Death on the Patagonian Express Read online

  Their silence lasted until they got into their separate apartments, Fanny on the lower two floors of the Abel brownstone and Amy on the upper two. Amy went immediately to her greenhouse office on the top floor rear and brought her computer out of its sleep mode. A few minutes later she came down the three flights and found her mother in the rear garden, in a corner next to the wall, out of sight of the upper-floor windows.

  “I’m not even going to mention the fact that you’re smoking.”

  “Too late,” said Fanny. She took one long, last inhalation, then dropped her stub onto the gray slate tile and ground it under her heel. “The dwarf in the dark corner smokes. What can I say?”

  Amy took a deep, sighing breath. The smoking argument could be left for another day. “Mom, you know I’m on your side. You created Trippy. She’s you.”

  Fanny blew out the smoke in an even stream. “The me I wanted to be forty years ago maybe, before I settled into being this old stay-at-home mom. Not that I’m blaming you for putting me in that position.”

  Amy lowered herself onto one of the metal garden chairs. It was still wet from the melted snow, but she hardly noticed. “First of all, what does Sabrina know? She’s a teenager. And second, that’s still you. I don’t joyfully run into the face of danger, not on purpose. But Sabrina was right. We do have to start being careful about Trippy. That’s what she meant.”

  “I know what she meant,” said Fanny. “Your adventures are exaggerated and fun. Mine are made up and desperate and sad.”

  “Now you’re being maudlin.”

  “Desperate and sad and maudlin, right.” She tapped her skull. “Duh. How could I have left out maudlin?”

  “Okay. Changing the subject now.” Amy stood, the wet chair finally beginning to annoy her.

  “That’s right. Change the subject.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She paused dramatically. “I found out how Danny D’Angelo died.”

  “Oh?” Despite herself, Fanny was curious. “Was it a full-length mirror? They can be dangerous.”

  “Apparently, he was on a motor scooter in Old San Juan, in Puerto Rico.”

  “Was he checking his hair in the rearview mirror? Because you have a tendency to do that, too.”

  “No. He was riding down a very narrow street, trying to pass a bus. He got clipped by the bus’s rearview mirror and landed on his head on the cobblestones.”

  “Poor Danny.” Fanny stared off into the distance as the news of the tragic, random accident slowly sank in. Then she brightened. “You know, I think I can use this. Change Danny’s name and make him Trippy’s old high school flame.” Her excitement grew as she spoke. “He’s riding down an old narrow street, on his way to see her for the first time since graduation. Meanwhile, Trippy’s in that same fateful bus, looking casually in the rearview mirror, when she sees Danny in the mirror. Her heart leaps. Danny! He comes closer and closer to the mirror. And then bam . . . What a scene! Is that near enough to the truth for you?”

  Amy didn’t know what to say. “Fine.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Over the next few days, Amy spent more time than usual at Marcus’s, dropping by every evening after her workday and hanging out until one of them got hungry enough to pull the take-out menus from the wicker basket under the TV. It was a small two-bedroom, a third-floor walk-up in a brownstone just off of Sixth Avenue. The whole place was a little cramped and shabby. But for Amy it had the distinct advantage of not being home.

  “I like this,” Marcus said on the third evening in a row, as they lounged, cradled in each other’s arms, with just enough of his right arm free to work the remote. He was flipping through the Time Warner channels, not really paying attention. He gave up and pressed the OFF button.

  “It’s so nice when Terry’s not here,” Amy said and snuggled a little deeper. Terry was Marcus’s roommate and had been surprisingly absent during these blissful, long evenings.

  “I think Terry and Fiona are getting serious,” Marcus whispered in her ear.

  “That’s good.” Amy was grateful that Terry was otherwise occupied, but she always felt a twinge of jealousy when other people were getting serious in their relationships and she wasn’t.

  “Not so good, maybe,” said Marcus. “Or maybe very good.”

