A new person with stringy long brown hair walked up. Tanner put his arm around the man’s shoulders. “I have a surprise for you. Meet the newest member of your troupe, the drummer for ——.”
Spider pointed at Steppenwolf. “We already got a musical act.”
“I’ve decided to have them perform together as a super group.”
Tanner turned to Ralph. “You’re gonna get a chuckle out of this.” He began pulling books from an overnight bag. “I found these when I went digging for bio material. They’re your old novels. The jacket photos are a scream! Here’s B Is for Bongo. Note the goatee and the fashionable suicidal look. And here’s Bad Trip. What’s with the flowers on that shirt? You look like you played tambourine in Herman’s Hermits…. And here’s Murder at the Watergate. Ralph, is that genuine polyester?”
The laughter finally subsided, and Spider stepped forward. “Mr. Lebos, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but in your phone call, I thought you said we were going to play Carnegie…”
“Almost right,” said Tanner. “The Carnegie car.” He pointed up at a fancy brass sign on the bulkhead.
Preston turned to Spider. “That’s even better! Who wants to play Carnegie when you can play the Carnegie car?”
“Shut up!”
“There’s no slowing this career juggernaut now…”
“I said, shut up!”
“…Next stop, the Hollywood Bowl… public bus!”
Spider grabbed Preston’s collar, and there was a quick, wordless struggle in the aisle. A sleeve ripped.
“Break it up!” said Tanner. “We’ve got rehearsing to do.”
Bruno Litsky cleared his throat. “Uh, Mr. Lebos. I’m still not clear on precisely what it is we’re supposed to be doing.”
“I’m not an actor,” said Andy.
“I’m not even sure what a mystery train is,” said Dee Dee.
“What’s my motivation?” asked Frankie.
“All of you — relax or you’ll give yourselves heart attacks,” said Tanner. “Look at me. Who takes care of you? Huh?”
They stared at the floor and spoke in unison: “You do, Mr. Lebos.”
“That’s right!” said Tanner, holding up his briefcase. “Got your scripts right here. And the props.”
“Scripts?”
“Props?”
Tanner nodded. “Fake guns, rubber knives, play money, stuff like that. Didn’t you read Ralph’s last book? I had some copy editors convert it to a script. You’re going to perform it on the way to Florida, interact with the passengers. Do you have any idea how much money these people are paying for this? It’s an incredible opportunity. If everything works out, we might even be talking cruise ships.”
Preston nudged Spider. “The Carnegie ship.”
“I’m warning you!”
Out on the loading platform, a train conductor in black slacks headed for Track 12W. He stopped at the front of The Silver Stingray, pulled a hundred-year-old gold Elgin pocket watch from his pants and flipped it open. He snapped it closed and returned it to his pants, then fit a conductor’s hat on his head. “Alllllllll aboard!”
Serge stepped up next to him. He wore his own souvenir conductor’s hat and opened his own gold pocket watch. “Alllllll aboard!… The Silver Stingray, serving Dade City, Winter Haven, Delray Beach and Coooo-kamunnnnnnga!”
The conductor grabbed a handrail and climbed up. “I hate these fucking mystery trains.”
In a rest room on the northwest side of Penn Station, Eugene Tibbs sat on a toilet in a locked stall with his knees and a silver briefcase tucked to his chest, the same position he’d been in for the last twenty-four hours. When the public address system announced final boarding for Miami, Eugene stretched out his legs. He slowly opened the stall door, looked both ways, then ran out of the rest room and across the station. He raced down the escalator and didn’t stop until he had bounded up the steps of the train just as it started to move.
“Here come our drinks,” said Teresa. The waiter placed five blue shots on the table.
“Cheers!”
The waiter held his empty tray to his stomach and Eugene Tibbs held the briefcase to his as they turned sideways and passed in the aisle. Eugene sat down at the last table in the car, his back to the wall.
Ivan and Zigzag were on day two of their stakeout at the SoHo loft. They were still on the same bench across the street, eating dollar hot dogs from a corner vendor, a pile of trash next to them, soda and coffee cups, bagel chip bags, lollipop wrappers. Growing impatience.
“We have to make a move,” said Ivan. “It’s now or never.”
“You got mustard,” said Zigzag.
Ivan touched the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin.
“Other side.”
They headed across the street and up the stairs to the loft. Ivan picked the lock. They had begun sifting through the wreckage when Ivan saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. He pressed play.
The pair sprinted north on Eighth Avenue, pushing tailors to the ground, running through racks of clothes, Ivan yanking a mink stole off his face and throwing it over his shoulder, crossing Thirty-third Street, knocking over an elegant blonde in a strapless evening gown walking a tiger on a diamond-studded leash next to the luxurious new Mercury Sable with dual-stage air bags.
“Cut! Cut!”
They reached Thirty-fourth, down the stairs into the train station, looking around frantically, tracks to the left, tracks to the right…
“There he is!” yelled Ivan, pointing at Eugene Tibbs sprinting from the rest room to the escalators on the far side of the concourse.
Zigzag and Ivan bolted across the station. The train was already moving pretty good as they vaulted down the escalator, crashing into people, scattering luggage. Ten miles an hour, twelve, fifteen, the diesel engines roaring to life. They finally caught up with the last car, running alongside it as hard as they could, yelling and slapping the corrugated metal side, twenty miles an hour, still accelerating, gradually pulling away from the two men, who broke off pursuit and bent over and grabbed their knees, out of breath. When they looked up again, The Silver Stingray was a hundred yards down the snow-covered tracks, pulling away from New York’s Pennsylvania Station for Florida, Serge waving from the back window.
34
Serge had his new digital camera ready, aimed out the window of the dining car, as the Philadelphia skyline came into view. Click, click, click. Running through to the lounge car in case it had a better vantage, taking pictures out windows along the way. Click, click, click…
That’s when he saw it. He couldn’t believe his luck. It was just sitting there in the aisle. A silver briefcase. It was next to a table full of people. Serge stayed cool, pocketing his camera. He scrunched down as he walked and dipped his left shoulder so his hand was at the same level as the briefcase handle. He snagged it without breaking stride and kept going, keeping the briefcase an inch off the floor as he moved away. When he was out of view, Serge brought the case to his hip and walked swiftly back to his sleeping compartment. He closed the door fast behind him, twisting the lock and pulling down the shades. He set the briefcase on the floor and tried the latches. He expected them to be locked, but they just flipped open. Serge broke into a broad smile. “We meet again!”
He raised the lid. His face changed.
“What the hell?”
He began removing plastic guns, plastic handcuffs, rubber knives, rubber candlestick holders, fake passports, packets of play money. He got to the bottom of the briefcase and removed a stack of stapled Xeroxes. He read the cover and riffled the pages.