by Thomas Perry
Mary winced. “Please don’t tell me you hear voices.”
“I don’t. There were two men on that flight. Do you have some reason to believe there wouldn’t be others?”
“Well … no.”
Jane’s jaw tightened. “Let me give you some advice. Whatever it is you’ve been doing that makes people mad at you, cut it out. You’re not very good at getting out of town afterward.”
Mary Perkins let Jane hurry her along the concourse in silence until they reached Gate 36. They slipped into the tunnel with the last of the passengers, just as the man at the gate was preparing to close the door. Jane heard running footsteps behind her, so she stopped at the curve and listened.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the airline man’s voice. “You’ll need a ticket. We aren’t permitted to accept cash.”
“Can’t I buy one?”
“Yes, sir, but you’ll have to go to the ticket counter. I have no way to issue a ticket.”
“But that’s way the hell on the other end of the airport. Can you hold the plane?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but passengers have to catch connecting flights, and we have a schedule. There are five flights a day from LAX to McCarran. You could—”
Jane walked the rest of the way up the tunnel and through the open hatch, and she and the woman took their seats. Mary Perkins said, “What do you call that?”
“Airport tag,” said Jane. “I haven’t played it in years.” She sat back, fastened her seat belt, and closed her eyes. “I hope I never do again.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Mary Perkins.
“I’m not thinking. I’m resting,” said Jane.
“Does resting mean you’ve already thought, and you have a plan? Because if it does, I’d sure like to know what it is.”
“No, it means I want you to be quiet.”
Jane closed her eyes again. The plane was flying over the Southwest now, toward the places where the desert people lived: Mohave, Yavapai, Zuni, Hopi, Apache, Navajo. Some of them believed that events didn’t come into being one after another but existed all at once. They were simply revealed like the cards a dealer turned over in a blackjack game: they came off the deck one at a time, but they were all there together at the beginning of the game.
What Jane needed to do now was to find a way to reveal the cards in the wrong order: go away, then arrive. She reviewed all of the rituals that were followed when an airplane landed. The fact that they were known and predictable and unchanging meant that they already existed, even though the plane was still in the air. The flight was a short one, and she felt the plane begin to descend almost as soon as it had reached apogee. It was just a hop over the mountains, really, and then a long low glide onto the plateau beyond.
Jane reached into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of her and examined the monthly magazine the airline published. She leafed past the advertisements for hotels and resorts and the articles on money, cars, children, and pets. At the back she found the section she was looking for. There were little maps of all of the airports where the airline landed, so people could find their connecting gates. She studied the one for McCarran, then tore the back cover off, reached into the seat pocket in front of Mary, and tore that back cover off too.
“What are you doing?” asked Mary.
Jane pulled her pen out of her purse and began printing in bold capital letters. “Here’s what you have to do. When the plane lands, everybody is going to get off except you. You take as much time as you can. You’re sick, or your contact lens fell out. I don’t care what it is.”
“How long?”
“Try to stretch it out long enough to get at least one flight attendant to leave the plane first. It may not work, but I’ve seen it happen, and when it does, people watching for a passenger get confused.”
“Okay,” said Mary. “Then what?”
“Then you come off the plane. Walk out fast, don’t look to either side. Head for the car-rental desk. Rent a car. Make it a big one, not a compact. Something fat and luxurious and overpowered. They’ll probably have lots of them in Las Vegas. Drive it around to the edge of the building where you can see the Southwest baggage area. When I come out the door, zoom up fast and get me.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
Jane was busy going over and over the printing on her two sheets, making the letters bigger and bolder. “Here’s what it will be. They’ll follow you to the car desk. They’ll stick around long enough to be sure what you’re doing, and then they’ll leave to try to get to the lot before you do. The lot will be the first time you’re alone and away from airport security. They’ll want to get into the car with you.”
“Then what do I do?”
Jane looked at her in disappointment. “As soon as they’re gone, cancel the car and go to the next desk, of course. Rent from a different company. They’ll take you to a different lot.”
“Just let me get it straight. Stay on the plane, get off quick, rent a big car, pick you up at baggage.”
“Right.” She looked up at Mary critically. “Come to think of it, even if you don’t spot anybody behind you at the rental counter, cancel the car and go to the next desk anyway.”
“You don’t think I’ll see them, do you? That’s it, isn’t it?”
Jane stuck the two magazine covers into her belt under her coat at the small of her back. Then she leaned back and closed her eyes again. “Bet your life on it if you want. Either way I’ll come out of the baggage door and look for you. If you don’t come, I can probably find a cab.”
When the pilot’s voice came on the intercom and said something inaudible that contained the words Las Vegas, Jane opened her eyes. People ahead of her in the plane were looking out their windows and nudging each other. Probably they were beginning to see the lights. Flying into Las Vegas after dark was always a strange experience. The world below the plane was as black as the sky above it, and then suddenly, with no warning, there was a light like a frozen explosion in the middle of it: not just a lot of dull yellowish bulbs like the lights of other cities, but crimson, aquamarine, veridian, gold, and bright splashes of white. As the plane descended, the lights moved, blinking, flashing, and sweeping, and a line of fan-shaped beams of car headlights were visible flowing up and down in the middle of it. The explosion had gotten even crazier in the past couple of years, she noticed.
