Dead Man's Tunnel
Dead Man's Tunnel is the third installment in Sheldon Russell's 1940s series featuring yard dog Hook Runyon.Near the end of WWII, Hook Runyon, railroad bull, and his dog, Mixer, are sent to the West Salvage Yard in the high desert of Arizona. Not far away is the Johnson Canyon Tunnel. Though remote and ordinary as tunnels go, it is the gateway to the steepest railroad grade in North America and a potential bottleneck for the delivery of war supplies. So vital is this tunnel to the war effort that a twenty-four hour military guard has been assigned for the duration. Hook's orders are to catch copper thieves and to stay out of sight and out of trouble. But things go awry when Hook receives a call that one of the guards has been killed mid-tunnel by an oncoming train. Lieutenant Allison Capron from the Army Transportation Department is called in to help with the investigation. At first, suicide by train is suspected, but the evidence soon suggests homicide resulting from a love triangle. Unable to fit his own findings into either of these theories, Hook suspects something more sinister.
Content
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.
dead man’s tunnel. Copyright © 2012 by Sheldon Russell. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s
Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
ISBN 978-1-250- 00100-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-01058-2 (e-book)
First Edition: June 2012
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
T
HE QUARTER FELL out of Hook Runyon’s
britches and rolled the length of the caboose, clattering against
the wall. The bastards hadn’t bothered to park the caboose on
level ground when they’d sided it at West’s Salvage Yard in Ash
Fork, Arizona.
He searched for his arm prosthesis, fi nding it under his bunk.
“Goddang it, Mixer,” he said. “Leave my arm the hell alone.”
Mixer, his dog, peeked up through his brows and clopped his
tail against the floor. He’d been known to steal things, given the
opportunity, and had recently taken a liking to Hook’s prosthesis. Just last week Hook had found it buried in the right-of-way
alongside a porkchop bone. Had he not seen the hook peeking
out of the sand, it would have been gone forever.
A meager salary, a passion for rare books, and an occasional
drink or two had not lent itself to buying a new prosthetic. He’d
managed his own repairs on the thing over the years, though it
suffered from the lack of proper maintenance.
6
SH EL DO N RUS S ELL
Scrap West, the owner of the salvage yard, told him the prosthetic looked like a bent crankshaft, and why didn’t he just throw
it in the shredder along with the rest of the junk? When Hook
suggested that he might just throw him in with it, Scrap grinned
and walked away.
Hook strapped on the arm before lighting a cigarette. He put
on coffee and sat down at the table to watch the sunrise over the
mountain of squashed cars. Beams of sunlight skittered about in
the broken windshields and off a thousand shattered mirrors. By
midmorning, the yard would swelter under the sun. By noon,
heat would quiver up from the piles of junk. And by day’s end,
gasoline fumes would hang over the yard in a blue pall.
Hook poured his coffee and sipped at the lip of his cup. He
set it aside to cool. Opening his latest acquisition, a mint copy of
Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, he thumbed through the pages. He
liked Steinbeck’s stuff, the dialogue was like listening to secrets
through an open window. Someday Steinbeck’s writings would
go for a fortune. But then what true collector sold his books? He’d
rather sell his soul, or his children’s souls. In any event, fi nding
such a book in such condition had been lucky, given his exile in
the desert.
Scrap West had complained to the railroad about thieves
stealing copper off loaded cars. So Eddie Preston, the divisional
supervisor, being an intemperate sort, and still hot over a little
incident Hook had been involved in back in Amarillo, had taken
the opportunity to even things up by putting him on the salvage
detail.
The night of the Amarillo incident, Hook had found the door
seal broken on a sided car. Concerned that she’d be emptied out
by morning, he’d asked the switchman to side her closer in to
the yard office. In the process, the switchman stuck his thumb in
the coupler and pulled back a stub. He commenced screaming
and cussing, his stump spewing blood the whole time.
DEAD MAN’S TUNNEL
7
Hook rushed in to help stop the bleeding. But when the sided
car rumbled by, he realized he’d failed to set the brakes. The car
rolled out onto the main line, gathering up speed as she went.
