The indians are coming. Call immediately. They’d joked about it often and had never had to use it. Until now. And the number on the slip of paper wasn’t her studio apartment with the squeaky Murphy bed. Where then?
The nearest phone was in the dispatch office a quarter mile down the track. No wonder Hester was out of breath. He had to run with the message. Worse, there wasn’t enough time to reach the dispatch station and then double back to Ida’s to fill his coffee thermos. He was out of coffee in the caboose. And the stove was low on fuel; it was getting cold in there. “Dammit,” he said again.
“Ain’t my fault,” said Hester. “See you at Ida’s.” He moved off.
“Thank you, Charlie.” Lattimer stood for a moment, rubbing his jaw. The indians are coming. Lattimer bent into a bitter wind and began his trek to the dispatch office.
He tromped in five minutes later and strode up to Skinner’s desk. Skinner, a mousy little man with rimless glasses, sat behind a rolltop desk piled high with manuals, padded forms and loose documents. Skinner didn’t look up as he bent over filling in a legal-size form.
“Henry, can I use your phone, please?”
Skinner dipped his pen in the inkwell and kept scratching.
“Henry!” demanded Lattimer. “I’m out of time.”
Without looking up, Skinner said, “Personal business or company business?”
“Henry, dammit!”
Skinner nodded across the room to a wall-mounted phone.
“Thanks.” Lattimer walked over, dialed the operator, and gave the number on the slip.
She picked it up on the second ring. “Allo.” It was vintage Lorena, murdering her English.
“Schatze, it’s me.”
“Where have you been?”
“Honey, we just got into Truckee. I called as soon as I got your message. Where are you?”
“Public phone, the train station.”
Sure enough, he heard a steam whistle hoot in the background. He checked his pocket watch: six fourteen. “Why so damn early?”
Ignoring the question, she asked, “Do you remember that man I spoke of the other day?” Her voice was level, business-like. Lorena Ortiz was not being a hot Latin lover today.
He felt an odd, forbidding stirring deep in his bowel. “The one you thought was following you?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. I got a close look at him today from the alley. He is following me. And he set up a camera across the street from me in an apartment house.”
“You’re not imagining things?”
“No, and I’ll tell you something else. He’s that fellow with the tall butch haircut who rides your train. That Marine.”
“Shit!” Lattimer’s stomach felt like it had turned to concrete. He glanced over, seeing Henry Skinner still bent over his report. But his pen was idle, his head cocked toward Lattimer.
“That’s not all,” Lorena continued. “This morning I found out he and his Navy friend have set up a twenty-four-hour surveillance on your room. There are three teams, two people in eight-hour shifts, across from your house right now.”
“Gott.” That slipped out. “How do you know?”
“What else? A client.”
“And you verified it?”
She gave a short laugh. “Do I need to? This guy is a sergeant on the police force.”
“Oh.”
As soon as the sergeant pulled up his pants and got out, I went looking for myself. They’re watching you, all right. And next to their room is a small bathroom with an open window.”
“Yes?”
“If you look closely, you’ll see a camera with a telephoto lens mounted on a tripod.”
Lattimer turned and glanced across the room. Henry Skinner was now sitting back, fingers laced behind his head, watching intently.
He turned to the wall and said softly, “We better scram.” Lattimer was surprised at what he’d just said. He never believed he would say it. He never expected to have to lam out. It occurred to him how much he liked it here in Roseville. The trains, the farms, the hot dry summers. All the oranges he could eat. The people, especially the people. Fine, solid, people whose parents and grandparents had fought their way to California over the Sierra. He glanced out the window. Even now, as a thunderstorm built, he longed for the raw majesty of the High Sierra, the Donner Pass, tall redwoods, snow, and breathtaking vistas stretching fifty miles to the horizon.
“Yes, I’m leaving to visit Mr. Radizar” – the Argentine consul in San Francisco.
“Have you called him?”
“Yes.”
“Will there be room for two?”
