Acts of Mercy

Fourteen

The observation car is empty when we come into it from the club car, but through the door-window opposite we can see the dark silhouette of a man standing outside on the platform, the red-embered tip of a cigar like a hole burning in the darkness beside him. Wexford? It must be, we think. We have been to his compartment in one of the forward cars and found it empty, and we have not located him anywhere else on the train.

We cross to the door, slide it open. Cold night air surges against our face, spiced with the fragrance of spruce and pine, and the magnified clacking hum of steel on steel buffets our ears. The man at the far railing turns, and in the outspill of light behind us we can see him plainly. The muted thunder of the wheels seems to lift into a throbbing, wailing cadence, like a voice in the night.

Wex-ford, Wex-ford, Wex-ford…

We close the door, walk over next to him at the railing. He is wearing an overcoat buttoned to the throat and his hair is rumpled from the wind. Night-shadowed, his florid face has a waxy cast. He does not look dangerous, he only looks old and meek, like a benign grandfather. False illusion. We know him for what he really is, and our hatred for him glows as bright as the tip of his last cigar.

“Oh,” he says, “it’s you.”

“Yes,” we say. Like him, we have raised our voice in order to be heard above the chanting of the wheels.

“Train upsets my stomach so I can’t sleep,” he says. “I thought some fresh air might help. Couldn’t you sleep either?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Not for a while.”

“It’s pretty cold out here. You ought to have a coat.”

“I don’t mind the cold. It’s the heat that bothers me.”

“Heat?”

“Yes,” we say, “the heat.”

Wexford frowns slightly, raises his cigar and draws on it until the tip shimmers cherry red and the wind strips away its dead ash. We can see the glow of it reflected in his eyes.

The car lurches as the train moves into a long curve and we put out a hand to grasp the rail. Our fingers brush the back of Wexford’s hand; we jerk them away because we do not want to touch him, not that way. As we look at him his mouth puckers and his throat works-a silent belch, as if the sudden lurch-and-sway has made him nauseous. He peers distastefully at his cigar, then flicks it out over the railing where the wind catches it and hurls it into the night amid a shower of sparks. His mouth opens and we watch him breathe deeply several times.

Then we say, “You don’t like trains, do you?”

“No. I never have.”

“They’re an integral part of American history, you know.”

“I suppose so.”

“Just like treachery,” we say.

That startles him. “What?”

“There have been traitors in Washington for two hundred years,” we say calmly. “You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.”

“Exactly what is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means. You’re a traitor, Julius-just as Briggs was. But you’re even worse because you’ve hidden your treachery behind a mask of friendship and personal trust.”

He glares at us, his mouth pinched with aggrieved anger. “What kind of wild talk is that?” he says. “I won’t stand for it.”

We shrug. “The truth is always painful.”

“I demand an apology.”

“Demand all you like.”

He stands flustered, at a loss for words. “We’ll see about this,” he says finally, and starts to move past us.

The voice of the train says, Wex-ford, Wex-ford, Wex-ford. We look back through the door-window; the observation car is still empty. In the darkness, then, we take from our jacket pocket one of the train’s standard White House heavy glass ashtrays which we had picked up in our compartment. We cup it upside down in our palm, holding it along our hip where he cannot see it.

“We have a little something to make you sleep,” we say.

He hesitates, half-turning toward us. “What’s that?”

“To make you sleep,” we say again, and we thrust the ashtray straight up against the bridge of his nose with such force that pain erupts in our armpit and chest.

A sharp cracking thud, a gasp that strangulates almost instantly in his throat. Wexford’s hands flutter up toward his face, spasm, then fall limply as his legs give way and he drops bull-like to his knees. We sidestep quickly, watch him topple over against the railing and lie still, lie silent.

Lie dead.

Another execution, another act of mercy completed.

We check the observation car another time, but no one has come inside in the past few seconds. Then we hurl the ashtray into the night, bend to grasp Wexford under the arms. In death his features seem to have softened, to have lost form and definition like gray wax melting. The skin of his face is cold against our bare wrist; but we don’t mind it now because we are not touching him, we are only touching a lifeless shell.

He is much heavier than Briggs was and it takes us a minute or two of straining effort to lift him across the railing so that most of his bulk is tipped forward and hanging down toward the tracks below. We step back then and take his ankles, heave up once, push once-and he slides away from us and is gone.

We lean forward on the railing, trying to see where he has landed. We seem to see him bounce and roll across the tracks, off the right-of-way, but the train is moving so rapidly and the night is so dark that we cannot be sure. Not that it matters. On or off the tracks, he’ll be found eventually by searchers; this is not a wilderness area of gorges and deep ravines that might hide forever the body of an old traitor. The main thing is, his death, too, will appear to have been a tragic accident.

The wind is chill on our face, but it is also somehow soothing; we continue to stand looking down at the black steel ribbons appearing and retreating beneath us-so close beneath us that we imagine we can reach down and touch them. The voice of the wheels shrieks in our ears, only we realize abruptly that it is no longer saying Wex-ford. We close our eyes, listening.

And the words become clear. You-too, the train is saying now. You-too, you-too, you-too.

We do not find this strange, nor does it frighten us. We have thought of suicide before: the utter peace of death is appealing. But this is not the time or the place, and we do not want to lie out there with Julius. We must continue to be strong until the conspiracy has been completely and irrevocably destroyed.

We stop listening to the wheels and turn for the door.

Miles to go before we sleep.

Miles to go before we sleep.