The Christmas Train (2 page)

In his youth, because of the family connection and his father’s great interest in the man, Tom had immersed himself in Mark Twain’s life, work, and wit. In preparation for his transcontinental trip, he’d reread The Innocents Abroad , Twain’s account of a five-month journey on the steamship Quaker City to Europe and the Holy Land. He thought it one of the funniest, most irreverent travel books ever written. If one could imagine Sam Clemens—then a rawboned man fresh from the Wild West, very removed from the world-famous, sophisticated man of letters he’d become—in the company of a boatload of pious Midwesterners on their first sojourn to the Old World, the outrageous possibilities became readily apparent. Tom wasn’t going abroad, but in many ways he felt like a pilgrim traveler in his own country, because, ironically, he’d seen far more of the rest of the world than he had of America.

The Capitol Limited left D. C. at precisely 4:05P . M., made twelve stops between Washington, D. C., and Chicago, and arrived the following morning in the Windy City punctually at 9:19A . M. Tom had a layover in Chicago until that afternoon where he’d board the Southwest Chief and sail on to LA. It was a good plan and it got his juices going in a way that articles detailing the best times to prune one’s holly trees or pump out one’s septic tank never had.

He picked up his tickets, checked his ski equipment with the baggage agent—Lelia and he were going to the elegantly chic slopes of Tahoe for Christmas—and observed the grandeur of Union Station, which, before it was revitalized, came very close to falling victim to the wrecking ball. In the late 1960s it had become the National Visitors Center—basically a broken slide show in a big hole that no one ever visited. After that $30 million misfire, the National Visitors Center with no visitors was quietly closed except for one tiny and leaky part of the building where one could, of all things, actually board a train.

Tom’s father, returning from the Second World War in 1945, had come through this Romanesque-style train terminal on his way home. As Tom walked through the lavishly sculpted and adorned marble halls, he imagined himself retracing his father’s optimistic steps back to the safety of civilian life after helping to save the world from tyranny with nothing more than a gun and a young man’s courage. It seemed fitting that Tom should start his journey here since his father had ended one life and begun another through this portal. The son could only hope to do as much.

Tom took a few minutes to look at the enormous model Christmas train set up in the main hall’s West End. The area was packed with children and adults doubtless intrigued by the miniature metal creations racing through elaborately built town and country sets. Trains had a nostalgic magnetism that was undeniable, even for the many Americans who’d never even been on one. In this spirit, Tom found himself smiling broadly as the little cars whizzed by on the tiny tracks.

The train would be boarding shortly, so he headed to the departure area. Even though some train stations had recently implemented baggage screening, a person could still literally arrive at the last minute and make their ride. There were no security checkpoints, no nosy wands, no inane questions about whether you’d let a complete stranger load a small thermonuclear device in your carry-on bag while you were in the men’s room, as though you wouldn’t have volunteered such information on your own. You just jumped on and went. In the modern world of endless rules, the simplicity of it all was actually very refreshing.

Tom sat down in the Cap waiting area and began studying his fellow passengers. When he had ridden the Acela to New York, virtually all the waiting passengers had been businesspeople, dressed sharply and outfitted with all sorts of corporate weapons: cell phones, Black-berries, Palm Pilots, laptops, ear receivers, laser-guided power pointers, plutonium-charged thingamajigs and hard-drive ready-to-wear. These were people with a mission, raring to go, and when that door opened to let the masses board, they boarded with a vengeance. Tom nearly had all his clothes stripped off because he didn’t step fast enough. One tiny but determined CEO bore down on him like he was holding a little red cape, her sole purpose in life being to expose his entrails to the open air.

The group waiting for the Cap was more varied. There were whites and African Americans and Native Americans, Muslims dressed in traditional garb, Asian Americans—a nice sampling of ethnicity and origins, pretty equally split between men and women.

An attractive young couple sitting next to Tom were sipping Diet Cokes and holding hands, looking very nervous. Perhaps this was their first time away from home. Tom had traveled so much at such a young age that he could relate to the anxiety they might be feeling. Next to them was an elderly man of the cloth taking a little siesta, his feet up on his duffel.

