The Night Train: A Novelette (The Strange Files of Modesty Brown Book 1) (7 page)

 “Jeepers Crow, Pilgrim!” Pinky
cries. “What happened to you?”

“You
should see the other guy,” Modesty says, pleased to use the line again.

“Oh,
my god. You’ve managed to shoot up your typewriter. And you’ve just ruined
those stockings!” She sounds much more concerned about the latter.

“Sit
down, this minute,” Pinky clucks. “Well, there’s nothing to be done with them
now. Just roll off what’s left of them. You’ll have to bare leg it, because I
wouldn’t put anything over those bloody knees.”

Janet
hands her a hanky. “Maybe this will help?”

“Thanks
kid,” Modesty says, dabbing her stinging knees with the girls wedding
handkerchief.

“And
is that…Is that
blood,
Pilgrim? On your dress there?”

Pinky
gestures to a tiny dark spatter over the waistband of her skirt.

“Don’t
worry,” Modesty says, stuffing her ruined stockings in her coat pocket. “It’s
not mine.”

“Well.
I may have pegged you all wrong.” She brushes her hands together three times.
“You know what? Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I’m guessing everything’s
back where it belongs.”

“Just
about.”

“Well,
then. I think that calls for a bit of a celebration.”

Pinky
brings out a flask from the cleavage of her dress.
Does she have a dozen of
those things hidden on herself?
Modesty thinks.
Does her body produce
little silver flasks?

“Pinky’s
right,” Janet says. Her voice at once wistful and strong. “Here’s to us!”

“Here’s
to you, Janet. And to you, Pilgrim.”

Janet
raises the flask like it’s a glass of champagne. “Here’s to daring escapes,”
She sips, passes it to Modesty.

“To
daring escapes, and to new beginnings.”  Modesty tips the flask up and
passes it to Pinky.

Pinky
tips it up, taps the bottom to bring the last few drops out. “To daring
escapes, to new beginnings and to the Night Train. For bringing us all home.”

“To
the Night Train.”

“To
the Night Train.”

Pinky
grabs her ukulele from where she’d stashed it in a mailbag, plinks the four
strings. My. Dog. Has. Fleas. She strums a couple of times.

“
Pack
up all my cares and woes
,” she sings. “
Here I go. Singing low.
Take
it, girls.”

“
Bye
bye Blackbird.”

Modesty
feels something bubble inside her. Something like the feeling of being between
the cars, something like the moment when Bill pulled her onto the train,
something like when she shot Franco in the foot. It is a rush of something like
joy, and something like discovery, like the last answer to a hard puzzle, like
an unexpectedly good cup of coffee in a dive diner on a rainy night. She finds
herself singing. She finds herself a little in love with Pinky and Janet and
the Night Train. A little in love with her red coat, and her carpetbag and her
typewriter case with the bullet hole in it.

There
somebody waits for me. Sugar’s sweet. So is he. Bye Bye Blackbird.

But
this is all over when the Baggage Car door swings open and the conductor is
standing there, all blue uniform and brass buttons.

Pinky
plucks her ukulele. My. Dog. Has. Fleas.

“Just
what’s going on in here, ladies? This is a restricted area.”

Modesty
glances around and Janet is nowhere to be seen. Although one of the mailbags
attached to the wall does seem to have a bit of a runaway bride shaped bulge to
it. She thinks about what this guy sees. Her, stocking-less and bloody-kneed,
spatter of blood on her dress front. Two typewriter cases. One full of cursed
Chinese Dominoes, the other with a bullet hole clean through it. For once,
Pinky is speechless.

It
would be real easy to blow Pinky’s cover. Blow Pinky and Janet’s cover, let
this guy focus on them so they wouldn’t focus on her two typewriters, and the
state of her apparel. Yeah. That would be real easy.

In
a heartbeat, Modesty bursts out crying, dropping her face in her hands. Pinky’s
eyes narrow.
What are you up to, Pilgrim.

“She’s
just…” Modesty sobs, amazed that she was able to pull this whole act out of
nowhere. “She’s just trying to cheer me up.” Modesty lets out an exaggerated
hiccup. “Just…seeing John again…I just don’t know if I’m …” and she starts
blubbering again.

“There,
there,” Pinky says, patting her on the back. “You’ll have to excuse my friend,
Sir. It’s mostly my fault. I thought a little tipple would help her steel
herself, but it looks like…”

The
conductor’s eyes twinkle. This is a story he knows. A story he understands.
That’s it, pal. Just don’t think about it too much.

