asa

do you even trains bro

chapter twenty one

a bit of numb brain

Innochka's contingent were not due for a month. The Russians clarified with Asa's employer what, exactly, the job was. Mordecai, most of the way well, sat across the desk from Asa as he took the phone call. He tried to stem his growing excitement into a mere cautious optimism, but by the time Asa got off the phone the little boy that still occupied a creaky twin bed in Mordecai's heart was jumping up and down on it.

Asa hung up the phone looking mystified. "Do you know anything about-"

"Yes. Everything. Put me in charge of this," Mordecai said.

Asa paused, startled. "Wow. Well I can't really say no to that, can I?"

"No, you can't. I promise you there's no one else within states of St. Louis that's as prepared for this as I am."

Asa chuckled incredulously. "How so?"

"Asa," Mordecai said, "would you like to know what my primary concern in life was from ages approximately three to … to much older than three? I'll tell you: trains."

Asa smiled. "From the looks of it it's still a primary concern."

"It obviously isn't but it certainly never lost the spirit of a primary concern. A large subsection of that concern has always been reserved for train robberies. They were of endless fascination to me as a boy, and I would be lying if I said I didn't still own quite a few books on the subject. It's something I knew was unlikely to ever fall under the purview of my chosen career, but …" and here he tried to keep his smile small, "…but I always hoped it might."

Asa's eyebrows raised. "Is that enthusiasm I hear?"

"It is. I spent many hours of my childhood arguing with my sister over who got to be Billy the Kid."

"You're the boy, you get to be Billy the Kid."

"Hmm. Yes," He nodded gravely. "That was my thinking as well. Sadly that logic didn't hold much water with her. Which she made sure I knew, both loudly and repeatedly, until at some point Bonnie the Kid was invented" - and here he made a face - "and it all went downhill after that."

"Little sisters," Asa said, shaking his head. "They ruin everything."

"They certainly do," Mordecai said. "So what are the details?"

But even as Asa filled him in Mordecai found his mind wandering. It was a curious and foreign sort of wandering, new to him. It was as though he pressed against some impermeable membrane behind which was the reality of Innochka's return, but he could not penetrate the barrier. So he poked at it, ambled around it, pressed against it, but no matter what he did it he remained numb to it. He found the numbness curious but also convenient. It freed his mind to focus on other matters.

He turned his attention back to Asa, and to a dream that had been with him far longer than she had.

000

The train depot was extraordinarily quiet at three in the morning. It was a quiet Mordecai nearly found it difficult to match through the process of uncoupling one car from another and unhooking the air brake, then carefully reattaching them. He stole into the depot like a shadow, unhooking car after car, links new or rusted, until the process was so driven into his muscle memory he could do it in his sleep no matter the condition of the links he'd be faced with on the day. Between this and copious research at the library his schedule was suddenly busier than it had been in years. This was the only project of this size he'd ever planned and by far the most intricate. He adored that magical intricacy.

He let the pin drop and sat up. He stretched his back and took an admiring look around the moonlit depot, all monotone night colors and gently slumbering steel giants. It smelled of oil and metal and dirt, and was filled with neatly partitioned tracks that divided the spaces between the cars, which were themselves neatly partitioned. The linkage mechanism that held the cars together was an elegant bit of engineering he enjoyed getting to know, enjoyed working on with his hands. He liked the sounds it made, the clicks and little squeals. He liked the control he had over those sounds if he moved a component this way or that. He liked how sore his arms and shoulders felt the next day and he liked how his loose sweater and soft overalls felt, so different than anything he usually left the house in. Even the handle of the toolbox pressing through his work glove took on an extra weight and comfort in this silent nighttime wonderland. It gave him a sense of safety he knew was entirely unwarranted. There was always a dangerous element that lingered on and around trains, but the boy within him was nonetheless romanced. He took a moment to marvel at a toweringly beautiful black behemoth of an engine, the iron polished to a reflective shine, and felt for a moment that old awe. The awe of a little boy who finally found something he understood.

