Grand Central Noir

Train to Nowhere – by Charles Salzberg and Jessica Hall

“YOU COME VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, Mr. Swann.”

“I have no idea who might recommend me, much less highly, but I’m not going to argue with them or you,” I said, as I gave my prospective client the once over.

I’d received the call from her – she said her name was Karyn Shaw, with a K and a Y, she pointed out – earlier that morning. She asked if we could meet in the Atrium at the Citicorp Building, on Third Avenue and 54th Street. So that’s where we were seated, at a table in the center of the large, open expanse. It was nearly 3 p.m., so the lunchtime crowd had evaporated and was replaced by a sprinkling of people obviously killing time till something better came along. I know what that’s like. I spend most of my life doing the same thing.

“How will I know you?” I asked.

She laughed. A throaty laugh. Like Lauren Bacall’s. I wondered if she could teach me how to whistle.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble picking me out of a crowd. Just look for a woman with long red hair that looks like it could use a comb through.”

She was right. I spotted her right away. She was sitting at a table in the middle of the Atrium, one floor below Barnes and Noble. Scratch Lauren Bacall and replace her with a slightly older version of Nicole Kidman and you’d have a better idea of what she looked like.

“I’ll get right down to business. I’d like to hire you to find someone,” she said, twirling a wooden stirrer in her Styrofoam cup of coffee.

“Who might that be?”

“My father.”

“Your father’s missing?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“A long time.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

She thought a moment.

“I’ve never actually met him.”

“That would qualify as a long time.”

“Forty-five years to be precise.”

“So why now?”

“You mean why look for him now?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“It seems like the right time, that’s why.”

I shrugged.

She pulled out one of those fake cigarettes, the ones that glow in the dark, and tapped it on the table. “I’m trying to quit,” she purred. “It isn’t easy. This helps. Maybe.”

She put the faux butt in her mouth, then quickly removed it and shoved it back into her oversized black bag. “It seems so ridiculous, but it helps just to take it out, look at it and stick it in my mouth.”

“Whatever does the trick. Back to your father. I don’t buy this ‘It seems like the right time’ business.”

“My mother died recently. I’m an only child. I have no other family. I thought I might like to see what I was missing.”

I refrained from telling her that from my own experience, she wasn’t missing much.

“I don’t work pro bono.”

“I didn’t think you did. I’m prepared to pay and I’m sure a man of your caliber doesn’t come cheap.”

Being a sucker for flattery, I also refrained from telling her just how cheap I came and how often. Why burst her bubble when we hardly knew each other?

“I’m prepared to pay the price, your price, so long as I think I’m getting quality.”

For my part, I was prepared to let her live with her illusions, especially this one. I asked her to tell me what she knew.

Her father was a Vietnam vet. He met her mother while they were students at a small upstate college after he came back from the service. They were together a year when she got pregnant. He took off. Her mother said he just couldn’t handle the stress, that he was never quite right after he got back from Southeast Asia. According to her mother, he suffered from terrible nightmares.

When she was finished telling me what she knew, I asked the appropriate questions.

Did he ever come back to visit?

Not that she was aware of.

What about his family?

He was from Ohio and she checked the web for the family name, Osborne, but she came up empty.

When she was finished, I shook my head. “I’m not a miracle worker,” I said.

“There is something else,” she said, her eyes dropping from me to the half-empty cup of joe.

“What’s that?”

“I do have what I think is a good lead for you.”

“What’s that?”

“I think he may be hanging in or around Grand Central Terminal. Maybe he works there or maybe…” – she paused a moment – “he’s homeless.”

“How do you know this?”

“When he was in the service he received a Bronze Star. Not long ago, it turned up in Grand Central.”

“What does that mean?”

“It was found amongst the belongings of a homeless woman. You know, the kind who wheel all their possessions around in a shopping cart and plastic bags. Obviously, it wasn’t hers, so the authorities tracked it down as belonging to my father. Donald Osborne.”

“She could have gotten it a dozen different ways.”

“She could, but she said she got it from the man who owned it. The authorities couldn’t find a current address, for him, I mean, my dad, so they could return it to him, but they did contact the Veteran’s Administration, and I found out about it through them when I began searching for him. I would suggest you start there.”

When I’d exhausted all the questions I could think of, she took out her checkbook, wrote me a check for a retainer of $1,000, which would cover two days’ work, and I was off and running. I promised a two-day turnaround. If it took longer we agreed to negotiate the additional cost.

