He pushed open the door and stepped out into the bright light. He blinked. The ground was unsteady under his feet. The awnings of the gas station, the big blue sign, the cars and trucks streaming by on the freeway, all seemed unreal. It didn’t matter about Inez now; he had bigger fish to fry. The phone booth was right there, just outside the restroom. His call would distract security, pull them to one side of the terminal so he could come in the other. Good thing he’d been a baggage handler and knew all the ropes. That crappy job was finally paying off.
He walked stiffly, like he was wearing a body cast. He dropped in the coins, dialed, and stared at the ground while he listened to the rings. The blacktop was broken around the base of the phone booth. A single dandelion had pushed its way through a crack in the asphalt. The yellow petals radiated against the tar like a drop of gold fallen from the sun. Rudy took it as a sign.
“Listen carefully,” he said calmly, concentrating on the flower as intensely as a prayer. “It’s very important you do like I say.”
28
Damon was steamed that he had to drive to the airport during rush hour. He’d been back on the wagon for three days, and everything was getting under his skin. Sweat poured down his face and neck as he navigated through freeway traffic.
“What a dumb fucking time to go to the airport,” he complained for the hundredth time.
“It’s a charter, man,” Logan replied. “I couldn’t pick the damn time I wanted to go. Take it easy, will you?”
“Charters suck, Logan. The planes are shit. They have about two of them and they fly them back and forth, over and over. You ever hear of metal fatigue? That’s what happens, going up and down all the time. Like a fucking tin can. They’re held together with duct tape. You wait and see.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“Oh yeah. How do you know?”
“I just know. It’s safe to fly on planes. Safer than riding in this truck like we are right now.”
As if to prove him right, Damon swerved and laid on the horn. He signaled and changed lanes, the road buttons bumping under the tires. Logan was scared shitless. He wished Damon would shut the fuck up. The dusk sky was the same color as the asphalt. It sucked all but a trace of color from the cars and houses. Logan looked at the dingy crackerboxes that backed onto the freeway. At the mountains in the distance and the cars pouring onto the interstate like ants. So long, he said in his heart. Nice knowing you.
“And another thing, Logan,” Damon went on. The poor bastard was gritting his sore, rotten teeth. “I still don’t see how you think you’re going to get away with this. You can’t travel out of the country, man. What the hell are you thinking? They’re going to pick you up and put you away before you can say suck my dick. I mean, what’s the story?”
Logan took a deep breath. “I told you,” he said, trying to stay calm. “I checked everything out. You don’t need a passport to go to Mexico, especially on one of these charters. All you have to do is prove you’re an American citizen. I got a driver’s license. I need to get out of here, man, in case you forgot. If I get caught dirty, my ass is grass. I got to get it together.”
“Yeah, but how do you think you’re—”
“Damon, can you give it a rest, buddy?” Logan interrupted. “You’re really working my last nerve here. I’m letting you use my fucking truck. What more do you want? It’s a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. All you have to do is drop me at the goddamn airport. Jesus Christ. Is that asking too much?”
“Where am I going to park it while I’m staying downtown? It’s going to be a bitch finding a place to keep it.”
“Don’t take it then, man! I wish you woulda told me. I coulda loaned it to somebody else.”
That shut Damon up for a few minutes. He drove with his lips puckered up and his shoulders hunched around his ears. He’d sweated out big circles under his arms. Logan wished to hell he could have one more pop before he walked into the airport. He was getting more and more antsy.
“I just hope whoever moves in next door is as good as you been,” Damon said after a while. “I ain’t going to be there much longer, anyway. They’re getting me that job. I’m going to school. They’re even going to fix my fucking teeth. But I’m still going to miss you, man.”
“Maybe they’ll give you something to take the edge off,” Logan laughed. “A few ’ludes so you won’t shit your pants while you get those new choppers.”
“No way. I’m done with that.” Damon smiled back. Things were okay between them again. “Not a chance in hell.”
“Yeah, it’s going to be sweet, man. I’ll have my little cabaña on the beach and a bad mamacita to keep me warm at night. You’ll have to come visit. Check out that righteous blue water I’ve been telling you about.”
“Dream on, Logan. Dream on.”
“Hey, watch it.” Logan laughed, faking a punch.
“You watch it.”
They reached the airport exit, curved off the freeway, and joined the bumper-to-bumper lanes headed toward the terminal. Good thing they’d left plenty of time. Damon inched ahead, keeping the truck in first.
“If it starts missing, clean the plugs,” Logan said. “If you hear a lot of pinging or it’s burning too much oil, I know this guy over in Inglewood who’s worked on it before.”
“Don’t worry about it, bro. My brother-in-law’s a mechanic. He’ll fix me up.”
“Okay, cool. That’s good, man. That’s good.”
Damon followed the signs to the drop-off area. Cars wove in and out, pulled suddenly to the curb as if by magnets. Three cop cars shrieked past, lights flashing and sirens screaming. They cut through the traffic and disappeared around the curve ahead. People slammed trunks, honked horns, shouted. Ran in and out of the lines of triple-parked cars, dragging luggage, hugging each other, yelling for porters.