She passed the yard office and then the depot, and by the time
she hit the stockyard switch, she sped along at twenty miles an
hour. Hook watched in disbelief as she teetered and then heaved
over onto her side like a shot elephant.
Half her contents, army surplus items, mostly cots, boots, and
mess hall equipment, spilled across the tracks, shutting down the
main line. About the time they’d loaded the switchman into an
ambulance, a thunderstorm blew in from the southwest and
soaked the spilled freight.
St. John’s Orphanage offered to bring out their truck and load
up the supplies if they could have them, so Hook had agreed,
fi nding it prudent to not close the main line.
In the end, no one ever located the switchman’s thumb, and
Eddie Preston had been less than understanding about the whole
situation. In short, that’s why Hook now stood guard over a milelong line of scrap cars in Arizona.
Having seniority over every other cinder dick on the force,
Hook had threatened to fi le a complaint with the big boys. But
Eddie suggested that an investigation might turn up more than
Hook could explain and that if he was smart, which he doubted,
he’d keep his mouth shut.
The result had been three of the longest months in Hook’s
life. In all that time he’d nabbed only a couple boys stealing spike
kegs and a drunk sleeping under one of the cars.
Pusher engines, old steamers for the most part, idled day and
night on the siding across from his caboose. Used for boosting
hotshots up the grade, they sometimes doubled as switch engines
for moving cars in and out of the salvage yard. The chug and
thump of their engines never ceased, and Hook had not had a
good night’s sleep since his arrival.
8
SH EL DO N RUS S ELL
Hook sought out the engineers for news, brief encounters
with civilization, inasmuch as engineers could be considered
civil. Beyond that, he passed his days alone or in the company of
Scrap West, which came mostly to the same thing.
Even Mixer, who loved a good fight more than life itself, had
succumbed to the isolation, resorting to extended naps, sometimes spiraling into deep unconsciousness. Several times Hook
had checked his breathing to make certain he hadn’t died.
Hook poured himself another cup of coffee and lit a cigarette.
As soon as the sun was fully up, he’d make his rounds. He’d noticed footprints in the sand down by the switch and again where
a load of copper had been sided.
As he sat back down at the table, the engine on Scrap’s twentyfive-ton crane roared into life. The noise rode down the tracks
and set up miniature tidal waves in Hook’s coffee.
Scrap had purchased the crane from the army and took pride
in what he considered to be the bargain of the century. He maintained that the crane had increased his output by 25 percent
and could not have been purchased anywhere else at twice the
price.
Scrap never passed up a chance to make a dime, even keeping
chickens in the back of the salvage yard. He claimed eggs big as
basketballs and that he’d made enough from selling them to pay
his monthly water bill.
Mixer, who hated the crane even more than Hook did, rolled
onto his back and groaned. Once started, the roar of the engine
stopped only for lunch and then again at quitting time. Now and
again, a car body would plummet from the crane and crash onto
the growing heap of metal.
When the crane suddenly stopped, Mixer glanced up at
Hook. Within moments, a knock rattled the caboose door. Hook
tucked his shirt in and opened it to fi nd Scrap West standing
with his arms folded over his chest. Scrap had been named Regi-
DEAD MAN’S TUNNEL
9
nald by his mother, but hardly anybody in the world knew it.
Hook knew it only because Scrap had gotten drunk one night
and spilled the secret.
“Eddie Preston’s on my phone,” Scrap said.
“What does he want?” Hook asked.
Scrap pinched up his face, which looked a good deal like
one of his wrecked cars. His nose spread out on the end like a
spade and was the exact color of a radish. A scar ran through
his eyebrow where a leaf spring had hit him, and his thumbnails were permanently blue from having been squashed over
the years. His eyes were hard as ball bearings. He had a missing
front tooth, which he covered with his hand when he grinned.
Scrap claimed he’d been born with a full set of teeth, except for
that par tic u lar one, and it had refused to grow even after fi fty
years of trying.