Grand Central Terminal, not Station, which is a common error people make, is smack in the middle of midtown Manhattan. You start there or end there, and in this case it was the end or certainly near the end for many people who were and are so down on their luck that they have made GCT their home. Technically then, they are no longer homeless – they are simply unwelcome.

This was where I was to begin my search for Karyn’s father.

But first, I learned as much about him as possible.

His name was Donald Osborne. He was born in Ohio, a small town outside of Columbus. He enlisted in the army right out of high school, in 1968. He spent two tours of duty in Vietnam and was wounded, which is how he got the Bronze Star, saving three men by holding off the Vietcong for three hours, until help arrived. He served his time and then when he came back to the states he enrolled at Alfred University on the GI Bill, where he met Karyn’s mother. There was no record of them ever being hitched, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t the father.

His trail went cold soon after that. Karyn’s mother wasn’t alive, so I couldn’t get anything from her, and I couldn’t find anyone left close enough to be called family. I was able to dig up a photograph from an article in the college paper. Over forty years old, would be difficult to go by, but it was better than nothing. Osborne, dressed in his Army uniform looking stoic and proud, was standing in front of student services. Of greater interest was an article in the paper following his first week of attendance, showing protesters sitting on the school lawn holding signs. “Baby Killers NOT Welcome Here.” And “Give Peace a Chance.” Apparently the schools anti-war club didn’t think Osborne deserving of a hero’s welcome.

That was it.

The rest I’d have to learn by visiting where things started and ended.

Grand Central Terminal.

My first stop was security, where I asked about the found medal. Initially, I was met with blank stares and quizzical looks, but eventually I was able to track down the officer who’d found the woman who had the medal. Fortunately, he happened to be on duty that evening and I found him patrolling the downstairs area, where most of the homeless now congregated, sitting at the café tables intended for commuters. At first glance they might seem like anyone else traveling through, but after watching them for a while it was clear they weren’t going anywhere. Many of them sat without their coats on, surrounded by plastic shopping bags, newspapers, and empty coffee cups.

Lined with fancy restaurants like Junior’s and Zocalo, the place was just emptying out with the last of the commuters headed home for the night. I hadn’t been there for a while and it took me by surprise that the large, comfortable leatherette wing chairs had now been replaced by benches, obviously meant to keep the homeless from becoming too comfortable. Tables meant for the public to eat take-out food from several of the non-sit-down eateries, were mostly empty now, except for the homeless.

I spotted the cop, whose name was Doyle. He was kicking the soles of the feet of an old man, slumped over and sleeping, arms wrapped tight around a dirty plastic bag bulging with unidentifiable items. “Sir! Sir! You can’t sleep here, sir!”

“Excuse me,” I said, “I wonder if you could help me.”

“Information booth’s upstairs,” he said, still focused on his work.

“That’s not the kind of information I’m looking for.”

“You’re in a friggin’ train station, what other kind of information you want. Where the toilets are?”

“Wearing my Depends, so I’m good there. I’m looking for a homeless woman. Do you remember the woman you picked up the other day who had that Bronze medal in her cart? Don’t you think it should be returned to its rightful owner? Maybe if I can find who I’m looking for you’ll have one less person to roust.”

“She was shipped off to a shelter, but that doesn’t mean she’s not back here by now. They all come back. They complain the shelters are dangerous, and maybe they are. This is like home to them.”

“But it’s your job to get them out of here.”

“Personally, I couldn’t give a shit. So long as they don’t bother anyone, it’s fine with me. It’s just that we can’t allow them to sleep, make a mess of themselves, or bother the customers.”

“They have favorite spots, don’t they?”

“Yup.”

“And hers?”

“Over there, back table,” he said, gesturing behind me. “In fact, I think that’s her. Grey hair, pinned back, black sweater.”

I looked over my shoulder, and there, sitting at a small, round table, covered with newspapers, a water bottle and Starbucks coffee cup, and surrounded by three shopping bags, a coat on the back of her chair, was a surprisingly elegant looking woman.

“Her?” I said, nodding my head in her direction.

“Yup.”

“She looks almost… ”

“Normal?”

“Yeah, if there is such a thing.”

“She’s not bat-shit crazy, if that’s what you mean. But she probably has an alcohol problem, or she’s not on her meds. She’s lucid. At least she was the other day.”

“She got a name?”

“Lucy.”