She paused. Then, “Yes.”
Lattimer exhaled loudly. “Thank you.”
“De nada.”
“What line is it?”
“Pan “American Fruit Lines.”
“Can you wait for me? I lay over in Sparks tonight and will be back tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll be gone by then.”
“Lorena–”
“I’ll wait for you until 6:00 PM tomorrow.”
“Six PM? Where?”
“With Mr. Radizar until we walk over to the SS Pan-”American Trader. He has arranged passage for two. The SS Pan-”American Trader leaves at six PM tomorrow.”
“What pier?”
“I don’t know yet.” Her tone changed. “I... I think I better go.”
“What’s wrong?”
She hung up.
Lattimer cradled the receiver and leaned against the wall, rubbing his chin. Something didn’t add up. He caught Skinner’s eye as the little man looked away. “Henry, do you have today’s Chronicle?”
Skinner nodded to his desk. “Came in an hour ago.” He put his feet up on the desk, grabbed the paper, and leaned back. “About time for my break and to see how things are going.” He made a show of reading the front page.
Lattimer walked over and snatched it out of his hands.
“Hey! You can’t–”
“Try and stop me, you little turd. Besides, I’m only borrowing it.” Lattimer nodded to a thermos in an open drawer. “That yours?”
Skinner started to rise. Lattimer shoved him back in the chair. “Stay,” he barked.
He grabbed the thermos and unscrewed the top. “Tomato soup?” He looked down to Skinner. His glasses were askew on his face, and he tried to adjust them. But his hands shook. Finally he gave up and managed, “Y... yes.”
“Thanks.” Lattimer checked the San Francisco Chronicle’s table of contents then flipped to page sixteen. Steamship movements were posted in the lower left hand corner. Running his finger down a column, he found the listing for the Pan-”American Trader. She was moored at Pier 42. Departure was posted for eleven o’clock tonight.
Verdammit! She’d said six tomorrow.
It hit him. Lorena had a good idea where he kept everything. The money, the fuses, the tools, the explosives, the radio. He hadn’t told her directly, but she knew enough to be dangerous. God, what a fool he’d been. He should have seen this coming a long time ago.
Skinner tried to rise again. “I need that thermos.”
Lattimer pitched him into the chair and shoved with his foot, making it roll across the room and crash into the opposite wall. As it went, he eyed Henry Skinner’s meticulously chalked tote board. The next train for Roseville was due to leave in five minutes. It was supposed to be spotted on track four. He leaned over and glanced out the window. Sure enough, she waited there. Two AC-10 engines in front, and two more in the middle, pulled a mixed consist of eighty-five cars. The board said the conductor was Adrian Khastor, the brakeman was Stan Tilden. Khastor was a six-five giant who loved beating up hobos. Tilden, a brakeman’s brakeman, has lost two fingers of his left hand and one in his right, all in the performance of his duty. If it were not for the war, he’d be retired. Most likely, Khastor would have coffee to spare, but Skinner’s tomato soup sounded good. Besides, it would be the last time he’d be riding the Southern Pacific. It didn’t matte
r what Skinner did.
“I need it more than you do.”
“The soup is for my ulcer. I can’t have anything else.”
Lattimer actually felt sorry for the little bastard. Aside from being a snide, impudent little gnome, Henry Skinner was a good dispatcher, one of Southern Pacific’s best. Except he had ulcers.
He pulled out his wallet and tossed over a five-dollar bill. “Send Charlie over to Ida’s.”
“I can have you fired for this,” Skinner sputtered.
“Shut up and go to Ida’s. She makes great tomato soup.” Lattimer walked out.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
24 October, 1944
Southern Pacific staging yards
Roseville, California
Walt Logan jammed the receiver to his ear and shouted into the mouthpiece, “Are you okay, Henry?”
John Sabovik sat on the edge of Logan’s desk, listening to metallic muttering on the line’s other end.
