The Black Train (15 page)

Sute gulped, staring at Collier’s remark. “What a—what a generous compliment. Yes, Jiff truly is a wonderful man.” Sute patted his forehead with a handkerchief, squinting through more unreckonable beguilement. “Say, Mr. Collier? Do you mind if I
drink?
”

You look like you need to, buddy.
“Go right ahead. I’ll be having a few myself.”

Collier ordered a lager while Sute ordered a Grey Goose martini.
He’s so flustered he needs booze.
Indeed, the mere mention of the name—Jiff—seemed to pack some hypnotic effect on this man. But Collier was getting sidetracked himself. Whatever odd vibe existed between Sute and Jiff wasn’t the point. Collier burned to hear more about—

“And Penelope Gast, the wife? I believe Jiff mentioned that Gast
murdered
her. Is that right?”

Sute settled down when his first sip of the top-shelf martini drained a third of the glass. “Yes, he did, the day before he hanged himself. And if you want to talk about a person with amplified sexual desires? Mrs. Gast fits that bill quite nicely, and an interesting accompaniment to the nature of the house itself.”

“Are you saying that the house was the reason for her high sexual state?”

Sute mulled it over, with another sip of his drink. “Perhaps, or perhaps the opposite. Some claim that the house didn’t affect her—she affected the house. The sheer evil of her carnality.”

Collier came close to laughing. “Mr. Sute, it sounds to me like she was just another cheating housewife who had the misfortune of getting caught. Being a floozy doesn’t mean her house is possessed. If that were the case, the real estate market in L.A. would be in big trouble.”

“Just another cheating housewife, or something
more? No one will ever be able to say for sure,” Sute calmly remarked. “She was reportedly pregnant, and
not
by her husband. We know this because the local physician had her name in a ledger in his safe.”

“So? Maybe she had an appointment for an earache.”

“She had an appointment for an
abortion.
The way they did it back then was—” Sute peered up, mildly pained. “It’s uncomfortable to talk about, Mr. Collier. It’s an ugly, ugly story, and not one you’d want to hear before eating your lunch.”

Collier chuckled. “Mr. Sute, my life is so boring in Los Angeles I can’t even see straight most of the time. This is fascinating stuff; I’m really intrigued by it. And besides, it can’t be any grosser than the crime section of the
L.A. Times
on any given day.”

“So be it. If you want me to oblige you, I’ll oblige you.” The large man cleared his throat. “The way they aborted pregnancies back then was by injecting a distillation of boiled soapberry flowers into the uterine channel. This compound—very astringent—would cause a drastic PH shift in the womb, and usually result in a miscarriage within three days. The town physician’s ledger—and keep in mind, this was a
private
ledger, for his
private
activities—plainly listed Mrs. Gast’s appointment as a meeting for an abortion. And prior to that, Mrs. Gast had had three more appointments for the same procedure—at least three on the record; the ledger went back five years. Of course, she didn’t live long enough to make that fourth appointment. Harwood came home earlier than expected—and killed her.”

“How?”

Another pained look. “With an ax.”

“He axed his own wife to death, when she was
pregnant?
”

“Yes, and he did so in the very room she’d committed all of her infidelities. She had a special room for these trysts. It was kept locked for her—by the family maid, a
slave named Jessa. I shudder to think of how many
other
secrets Jessa went to her grave with—though I don’t suppose she ever really had a grave, not a proper one. See, Gast murdered her, too, when he became apprised of her collusions with his wife.”

Collier peeped over his beer. “I almost hate to ask.”

“She was…well, she was left out in the fields for the buzzards and the crows.”

Sute’s pause irked Collier. “Left? You mean Gast killed her and then left her body somewhere?”

Sute finished his martini, ordered another, and stolidly replied, “Gast had her raped to death, by twenty of his most loyal rail workers.
Then
her body was discarded in the fields behind the house. The mass rape, by the way, took place in the same room that Mrs. Gast would be murdered in later that day—”

Raped to death. Yeah, it’s hard to get grimmer than that.

“—and I might add, since you insist on some of the more morbid details, that Mrs. Gast received similar attentions from Gast’s roughriders, while he watched, of course.”

“I don’t get it. Mrs. Gast was gang-raped to death, too? I thought you said she was killed with an—”

“She wasn’t quite raped to the point of death—this by Gast’s particular order. After a few hours, and when she was just about to give up the ghost,
that’s
when Gast put the ax to her.”