Scrap looked for the world like the bums Hook had run in his
whole career, except beneath that beat-up mug was a brain that
chugged away like a perpetual motion machine. It concocted
one scheme after another in an attempt to screw the world out of
yet one more dollar. Most of his schemes failed, but some didn’t.
Either way, it didn’t matter because Scrap had already moved on
to the next one.
“I ain’t no goddang messenger for Division,” Scrap said. “For
all I know there’s a call coming in on copper prices this very
minute. She goes up a penny, and I lose a day’s wages. On top of
that, my crane’s down there drinking diesel like a drunk sailor,
and I’m up here talking to you.”
“Hell, Scrap, you’re getting free security, aren’t you, not to
mention all that track you pilfered off the right-of-way. I figure
you owe the railroad a minute of your time.”
Scrap worked the slug out of his pipe without looking up. He
blew through the stem and then fished through his pockets for
his tobacco.
10
SH E L DON RUS S ELL
“I did the railroad a favor moving that rail,” he said, torching
up his pipe. “I went in the hole on that one, I tell you. Anyway, it
would have cost the railroad plenty to bring in equipment all the
way from Flagstaff just to haul away that old track.”
Blue smoke enveloped Scrap’s head. “And you can just tell
Eddie Preston these bastards are still walking off with my copper and in broad daylight, too. Maybe he should send a yard dog
out here that does something other than read books and take
naps.”
“Maybe you could hire some extra hands, Scrap. I never knew
a man any tighter in my life.”
Scrap poked his fi nger into the bowl of his pipe before firing
it up again.
“Just ’cause I wasn’t raised up rotten like some I know, and
just ’cause I eked out a living on what others threw away, doesn’t
make me tight. Makes me economical.”
“Makes you tight,” Hook said. “You probably got money stashed
all over this junkyard.”
“Maybe you ought try saving a dime yourself once in a while,”
he said, “instead of squandering it on old books and raw whiskey.”
“One day the government’s coming after their taxes, Scrap.
What you going to do then?”
“What’s the government got to fi nd but my good word?”
“Not paying taxes is illegal. And what about those switch
brackets down by the south entrance? Where did those come
from, I wonder?”
“You just quit nosing around my stuff and spend a little more
time guarding my cars.”
Hook slipped on his shoes and lit a cigarette. “Come on, Mixer,”
he said. “We better lock up, or the silver will be missing when we
get back.”
DEAD MAN’S TUNNEL
11
Hook pushed the office door shut just as Scrap’s crane fired up
again. He took a deep breath and picked up the phone.
“How’s it hanging, Eddie?” he said.
“Runyon, I been sitting on this phone for half an hour. You
think all I have to do is to wait on you?”
“Sorry, Eddie, but my secretary couldn’t make it in today.”
“Cut the wisecracks, Runyon. There’s been a death out at the
Johnson Canyon Tunnel.”
A chill ran through Hook. He hated that damn tunnel.
“A death?”
“You know, when someone stops breathing, forever.”
“Yeah, I know what death is, Eddie. It’s working security in a
junkyard.”
“I want you to go check it out.”
Hook lit a cigarette and watched the crane lift a wrecked
Cadillac into the sky.
“And leave Scrap’s copper unprotected? Jesus, Eddie, do you
think that’s a good idea?”
“Believe me, Runyon, I’d send someone else if I could, but
that line has to be kept open. If that tunnel shuts down, the whole
system goes with it.”
“What do they think happened?”
“Accident, one of the military guards that’s been stationed
out there.”
“Accident?” Hook fl ipped his ashes into the wastebasket and
looked out the window, which was gray with smoke and dust.
“How do they know?”
“A man don’t stand in the middle of the tunnel in the middle
of the night with a hotshot charging downgrade on purpose.”
“Jesus,” Hook said.
“The engineer called it in. Took him half a mile to get shut
down,” Eddie said. “He near fainted when he saw the guard’s boot
stuck on the catwalk.”
12
SH E L DON RUS S ELL
“Alright, Eddie. I’ll take the popcar out.”
The popcar, sometimes called the popper, was a small
gasoline-powered trolley used mostly for track inspections. It
could be an uncomfortable ride in the desert but was Hook’s only
transportation at the moment.
