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  He drank from the glass and went to the window. He opened the drapes and stared out into the gray glare of an overcast day. The woman groaned and rolled over, pulling the pillow over her head. He sipped reflectively. She sat up in bed, blinking, clasping the sheet around her. “Do you have to do that?” she said.

  “Uh huh,” he said. “Getting late. My boss expects me to be waiting, that thing hits the ground. I got to get over there. Be there, they come in.”

  She fluffed her hair. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Little before eleven,” he said.

  “Well, you said last night it was noon. Noon they were coming in,” she said. “Not going to take you an hour to get there. Cripes, you can see it from here. Fifteen minutes, you’ll be there.”

  “Look,” he said, “inna first place, all right? You told me you hadda be there, you’re now going out at one-thirty and you gotta be there at least an hour. Hour before that, you said. So that rolls us back to twelve-thirty. Except it’s not the same terminals, is it? You’re going a different one. So, I got to drop you off, and then there’s the traffic, and then comes the damned place to park. So, I’m sorry. But get moving, all right? This’s my job we’re talking here. I’m not taking any chances, losing it because I’m late.”

  She got out of bed. She had small breasts and fairly broad hips and very good, long legs. “I want some breakfast,” she said. “You could at least order breakfast.”

  “No,” he said. “No time for breakfast.”

  “Some coffee, at least?” she said. She walked over to him and put her hands on his shoulders, shaking her hair and smiling.

  “Not in the room,” he said. “We haven’t got time.” He put the glass down and squeezed her breasts. “You should have that operation,” he said. “That implant thing they got.”

  She pulled away from him and flicked him on the crotch. “You do, I will,” she said. She disappeared into the bathroom.

  He let her off at the Butler Aviation charter terminal. “You’re amazing,” he said. “I really don’t know how you broads do it. Forty minutes ago you look like you spent the night fighting with dogs.”

  “Well, only one,” she said.

  “And now you look like you got the full eight, up with the sun, did the push-ups and stuff, had your oatmeal and Mom did your hair. All ready for school. In your nice red dress. It’s amazing.”

  “Sam,” she said, “am I really going to see you again? Are you really going to call me?”

  “Next time I’m in New York,” Earl said. “What I said, and what I’ll do. I fell in love last night.”

  “Oh, Sam,” she said, putting her arms around his neck and kissing him. “I’m such a lucky girl After all these years, I’m such a lucky girl.” She pulled back, smiling at him. “Is your name really Sam?”

  “Kathie, Kathie,” he said, “how can you say that?”

  “Well,” she said, “a girl can’t be too careful these days. All these bad men around.”

  “Did you have a good time, Kathie?” he said.

  “I had a very nice time, Sam,” she said. She got out of the Dodge. He pulled the seatback of the Dodge down, and she removed her wheeled flight bag from the backseat. She set it on the sidewalk and fluttered her fingers at him. “Bye, Sam,” she said. “Call me soon.”

  “Bye, Kathie,” he said. “Very soon.” She shut the door and watched wistfully as the Dodge pulled away, reaching absently into her shoulder bag. A jade green Chevrolet hardtop pulled into the vacated space. The passenger door opened, and a brown-haired woman dressed in an identical red uniform emerged, yanking her flight bag from the backseat and slamming the door. “You son of a bitch,” she said to the driver. “It’s not my fault about your lousy golf game. That you hadda miss your game. It’s not up to me when they postpone these things, if something goes wrong with the plane.” The man in the car said something. “Yeah,” the woman said, “but you don’t object to the money, though. The money’s fine with you.” The Chevy jumped away from the curb, nearly colliding with a taxi.

  “Nice holdover, Ruthie?” the first woman said. The second woman stared at her. “Fuck you, Snider,” she said. She eyed the first woman up and down. “You’re outta uniform, Snider. You wanna go out and get laid, times like these, go ahead, do what you want. But you’re on my crew, you show up the next morning, all fulla beans and dressed up. I may report you for this.”

  Snider opened her eyes wide and then opened her right hand toward Ruthie. In it was a pair of gilded wings imprinted Mavis. “I was just putting them on when you got here, Ruth,” she said. She smiled. “I’m sorry you had a bad time.”

