The Empire Builder

It was at that moment, Jason Bishop leaned over the court rail from the first row of spectator seats and whispered in Liz's ear. He was by then known as a first-class bankruptcy hack after only five years in practice,

"I elect under 1111B for my client."

She heard the words but had no idea of their meaning and hesitated. The voice behind her spoke again, and it was firm, "I elect under 1111B for my client."

"Your honor," Liz began, "I elect under 1111B for my client."

The Judge jerked straight up in his chair, and the bankrupt's attorney was on his feet objecting.

However, the Judge could only grumble and allow the election. Liz knew something had happened that greatly displeased her opponent, but she couldn't understand what it was.

Outside in the courthouse hall, she gazed up, despite her heels, into the deep-blue eyes of her benefactor and asked, "What did I just do?"

"Saved your client's lien."

It was all he said as he walked away. He was a big ox of a man. He was neither handsome nor well-dressed and, yet he had about him a certain alpha-male animal magnetism. He would prove to be a man of few words who everyone listened to.

Jason Bishop, aka Bishop or simply JB, was a night school graduate. He founded his practice from his car and was working his way up the bankruptcy court ladder with frequent stopovers in the criminal court.

On the return of the bankruptcy partner from vacation, the young Ms. Loftis was given accolades for her quick thinking and discovered that, in fact, she had saved the day. She didn't mention the help she had received through the intervention of a stranger.

She went looking for that stranger when she found herself going back to bankruptcy court again. However, she first purchased a copy of "Bankruptcy Law in a Nutshell." When she saw her man, she went right for him. Liz usually got what she wanted. It had been that way all her life, and so Jason Bishop was just a big man who represented a small challenge.

On his side, JB knew the bankruptcy code by heart, but very little about women. Unlike the privileged Elizabeth Loftis, he was born into a lower-middle-class family in Canarsie. His family was an old one, but several hundred years of poverty is still poverty.

Jason Bishop had ambition and a taste for the expensive things in life. It was a weakness that Liz, one day, would exploit. However, back then, all she needed was the fatal ability she had been developing since before mother nature converted the little-girl into the young woman. Where men were concerned, Liz had an appetite that knew no restraint and an ability to attract the male gender that was the envy of her feminine peers.

Jason's capture took Liz all of a month. It was the fact that it took that long to bring down her quarry that astonished her. The problem was that JB didn't like her or, more accurately, he didn't like what she stood for, the privilege of wealth.

For her social class, Liz was not notably priggish or insensitive to others. However, it is impossible to be completely free of one's upbringing. She was a person brought up in wealth, which meant elite private schools, Harvard instead of the University of Washington, and Vacations in Europe and the Far East. She was rich and entitled, and she knew it and thought nothing of money. Wealth was a fact, and one she didn't have to think about.

Jason was the opposite. He had no money, and his world was delimited by that fact. He had no true place in the legal profession. That's why he had been relegated to the bankruptcy and criminal arenas. Where he excelled but was widely disliked or more precisely feared. In a game with twisted rules, where the apparently losing hand was the normal winner, Bishop was a superstar.

It wasn't love at first sight, but neither could deny the attraction that existed on multiple levels. Liz enticed him, and despite an inner voice that whispered caution, JB let himself be drawn into a relationship with a woman who was his exact opposite.

It might not have gone anywhere had cupid or whatever fickle god of love out there had not taken a hand. Liz found herself in love with a big ox of a poor boy, and he was cupid's reluctant victim. One more male who had let his heart rule his head and would live to regret it.

*****

Big Bob Loftis lived in a mini-mansion overlooking Lake Washington, in Seattle. He technically lived alone since his wife, Karen, died giving birth to Elizabeth's brother Robert Junior. Little Bob was a man who was nothing like his father. Fate, or a quirk of genetics, had determined that he couldn't be.

Where Big Bob was a short, stout man, who other men claimed had a constitution of iron and nerves of steel, his son was tall but reed-thin and weak. Moreover, little Bob had been a sickly child and deprived of a mother; he grew up a bit starved for affection and was selfish for it.

