Super (7 page)

He moved finally into the vestibule between his car and the one behind where he could also hear.

He watched carefully as the two men in suits and hats talked and then greeted another man, who seemed familiar. Lawrence thought he resembled Clark Gable.

But that was of no serious interest. What he overheard in a conversation between a porter and a conductor, about Harry S Truman now being on the train, was what was important.

That was all that mattered to Dale L. Lawrence.

Gene Mathews considered himself the champion train sleeper. He had yet to meet anyone who claimed the ability to doze off as quickly as he could to the sounds and swings of a sleeping car berth. Over the many years and trips with Darwin Rinehart, he had developed an almost hypnotic
heavy-lid response to putting his head down on a pillow and closing his eyes on a moving train.

He was asleep but he was also aware of what was happening. The
click-click-click
of the wheels passing over the tracks reminded him of the gadget, called a metronome, his little sister used when practicing the piano. She’d wind it up and a skinny metal stem would tick side to side, side to side. Gene could also hear the
ding-ding
of the downed barriers at railroad crossings and even, faintly, the occasional blast of the Super Chief’s horn from the engine far ahead of him, here in the observation car at the end of the train.

He heard it all and yet he heard nothing that roused him completely. The commotion of Kansas City had barely stirred him because it, too, was built into his unconscious expectation of the first night out on the Super from Chicago.

But now, suddenly, he was awake. Sitting up.

There had been an abrupt, noticeable change in the click-click rhythm.

Mathews was certain they couldn’t have been much more than an hour out of Kansas City. It was too early for Bethel …

The train came to a full stop.

He raised his window blind.

There was a small red brick train station. Only a few lights were on inside and out. A rectacular black and white sign on the building showed the word
S-T-R-O-N-G
. Strong, Kansas? Gene knew the entire timetable of the Super Chief. It definitely did not have a scheduled stop in Strong.

Strong, Kansas. There was something familiar about it, though. Didn’t somebody famous live here? Not a movie person. There actually were a
few
famous people who weren’t in the movies.

Yes! It was an editor. A writer. Albert Roland Browne. Gene had read a couple of his short stories. And was it him or his brother or a son who wrote the book that the movie
My Son Greg
was based on?

But it didn’t matter.

The Super Chief was moving again. Whatever the reason for stopping in Albert Roland Browne’s hometown, it wasn’t for more than a couple of minutes.

And soon Mathews was back to sleep.

He might peer out again at Bethel. There was never much to see there but it was a scheduled crew change stop, and new passengers were permitted to board if they were going to Albuquerque or beyond.

Gene Mathews knew the Super.

And he knew he was going to miss it almost as much as Darwin Rinehart would.

A portly man in his fifties wearing a French-cuffed white shirt with large silver and pearl cuff links and a dark green tie entered the unlit interior of the empty observation
car lounge. Under his right arm was a black portable Royal typewriter; in his left hand, a jumble of papers.

He went directly to the writing table just inside the car, made his writing equipment and himself comfortable, placed a monocle in his right eye, switched on a lamp and started typing.

In less than five minutes, the door opened again and three men, walking single file, came in. All three were in suits, ties. The last, the oldest, wore wire-rimmed glasses and walked with a stick.

The man at the desk stopped typing, glanced up and then leapt to his feet. To the elderly man, he said, “Are you who I think you are … sir?”

“I don’t know who you had in mind but I’m Harry Truman of Independence, Missouri,” said Truman, extending his right hand.

“That’s exactly who I had in mind. I’m A. C. Browne of the
Strong
, Kansas,
Pantagraph,”
said Browne as he shook hands. He did so with a manner that he hoped showed he was somewhat at ease in the company of a former president of the United States.

“You any kin to that famous Albert Roland Browne … what did they call him?”

“The Sage of Strong,” said Browne. “He was my father. I took over the paper from him. I’m Albert
Carlton
Browne. Everybody calls me A.C.”

Truman peered hard through the semidarkness. “That
fancy tie and shirt and that accent of yours look and sound more Britain and London than Kansas and Strong.”

A. C. Browne was flustered. But the lack of good light helped him cover it. “I guess I picked up some habits while in Britain with NBC during the war,” he said, still sounding non-Kansan.

“Well, like they say,” said Truman, “You can take the man out of NBC but you can’t take NBC out of the man.”

Browne laughed. He could think of no other reaction.

Truman said, moving on, “These are Santa Fe people.” He motioned toward the men who had preceded him into the car and were now standing poised a few feet away.

“This one’s a detective. His name is Pryor. He was put here by the railroad to make sure nobody harms this tired old body of mine.”

Then with a nod to the other man, the youngest of the three, Truman added, “This is Charlie. He’s from the Chicago head office. He was put here by the mighty Santa Fe to make sure my every need is met, including that for a glass of whiskey in the middle of the night, even if we’re in a dry state.”

“Which Kansas certainly is, Mr. Truman,” said Browne. “The driest of the driest.”

Charlie Sanders held up a tiny key. “Coming right up, Mr. President. The steward awarded me the key to the liquor cabinet.”

“You want to join me in a drink, Mr. Browne?” Truman said.

