The Night Train: A Novelette (The Strange Files of Modesty Brown Book 1) (6 page)

“We
still needed the Dear John letter.”

“So
it’s
that
story, then,” Modesty says.

Janet
shakes her no. “Actually, I slammed it in the car door getting to the station.
It’s not that story. If it were, nobody could fault me for leaving. He’s not
awful in that way. He’s just awful in a hundred other ways that would have
eventually made me awful too. I’d rather take my chances with Pinky, here.”

“A
wiser decision has never been made, my pet,” Pinky agrees.

“So
then explain to me why I found your Hotel Marlene stationary in Jack Wonderly’s
case file.”

“Jack
Wonderly? You work for Jack Wonderly? Why didn’t you say so?”

“You
know him?”

“Sure,
I know him. Well, I think it’s more accurate to say he knows me. Haven’t seen
him in a while, but I did hear from him recently about some local …”

And
Pinky’s face changes. Her eyes widens and her mouth tightens and she lets out
the long slow breath of the Penny dropping.

“There
was no typewriter in that case.” It wasn’t a question.

“Sure
there was. Until somebody swiped it. And replaced it with another.”

“Chinese
Dominoes.”

“That’s
the one.”

“Okay,
listen to me Pilgrim, and if you haven’t believed anything I’ve said to you up
to this point, you better believe this. Those Dominoes? Belong to Mrs. Fong.”

“Right.
I figured that out from Wonderly’s case file.”

“No.
I don’t think you understand. Mrs. FONG. You do not mess with Mrs. Fong. This
is some grade A trouble, sister. You better find those dominoes and get them
back to her post haste, or you’re gonna be living in a world of sorry. Scratch
that, you may not be living in any world at all. So hustle your ass.”

When
she’d been outside in the snow by the train, Modesty had been so convinced it
was Pinky with her case that she forgot all about her original plan. But that
plan seems so far away now.

She
thinks about the train and the snow and the hiss of the steam and the clang of
metal cooling. An owl crying in the forest. The paw prints on the snow. Now
where would a low level shapeshifter go to hide out until the train started?

Pinky
gives Modesty a boost up to the hatch. “We’ll stay here until it all gets
sorted. Good luck, Pilgrim.”

Modesty
scrambles over the top of the train and shimmies down the ladder to the snowy
patch where she’d fallen. The paw prints are still there. Paw prints mixed with
shoe prints then paw prints again. Leading into the forest.

PART THREE
.

And
here we find ourselves at the close of the Middle, which can only mean we are
at the Start of the End. I’m sure you’re thinking that there are no surprises
left in store for you, that you can predict how this is all going to end up. And
while I’m sure you are right about some of it – stories like these often take
on a similar shape, a familial resemblance, I assure you, I have left at least
a couple of surprises up our heroine’s sleeve.

So
we find ourselves here at the Beginning of the End, next to a stopped train on
the edge of the woods. See our heroine’s red coat disappear into the trees.

The
paw prints change to shoe prints and back again, like this guy really couldn’t
decide what form would be most advantageous to his escape. This tells her
something about who he is, about his state of mind, but sadly our heroine is in
no position to put it to use. She wonders vaguely what happens to a
shapeshifter’s clothes when they change. She hopes she does not find him in his
birthday suit.  But she has only one clear thought. And it is getting her
typewriter back. It cost almost all the money she could lay her hands on, and
there would be none to replace it. There is no going back now. She has no real
plan, only her smoking, narrow determination.

But
not far into the woods, lit by the light of moon almost as bright as a cop’s
flashlight, she catches sight of it. The case is here. Breathless, her body
transforms from No to Yes. She feels the relief so keenly that the blood and
air drain out of her head in a hurry and she teeters on her feet a bit, almost
loses her balance as she leans down to pick it up again.

 And
that’s when the shoe appears. A scuffed man's shoe and it’s on the case,
directly next to her hand. A man's hand comes out of the darkness to grab her
wrist, and she sees the flash of his smile before his face appears in the
ambient light from the moon.

Piano
Teeth. Franco.

"Lose
something, doll?"

She
does not answer, she does not have any words in her, and sadly is without a lit
cigarette. Maybe she could have put one out in his eye this time.

He
holds on to her wrist like he could snap the bones in half, and she can feel
him pulling. She doesn't really want to find out what he's trying to pull her
towards, but she's not leaving without that case. So she was going to have to
take her chances.