Little Bob was doted on by his big sister. She seemed to have inherited all the looks and brains, before her brother could get a share of any of it. His father overcompensated and spoiled him shamelessly. Consequently, Little Bob the man was still a selfish boy and well-deserving of his diminutive nickname.

Big Bob had been a Boeing Engineer when opportunity came knocking. A graduate of North Seattle College, the middle-class Robert Loftis, knew a good opening when he saw it.

He had risen to the manager level at Boeing when the opportunity arose to take the CEO position with a struggling aeronautics parts supplier. Two years later, the company he ran, Precision Aeronautics, was the leader in its field, and Bob Loftis would come to be its majority owner.

It was with trepidation that a wealthy but lonely man met his only daughter's proposed husband. The trepidation was short-lived. It took only five minutes for the small but dynamic man to size up the much larger man as a good-natured and dependable giant.

Within the hour, Bob was calling his future son-in-law JB and by the time of the wedding ceremony in St. James Cathedral, the father of the bride and the husband were thick as thieves, in the literal sense.

The wedding was in Seattle, and that was why fourteen years later Jason Bishop was in Penn Station waiting for the Lake Shore Limited to take him to Chicago. Leaving in the late afternoon, the train would arrive in Chicago in the morning some nineteen hours later.

There were only two places you could file for divorce. That was in the state in which the parties were domiciled or the state in which they were wed. The Bishops lived in New York, an equitable distribution state, and they were married in the State of Washington, a community property state. On that little variation in the law, there hung a hundred billion-dollar prize.

Jason Bishop had been waiting two years for the opportunity. He was slipping out of New York without notice and headed for Seattle, Washington. There a set of divorce papers were ready for the filing, and all they needed was his signature.

The why of the divorce had several levels, and none of them pleasant. There was infidelity, corporate malfeasance, an arrogant wife, and an unscrupulous and ne'er do well brother-in-law.

After buying his, ticket Bishop took a seat in the cattle pen of a waiting area. He looked oddly out of place in his wingtip shoes, Brooks Brothers pinstriped suit, and button-down oxford shirt. His clothing shouted Wall Street lawyer.

Two men approached. They were a Mutt and Jeff pair. A tall Mediterranean looking man and a much-shorter lighter complexioned fellow. As they approached, Bishop stood and then hugged each man in turn, first the shorter man, Anthony the Tiger Mancuso and then the Taller, Big Nicky, who was Tony's enforcer.

"I still think this trip is a mistake," Tony said again.

The three men had been friends since they grew up together on the street of Canarsie. Tony was now a Capo of the Cabrasie crime family.

Bishop said earnestly, "Like I've been saying. I need to get to Seattle to file for divorce and keep control of my company."

"Yea, but an accident would be safer and more efficient," Nicky chimed in.

"She's still my wife. Whatever she may have done, I'm not going to see her killed. What would I say to my kids."

Tony nodded his head in understanding, but he gripped the arm of his friend and said, "Look, you be careful, once you cross the state line at Erie, you are out of our jurisdiction and fair game. The Russians want you dead."

"Hey, relax. They won't expect me to be on a train. They'll be looking at the airports, and besides, you know me, I always hit first."

Both Tony and Nicky laughed at the last comment. When they were kids Bishop had always been the one to start the fight. It was how they met in a school yard brawl. They had started out as opponents and ended up as friends. The three Musketeers one for all and all for one, but what Bishop did now he did alone.

Tony took his friend's right hand and gave it a good squeeze despite the CDC's warnings to the contrary. And then he said, "You be careful, and I promise if you don't make it, those fucking Russians won't live to enjoy their spoils."

Just then, the Departure board lit up, and the announcer called the boarding for the Lake Shore Limited. Tony gave his friend a last hug and slipped an envelope into his pocket.

"What this?" Bishop asked, fingering the edge of the envelope and realizing it was crammed full of something.

"Your share of the Thompson bust out counselor," Tony informed Bishop. "I've washed it all nice and clean for us.

Jason frowned, "you told me that case was on the up and up. That Tommy Thomson was just a businessman who had an unfortunate run of luck."

"He did," Nicky quipped, "But it was at our sport's book."

