***
Of course Mike was right, McBride thought when he hung up the phone. McBride was angry, but he had to respect Mike for what he was. How Mike handled the two of them in the diner was exactly what he would have expected. Mike would never start a gun battle with people around once Eddie took off. Why else would Mike be hired for this kind of job? There were three or four other men in that area he needed to call to fan out and lookfor Eddie. McBride would have each call in every few hours, and none had any reason to know of the others. After a few days, they could keep searching on their own as if they wished. There was also law enforcement in the area to be called about a spotted fugitive. That alone could cause a stir.
McBride considered what needed to happen in the next day or two. Eddie would slip away from everyone very quickly if he was not found in that time. He sat down at his desk, knowing the next couple of days could be ugly with what had to be done, but this would be nothing new. Putting the pressure on a person was what he often had to do in his business. It was always his skin on the line, and he had to get the job done before someone else did. McBride picked up the phone without hesitation, knowing full well the people he would be hiring to help would be ruining, maybe ending, lives in looking for the answer. The aftermath would be hell, but he had been expecting this for some time.
46
Harris was outside Henry Silva's office the next morning before the man had arrived. He was sitting on a bench in the hallway, trying to decide how much of his conversation with O'Connor he should relay. O'Connor was certainly one being watched by the BOI, but Harris doubted if they had much against him or knew what to do about him. McBride was most likely in a similar position. Harris knew what his job was and was not going to start cutting deals with or for organized crime, so he stayed with his conclusion that he was going to need to tell Silva most, if not all, of what they talked about. The thoughts of resigning that day were of only passing interest, since he had learned there might be a way of taking McBride and getting him locked away. However, there was still anger from the fact that it had to be done with the help of a rival boss and not by good, solid investigative work. He would have to live with that fact and deal with it as best as he could.
"Just the person I wanted to see, first thing in the morning," Silva said when he stepped around the corner. There were no other people in at that hour of the morning. Silva walked over to where Harris was sitting on a bench and stood there. He was holding a broken leather satchel under his arm, overflowing with papers, while feeling around in his pocket for the office door key. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Let's step inside," Harris said, standing up.
Silva fumbled with a set of keys and opened the door into a rather large but cluttered office. Harris was used to this sight, seeing law enforcement officials having data and reports laying out and on every horizontal surface. Silva set the satchel onto a small open space on his desk and sat down. "What's so high dang important Harris?"
There were no reasons for niceties, so Harris went right in. "I think we have a way to peg the LaRue murder on McBride."
Silva laced his hands across his stomach. "That's good, but it better be damn good."
"I have access to one of the men who helped McBride that night. Says he saw McBride shoot LaRue."
Silva stared back at Harris for a moment and did not move. Harris was about to continue, but Silva said, "That has to be a solid source, or we'll look like fools."
"O'Connor told me," Harris said.
"O'Connor was there?" Silva said, shooting out of his seat. Harris was not sure if he had seen a man with a belly that large move so fast.
"No. Take it easy." Silva settled back and put his hand to his forehead for a second. "O'Connor has an insider that works for McBride. Said he was there that night and he told me a few things that few people know."
Silva let out a low whistle. "What's O'Connor want with this? Take McBride out so he can take over again?"
"Likely." Harris had wondered about this deal with the devil as well. "Fighting one organization is better than fighting two."
"This has something to do with your boy out robbing banks?" Silva said. Harris was impressed that Silva would get to that conclusion so quickly. He had always struck him as a man who often buried his nose in the reports and could not think off the line.
"O'Connor doesn't want to expose this man unless we bring Eddie back. Without Eddie, we don't have a case. With him, it'll be difficult at best." Harris was not sure if they would bring Eddie in alive, especially considering the last few days. "Anyone been able to ID the other robber yet?"
