by P. N. Elrod
There were no direct lines running from Chicago’s LaSalle Street Station to Long Island, necessitating a changeover at Grand Central Terminal. I’d be in the baggage car of the Twentieth Century Limited for most of the trip, specifically inside a large trunk, only it wasn’t so roomy once I was stuffed in along with clothes and a bag of my home earth. Uncomfortable and boring, but you can’t beat the privacy. I could afford a sleeping compartment, but didn’t want to wind up being a problem for a day porter. Post-sunrise, I’m literally dead to the world, which alarms people should they find my body. Of course, they get even more agitated when I unexpectedly wake up, so it’s best to just keep out of the way.
A porter charged in with a trolley and swept my trunk away, shoving it in next to a mountain of similar items being efficiently loaded into the baggage car. I slipped off, glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention, took a bead on the trunk, and vanished.
Hurtling forward in a straight line, I blundered into something that was the same size and shape and tried to sieve in. Whatever I’d found was packed solid with no room to materialize. I slipped out, fighting claustrophobia, and felt around, but it was hopeless. Those porters were fast. I gave up and clung to the top of something else, riding it into what I hoped was the right car. A man bawled directions on where it was to go. I drifted free, my weightless, formless self bumping gently against the ceiling, and went semi-transparent to get my bearings.
Just enough sight returned to allow me a faint glimpse of my target below. Anticipating problems, I’d slopped a big X on my trunk’s sides and top in white paint the night before, and the precaution paid off. I went invisible and dove in before the next load buried my refuge.
Re-formed again and safe, my rump on a flat bag of home earth and knees crowding my ears, I half-listened to the rowdy racket outside. Strangely, I didn’t feel closed in; it must have been the presence of my home soil. During the day I needed it next to me so I could truly rest, but I’d never considered that it might have a general calming effect at night. Don’t ask for explanations for the why of it, because I don’t know. So long as it worked I had no complaints.
For something to do in the pitch darkness I fished out a quarter and practiced rolling it across my knuckles. That was possible to do by touch alone, though I dropped the coin more often than not. The magician who’d played at my club and taught me how had made it look easy.
I had a flashlight and plenty of magazines, but it was too cramped for reading. After a weary wait I heard rumbling followed by a solid slam and clank, signaling the car’s wide door was shut. Not long afterward the train began lurching eastward, taking it slow until we cleared the city.
When the click-click, click-click of the wheels on the rails and the car’s rocking steadied, I vanished and eased out of the trunk. It took a few minutes to feel my way to a clear spot to materialize.
More pitch blackness, I used the flashlight. The place was as I’d expected, noisy, cold, and loaded with crates, bags, and trunks. I couldn’t see mine from here, but I’d find it again. If nothing else the soil itself would draw me in the right direction.
Thinking about it, that was a little creepy.
I made my way toward the passenger area of the train. To avoid trouble I’d bought a regular ticket. It was easier than dodging the conductor all night.
The lounge was crowded, but I found a chair, pulled two magazines from my coat pocket, and settled in for adventurous distraction courtesy of Street and Smith’s The Shadow. I couldn’t always catch the radio show, but two new stories every month almost made up for it. I had both January issues, bought but unread. Which to read first? The Crystal Buddha was the earlier story, but The Hills of Death had a more interesting cover with a motorcycle cop bursting through a map covered by the Shadow’s red silhouette. I opted to be chronological and took on the Buddha tale to find out why The Shadow found it necessary wave one of his .45s at a startled man in a green turban.
A waiter or porter or whatever you call them when on a train asked if I wanted a drink. I ordered water and tipped a quarter just to show I wasn’t cheap. Having a glass at hand might keep him from bothering me again. Water was best, no one minds if you don’t drink it. Order coffee and you have to keep turning down a fresh hot cup every ten minutes.
“Traveling far?” a man in the next chair asked.
People hate a reader. They can’t stand when someone’s not also bored. They interrupt, want to know what you’re reading, if it’s interesting, and then discuss what they like to read. At some point in the encounter they’ve ceased being bored and suddenly you are, thoroughly.
I gave discouraging grunt, not looking up. Hell, we were all headed toward New York, wasn’t that enough information?
My neighbor moved off to find someone more sociable. The bar did a brisk business and enough conversations were going on elsewhere in the car to allow me and Lamont Cranston—only he seemed to be Kent Allard in this one—to get on with the plot.
It didn’t last. Just as The Shadow was about to make his first appearance, someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up, annoyed, into the cheerful open face of a natural-born grifter.
Over the years I’d developed an instinct about certain types of people. Some you warm up to instantly and know you’ll be best friends for life; for others you just as instantly comprehend they’re planning to nail your hide to the barn wall and scrape it clean.
He’d come to invite me into a card game. Maybe I look like someone who plays cards on trains. I try not to, but after two years of hanging out with gang bosses and gamblers some of it must have rubbed off.
But more likely it was because I appear to be in my young twenties wearing an expensive new suit and overcoat. He must have taken me for a well-heeled college kid, ripe for plucking. I checked the two players already at the table, who waved and smiled. They looked okay. Then I spotted the first man’s partner buying a new deck of cards and matchboxes at the bar. He nodded absently at me, cracking open the cellophane wrap from the cards.