"And his property in Brooklyn?" Jason asked.

"I'm going to build a nice social club in Canarsie. Improve the neighborhood," Tony said with a laugh.

Then he smiled and patted his friend's pocket that held the envelope. "it's fortunate," he said, " that I never tell my attorney things he doesn't want to know and can't divulge."

With a final laugh, the three men parted.

Silviya Glonti was wearing a surgical mask as she manned the register at the Sarbro's. Normally, the station would have been too full for her to have noticed the three men, but the virus had nearly emptied Penn Station, and she had a clear view.

She had noticed the man who was clearly an upscale lawyer when he first entered the train station but had paid him only passing attention. However, her interest picked up when Tony the Tiger entered with his oversized thug.

She had no idea what the meeting was about. But she was sure that there would be people interested in why the mob was meeting with its lawyer in the train station in the middle of a pandemic.

Silviya's eyes were not the only ones that caught the meeting of the Musketeers. Ted Carter Special Investigator for the New York Attorney General was on his way home to Utica from an assignment in Manhattan.

He just happened to recognize Tony Mancuso. The pass of the envelope had been subtle and fast, but Ted's sharp eyes had caught it. He had friends in the FBI who he was sure would be interested.

****

The idea of taking the train cross country came to Ellie after she'd moved her stuff out of her former lover's house and into the little hole-in-the-wall apartment over on Clinton.

Her guess was that their old place would only be King's for ninety more day; or however long it took the bank to kick him out. It had been her salary that paid the mortgage. But that was his problem now.

She didn't have many things, clothes, a bike, and her athletic gear. So, it was easy to just transfer everything to the apartment. Union station was right up the street. Hence, she was a little over-involved with the railroad industry. She didn't mind the sound of those big diesels during the day. But it took some getting used to in the middle of the night.

Most of the rail traffic was freight. But every-once-in-a while there were sleek silver passenger trains, most of them double-decked. It was exciting watching them pull out for parts unknown, looking like they'd fallen out of a time warp from the 1950s. That gave her an idea.

Nobody flew these days due to social distancing. Being crammed into an aluminum sardine can breathing recirculated air was an invitation to catch the virus. She wondered what other, older forms of transportation might be like.

So, she spent a bit of time on the Amtrak website, and they had a train that went all the way from Chicago to Seattle. It took a couple of days, and it passed along the Lewis and Clark trail. What wasn't to like about an adventure like THAT?

She pitched Joe about the colorful insights that she could get taking the old-fashioned way from Chicago to the coast in the age of social distancing and he loved it.

Hence, that Friday, Ellie found herself passing through the ornate glass entrance on Canal Street and down the same iconic flight of stairs where Costner saved the baby in the Untouchables. Then she crossed the almost empty Great Hall to the track where the Empire Builder was boarding passengers.

She wanted the cross-country train experience. But she didn't want to ride for two days sitting in coach with a bunch of people wearing masks. The roomette was the answer to social distancing. One of the best things about it was that you could simply board without a TSA rectal exam. Another was that you could just drop your backpack in the roomette any time you wanted to.

Ellie'd seen the old black and white movies with the spacious train bedrooms. She knew that this wasn't that kind of experience. A roomette is essentially a four by seven box, closed off by a little door that you slide across for privacy.

The space itself is deceptively efficient. There was a big seat that would eventually be made into a bed and a little sink that folded down. There were also accommodations for her computer gear, including wi-fi, as well as a little closet.

The car had an aisle with the roomettes on each side. It was tight but navigable. She was bent over, leaning into her roomette, settling her backpack onto the smaller of the two seats. Her butt must have been sticking out because some careless son-of-a-bitch came along and hipped her face first into her cabin.

There was a lot of crashing and banging as she caught herself on the little shelf between the seats. She pivoted angrily to confront the inconsiderate asshole. He could see the fire in her eyes, and he was making a placating gesture with his hands.

Ellie was about to rip into him when she noticed his face. He was very big. She could understand why he'd run into her in the confined space of the aisle. He wasn't pretty, kind of huge and muscular. But his face had something about it. It was an odd mix of quick-witted intelligence and decisiveness, all in the guise of an unassuming nerd. Ellie was intrigued.

