Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [387]
Then, calling his girl friend to join him, Clifton Locey drove to a country roadhouse—to make certain that no one would be able to find him in the next few hours.
The dispatcher at Silver Springs was baffled by the order that he handed to Dave Mitchum, but Dave Mitchum understood. He knew that no railroad order would ever speak in such terms as giving an engine to a passenger; he knew that the thing was a show piece, he guessed what sort of show was being staged, and he felt a cold sweat at the realization of who was being framed as the goat of the show.
“What’s the matter, Dave?” asked the trainmaster.
Mitchum did not answer. He seized the telephone, his hands shaking as he begged for a conection to the Taggart operator in New York. He looked like an animal in a trap.
He begged the New York operator to get him Mr. Clifton Locey’s home. The operator tried. There was no answer. He begged the operator to keep on trying and to try every number he could think of, where Mr. Locey might be found. The operator promised and Mitchum hung up, but knew that it was useless to wait or to speak to anyone in Mr. Locey’s department.
“What’s the matter, Dave?”
Mitchum handed him the order—and saw by the look on the trainmaster’s face that the trap was as bad as he had suspected.
He called the Region Headquarters of Taggart Transcontinental at Omaha, Nebraska, and begged to speak to the general manager of the region. There was a brief silence on the wire, then the voice of the Omaha operator told him that the general manager had resigned and vanished three days ago—“over a little trouble with Mr. Locey,” the voice added.
He asked to speak to the assistant general manager in charge of his particular district; but the assistant was out of town for the week end and could not be reached.
“Get me somebody else!” Mitchum screamed. “Anybody, of any district! For Christ’s sake, get me somebody who’ll tell me what to do!”
The man who came on the wire was the assistant general manager of the Iowa-Minnesota District.
“What?” he interrupted at Mitchum’s first words. “At Winston, Colorado ? Why in hell are you calling me? ... No, don’t tell me what happened, I don’t want to know it! ... No, I said! No! You’re not going to frame me into having to explain afterwards why I did or didn’t do anything about whatever it is. It’s not my problem! ... Speak to some region executive, don’t pick on me, what do I have to do with Colorado? ... Oh hell, I don’t know, get the chief engineer, speak to him!”
The chief engineer of the Central Region answered impatiently, “Yes? What? What is it?”—and Mitchum rushed desperately to explain. When the chief engineer heard that there was no Diesel, he snapped, “Then hold the train, of course!” When he heard about Mr. Chalmers, he said, his voice suddenly subdued, “Hm ... Kip Chalmers? Of Washington? ... Well, I don’t know. That would be a matter for Mr. Locey to decide.” When Mitchum said, “Mr. Locey ordered me to arrange it, but—” the chief engineer snapped in great relief, “Then do exactly as Mr. Locey says!” and hung up.
Dave Mitchum replaced the telephone receiver cautiously. He did not scream any longer. Instead, he tiptoed to a chair, almost as if he were sneaking. He sat looking at Mr. Locey’s order for a long time.
Then he snatched a glance about the room. The dispatcher was busy at his telephone. The trainmaster and the road foreman were there, but they pretended that they were not waiting. He wished Bill Brent, the chief dispatcher, would go home; Bill Brent stood in a corner, watching him.
Brent was a short, thin man with broad shoulders; he was forty, but looked younger; he had the pale face of an office worker and the hard, lean features of a cowboy. He was the best dispatcher on the system. .
Mitchum rose abruptly and walked upstairs to his office, clutching Locey’s order in his hand.
Dave Mitchum was not good at understanding problems of engineering and