I hadn’t been forced—acquaintances are dangerous. They pore over your mug out of sheer boredom, make remarks like God, isn’t our porter just dreadful, these sheets are barely tucked in. They don’t give a knotted cherry stem what you think of the porter, they can’t really see him anyhow. No, they hanker to watch you react to them. Then they can journal it, whether you’re haughty or humble or hateful. Whether you’re all right.
Whether you’re not all right, which is ever so much more interesting.
Dangerous, what with death and dismemberment potentially in hot pursuit. I couldn’t go full-scale deluxe, though. A private car would have been checked first by someone searching this train, any cadet axman would chart the same course. Private cars, sleeping cars, then public seating. Maybe I ought to lend a hand to the brakeman, trade a few dirty jokes in exchange for a hiding place.
If only I could dangle from the undercarriage like a bat.
The bullet wound deposited in Harlem started reaping interest in Chicago, and now we’re well past Walla Walla and it’s aiming to make me a swell payout. Last time I staggered to the facilities, it looked like a volcano had erupted, crusted reds and blacks. Now it’s eating me alive. I can’t sit up in a public car. Has to be a sleeper, has to be this one; I leaped on this connecting train in Denver like an outlaw onto the town’s last nag.
My heart isn’t beating, it’s clenching its fist at me.
Clamp-clinch. Clutch-grip.
Beastly. Tears keep welling up and my throat keeps closing, and no, I say.
You’re called Nobody for a reason. Just be yourself. Be Nobody.
Be Nobody, and breathe.
Having died before, I ought to be more sanguine over the prospect. I first died six days ago at the Murder Stable when Officer Harry Chipchase hustled me out of that gruesome dungeon, snapping, “Run, kid!”
“But I—”
“Damn it, Nobody, hitch a ride to the moon. You’re dead to this town now, you hear?” Harry was always dour, but I’d never seen his face turned the color of molding cheese previous. “I swear to you, I’ll find a body somewheres. Trust me, kid. You died today. Now, run.”
Portland, Oregon, is as far as I can think of from New York, New York. Still. It might not be far enough. If I can get to Portland, he can track me there. In 1921, you can get practically anywhere with a little jack jingling in your pocket.
I identify a faint, floating nausea not confined to just my belly. My skin is actually queasy. Tiny ripples pass along it as if my body is a river. That’s new. I don’t much care for new things just now.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
Terror gushes, but I choke out a “Come in?”
The paneled door slides, and I exhale. It isn’t my forced companion—she must still be gossiping in the dining car. She retires around one a.m., is up with the dawn. It’s only Max, our Pullman porter. Real warmth seeps into my skin again.
Max. He’s not the blackest of the lot, he’s a sweet rum color, but plenty black enough to play this godforsaken gig. His eyes are wide set, an amber tone below philosophical brows, and he has large hands I figure ought to be playing music someplace daylight never visits. Maybe thirty years old. He sells phonograph records on the side to the travelers, and I bought one. “Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds. Max was tickled to pieces—hell, he’d have put on a parade if I’d admitted I’d seen Mamie play live. But the purchase was enough. Small things like that make people cotton to you.
“Miss James?”
I’m tempted to say, Call me Alice, but they don’t do that sort of thing on Pullman trains. In fact, I’m meant to call him George, after George Pullman, because George Pullman is the type so steeped in Christian humility that he orders all the Negroes on his trains renamed George. Bet he could charm the skin off a tomato in person.
“Hullo, Max. Here for the trapeze act?”
Then I wink at him. It feels a bit less like dying on a train car.
Anyway, Max is safe. He has a purebred Brooklyn accent, and we picked him up in Chicago at the transfer, which is how I figure he’s so musical. Hell of a sideline record stock he displayed for a fellow who fluffs pillows. I like the version of Nobody I can be with Max. She claims to be an easygoing flapper