“I released the engineer on to the next stop. He’ll catch a hotshot back. You can talk to him then.”
“Damn it, Eddie, I should take a look at things before the
engine’s released.”
“There’s still another army guard assigned to duty out there.
He might have some idea what’s going on.”
“I’ll check it out, Eddie.”
“This thing has to be wrapped up fast, Runyon. That line can’t
be tied up. It ain’t the first tunnel accident out there, you know.
They killed off half of Arizona building that damn thing.”
“What’s the rush, Eddie? The war’s over, hadn’t you heard?
Japan has been bombed into oblivion.”
“I want this thing resolved, see. On top of everything else,
that line is being upgraded, and there’s equipment and people.
We can’t shut the railroad down while you play detective.”
“I am a detective, Eddie.”
“And there’s that other little problem, too,” Eddie said.
Hook’s pulse ticked up. Eddie had been looking to nail him
for years.
“They give me a promotion over your head, Eddie?”
“In your dreams, Runyon. You might just recall dumping a
boxcar back in Amarillo.”
Hook lit another cigarette and watched Mixer dig through
Scrap’s trash.
“That switchman cut off his thumb, Eddie. What the hell was
I supposed to do, let him bleed to death?”
“And deprive the railroad of paying his medical pension for
the next thirty years?” Eddie said. “I should hope not.”
DEAD MAN’S TUNNEL
13
“I’m missing an arm, Eddie. No one pays me a pension.”
“That’s not your biggest problem, Runyon. For example,
there’s that little donation of Santa Fe property you made to the
St. John’s Orphanage.”
“They had a truck and volunteered to clean up the wreckage
if they could have the goods. I had to get that line open, didn’t I?”
“Oh, St. John’s was real glad to get the army cots,” he said.
“And the other things, too.”
Mixer found Scrap’s old lunch sack in the trash and proceeded
to tear it open.
“What other things?” Hook asked.
“That box of army condoms the kids opened back at the orphanage. They thought they were goddang balloons. The priest
said it looked like New Year’s Eve.
“So the diocese calls Chicago, and Chicago calls me. Turns
out everyone is unhappy.”
“Jesus,” Hook said.
“You’ve bagged your limit of Brownies for the year, Runyon.
I don’t know if I can head this thing off. Maybe you ought to
learn the salvage business just in case you have a career change.”
“I’d like to visit, Eddie, but there’s a corpse waiting.”
“Open and shut like they say,” Eddie said.
“Yeah,” Hook said. “Like they say.”
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fictitiously.
dead man’s tunnel. Copyright © 2012 by Sheldon Russell. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s
Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
ISBN 978-1-250- 00100-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-01058-2 (e-book)
First Edition: June 2012
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1
T
HE QUARTER FELL out of Hook Runyon’s
britches and rolled the length of the caboose, clattering against
the wall. The bastards hadn’t bothered to park the caboose on
level ground when they’d sided it at West’s Salvage Yard in Ash
Fork, Arizona.
He searched for his arm prosthesis, fi nding it under his bunk.
“Goddang it, Mixer,” he said. “Leave my arm the hell alone.”
Mixer, his dog, peeked up through his brows and clopped his
tail against the floor. He’d been known to steal things, given the
opportunity, and had recently taken a liking to Hook’s prosthesis. Just last week Hook had found it buried in the right-of-way
alongside a porkchop bone. Had he not seen the hook peeking
out of the sand, it would have been gone forever.
A meager salary, a passion for rare books, and an occasional
drink or two had not lent itself to buying a new prosthetic. He’d
managed his own repairs on the thing over the years, though it
suffered from the lack of proper maintenance.
6
SH EL DO N RUS S ELL
Scrap West, the owner of the salvage yard, told him the prosthetic looked like a bent crankshaft, and why didn’t he just throw
it in the shredder along with the rest of the junk? When Hook
suggested that he might just throw him in with it, Scrap grinned
and walked away.