“Which airline is it?” Damon yelled. “What’s the name of the goddamned airline?”
“Sun Treks,” Logan shouted over the din. “Up there, past the taxis.”
Damon gunned it and cut to the curb in front of another car.
Logan felt a stab of grief about leaving his truck, as if he were abandoning a pet.
“Not here!” he shouted. “It’s red.”
Damon parked anyway. Logan had let him drive so that he wouldn’t have to stop the truck, but Damon killed the engine, got out, and went around to the back where Logan’s duffel bag was stowed in the bed.
“I got it!” Logan cried. Things were suddenly crazy. “You don’t have to stop. Thanks for everything—”
“There’s no stopping here,” an airport cop shouted. “Sir, no stopping!”
Damon ignored him. He took Logan’s bag out of the truck and set it on the curb.
“I guess this is it,” Logan said.
“Sir, you’ll have to move your vehicle!” the cop said, striding up. “There’s absolutely no stopping here!”
When Damon squared his shoulders and stood up to his full height, he looked like a linebacker. The cop piped down.
“Take it easy, Logan,” Damon said. He hooked his arm around Logan’s neck and pulled him close.
Logan hugged him, sweat and all. “Thanks for everything,” he said. “Take care of yourself, brother.”
“Sir, I’m sorry. This is a security zone,” the cop said. He’d taken out his walkie-talkie. “If you don’t move immediately, I’m going to cite you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Damon sneered. “Adios, amigo,” he called to Logan before he got in the truck and drove away.
Logan watched his Toyota thread its way through the traffic, pull into the left lane, and disappear. He took one last look at the gray sky, the flowing sea of cars, the families huddled like refugees at the curb. Then he picked up his bag and headed for the glass doors. They opened eagerly, as if they’d been waiting for him, and closed silently and efficiently behind him, as if some small measure of fate had been satisfied.
29
God had given Inez a tool
.
She switched on the news, and sure enough, there was Beth Fong—who had just resumed her duties as anchor after having a baby—live at the airport. A swarm of police cars and official vehicles were down near the baggage claim. Beth had to shout to be heard over the confusion. A bomb threat had been phoned in not long before, she announced. Parts of the terminal were closed, the canine unit and bomb squad had been called in, SWAT teams were being deployed.
Inez got the portable phone and dialed as she watched. She was sure now, of everything. Beth handed off to Darrell Jackson, who was inside the terminal. The emergency line rang seven times before the dispatcher picked up. Inez told the story as simply as she could: how Rudy had been acting, how he’d come home when she wasn’t there, what she’d found in the garage. All the time she kept her eyes on the screen. Darrell Jackson was talking to an airport official, who mentioned threats that had taken place over the past three weeks. They suspected a hoax, he said, though it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Ma’am, could you go through that one more time, please?” the dispatcher asked. She had a southern accent.
Inez repeated her story. This was really happening, she had to remind herself. It wasn’t a dream.
When she was finished, the dispatcher sighed.
“Everything I say is true,” Inez said. “It’s him, my husband. I’m very afraid.”
“Well, I’m going to go ahead and take you seriously,” the dispatcher said, though she sounded doubtful. “Stay on the line, please. I need to transfer your call.”
Men in green uniforms carried machine guns, electric carts zipped back and forth. Darrell Jackson interviewed passengers who had just flown in from Florida. Did they ever dream something like this would be going on when they landed in L.A.? They did not, not in a thousand years. In the meantime, some flights were being held on the ground, while others were diverted to nearby airports. Inez waited forever for her call to be transferred. Considering what she had to say, you’d think they’d hurry. She needed to get away from the house, just in case they didn’t catch him. She’d leave as soon as she’d made the call. She knew he’d come for her if he got away.
The same dispatcher came back on. “Ma’am, are you still there?”
“Yes, but—”
“Okay, please hold on.” She sounded more concerned this time, like somebody had clued her in. But she still put Inez on hold.
Now Beth Fong was inside, standing in front of a cordoned-off area. So far, no sign of any explosive device had been found, she said, but no sooner had she made the announcement than a small squadron of armed men in jumpsuits ran through the barricade. Beth jumped back; even she was alarmed.
“However, judging from what we just saw, I think we can conclude that no one really knows what’s happening,” she announced.
Hurry, Inez prayed. She wondered if she should try hanging up and calling again. At the same time her mind raced forward. She couldn’t help but wonder: if Rudy went to jail, would she be entitled to their small savings account? He must have hidden her things somewhere. With him out of the picture, she’d be able to find them. She might even consider staying right there, in L.A.
There was a click and the connection opened. An official-sounding man came on, and his attitude was a whole lot different than the dispatcher’s. He was very polite, and he took her seriously. He asked lots of questions, which she was glad to answer. When she told him that Rudy worked at the airport but that her daughter said he hadn’t been going to work, she really got his attention. And when she told him about the cut-up newspapers, the notes she’d found hanging on the wall, the rolls of wire, and the box of what looked like explosives, his breathing got short and quick.
“You have a photograph of him?” the man interrupted.
She did.
