Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness

22

JUNE 5, 1936

Gomez Ivey tried to see how far he could travel on one rail of the train tracks without falling off. As it turned out, he could go a good long way, especially if he used his fishing pole to keep himself balanced.

“Look at me!” Gomez hollered. “I’m the New York Central train!” “You ain’t no train,” Louis Cheeley shouted back. Louis was two years younger than Gomez-only eleven-but even Gomez knew he was far more sensible. He would never pull the same crazy stunts. Come to think of it, he normally wouldn’t ditch school to go fishing, either. But he’d warmed to the idea pretty fast when Gomez suggested it. “You may be black, but you ain’t no train.”

“You think they’ll miss us back at Outhwaite?” Gomez asked, referring to the school they both attended-or were supposed to attend. “They might miss us, but what they gonna do about it?” Gomez kept moving. “Serves them right. Who ever heard of having school this late in the year? When it’s crazy hot outside. And the fish are bitin’.”

“What’s gonna happen if we get caught?”

“We ain’t gonna get caught.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Look, if you’re so worried about it, you can just go home now.”

“I’m not goin’ home,” Louis said, suddenly defensive. “I may never go home.”

“Yeah, right.”

“If my papa finds out I played hooky, I won’t be able to sit down for a week.”

“Aw, don’t be such a baby.”

“Easy for you to say. You ain’t got no papa.”

Gomez fell silent a moment, his lips pressed tightly together. “I’ve got a papa. Everybody’s got a papa. He’s just off gettin’ work.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He’s gonna be an engineer someday and he’s gonna ride the rails just like we’re doin’, ’cept he’s gonna be inside the train lookin’ down at boys like us and pulling the whistle and givin’ us the big smile.”

“You be sure and let me know when that happens, Gomez.”

“I will.”

“I wanna be there on the tracks, wavin’ back.”

“You just do that.”

Gomez was relieved when the kid decided to change the subject. “You got any change?”

“Not since I was born. Why?”

Louis wiped the sweat off his brow. “I was just imaginin’ how good an ice-cold Nehi might taste right about now.”

“Man, don’t get me thinkin’ about that.”

“How can you not be thinkin’ about that?”

“There’s no point in-”

Gomez fell silent. He glanced down at a point between the train tracks and the rapid transit line, just beneath a willow tree.

“You see that? Over there.” Gomez pointed. “Beneath the tree. Look like a pair of pants.”

Louis squinted into the sun. “I think they’re tweed.”

Gomez jumped down off the tracks. “Let’s check it out.”

“What for?” Louis trailed a few feet behind. “You can’t wear tweed this time of year, you fool. You’ll melt!”

“Who’s a fool? If there’s a pair of pants that only some white boy would be wearin’, there might be some change in the pocket. Aren’t you the one who was wantin’ some scratch?”

That changed everything. “Lead the way.”

They walked over to the tree, wishing that a willow provided more shade.

The trousers were rolled up neatly and evenly, just at the base of the tree, where thousands of people passed every day.

Gomez tilted his head. There was something strange about all this. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but something was… not right. Off-kilter. Wrong.

He tentatively poked at the bundle with his fishing pole.

Slowly, one of the pant legs began to unfold.

A human head rolled out. Dirty, blood-soaked, severed at the top of the neck.

The boys didn’t stop running until they reached home.