"No. That's a tough one. Looks like a loose wire, showed up with a gun. From the accounts, he seems to be a fella who shoots first and doesn't bother with questions. There are robbers out there for the thrill and the money is simply a bonus. This one, I don't know." Silva rocked a few times in his chair, looking at his desk. "Listen, you city boys might have all day to sit around and talk, but we got other things to do. What do you want?"
Harris ignored the jab, mostly because he had been expecting it and knew this was part of the job. Every agency was territorial; city, county, state, federal. Each had a piece and was not willing to share it. "We work together and we can bring McBride in. I can prosecute him and lock him up, but I need your help. We know LaRue worked for O'Connor. We traced his whereabouts and who he associated with. That part was easy. It went wrong, and McBride had him taken out. I don't know what happened, but it was a screw-up, and that's how McBride handles these problems. The girl was likely involved as well. Eddie has to be taken alive."
Silva set his hands on the table. The brushoff from before had been set aside for the moment. "If we bring him in alive, McBride goes to jail, or the boy does. If he's dead, case closed on Eddie Griffin. We ain't changing a thing."
"Come on. We can get McBride. Shut him down," Harris said, though he knew his evidence was slim.
"Forget it," Silva said. "You don't got enough to make me change a thing. Eddie's on the run, he's got a sheet on him, and he's been identified robbing two banks. That's it. Got anything else you want to talk about?"
Harris knew there was no reply to be made. Silva was shaking his head as Harris left the office, but there was nothing he could do about the opinion that had been discussed. His options were few, if any, and with as gun-happy as many of the cops were about gangsters, Eddie had a very narrow chance of getting away. It was still quiet when he returned to his office, though it felt like he had already worked a full day.
47
Eddie sat back against the boxcar wall, and felt the clacking of the wheels vibrate through the floor. Occasionally they would hit a change big enough to make his leg bounce, but he was moving away at a good rate of speed, and that was all he could ask for. After the last few days, he considered himself the luckiest man alive and could only imagine what would happen if he made a wrong move.
When he had escaped, Eddie wasted no time running deep into the woods and hills. He saw the car going up and down the road, but they did not look to be making a real organized effort to find him. Still, he wasted no time. He had no belongings, and other than the fifty-dollar bill he had stuffed into his pants, he had nothing to slow him down. There were really two things he needed to do, and they were, in a way, opposed to each other. He needed to disappear and get out of the area as quickly as he could. The fastest way to travel was by train, but he was not going to be able to simply buy a ticket and sit back comfortably in a sleeper car going to California. He would instead have to rely on what he and Sam had done those years ago, when they were skipping school: hop a train and ride it until it was time to get off. That was simple enough, but the real problem was finding a train going preferably west.
After wandering around for a few hours, he came to a road leading to a small town. The road was one of the few that were paved, and he saw a collection of small houses
in the distance. Every instinct told him to hide, but he knew he had to get moving. If he was unable to do that, he would need to run back into the woods and lie low for as long as he could. The town turned out to be slightly bigger than he thought, and he found a well-used rail line that ran through the middle. Eddie began running west along the line, and he soon found a bridge that crossed a river. Down below was a collection of men sitting along the bank. By this time he was out of breath, and he estimated he had been running for about thirty minutes. He hopped off of the train tracks and slid down the stone-littered slope to the bank of the river. Once he was there, he paused for a moment and wondered if this was a wise move. These men were out of work, riding the rails. They might rob him, ignore him altogether, or maybe turn him in. One of the men stood up and stretched, but as far as Eddie could tell, there was no conversation going on between them.
"What's your business?" the standing man said in Eddie's direction.
He gave this some consideration and came to the realization that he looked the part of a hobo. He could blend in with them if he needed to. "Traveling. Going west."
"To hell you are," the man said. Eddie guessed his age to be about forty. There were about ten others, all sitting around, some tossing stones in the river, a few napping. Most just looked to be passing time.