Hook strapped on the arm before lighting a cigarette. He put
on coffee and sat down at the table to watch the sunrise over the
mountain of squashed cars. Beams of sunlight skittered about in
the broken windshields and off a thousand shattered mirrors. By
midmorning, the yard would swelter under the sun. By noon,
heat would quiver up from the piles of junk. And by day’s end,
gasoline fumes would hang over the yard in a blue pall.
Hook poured his coffee and sipped at the lip of his cup. He
set it aside to cool. Opening his latest acquisition, a mint copy of
Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, he thumbed through the pages. He
liked Steinbeck’s stuff, the dialogue was like listening to secrets
through an open window. Someday Steinbeck’s writings would
go for a fortune. But then what true collector sold his books? He’d
rather sell his soul, or his children’s souls. In any event, fi nding
such a book in such condition had been lucky, given his exile in
the desert.
Scrap West had complained to the railroad about thieves
stealing copper off loaded cars. So Eddie Preston, the divisional
supervisor, being an intemperate sort, and still hot over a little
incident Hook had been involved in back in Amarillo, had taken
the opportunity to even things up by putting him on the salvage
detail.
The night of the Amarillo incident, Hook had found the door
seal broken on a sided car. Concerned that she’d be emptied out
by morning, he’d asked the switchman to side her closer in to
the yard office. In the process, the switchman stuck his thumb in
the coupler and pulled back a stub. He commenced screaming
and cussing, his stump spewing blood the whole time.
DEAD MAN’S TUNNEL
7
Hook rushed in to help stop the bleeding. But when the sided
car rumbled by, he realized he’d failed to set the brakes. The car
rolled out onto the main line, gathering up speed as she went.
She passed the yard office and then the depot, and by the time
she hit the stockyard switch, she sped along at twenty miles an
hour. Hook watched in disbelief as she teetered and then heaved
over onto her side like a shot elephant.
Half her contents, army surplus items, mostly cots, boots, and
mess hall equipment, spilled across the tracks, shutting down the
main line. About the time they’d loaded the switchman into an
ambulance, a thunderstorm blew in from the southwest and
soaked the spilled freight.
St. John’s Orphanage offered to bring out their truck and load
up the supplies if they could have them, so Hook had agreed,
fi nding it prudent to not close the main line.
In the end, no one ever located the switchman’s thumb, and
Eddie Preston had been less than understanding about the whole
situation. In short, that’s why Hook now stood guard over a milelong line of scrap cars in Arizona.
Having seniority over every other cinder dick on the force,
Hook had threatened to fi le a complaint with the big boys. But
Eddie suggested that an investigation might turn up more than
Hook could explain and that if he was smart, which he doubted,
he’d keep his mouth shut.
The result had been three of the longest months in Hook’s
life. In all that time he’d nabbed only a couple boys stealing spike
kegs and a drunk sleeping under one of the cars.
Pusher engines, old steamers for the most part, idled day and
night on the siding across from his caboose. Used for boosting
hotshots up the grade, they sometimes doubled as switch engines
for moving cars in and out of the salvage yard. The chug and
thump of their engines never ceased, and Hook had not had a
good night’s sleep since his arrival.
8
SH EL DO N RUS S ELL
Hook sought out the engineers for news, brief encounters
with civilization, inasmuch as engineers could be considered
civil. Beyond that, he passed his days alone or in the company of
Scrap West, which came mostly to the same thing.
Even Mixer, who loved a good fight more than life itself, had
succumbed to the isolation, resorting to extended naps, sometimes spiraling into deep unconsciousness. Several times Hook
had checked his breathing to make certain he hadn’t died.
Hook poured himself another cup of coffee and lit a cigarette.
As soon as the sun was fully up, he’d make his rounds. He’d noticed footprints in the sand down by the switch and again where
a load of copper had been sided.
As he sat back down at the table, the engine on Scrap’s twentyfive-ton crane roared into life. The noise rode down the tracks
and set up miniature tidal waves in Hook’s coffee.
Scrap had purchased the crane from the army and took pride
in what he considered to be the bargain of the century. He maintained that the crane had increased his output by 25 percent
and could not have been purchased anywhere else at twice the
price.
