It was the machine guns
that first gave the impression that something was wrong.
Not many people in
Glasgow, Montana, owned machine guns.
Those that did had usually received them during one of the World Wars—1
or 2. They didn’t parade around the
streets with them, pointing them at people and making requests. They especially didn’t wander into buildings
with their firearms already drawn.
Unfortunately for Marilyn and her friends, the visitors to the station
were from out of town.
They burst through the
door, six of them, hardened toughs that could’ve played the goons in a Humphrey
Bogart picture. Only, these weren’t
actors on a screen. They were the real
things. Only two of them actually had
machine guns (the rest had pistols), but they all had their weapons out and
ready.
Neil’s gasp caused the
dispatcher to turn his head—he found himself staring straight into the muzzle
of a pistol. Ed shouted, “What in
tarnation—”; Bob almost swallowed his pipe when he saw the guests. The station agent swiveled casually in his
chair, then froze when he saw who’d come through the door. As for Marilyn…well, she just stood where she
was, too stunned to do anything, really.
“Alright, alright!”
barked the leader of the gang, one of the two that held machine guns. He was about six-foot-four, taller than
anyone else in the room. Like his
confederates, he wore a finely-tailored suit, but the black of his outfit
provided the perfect contrast to his bright blond hair, combed to the left side
of his head and clearly coated with some sort of hair oil. His voice was shrill, quite evil-sounding. Evil’s not a sound, some might protest, but they’re
dead wrong. When concentrated enough,
evil can be seen, heard, felt—maybe not tasted or smelled, but you get the
idea. Everyone in the room heard the
evil in the man’s voice, and they all cringed, knowing that what he was about
to say next wasn’t going to be pleasant.
“I’m Burt Kane, and this
here’s my gang. We’re the Windy City Devils. You may have heard of us.”
Blank stares all over the
room.
“Uh-uh? No problem.
You’ll know who you’re dealing with by the end of the night. Now, which one of you’s the dispatcher?”
The man at the desk
slowly raised his hand. “That’d be me.”
Beside him, the pistol
trained at his heart shook menacingly.
“When’s the Empire Builder
coming through?” Kane asked. “Still at nine?”
“Should be here right
around then,” the dispatcher murmured nervously. “It’s late, of course—”
“Yes, yes, we know. You don’t think we’d wait unprepared, do you? Baby Face there [Kane nodded towards the man
next to the dispatcher] has one of those radios you all use to communicate. We know exactly where the Empire Builder is, as well as all the other trains on the
line.” He smirked. “It couldn’t come at a better time.”
All the railroad
employees had been staring in shock at the newcomers. Now, Neil spoke up. “What do you want with us?”
“With you? Nothing.
We’re just gonna sit here and wait for the train. Go ahead and make yourselves comfortable. You can do whatever you want—except leave,
use the telephone, or use the radio without our permission. Got it?”
Silent nods all around.
“If you’re planning to
rob it,” murmured Brown, “I should warn you that—”
Kane shook his head
carelessly. “That’s kid stuff!” he
spat. “We’re after something more. Does the name Edgar Malone ring any bells?”
Marilyn shivered with
recognition. The dispatcher
stiffened. “The gangster?”
“Isn’t he the top mob
boss in Chicago?” Neil said.
Kane laughed. “Not after tonight, he isn’t. He’s on that train.”
“Edgar Malone on a Great
Northern Railway train?” The station
agent looked shocked. “I didn’t think
they’d sell tickets to a rat like that!”
“Oh, you’re not stupid
enough to think he’d be travelling under his right name, do you? He rides trains all the time. Problem is, he’s always got two bodyguards
with him. They go wherever he goes, and
they get in the way whenever someone tries to bump him off. Quite frustrating, really. But this time, it’ll be different.”
“So you’re going to kill
him when the train arrives,” the dispatcher murmured.
“Hah! No, we’re not going
to do that. What are you, crazy or
something? That’s when he’ll most be
expecting an attack! When he’s in a town
and the train’s stopped. It’d be so easy
for someone to slip on and off. The
guards’ll be on red alert!”
“Then you’re going to put
somebody on the train and wait for it to head west before you actually kill
him.”