“Looks
like somebody’s not used to the hard stuff,” he says, visibly amused. “Well,
this is still a restricted area. You ladies shouldn’t be in here.”

“If
you’ll just give us a tiny moment of privacy,” Pinky says, “we’ll be out quick
as a wink.”

“Quick
as a wink, now. You promise?”

Pinky
crosses her heart. “Hope to die. But it would be…it would be a great help to
us, if you’d get us some coffee from the Club Car? Bill’s a personal friend.
I’m sure if you asked him, he’d come down directly.”

“Will
do, Miss. I’ll send Bill down, and you get that coffee in her and then you’ll
be back to your seats, right?”

“Right
as rain, Sir. Right. As. Rain.”

He
tips his cap and goes out the way he came in and a collective breath exhales
from the room when he’s gone. Janet pokes her head out of the mailbag.

“All
clear?”

Pinky
peeps out a crack in the door. “Almost. I just want him to go in…the…next
car…there. All clear.”

“All
right, Pilgrim we got to beat feet out of here. Listen. That was real decent
what you did back there. Covering for us.”

Modesty
shrugs.

“No.
Really. Look, you still don’t have any digs lined up for when you get into
town, do you?”

Modesty
shakes her head.

“All
right. What you need is...what you need is..." Pinky tapped a single shiny
pink nail against her teeth. "I know exactly what you need, Pilgrim. You
need a boarding house."

"But
I thought boarding houses don't take in people they don't already know. I don't
know anybody."

"Au
contraire, Pilgrim. You know me. And I. Know. Everybody."

From
the clown car that was her diminutive décolletage Pinky McGee pulls a slim white
card. She digs in Janet’s train case for a second and comes up with dark brown
eyebrow pencil. She scribbles something on the back and hands it over.

On
front in clean art deco style:
PINKY MCGEE'S TOTALL SPLENDID TERRIBLY WICKED
REFORM SCHOOL ALL-GIRL ORCHESTRA. AVAILABLE NIGHTLY OR BY THE WEEK. NO
CHILREN'S PARTIES, NO STAG NIGHTS.
On the back she'd scrawled the words
HOTEL REGINA, an address and the words: PINKY SAYS TAKE HER.

"Miss
Frida Duquesne," Pinky said. "That's what you need."

"Um.
Thank you?"

"Two
weeks at Miss Frida's and you'll drop the question mark from that sentence in a
hurry."

"How
do you know she'll have a room available?"

"She
always has a room available. For the right person."

Modesty
tucks the card down her cleavage. “What for, Pinky? I mean, yeah. I covered for
you. But it wasn’t that much of a hardship.”

“Let’s
just say that I don’t like owing any favors, and leave it at that.”

“Thanks.”
Modesty picks up both cases, balancing her burden carefully.

“Wait.”
Pinky says, her light tone gone. “What are you doing with
two
cases? I
thought you said everything was where it belonged?”

Modesty
shrugs. “I said
just about
.”

“Jesus
Pilgrim. You better get those tiles to the Dining Car, or finding a room when
you get into town won’t even be on your agenda any more. Get those things back
to Mrs. Fong. Or you will be well and truly and forever fucked.”

“Will
do.”

“You
coming this way?”

Modesty
shakes her head. “I still have to get my carpet bag.”

“Well,
then.” She gives Modesty a peck on the cheek. “See you in the funny pages,
Pilgrim.”

Modesty
watches them walk away down the corridor, their gaits sassy and sure. Pinky
lifts a hand to wave without even turning her head to look.

She
struggles down the corridor managing her carpetbag and two typewriter cases.
She slips into the empty lavatory when she hears Bill’s cart heading to the now
empty Baggage Car. Birds and stones, after all. She waits for him to rattle all
the way past, then slips into the Club Car, then past the sign that reads:
DINING CAR CLOSED.

The
Dining Car is only partially lit. At a table facing the door sits a Chinese
woman. A lamp on the table casts a circle of light around her. Someone sits in
front of her, their back to the door, bent over the table, like a supplicant.

“Who
dares disturb Mrs. Fong when she is in private conference?”

The
voice comes from the woman, but seems amplified, like its coming from a
megaphone or a loudspeaker. Modesty can feel her bones rattle from the force of
it.

