Chapter 19: Lance Dissolved

March 18th, 1995, 2:45 PM PT; Omni William Penn Hotel; Pittsburgh, PA

Justin growled at the ringing phone. It had woken him up and he didn’t like being woken up at all. He wondered who had the utter gall to place a phone call to him and wake him up. Justin looked angrily at the phone for several more moments before summoning the wherewithal to reach over and pick up the receiver. He was tired and achey and really couldn’t be bothered by any of this phone stuff.

Upon picking up the receiver, he found out it was, in fact, Lance on the other end of the line, he was even more irritated. He had just started to get a little comfortable after the miserable experience he had walking ten miles in the snow to safety. He wanted to be left alone, especially by asswipe motherfuckers like Lance.

I don’t have any illusions about being a nice person or anything, but even not-nice people had to draw the line somewhere, he thought.

It was too late, however. He had already picked up the phone; it would be excessively rude to just hand it right up again, even by his somewhat weak standards. Lance filled Justin in on events, leaving out the part where he had practically lost his manhood in the process. That would be too embarrassing for Lance to explain to anybody, let alone his worthless brother in law.

“Last time we talked, Justin, you said you hired a private detective,” Lance said, “Is that true?”

“Yeah, sure,” Justin told him, “I hired one, I found out quite a lot of interesting information about them.”

“What you find out about that worthless bum?”

“That ‘bum,’ as you put it, is the son of Jonathan Calhoun Caldwell and Gretel Burns, the author,” Justin told him sarcastically, “Jonathan Calhoun Caldwell was the product line manager for the Super Chief and El Capitan trains for the Santa Fe from 1965 until 1971, and then managed Santa Fe-tracked passenger trains for Amtrak from 1971 to 1973. He quit and was then immediately hired by the Southern Railway- as Vice President in charge of Passenger Operations. He retired from Santa Fe, Amtrak, and Southern with pensions from each. Following his retirement from the Southern, he then was the founder of Rail Heritage Restorations, Inc.”

“Are you saying the bum’s father has a little money?” Lance retorted.

“No,” Justin replied, “I’m saying he has a shitload of money, and a lot of clout and power. He owns 227,500 preferred shares of Santa Fe Pacific Industries, 27,200 preferred shares of Norfolk Southern Railway, and 7300 shares of CSX Transportation, Inc.” Justin continued, “In addition, he seems to own about 35,000 acres of land in various locations, and significant interests in several large rail passenger stations. He also is the sole share holder of Rail Heritage Restorations, Inc.”

“Are those share really all that valuable?” Lance asked, “I don’t know much about trains, but they are pretty old fashioned, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know much about them either,” Justin admitted, “But according to the private investigator, altogether, he has about $25 million in liquid assets, $17 million in preferred dividend shares of several rock solid investments, and perhaps another $20 million in real estate. Total assets are about $62 million, with an income per year of about $1.2 million dollars from his stock, $750 grand from his cash, but almost no palpable income from his real estate. So he makes about $2 million bucks a year reliably.”

“So he has money,” Lance said, “Is that what you’re saying? I got some money, and I know people, too.”

“He knows more people, Lance,” Justin replied, “In addition to being a very wealthy man, he is highly respected by many, many people, and has tons and tons of connections, especially in locations where Santa Fe Pacific has a lot of influence- such as in California,” Justin concluded.

“So to put it succinctly, you don’t stand a chance against him.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” said Lance, coming to reason over the situation, “Where does he live?”

“He owns no property in or near Los Angeles. However, careful checking revealed that he signed a long-term storage contract with a private car yard in Los Angeles and that Amtrak brought in and parked a car he owns in that same yard two weeks ago.” Justin gave him the address.

March 18th, 1995, 1:00 PM PT; Private Varnish Yard; Los Angeles, CA

Why did people want to be carried around in these ugly old antiques? Lance Landis thought as he walked around the rail yard.

