Chapter 14: The Chase Begins

March 16th, 4:15 AM CT; Hilton Chicago O’Hare; Chicago, IL

Lance rolled himself out of bed and, wearing silk red pajamas monogrammed with his initial, picked up the telephone beside his bed, punching an auto-dial button on the phone. Lance was a morning person, and so he was feeling more chipper than he usually did. He was smiling to himself and generally feeling like he had a positive outlook on the human race.

“I want coffee, a bowl of fruit- ... WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS ISN’T ROOM SERVICE? FUCKING CONNECT ME! ... I want a bowl of fruit, eggs Benedict, ham steak, fresh squeezed orange juice ... I don’t care; squeeze some fucking oranges-and some coffee ... What? ... NO, I want it in thirty minutes or less ... I don’t care how you do it, do it,” and slammed down the receiver.

Lance stripped naked and then went into the bathroom carrying a laminated picture of his Jilly baby in a pose that showed his proclivity towards BDSM. It was a picture that, if found by the appropriate authorities, would have landed him immediately in jail. He had the kind of arrogance that made him feel that he was entirely above the law. It simply didn’t apply to people as important as he was, nor those as successful. Besides, Jill enjoyed what they were doing, and would stand up for him.

He turned on the shower, but he didn’t start to clean himself yet. Instead, he first played with himself, thinking about all the things he could do with his Jilly. This task accomplished, he washed himself thoroughly, dried, and got dressed in a sharp dark grey Armani suit, a solid gold Patek-Philippe wrist watch, and various rings and other gold trinkets. He carefully styled his hair, and then glanced at his watch.

He marched over to the phone, picked up, and pushed a button. “WHERE IS MY FOOD!?” he demanded just as there was a knock on the door. He fumed about how long it took to get breakfast in this so-called hotel. He threw down the phone, and strutted over to the door. The mans face was actually beet red from how upset he was over the inconvenience of having to wait over 30 seconds longer than he had demanded.

Yanking it open, he upbraided the waiter: “What took you so long? You are getting no tip!”

He dragged the cart right out of the hands of the hapless waiter, almost making the man fall, and then he slammed the door on the visibly still panting waiter, who had ran all the way. Lance ate from the folding cart with great care, making sure not to get any food on his expensive clothes. He called down for a limousine to take him to the airport, and then headed down, annoyed that the limousine had not materialized outside the hotel at his very command.

As he waited just outside the lobby, he lit an H.Simmons cigarette with a gold Dunhill lighter. He smiled to himself. Tonight, he could have sex with his Jilly doll once again- and on a train, no less. That would be a new experience, he’d have to figure out a way to stop her from her usual playful terrified screaming. He knew she would enjoy this, too.

March 16th, 7:05 AM EST; Lake Shore Limited Mi 618; Lakefront Station, Cleveland, OH

John Caldwell stirred in his bed and got up. Sleeping was difficult. Normally John could sleep like a rock on the train, but this was different. He felt almost like his son was in danger of ... of what? Himself? Still, he knew his son. And what his son was capable of. His ... abilities. Him worrying was probably unjustified. But fuck, ain’t that what a father is for, anyway?

He raised the shade just enough to see that they were stopped in Cleveland at the ugly and characterless Cleveland Lakefront Station. Ugly, ugly building. Nothing like the beautiful building from back in the day that it had replaced. Turning around he noticed there was a newspaper under his door. Standard first class Amtrak service, ya gotta love it, he thought.

He padded over to the door and picked up the newspaper, a USA Today. Sure it was a rag, but he wasn’t exactly expecting the New York Times as a complimentary newspaper, was he? He then laid back down on his bed and turned on his reading light. No need to wake up Gretel yet. He had taken time to notice that this car was “Pacific Slope,” which amused him since that was the car they fallen in love in 18 years ago. Felt like only yesterday.

He had noticed this train’s consist as it had arrived. Apparently the agent had put him in the Boston sleeper, not that it mattered from Rochester to Chicago. The train was led by four F40PH’s, the first two and second two in back-to-back configuration. There had been eight baggage cars attached to the front of the train. EIGHT! But then, after last year’s derailment at Batavia, it was understandable that they wouldn’t want to put the culprit Material Handling Cars in front of the passenger cars.

After the eight baggage cars were three Pacific and Pine series Budd 10-6 sleepers- it had been too dark to read their names- and he thought one was one of the new Dorm/Lounge cars. They were identical cars, just part of orders for Union Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroads, respectively. Then there was a Slumbercoach, “Loch Sloy.” There was an Amfleet II lounge car, followed by four Amfleet II coach cars, then a Heritage dining car, another three Amfleet II coach cars, an Amfleet I Dinette car with table seating in one end, and his Heritage 10-6 sleeper completing the Amtrak cars in the line up. Behind his car, though, was a beautiful heavyweight business car named “Suitsme.” In its blue-and-white with gold trimming paint, it was a beauty.

