The Railroad (33 page)

“But why would anyone want to do this. What could they get from it?”

`              I don’t know, Mike. All I know is that someone or something is…I guess out to get you isn’t the right way of putting it. Things are happening all around you that are weird, and one of those things is dead.”

“You think that whoever killed Benoit is out to get me?”

“Do you know anything for sure about all this? Until you do, you can’t go chasing around after who knows what.”

“And what if it’s Megan?”

He shrugged. “You think you can just go up there? I’ve been up in that area. It’s really bum fuck Egypt. Not like
the country
. Not like the ski resorts we’ve been to in the White Mountains. No one lives up there. It’s near fucking Canada.”

“I know that.”

“You need to know what you’re doing before you go off and get yourself killed.”

I stood up and began pacing. “What else can I do? I can’t call the cops and let them know where Eileen and Megan are. I can’t hire a private detective for basically the same reason. If I do, that I could get them arrested or maybe even killed, if whoever the mystery killer is finds out where they are.”

“What mystery killer?”

“I don’t know! The one who killed Benoit. One of the
Chapter and Verse Killers
! Maybe they’re the same people for all I know. Why did Megan send this last postcard to McDonald’s instead of my house in Bardstown, like the rest? Maybe whoever killed Benoit is…maybe things have gone off the rails and she and Eileen are in danger. Don’t you find it frightening that Benoit gets killed and then Megan takes a risk by sending me a postcard at a McDonald's?  With her name on it. And she doesn’t send it to my house?"

“I repeat: you can’t be sure it’s her. This is stupid, Mike. You’re going to ask questions and attract attention.”

“I have to do something. She’s asking for my help.”

He sighed. “You don’t know who
she
is either. Even if it is her, how can you be sure that writing her name or
4-5-1
on a postcard means she’s in trouble? Think about it. Everyone has been jerking you around for months. You don’t know who anyone is. What makes you think you can be sure what this means?”

“The handwriting looks just like...”

“Mike! How many times did you see Megan’s handwriting?”

“A couple of times. I think it was on the postcard that Benoit stole.”

“You think he stole it.”

“No, damn it! In that case, I know he did.”

“Okay. I’ll concede that one. Do you really remember what her handwriting looks like?”

“I think so.”

We stared at each other for a while. When we got tired of staring, we both huffed.

“Would you let this go if you were me?” I asked him finally.

He stopped huffing and looked sorry. “I’m not sure I would. I can’t blame you for the way you feel, but the deck is stacked against you. You have no idea what you’re doing or even who sent you those postcards. Someone’s been killed and, despite the fact that the one who was killed was one of the people who threatened you, you have no idea whether you still have enemies or not. Don’t you think this is a little over your head?”

“Probably.”

“So?”

“And if something happens to Megan and her mother and I find out I could have prevented it…” I let the thought hang between us like a neon sign.

Dennis began dry washing his hands. “I…I don’t know Mike.”

I had been ready to come back to Manhattan and start over. I was ready to leave the bad dream that Bardstown had become, way behind me. I had been ready to come back and eat humble pie.

I could have been satisfied with that. Here was something I couldn’t ignore. What could I do about it? I couldn’t call the cops. For a time I still considered hiring a detective, but I was afraid that he’d just attract attention from the police; if he found out where Eileen and Megan were, someone else could find out from him. For all I knew Dennis’s phone might be bugged or someone might be watching me. I knew it sounded paranoid and yet I’d entered a world where paranoid fantasies could become real.

That left going to find them myself, something that, despite my bravado for Dennis’s sake, I was not ready to do. After all I’d been through the last thing I wanted was to throw myself into the hands of who
m
ever had been tormenting me all these months. Maybe I’d just get myself killed when I was trying to save two people I loved.

I’d been stewing for a couple of days when I found another alternative. Oddly, it came from Barbara who I would have thought was the last person on earth who’d want to help me. She had taken me under her wing again, seeing me as a lost soul, and that gave her the sense of superiority she needed to deal with me again. We were sitting in this small Middle Eastern place that I loved, and I found myself telling her about the alternatives I had.

“Okay,” she said, putting on her best woman of action face. “You’re right. You can’t go to the cops. You can’t hire a detective. Well you might do that, but you wouldn’t know what the result would be. You can’t just go rushing up to these places and asking where they are. But you’ve left out one alternative.” She smiled.

“I have?”

“Who got them to where they are now?”

“What?”

“Don’t be stupid! She’s somewhere. Maybe in one of those places in one of your postcards. Who brought her there?”

“The
Railroad
or at least I think so.”

“Exactly.”

I was becoming frustrated. She was enjoying some triumph at my expense. “What are you saying?”

“If you need to try to find her or get someone to help her, who would know how to do that?”

It hit me.
“The
Railroad
! But why would they talk to me?”

“They would probably at least take your information. If they thought she was in danger, they might be able to move both of them, or try to help them.”

“What if they won’t?”

“It’s a shot Mike.

“I guess you’re right.”

I started calling organizations that worked in the area of protecting children from abuse. They were either too well established or conservative to be connected with anything like
The
Railroad
or they were horribly suspicious of my motives. No luck there.