  Amy lifted her head half an inch from the warmth of his chest. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean Fiona has two roommates. And this apartment is legally in Terry’s name.”

  “Yes, of course.” She had known this fact and what it meant. It was an essential part of a larger discussion that they’d been having for almost a year now.

  Amy and Marcus’s relationship seemed to have two settings, high and low. High was full of adrenaline and passion and arguing about how to get out of one scrape after another, usually involving a murder. Low was most of the time in between, the months in which Marcus retreated into his unknowable self, and Amy had the time to look closer at the infuriating man who could lie even better than her mother and feel even less remorse. True, they were never big lies—details about his past or what he’d done yesterday. But they always wound up putting some emotional distance between them.

  “This could be our chance to move in together,” said Marcus. The words hummed up through his chest.

  Amy had to remind him. “The last time we looked for a place, you’d just lost your job and didn’t tell me. Oh, and my company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and you didn’t tell me that, either.”

  “But now we have more money,” said Marcus.

  “Do you still have your job as a concierge?”

  “I do. I even got a raise when they moved me to the Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park.”

  “You switched hotels?” She lifted her head again. “When did that happen?”

  Marcus had to think. “A month? My old boss never liked me, so Fanny and I arranged to get him fired.”

  “You got him fired?”

  “It was Fanny’s plan. Anyway, things got awkward after that, so . . .”

  “And you never thought to tell me?”

  “You would have wanted the ugly details, and Fanny made me promise.” He eased her head off his lap, and they both pushed themselves to a sitting position on the sofa. “The point is we can piece together a first and last month and a security deposit and an agent’s fee. Or . . .” And here he practiced his smile. It was hard to resist his smile. “Or we could save money. I happen to know of a fabulous two-floor walk-up on Barrow Street.”

  “No, you are not moving in with me.”

  “Why not?”

  He knew the answer, so she didn’t have to repeat it. Her move back home had been a temporary necessity after Eddie’s death. The house signified a childhood she would never be able to leave behind, not as long as she continued to live there. Plus, cementing their relationship would be impossible with her lovingly intrusive mother living mere feet away. And, most crucially, Fanny and Marcus were besties, cohorts in crime who shared a common sensibility and could outvote Amy at every turn. She had to at least try to keep them separated.

  “Okay,” said Marcus. His nod was reluctant and barely visible. “But we have to start thinking about an apartment. At least I do.”

  “Then let’s do it,” said Amy, pleased by her decisiveness. “Let’s pull the trigger. We can call an agent in the morning.”

  This practical discussion had sucked all the romance out of the moment, even though they were once again considering a commitment. The TV went back on. And when Terry finally walked through the door, looking tired and smugly happy, Amy took her cue and left.

  The night air was bone-chillingly damp as she wandered along the side streets off of Sixth Avenue. She could have cabbed it. It was just far enough, given the weather. Several taxis were cruising by, their roof lights aglow with welcome. But Amy needed to clear her head.

  * * *

  By the time she got out of the shower the next morning, everything looked brighter. This was almost always the case. If A
my had a talent, it was for ignoring her doubts and starting fresh. And nothing symbolized that better than a hot shower on a new day. She and Marcus would work things out.

  As for life with Fanny, there the prospects didn’t look so bright. The past few days had been uneventful, the predictable aftermath of an Abel family fight. The tradition dated back to when Stan Abel had been alive and, despite his best efforts, had managed to annoy his wife. Fanny would behave as though nothing was wrong. She would smile and wave away any mention of the presumed slight. But this was the calm in the eye of a hurricane, and soon enough she would find a way to make Stan pay. That was the main reason why Amy had been spending so much time over at Marcus’s. This hurricane calm could make you crazy.

