Terror at the Fair

Chapter Four

“Well, how goes life at the fair?” Catherine asked as I walked into the house that evening. “Any surprises so far?”

“Not really,” I told her, describing my interviews with the young Missouri couple and with the taciturn old Navaho. I also told her about Metzger and young Rob Taylor. “Metzger’s something of a fussbudget, but the kid seems okay,” I said. “Oh, and Hal Murray has informally anointed me the paper’s ‘good news reporter,’” I told her, grimacing. “Precisely what I’ve always wanted. From now on, just call me ‘Mr. Sunshine.’”

That got a hearty laugh out of her, although she assured me she was laughing with me, not at me.

In addition to the wedding story and the “interview” with the aged Navaho, my first-week file at the fair included a piece on a retired Pennsylvania Railroad engineer named L. J. Gunderson, who piloted one of the nineteenth-century antique steam engines running on the Deadwood Central western frontier railroad, hauling fairgoers on tracks running along the one-mile north-south length of the grounds.

“This here ain’t much of a locomotive, compared to what I’m used to from my days on the grand old Pennsy,” he snorted from the cab of his engine, posing for a photo taken by Phil Muller, who seemed to be volunteering for all the fair assignments. “But, pshaw,” Gunderson went on, “the folks, especially the kids, in them open-side cars behind me are having themselves such a good time, it just sorta rubs off on me. To top it off, lots of folks want to take my picture, either sitting up in the cab or standing in front of the engine with their kids. Gives a guy a good feeling, you know?”

I told him I knew, and that I was pleased to learn the old engineer’s grandchildren, all four of them, had come in from Valparaiso, Indiana, and ridden on his train just a day earlier.

“Well, they never got to see me at the throttle of the Broadway Limited,” he said. When I didn’t react, he shook his head in wonderment. “You mean to say you don’t know about the Broadway?”

I shrugged my ignorance. “Well, son,” he sighed, “it’s about as famous as any train in America, and I’m including the Super Chief and the Twentieth Century Limited. Shoot, the Broadway’s the top way to go ’tween Chicago and New York. Best food, best sleeping cars, best doggone crew all the way around. After I retired, my wife and I rode it from here to New York and back. First time I found myself anyplace besides the engine on the doggone train. Felt like we were royalty, and we got treated like it, too.”

I dutifully took notes and tried my best to put on an enthusiastic face. “Must have been great times for you, driving such a train,” I told Gunderson.

“The very best,” he replied with a curt nod. “Got to leave for Gold Gulch now,” he said, referring to the reconstructed frontier boom town at the other end of the Deadwood Central line. With two blasts from its whistle, his smoke-belching train eased away from the platform and chugged off, its three cars filled with waving crowds.

After finishing the Gunderson piece and phoning it in to the city desk, I dialed Packy Farmer’s number in the Police Headquarters pressroom.

“Ah, Snap, me fine lad, to what do we owe the pleasure of this call?” he boomed.

“Just checking to see how you reprobates are getting along without me.”

He lowered his voice and apparently cupped his hand around the mouthpiece. “Geez, Snap, any way you can get yourself reassigned back here? Westcott seems to think this assignment is some sort of a walk in the park. Takes two-hour lunches, goes down to see Fahey any old time he feels like it, never mind other people’s deadlines.”

“Things are tough all over, Packy.”

“Not for you. Hell, you’re—wait a minute, what am I whispering for? Westcott isn’t even around. He’s on one of those long lunches of his. And I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he comes back at least slightly looped—again. We’re even thinking of drawing straws to have one of us take over the Detective Bureau beat. That’s how bad things have gotten.”

“That’s pretty grim all right,” I observed. “One of you might end up having to do some real work.”

Farmer snorted. “I can see I’m not getting any sympathy. What did you call for—just to rub it in while you’re out there basking along the sun-kissed lakeshore?”

“Sorry, Packy. I really was phoning to see how you guys were getting along. I’m honestly sorry to hear Westcott has turned out to be such a dud, although I have to admit I’m not all that surprised, given some of his past performances as a beat reporter. He should be on general assignment.”

“Well, please feel free to have some laughs at our expense, but I’ve got to believe sooner or later your bosses up in the mighty Tribune Tower are going to realize what a clinker they’ve now got on the day shift at Eleventh and State. I’m making book you’ll be back here with us in the next three months, maybe even sooner.”

“Don’t bet the farm on it,” I told him cheerlessly. “By the way, one of your Herald-American colleagues is out here today, Ed Heston by name. Seems the Examiner, your sister Hearst paper out in San Francisco wants a feature done on the cable car and its crew from their burg operating at the fair. Heston told me he wished he could be here full-time, and I told him the assignment’s overrated.”

“Sez you,” O’Farrell shot back. “Don’t try to kid a kidder. You’re lovin’ every doggone minute out there, Snap.”

I gave him a horse laugh in response and rang off just as Metzger, the fair’s public relations man, came into the spartan pressroom.

“Snap, since you are the only reporter who’s here full-time, I feel I owe you an early heads-up on something big, really big: Walt Disney is coming to the fair in the next few weeks.”

“The man behind Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, no less? What’s his angle?”

“Word we get is he loves trains, always has. He wants to ride on any moving vehicle here, even hopes to drive a locomotive or two. We’ll be giving him the red-carpet treatment, of course. I’m planning to send out a general press release when we know the exact dates he’ll be here, but I thought you should know first. You might want to set up an interview in advance for a feature story.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” I told him, although I’m sure my voice lacked conviction. I knew about Disney, of course. The whole country did, and much of the world, too, thanks to his comic books and animated films.

Years ago when I was a divorced dad looking for ways to amuse Peter on weekends, we saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio. I enjoyed these movies more than Peter did, though. By that age, he found himself more interested in things like Pride of the Yankees and Knute Rockne All American. As far as he was concerned, Disney was for little kids, never mind the stunning color and brilliant animation.

Although I didn’t share Metzger’s excitement about the impending arrival of the famed movie-maker, I knew I would be expected by the editors in the Tower to come up with something about the man who put words in a duck’s mouth.

Before I could begin thinking about what approach to take with Disney, Metzger reminded me he had reserved a front-row seat for me at the afternoon performance of the “Wheels a-Rolling” pageant, which he had been badgering me to see since the day I got to the fair.

“Starts in twenty minutes, Snap. C’mon, let’s go. You’re really going to love it!”