The Radio On His Belt

Lockhart stepped between Paulette and me and raised the radio, and the space where I had been standing got very small.

"Read me the room status," he told Paulette. "Now."

She fumbled the handheld off her wrist strap. It slipped, hit the carpet edge and skidded against the baseboard, a long pale scuff across its screen. She snatched it up and held it to her vest. "He knocked it, Conductor. When I tried to guide him back, he struck my handheld."

I felt my mouth go dry. "I never touched it."

"She let it go herself," said the woman in Roomette 5. "And she guided him by the arm, with some force. I watched from the door."

"You didn't see the whole thing, ma'am," Paulette said.

"I saw enough for a sworn statement," the woman answered, "which I am happy to give."

The man in the fleece vest shrugged. None of it was his business. The woman in the camel coat laid a hand on her chest.

"Raymond, I don't want anyone arrested," she said. "That's the last thing. Just have him step onto the platform and cool off. He's grieving. We all understand."

Understanding. She handed me the word and expected me to leave wearing it.

"I'll stay right here," I said. I held my hands open at my sides, empty, where everyone could see them. "I haven't raised my voice and I haven't laid a hand on anyone. Read the room. That's all I'm asking."

Lockhart looked at Paulette's cracked screen. He looked at the clock on the corridor wall. I watched him do the arithmetic of a man who is measured on how punctually he leaves, and not on how well he is remembered.

He keyed the radio. "Night Heron to platform. I have a disputed occupancy in the sleeper, car six, and a possible disturbance. I need rail police to track three."

The radio hissed. A flat voice came back. "Copy, Night Heron. Officer Bettencourt, ninety seconds out."

"Ninety seconds," Lockhart said to me. His voice was not unkind. It had no room in it. "If you're standing in this corridor when he arrives, it goes on the record with your name, and I can't take it off."

A bell rang somewhere on the platform, once, a test stroke.

I had four days of nothing but paperwork behind me. Now I had a police report waiting for my name.