Heroes by David Hagberg (reading cloud ebooks TXT) 📗

say? I don’t have to be back to Pittsburgh until Monday.”

“Thanks a lot, Burt, but we’ve got to be on our way. We were supposed to be on the job yesterday as it was.”

Denver was suddenly there, across a broad plain, the mountains gray-blue and golden behind it. Schey unconsciously sped up.

Shamus shrugged. “I thought I’d ask.”

They came up from the south on 85 through Littleton, a sleepy little one-tavern suburb, and half an hour later they were through downtown Denver, crossing over the stockyards on the long bridge that turned sharply right at the far end, railroad tracks below, and for a long way feedlots where tens of thousands of heads of cattle were processed for shipping. There was a rich, earthy odor to the air here that reminded Schey very strongly of his home in Germany. Eva had turned up her nose.

“Are you sure I can’t convince you to come over to the hideout. We can rustle up some breakfast.”

“No, thanks, Burt. Really, you’ve done enough for us already.

We can’t thank you enough.”

“Well, hell, I guess I want to thank you, too. I don’t suppose I would have made it this far without going to sleep, if I was lucky, or running off the road, if I wasn’t. Where do you want to get off?”

“Just anywhere here. We’ve got our friends we’ll call. They’ll come pick us up.” Schey had seen the Union Station down by the stockyards. Once they were off the long bridge, he turned off the highway and pulled up. A Mexican tavern was across the street. It was just a little before seven, yet already there were a number of men seated at the bar.

“This is no place …” Shamus started to protest.

“This is fine, Burt. Honestly,” Schey said, turning to him. He was very tired. He stuck out his hand. “Really. Thank you, Burt.”

Shamus shook his hand. “Well, damn. I thought you’d at least stop by for a drink or something.”

“Thanks, Burt.” Schey got out of the car. It seemed strange to be on his feet. He helped Eva out of the back and got their suitcases.

Shamus got out and came around. They shook hands again, and the fat man got behind the wheel.

“Best of luck to you, now,” he said.

“You, too,” Schey called. Eva waved, and they watched until the car turned the corner and was gone.

Eva shivered. “It’s cold here,” she said. “And I’m hungry.”

One of the men in the bar had turned around on his stool. He punched the man next to him and pointed toward Eva.

“Let’s go,” Schey said. He hefted their suitcases and then headed back under the bridge toward the huge, ornately decorated Union Station. The place was old, but it was different than the old places in Germany. Here, age usually meant disrepair, or old-fashioned, out-of-date. In Europe, old meant tradition, well built beauty.

“There’s a lot to be excited about here, though,” Eva had once told him.

“Yes, what’s that?”

“You never had cowboys and Indians in Germany.”

Schey had laughed. “No, we never had that. We never had anything except dull kings and warrior princes. It was boring.”

She had caught the obvious joke, and she had laughed at the time. But now Schey felt what she had meant about the American heritage. With the stockyards and loading pens to the west and the old Union Station straight ahead, he almost expected to see the stagecoach rattle up and cowboys riding by on their horses, six-shooters at their hips.

There was a fair amount of traffic coming and going from the station: buses from town, trucks, people on foot. A lot of them were soldiers, their duffel bags slung over their shoulders.

Inside the vast main, hall, Schey left Eva with the bags at the ladies’ rest room so she could clean up while he went across to check the train schedules and fares.

They had spent very little of the money that they had dug out of the bolt hole package months ago in Eva’s apartment. There was slightly more than five thousand dollars left in the package, so that was no worry for them.

Train schedules were displayed on two huge posters beneath glass that encircled massive support columns across from the ticket counters. One schedule was marked WEST; the second, EAST. Schey approached, slowly studying the rows and columns of names and times.

He began to make sense of the thing, understanding that trains left Denver day and night—some of them for places such as North Platte, Grand Island, Kearney; others, evidently stopping trains, for small towns such as Hudson, Fort Morgan, Brush, Sterling.

Finally he found the train that would take them to Chicago, with connections, the schedule read, with New York Central’s Twentieth Century to New York City.

There were two Chicago trains each day. The first left Denver at 10:05 a. m., and the second at 10:05 p.m. The morning train had a one hour layover in Omaha, but arrived in Chicago at 9:30 a.m. the next day, in plenty of time for the noon departure of the Twentieth Century.

Schey bought a pair of first-class tickets, roundtrip, scheduling their return for one week hence. If and when the FBI got this far in their search, they’d be checking second-class tickets oneway, not first-class roundtrip.

He bought a newspaper at a stand, then went into the men’s room where he hired a razor, soap, a towel, and a wash cloth, and he quickly cleaned up. When he was finished, he had his shoes shined, then went back out.

Eva was waiting for him beneath the big overhead clock. She looked greatly relieved and smiled when she spotted him.

“Don’t you look handsome,” she said.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” he said. She had fixed her hair and had put on some makeup.

They went across to the restaurant that Schey had spotted on the way in, and got a seat in a booth. They both ordered coffee.

Schey ordered ham and eggs; Eva, ham and pancakes.

“We leave at a little past ten,” he told her. “We’ve