After losing himself for a minute in thinking too much about equipment, as he was wont to do, he opened up the newspaper and read, with boredom, some of the headlines. One was: “Last State to Abolish Slavery,” which was an article about how Mississippi was going to finally ratify the 13th amendment this day. Sure took them long enough, the little shits. It’s amazing how long pointless prejudice and childishness causes silly delays and things of that sort.

And then an article caught his attention. “Death Train” was the title, and being a train nut, he read it. His eyes, which were half asleep in the early morning as always, popped open to their full size as he read:

Amtrak’s California Zephyr became the harbinger of three deaths last night in the town of West Burlington, Iowa. Just nine minutes after the train departed Burlington, it slammed into a dark blue and silver 1994 Ford F250 owned by Kyle Palmer of West Burlington. Officials say that Mr. Palmer, a machinist at the Frito-Lay plant in the town, was most likely killed instantly when the 14-car-long Amtrak train, lead by three of the railroad’s newest and most advanced ‘Genesis’ engines, hit his truck.

The truck was completely demolished and burst into flames, with practically nothing left of it. “When a train hits a car, it’s no contest,” said Thomas Downs, President of Amtrak. “It’s why we invest so heavily in informing people not to try to race a train.” There was nothing left recognizable of the truck.

John wondered why they were making such a big deal of this “death train,” as this sort of stuff happens all the time. He was afraid something worse happened on the train to cause such a harsh headline and pride of place in the newspaper, so he read on:

Fortunately, Amtrak Conductor Joseph Mitchell, a 25 year veteran of the railroad, had noticed that the license plate had begun burning beyond recognition and had made a note of it. “It’s a tragic thing when this happens, and you want to help out the police whenever possible,” Mitchell said, “So I did what I could, you know?”

West Burlington Police Lt. Alexander Obleen, who is in charge of the investigation, sent Officer Frank Newbery to Palmer’s nearby home on Timberlake Drive, to inform his wife of the incident. “Kyle was a long-standing friend of mine, a nice guy, and I felt his wife should be informed in person,” Officer Newbery, a rookie with two years on the force, said.

What Newbery found compounded the scene- Mrs. Palmer was found dead in the couple’s bedroom, with multiple head traumas. Mr. Palmer’s boss was found laying on their bed, also dead of multiple head traumas. Mr. Palmer’s lunch pail was found next to his wife at the scene.

“Their two children were sitting on the floor next to their mother crying their eyes out,” Officer Newbery said, his own eyes tearing, “Things like this are horrible. You have to tell them that their parents are dead, and try to tell them that things will be alright and calm them down. But you know they never will be. It’s part of the job, but it’s not a part of the job I like.”

Neighbors speculated that Mr. Palmer must have come home to find his wife in bed with his boss. “That [woman] always slept around, she was always ... cheating on him. All day long you’d see men coming, and hear them [doing things],” said a neighbor who worked taking care of children and home. Such claims of infidelity have, as of yet, been unsubstantiated, and the foreman’s wife has not returned a request for comment.

“He must have come home and found them [having sex], and gone out of his mind. That [woman] probably made fun of him or some such- she was that kind of [woman], and he went nuts,” the neighbor said, “I heard him peel out down the street about the right time, he must not have been paying attention.”

“Those trains always come barreling through here, they don’t slow down or anything,” another local resident said. “I kept telling people, ‘one day we are going to have a wreck,’ but nobody listened to me.”

As of our deadline, the police have not released any cause of the collision nor the murders. Lt. Obleen did not return our calls.

Amtrak says nobody on the train was hurt, and that the locomotive received only very minor cosmetic damage. “All it did was scratch the paint,” said Downs. Asked if the fact that the train’s Engineer, Robert Benjamin, was on his first uninstructed run was relevant to the collision, Downs said: “When a car ignores the crossing lights, extremely bright headlight, the flashing ditch lights, and the blaring horn, and gets their vehicle in front of the train, all the engineer can do is watch as the train hits it. They don’t stop on a dime.”

John put down the paper and stared at the wall. That would mean their train would be late. Given that Burlington Northern would be handing the train off to Southern Pacific several hours late, and worse, the Espee would (most likely) be handing it to Union Pacific even later, the train would probably be monumentally late. Burlington Northern was generally ok with Amtrak, but the other two railroads were outright hostile, sometimes going as far as breaking the law in trying to delay and otherwise make problems for the train.