“Simple gin in a simple glass would be great, yes, sir.”

Browne then followed Truman to two seats farther into the
lounge. Jack Pryor, on his way with Charlie Sanders to the liquor, switched on a light for them.

Once seated, Browne said to Truman, “This is quite an honor, sir. Thank you.”

Truman nodded.

“Actually, you and I have met before, Mr. President.”

“Is that right? Refresh me on that, please.”

“I interviewed you in the White House in 1949 for
Look
magazine.”

Charlie Sanders returned with the drinks and handed one each to Truman and to Browne. Then he disappeared into the out-of-hearing darkness with Pryor. They would watch but not listen to Harry Truman of Independence and A. C. Browne of Strong have a drink together.

Truman gave Browne a hard look. “Oh, yes, yes. I remember you. You’re the one who also wrote a book about adopting a war orphan.”

“Yes, sir,
My Son Greg,”
said Browne, nodding. “It was based on the adoption of my real son—his name is Bart, as in Hobart.”

“I didn’t realize it was a true story, Browne. Good for you. Mrs. Truman and I saw the movie. Robert Taylor was in it. And that child actress?”

“Betsy Randolph.”

“That’s her. Is she still in the movies?”

“I don’t know, sir. The porter told me there are, as always, movie stars and movie moguls on this train. We could ask one of them.”

“‘The Train of the Stars’ is what they’ve always called the Super Chief. Who are the stars this time?”

“Clark Gable’s the only one I know for sure. Some travel under phony names—and the Santa Fe people keep their secret.”

“We had one of those stars come to the White House who’d played a bit part as Ulysses S. Grant in some damned movie. He went into his Grant personality—I think he was drunk, too, just like Grant—and started lecturing me on how I could have won the war without dropping the bomb. I reminded him that playing smart people in the movies doesn’t make you smart. He didn’t like it. He did finally shut up but not before accidentally calling me ‘Mr. Lincoln’ a time or two.”

Browne chuckled as he tried, in vain, to think of who that actor might have been. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Grant portrayed by anyone in a movie. But Browne had been around enough actors and actresses to know that some of them never got over being the parts they played.

Truman took a sip of his whiskey and added, “But I must say, Browne, that the way things are going in this country it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them ends up in the Senate or the House—maybe even the White House—someday.”

“That’ll never happen, sir.”

“That’s what they said about cars and diesel locomotives and airplanes. Never happen, never happen. Let’s not forget our current president—my beloved successor.”

“Ike?”

“He was just a general before he was a president. MacArthur got where he did only because he was more of an actor than a soldier.”

“But is that fair, to lump Eisenhower with MacArthur?”

“Who gives a damn what’s fair at four thirty in the morning in the lounge car on the Super Chief?”

“I’ll drink to that,” Browne said.

They clinked their glasses.

“What are you doing up this late, anyhow, Browne?” Truman asked.

“I just got on the train, sir. I dropped my baggage and my suit coat in my compartment and came on down here. It was empty until you got here. What about you, Mr. President?”

“I had been asleep in my compartment, but the banging of my car in Kansas City a while ago woke me up. So I decided to get up and find me a drink. Where did you get on?”

“Strong.”

“I wondered about that stop. I thought the Super Chief didn’t stop in Strong—or anywhere else much between Kansas City and Albuquerque.”

“It did tonight, sir.”

“For you?”

Browne lifted his glass and took a long sip of gin.

“You must be a Republican,” Truman said.

“All I did was make a call to an old Santa Fe friend of the
family who had the Super Chief stop for me. I jumped on, the train wasn’t still more than a minute or two. Why are you going to Los Angeles, sir—I assume that’s your destination?”

“To make a political speech for an old friend. You?”

“To interview some folks for a magazine story I’m writing.”

“You’re a real chip off the father’s block, aren’t you?”

“Not really, sir. He didn’t drink, I do. He didn’t smoke, I do. He didn’t cuss, I do.”

“You must be a Democrat.”

“I did support you and Roosevelt.”

Truman smiled and grumbled something under his breath about 1948 when it was Truman and Barkley. Then he said, “Your Kansas fella Landon lost even bigger to FDR than the experts said I was going to lose to Dewey. I got to know Landon. He’s a good man …” He stopped in midsentence. “Did you hear that?” he asked Browne.

“What, sir?”

“That
pow!
sound.”

“All I heard was this train beginning to slow down.”

Truman looked out the window. Some early signs of light were coming up from the bottom of the darkness over central Kansas.

“Bethel’s coming up in a few minutes,” said Browne. “Just a short stop here for a crew change and to put on some galley supplies. The Fred Harvey people run a farm outside town where they raise their produce and other staples for the trains and Harvey House restaurants along the Santa Fe. They’ve got
a big laundry here, too. We did a story about it in the
Pantagraph
a while ago—”

“Detective Pryor! Detective Pryor!” Ralph, the sleeping car porter, came running into the lounge.

“Conductor Hammond says come quick, sir! Come now!”

Jack Pryor ordered Charlie Sanders to stay with President Truman and then raced after Ralph back down the passageway.