He said flustered, "My God! I'm sorry." She huffed and said, "Well, be careful. We're neighbors." She was in roomette one, right next to the john, and he was obviously across the aisle in two.

A smile lit up his face. He stuck out his hand and said lightheartedly, "Well, howdy neighbor." Ellie shook it the way a guy would, social distancing be damned, and said sarcastically, "Maybe I'll see you around town." It was a nice hand, strong, warm, and reassuring.

She found herself speculating like all girls do. He was about as opposite King as you could get. But there was something about him. King was an intimidating guy; handsome, smooth and super-outgoing. While this one bore a striking resemblance to a silverback gorilla. Yet, he radiated an uncanny personal magnetism.

It was partly his immaculateness. Everything he wore was either Vineyard Vines or Ralph Lauren. Every personal feature, from his pricey haircut down to his highly polished shoes, broadcast his intense focus on detail. The other part was the way he held himself, low key but supremely confident. This wasn't a person who backed down from any type of challenge.

But it wasn't in the Neanderthal way that King approached things. This guy knew he was smarter than everybody else. He could find his way around anybody. Ellie's little venture into the world of cross-country train travel had suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.

She had been hit on by guys just like this fellow. But they flew around the country in corporate jets. They didn't travel stuffed in a "superliner roomette" on a cross country train. She was a trained journalist. She had instincts. They told her that she needed to find out who this dude was.

She tried perky. She said, "My name is Ellie Andrews, what's yours?"

He looked her straight in the eye and outright lied, "It's Smith, John Smith." She gave him her most alluring smile and said, "Maybe I'll see you later, John." Then she slipped into her "compartment," sat down and got out her laptop.

In essence, a roomette is nothing more than a couple of rows of double seats turned facing each other. The people in steerage all rode in seats just like that. But they didn't have a privacy wall around them. Privacy gave her adequate distancing.

Customers are basically buying the separation from the herd, plus a bed, a little sink and closet. Those features take up the space that the area nearest the sliding door would occupy. So, when they do up your bed in the evening, you are essentially sleeping on the two window seats slid together.

The other feature was the little table in between and all of the plugs and connectivity you'd need to browse the internet. As a writer and reporter, Ellie lived on the internet. So, she had everything she needed to write her story. Plus, the roomette wasn't that much smaller than her Chicago bedroom.

As one-o'clock approached, there was a horn blast off in the distance, a bang and a lurch, and the covered tracks of the station began to move past her window. The train emerged into the sunlight of a beautiful Chicago summer afternoon and began to slowly accelerate through the city, on the way to Milwaukee, St. Paul, and points west.

The clickety-clack and swaying of the train and the occasional horn blasts added a touch of motivation to her writing. Her other inspiration was the guy across the aisle. He would need some looking into.

*****

Bishop was watching the Chicago suburbs roll past as he sorted through his feelings. He had enough problems to deal with, between his bitch wife, douchebag brother-in-law and the Russian Mob. So, he didn't need any more complications. But the woman he had just bumped into, insisted on raising a few for him anyhow.

He'd considered the train gambit a stroke of genius. It was a relatively safe way to travel, and they'd never think to look for him on a train. Plus, the roomette wasn't as bad as he'd thought. It was forty-three hours of boredom, stopping in places like Detroit Lakes, Fargo, and Sand Point. But he could hunker down undisturbed and finalize his plans. The fact that he had full internet connectivity from a moving point of origin made those plans a whole lot easier and safer to implement.

The problem lay with the woman in the compartment across from him. She wasn't like any of the females in the uber-preppie world of New York society, least of all his whore wife. This one was very attractive, maybe even gorgeous, in a fresh-faced, kick-your-ass-and-take-your-name no nonsense midwestern way. She was young, not a college girl, perhaps mid-to-late-twenties, and her body was out of this world, long-legs, tight hips, and a shirt replete with a full set of big, round tits.

He shook his head, disgusted with himself for letting his mind wander. He had to focus on his current problem, which was survival, and that meant watching for anything suspicious. He was sure that the Loftis family and Petrokof were frantically searching for him.