Chapter XIX #2
Mae paused. “Well, be that as it may, the only way to change it is to work from within the system to effect change. And to do that in a timely fashion, we need to rely on procedural gaps that have been exploited.” Mae purposefully lowered her voice.
“What you have constitutes conjecture and feeling. Nowhere in your observations are there any provable facts that can be legally brought before a judge.”
“How do you know?” Henry sneered. “I didn’t know you went to law school while I was busy practicing law…”
Mae recoiled as if she had been slapped.
How could he throw that in her face? All these years she had been scraping information from case files and drafting motions—his motions. Just because she didn’t have “Esquire” after her name didn’t mean she didn’t know how the legal system worked. Her mouth worked, but no words were forthcoming.
Henry watched her reaction, and his lips flattened into a line as a pained expression descended over his face. His hand reached toward her, but his feet remained rooted on the floor on the other side of his desk. “Mae…” he finally mustered.
Mae stood and scooped up her coat and bags. As she stormed out of their office, she spat, “I’m going to get Simon.”
* * *
She had stormed out to get Simon. Henry had stayed.
She was on a train going west to prove a corruption scheme Henry had already mapped. She had called it conjecture. She had used the word na?ve.
“I’ve need of the lavatory in the sleeper,” Mae informed Winona.
“Aye, I’m a wee bit tired meself.”
Mae nodded. She would have a shadow for the next several days.
As she turned toward the sleeper car, the quiet of the observation car unnerved her.
There were few people left. The girls had gone, as had the two couples.
The man who had been watching the girls earlier in the Pullman was now sitting in the last section before the vestibule.
She felt Winona press forward against her back quickly as they passed him.
The Pullman porter began making his rounds. Mae watched as he slogged down the aisle, checking his berth list. As he stopped at each curtain, he checked something off on his manifest.
Mae noticed the porter poke his head into one of the curtains, and a man exited to follow the exhausted porter to the vestibule at the opposite end.
He apparently couldn’t find his ticket. The slender gentleman patted his jacket and shoved a hand into each pocket, trying unsuccessfully to locate his ticket.
Panic began to take over his systematic search, and his mouth moved faster, although Mae couldn’t make out what he was saying in hushed tones.
Slowly, the porter shook his head and gestured to the vestibule behind them.
The man stamped his foot and gestured wildly around the car before exiting.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered as he squeezed by Mae and Winona in the vestibule with his suitcase and stomped through the exit. As he passed, Mae averted her eyes from the scene and concentrated her focus on her firmly grasped ticket.
“Oh, my…” breathed Winona next to her. “Poor man…”
Mae stayed silent. She wondered how Winona had managed to finance a Pullman ticket. She saw that the opening to their berth was the first after the vestibule. The porter had made his way halfway down the stretch of the car before they slipped behind the curtain of their berth.
Mae jumped as the porter poked his head through the curtain. “Can I confirm your tickets, Ma’am?” The porter looked at Mae expectantly and held out his hand.
Mae handed her ticket to him. He scanned it, nodded, and handed it back. “Thank you. And you, Miss?”
A loud thud sounded from outside the curtain, and the porter’s irritated grunt preceded his disappearance behind the curtain.
Mae noticed a slight tremor in Winona’s hands before she clasped them in her lap. “I don’t have a sleeper ticket, Mae,” she whispered softly.
Mae's eyes went wide. “Winona, you can’t stay here without one. You saw what they did to that man just now.”
“I know, but I was hopin’ they wouldn’t be so strict on the checkin’.” Her hands started a wringing motion in her lap. “Can’t ye jus say I’m yer companion? Maybe ye had me ticket under yers? Or I was a late add?”
Mae's mouth fell open incredulously as she sucked in a breath. “You mean you expect me to lie? But what if they find out? Then we will both get kicked off.” Mae shook her head. “No. No, I can’t risk it.”
“But me Lily. She needs me too. Jus as much as yer Simon needs you.” Winona’s eyes looked pleadingly into Mae's in the dim light sneaking through the edges of the curtain.
Before Mae had a chance to respond, the porter poked his head back through.
Mae glanced at Winona, who had schooled her panicked features.
Mae turned back to the porter. His weary eyes clung to her face.
Should she risk it? She thought of the man being forced out of the Pullman section with his suitcase in hand.
What would Henry do? “She is with me. She was a late replacement as my husband wasn’t able to accompany me.
He said that he had already paid. Do you need her name for the listing?
” This lie tasted worse than her previous one, but what else could she do?
Tired eyes jogged from Mae to Winona and then to Mae’s wedding band. Raising an eyebrow, he looked around the small space with one mattress the size of a double bed and heaved a sigh. “I don't care a rap—but don't make me regret it.” He marked something on his manifest and harrumphed out.