“Uh-uh. That’s been tried—by other parties—with, er,
how shall we say it…less than favorable results? No, we’re going to just let the Empire Builder keep going…that is, until
it runs into that freight headed east.”
The dispatcher
smirked. “That’s not how railroads
work,” Wise said. “The freight’ll be
waiting on a passing siding when the train goes by. We give Great Northern’s top trains
priority.”
“It’ll only be on a
passing siding if it knows that another train’s on the track. For all that freight knows, though, the Empire Builder isn’t anywhere close to
Glasgow yet. It’s already half a day
late. There’s no reason that engineer’s
not going to believe it’s later.”
“He’ll see the signals,
though,” said Wise. “That’ll tell him
another train’s coming—”
“Only if it’s red,” said
Kane, “and it ain’t gonna be red, if you want this girl to live through the
night.” One of the other toughs pointed
his gun straight at Marilyn.
Wise’s face turned white,
as he started to sense the plan.
“Let me tell you exactly
what’s going to happen,” sneered Kane.
“The train’ll arrive, it’ll stop.
Somebody may get off, somebody may get on. Who knows.
After that, it’ll leave the station.
Not knowing about the freight, it’ll smash head-on into the other train
somewhere down the line.
“Will that kill
Malone? Probably not. The guy’s indestructible. What it will do is throw everyone on board
into confusion. People will be panicking
to get out, but they’ll be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with snowdrifts blocking
their escape. In this type of
conditions, they’re not going to get very far.
“Meanwhile, some of my
boys are going to follow on one of those engines out in the yard. We’ll show up right after the crash, get out,
and find Malone. If we get the
opportunity, we’ll make his death look like an accident. Otherwise, we’ll shoot him.
“Either way, we’ve got a
perfect escape planned. There’s a little
cabin—accessible from the highway when there’s not too much snow. There is too much snow right now, but we
happen to have a sleigh parked at that cabin.
By the time the wreck happens, one of our cohorts will be driving over
the snow to meet us. When Malone ain’t
thinking or breathing anymore, those of us who did the job will ride back to
the cabin. From there, we’ll call this
station and tell the ones waiting here that they can get out. Malone won’t be able to escape, no one will
notice his death in all the confusion, and the police will never catch us. It’s foolproof.”
As he said all this, a
whirlwind of thoughts ran through Marilyn Dawson’s mind. Her first instinct was to jump up and scream,
“My father’s on that train!” However,
she knew better than to say that. Kane
had obviously killed men before. A man
as evil as him wasn’t going to let family considerations get in the way of his
master plan. Wisely, she kept her mouth
shut.
Instead, Bob Hightower
spilled the beans. “But that girl’s
father’s on the freight train! He’s the
engineer!”
“Is he?” Sure enough, a dreadful smirk oozed over
Kane’s face like poison oozing out of a vial.
“Well, that makes your position easier, doesn’t it, dispatcher? I’m sure if that engineer were here right
now, he’d ask you to keep the signal green, rather than forfeit his daughter’s
life.”
“You wouldn’t kill a
girl, would you?” burst out a shocked Neil.
“What kind of heartless brute do you think you—”
“Shut up!” Kane yelled,
fixing the young engineer with an icy stare.
“This gun’s killed all sorts of people.
The rich and the poor, the old and the young, the dangerous and the
expendable. I ain’t too particular about
where I put my bullets, and the rest of my gang ain’t either. Are you, men?”
The other five all nodded
their assent. “They get in our way,
boss,” one of them muttered, “and I fix ‘em.
I fix ‘em for keeps.”
“Lefty’s really good at
fixing,” Kane bragged. “I’d advise you
to take him seriously.” He trained his
gun at the station agent. “You,
there! Any passengers getting on
tonight?”
“One that I know of!”
said Brown. “He’ll probably be here in a
half hour.”
“When he does show up,”
said Kane, “I don’t want you to let on that there’s anything wrong. We’ll have our guns out of sight, but we’ll
kill the first one of you that squeaks or tries to leave. Is that clear?”
The silence equaled a
yes.
“Good. Then, let’s all relax and enjoy the evening.”
[Squeak!]
ReplyDelete