Logan spoke louder: “Is that all, Henry? Your damn tomato soup? What are you bitching about? Get your dead butt over to Ida’s for a refill. What’s the big deal?”
The receiver growled again.
Logan said, “All right, all right, Henry. Keep your shirt on. We’ll get someone up there right away.” He jiggled the receiver hook. “Ruby, put me through to the bunkhouse.” Walt looked up to Sabovik and whispered, “You’re not going to believe this.”
Logan leaned down to the mouthpiece. “Frank, it’s Walt. I need a conductor right away. Who’s on standby? What? Milo Lattimer jumped ship up in Truckee. Who can you get... Taylor, Jeb Taylor...?”
With a blast of its whistle, a Big Boy locomotive thundered past on track two hauling a long consist of refrigeration cars. But that didn’t deter Walt Logan. Sabovik couldn’t hear a word, but Logan’s lips kept moving in a world of chuffing steam engines and clanking, grinding railroad stock.
Finally the caboose trailed past. Logan was saying, “... is he sober? No, I’m not kidding. Everyone knows about Jeb... okay, he’ll do. Get him over here and we’ll deadhead him to Sparks. Yeah, right away.”
Logan hung up. His wooden armchair protested loudly as he tilted back and eyed Sabovik.
“Believe what?” asked Sabovik.
Logan slowly shook his head. “I’ve known Milo Lattimer for a good...” he shook his head again. “– a good five years now. He came for dinner all the time, especially after Ralphie lit out. We... we played chess at least twice a month. Hell, you’ve been over. You’ve seen us. For a while there, I thought he and Diane might end up together. Even at that he’s been like family. Now... “
“Walt, what is it?”
Logan looked up. “He jumped his train up in Truckee. Slapped around Henry Skinner, our dispatcher. All over a stupid thermos of tomato soup.”
Sabovik felt a surge of adrenaline. Somehow the case was beginning to unravel. Following the advent of the Mount Saint Helens explosion in Ulithi Atoll, they’d traced explosion commonalities back to Roseville and the route over the Donner Pass. Rear Admiral Cactus Jack Egan had moved mountains and delivered to Sabovik top-secret West Coast freight manifests for the past twelve months along with a complete load-out list of specific ammunition ships, and where the ammunition was off-loaded.
After exhaustive examination of these manifests and eyewitness accounts of the explosions, they’d detected a pattern. The grisly data pointed toward torpedoes. But that seemed impossible, since torpedoes were shipped without exploders. Only when the torpedoes reached their launch platforms were the exploders inserted and made ready. Just ten days ago, Cactus Jack had again convened his committee on Yerba Buena Island. What could be making torpedoes go off? they wondered. It was a dead end. Yet after examining all the other data, there seemed to be no other conclusion.
The tempo picked up when navy CID picked up something interesting on a records check. It concerned Milo Lattimer’s date of birth. Lattimer claimed he was born in Queens Hospital, New York, on 11 July, 1918. However the records check indicated Queens Hospital had suffered a major fire on 23 June, 1917 and had to be completely closed for renovation. It didn’t reopen until New Year’s Day 1920. Something didn’t add up. Sabovik reckoned it was mistake a spy could have made if he hadn’t lived in the area. That’s when they began watching Lattimer. “Where is he now?” asked Sabovik.
“I have no idea. He could have jumped a ride on any number of trains. Hell, they’re grinding through Truckee every five minutes. East or west. I can’t say which way he went.”
The phone rang and Logan picked it up. “Hold on, he’s right here.” Logan handed over the phone. “It’s Nitro.”
Sabovik grabbed the phone set. “Fire away.”
“It’s Lorena. She fell, or was pushed, I don’t know.”
“Fell – What?”
“Over here at the Atwater. I got a couple of photos of it. She came flying through the fire escape doorway, crashed through the rail, and went down.”
“How far?”
“Three stories.”
“Jesus. What’s the coroner say?”