When he'd told Asa trains were at one time his primary concern he was not kidding. His mother used to tell stories at family gatherings about how a very small Mordecai went through a phase where he would turn and walk away from anyone who tried to talk to him about anything but trains. He could be made to behave himself with a train-related promise. He drew trains on his bedroom walls, and when he outgrew that, in piles of notebooks. As soon as he could read he read about trains, and when he'd checked out every book on the subject in his local library he nagged his mother to take him to the downtown library. When he was old enough to get there himself he'd spend hours in the science and engineering section learning everything he could about them, about every nut and bolt and screw.

He loved them. They were perhaps the only thing he was absolutely sure he loved. Smoothly chugging machines he could walk into, big speeding metal behemoths built for one purpose only, which they performed without fail - but when they did fail, the failure was satisfyingly catastrophic, with derailed cars and explosions and people dying. Those were good, but the best possible train-related catastrophe was a robbery.

Everything about a train robbery was magical. Robbing a train took forethought and planning, brains and skill. In order to rob a train you had to understand everything about how that particular train worked, you had to know the secret sigils of the station approaches, you had to know who was on the train and where, you had to know which brakes to cut and how to change tracks without warning. Sometimes you needed to know how to wire up dynamite or exactly what amount of lead was needed to imitate the amount of gold you'd steal before it reached the weigh station. He even admired the showiness of the more theatrically gallant train robbers - no stealing from poor men with calloused hands, women, or children, and no undue casualties. A good train robbery had no casualties. A perfect train robbery didn't so much as alarm anyone.

He pressed his gloved hand to the engine one last time before slipping away from the depot. His would not be a perfect train robbery, but he was almost certain it could be a good one. He was determined to imitate the masters. If there were any casualties he would consider it a black mark on his performance, but in all likelihood wouldn't beat himself up about it too much.

000

He stopped attending his lessons with Mrs. Babikov. They were prepaid and for this he gave himself a proper chastening about wasting money, but other than that he made no attempt to rectify the situation. Not that there was anything to rectify. He was busy. The proper things needed to be properly prioritized. Speaking a foreign language was a distant second to making sure this project was flawlessly planned, and written correspondence was certainly a distant third.

Oh my darling wonderful Ochki I am coming back to you!

He wasn't sure how it was that he could read these words and feel nothing, but that seemed to be the case. There was no place for them in his brain. They refused to represent anything real. He could barely read the rest of the letter. It was as though his lessons started to melt and the Cyrillic faded back into meaningless chicken scratches. She talked about the jungle and guns and how wonderful he was and kisses, all of which previously sent him into a tizzy, all aflutter, but now sparked nothing but a dim - a dim -

-he frowned with effort -

-a dim sort of…sore…panicky…nothing.

He had no idea how to address it, so he didn't. He planned for the job. He spent most of his time at Marigold, away from his apartment which now reeked of vanilla - her vanilla letters, his vanilla beans, even a vanilla candle he stole - stole - because it smelled so good to him that he felt a flutter of greasy shame when he picked it up. He was absolutely certain if he took it to the counter the clerk would know it was a … a … well that it wasn't a chaste purchase. So he slipped it into his coat pocket like a delinquent teenager and walked out. It cast such a strong scent that he didn't even need to light it in order to fill his home with a perfect amount of vanilla, just enough to occasionally whisper past and make his eyelids heavy. But now it was just a sweet smell that wanted to mean what it meant before but was being smothered by a pillow in his heart and mind. So he focused on the train. He went to the depot at night to obsess over the linkages, hopping from car to car, exhausting himself so when he got home and fell into bed he passed out without a thought.

But the dreams.