They looked exactly like a couple of regular guys wanting another player for a friendly game of poker. The man said they’d play for matchsticks, not money, a harmless way to pass the time.
How could I say no? Besides, if not me, then they’d just pluck some other bird.
In the interest of the public good, I folded my magazine back into a pocket and joined them, shaking hands, exchanging casual introductions. The grifter calling himself Sawyer shuffled, clumsily, chuckling when a couple cards went flying out. He gave the deck to me and watched as I also demonstrated bad shuffling. I apologized and said when I was at school I did more reading than anything else, and passed the deck to the guy on my right. He muttered, showing better dexterity at the art. He said he and the wife played a lot of bridge. I’d never been able to figure that game out, so he had my instant respect.
The second grifter, calling himself Fogelson, gave each player a box of matches. We spilled them onto the table and started the first hand.
Just to be clear, I don’t like poker. It’s not as interesting as a faster game of blackjack, so it goes without saying that I’m a terrible player. Sawyer and Fogelson made me feel like a champ, though. An hour later I won the pot, breaking the matchstick bank. I would have felt proud if I’d had anything to do with it. My improbable lucky streak gave me to understand I was to be their mark.
We divided the matches up to start over. The two other men were better players, dealing straight when it was their turn; I only won when Sawyer or Fogelson had charge of the deck. As the game stretched on this interesting point went unnoticed. They had to work at it since I had a bad habit of throwing away good cards. Must have been frustrating for them, but entertaining for yours truly.
Around eleven the other two potential marks said they had to get their beauty sleep and left. In the course of the game we’d gotten to know each other. One sold insurance, had five kids, a wife, and in-laws to support; the other was going to Altoona to repair an
d sell used furniture with his brother. The grifters spoke of similar bland backgrounds; I didn’t bother to memorize them.
I topped them all, going to the trouble of cleaning up my usual slang and letting drop that my name was William (call me Bill!) Wollmuth. My doting pater was on the board of several banks, and I’d be expected to step into his shoes some day (not too soon!). College was the pip, and I’d even met a sweet little gal I was sure I could take home to mater. Once I got that elusive degree there was a bright future ahead.
I thought I was laying it on too thick, but Sawyer and Fogelson couldn’t get enough of my autobiography.
Wish I could have taken the credit for it, but I’d lifted the story from a dime magazine I’d read the other week. In that one, young Bill had been kidnapped, but won the heart of a kidnapper’s sister. They eventually escaped the bad guys to commit first-degree matrimony.
Not the writer’s best effort, but it worked wonders on the grifters.
I used to be a terrible liar. I still am with friends. But a couple of card sharps hoping to skin me blind brought out the worst in me. I enjoyed every minute, guilt-free.
The lounge’s population dwindled to a couple holdouts dozing in chairs and the three of us. I turned down offers of drinks, assuring my new friends I was a confirmed teetotaler due to an unfortunate allergy to alcohol, which was perfectly true.
“I want to be alert, anyway,” I added. It was about time for me to start my own con game. I hoped this first cast would land right.
“For another hand?” asked Sawyer, casually shuffling the deck. His fingers were clumsy-looking, but during the course of play I’d noticed him using the mechanic’s grip. It gave him a lot of control over what cards to deal and hold back. Plenty of honest dealers use it, but he wasn’t one of them. Knowing what to look for helped me spot him at work, but he was a fast bastard.
“I should like that, but I wouldn’t want to miss seeing the ghost.”
As a conversation stopper, it did the trick. Up to that point I’d been successful at passing myself off as a naïve collegian with more money than experience. Now I was moving into more-money-than-sense territory. This angle needed to be examined before they took me to the next stage of the plucking process.
“Ghost?” asked Fogelson, nibbling the bait.
“You never heard of the Twentieth Century Limited ghost?”
They were an excellent team, not even exchanging a glance. They’d do whatever it took to keep me playing. “Uh, well, I always thought it was just one of those stories.”
True enough, since I was making things up as I went, this time with no dime magazine inspiration.
Sawyer seamlessly took the cue and allowed that he thought he’d once heard a rumor of a ghost on a train but not on the Limited.
I obliged them with a sad tale of a friendly card game gone wrong. One of the players had been shot right through the heart when he caught out the others, who were cheating. They’d thrown him off the back of the train just as it crossed a river. His body was never found.
Now my new friends traded glances. I caught only a suggestion of it in my peripheral vision since I was studying my new hand. They’d be wondering if I was on to them.
“Apparently his spirit got trapped on the train, unable to rise to heaven or drop into hell,” I went on, oblivious. “And to this day he haunts the line. The train company hushed the murder up, of course, but people talk, and the stories get passed around.”
“Stories?” prompted Sawyer.
“When people see him. First everything gets cold. That’s how you know he’s around, the air gets like ice. He’s supposed to be a solid as you or I, but look close a second time and he’s gone. Houdini could have learned a thing or three from him about disappearing. Don’t bother asking the conductor or the porters, it’s as much as their job’s worth to talk about him.”
