods.

Whicher enters, puts a boot tip to the door, pushes it closed.

Alone, he takes in the room—wood-paneled, rows of photographs—Officer Guillory plus another man in uniform; the boss, the chief of police.

The marshal sits at a corner of the desk.

From his jacket he takes out his cell, finds the stored number. He keys it into the office land-line.

He checks his watch. Nine-thirty.

The call picks up.

“Who is this?”

Whicher recognizes Inspector McBride.

“Sir, it’s Marshal Whicher.”

McBride exhales into the phone. “Marshal—I told you not to call.”

“Yes, sir, I know that. But something happened—about an hour ago. Somebody made an attempt...”

“An attempt?”

“On my traveling companion. I'm not calling y’all for help.”

A beat passes.

“Then what do you want?”

Whicher stares around the office. “Sir, did any word come back yet on my companion’s previous escort?”

“Not at this time.”

The marshal stands, lifts the phone from the desk. “I’ve asked for a train arriving at La Junta to be boarded and searched. The Otero County Sheriff will be handling it. Maybe you ought to call. The attempt was made on the train, the attacker or associates may still be onboard. We got off. But now we’re pretty much boxed-in, account of the weather conditions.”

“Can you keep moving?”

“Not real likely,” Whicher says. “At least, not any time soon.”

“This is a land line you’re calling on—not a cell?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Your companion is safe?”

“She’s safe, and nobody's coming in here—where we're at is pretty remote.”

“Who knows where you are now?”

“One other person,” Whicher says, “an officer on a small-town police force. I’m calling from their station house.”

“In the circumstances, maybe I ought to take the number.”

The marshal reads off the number written above the keypad. “Sir, I been thinking—maybe it’s time I knew a little more about the person I'm traveling with?”

“Not a good idea.”

Whicher rolls his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

“The less you know of her, the better,” McBride says.

“You don’t think it could help?”

“No, I don’t. Did anybody see you arrive at that station house?”

“No, sir.”

“If they had people on the train, they know where it stopped, where you got off, they could likely track you down. If you’re in country, in a rural locale, there can’t be many places you could go. I’m guessing that police station is right in the middle of town?”

Whicher thinks it over.

“It’s the kind of place they might check, they might watch. You need to find somewhere till you can move again, a place no-one’s going to notice you, nobody’s going to see.”

The marshal eases out the chair from the desk—he sits.

“Keep on with what I told you,” McBride says.

“Just keep right on?”

“Unless you can't.”

Whicher thinks it over, lets the phrase sink in.

Unless you can't.

Lauren DeLuca sits at the far side of the office in the marshal’s coat. Her legs are crossed, her face a mask. Cheekbones a perfect curve in the light of the office lamp.

The marshal drains his second mug of coffee.

“Why do you keep checking your watch?” she says.

Too long.

Too long since Guillory set out.

He was headed over to the far side of town, to his house. To bring them something to eat, bring a winter coat for Whicher.

Lauren puts her head on one side, blonde hair falling in an arc. “Do you think he’s alright?”

“Snow’s pretty bad out there.”

Her foot begins to bounce. “How long do you think he'll be?”

Whicher shifts in his seat. “Why don’t you tell me something about you?”

She draws the big, wool coat around herself.

“Maybe it could make a difference,” he says, “if I knew who was coming after you...”

“I agreed to testify in a trial. In exchange, I was promised protection.”

He runs a hand over the day's growth of stubble at his chin.

“How much of this have you done?” she says. “Witness security?”

“I've done a lot of things, ma’am.”

“I hope you know what you're doing.”

He nods. “One thing I do know...”

“What's that?”

“Mostly—folk that end up in witness security, they’re from a pretty damn serious background.”

“A serious background?”

He looks at her. “That’s to say—a criminal background.”

On the long wall of the Millersburg outdoor supply, snow is inches thick on top of the payphone booth.

Jerzy Belaski feeds in quarters, checks both directions along the sidewalk. No footprints show, the ground is unmarked—only his own boots have disturbed the fresh fall.

No headlights show in any direction.

Behind the wheel of the stationary Toyota, Jimmy Scardino looks out, runs a hand through his thick head of wavy, black hair.

He’s smiling. Smiling at nothing.

Belaski keys the numbers on the freezing phone.

It rings twice, three times, picks up.

He hears the sound of music playing—ambient noise, voices, people talking.

“Mister Coletti?”

He pictures the South Side of Chicago, a neighborhood bar.

“It's Jerzy Belaski.”

“What?”

“Belaski...”

“What the hell do you want?”

There’s a rustling noise at the earpiece, the speaker goes dull. The sound changes, the music quieter now, no voices—a backroom.

“We ran into a problem,” Belaski says.

“What God damn problem?”

Genaro Coletti. Still the construction foreman he once was.

“Did you hit the train?”

“We hit it.”

“Did you get it stopped?”

“We stopped it, but we couldn't get right to her.” Belaski stares at scuff marks on the side of the payphone booth. “By the time we had her escort, the sheriff’s department showed up...”

“Where are you?”

“Colorado. She got herself tight in with law enforcement.”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Coletti snaps. “What the hell is going on?”

“I bought a ticket at Raton,” Belaski says, his voice even. “I got on the train.”

“Jimmy park that station wagon on the line?”

“He parked it. We got the train stopped, but we couldn't get to her.”

“Ah, Jesus Christ.”

Belaski keeps his speech slow, deliberate. “The train didn't wreck, they got it started up again. She got back on, I got on. Jimmy followed in the truck...”

“What the fuck?”

“We picked the spot for that,” Belaski says. “Just in case. The rail line follows the road from Trinidad to La Junta. It follows the track for miles.”

“Yeah? Shit.”

“I tried again on the train, but there was another cop—I took a shot, but there was no way to get the jump, I had to bail, had to get out. They stopped the train in the middle of nowhere. They got off.”

“Where?”

Belaski eyes the snow. “Around forty miles from La Junta. Millersburg, it’s called.”

“You know where she is now, I mean right now?”

“They went into a police station.”

The sound changes again—Belaski pictures Coletti covering the phone with his hand, cursing him out, only barely in control. Balls but no brains.

Jimmy Scardino stares out through the windshield, shifting, nervous in the Toyota.

“Millersburg?” Coletti finally says.

“I'm just letting you know…”

“That I sent a spray-hitting prick to do a man’s job...”

“So you know what's going on...”

“Yeah? So far, so fucked up.”

Belaski leans against the side of the booth.

“I'm sending help.”

“There's a storm going here, it's snowing like crazy. No way anybody’s getting in through this.”

“Then you listen to me,” Coletti says, “this gets taken care of, tonight. Or you’re out—I find somebody else.”

“Nobody’s coming in here.” Belaski grinds his teeth. “Nobody’s leaving.”

“Anyway it needs to get done, you get it the hell done.”

The call clicks out.