Oh god, the dreams. He woke from them straining and panting and deeply embarrassed. It seemed that the more muffled his waking emotions the more exquisite and intense the dreams, but they weren't even particularly explicit. There were … well, kisses, certainly, but just like the demanding warlord fiction everything went question marks for him after a certain point, so dreams or fictions usually revolved around her simply being near him. Just very close to him. Once she even crawled into his warlord lap and pushed the python aside to offer him her neck in animal submission. It was the sharpest dream memory he'd had in years, held in focus by the powerful sensation in evoked in him. He used to have to deliberately erase it from his mind but now it was under the same muting pillow as everything else related to her. The muting was both perplexing and fortunate. His duty of planning the train robbery came with the added new experience of speaking to a group of people, and that would be a very bad place to find himself suddenly besieged by Innochka turning her sweetly scented neck to him.

It was curious being the focus of twenty men in a nonthreatening situation. Curious and unnerving. It wasn't a position he was used to. Only once or twice at the Little Daisy had he been cajoled into relating a relevant anecdote for the staff at "family" dinners. He was well spoken, displaying none of the nervousness he felt with so many eyes scrutinizing him. Nevertheless he hated it. Any time eyes were on him long enough someone started laughing, and this was what he expected when he sat with the team of twenty Marigold men Asa procured for his operation.

"Good evening, gentlemen. I won't waste your time with small talk, let's get to it," he said, placing his stack of documentation and schematics on the table. He decided beforehand he would be curt and dry and to the point, figuring that would stave off the ribbing long enough to actually relay the plan. He steeled himself but to his surprise he got all the way through the presentation without evoking a single laugh at his expense. He even sneezed a few times and not so much as a chuckle. They listened raptly, brows furrowed. One or two even asked relevant and thoughtful questions. The room was silent with obedience, and if he wasn't mistaken respect. It was almost like when Atlas relayed a plan. He even found it within him to give a soft-spoken Atlas-style dismissal: "Thank you very much for your time, gentlemen," and mean it.

"Nice work. Looks pretty solid," Asa said afterwards, looking at Mordecai's plans.

"Yes, it seems to have gone over very well," he said. "None of the distasteful jibes of the poker table, I noticed."

Asa studied the plans. He smiled down at something he saw in them but didn't respond.

"None of the … uh … no distasteful jibes at my expense, I noticed," Mordecai repeated.

Asa glanced up at him. "Why would there be?"

"It seems there always are." He sneezed. "Excuse me."

Asa shook his head. "Bless you. And no. They know you have this thing nailed."

Mordecai's eyes widened. "They do?" He sneezed again. "Excuse me."

"Bless you. Of course they do." Asa tilted his head. "You're surprised? You're the hardest working guy here, they all know that."

"Well, I …" Mordecai paused. He cleared his throat and straightened his vest. "Well - I'm just surprised they're capable of knowing a good plan when they see one." He paused again. "Seeing as we've established Marigold is a bunch of homos."

And at this Asa gave a laugh so loud, high, and surprised that Mordecai jumped.

"HA! Good one, good one!"

"Don't you start," Mordecai replied warningly.

Asa chuckled and picked up a sheet of paper, on which was detailed and integral part of the plan. "So I take it from this things are going well with the Mrs?"

Mordecai blinked. 'What?"

Asa jerked his chin at the paper. "This. Didn't you tell me she was an actress of some sort?"

"In - Innochka?" he asked. Her name squirmed on the way out. Asa raised an eyebrow. "Yes - well - yes, she is," Mordecai continued, collecting himself. "Her expertise makes her perfect for that part of the operation. It would be a far clumsier enterprise without her. She has quite a gift."

"She must," Asa said, looking at the paper. "You made her the star of the show."

"She's - " Mordecai thought of the unanswered letter sitting on his workbench. He straightened and lifted his chin. "There's no show, Asa, and no star. There's merely a job to be done and those who are best able to do it."

Asa smiled. "Whatever you say. She'll be here in less than a week, are you ready?"

Mordecai's eyes widened. No, he wanted to say. I am utterly in no way ready. Her part of my brain has turned numb. How does one revive a bit of numb brain? I can't exactly shake it awake like a sleeping limb. Believe me, I've tried. "I'm …" he began, but he was unsure why he was talking. He could easily plan a train robbery but he had no end to that particular sentence.

