Page 6 of With a Vengeance

That, Judd realizes now, is when the trouble began, ultimately leading him to do the unthinkable. Even now, he can’t quite believe he played a key role in something so horrible. Nor can he shake the feeling this train ride is all about paying the price for his past sins.

As he stands in the empty observation car he helped design, Judd longs to be anywhere but here. He wants to be sitting in coach, enjoying the comfort of strangers, knowing they have no idea what he’s done—or what he’s capable of.

He leaves the observation car, gripped by a feeling of apprehension he can’t shake no matter how much he tries. Moving through the narrow hallways of the first-class section, Judd notes how the Phoenix’s interior has grown shabby since he’d last been onboard. In addition to the buzzing wall sconce, he spots tears in the upholstery and a threadbare streak in the blue carpet where hundreds of passengers have trod.

Maybe that explains the noticeable lack of riders. Word has gotten out that the vaunted Philadelphia Phoenix is now a shell of its former self. More likely, the sparse ridership is the result of changes taking place outside the formerly grand train. Interstate highways have spread like ooze across the country, choking a once-pristine landscape with traffic. Meanwhile, the sky is quickly filling with planes. If a major city doesn’t yet have an air terminal, it will soon. With options like that, no wonder few people choose to ride by rail.

Yet Judd sees no one as he rushes toward the front of the train. Each car he traverses contains the ghostly chill of something recently abandoned.

In the first-class lounge, the bartender is nowhere to be found.

In the dining car, there’s nary a waiter around, even though all the tables are set for passengers who haven’t yet materialized.

In the galley, pots sit on cold stovetops and knives glisten from racks on the wall. His footfalls rise from the tiled floor, echoing off the appliances, impossibly loud. When Judd accidentally elbows the handle of a pan, sending it clattering to the floor, it sounds like a gunshot.

The eerie emptiness continues into the coach quarters. The clubcar’s tables are bare, its banquette seats empty. Coffee cups sit neatly stacked next to a silver samovar on the counter, with no one behind it to fill them.

And so it goes with each car he enters. In the coach lounge, issues of that day’s late edition ofThe Philadelphia Inquirerlie neatly fanned out across end tables, untouched. In the sleeper and coach cars, every seat is vacant. No one dozes in their chairs. Or gazes out their windows. Or shuffles to the lavatories in the back of each car.

As Judd moves through them, his worry hardens into outright fear.

Every single person he saw earlier—from conductors to porters to passengers—is now gone, leaving the Philadelphia Phoenix completely empty.

Three

For the journey,Herb Pulaski chose a dark green Brioni suit that—like Herb himself—has seen better days. Both man and clothes are frayed at the seams, although for different reasons. The suit’s condition is Herb’s fault. He wears it all the time. Having grown up in his big brother’s hand-me-downs, he enjoys showing off in a pricey suit.

As for his own wear and tear, Herb chalks that up to bum luck. Some men are born lucky, and he’s not one of them. Even when fate does sometimes smile on him, it comes with a catch.

And it never lasts very long.

That’s why Herb arrives at the first-class lounge twenty minutes early, clutching both the card he’d found in his room and the original invitation he received in the mail. He worries he won’t be let in without them. He’s accustomed to not being allowed into places, both before he had money and after. Now that he’s on the verge of having no money again, Herb thinks it’s important to not just be present but to be the first to arrive. That way, everyone who comes in after will see him and know he belongs here.

If anyone else shows up.

The lounge is empty when Herb enters, making him feel foolishabout bringing along the invitation. No need to worry about being let in when no one else is there to stop him. There’s not even anyone behind the semicircular bar at the rear of the car. Just a gleaming oak bar top and, behind it, several mirrored shelves cluttered with liquor bottles. Herb considers hopping behind the bar and pouring himself a drink to steady his nerves, but he fears someone else might enter at last and mistake him for the bartender. Determined to avoid such indignity, he sits in one of the plush armchairs scattered throughout the car, lights a cigarette, and looks around.

The lounge reminds Herb of his suit. Fancy but faded. Between the chairs are small round tables covered with white linen frayed at the edges. The curtains at the windows are blue velvet, similar to those in Herb’s room, but so long they brush the floor. Catty-corner from the bar, at the front of the car, sits a baby grand piano.

Herb continues to wait in solitude as his cigarette becomes a smoldering butt in the ashtray and a thin sheen of sweat has formed on his brow. Nerves, he knows. He needs to make a good impression.

He examines that first invitation, fixating on the note written across the back.

It will be to your financial benefit if you come.

Herb doesn’t know anything more than that, but he’s eager to find out. It’s probably an investment opportunity. Not that he has any money to invest with. Not anymore. But he’ll find some, if necessary. He just hopes that this time it’s on the level.

That wishful notion leaves Herb’s head the moment the door at the front of the car swings open and someone else finally enters the lounge.

Someone, it turns out, Herb used to work with.

He feels a fresh sheen of sweat on his brow as Judd Dodge stares him down and says, “Are you behind all this?”

“What do you mean?” Herb asks while using a handkerchief to mop his brow. “Behind what?”

“There’s no one else on the train,” Judd says. “There used to be, but they’re all gone now. No conductors. No porters. Even the goddamn passengers are gone. Yet here you are, sitting in the very lounge where I was instructed to be by eight.”

“But ain’t you the one who invited me here?”

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