In
a tiny clearing, a tiny fire is burning. A magical fire, the flames pale green,
which is why she didn’t see it before, and why she probably thought the moon
was shining so bright. Next to fire, the remains of her typewriter. The case at
her feet, it seems, is empty.

“You
have the best timing of any dame I’ve ever met. You and that typewriter? Just!
Mwah!” He kisses his fingers and wags them, like he’s just eaten the finest
foie gras there is.  

He
hunkers down by the green fire and takes out some kind of tool. The light is so
strange and the shadows so deep, and her head is in such a strange place, it
takes several moments for her to turn what she’s seeing into the something that
makes sense.

“I
was so fucked by those Dominoes. Fucked!” his voice is high and fast, and he’s
gesturing with some kind of pliers. “So maybe I’d make her believe I just ran
across them or something. Which is pretty much true, by the way. I did just run
across them. It’s not like I pulled some heist or something to get my hands on
them. It was open. They were just sitting there, what was I supposed to do?”

“Leaving
them alone, might have been a start.” She feels strange, standing over him, but
there is no way she is going to sit down.  And she can’t really understand
what he’s saying. She understands each individual word, but together they’re
not making sense.

“Smart.
Right. I like a gal with sass. But all you had to do was sit there, and carry
your case off the train, and you’d never have known what I was up to.”

The
green flames sputter up and she can finally see what it is he is working on.
There on the ground, is her typewriter. Or at least, what’s left of it. He
takes hold of his pliers and snaps off the P key. On the ground in front of him
are three others. N. O. D. And her body fills with NO again. She lunges for
them, her hand going straight through the green flame, which feels painfully
icy on her skin, and blooms a yellow bruise.

He
slaps her injured hand, scoops the keys up like jacks, wags his finger back and
forth. “Nah-uh-uh! I need these.”

“For
what?!”

“Like
I said. I was going to meet with Mrs. Fong, plead some innocence, try to get
her to cut me a break, maybe trade a favor to her, couple years off the end of
my life, something she could really use. But then I see you. Just as fresh and
full of promise as moonlight in a martini. In your new coat and your mended
over dress, clutching the handle of that case like it contained state secrets.
Like I said. Best timing of any dame I’ve ever met.”

He
holds up the O key, like a street magician with a ping pong ball. Nothing up my
sleeve. He closed his fingers around the key, the fingers fluttering with
performance level precision. He opens his hand. The key is gone. Then he snaps
his palm on his mouth, making an exaggerated popping sound, and there is the O
key, in his rotten stinking mouth. He lets it drop into his meaty mitt, holds
it out to her, snatches it away and drops it in the cup on the green fire.

“This?
This is what’s going to break this fucking domino curse. I’m going to be fine,
and go about my life. You’re going to be…whatever you are… I don’t really care.
As long as you keep your nose out of my business.”

“Go
ahead,” he continues. “Give the dominoes back to Mrs. Fong. She won’t care
about you. You’re nobody. You haven’t played anything with them, so your soul
is just fine. Mine however, is not. And from where I’m sitting, mine is more
important than yours.”

He
tosses one of the keys into the cup. Next to him she sees her poor typewriter,
beheaded strikers sticking up like rib bones.

She
does not tell him that she has no idea what his business is, that she doesn’t
give a rats ass about whatever this guy had up his sleeve: whether it was petty
crime or grand larceny or 1
^st
degree murder. She wants her
typewriter back. And she’s not leaving without it.

“No,
Franco. That’s not going to happen. You’re going to stop what you’re doing,
give me that typewriter, and disappear into the night.”

“Oh
really?” He laughs. It was shrill and sharp, a metal spike. It’s the laugh of
somebody who doesn’t have anything left to lose. And Modesty knows the danger
in this.

“I
don’t think so sweetheart? What are you going to do? Overpower me with jujitsu?
Call the cops? You’re the one walking around with 236 cursed Chinese Dominoes
in a typewriter case? Me? I’ll be winging it out of here in another fifteen
minutes.”

He
rises, gaining steam. As he shakes the pliers at her, Modesty sees that he is
shaking.