Scrap never passed up a chance to make a dime, even keeping
chickens in the back of the salvage yard. He claimed eggs big as
basketballs and that he’d made enough from selling them to pay
his monthly water bill.
Mixer, who hated the crane even more than Hook did, rolled
onto his back and groaned. Once started, the roar of the engine
stopped only for lunch and then again at quitting time. Now and
again, a car body would plummet from the crane and crash onto
the growing heap of metal.
When the crane suddenly stopped, Mixer glanced up at
Hook. Within moments, a knock rattled the caboose door. Hook
tucked his shirt in and opened it to fi nd Scrap West standing
with his arms folded over his chest. Scrap had been named Regi-
DEAD MAN’S TUNNEL
9
nald by his mother, but hardly anybody in the world knew it.
Hook knew it only because Scrap had gotten drunk one night
and spilled the secret.
“Eddie Preston’s on my phone,” Scrap said.
“What does he want?” Hook asked.
Scrap pinched up his face, which looked a good deal like
one of his wrecked cars. His nose spread out on the end like a
spade and was the exact color of a radish. A scar ran through
his eyebrow where a leaf spring had hit him, and his thumbnails were permanently blue from having been squashed over
the years. His eyes were hard as ball bearings. He had a missing
front tooth, which he covered with his hand when he grinned.
Scrap claimed he’d been born with a full set of teeth, except for
that par tic u lar one, and it had refused to grow even after fi fty
years of trying.
Scrap looked for the world like the bums Hook had run in his
whole career, except beneath that beat-up mug was a brain that
chugged away like a perpetual motion machine. It concocted
one scheme after another in an attempt to screw the world out of
yet one more dollar. Most of his schemes failed, but some didn’t.
Either way, it didn’t matter because Scrap had already moved on
to the next one.
“I ain’t no goddang messenger for Division,” Scrap said. “For
all I know there’s a call coming in on copper prices this very
minute. She goes up a penny, and I lose a day’s wages. On top of
that, my crane’s down there drinking diesel like a drunk sailor,
and I’m up here talking to you.”
“Hell, Scrap, you’re getting free security, aren’t you, not to
mention all that track you pilfered off the right-of-way. I figure
you owe the railroad a minute of your time.”
Scrap worked the slug out of his pipe without looking up. He
blew through the stem and then fished through his pockets for
his tobacco.
10
SH E L DON RUS S ELL
“I did the railroad a favor moving that rail,” he said, torching
up his pipe. “I went in the hole on that one, I tell you. Anyway, it
would have cost the railroad plenty to bring in equipment all the
way from Flagstaff just to haul away that old track.”
Blue smoke enveloped Scrap’s head. “And you can just tell
Eddie Preston these bastards are still walking off with my copper and in broad daylight, too. Maybe he should send a yard dog
out here that does something other than read books and take
naps.”
“Maybe you could hire some extra hands, Scrap. I never knew
a man any tighter in my life.”
Scrap poked his fi nger into the bowl of his pipe before firing
it up again.
“Just ’cause I wasn’t raised up rotten like some I know, and
just ’cause I eked out a living on what others threw away, doesn’t
make me tight. Makes me economical.”
“Makes you tight,” Hook said. “You probably got money stashed
all over this junkyard.”
“Maybe you ought try saving a dime yourself once in a while,”
he said, “instead of squandering it on old books and raw whiskey.”
“One day the government’s coming after their taxes, Scrap.
What you going to do then?”
“What’s the government got to fi nd but my good word?”
“Not paying taxes is illegal. And what about those switch
brackets down by the south entrance? Where did those come
from, I wonder?”
“You just quit nosing around my stuff and spend a little more
time guarding my cars.”
Hook slipped on his shoes and lit a cigarette. “Come on, Mixer,”
he said. “We better lock up, or the silver will be missing when we
get back.”
DEAD MAN’S TUNNEL
11
Hook pushed the office door shut just as Scrap’s crane fired up
again. He took a deep breath and picked up the phone.
“How’s it hanging, Eddie?” he said.
“Runyon, I been sitting on this phone for half an hour. You
think all I have to do is to wait on you?”