Mary was staring out the window like the others. “God, I love this place,” she said. “Are we going to be here long?”
“Not unless you’re held over by popular demand,” said Jane, and closed her eyes again. She listened and let her body feel the machinery of the plane work. The ailerons moved to tilt and swing the plane around, and then the right one went down with the left and the plane leveled to skim over the desert. There was the odd whistling noise of the wind holding the plane back, and the engines cut down, and then the noise seemed to get louder for no reason she had ever understood, and then the hydraulic system pushed the wheels down until they locked with a thump, and there was the long sickening feeling of the plane losing altitude. She said, “You okay on everything?”
“Yes,” said Mary.
Jane nodded. The best part of the plan was that if Mary Perkins, or whatever her real name was, panicked and ran, they would both have a pretty good chance. Mary Perkins would be behind the wheel of a big, fast car with a good head start. Most of the watchers would still be following Jane.
The plane bounced along the runway, slowed, and taxied to a stop at the terminal. Jane stood up and joined the line of impatient people opening overhead compartments and shuffling along between the seats. She stepped into the boarding tunnel and picked out a man a few paces ahead of her. He was tall and in his mid-forties and had the preoccupied, bored look of a salesman making his rounds.
She hurried until she was at his side, then matched his pace to make it look as though they were together. As soon as they were out of the tunnel and around the corner she separated herself from him a
nd ducked into the gift shop. She took two steps past the entrance and found a baseball cap with LAS VEGAS on the crown in sequins and gold thread, and a sweatshirt with a picture of a hand holding five aces. She walked across to the other side wall and picked out a pair of running shorts. The little store didn’t sell shoes, but it had some foldable slippers for people whose feet bothered them on long flights. The whole shopping spree took less than a minute, and then she was at the cash register.
She came out the door with her bag of purchases and slipped into the ladies’ room. She changed in the stall, dropped her clothes into the trash can, picked up her magazine covers, and then came out again, this time to join the crowd going toward the arrival gates.
As she walked, she checked her watch. Only four minutes had passed since she had stepped off the plane and come out of Gate 10 with the salesman. This time she was in her shorts and sweatshirt, two and a half inches shorter than she had been in her high heels, her tinted glasses gone and her hair in a ponytail through the back strap of her Las Vegas baseball cap.
She moved to Gate 12, directly across the open hallway from Gate 10. The sign over the desk at Gate 12 said, ARR: NORTHWEST FLT 907 LOS ANGELES. She sat down in the side row of seats where other people were waiting for Flight 907 to arrive and put the sign she had made on her lap, where it could be seen if somebody were looking. It said in big, black letters, MARY PERKINS.
She saw the two men notice her. They were in the positions they should be in—apart, but watching the people coming off the Southwest flight from Los Angeles at Gate 10. They both wore sportcoats that might have covered the guns they couldn’t have on them now. They noticed Jane within a few seconds. They kept glancing across the hallway at her, but neither moved.
At last Jane saw two stewardesses come out of the tunnel at Gate 10 and walk past the two watchers. They were wearing their little uniform jackets and were towing their overnight bags on little carts. Jane’s heart began to beat more quickly. Whatever Mary Perkins had done to delay getting off the plane must have been good. If she could only hold out a little longer, Jane would be able to tie the knot in time.
The two men were staring at each other now, silently conferring. The departure of the flight attendants struck them as evidence that they had already watched all the passengers get off the plane at Gate 10. The two women they had been told to watch for had not been among them. But there was a person waiting at Gate 12 holding a sign that said MARY PERKINS. A second flight from Los Angeles was going to arrive at that gate any minute. Obviously they had been given the wrong airline and flight number. The men silently agreed. First one man went to the drinking fountain. When he came back up the concourse, it was to Gate 12, where Jane waited. She pretended not to see him. She looked at her watch, at the clock on the wall, at the carpet.
At last the second man moved. He walked along the window, pretended to see something out on the runway, and moved closer to get a better angle. Then, without seeming to have made a decision, he was in Jane’s waiting area. He guessed maybe he hadn’t seen anything after all. He looked at his watch and sat down.
Now there was only one more thing. If they were trained, or even if they had an instinct for this sort of work, they would be anxious not to spook her. A woman limousine driver who picked up strangers at airports probably often drove alone at night, and she would be careful to avoid being stalked. The sensible place for them to be was behind her, and fairly far away.
Jane turned to face Gate 12, so the men would move to the spots where she wanted them to be. She let her eyes go up under the brim of her cap and used the reflection in the darkened window to check. Yes, they were perfect now, watching her from behind, not able to see the first gate at all.
She picked up movement behind them. Mary Perkins was not a novice. She was coming out of the accordion tunnel fast. Ten steps across the waiting area, around the corner, and gone.
Jane needed to keep their attention on her, so she stood up and walked toward the gate. She sat down in the closest seat she could find to the gate and held her sign in her lap. She felt her heart begin to beat more slowly. Now time had a little knot in it, and the longer the rest of it took the better. The men were convinced that Mary Perkins’s plane was about to arrive, but she was already on her way down to the car-rental counter.