The rail yard was filled with privately owned, Amtrak-certified rail cars of various vintages and styles. There were old Budd sleepers, diners, lounge cars, and even coaches. There were old Pullman and Budd streamliner observation cars, and even a few Pullman sleepers. There were also some beautifully restored heavyweight business cars. There was such a cornucopia that you would think that it was some kind of museum, but it wasn’t. Just the private rail cars of what primarily amounted to Hollywood elites here.

As he walked around, the weight and heft of the Beretta .25 assured him in his pocket. He was going to kill those fools. He could get away with it, he could get away with anything. Nobody knew that he owned one; the dumb spic he had bought it from wasn’t going to tell anyone. He wasn’t from around here; nobody was going to recognize him. It didn’t occur to him that he practically had a trail leading to him, from the slugged sleeping car attendant, to the store he bought the pants in, to the hotel clerks he had been so rude to.

By and large, people are polite. Being polite makes you somewhat forgettable. Someone who is obnoxious and rude, who casts about their ego like it is a club to hit the world with, that person is memorable. Lance Landis was memorable because he was completely obnoxious. He rubbed almost everyone he came into contact with the wrong way; even the ones he didn’t actually speak to. The man just generally pissed people off. Pissed off people tend to remember what pissed them off.

With all the rail cars, he would have trouble finding one, except he knew that the one that was owned by the Caldwells was a round end observation with a dome in Amtrak colors. It stuck out for several reasons, unlike many of the others, the vestibule and end doors were dogged tight, and the retractable stairs were in the up positions. It also had head end power hooked up to it; most of the others were stored dead. The car had lights on and he could see people moving about inside, as well as smoke coming out of its kitchen ventilator. This car was different because people lived in it.

As he approached it, he realized it would be somewhat hard to access. The stairs were up, the doors were closed. He couldn’t see an easy way to get in; there were no exterior door handles he could easily reach. It was old, but it seemed distinctly hard to get into.

It had never occurred to him what a fortress a private streamliner could be. With stainless steel sides an eighth of an inch thick, insulation and framing, and interior walls, the sides of the car were essentially bullet proof. Same with the car’s inch-thick Lexan windows. The doors were secured with three latches, one at 5’6” off the ground, one about 8’ off the ground, and the final one about 11’ off the ground. Reaching the top two was impossible, climbing the 5’ from the car floor to the ground nearly so with the stairs retracted; there wasn’t much in the way of places to climb from.

He set to work on trying to think of a way to get into the car. He tried finding something to stand on, but couldn’t. He tried hard to locate a mechanism to let the stairs down, and found there had been one- but it had been removed. In fact, unbeknownst to him, it was operated by a servo motor, which could be triggered either inside the car or by remote control.

Just then, he heard a latch being undogged, and looked up.

“Why, Mr. Landis,” came the sarcastic drawl of John Caldwell, “We’ve been waiting for you.”

While not mentioning it, John made a good point of showing the old Colt .45 Magnum in his hand. It was a large gun, and made the weapon in Lance’s own pocket seem like a toy. The Beretta could injure, and if aimed correctly, could potentially kill someone. The large bore, high-powered Colt would blow a hole into someone, knock them clear back, and often kill them just from the shock of the impact.

“Why don’t you come in?” John undogged the rest of the latches, raised the trap door, and lowered the stairs.

Lance climbed in, figuring he’d have to catch them off guard with his own weapon later. They didn’t know he had it; he’d shoot this joker right in the head. Even his small gun would kill someone with a point blank shot to the head. He’d seen people shoot in the movies; it was really easy to aim a gun; people were so terrified of just seeing them. He walked down the long hallway, down the dip past the dining room, and into the living room at the back of the car. He picked a seat and sat down.

Seated at seats around the room, were George, Gretel, Brenda, and John. He didn’t see Jill.

“Where the fuck are you keeping my niece?” he roared, “I know you are holding her against her will, and I know she wants to come to me, she misses me terribly. You’ve been abusing her against her will.”