“Sorry, Eddie, but my secretary couldn’t make it in today.”
“Cut the wisecracks, Runyon. There’s been a death out at the
Johnson Canyon Tunnel.”
A chill ran through Hook. He hated that damn tunnel.
“A death?”
“You know, when someone stops breathing, forever.”
“Yeah, I know what death is, Eddie. It’s working security in a
junkyard.”
“I want you to go check it out.”
Hook lit a cigarette and watched the crane lift a wrecked
Cadillac into the sky.
“And leave Scrap’s copper unprotected? Jesus, Eddie, do you
think that’s a good idea?”
“Believe me, Runyon, I’d send someone else if I could, but
that line has to be kept open. If that tunnel shuts down, the whole
system goes with it.”
“What do they think happened?”
“Accident, one of the military guards that’s been stationed
out there.”
“Accident?” Hook fl ipped his ashes into the wastebasket and
looked out the window, which was gray with smoke and dust.
“How do they know?”
“A man don’t stand in the middle of the tunnel in the middle
of the night with a hotshot charging downgrade on purpose.”
“Jesus,” Hook said.
“The engineer called it in. Took him half a mile to get shut
down,” Eddie said. “He near fainted when he saw the guard’s boot
stuck on the catwalk.”
12
SH E L DON RUS S ELL
“Alright, Eddie. I’ll take the popcar out.”
The popcar, sometimes called the popper, was a small
gasoline-powered trolley used mostly for track inspections. It
could be an uncomfortable ride in the desert but was Hook’s only
transportation at the moment.
“I released the engineer on to the next stop. He’ll catch a hotshot back. You can talk to him then.”
“Damn it, Eddie, I should take a look at things before the
engine’s released.”
“There’s still another army guard assigned to duty out there.
He might have some idea what’s going on.”
“I’ll check it out, Eddie.”
“This thing has to be wrapped up fast, Runyon. That line can’t
be tied up. It ain’t the first tunnel accident out there, you know.
They killed off half of Arizona building that damn thing.”
“What’s the rush, Eddie? The war’s over, hadn’t you heard?
Japan has been bombed into oblivion.”
“I want this thing resolved, see. On top of everything else,
that line is being upgraded, and there’s equipment and people.
We can’t shut the railroad down while you play detective.”
“I am a detective, Eddie.”
“And there’s that other little problem, too,” Eddie said.
Hook’s pulse ticked up. Eddie had been looking to nail him
for years.
“They give me a promotion over your head, Eddie?”
“In your dreams, Runyon. You might just recall dumping a
boxcar back in Amarillo.”
Hook lit another cigarette and watched Mixer dig through
Scrap’s trash.
“That switchman cut off his thumb, Eddie. What the hell was
I supposed to do, let him bleed to death?”
“And deprive the railroad of paying his medical pension for
the next thirty years?” Eddie said. “I should hope not.”
DEAD MAN’S TUNNEL
13
“I’m missing an arm, Eddie. No one pays me a pension.”
“That’s not your biggest problem, Runyon. For example,
there’s that little donation of Santa Fe property you made to the
St. John’s Orphanage.”
“They had a truck and volunteered to clean up the wreckage
if they could have the goods. I had to get that line open, didn’t I?”
“Oh, St. John’s was real glad to get the army cots,” he said.
“And the other things, too.”
Mixer found Scrap’s old lunch sack in the trash and proceeded
to tear it open.
“What other things?” Hook asked.
“That box of army condoms the kids opened back at the orphanage. They thought they were goddang balloons. The priest
said it looked like New Year’s Eve.
“So the diocese calls Chicago, and Chicago calls me. Turns
out everyone is unhappy.”
“Jesus,” Hook said.
“You’ve bagged your limit of Brownies for the year, Runyon.
I don’t know if I can head this thing off. Maybe you ought to
learn the salvage business just in case you have a career change.”
“I’d like to visit, Eddie, but there’s a corpse waiting.”
“Open and shut like they say,” Eddie said.
“Yeah,” Hook said. “Like they say.”
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