"Ain't got nothing else to do." Eddie could see that many were about his age. Young men with no prospects, out of work and looking to see where the wind blew them. Hopping trains was dangerous, but if done right, it could take a man across the country in a week or two, picking up odd jobs along the way to keep food in his belly.
"Sure, well, welcome to the country club," the man said, walking away.
Eddie took a place among them and tried neither to let his excitement be apparent nor for anyone to look directly at his face. However, time was ticking away, and he needed to know where to run next. Since these men were seated here, he guessed there was a stop or a yard close by where they could sneak on. He needed to know where, and he was about to ask when he heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching engine. As if an awakening call had been made, about half of the men got up and began wading across the shallow river to the opposite bank. Eddie joined in and followed the small dirt-covered group as they crossed and scurried up the other side to a small stand of trees close to the track. The men all crouched in the woods, and Eddie immediately became aware of the reason why they had chosen this place. The tracks leading up to the bridge came around a sharp right-hand bend, while the tracks going away went around a sharp left bend. The train had to slow considerably here. Within a few minutes, he saw the smoke of the engine above the trees and began to hear the squeal of the brakes as the train slowed for the approaching curves. Everyone was down on their haunches, looking up the track. The rails began to give off a deafening ring as the wheels of the train struggled to get the loaded machine slowed and turned. The smokestack appeared a moment later as the engine approached the bridge at a crawl. The real trick to hopping a train was timing and patience. A boxcar was the best ride, while an open bed was a wild adventure out in the elements. From what Eddie could see as the train approached, there appeared to be a few open cars. The engine chugged by, and within moments, the men began to come out of their crouches and started running beside the first open boxcar. Eddie was quicker than the others, having nothing to carry. He grabbed a handle and let his momentum carry him up. He held out his hand and helped one of the slower runners up, while another hopped on in a similar fashion. The others fell behind to one of the following boxcars. Within a few seconds, one of the other two men pulled out a railroad spike and jammed the door open so they wouldn't get shut in, and then he settled back, away from the opening, to the center of the floor. The only thing that Eddie knew was that the train was going north, and if at all possible, he would make a few more changes to mix up his trail. He stood there for a few moments and imagined he heard sirens off in the distance, but he realized there was no such thing. Either way, they might be a sound he would hear for some time if this was to be his life from then on.
He rode for a few hours, not talking to anyone, until they came to a rail yard. The train slowed as they approached, and before they came into the yard, he hopped off and let the train continue on. This time, he was the only one to get off. Eddie was not sure where he was, only that he may have traveled about a hundred miles north of where he hopped on. The sun was beginning to get low enough on the horizon to give him some cover. Quickly he scoured the lines running in and out and took a guess at which one ran west. He followed this out a ways and hid in the bushes until, about ten minutes later, a train lumbered out of the yard, and he was able to swing on, finding himself alone in an empty car. Half an hour later, darkness had closed in, and he knew he was headed due west, out of New York, and hopefully away from all that had been following him to that point.
He moved away from the wall where he had been sitting and leaned across the floor on one elbow. He balled up his jacket to make a pillow and stretched. The car was noisy, but after the day he had, he actually fell asleep for a period of time. The swaying and bouncing of the car felt good and, for the first time in months, safe. Nobody knew where he was, and if he could work it, no one would find out. When he awoke, darkness was completely closed in, and he only caught glimpses of trees and poles outside the door as they flew by. He would need to get off in a while, but for the time being, he had nothing to do other than stay where he was and be alone with his thoughts.