I excused myself and headed over to Lucy’s table.

As I approached, she looked up and a look of fear spread over her face.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” I said, as I stopped a couple feet from her. “I just have a few questions. I’m looking for someone.”

She didn’t say anything, her bright blue eyes, surprisingly clear, seemed to look right through me.

“Mind if I sit down?”

She didn’t say anything, so I slowly, as non-aggressively as I could manage, pulled a chair out and sat down. She didn’t get up and leave, so I figured I could forge ahead.

“I understand you had a medal…”

“I didn’t steal it,” she said defensively, her body moving away from me slightly.

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

“They took it from me.”

“I know. I was just wondering who you got it from.”

“Why do you care?”

“I’m not going to lie to you, Lucy. That’s your name, right?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, never taking her eyes off mine.

“Well, I’m looking for the man who gave you the medal because his daughter hired me to find him. She wants to help him, if he’s in trouble.”

“He ain’t in no trouble.”

“Why do you say that?”

“We look out for each other down here. We’re like family. Ever since he showed up he’s been like an angel for everyone, looking out for us, getting us food, clothes, whatever we need. Me, I’m conducting research on human behavior.”

“His daughter would like to help him. Can you tell me where he is?”

“I can, but that don’t mean I will. He’s a friend of mine. That’s why he gave me the medal to hold on to, now they took that from me, too. What if you’re lying to me?”

“I’m not lying. I don’t want to hurt him, I just want to talk to him. Can you tell me how to find him?”

“You got any money?”

“You want me to give you money?”

“It look like I have any of my own?”

I reached into my back pocket and took out my wallet. I peeled off two twenties and laid them on the table. She eyed them a moment, then quick as a frog’s tongue, her hand shot out, she grabbed them, and stuffed them in her pocket.

She looked at me suspiciously a moment, then finally said, “He’s not here all the time.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“’bout an hour ago maybe, but I’m not too good with time.”

“Where’s his spot?”

“He moves around a lot. Maybe over by those tracks over there.” She indicated by bobbing her head past me, toward the east end of the terminal.

“Can you describe him to me?”

She laughed.

“That’s funny.”

“People think all us homeless people look alike. But he dresses up real good… for a homeless person. He’s got this gray jacket he wears. Looks like it came from a suit or something. And jeans. He always wears jeans. But they ain’t dirty jeans.”

“I’ll find him,” I said, as I got up. “Listen, Lucy, thanks.” I opened my wallet and put another twenty on the table. “Take care of yourself,” I said, but I don’t think she heard me.

Lucy’s description was right on target. Seated on a bench close to track 125, he was reading a newspaper, a carry-on bag at his feet. He looked like just another commuter. He ignored me until I got close enough so that I was standing only a couple of feet from him. Only then did he look up. We stared at each other a moment, sizing each other up.

He looked to be in his early-to-late sixties and didn’t look as if he’d been on the streets. He was clean-shaven, his grey hair cropped short, almost military style. He was dressed just as Lucy had described and was wearing a clean white Oxford button-down shirt and a faded blue tie. I recognized that same stoic expression as the guy in the school paper.

I sat down beside him, remaining silent for a moment. He paid me no attention. He was reading the Sports section of the Times.

“Yankees or Mets?” I asked in an attempt to break the ice.

He looked up.

“You’re Donald Osborne, aren’t you?”

I could feel an electric jolt coming from him, as he shot me a killer look.

“I’m not here to cause you any trouble,” I said as soothingly as I could. “But you’re him, aren’t you?”

“I used to be him. I’m not him anymore.”

“That’s fine, because I’m only interested in the him you were, not the him you are now.”

“Funny, ’cause I’m only interested in the now. What do you want?”

“I found you after the cops picked up Lucy and found your medal. It wasn’t hard to track you from there. And as to why, well, someone wants to meet you. You served in Vietnam, didn’t you?”

“Yes. They called me a war hero, but for the past forty-four years I’ve been trying to push that stuff out of my head. That and a lot of other stuff. I done some horrible things, other things, things I shouldn’t have done. I live this way ’cause I deserve to live this way. Hell, maybe I don’t deserve to live at all. At least down here there’s people I can help, and no one pays any attention. We’re all invisible here. Invisible in plain sight. I ain’t nothin’ anymore. It can be rush hour, packed, and I’ll be sipping my coffee and going through the trash, and sometimes I’ll notice a kid staring at me. I wish I could say something to put them at ease. They look so scared and confused. Like the rest of the world, only we don’t show it.

