both get on with our lives.”
He
isn’t going to give it to her, that much is clear to Modesty now. But she also
knows that there is no way she is getting back on that train empty handed.
“I
get it,” she says. “You’re big, I’m little. You’re smart, I’m dumb. You’re
important, I’m …”
“Nobody.”
He stands again, and slowly and purposefully plants that scuffed shoe back on
her typewriter case.
“Now,
dollface you have to decide. Are you a clever girl? Or a foolish one?”
With
her free hand, Modesty Brown reaches all the way to the bottom of that deep,
deep pocket of her new red coat, the pocket with the flat red braid. She pulls
out a Woodsman Double Barreled palm pistol and shoots him square in the foot.
The shot echoes, and Piano Teeth falls back screaming and cursing.
“I
guess that’s what kind of girl I am,” she says, shaking the typewriter keys out
of the cup.
Perhaps
you are surprised that she pulled a pistol out of that pocket, and perhaps you
are surprised that it wasn't mentioned before, what with the matchbook and the packet
of Chesterfields and the copy of Agatha Christie. I did want to keep this part
a surprise for you, and besides, everyone knows that if I'd shown you that gun
in that first scene it's the only thing you would have thought about for ages.
And it would also have given you a mistaken impression of our heroine, Modesty
Brown. I didn't want you to think she was that kind of girl. But it turns out
that, after all, she is. The kind that can shoot a man in the foot, take back
what's hers and leave him bleeding on the snow.
She
puts the remnants of her machine in the case, picks it up by the handle, turns
on her heel and stalks back to the train, swinging both cases as she walks. She
picks up her pace as she hears the train starting back up again.
She trudges back toward the train, which
seems to get further and further away the longer she trudges. She hears its
fresh mechanical growl. She breaks into a run as the engine catches and slowly
the wheels start up again. She will not get left here, not here in the middle
of nowhere, not with Piano Teeth still bleeding somewhere in the trees. She
runs, both typewriter cases banging against her bloodied knees, against her
ruined stockings and muddy skirt, her new red coat flapping in the wind.
The
train is already moving when she runs up alongside it, and there in that
liminal space between the cars she caught the bright flash of a white coat.
"Bill!"
she shouts and waves one of the cases.
He
throws the burning ember of his half spent cigarette over the side of the
train, holds on with one long arm.
"Sidecar!"
He cries. "Get the lead out!"
“Catch!”
She tosses up one case. He doesn’t catch it, but he does manage to dodge it as
it skitters onto the landing. He reaches down with his free hand, and she
reaches up with hers, her legs pumping, her mouth tingling with adrenaline. She
feels her hand catch in his large fleshy grip and he pulls. For a moment she is
airborne, her feet flying free and somehow she swings her feet on the outside
rail. He pulls her, hand over hand like she's a rope attached to an anchor, and
then she's up, she's on, she's safe, one typewriter case still clutched
hungrily in her grip.
"What
happened to you?" Bill asks.
She
presses her hand to her ribcage, willing her breathing to even out, willing her
heart to slow, willing her head stay on. She can still smell gunpowder, can
still feel the heat from the Woodsman stashed in her coat pocket.
"I
was between cars when it stopped. How come they stopped the train?" She
tries to fish out a Chesterfield, but her hands are shaking so badly she can’t
catch hold.
Bill
shrugs and puts two of his own in his mouth, lights both of them on the same
match. "Somebody pulled the emergency brake. It must have something to do
with those cops that were sniffing around earlier. Something about some missing
girl or some such nonsense. You wouldn't know
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