Instead, he sneezed. "Excuse me."

"Bless you." Asa took a cigar from the humidor on his desk and lit it. "Get some sleep."

"Sorry?"

"Make sure you get enough sleep this week. Drink a bunch of water. Get fully recovered. Don't wanna be sneezing down onto the poor girl's face."

"Asa!" Mordecai snapped. "I - just -you -just-" he stammered as he hurriedly gathered the plans and schematics up. "I'm -you're - if you would have the faintest amount of -of - if you'd just-" he shoved the papers under his arm and put on his hat. "I'm going," he said. "I have trains to … do."

"You have trains to do?" he asked, chuckling.

"Yes! No! Goodbye! Goodbye Asa!" he said, took his coat and made to stalk out the door.

"Wait."

"What?"

Asa held up a sheet of paper Mordecai missed in his hasty gathering of his plans. "Just where in the hell are we supposed to get a truck full of chickens?"

000

The week passed far faster than it had any right to, and his brain remained no less numb to the reality of her arrival.

Oh my darling wonderful Ochki I am coming back to you!

"You are a letter," he said absently to it. He sat in his armchair in his robe, befuddled because he'd awoken earlier than he intended despite the tincture he'd picked up to help him sleep. He'd reviewed the plans so exhaustively that reviewing them again would be torture, so due to his foreshortened rest he found himself adrift within a period of free time, his first in a month. He used it to sit with her last letter, to which he'd never replied. He kept it folded closed, did not want to look at the words. He held it under his nose but it only smelled slightly of vanilla. But soon -that very day- he would be in the presence of that scent again, only it wouldn't be floating off the beloved sheets of paper Innochka had become. It would be floating off of her, of the actuality of her, and she would be there before him, in front of him, talking to him, expecting replies from him, wanting - probably wanting - to -to touch him-

He leapt up from the armchair and decided to simultaneously get dressed and make French toast. He ended up turning in a circle like a rowboat with one oar. Should he get dressed? Or should he make French toast? Getting dressed before cooking was almost never a good idea, and he hadn't made any custard the night before so it certainly wasn't going to be a meal worth getting dressed for. But on the issue of getting dressed what was he going to wear that day?

Oh god.

What was he going to wear?

000

The carnage he made of his closet was not pretty, and certainly far too big of a mission to end up with what was approximately what he wore most days. The difference was these were the very best individual pieces of what he wore most days, and all of it freshly ironed and pressed. Ironing and pressing every ironable and pressable item he would wear that evening filled the extra time nicely. He used it to quite pointedly review the heist in his mind despite the agony. He shined his shoes and meditated on trains. Before he left his apartment he hung the pocketwatch she'd given him on his vest.

The day passed so quickly he wished he could take a knife to its throat and make it lie still. Due to what he was sure was their typical excellent planning the Russians hit a delay in customs coming out of Cuba and arrived a full day later than expected, so he would barely have any time to brief Innochka on her role in the robbery before they were actually performing it. It was to happen that night at three am. The Russians were expected to arrive at ten pm. He was confident of her ability to perform admirably but still irked at the lack of time she would have to prepare. He had no idea how she put up with those jackasses.

"Looking sharp," Asa said with a firm nod when Mordecai met the Marigold contingent at the docks.

"Thank you," Mordecai said. His voice was hollow.

Asa slapped him companionably on the shoulder. "Keep your cool, Heller. You're good at that." His expression brightened. He jerked his chin towards the Mississippi. "There's the boat."

Mordecai spun. The vessel came around a turn. It was a utilitarian but lit up like a wedding cake, making the patches of ice on the river glow titanium white. The Russian contingent stood at the railings. They were loud and boisterous, with clouds of cigar smoke and drinks blithely in hand. His heart pounded but he did not see her.

Suddenly there was movement. Someone was shoved aside. A feminine form forced itself to the front, one hand on her hat and the other holding the neck of her fur coat shut, her chin lifted, searching the faces of Marigold for his.

000