Sitting across from the priest was a slender woman with very angular features, a geometric project honed from skin and bone. Tom couldn’t really tell her age because she was wearing a long, multicolored scarf around her head, almost like a turban. She also wore wooden shoes the size of thirty-pound dumbbells. Spread on the chair next to her were Tarot cards, which she was studiously poring over. When anyone passed she’d glance up with a look that seemed to say “I know all about you.” It was a little unnerving, actually. Tom had had his palm read by an old fellow in the Virgin Islands once. He’d promised Tom a long life filled with a passel of kids, a loving wife, and nothing but good times. Tom had often thought about hunting the liar down and getting his money back.

He watched one elderly lady maneuvering around on a walker. She reminded him of his mother. After her stroke she couldn’t speak, so he’d concocted a little system. He’d lay a photo of her and himself when he was a boy on his mother’s chest and she’d pick it up with her good hand. That meant things were okay, that she was still there. He’d never forget the time he laid the photo down and waited eight hours for her to pick it up. She never did. She died the next day.

A few minutes later Tom and the other passengers all grabbed their bags and headed out. The mighty Capitol Limited was calling his name. chapter three

Outside, the air was very cold, the fat clouds holding the promise of snow or at least sleet. In such weather airplane passengers worried about flight delays and icy wings, but such inclemency meant nothing to the stalwart Cap; it was bound for Chicago. Tom’s spirits started to soar; the beginning of any journey always drove his adrenaline level high. His last published article, for a health magazine, had explored the tremendous potential of a six-week diet relying solely on plump prunes and the close proximity of a bathroom. Tom was desperately ready for an adventure.

He walked to the front of the train and saw the twin diesel electric engines that would be pulling the Cap. He’d read about these monsters. They were General Electric P-42s, each weighing a staggering 268,000 pounds, cranking sixteen cylinders and packing 42,000 horsepower. As his gaze lingered over these hulking machines, he imagined how wonderfully they might perform on the congested Washington Beltway. What a P-42 couldn’t outrun, it would simply run over.

Walking back on a track siding that ran under the station, he saw an old, hunter-green railroad car that looked interesting. An Amtrak employee was nearby, so Tom asked what it was. The fellow answered, “That’s Franklin D. Roosevelt’s old train car, the Marco Polo, Train Number Seven. It’s owned by Norfolk and Southern now. They wine and dine VIPs there, right on the spot.”

As they stood watching, a stretch limo pulled under the tunnel near the former Roosevelt train car.

Tom said, “Are they having an early dinner on the Marco Polo? Perhaps with Churchill and Stalin?” he added with a smile.

The man didn’t get the joke. “Nope, some big shot getting on the Cap Limited. They bring ’em in that way, then there’s a ramp underneath the station the limo can go out. We do it for privacy, like sneaking movie stars through airports.”

“So who’s the big shot getting on my train? Probably some political type, right?”

The fellow looked at Tom. He appeared to be a veteran railroader with probably lots of terrific stories to tell, if only Tom had the time. “Well, if I let you in on that, it wouldn’t be a secret, now would it?”

Tom waited a bit to see who’d get out of the limo, but no one ever did. The odds of an eventual sighting were high, though, since once on the train it would be difficult for the VIP to stay concealed. Give Tom Langdon a train flying down the tracks, pen, paper, trusty binoculars, and full indemnity, and he’d bag a VIP every day of the week.

Today the Cap’s configuration of cars, called the “consist” in train-speak, was two engines, one baggage car, three coaches, two sleeper cars, one dining car, and one dormitory transition car. The transition car was where most of the service crew was quartered. It had high and low doors that allowed the double-decker cars to have access to the single-level cars, hence the term “transition” car. Tom kept walking until he reached a sleeping-car attendant and showed him his ticket.

“Next sleeper car down, sir. Regina will take care of you,” the fellow told him.