“They said it was my fault. We were crying like babies, worse than that, ’cause we were armed and we knew what we were doing, but it was us or them and self-preservation won out. Sometimes, when I’m lowering myself down the tracks for the night, between closing the terminal and the dawn of rush hour, I feel like I’m going down that foxhole. But alone. We’re born alone, we died alone.”

I wanted to stop him, to get him back on track, but I couldn’t. Maybe I didn’t want to. He had to get this out and maybe I was the only one who would listen to him.

“I like going to the public library. It’s the only place in the world I feel safe. Where life’s predictable. Where I can have control. I knew this day would come. What now?”

“Does the name Karyn Shaw mean anything to you?”

“Jesus.” He almost whispered, putting his hands up and covering his eyes. “God help me.”

“She’s your daughter?”

“I don’t have anyone. Except maybe people like Lucy, people who are as bad off as me. We look out for each other, you know.”

“You’re sure you don’t have a daughter?”

“She’s not my daughter. I don’t know her.” He said, but he was looking ahead in a way that told me he was looking back, looking back at a picture that included Karyn.

There wasn’t any point in going further. Either Osborne was lying or Karyn was mistaken. Either way, I was at a dead end, so I left him a couple of twenties and took off.

I called Karyn and asked her to meet me the next morning in the Atrium, 10 a.m.

“You found him?” she asked, and I could tell she was excited.

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning.”

The next day, Karyn was at the same table, waiting for me.

“So, where is he?”

“He says he doesn’t have a daughter.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“He’s telling the truth, isn’t he?”

She paused a moment before answering. “No.”

“Sure he is. He’s not your father, is he?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m good at what I do, Karyn. Things just didn’t add up. You’re not exactly who you led me to believe you were.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I did some research on you and Donald Osborne. You two are connected, but not the way you want me to believe. He’s not your father, but he did have something to do with your father.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your father didn’t disappear after you were born, he was killed. By Donald Osborne.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

After finding Osborne, I’d gone back to read more copies of the school paper, that weren’t available online. I read them on microfilm at the Public Library, hoping I wouldn’t run into Osborne thus possibly destroying his last refuge. Osborne wound up joining the anti-war group, and was a participant in a bombing of the on-campus recruitment center. The bomb went off at night. The group said they didn’t intend to hurt anyone. Unfortunately, the night custodian was polishing the floors and was blown to bits.

“Osborne let on that he’d done some horrible things, and he wasn’t just talking about Vietnam. I knew there was something else and when I researched him I found that when he got back from the war he joined an extreme anti-war movement, one that was violent in nature. He was involved in a bombing at a university where your father was a custodian at the recruitment center. He was killed and Osborne became a fugitive. And even though there’s no proof that Osborne planted the actual bomb, that’s what you believe happened. You hired me to find him and it doesn’t take much imagination on my part to figure out why.”

“I don’t have a father because of him.”

“That may be true, Karyn, but believe me he’s paid for it over the years. You wouldn’t want to be him. You wouldn’t want to be leading the life he’s led. He’s suffered enough, more than if you did anything to him. Trust me, you’ve had your revenge. Just by knowing one of the men who died at his hands had a daughter, is enough to make his life even more miserable. I don’t know what you had in mind but my advice is, drop it, let it go. Move on.”

She dropped her head for a moment. When she raised it again I could see tears forming in her eyes.

“I lost my father because of him.”

“I know. And you can’t get him back by taking revenge on Osborne. You’ll only be allowing him to ruin your life more than he already has. Believe me, you’re better off than he is.”

“I want to see for myself.”

“I can’t stop you, but I don’t think you should, and I won’t help you by telling you how to find him.”

“I can hire someone else.”

“Sure you can, but you won’t because you know I’m right.” I took out my wallet and pulled out the check she’d given me the day before. I stared at it a moment, then handed it back to her.

“I could take your money and I should. I did what you paid me to do. But I won’t. And believe me, this is not the kind of thing I usually do, and I know I’ll hate myself in the morning for doing it. But I’m making a point here. I’m giving you a chance to start all over again, to erase yesterday from record. Take the money, Karyn, and forget about Donald Osborne.”

I got up and walked away. Away from Karyn Shaw, away from a grand that should have been mine. I might regret it in the morning but right now I was feeling pretty good about myself.

I knew it wouldn’t last long, but for now it was worth it.