  Earl found a space in the fifth row of short-term parking at the domestic airlines terminal building. He locked the doors and unlocked the trunk. He reached deep into it to pull out a woman’s small train case, light blue vinyl. He opened the case and removed a tan windbreaker, a red scarf, and a pair of sneakers. He uncovered a Mamiya/Sekor 35-mm single-lens-reflex camera with a 135-mm telephoto lens attached, a 28-mm wide-angle lens, and a 50-mm normal lens. There were three unopened boxes of Kodak Tri-X 24-exposure film. He opened one of them and took out the canister. He took the film cartridge out of the canister and loaded it into the camera. He inspected the lens. He put the camera down on the floor of the trunk and took out his wallet. He removed a worn dollar bill and used it as a lens tissue. He inspected the lens again. He put the dollar bill in his left pants pocket and draped the camera around his neck on the strap. He shut the trunk and locked it and headed for the terminal.

  He found a place to stand on the second floor—Departures—near a post behind a long line of passengers checking baggage and themselves onto a Northwest Orient Airlines flight bound for Seattle. The majority of them seemed to be of Oriental ancestry, and carried woven wicker bags. He was vaguely puzzled about that, but put the matter out of his mind and made sure of his sight lines and surroundings. The public-address system carried a steady stream of orders and announcements that were hard to hear in the commotion of welcoming shouts and tearful farewells, crying children and shouting parents, but he had learned selective deafness playing basketball. In prison he had been able to listen in his cell to the kind of radio music he liked, the din of other prisoners, shouting guards, and crashing doors occurring somewhere else. “Ahh,” he had told the prison counselor, “the usual stuff, you know? The Stones. The Beatles. And I still like the old tuff. The Platters. The Four Tops. The Coasters. The Cadillacs. They often call me ‘Speedoo.’ That’s what the guys on the team called me—‘Speedoo’—’cause my real name was Mister Earl. Those guys. Heck, I even still like Chubby Checker, and Fats. Remind me the good days I had. You just tune out, when you’re playing, all the hollering and yelling, people jumping up and down, and waving things. Just block it out, you know? You didn’t learn to do that, you’d never make a foul shot. You play your first game in the Garden? If you didn’t learn by then, well, you know it from then on.”

  He stood against the post and focused his camera on the corridor entrance between the American Airlines and Northwest gates, using the sign precisely above it as his reference point. He checked the light meter, set the lens at f/5.6 and the shutter speed at 1/100, and waited.

  At 12:12 P.M., the P.A. system announced the arrival of American flight 641 from Nassau. Earl held the camera ready. At 12:18 incoming passengers began to come up the ramp. Sixth and seventh in line were a man about fifty years old and woman about twenty-eight. He had silver at the temples of his black hair and a dark tan. He wore a double-breasted blue blazer, white linen shirt open at the neck, and white pants. She wore a white sweater that contrasted nicely with her tan and her reddish hair, and tight white pants and high heels. Earl brought the camera up and started taking pictures, using the thumb lever to advance the film without removing the viewfinder from his eye. When they reached the sign she wobbled slightly, and the man grabbed her arm to steady her. He said something. She put her hand on his right shoulder, held on, and b
ent her right leg. Earl continued to take pictures. She removed her shoe, still clutching the man, while the other passengers eddied around them, scowling, and the man glared protectively over her shoulder. Then she replaced the shoe, released the man, and smiled. She patted him on the neck. He kissed her on the cheek. They joined the flow of the other passengers turning right onto the escalator leading down to Baggage Claim.

  Earl went out of the terminal on the departure level and took the sidewalk ramp down to the arrival parking lot. He went to the car, hurrying and perspiring in the heavy heat, opened the trunk of the Dodge, put the camera in the train case, replaced the clothing on top of it, closed the case, and shoved it forward, up behind the rear seat. He closed the trunk, unlocked the driver’s door, got in, and drove quickly to the exit doors on the arrival level outside the American Airlines baggage carousels. He found a place large enough to accommodate the Dodge among all the other unattended cars parked next to the curb with the signs that prohibited parking or standing. He parked the car, locked it, and went inside the terminal.