  Amy’s phone dinged just as she was finishing with the blow-dryer. A text from Fanny. Was Amy up and in the mood for fresh coffee and bagels? Her heart clenched as she quickly messaged back. Love it! Just for safety’s sake, she made sure to get fully dressed and make herself presentable to the world, grabbing a pair of black matte Lafonts from the dresser so she could see her way down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 3

  When she walked in, Amy found a middle-aged gentleman sitting opposite her mother at the old oak table. She hadn’t anticipated this precise turn of events, but she wasn’t surprised. The man rose to his feet, as if royalty had entered the brown, cluttered, middle-class kitchen. “TrippyGirl,” he shouted almost joyously, the same way other people might shout “Happy birthday.”

  Even with that one word, Amy could sense an accent. Spanish? He looked Spanish. A man of medium height, dark complected, with a perfectly fitted black suit over a thin frame just beginning to show a middle-aged gut. His hair was long, thick, and wavy, black but streaked with silver, the way she thought Marcus might keep his in twenty years, if he managed to keep it.

  “Amy,” she said, correcting him, reaching out to shake hands. The man ignored the hand, reached for her shoulders, and drew her into an embrace, kissing her on both cheeks before letting go.

  “Yes, please forgive me. I am just such a fan of your Trippy. Jorge O’Bannion,” he announced, releasing her and bending at the waist in a courtly bow.

  She smiled back but didn’t ask questions. This was her mother’s game. She would find out the details soon enough.

  “I didn’t tell you Mr. O’Bannion was visiting?” asked Fanny. “I thought for sure I did.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Well, I meant to, but you were always over at Marcus’s.” Fanny was on her feet now, too, scurrying around the kitchen in imitation of a caring hostess. “Coffee with cream and an everything bagel, toasted.” She ducked around the refrigerator. “I’ll put on a second pot. Don’t let me get in the way. Jorge contacted us two days ago with a very interesting proposition.”

  “Two days ago?” Amy said. This couldn’t be good.

  “I’ll let Jorge speak for himself. Can I call you Jorge? Americans are so much less formal than Chileans, I imagine. That old-world charm, except that it’s in the New World, isn’t it?”

  “Your mother is extraordinary,” said Jorge O’Bannion with obvious amusement. He settled into a straight-backed chair, folded his hands gracefully across his waist, and began to explain himself. His voice rumbled with soothing authority.

  The saga, whatever had brought him here, had begun with his grandfather, Timothy O’Bannion, who emigrated as a boy from Ireland to Chile. Timothy was still a young man when he saw the potential for sheep ranching in the wide-open spaces of Patagonia, the rugged southern section of the continent. With a small inheritance and a lot of ambition, the Irish lad bought up land and political connections and transformed himself into a South American gentleman, marrying into one of the best families of old Chile.

  Generations of generous sheep had been good to the O’Bannion clan. The animals thrived in the grassy foothills. And when they produced too much wool and meat for domestic consumption, Timothy and a few other landowners persuaded the governments of Chile and Argentina to build railroads connecting the wilds of Patagonia to Buenos Aires on the Argentinean East Coast and to the town of Puerto Natales, far down on the Chilean West Coast. From there, O’Bannion wool went worldwide.

  “It was a good life,” said Jorge, warming his hands on his newly delivered second cup of coffee. His English was fluent, and his delivery self-deprecating and charming. “Or so the photographs show and my parents said, too. Those days were gone by the time I was born.”

  The two family ranches—estancias, as they were called—did well, he explained, even during the Second World War, supplying wool for uniforms and meat for a ravaged and hungry population. But with peacetime came hard times for the O’Bannions. The rest of the world started raising sheep again. And the wartime innovation of synthetic fibers made their old-fashioned wool seem suddenly itchy and uncomfortable and unpopular.

  “When my papa inherited the estancias, we were reduced in circumstances.” A wistfulness tinged his words. “Much of the family’s grazing land he turned over to tenant ranchers, who managed to eke out their lives. The big houses, with golden teak and mahogany floors from the Amazon forests, they were half empty and sad all throughout my boyhood. Ranching would never again be what it was. But my papa, he did not give up. He had a plan.”

  Fanny sat riveted. So did Amy, despite herself, despite the fact that she knew she was being manipulated. Manipulated into what, she didn’t yet know.

