The Night Train: A Novelette (The Strange Files of Modesty Brown Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

about how nice it would be, to
arrive in the City with ready-made pals already at her disposal.
    "Nope.
It's a short stop for us. Trans only, remember. One full day to cool our heels
and then we're down the gang plank to play a pleasure cruise. Six days, seven
nights."
    Modesty
takes a long sip of her Sidecar. Something rumbles in the back of her mind.
Something she cannot name. Something to do with the thrill of the train
hurtling forward, and the Not Jumping she still holds inside her like a bright
diamond – something of these things overlapping with Pinky's glamour.
    "I
certainly appreciate the help, but, if I might ask, why bother? I mean, you
don't even know me."
    Pinky
downs the rest of her Gibson Girl in one gulp. "Don't I?" She taps
her nail on the typewriter. "Maybe I want you to do something for
me."
    "Like
what? A typing job?"
    "You
bet, Chet."
    Another
typing job. Working for Wonderly was a great start, but she couldn’t say no to
a little extra on the side. Besides, she wasn’t quite sure she could say no to
Pinky. "I don't have any paper,” she says instead.
    "You
don't have any paper? What kind of typist doesn't have any paper?"
    "I
was going to get some when I got to the City."
    "Travelling
light, I see. Well, I'm sure our pal Bill can help us out. Bill, darling. Do
you think you could rustle us up a couple sheets of paper? Maybe an
envelope?"
    "You
bet, Miss. Right this way."
    "All
right, Pilgrim. Get yourself settled, take your coat off and stay a while. I'll
be back in two shakes."

 
     
    PART
TWO .
     
    Hear
the hum and the sway and the clatter of the train. Hear the muffled chatter of
the Club Car: the clink of glasses, of flatware as Bill wipes them with his
cloth and puts them away. See him cut his eyes to the two women in the booth. See
him tug on the cuff of his shirt. He is watching them, but not for the reasons
you think.
    Now
my friends, we're are at the finish of our beginning, the end of our
start.  We've had the glamorous riot of a jazz band, feather boas and
French liquor in flasks. And we've seen a man with teeth as white as piano
keys, his violence thrumming beneath the surface of his big-toothed smile, his
meaty hands, his sweetheartbabyaren'tyouapip. And in case you haven’t
noticed, we have a very important person holding court behind the doors of the
closed Dining Car in the middle of the night.  And our red-coated heroine,
and the violence just beneath her ill-fitting gloves gripping the handle of her
typewriter case.
    And
as you might expect, at this point in our story, something unexpected is about
to happen.

 
     
    Modesty
Brown shrugs out of her new red coat and lays it across the back of her own
seat, though it isn't the regal gesture like Pinky’s she was hoping for. She
slides the typewriter case in front of her on Club Car table, and rubs her
hands together gleefully before pushing the latches.
    It's
hard to describe the feeling of the moment when moments intersect. The moment
where what you plan for, what you have your eye on, however small -- her own typewriter,
her own money, her own life directed by her very own hand -- meets with the
moment that it begins.
    She
will open the case, run her fingers over the gleaming black and white keys, and
do the job quickly, professionally. Competent and capable is our red-coated
heroine.
    But
when she opens the case, instead of her gleaming new Underwood Noiseless
Portable she finds something else.
    Two
hundred and thirty six Chinese Dominoes.
    Of
course she doesn't know the exact number at this moment, but there are enough
of them packed so perfectly tight that they didn't make so much as a rattle.
    Panic
floods her face, like hot oil. Her ears burn.  She feels herself go dizzy,
and grips the sides of the table, every cell in her body crying one word, over
and over again. No. No. No.
    She
closes her eyes and takes a breath. Then another. Slowly opens them, and looks
everywhere else in the Club Car but at the Wrong Typewriter