Often he had gone over all the events that had led him to be a fugitive on a train, and each time he concluded that luck was not his companion. All the way back to being in the home and meeting Sam, each turn made his life situation worse. Each time. Meeting Sam; getting in that car that night; going to jail; trying to live the straight life in Providence and seeing LaRue get killed. All this was one unending line of bad turns. Then he thought of his night with Gloria and how this sped up everything that had happened since. He met her at the trolley stop and then took her to his apartment to make that phone call. It was the phone call that always made him uneasy. Why would she do that since he was really nothing to her? Whomever she intended to visit was never mentioned after that. At the time this did not seem right, but he chose to ignore it. However, now this seemed to be a glaring error. Then a sobering thought crept in that was so clear and precise that he felt his face turn red just thinking about it. He knew that was wrong, but he did it anyway. It was wrong and he knew it, but he went out with her, and then he was a wanted man. He got in that Stutz with Sam, though he knew it was stolen. He went out almost every day during school hours, stealing things he could never afford, but he knew it was wrong. Sister Broomstick hit him every time he came back or stepped out of line, but he kept going out and finding problems. Maybe what she was trying to do was right, a thought he never had even considered, even if the way she did it was wrong. She wanted to keep him in line and out of trouble, and he wished now he had found a way to listen to her at least once.
All the way back and forth, he began to think of similar instances. Eddie stood and paced the boxcar several times, expertly adjusting his stride to the rocking motion. He stopped at one corner and rested his head against the old-smelling wood. Sure, life dealt a person certain cards, good and bad, but there were too many times where he had made a decision that he had known what the outcome would be. It was hard to deal with the thought that all this was because of a consistent series of bad choices, but here he was. Gloria was not interested in a relationship, he could tell that as soon as he met her. She was close to people like LaRue, so why would she want to be seen with the boy hauling trash? McBride had set him up, and he had known it was happening, but he had gone ahead anyway.
Eddie went back to where his jacket was lying and sat down with a ball of guilt building up in his chest. Gloria had said something. There was a starkly honest moment on the couch. "I wish I was t
hat normal," she had said. Then, later, she told him to run, or that he knew when to run. She was telling him he was set up and that she was in terrible trouble herself. Then she was dead. One of McBride's game pieces, it seemed. "Normal" depended on how a person looked at it. For her to think that meant she was well removed from day to day life. Eddie lay down again. All he could do now was rely on that intuition he had ignored for so long. However, he could only escape so many times before the odds caught up with him. Eddie sat on the floor, trying to now convince himself he was just a victim in all this, but this did not make sense. He stretched out and stared at the roof of the boxcar. There it was. His whole life in one ragged string.
48
Eddie had been on the train since the previous afternoon and was beginning to think about getting off. He was hungry and thirsty, having hopped the train without having a chance to think of what he needed to bring. All he had wanted to do was get as far away as quickly as possible. The train had been going mostly west, Eddie guessed, and with the various stops and slowdowns he had traveled two or three hundred miles from where he had gotten on. If he had a choice, he wished he could stay on this train all the way across the country, but he could only push back hunger and thirst so far. The ride had been bumpy but good enough that he had dozed through the night, and for a great deal of the morning he rode along, sitting in the open door watching the farmland roll by.
The train began to slow again, and Eddie started looking for a good spot to hop off. They had passed a small town not far back, and he would have a chance to get enough to eat and drink to go on. As he was getting ready to plan his jump, a young man swung up into the car, followed by another a second later. The two stood in the doorway, both looking at Eddie.
"Hey partner, got room for two more?" the first one said.
"Sure," Eddie said. "I was about to get off myself."
"May want to think about that," the other man said, leaning over the side. "Got a bridge." As he said this, the land fell away, and the train began going over a river, starting to pick up speed.
"Whew. Getting hot. I'm Chet," the first man said. "That's Buck."
Buck waved from the doorway. Both of them looked to be a few years younger than Eddie and wore similar dirty weathered clothes. Chet had a cloth cap on that he took off and used to wipe the sweat from his face. Both tossed their packs down in the middle of the floor and sat. "Got a name?" Buck asked.
"Sure, sorry. Charlie," Eddie said. In the night, he realized that he had to, at some point, start over. He had created a new name for himself, which he thought was rather clever. Charlie Neumann. He actually laughed when he came up with it. Neumann, new man. Get it? He was bored, and it was the best he could do.
"Traveling kind of light there, ain't ya?" Chet said.