“What
you don’t seem to understand here sweetheart, is that I’m an important guy. I
have connections. And you know what? Besides that? I have been known to be
prone to violence. Shapeshifters often are, experts say. And I don’t think
anyone would miss you. I don’t think anyone would think twice about the body of
a girl in a new red coat with her throat torn out by wild dog in the woods. Now
be a good girl, you’ll turn that pretty fanny around, get back on the train,
keep your yap shut, and we can both get on with our lives.”

He
isn’t going to give it to her, that much is clear to Modesty now. But she also
knows that there is no way she is getting back on that train empty handed.

“I
get it,” she says. “You’re big, I’m little. You’re smart, I’m dumb. You’re
important, I’m …”

“Nobody.”
He stands again, and slowly and purposefully plants that scuffed shoe back on
her typewriter case.

“Now,
dollface you have to decide. Are you a clever girl? Or a foolish one?”

With
her free hand, Modesty Brown reaches all the way to the bottom of that deep,
deep pocket of her new red coat, the pocket with the flat red braid. She pulls
out a Woodsman Double Barreled palm pistol and shoots him square in the foot.
The shot echoes, and Piano Teeth falls back screaming and cursing.

“I
guess that’s what kind of girl I am,” she says, shaking the typewriter keys out
of the cup.

Perhaps
you are surprised that she pulled a pistol out of that pocket, and perhaps you
are surprised that it wasn't mentioned before, what with the matchbook and the packet
of Chesterfields and the copy of Agatha Christie. I did want to keep this part
a surprise for you, and besides, everyone knows that if I'd shown you that gun
in that first scene it's the only thing you would have thought about for ages.
And it would also have given you a mistaken impression of our heroine, Modesty
Brown. I didn't want you to think she was that kind of girl. But it turns out
that, after all, she is. The kind that can shoot a man in the foot, take back
what's hers and leave him bleeding on the snow.

She
puts the remnants of her machine in the case, picks it up by the handle, turns
on her heel and stalks back to the train, swinging both cases as she walks. She
picks up her pace as she hears the train starting back up again.

She trudges back toward the train, which
seems to get further and further away the longer she trudges. She hears its
fresh mechanical growl. She breaks into a run as the engine catches and slowly
the wheels start up again. She will not get left here, not here in the middle
of nowhere, not with Piano Teeth still bleeding somewhere in the trees. She
runs, both typewriter cases banging against her bloodied knees, against her
ruined stockings and muddy skirt, her new red coat flapping in the wind.

The
train is already moving when she runs up alongside it, and there in that
liminal space between the cars she caught the bright flash of a white coat.

"Bill!"
she shouts and waves one of the cases.

He
throws the burning ember of his half spent cigarette over the side of the
train, holds on with one long arm.

 "Sidecar!"
He cries. "Get the lead out!"

“Catch!”
She tosses up one case. He doesn’t catch it, but he does manage to dodge it as
it skitters onto the landing. He reaches down with his free hand, and she
reaches up with hers, her legs pumping, her mouth tingling with adrenaline. She
feels her hand catch in his large fleshy grip and he pulls. For a moment she is
airborne, her feet flying free and somehow she swings her feet on the outside
rail. He pulls her, hand over hand like she's a rope attached to an anchor, and
then she's up, she's on, she's safe, one typewriter case still clutched
hungrily in her grip.

"What
happened to you?" Bill asks.

She
presses her hand to her ribcage, willing her breathing to even out, willing her
heart to slow, willing her head stay on. She can still smell gunpowder, can
still feel the heat from the Woodsman stashed in her coat pocket.

"I
was between cars when it stopped. How come they stopped the train?" She
tries to fish out a Chesterfield, but her hands are shaking so badly she can’t
catch hold.

Bill
shrugs and puts two of his own in his mouth, lights both of them on the same
match. "Somebody pulled the emergency brake. It must have something to do
with those cops that were sniffing around earlier. Something about some missing
girl or some such nonsense. You wouldn't know anything about that would
you?"

Modesty
shrugs. "Just got caught in a bad place."

"You
said it, sister.” He picks up the typewriter case that she slung onto the train,
and lets out a whistle. He taps the bullet hole on the top of it. “Wow. Looks
like you had quite a night.”

“You
should see the other guy.”

 He
lets out a chuckle. “You know? You don’t really
look
like trouble.”

“This
is the Baggage Car, right?” she asks.

“Next
one down.” He taps his finger to his forehead, tipping an invisible cap. “Catch
you later, Sidecar.”