Tom went to see Regina. She was standing in front of an impressively large sixteen-foot-tall double-decker train car that was called, in Amtrak parlance, a Superliner, the heaviest passenger-train car in the world. Trains, although some considered them an outmoded form of travel, held an undeniable mystery for Tom. He’d read most of the classic suspense yarns that had taken place on rolling stock, and the elements for edge-of-your-seat storytelling were all there. You had the romance of sophisticated yet unhurried travel in a confined space, with a set number of suspects from all walks of life. In what he thought were the best of such stories, passengers held their breath in the darkness, blankets pulled to their chins because they could just sense something terrible was about to happen. Soon, with the tension at its peak, there’d come a slash of light, a scream, and a dull thud as a body fell. In the wee hours of the morning, the corpse, peepers wide open and skin pale as chalk, would be discovered by an incredibly dense traveling maid who’d scream her head off for about ten minutes while a pair of brooding eyes watched from a shadowy corner. Anyone unmoved by such a scenario should check his pulse, Tom strongly felt.

Regina possessed flawless, dark brown skin and seemed to be too young to be working on a train or anywhere else; in fact, to Tom, she looked like a high-school junior gearing up for her inaugural prom and first serious kiss. Tall and slender, she was personable and obviously enjoyed her work. She was wearing a red and white Christmas hat, the sort donned by Santa’s helpers at the mall, and she was assisting the nervous young couple Tom had seen holding hands in the waiting area. The priest had already checked in and was hauling his big duffel inside the train. After Regina had finished with the couple, Tom stepped forward and showed her his ticket.

She looked at the name and marked it off her list.

“Okay, Mr. Langdon, you’re on the upper level. Compartment D. Stairs are to your right and then left down the hall.”

Tom thanked her and gingerly placed a foot on the august Capitol Limited. His experience with sleeper cars was limited solely to viewing the movie North by Northwest , directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring the impeccably elegant Cary Grant, a nubile Eva Marie Saint, and a very sinister James Mason. Most fans of the movie remember the famous cropduster plane scene where Cary, dressed in his superbly tailored gray suit, is standing alone in the middle of vast, lonely farmland waiting for a meeting with the mysterious George Kaplan, who of course doesn’t exist. Some wily minds at the CIA had concocted Kaplan’s identity for their own nefarious purposes. Those folks at the Agency were always lying about something to make the world safe for democracy. Yet, to be fair, it was all in good fun and solely at taxpayer expense.

Now, the movie scene that Tom remembered most was the one that featured a lot of kissing inside Eva Marie Saint’s spacious sleeper compartment. Cary and Eva went at it pretty hot and heavy even by today’s standards. Watching it as a young man, hormones afire, Tom remembered thinking impure thoughts about all women everywhere, or at least those who looked like Eva Marie Saint.

Having seen that film, he knew that his sleeper compartment would be elegantly appointed and spacious, have room for a couple of beds, and feature a nice study area, a small foyer in which to formally receive visitors, a full bathroom with whirlpool tub, optional servant quarters, and perhaps an outdoor patio/balcony combo. There was a reason that at the end of the movie Cary and Eva had honeymooned in that very same sleeper compartment: It was bigger than any apartment Tom had ever had.

He started to climb the stairs as instructed by Regina. With luggage the going was a little tough, the stairs turning at tight ninety-degree angles. He assumed all the extra space had been devoted to the mammoth sleeper compartments. Then he looked up and realized he faced a considerable obstacle.

She was old, dressed in what looked to be a sleeping gown although it was not yet four o’clock, and was teetering on the top step coming down. Tom was on the second to the top step. He only had one more step to go, one narrow little riser to navigate, before he was off to fantasize about Eva Marie in his rolling penthouse.

“Excuse me,” he said politely.

“Coming through,” the woman announced in a thunderous baritone that actually made the rough, tough former war correspondent feel dangerously effeminate.

“If you’ll just let me squeeze past,” he replied. But that was out of the question. She wasn’t nearly so tall as Tom, but she was, to put it delicately, considerably wider in frame.