A woman much like the one who had presided over the arrival of Jane’s flight announced, “Flight 907 from Los Angeles will be arriving at Gate 12 in approximately four minutes.” Jane could already see the lights of the plane shimmying along at the end of the runway. She kept her head motionless so the two men wouldn’t get the urge to move again. She could see that the plane was a big one, and this improved her chances considerably.
The plane slowly rolled to the terminal and nuzzled up to the doorway. The ground crew chocked the wheels, the boarding tunnel extended a few feet to touch the fuselage, and the engines shut down. People near Jane began to stand up and congregate near the doorway. Most of the passengers flying into McCarran were strangers, so the crowd of relatives and friends was small.
Jane stood among them. She held up the MARY PERKINS sign while she watched the first few passengers come out. There were some middle-aged couples, some men traveling alone, a couple of grandmothers. Then there were about ten people of both sexes who seemed to be the age of college students, and she remembered there was a college here. Then she saw a pair of women in their early thirties, and one of them was blond.
She had been cradling the MARY PERKINS sign under her chin, and now she flipped the sign over without letting the move be visible from behind. She stepped out where the two women could not help seeing her, and tried to look at them winningly. They read her new sign: PRIVATE LIMO: ANY HOTEL, THREE DOLLARS.
The blond woman stopped and asked, “Three dollars for both of us, or three each?”
Jane smiled. “If you’re both going to the same place, I’ll take you for four.”
The blonde said, “Caesar’s.”
“No sweat,” said Jane.
The three women walked down the concourse quickly. Jane didn’t look behind her to see if the men were following. She knew they were. She said, “You’ve been to Vegas before?”
The blonde had appointed herself to do the talking. “Once in a while. Just when we get really sick of behaving ourselves. We gamble, stay up late, and never grade a single paper.”
“You’re teachers?”
“Yes,” said the other one, who had curly brown hair. “As if you couldn’t tell by looking.”
Jane felt guilty about what she was going to do next, but the truth was that both of them were attractive in a scrubbed-and-deodorized way. “No,” she said. “Everybody comes to Vegas. I just drive them around. Once you’re here, you’re whoever you say you are—at least until your money’s gone. I wouldn’t have guessed teachers, though. Most people wouldn’t.”
“Sure,” said the blonde.
“Really. Those two guys who gave you the wall-to-wall and roof-to-foundation when you got off the plane. I bet they don’t think you’re teachers.”
The quiet one said, “That’s a laugh.” As though to prove it, she laughed.
Jane had put the itch in them, and that was enough. At some point in their walk to the baggage area, each of them would turn and look at the two men, trying very hard and very clumsily to be sure she wasn’t caught at it. Looking had nothing to do with real interest. It didn’t matter if they were nuns, or lesbians in the tenth year of a lifelong relationship. If they were human, they would look. The idea that they were being watched might frighten them or disgust them or make their weekend, but they would look, and when they did, the two men would be sure.
Jane led them to the baggage claim and waited while they tried to spot their suitcases. The dark one said, “Are those the ones? Don’t look.”
Jane didn’t look. She said, “Tall, muscular guy with dark hair and cowboy boots. Shorter one with curly hair. Both in coats, no ties.”
“Yes,�
� said the blonde. “The very ones.”
Her companion turned to her in surprise. “You looked?”
“Of course I did,” said the blonde. “As soon as I heard about it. But I have a feeling they’re not our type. Worse luck.”
There was more to the quiet one than Jane had expected. “Maybe my type in Las Vegas isn’t the same as my type in Woodland Hills.” She was joking, but some part of her mind was agitated.
Jane decided not to let them get too curious. “A lot of ugly things happen in this town. Nobody you want to know hangs around in airports looking for a nice date.”
The two bags came down and the blonde soberly scooped them both off the track. Jane picked them up and walked toward the exit with the two women at her back. She used the seconds to prepare herself. If Mary Perkins had failed to rent the car in time, or more likely, had rented it and decided not to drive it back into the light and danger of the airport, Jane was going to be left at the curb with two innocents and some men who might consider this a good opportunity to push them into the back of a car.
She stepped out the door into the cool desert air, set the bags down on the sidewalk, and looked around her. She was careful not to look behind her for the two men, but she knew they must be coming closer. Then a car swung out from the loading zone for United Airlines a hundred yards away and glided toward them. It was a black Lincoln Town Car, and as it drew nearer, she could see Mary Perkins behind the wheel, her face set in an expression of intense discomfort. She stopped two feet from the curb in front of Jane.
The order and economy of Jane’s movements were critical now. As soon as the car stopped she swung open the back door and said, “Hop in.” As soon as the two women were inside she pushed the button down and slammed the door. Scooping somebody off a curb was easy, but dragging them out of a locked car took time and force. She snatched the suitcases off the pavement, scurried to the back of the car, and banged on the trunk. Mary Perkins leaned out the window and tossed her the key. She set the suitcases inside, closed the lid, and looked around her as she ran to the driver’s side. She couldn’t see them anywhere, which meant they were somewhere nearby getting into their own car. “I’ll drive,” she said.