“John, she’s still alive.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how she survived, but she landed in a Victory Garden: radishes. Ambulance attendants are getting ready to pack her up. “
“Wait a minute.” Sabovik leaned back, biting his thumbnail. He covered the mouthpiece and asked Logan, “What time did Lattimer go missing?”
Logan checked his notes. “A little after sunrise. The X 4236 was supposed to leave Truckee at six twenty. He didn’t make it back aboard.”
“Could he have hopped a train and made it back here since then?”
“Yes.”
Sabovik said into the phone, “Nitro.”
“I’m here.”
“Has the ambulance left yet?”
“Not yet, but any moment. I don’t see how she lived through that. Looks like everything’s broken. And she rattles when she breathes. It’s like–”
“Get in the ambulance. Stay with her.”
“You want me to–”
“Do you have a sidearm?”
“Only this little .32 automatic shoved in my back belt.”
“That’ll do. It could be Lattimer. He’s on the loose.”
“Well, how do you like that? What happened?”
Sabovik explained. “Could Lattimer have gotten into her apartment without you seeing?”
“I suppose so, if he went around the side– Look, they’re closing the ambulance doors. I better scram.”
“Go, then. Stay with her.” Sabovik hung up.
The door opened and a large man tromped in, wearing a fur cap. “Hi, Adrian,” said Logan. “Whatcha got there?”
Adrian Khastor held up a thermos. “Milo left this on my rig. Could you put it in his box?”
Logan and Sabovik exchanged glances. “Did he ride down the hill with you?”
“Yep.”
“When did you get in?” asked Sabovik.
Khastor pulled out a pocket watch and raised the lid. “About an hour ago.” His face darkened. “Anything wrong?”
“What was he like on the way down?” asked Sabovik.
Khastor looked at Logan, who nodded: Yes, it’s okay to answer this man’s questions. He replied, “Funny that you ask; Milo was moody. Not like him. Wouldn’t talk. Just looked out the window with his arms folded.”
“Is that all?” asked Logan.
“He didn’t want to play chess. Not that I could beat him.”
“Okay, thanks.” Sabovik dashed out.
* * * * *
Harry Turner was in a hurry for one simple reason. He’d been gambling at a truck stop just outside Reno. Now he was four hours late hauling his truckload of aircraft engine parts over the Sierra. He’d simply lost track of time. And that’s not all he lost. He’d lost seventy-five dollars at the crap table, and he knew Sylvia would be furious when he returned home to Oakland this evening. But for now, he was pushing “Big Mo
” – that’s what he called his Mack truck – for all he was worth. Big Mo’s six-cylinder engine purred like a kitten as he fed in more gas. Fifty-five... sixty... sixty-five. He was passing almost everybody on the downgrade. But it was still early. The highway was empty, and Harry was making good time. He sat back and tried to relax. Time for another cigarette. Coordinating thumb and forefinger with the matchbook cover, he expertly flicked up a light as Big Mo rumbled around a shallow curve. Gently, he laid the Chesterfield on his lip and bent slightly to touch it to the flame.
Harry Turner didn’t see the yellow school bus pull out. When he looked up, it was just one hundred feet away. The image of the shocked bus driver filled his mind as he jammed on the brakes. As Big Mo flashed closer he saw a startled seven-year-old boy. He had crystal-clear blue eyes. A red-and-black-checkered cap covered most of his straight blond hair. His mouth opened in incredulity to the shape of an ‘O.’ Harry Turner hit the brakes hard, whipped the wheel to the right, and prayed.
Big Mo hit the school bus in the engine compartment with a terrible crash. The bus flipped on its left side and spun wildly, as if a three-hundred-foot drooling giant were playing spin the bottle. It made one and a half clockwise turns before the crumpled engine compartment slammed into a redwood tree. On the other side of Highway 80, Big Mo also rolled onto, the driver’s side. The big Mack truck caromed forward 227 feet before it crashed into a drainage ditch.
Big Mo’s gasoline tank exploded...
A CALL TO COLORS: A NOVEL OF THE BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF Page 38