  He spotted the same man and the woman standing outside the velvet rope excluding nonpassengers from the baggage-claim area. Inside, many people competed for places closest to the incoming cargo doors. Porters in blue uniforms stood aloof from the travelers, waiting with aluminum carts and glancing repeatedly at tags clipped to ticket folders. The carousel began to revolve. Earl saw four bags come down before Penny’s three-piece set of Gucci luggage appeared. He went quickly back outside and opened the trunk of the Dodge. As soon as Penny and the man escorted the porter outside the door, he waved his right arm. The man waved back and directed the porter toward the Dodge.

  “Mister Simmons,” Earl said, bending from the waist and extending his right hand as though to assist the porter loading the luggage into the trunk, but touching nothing, “nice trip?” Earl straightened up. The porter put the last of the three pieces into the Dodge and stood back, expectantly.

  “Very nice, thank you, Earl,” Simmons said, putting on sunglasses. “Oh,” he said, as though just noticing the porter. He reached into his right front pocket, fished out a roll of bills, and peeled off a twenty. “Thanks very much,” he said to the porter. “Thank you, sir,” the porter said. “Never last long enough, though,” Simmons said, clutching Penny around the waist. “Never last long enough, do they?”

  “Oh, Allen,” she said, pushing him away. “Now come on now, all right?”

  “Well, they don’t,” he said. He leaned toward her to kiss her, but she pulled away.

  “All right,” she said. “Tell you what we’ll do. Earl’ll just take my luggage home, and I’ll get on your connection to Boston with you. And that way it won’t be over. Least for another hour. You could tell her I’m just someone you happened to meet on the plane. But she might not believe you. And a lot of things might start.”

  He stepped back. He smiled. “Thank you very much, Penny,” he said. “I guess I asked for that.”

  “Thank you for a lovely week, Allen,” she said. She pecked him on the cheek and stood back.

  He nodded. “Got to catch my plane,” he said. He went back into the terminal.

  Earl and Penny stood by the car until Simmons was back inside and they saw him go up the escalator. She put her arms around Earl and kissed him full on the lips. “Ummm,” she said, standing back, “glad to see you again. Always nice to come home.”

  “Hard week?” he said.

  She shrugged, releasing him and heading for the passenger door. “Not especially,” she said. “I’m an ornament, mostly.” She opened the door and got in. He slid in on the driver’s side. “Get dressed up at night, get the bikini on, the daytime—‘Oh, that’s Allen’s girl.’ Well, he wants to pay me ten grand a week to hang on his arm and show to his friends, who’m I to complain?”

  “Oh, cut it out,” Earl said.

  “Don’t get shitty with me, chum,” she said. “You knew the deal when we started. You gonna tell me, when we get home, you won’t touch the cash? You won’t live the apartment, and you won’t drive the damned car? It’s Allen that’s paying for it. And now I got two whole weeks off. Three, if I like. He’s going the Vineyard, his wife. But Allen is generous, say that for the guy. We fly first-class, and we stay first-class, and he gives me a lot of money. So lay off of him, all right? Allen’s a generous man.”

  “Look,” Earl said, putting the Dodge in gear and pulling out of the illegal space, “all I’m asking you is this: When we gonna do it? I got about sixteen more pictures just now, and if they turn out like I think, which they will, they’re fuckin’ beautiful.”

  “That worked all right, then,” she said. “The part with ‘I twisted my heel’?”

  “Oh,” he said, “it was beautiful. But when we gonna use them, all right? When’m I finally gonna get to call this guy and say: ‘Uh, Mister Simmons, sir, this is Earl? And I wonder you’d be interested, a family photo album? Memento of your trips? Because we got about eighty pictures now. Or how about your lovely wife that’s in the newspaper all the time? The museums and stuff? Think she might like to buy it and then show it? You know me, Mister Simmons. I’m a very humble guy. But I got my obligations, ex-wife, kid in school, all that shit, and I could use—well, me and Penny—say about a million bucks. It’s a fuckin’ bargain, Mister Simmons. What I’m offering you. You know I’m a friend of yours. Got your best interests, heart. Think what it’d cost you if your wife got hold these things. What, five, six million dollars? This’s cheap, is what it is.’ ”

  Penny leaned back against the seat and shut her eyes. “I don’t wanna talk about it now,” she said.