So I moved on to more radical organizations. The Coalition for Women’s Alternative Options seemed to be interested in my call at least. In the end they said there was nothing they could do to help me. The International Disenfranchised Population Caucus just hung up on me after I’d uttered two sentences. On down the list of organizations

despite their lofty name tags, I didn’t fit in with their overall political agenda, which seemed basically theoretical in nature.

In the end, it took me a couple of days to find the right people. I finally stumbled across a group in Iowa called Women and Children’s Support Network. By that time I had my patter down. I informed the young lady at the other end of the line that there was an emergency involving someone who is currently underground and I had to get a message to the people protecting her. She was obviously young and frightened, but didn’t seem willing to dismiss me out of hand. “Give me a number where I can call you, please,” she asked me.

An hour later I got a call back. This woman was older and seemed a lot more hostile toward me. Still, she was willing to talk.

“We’re not a messenger service, Mr. Dobbs. We have serious problems we’re handling here.”

“I understand that,” I told her. “I don’t want to waste your time. I’m not trying to find her. I just want the people who might be helping her to get a message.”

“Tell me what the message is.”

I gave her the whole story, feeling stupid as I spoke; what reason did this woman have to believe anything other than the fact that I was crazy or dangerous. I mentioned the questions Megan had asked me through the McDonald’s manager to make sure I was who I said I was. I heard myself telling her about Billy Bear, knowing that I must have sounded insane. In the end it took me fifteen minutes to get the story out.

She was silent once I stopped talking. I realized that, if I kept her on the phone that long without her hanging up, I had a chance.

Finally I told her about the postcards; about what I thought that Megan was trying to tell me and  how she and Eileen might be in danger. And that I hoped they could be found and that I’d be there to help if they needed it, even if it involved just sending money.

“I can’t send your message. I might know someone who … who might be able to pass it along. I give you no guarantees.”

“I don’t expect any. Here, let me give you my number.” I pulled out my newly bought cell phone. In Bardstown, I hadn’t had much use for a cell phone, being an alcoholic and a hermit. I really hadn’t had much use for a phone, period.

I read her the number and hung up, willing something to happen.

*

The next night I was back in the City View, eating moussaka, when my cell rang. I practically dumped my food in my lap scooping the phone up from the table; there were only a few people who knew the number.

“Hello,” I yelped. Several heads turned to look at me.

“Is this Mike Dobbs?” A woman’s voice, quiet and ordinary.

“Yes.”

“I hear you’d like to send a message.”

“That’s true.”

“What is the name?”

I froze, wondering if I wasn’t setting off some horrible chain of events that would hurt the two people I loved most in the world. I knew I had only seconds to make a decision. I weighed the possibilities and, in the end, went with my instincts. “Benoit,” I heard myself say. “Eileen.”

“The message is to be sent to her friends.”

“Yes.”

“I’m told the message is that you have received a message from the girl and that it might indicate that she’s in danger of some kind?”

“Yes. Please.”

“You can be called at this number if necessary?”

“Any time.”

She hung up I stared at the phone wondering what I’d just done.

*

I waited two more agonizing days. I had begun to tell myself to let the whole thing go, that I’d done what I could and that people who knew where Eileen and Megan were would be in a better position to help them. Barbara seemed to be taking more of an interest in me as I slid slowly back into my old life. Dennis didn’t seem to mind me being in his place, but I had started to feel like a little boy, uprooted and directionless. I began to look in the papers for an apartment again.

I got a call as Dennis and I were watching a documentary on Patagonia. I pulled the cell phone out of my pocket absently, assuming it was Barbara. “Mr. Dobbs?” I heard a strange female voice say.

“Yes.”

“Your message can’t be sent.”

I jerked up; Dennis stared at me. “What?”

“I’m calling to tell you something. The purpose of telling you is so you won’t be trying to contact the people you’ve been trying to contact. It’s not a good idea. It was thought that if you knew that, you’d stop making phone calls.”

“Knew what?”

“You’re friends aren’t with us. There was an attempt at contact, but they never showed up.
We
never saw them.”

“Oh god.”

“I’m sorry. Now, if you want to go on helping, don’t make any more calls to find us.”

And then she hung up. Just like the last one.

*

Barbara and Dennis’s reactions were predictable. They were sitting across from me at a Thai restaurant I’d always loved, their faces red. If Barbara didn’t hate screaming so much, she would have been shouting her voice raw.

“You’re insane!” she hissed at me.

“I know what you’re thinking. But did you hear what I said? I’m the only one who can help them now.”

“You don’t know that they
need
help,” she countered.

“And if they do?”

“And you’re going to die to find out?”

“Oh shit! Barbara. They’re people. I spent time with both of them. They aren’t just problems to me!”

Her face got redder and I thought she might just lunge at me. “You know what. Fuck you! You want to save the world? I’ll tell you what I didn’t want to say before. She married that asshole. It was her that caused all of this shit. You’re just getting sucked in because you want to be a knight in shining armor.”

“She told her husband to abuse his own daughter? She asked to be beaten?”

“Don’t you think she must have seen what he was like when she met him? Or at least after a few months? So she goes and marries him and then she has a kid with him. Do you think she was asleep all that time? Do you think she didn’t notice something before she started to run?”

“Are you saying that she
let
him do that?  Are you fucking nuts?”