The Christmas Train by David Baldacci Read Free Book Online

right, man? It’s always the hair.”
    “Okay, it was the hair.”
    “Thankyou, thankyouverymuch.” Tyrone did a little bump and grind.
    “I’m impressed.”
    “I know all the songs, all the hip moves. The man could cut it pretty good for a white dude.”
    “You been on this train long?”
    “I’ve been with Amtrak since ’93. Been on this train about seven years.”
    “I bet you’ve seen a lot.”
    “Oh, let me tell you, I’ve seen some stuff. People come on a train, man, it’s like they lose some inhibition gene or something. Now, I know all the crazy stuff that goes on in airplanes, when people get drunk and stuff, but those folks got nothing on crazy train people. Hey, you want a soda or something?”
    “Unless you got something stronger, and I’m really hoping you do.”
    Tyrone opened a beer for him and Tom settled against the wall to listen.
    Tyrone said, “My first trip on this train heading north, we’re pulling out of Pittsburgh at about midnight, okay, when I hear this yelling coming from one of the sleeper cars. Lounge car is all closed up, okay, and I’m off duty, but I go up there because there’s only one attendant per sleeper car, and I’m the new guy and wanted to make sure things were cool. Well, I get up there and you got one guy, naked as a jaybird, standing in the hallway with a nice-looking babe who’s got a little towel wrapped around her, see. And then we got one ticked-off lady in pajamas going for the guy’s throat, while Monique, the sleeping-car attendant, is trying to hold her back.”
    “What had happened, a little mixup in the sleepers?”
    “Oh, I bet Hubby wished that. See, thing was, the naked dude was caught in the act with his little mistress whom he’d paid to travel in her very own sleeper compartment two doors down from where he and the missus were staying. I guess he was into thrills or something. Hubby thought he slipped the little woman a sleeping pill so that he could go have himself some joy time with little miss whoopee, but the wife, she knew something was up, didn’t actually swallow the pill, followed her man and nailed them both.”
    “What happened?”
    “The mistress got off at the next stop. And the last I saw of lover boy, he and his chewed-up butt got off at Chicago.”
    As Tyrone was talking and working, a chain necklace slipped out of his shirt. Tom noted the object attached to it.
    “Where’d you get the Purple Heart?” he asked.
    “Persian Gulf,” Tyrone said, tucking the chain back in his shirt. “Army. Caught a leg full of shrapnel when a round hit our Bradley.”
    “I covered that war. The fighting was more intense than the reports showed back home.”
    “Well, it was intense enough for me.”
    “So I take it you like working here?”
    “Hey, it’s a job, but it’s fun too. I got me my little entertainment routine that I’m always working on, adding, subtracting. I have fun with the passengers, and the kids, especially. Man, there’s something about trains and kids, they just go together, you know what I mean?” He kept talking as he worked. “I’m on three days and then get four off. That’s how it works for the service crew on the long-distance trains. On the really long-route trains, like the Chief and the Zephyr, you work six and then get eight days off. Sounds like a lot of downtime, and it is, but six days going up and back, up and back, it gets to you after a while. You need time just to recover. Because when you’re on this train, you’re basically on call the whole time. Goes with the territory, but I like it. The crew is a team, we all pitch in, cover each other’s back, like a family.”
    “Think you’ll stay on the Cap?”
    “Don’t know. What I’m really thinking about is moving up the ladder to where the real money is.”
    “Where’s that? In management?”
    Tyrone laughed. “Management? Get serious. The cash is in being a redcap. Them dudes make tip money like they’re printing it.”
    “I