“Then she was dumped in the field, like the maid?”

“No. He left her body to rot in the bed. Ironic that she should die by such means in the very room whose purpose she kept hidden from Mr. Gast. No doubt those four previous pregnancies by men other than her husband germinated in that room as well, and I suspect much else.”

“You keep mentioning this
room
—I wonder which room it is exactly…”

“It’s on the main stair hall. Mrs. Butler doesn’t even rent that one out. Room two.” Sute looked at him. “Which room are you in, Mr. Collier?”

Collier winced at a twinge. “Room three.”

“You’re in an interesting spot, then. To your left is the room where both Jessa and Penelope Gast were murdered. And to your right, the original commode closet and bathing room.”

“What…happened there?”

“He drowned one of his foremen there, a track inspector named Taylor Cutton. Cutton had the bad luck of being one of Mrs. Gast’s secret suitors. Somehow Gast discovered this and drowned Cutton in the hip bath, among other things.”

Eew,
Collier thought.
I hope it wasn’t the same hip bath I saw Mrs. Butler washing herself in last night…

The topic was at last getting the best of him. When the food arrived, it smelled delicious but he only picked at it. Several more pints of Cusher’s Civil War Lager took some of the edge off the nefarious story that he’d essentially forced Sute to relate. But he did ask, “And this manuscript you wrote, the one too harsh for publishers—do you still have it?”

Sute’s face was pinkening a bit, from a third martini. “Oh, yes. It’s gathering dust on my shelf.”

“And that’s the entire story of Harwood Gast—the entire legend of the man?”

Sute nodded. “And I think a lot of it’s probably quite accurate. Most of the sources are
very
authentic. Whether you believe the supernatural angle or not, Mr. Collier, you can believe this: Harwood Gast was purely and simply an evil man.”

“Mrs. Butler said the same thing.”

“And she’s well advised. Some of her ancestors lived in this town when all these things were happening, and mine, too. I appreciate your interest, though. It’s quite flattering, I must say. Here’s my card.” He slipped one
across the table. “If you’d like to borrow the manuscript, or browse through it, don’t hesitate to ask. But—please—call first.”

“Thanks,” Collier said. “I might take you up on that.”

“I can also show you some of the original daguerreotypes that I didn’t elect to put in any of my published books. There are a few nudes of Mrs. Gast, if you’re…interested in seeing that sort of thing.”

Collier’s brows jiggled, but then he thought,
Nudes?
“Oh, come on, don’t tell me she did pornography, too. They must not have even had it back then.”

“No, nothing like that, but just as aristocrats of earlier eras would have their wives painted in the nude, the same went when photography was invented. Daguerreotypes and other early forms of photography were
very
expensive, and reserved only for the
very
rich. Well, Harwood Gast may have been the richest private citizen in Tennessee back then. He had several nudes taken of his wife, for his own viewing. She’s quite a comely woman.”

Collier continued to be astounded by his interest in this. And now…
Nude pix of Penelope Gast. I’ve GOT to see those.

It took another moment for the next question to click in his head. “Mr. Sute…Was anyone murdered in
my
room?”

“I’m quite happy to say…no, Mr. Collier.”

Collier—even though he wasn’t sure he believed
any
of this—was relieved.

“And there you have it, the short version anyway.” Sute’s distraction continued. He seemed to keep peering over Collier’s shoulder, out the restaurant’s plate-glass window. “I won’t bore you with certain other testimony—things said to have been witnessed in the house.”

“Finally. Ghosts.”

“Yes, Mr. Collier. Ghosts, apparitions, and every con
ceivable bump in the night. Footsteps, voices, dogs barking—”

“What?” Collier snapped.

Sute smiled. “Yes, as well as regressive nightmares, hallucinations—”

“What do you mean,
regressive
nightmares?” Collier snapped.

“—and even demons,” Sute finished.

Collier plowed his next beer. He didn’t like to be taken for a fool. Was this bizarre fat man a master storyteller? Or…

He hadn’t heard any dogs
barking
exactly, but he had seen one, or so he’d thought. He’d found his own sexual responses exploding…something Sute claimed to have happened to others. And the nightmare he’d had? It had
regressed
him back in time, all right, to a mindboggling atrocity that involved a railroad during the Civil War.