  “Well, I do,” he said.

  She opened her eyes. “Tough shit, mister,” she said. “I said I don’t wanna talk about it now. I didn’t have no breakfast, ’cept what they serve the plane. And I don’t eat any damned thing that an airline says is food. Now you find a place where I can get some food. You oughta know a lot of them, somewhere around this city. Spent a lot of time here, I hear, ’fore you went to jail. And you take me there. And then I eat. And then you take me home, and I will take a goddamned bath. You got that?”

  “You got to take yourself home,” Earl said. “Partway I can take you, and I know a restaurant. But the rest you go yourself. I got some work to do.”

  “What’s this crap?” she said. “I got to drive myself home?”

  “Hey,” he said, “we all got obligations.”

  5

  Earl took the access road leading to the Lord Squire Motor Hotel off Route I-95 in New Rochelle. The hood of the Dodge shimmered heat. Penny raised her head and opened her eyes. “Hey,” she said, “what you doing?”

  “You said you wanted to eat,” he said. The motel was two stories of varicolored brick situated between a convenience store and an Esso station.

  “Here?” she said. “You think I’m gonna eat, here? Like what? Canned soup and burgers? An hour ago, I wanted to eat. Now what I want’s some sleep.”

  “You’re gonna eat,” Earl said. “The sign says they got a brunch.” He took a parking place near the green canopy extending from the main entrance. “Sundays, eleven to three.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “ ‘All you can eat for two ninety-five.’ Jesus, you really are cheap. I can imagine what the eggs’ll look like. Should’ve eaten that shit on the plane. Christ, I’m hot.”

  “Three ninety-five, actually,” he said. “Plus a complimentary Bloody Mary or screwdriver. You left Moneybags at the airport, remember?” He shut off the engine. “And you’re hot,” he said, “because I been telling you since Easter to bring this goddamned thing the shop. Get the seals checked and the Freon reloaded. And you haven’t done it. You haven’t had time. You sleep all day and you bitch all night, and then you go outta town. Supposedly because we’re setting up this rich guy, and it’s the only way we can do it. But we’re not. What we’re doing is, I’m running in place, and you’re kiting around on vacation, one week every month.”

 
“Ten thousand a week is pretty good pay,” she said. “More’n you ever made. You sure you want to risk it?”

  “It’s not ten a week,” he said. “It’s ten a month, six months a year. Plus the extras, when you get ’em, so we won’t count those. Which is, twelve, twelve fifty a week, gross. You think it’s ten grand a week, when you work once a month, half the year? Then I used to get a lot more’n that—a thousand for forty minutes. You wanna figure out what that comes to, a week? That’s twenty-five dollars a minute. Plus what I made myself, my own bets.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but you got caught. What’d they pay you in prison? How much a minute was that?”

  “Look,” he said, “Penny, I don’t want a fight. You don’t understand what I’m telling you. Allen is paying you very good money, but Allen is good for much more. But just for a little while, he is good for it. We just got to explain this to him, before the time runs out. Because this, well, job, you got with him, it isn’t permanent. You know what happened to Nancy.”

  “I don’t want to hear about the bitch,” she said. “Allen ditched Nancy because of the drugs. Allen was right to do that.”

  “Allen may’ve said he ditched Nancy for that,” he said, “but we both know that wasn’t it. Allen ditched Nancy because she made a mistake. The mistake was letting you move in, and letting him see you. Nancy was branching out. Thought she had an assistant, handle some of her business. Nancy was moving up, and you were the first one she picked. Bad choice. She didn’t count on you scooping her best customer. Didn’t think about how she’d begun to sag a little bit, he might like a newer model.”

  “Bullshit,” she said. She put her head back and shut her eyes again.