"Lost it," he said. "Jumped on way back and caught on the door guide. It fell off and I stayed on." He had created a new life, but needed to account for his lack of belongings. Born outside of Syracuse. Traveling west, looking for work after having lost his job at a furniture factory and not being able to find anything where he'd been.
"Lose much?" Buck asked.
"Naw," Eddie said. He had hidden the fifty-dollar bill under the insole in his shoe, not knowing whom he was going to meet up with—a habit he had picked up long ago traveling with Sam to various back alleys and juke joints. Prison had given him instincts he hoped he would not have to put to use, but they had come back in the past few days. He felt these two would be fine, though there was no way to be sure or to know why he felt that way.
"Goes that way sometimes," Chet said. "We ain't got much, but if you need something, let us know."
"Well," Eddie said, feeling his dry tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. "I haven't had a drink in a day."
Buck looked at him, his face turning hard around his eyes. "You're not getting my rye. Paid a buck for it."
"No. Water. I'm parched." Chet and Buck both laughed, and they each pulled a metal canteen from their pack and handed it to Eddie. Chet's was full, and he guessed he drank half of it before he set it back down and put the cap on. The steak dinner with Nelson was long ago, leaving him dry.
"God," Eddie said, catching his breath. He handed the canteen back to Chet, never having believed water could taste like that. He felt his body relax; he had not realized how dehydrated he had become. "Thanks. Good."
"We're heading west," Buck said. "Seems there's some mining work out there. Maybe get a job, maybe not."
"Doesn't much matter, really," Chet said. "All kinds of people out riding the rails. Especially with what happened the past few days."
Eddie had been out of touch with any news ever since Charlie had picked him up. "What happened?"
"Didn't hear? Stock market went in the shitter. At least, that's what I heard. Some lost millions. Don't know how you can lose that much, but I guess that's why I'm here."
Buck laughed. "What's it matter? We ain't got no stocks. Wouldn't know one if I seen it."
Buck and Chet continued to joke about what had happened, but Eddie stared out through the open door and considered the implications. The classes he took and the professors who taught them had instilled enough knowledge for him to realize what had happened. Professor Grumwald had spent most of one class ranting about investors being overextended and banks loaning out too much money. The class listened and let him ramble on, mentioning indicators few had heard about. They knew the fundamentals, though, and as Eddie sat there, they did make sense. People out of work and carrying too much debt and speculation. Many, he knew, had been active in the futures market and playing options. Gambling, Eddie thought, though he never said it. At the time, he had to admit, some made it work. Eddie never had enough to really dig into these types of trading deals.
"What else did they say about the markets?" Eddie asked.
Chet and Buck stopped joking around. "Can't tell you much. Don't look good for all them bankers wearing fancy pants," Chet said. "Why you want to know?"
"Got some friends I know that work the stock market. This would be tough on them," Eddie said.
Chet and Buck looked him for a moment. "Ain't got a paper with us," Buck said. "Sure you can find one somewhere when you get off."
The two continued to joke around and relax on the floor of the boxcar. Eddie began to consider calling Herman to see what had happened. Over the past day, he had given this considerable thought, weighing the different reasons for contacting him. On the one hand, he wanted—needed—to disappear into the landscape and never come back. His attempt at creating a new persona had been that, and he was going to head as far west and north as he could from Providence. Calling Herman would not help this. There was nothing Herman could do for him, anyway. Then again, maybe there was. Eddie would not be able to know if anything had changed since he had left, and simply running might not be the answer. Harris might have turned up evidence in his favor in the last few days. Everything had been such a blur, Eddie was not always sure this was not some odd dream. Either way, he needed to get off the train soon, if for no other reason than to change his travel direction. About two hours later, the train slowed for another town. He bid farewell to his traveling companions and slipped out of the door, back to the ground.