  “After the war, the outside world discovered the romance of South America,” Jorge O’Bannion said, perhaps even enhancing his romantic accent. “The gauchos of the pampas. Carmen Miranda. Fernando Lamas.”

  “Ricardo Montalban,” suggested Fanny.

  “Montalban was Mexican. But he played South Americans in the movies,” Jorge noted graciously. “In the nineteen fifties, North American tourists began coming. That gave Papa his plan.” He leaned across the table to both of them, as if sharing a secret or a million-dollar recipe. “He envisioned the tourists flying into Buenos Aires, taking luxury sleeper trains across the plains and getting off at South American ranches, what you call here dude ranches. They would stay in our estancias, ride horses into the mountains, camp out under the stars of the Southern Cross. All in first-class luxury.”

  “Sounds heavenly,” cooed Fanny, who had, to her daughter’s knowledge, never camped out or ridden a horse. At some point, she might have gazed up at a star.

  “But this plan never happened,” Amy guessed.

  “No,” Jorge said flatly. “Papa borrowed against our income, sold a few hundred acres, which became part of a national park. He bought fancy sleeper cars and began to restore the estancias for the visitors to come. But then governments changed. They were not so interested in supporting the sheep industry. Chile stopped running the railroads and abandoned the tracks. Papa died twenty years ago, a gentleman gaucho to the end, barely keeping the roofs from falling in, sending off the wool in trucks patched together with tape and spit.”

  “But times have changed again,” prompted Amy. “Patagonia tourism is more popular than ever. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Mr. O’Bannion?” In her mind, there were only two directions in which this could go—sheep or travel. And last time she checked, no one was tracking down the Abels for their expertise in sheep.

  Jorge smiled. “Not long ago, our world was a destination for backpackers. But then the travel press discovered us. We are the Eighth Wonder of the World, they say. Now the majestic glaciers and mountains attract very high-end resorts. But we are still a five-hour car ride or a private helicopter ride from anywhere.”

  “It sounds like your father had a good idea with the train,” said Fanny, pretending as if she’d never heard any of this before. “Ahead of his time.”

  “He did,” said Jorge. “And so do I. And so does, I am happy to say, a wealthy and well-connected businesswoman and dear friend. It is our fervent wish to fulfill my father’s dream.”

  “I see.” Amy nodded. “So Argentina
and Chile are reopening the railroads?”

  “The Argentine side never closed. But yes, the Chilean government has finally seen the wisdom of promoting tourism. As I said, my investor is well connected. We are restoring the Pullman carriages my father bought from the Orient Express company. And we’re redoing the estancias, more luxurious than my grandfather could have imagined. We have a name now, too. The New Patagonian Express. Like the old book.”

  “I know the book,” said Amy. The Old Patagonian Express was one of the first travel memoirs she’d ever read, recounting Paul Theroux’s epic journey from Boston to the tip of South America by rail. But the book wasn’t about luxury travel. It was a caustic travelogue about barely surviving on some of the worst railway systems in the world.

  “It’s a perfect name,” claimed Fanny.

  “Thank you. In return for our financial gamble, Chile is giving us seven years exclusive use of the tracks.” Jorge lifted his hands from his stomach, fingers still laced, reached forward, and cracked his knuckles. “As you might appreciate, Miss Abel, we have no time to waste. Now is the moment.”

  “Congratulations,” said Amy. “When is the inaugural trip?”

  “February. Next month. What they call a soft opening, to work out the flaws and generate publicity. Once we are operational, it will be a luxury assembly line. One group will be on the first train while another is at the first estancia and another on the second train—we will have two trains eventually—and another group at the second estancia. All carefully planned. My partner, Lola Pisano, hired a New York publicist, and he brought our attention to you, Miss TrippyGirl.” He extended a welcoming hand. “You have already done a train trip in Siberia, yes? I promise this one will be much more comfortable.”