“Stay right where you are. I’m going to transfer you to someone, and I want you to stay on the line with her until we get there. We’ll have someone at your house in a few minutes.”
For a moment, as she waited to be transferred, Inez felt terror, deep guilt. She had betrayed Rudy, her husband. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But the Lord had made Rudy an instrument, she reminded herself. He had used the bad to reveal the good. As if to comfort her, the words of Isaiah sounded once again: You will forget the shame of your youth…For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is His name. Her Maker was her husband, not Rudy.
“Hang tight, ma’am,” a new woman said on the other end of the line. “Our agents are on their way.”
“Oh, my good Lord,” Inez gasped. “There he is.”
“What is it, ma’am? Ma’am, are you there?” the woman on the line shrieked. “Pick up! Pick up!” Inez heard her call to someone else.
In childhood photos of his school or family, Rudy was always the one cut halfway off by the edge of the frame, or obscured by someone else standing in front of him. “See, that’s my foot there, and that’s the side of my head,” he would show her. A vague shape, fractured or out of focus. That’s how it was now. Only she knew it was him. Standing right there on the edge of the crowd like an onlooker, his face in profile. She got up from the chair, carried the phone closer to the TV to get a better look.
“Stand by,” the woman on the phone shouted. “She’s not responding.”
They say the camera adds ten pounds, but this was different. Rudy was wearing his jacket, but he looked swollen, stiff. Inez got within two feet of the screen, stared. She saw him objectively now, with amazement. He was her husband, but he was a stranger. He watched as the team of searchers walked through the baggage-claim area with dogs that strained at the ends of their leashes. He watched like an arsonist who stands in the crowd and watches his fire burn.
Inez dropped the phone, though she could still hear the woman’s voice shouting from the receiver on the floor. Rudy turned his head. Even from that distance, Inez could make out his pointed nose and small, bunched-up features. He looked straight at the camera. Inez’s heart fluttered wildly, beating against her chest. He smiled. Rudy stared at the camera and smiled, as if he were looking right at her. As if he could see her there in their living room, crouched in terror.
30
Friday evening was like the shifting of the tide in an estuary. The flood of people headed out for the weekend—eager to escape to beaches, golf courses, ski slopes, and casinos—converged with the rush of people coming back home to their own beds and familiar routines. Wylie watched the two streams crash and mingle in the pavilion in front of the bar. From there, departing passengers funneled into the chutes that siphoned through the metal detectors, while arriving passengers were presented with hugs and kisses, Mylar balloons, bouquets of carnations, and crying babies by the people who waited for them in the black plastic chairs. At this hour, just after six, the windows reflected the scene inside. Lights from outside—from the runways, the service vehicles that zipped silently back and forth, and the flashlights the ground crews used to guide the jets to their gates—were superimposed on the moving crowds, the banks of seats, the rows of bottles in the bar, and the pink neon sign of the La Paz Cantina. Only when you stood close to the glass could you see the shapes of the planes drifting like whales in black water.
The bar was busy. After working days for so long, Wylie had forgotten how different the night vibe was. A group of paunchy men in T-shirts and windbreakers were watching sports highlights as they shouted and laughed over in the corner. Men and women in suits sat at the high single tables, sipping drinks as they worked on their laptops. Tahoe he heard people in sweat suits and shorts tell each other. Vegas. Fresh out of work, ready to party. There was lots of coming and going—a quick turnover of the stools at the bar. Except one, where a Chicano dude in an Angels cap had been sitting near the register for going on two hours, getting toasted. Every time Wylie came over to ring up a sale, the guy had something to say.
“This plane I was on, the one I was telling you about,” he picked up where he left off. “The one
that couldn’t get its landing gear down?”
Wylie nodded. The connection for credit card approval was slow. Every time he had to ring up a sale, he had to stand there and wait.
“You know what they decided to do?”
“Nope, no idea.”
“Well, they decided to climb, then dive. Climb and dive. They thought the force of that might loosen something up. You know, knock something loose.”
The guy was starting to slur.
“That right?” Wylie said.
“Honest to God. The funny thing is, it worked. Landing gear popped down and we were able to land. When they opened up the cabin, the smell of puke and shit was so strong the ground crew choked. Know what I did? First thing I did when I got off the plane?”
A crowd of party boys—tanned twentysomethings in muscle shirts and knee-length baggy shorts—walked into the bar like a flock of parrots, making a shitload of noise.
“What did you do?” Wylie said. He poured three Buds while he waited for the answer.
“Went right out and divorced my wife. She was waiting to pick me up. Told her right in the airport. Bam, just like that. I want a divorce. Know why?”
“Why?”
“I realized up there I didn’t love her. When the plane was diving and I thought I was going to die. It’s a shame, I thought, because all this time I’ve been married to a woman I don’t love. So when we landed, I didn’t waste any time.” The guy tossed back his drink. “Never regretted it for a second. Never looked back.”
“That’s some story,” Wylie said. “Excuse me.”
The party boys were going to Cancún. They all wanted margaritas. Probably on Logan’s flight, Wylie thought as he measured out the tequila and added the mix. God help the Mexicans when that pack landed.
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