And he’d heard voices, too, hadn’t he? Children, a woman, a man.

Now this.

“Demons?” Collier asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Let me take a stab at it,” Collier tried to mock. “Harwood Gast was really a
demon,
I’ll bet. To do the devil’s bidding on earth.”

Sute chuckled at the attempt. “No, Mr. Collier. It’s actually something even more contrived than that.”

“Really?”

“There’s long been the suggestion that Gast sold his proverbial soul…to a demon.”

Collier rubbed his eyebrows, if anything, laughing at himself now. That other stuff? It was just human nature, plus too much beer. He was seeing what the fabulist in him wanted to see.
People make any excuse to think they’ve seen a ghost.
More human nature,
primal
human nature. He was the Cro-Magnon listening to the scary
story in the cave, and just
knowing
that that sound he’d heard in the woods was a Wendigo or a lost soul.

And now Sute was professing demons.

“I’m glad you said that, Mr. Sute. Because now, your story isn’t really that disturbing anymore.”

“I’m glad. You don’t believe in ghosts then?”

“No, not at all.”

“Nor in demons?”

“Nope. I was raised in a Christian family—” Collier felt an inner gag. Peeping on a sixty-five-year-old woman taking a bath, coitus interruptus with Lottie, getting drunk to the gills, plus a burning, unabated, unrepentant LUST…
Jesus, what am I trying to say?
“What I mean is, I’m not what you’d call a practicing Christian, but—”

Sute nodded, with a cryptic smile. “You were influenced by the faith. They say that more than half of the Americans who even
call
themselves Christians never even go to church.”

That would be me,
Collier realized.

“But I think what you’re trying to say is that some of your upbringing, in the midst of Christian values, has remained with you.”

“Right. And I don’t believe in demons.”

“How about Christian thesis in general? Do you believe
that?
”

“Well, yeah, sure. The Ten Commandments, the New Testament, and all that. Blessed are the pure of heart. I mean, I guess I even believe in Jesus.”

“Then you believe in basic Christian ideology,” Sute observed more than asked.

His hypocrisy raged.
I’m profane, I’m lustful, I’m gluttonous, I’m a pretty serious sinner, but, sure, I believe it.
“Sure,” he said.

Sute rose, and pointed at him. “In that case, Mr. Collier, then you
do
believe in demons. Because Christ acknowledged their reality. ‘I am Legion, for we are many.’ And on
that
note, I must excuse myself momentarily.”

Collier watched him depart for the restroom.

The conversation’s shadow hovered over him. In truth, he didn’t know how to define his beliefs at all. When he turned, his vision was cut off by a pair of ample breasts in a tight white T-shirt, and a silver cross between them.

“Did I hear you right? You were discussing…Christian thesis?”

Collier looked up, slack-jawed. It was Dominique. She’d removed the apron and was standing right next to him.

Collier didn’t know how to reply. He was hypocritically claiming a Christian ideal to explain why he didn’t believe in demons?
I’d sound like a complete tube steak.
Dominique—at least it seemed—was a genuine Christian, not a phony. For a moment, he even thought of lying to her, just to impress her.

And she’d see through that…like I see through this empty beer glass.

Finally, he said, “Mr. Sute and I were just talking subjectively.”

“About what?” she asked in a heartbeat. A little catsmile seemed to aim down at him.

Collier tried to sound, well, like a writer. “Theoretical Christian interpretation of demonology.”

She shifted her pose, to stand with a hand on her hip. “Well, Jesus
was
an exorcist. He cast out demons like he was a football ref throwing penalty flags.”

Collier’s thoughts stumbled.
This is the girl of your dreams, dickhead. Maintain conversation.
“So…true Christians believe in demons?”

“Of course!”

“And the devil?”

“Well, Jesus wasn’t tempted in the desert for forty days by the Good Humor Man. If you believe in God, you have to believe in the devil, and the devil’s minions. Lucifer isn’t a
metaphor—
jeez, I’m so tired of hearing
that
one. He isn’t an abstraction or a symptom of
mental illness.
” She groaned. “God punted him off the twelfth gate of heaven—once his favorite, the angel called Lucifer—for his vanity and his pride. The friggin’
devil,
in other words, is a real dude, and so are his demons. If you don’t believe in demons, then you can’t believe that Christ cast them out, and if you don’t believe
that,
then that’s the same as saying the New Testament is bullshit—”