49
Herman looked at the clock and saw it was almost 3:00 in the afternoon. The schedule board had him down to change out a transmission on a Packard sedan that had been in the service lot for a week waiting for a replacement to arrive. The owner, a local banker, had been by a few days before, though he was no longer demanding his car be repaired right away. Herman had to guess the recent market problems had him otherwise occupied. The mechanics themselves had been talking about this, though most of them, certainly not Herman, did not really understand what was going on. They knew they worked for a more upscale car dealer, and that could be a problem if people became nervous. The owner had reassured them, but that
was not much comfort.
While he was gathering his tools to do the job, he guessed he could complete most of the work before he left, then finish in the morning. He had just begun pulling the driveshaft off when he heard his name being shouted across the garage.
"Herman Ward! Get over to the office! You got a call," the shop foreman yelled.
Herman wiped his hands off and set his tools back on the workbench before going over to the office. Personal calls were never welcome in the foreman's eyes, but emergencies were a problem as well. Walking across the garage, there were a few whistles and references to a girlfriend checking up on him, but he ignored these taunts. Most of the girls he went out with knew better then to call him at work. He stepped up into the office, where the secretary/parts woman handed him the phone.
"I got brakes to order, so don't tie up the phone, jackass." she said.
"Sure," he said. Eunice was the owner's aunt or grandmother or something. Herman could never remember.
"Herman? It's me, Eddie," Eddie said as soon as the phone was to Herman's ear.
"Shit fire, pal, where the hell have you been?" Herman said.
"Language, dirtball," Eunice said.
Herman had not realized she was leaning over her desk, listening to the conversation. He picked up the phone base and moved as far away as he could, about ten feet. "You're all over the papers. What's this all about?”
Eddie began going into the details, talking quickly and in the soft monotone of a person who did not want to be overheard. The facts that Eddie recited fit the write-ups in the various papers Herman had read, but the conclusion was different. Of course they were. Both of them had been around the police enough to know that the rules they played by and reported were seldom the actual truth. Initially there was some doubt as Herman read paper after paper about what had happened and was happening on the case, but hearing Eddie tell him pushed these doubts away for the moment. Eddie had paid his price, but that was a few years before, and in all their time together there had never been any indication that he could rob a bank and shoot a guard. They had drunk illegal beer together until the early morning hours, going to clubs and burlesque shows. Eddie was a funny little friend who told stories, but he always stayed out of trouble. Many times Eddie had told Herman he knew if he were ever caught at something again, they would throw him away and forget where he was. This was no killer or robber.
Eddie continued his story with his leaping over the tables at the diner. Herman had to smile at this thought, Eddie sitting with a hit man and a lunatic, going straight up and over the back of the booth, scattering plates and food as he went. Perfect, a getaway for the movies if he had ever heard one. "Do you have his number?" Eddie asked.
"What? Herman said. "Oh, uh, Harris, sure. No, I don't have it with me. The operator can probably put you through. He asked me to get ahold of him if I heard from you."
"I had to call you first when I got the chance. You're the only one I really trust. I needed to get the lay of the land, understand?" Eddie said.
"It doesn't look good here. Your name's on the front pages everyday. Sorry, pal, sorry, but you needed to know," Herman said, wondering if this was the right thing to say.
"Got it. That's what I guessed. How's Harris? Any idea?"
"He's washed up. I doubt if he'll be in office next week. The papers put all the blame on him," Herman said, looking at the foreman examining his work on the sedan, then coming back towards the office.
"McBride's probably controlling the newspapers, forcing Harris out," Eddie said.
"Hey, I don't have much time. Where are you, in case Harris drops by?" Herman asked.
"I can't say. You were a good friend, Herman. One of the best I had. I gotta keep moving, though," Eddie said, and then hung up.
The foreman stuck his head in the office and glared at Herman, pointing at the car he had been working on. The phone went silent. He handed it back to Eunice. Herman squeezed past the foreman. "I have to run downtown real quick. I'll be back in fifteen minutes."