“I…I
have something that belongs to you?

 “Is
that a question, Gweilo?”

“No,”
Modesty’s knees were knocking. “I have something that belongs to you.”

“You
still haven’t answered my question. Who dares disrupt Mrs. Fong when she is in private
conference?” The glasses shook a little from the force of her voice

“I’m…I’m
Modesty Brown. From … from Wonderly Investigations.”

The
amplification of her voice dies away, leaving in its place still a voice to
respect and fear. Her tone is easy and friendly, the ghost of an accent buried
in the consonants somewhere, but barely audible. Just enough to let you know
that you are Not Like Her.

 ”Jack
Wonderly, eh? Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? I was wondering
if I’d ever hear from him again. Come closer, Gweilo. Let me get a look at
you.”

Modesty
approaches the table, and sees that the girl sitting opposite Mrs. Fong isn’t
so much a supplicant as a manicurist. She is putting the finishing touches on a
rather smart Moon Manicure.

Modesty
had been expected some sort of ancient terrifying crone. Either that or some
rail thin young thing in a high collared dress and an elaborate up-do. The Mrs.
Fong in front of her looks rather like a stylish advertising executive or very
important secretary. Her hair is up in victory rolls, and she wears a suit of
pale green with large buttons. On her lapel, a jeweled brooch in the shape of a
crane.

Mrs.
Fong looks Modesty up and down, as if she’s reading a headline. Then she taps
her foot sharply, and her manicurist looks up. She speaks to the girl in quick
Chinese, and the manicurist takes herself off, nodding respectfully to Mrs.
Fong. Mrs. Fong says something again, and this time Modestly doesn’t need to
know Chinese to know she’s saying “No! No! No!” Mrs. Fong jerks her head to a
pile of magazines on the table, and the manicurist picks up a True Confessions,
and heads off to another table.

“Deaf
as a post,” Mrs. Fong says. “But she can sure as hell read lips. Now. Then. You
said you had something that belonged to me.”

Modesty
heaves the typewriter case onto the table where a moment ago Mrs. Fong was
getting a manicure. She pops the latches and turns the contents to face her.

“I
believe you were looking for these.” It sounds like someone else is speaking,
someone who is not her. A different Modesty Brown. She notices that in
affecting a competent and businesslike demeanor, she actually feels competent
and businesslike.

Mrs.
Fong reaches toward the dominoes, then pulls her hand back, fingers extended
wide to protect her nails from smudging.

“Ah
yes. I was, in fact looking for these.”

“All
two hundred and thirty six of them.”

“I
can count.” She nods crisply at the case. Something in that sharp nod,
something in her eyes, it’s hard to put a finger on what it is about her
exactly that makes “what she wants you to do” immensely and immediately clear.
But it is. Modesty shuts it, and puts it on the floor next to Mrs. Fong’s
chair.

Mrs.
Fong looks at the two cases, Modesty’s general state of disarray. The smell of
booze on her breath, that giant red coat, the stockings sticking out of her
coat pocket.  She knows the whole story in an instant.

“Franco?”
she asks, even though she already knows the answer.

Modesty
nods.

“I
guess he saw that typewriter of yours and just couldn’t help himself.
Shapeshifters are notoriously stupid. They have no impulse control, can’t see
the big picture.”

“He
kept saying I had really good timing.”

Mrs.
Fong laughs ruefully. “I’m sure he did. See a thing like that? A brand new
typewriter in the hands of a girl fresh from the outskirts on her very first
Night Train? Not many can resist the magic in that.”

“How’s
that?”

“The
City isn’t a place so much of Hedge Magic or Book Magic. It’s Trash Magic,
Dumpster Magic, Pawn Shop Magic. Items like that? Imbued with all your hopes,
all your ambitions? And then to have those
thwarted
– that’s the
technical term, you see. Items of Thwarted Ambition. Would have been more
powerful if you’d have lost it. Lost Ambition is the most powerful. But Stolen?
That works too. And our man Franco just couldn’t keep his paws off of it.
Always thought he could get something for nothing, that one. And it looks like
nothing is what he got.”

She
leans back in her chair, blows on her nails. “Looks like he tried to play us
both, Miss Brown. How’d you get him to give it up, anyway?”

“I
shot him in the foot.”

“Of
course you did. Precious little darling. So where is he now?”

Modesty
shrugs. “He turned into a pigeon or something and flew off. He could be
anywhere by now.”