“Hell of a yarn, Wollmuth,” said Fogelson.
Any second he might telegraph a signal to his partner to write off their evening of setup as a lost cause, but I cast out one more line.
“That’s why I decided to play in the first place. It’s said the gambler’s ghost looks in on card games. There’s stories about him scaring the bejeezus out of unsuspecting bridge players. I thought a poker game, even with just matchsticks in the pot, might lure him out.”
“Huh, maybe that’s what’s put him off.” He lighted a cigar and leaned back in his chair, wearing a thoughtful face.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Matchsticks wouldn’t interest a real gambler. Bridge players will go in for a penny a point. That’s what drew him out. The money.”
“You think if we played for cash something might happen?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Never know. Pennies in the pot might not impress him.”
“You’re probably right. I tell you, I’d be willing to lay out some real dollars for a chance to see him, but I wouldn’t think of imposing on either of you.”
No imposition, they assured me, none at all. It would make the game even more interesting. They had to be pleased that I’d been the one to suggest playing for cash, saving them the trouble of persuading me.
“Have to be careful, though,” Fogelson cautioned. “There’s rules against gambling.”
“So I’ve heard, but the porter will turn a blind eye if we slip him a decent tip.” I found my wallet and brought forth a handful of ones and fives, making sure Sawyer glimpsed the healthy supply of tens and twenties bending a money clip out of shape. “Will this do for a start?”
Hell yes, it would.
They’d snapped, and I’d just set the hook.
* * *
This time I played as well as I could, which was still lousy. They had to do some energetic card culling to throw good hands at me. The idea behind it was to get me warmed up and thinking I was in the throes of a lucky streak. Otherwise I’d have lost everything in the first hour.
The pot was just over twenty bucks. A week’s good wage for most, but these two had an eye for the rest of my cash and plenty of patience. I had a long stretch of time before dawn and an ace in the hole they could not possibly imagine.
With three of us the play went faster, but I kept looking restlessly around for the ghost. The grifters were too professional to show annoyance, but it began to get to them. Fogelson slapped the cards down harder than usual to get me back into the play. Sawyer would clear his throat now and then. I wondered if it was his nerves or part of some private signal code between them.
“It’s chilly in here,” I said putting some hope into my tone.
There was nothing wrong with the heat, but the power of suggestion can go a long way when the circumstances are right. We were alone in the car; the bar was closed, even the night porter had gone off to do something else. The lights were low, and shadows had crept into the corners.
“Don’t think so,” said Fogelson. He also used the mechanic’s grip, and was good at keeping the top and bottom cards exactly where he wanted them. He dealt me an eight, three sixes, and one of the jokers, which were wild cards, temping me with a four of a kind hand.
“You’ve had a drink or two to keep warm, maybe you don’t feel it yet. What about you, Mr. Sawyer? Don’t you think it’s gotten a little colder in the last few minutes?”
Sawyer was quiet, shooting an uneasy glance over his shoulder.
“Maybe,” he said with some reluctance.
Fogelson spared him a narrow look, just a flicker, enough to warn his partner to stay focused. During this tiny break I let the joker fall into my lap, and slipped in an ace that I’d palmed during the last hand. A wild card would be much more useful to me later.
The magician at my nightclub had given me a few pointers about card tricks. I’d not practiced that much and amazed I was getting away with it, but the grifters had no reason to think I’d be cheating.
Good entertainment’s hard to find.
A few months ago I might have hypnotized them and had other kinds of fun, but
they wouldn’t be turning themselves in to the cops at the next stop. The ability to influence bad guys with my evil-eye whammy was forever lost. The temptation to use it was there, but so was the certainty of something inside my skull exploding and killing me. I was tough and had survived a lot, but why take chances?
Even thinking about it sent a warning twinge through my brain and made me wince. I shook it off and checked my cards, finding a suspiciously good hand: three aces, a four and a ten. I had a potential full house depending which of the latter cards I threw away; Fogelson, who was dealing, would have one or the other ready to deliver to me.
So I threw both away.
He hid his exasperation extremely well.
He had a pair waiting in the wings and dealt me a couple of fives from the bottom.
Being an inexperienced player and this game was on the friendly side—for the moment—I let myself smile and bet the rest of my cash.
When the cards were on the table, Sawyer had a straight flush, all hearts.
That was disappointing. They were going to settle for a lousy twenty bucks? No…not likely. Sawyer generously invited me to another hand to win it back, which I accepted.
Then I gave a sudden start, whipping around. It was convincing enough to make Sawyer jump and stop Fogelson in mid-deal.
“I felt something tap my shoulder,” I whispered, sounding excited. “Did you see anything behind me?”
“Nope,” said the more laconic Fogelson. He shot a look at Sawyer, who was checking the rest of the car. “Must have been a draft.”
“I felt fingers,” I insisted. “Two fingers.” I tapped the table twice with my own. “Just like that.” I got up and went around the car, checking the corners and shutting off lights until only the one over the table was on. “Maybe he’ll come closer if it’s not so bright in here.”
Sawyer must not have liked that and cleared his throat. It sounded natural, but was probably a signal to his partner. He wanted to leave.
