Blood and Thunder

“I’ve known Huey for some time,” she said. “I’ve had to learn to pull up camp stakes quickly. You’re bleeding.”

“What? Oh. Cut myself shaving.”

“Should’ve stuck a little toilet paper on it. Here.”

She stopped and so did I. She put her bag on the floor, and licked the tip of the middle finger of her right hand and touched the damp digit against the spot near my mouth, held it there hard. Released it. The hazel eyes, under naturally long lashes, looked at the place, head moving side to side. She was a pretty thing.

“There. That’s better.”

And she picked up her bag and moved down the hall quickly, on her high heels; I followed the impertinent sway of her rounded rear, having trouble keeping up. And I wasn’t in heels, or hungover.

At Suite 3200, Huey and his entourage were emerging noisily, bags in hand; no one spoke to us as we fell in step. Nobody bothered checking out-we just barreled through the lobby and down a wide stairway into an underground tunnel that connected the hotel with Pennsylvania Station.

In the vast, echoey main hall of the station, while Seymour Weiss was at a ticket window making arrangements, shielded by the ambience of footsteps, chatter and amplified announcements, Huey ambled over to Alice Jean and whispered in her ear a while. She looked at him blankly, nodded, and he gave her a half-moon grin, patted her on the shoulder and went back to pretending she didn’t exist.

Not long after, out on the train platform, in the bustle of passengers and redcaps, under a cloak of steam and clanging bells and hoarse train whistles, Huey appeared at my side, his hand on my arm, his mouth to my ear.

“You been assigned to watch Alice Jean,” he whispered. “That’ll give her time to fill ya in on things, and nobody the wiser.”

We boarded the sleekly modern train, with its black streamlined engine looking like something out of Buck Rogers, and trailed along to a car where Huey had a private compartment. He and Seymour and the little publisher’s rep holed up there, to talk about Huey’s book, presumably. Messina and McCracken took turns standing in the narrow hallway outside the door.

In the next car down, I took a similar position outside the door of Alice Jean’s compartment. There was no room for a chair. Bone tired, I stood leaning against the wall, letting the rattle of wheels over track joints lull me. It was going to be at least a three-hour ride.

On the other hand, for $250 a day, I could learn to sleep standing up.

After about fifteen minutes, the door opened and Alice Jean seemed startled to see me.

“What are you doin’ out here?” she asked.

“I’m assigned to guard you.”

“You should have knocked. Huey says I’m suppose’ to help you out on some things.”

“That’s right. But for appearance’s sake, I’m your bodyguard.”

She nodded that she understood, and squeezed out in the hallway; there really wasn’t room for all four of us-me, her and her breasts. But I didn’t mind.

“I was just going to get some breakfast,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”

“Sure.”

I followed that swaying rump to the dining car, where she had a very full breakfast-scrambled eggs, bacon, orange juice, cottage fries, toast-for a girl who’d tied one on last night. If she threw this up, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

A doughnut and coffee was all I felt like.

We just sat there in the posh car, with its linen tablecloths, pristine china, and colored waiters in spotless white, and dined quietly, enjoying the air of affluence. She seemed the picture of poise, and it surprised me when she suddenly blurted out that she was sorry for the night before.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“There’s really no excuse for my drunken behavior of yesterday evening.” She was just enough of a Southern belle to make that sound like poetry.

“It’s not a problem. Really.”

She raised her coffee cup to sip; without looking at me, she said over it, “I was…undressed, when I woke.”

I nodded, sipped my own coffee.

“Did you…undress me?”

“You asked for my help.” I gave her half a grin. “We at the A-1 Detective Agency aim to please.”

That seemed to embarrass her, just a little, and she put the coffee cup down and folded her hands; they were small, like a child’s. “You didn’t…”

“No. I didn’t take advantage. I would be lying if I said it didn’t occur to me. You’re a handsome woman, Miss Crosley. If it’s not out of line, my saying so.”

“Thank you. For not…taking advantage of the situation, I mean. That was kind, Mr. Heller.”

“How would you feel about calling me Nate?”

Her smile was tentative, but lovely. “I’d feel fine about it…Nate. And, when no one else is around at least, why don’t you call me Alice Jean.”

“I’d like that,” I said.

“I think I would, too.”

No one from Huey’s party was in the dining car right now, so it didn’t seem an inappropriate time to begin getting some of that background material out of her. For about an hour, she filled me in about the feud between Huey and the so-called Square Dealers, and even gave me the name and address of the man I should call on- Edward Hamilton, an attorney.

“Hamilton and that hawk-faced wife of his, Mildred, have been tryin’ to bring Huey down for years,” Alice Jean said.

Later, when we made our way back to the car where her compartment awaited, I took my position in the hall, back to the wall, arms folded, a cigarette-store Indian in a Panama hat.

“You look beat,” she said.

“Huey kept me running last night”

“So did I.” She was standing with the door to her compartment open; she nodded toward the inside. “It’s a double berth. Wanna take a nap, ’til Harrisburg?”

I grinned. “Are all you Southern girls this hospitable?”

Her smile may have been tiny but it was enormously winning. “My hospitality extends only to lettin’ you take a nap in the upper berth. Period.”

“That’s plenty. Probably all I have energy for, anyway….”

So we let down the upper berth, and I climbed up there and stretched out. It took me a while to go to sleep- thanks to that cup of coffee-but in a few minutes the jostle of the train and the rhythmic song it sang over the tracks had soothed me into slumber.

The train was whining to a stop when she shook me gently awake.

“Harrisburg,” she said. She was small enough to have to stand on tiptoe to look at me in the upper berth.

“You’re the best-looking train conductor I ever saw,” I said, and swung out of there.

“Do you know what the plan is?” she said. “Nobody bothered telling me.”

“Well, we change trains here,” I said, “but we’ve got a layover of a couple hours that Huey’s going to use to talk to the people at the Telegraph, who want to publish his book.”

A smirk dimpled her cheek. “I don’t suppose he’ll want me around.”

“I’ll keep you company,” I said.

We joined up with the entourage out on the platform of the Harrisburg station. It was dark as night on the covered platform, and Huey and Seymour, the bodyguards and aides, too, were huddled around the little publisher’s rep like conspirators.

Alice Jean and I kept back, staying to ourselves, and after a bit, Seymour broke away from the little group and approached us.

He pointed off to the left. “The Telegraph office is just a couple blocks away. We’re gonna hoof it over there, for a conference…you two wait in the station.”