“Shapeshifters.
Such babies. He hasn’t gotten far.” She pulls the string on the lamp, turning
it off and on a couple of times, which summons the manicurist. “Honey, bring me
that bottle. And the rocks glass, too. Miss Brown? The case, if you would? Just
a few of them, that’s all we need.”

Modesty
hesitates.

“Don’t
worry. They’re no threat. Not to you anyway.”

Modesty
Brown pulls out three dominoes and sets them on the table in front of Mrs. Fong.
The older woman jumbles them together on the table, palms only, keeping that
Moon Manicure far and away from the tiles, like she’s shuffling for Mah Jong.
 Finally she chooses one with a delicate two-fingered grip.

“Careful,
Careful,” Mrs. Fong says to herself. “I wouldn’t want to ruin all of Honey’s
beautiful work.”

She
cracks the domino in half, like she’s cracking an egg, and sure enough it
breaks open, dropping something nameless and dark and unctuous into the rocks
glass in front of her. It swirls and fusses, and she pours this into the wide
mouthed bottle.

“Hang
on to your hats, girls.”

The
Dining Car rocks and shivers. Glasses and silverware clanking, blinds
fluttering. Honey the Manicurist buffs her nails through the chaos with a Zen
mastery Modesty can only admire. But she is too busy holding on to her chair
with a death grip to try it herself. Lights flicker and the ceiling billows
with brackish green fog, or is it feathers, or is fur or is it teeth? Whatever
it is, it funnels neatly into the bottle on Mrs. Fong’s table. She screws the
cap on, and the room goes silent in a snap. She hands the bottle off to Honey.

“Put
these with the others will you, dear? Close your mouth, Miss Brown. You’ll
catch flies.” She blows on her nails. “And that, as they say, is that.”

“So
that was…Franco?”

Mrs.
Fong shrugs. “The important parts of him, yes. Back where he belongs now. Don’t
worry. He won’t be bothering either one of us anymore.”

Mrs.
Fong gestures to the lime green Bakelight cigarette case at her elbow. “Would
you mind, Miss Brown? I’m still tacky.”

Modesty
takes a slim black cheroot from the case and passes it to her.

“A
light?” She says, the cheroot in her mouth.

Modesty
pulls the matches from her coat pocket, and lights it with a shaking hand.

“You
poor thing,” she says, amused through a cloud of blue smoke. “Your first time
out of the sticks, and look at you. That’s what I call a trial by fire, eh?”

“You
could say that.”

“Here.
Let me see that typewriter of yours.”

Modesty
heaves her own case on to the table and opens it. Mrs. Fong clucks her tongue.

“Franco,
you are a bad, bad boy. You should learn to be more respectful of other
people’s things. Hand me those keys.”

Modesty
drops them into her hand with a clink. D. N. O. P. Mrs. Fong gives out a
sinister chuckle.

“PARDON.
That’s what he was trying to spell. PARDON. It might have worked, too. But then
again, probably not.”

She
balances the loose keys on their empty heads, and takes the cheroot from her
mouth. She runs the burning ember over them like a soldering iron, muttering
something that Modesty cannot hear.

“There,”
she says. “You should really take it to repair shop to make sure, but this
should take care of the worst of it. But this?” She taps the bullet hole in the
center of the case. “I think we leave that as it is. A reminder, of your first
trip on the Night Train. Besides, it gives you a certain … credibility, don’t
you think?”

“Thank
you,” Modesty says, the only words she can think of.

“See
Honey? Some people still have manners.” Mrs. Fong picks up one of the dominoes
on her table and hands it to Modesty, not without ceremony.

“A
good luck charm. For your trouble. And here,” she pulls out a business card.

“I’m
really racking these up today,” Modesty says, more to herself than out loud.
PATTY FONG’S AUTHENTIC CHINESE APOTHECARY AND HERBAL MEDICINE.

“Apothecary?”

“You
bet. I’m bona fide authentic. The real deal. Gweilo love everything
authentic
and
Chinese
, you know. You come and see me sometime, Modesty Brown.”

“You
bet.”

“And
give my best to Jack Wonderly. When you see him, that is.” Something in her
gaze told her that she meant something totally different from what she was
saying, like it was some kind of code, or a private joke. Only Modesty didn’t
get it. She only understood enough to know there was a lot she was missing.

“Welcome
to the City, Miss Brown.”