After breakfast she called a cab and went out, leaving me to fix the garbage disposal and wonder about the craziness. I tried to see it her way. She’d told me it was our civic duty to do something, but I wasn’t buying any of it. Later that afternoon, I saw her sitting at the computer in her office. Her glasses near the end of her nose, she was reading off the Internet and loading bullets into the magazine clip of the pistol. Eventually she looked up and saw me. “You can find just about anything on the Internet,” she said.
“What are you doing with that gun?”
“We’re going out tonight.”
“Not with that.”
She stopped loading. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she said.
After dinner, around dusk, we set out for the train station. Before we left, she handed me the gun. I made sure the safety was on and stuck it in the side pocket of the brown jacket. While she was out getting the bullets she’d bought two chairs that folded down and fit in small plastic tubes. I carried them. Ms. Berkley held a flashlight and in her ski parka had stashed a pint of blackberry brandy. The night was clear and cold, and a big waxing moon hung over town.
We turned off the main street into an alley next to the hardware store and followed it a long way before it came out on the south side of the train station. There was a rundown one-story building there in the corner of the parking lot. I ripped off the plywood planks that covered the door, and we went in. The place was empty but for some busted-up office furniture, and all the windows were shattered, letting the breeze in. We moved through the darkness, Ms. Berkley leading the way with the flashlight, to a back room with a view of the parking lot and station just beyond it. We set up the chairs and took our seats at the empty window. She killed the light.
“Tell me this is the strangest thing you’ve ever done,” I whispered to her.
She brought out the pint of brandy, unscrewed the top, and took a tug on it. “Life’s about doing what needs to get done,” she said. “The sooner you figure that out, the better for everyone.” She passed me the bottle.
After an hour and a half, my eyes had adjusted to the moonlight and I’d scanned every inch of that cracked, potholed parking lot. Two trains a half-hour apart rolled into the station’s elevated platform, and from what I could see, no one got on or off. Ms. Berkley was doing what needed to be done—namely, snoring. I took out a joint and lit up. I’d already polished off the brandy. I kept an eye on the old lady, ready to flick the joint out the window if I saw her eyelids flutter. The shivering breeze did a good job of clearing out the smoke.
At around three a.m., I’d just about nodded off, when the sound of a train pulling into the station brought me back. I sat up and leaned toward the window. It took me a second to clear my eyes and focus. When I did, I saw the silhouette of a person descending the stairs of the raised platform. The figure passed beneath the light at the front of the station, and I could see it was a young woman, carrying a briefcase. I wasn’t quite sure what the fuck I was supposed to be doing, so I tapped Ms. Berkley. She came awake with a splutter and looked a little sheepish for having corked off. I said, “There’s a woman heading to her car. Should I shoot her?”
“Very funny,” she said and got up to stand closer to the window.
I’d figured out which of the few cars in the parking lot belonged to the young woman. She looked like the white-Honda type. Sure enough, she made a beeline for it.
“There’s someone else,” said Ms. Berkley. “Coming out from under the trestle.”
“Where?”
“Left,” she said, and I saw him, a guy with a long coat and hat. He was moving fast, heading for the young woman. Ms. Berkley grabbed my arm and squeezed it. “Go,” she said. I lunged up out of the chair, took two steps, and got dizzy from having sat for so long. I fumbled in my pocket for the pistol as I groped my way out of the building. Once I hit the air, I was fine, and I took off running for the parking lot. Even as jumped up as I was, I thought, “I’m not gonna shoot anyone,” and left the gun’s safety on.
The young woman saw me coming before she noticed the guy behind her. I scared her, and she ran the last few yards to her car. I watched her messing around with her keys and didn’t notice the other guy was also on a flat-out run. As I passed the white Honda, the stranger met me and cracked me in the jaw like a pro. I went down hard but held onto the gun. As soon as I came to, I sat up. The guy—I couldn’t get a good look at his face—drew a blade from his left sleeve. By then the woman was in the car, though, and it screeched off across the parking lot.
He turned, brandishing the long knife, and started for me.
You better believe the safety came off then. That instant, I heard Ms. Berkley’s voice behind me. “What’s the meaning of this?” she said in a stern voice. The stranger looked up, and then turned and ran off, back into the shadows beneath the trestle.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she said and helped me to my feet. “If that girl’s got any brains, she’ll call the cops.” Ms. Berkley could run pretty fast. We made it back to the building, got the chairs, the empty bottle, and as many cigarette butts as I could find, and split for home. We stayed off the main street and wound our way back through the residential blocks. We didn’t see a soul.
I couldn’t feel how cold I was till I got back in the house. Ms. Berkley made tea. Her hands shook a little. We sat at the kitchen table in silence for a long time.
Finally, I said, “Well, you were right.”
“The gun was a mistake, but if you didn’t have it, you’d be dead now,” she said.
“Not to muddy the waters here, but that’s closer to dead than I want to get. We’re gonna have to go to the police, but if we do, that’ll be it for me.”
“You tried to save her,” said Ms. Berkley. “Very valiant, by the way.”
I laughed. “Tell that to the judge when he’s looking over my record.”
She didn’t say anything else, but left and went to her office. I fell asleep on the cot in the basement with my clothes on. It was warm down there by the furnace. I had terrible dreams of the young woman getting her throat cut but was too tired to wake from them. Eventually, I came to with a hand on my shoulder and Ms. Berkley saying, “Thomas.” I sat up quickly, sure I’d forgotten to do something. She said, “Relax,” and rested her hand for a second on my chest. She sat on the edge of the cot with her hat and coat on.
“Did you sleep?” I asked.
“I went back to the parking lot after the sun came up. There were no police around. Under the trestle, where the man with the knife had come from, I found these.” She took a handful of cigarette butts out of her coat pocket and held them up.
“Anybody could have left them there at any time,” I said. “You read too many books.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said.
“He must have stood there waiting for quite a while, judging from how many butts you’ve got there.”
She nodded. “This is a serious man,” she said. “Say he’s not just a lunatic, but an actual magician?”
“Magician,” I said and snorted. “More like a creep who believes his own bullshit.”
“Watch the language,” she said.
“Do we go back to the parking lot tonight?” I asked.
“No, there’ll be police there tonight. I’m sure that girl reported the incident. I have something for you to do. These cigarettes are a Spanish brand, Ducados. I used to know someone who smoked them. The only store in town that sells them is over by the park. Do you know Maya’s Newsstand?”