Roomette Four, Window Side

The platform lamps threw long blue bars down the corridor floor as Officer Bettencourt walked Gail Whitcombe toward the steps.

She went without a word. At the vestibule a man in a railway windbreaker met her, Gerald Haskins from the platform desk, out of breath and holding out his palm. She unhooked the plastic card from its blue cord and laid it in his hand. He looked at it for a moment and then at me, and I saw his face work out how much he did not know about his own desk.

"Login's dead as of now," he said to Lockhart. "I'll get it in writing."

Lockhart held the train twenty-two minutes past the bell. Nobody in the sleeper said a word about it.

He came back with his handheld and a stiff formal look I had not seen on him yet. "Mr. Rooney. I have Yasmin Oduya, the railway's compliance director, on the line. She'd like to speak to you."

She was on speaker, out of a car somewhere in the dark. Her voice was flat and careful and sorry. She apologized for the room, for the corridor, for the arm. Then she offered me the return trip in a roomette on the house, and a written apology, and a good deal of money in a very careful sentence.

"I'll pay my own way home," I said. "In coach, if that's what I can afford."

"Mr. Rooney, the railway would prefer to..."

"Three families," I said. "Kettering, Ortega, Nyland. They lost their rooms this year. I want them found and paid back, with an apology that names the desk. And I want the dispute text turned on for every pass, not just one man's. My father should not have had to ask."

There was a long pause on the speaker. "Understood," Oduya said. "All of it."

Paulette Bassett had been standing against the corridor panel through the entire call. She stepped forward, and I saw how young she was, without her vest pin catching the light. "Mr. Rooney. I took her word. I put my hand on you because it was easier than checking."

"Check next time," I said. It was not cruelty. I just had nothing else in me.

Whitfield pressed a card into my palm. "My statement is already written," she said. "Call me for the rest." She went into Roomette 5 and closed the door with a click.

Lockhart handed me back the white card. I slid it into the brass slot beside Roomette 4 and it went home with a small dry sound.

ROONEY, D.

Inside, I lifted the oak box out of my duffel and set it on the window bench, beside the green notebook. The train shuddered and began to move. Platform lamps slid away, one after another, blue and white and gone.

In my coat the flip phone buzzed once. I took it out. The screen was small and lit.

ROOMETTE 4 CONFIRMED. SAFE TRAVELS, D. ROONEY.

I sat down across from my father and watched the lights go out.