Death in the Face

by Craig McDonald

  Confidence?

  Hubris?

  Hector told himself, No guts, no glory. He slid his copy of Ian’s thriller into his sports jacket’s pocket along with his old Zippo and virgin pack of Pall Malls and rose to risk an introduction.

  ***

  He said, “May I intrude on your reading?”

  A smile, open and inviting; warm dark eyes appraised him. She fingered her nearly emptied wine goblet and put down her book. The dregs of something red swirled in the glass. She said, “My God, please do. I’ll shamelessly confess that for some time I’ve been hoping you would do this very thing.” A silky British accent. She sat up a little straighter and moved her purse to make room. “You’re Hector Lassiter, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, yes. . .” Made, again. He cursed to himself.

  “I’ve read you, as you’ll surely have guessed by now,” she said. “I thought I recognized you from the photos on your books. You really rather resemble the actor, you know, William Holden? But I expect you hear that a lot. Anyway, I quite relish your novels.”

  Quite relish? Jolly good. Hector smiled his thanks and tapped her copy of Ambler with an index finger. “I quite relish this fella’s works, too.”

  “So do I, mostly, but maybe not this time,” she said. “I fear this one of his just isn’t reaching me. It’s a bit too fragmented, I think.”

  Everyone was a critic. . . . He said, “What are you drinking, and won’t you please have some more on me?”

  Another smile. There were almost imperceptible laugh lines around her broad, sultry mouth and the faintest of crow’s feet accented wide black eyes he could see better in the low lounge light. Yes, he thought, definitely thirty, at least. Maybe verging thirty-five or perhaps a bit more. But still quite beautiful.

  And anyway—and again—who the hell was he to judge, sitting, as he did, on the wrong side of sixty?

  “Yes, please, that would be quite wonderful,” she said, “and it’s Cabernet.” The bartender hadn’t started mixing Hector’s next drink yet. He caught the man’s attention and said, “Belay my refill, buddy, please? Two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon, instead.” He said more softly to her, “What vintner, by the way, or does that matter at all?”

  “It really does, I fear,” she said. “More than a bit of a wine snob you’ve got on your hands, Mr. Lassiter. Tonight, it’s Miguel Torres.”

  “That will do very nicely indeed,” he said.

  A somewhat sheepish smile. “It’s not cheap, I know. Sorry if. . .”

  Hector liked the way her accent and smile made those last, apologetic words come off. Her being remotely sorry for the cost of the wine was entirely disingenuous of course, yet charmingly, even enticingly so. This stranger wore her expensive tastes well.

  Dell Shannon was their background music presently: Runaway.

  In keeping with the lyrics of the moody song, a steady rain kissed the window overlooking the concourse, striking the panes, then trailing in meandering streaks down the glass. Distant rumbles of thunder shook silverware.

  As they waited for their wine, He said, “You still have me at a cruel disadvantage. What’s your name?”

  “Cruel? Hardly.” She assessed him candidly, then said, “Haven Branch.” She caught him looking at her left ring finger and gave him a knowing half-smile. She reached out and pointedly turned his left hand for a better view. Her fingers lingered on his palm longer than needed. “Not even a tan line on that naked ring finger to raise eyebrows,” she said. “So glad we got that out of the way. Good news for both of us, or don’t you agree?”

  Oh, he agreed, plenty. Hector shifted his arm to make room for the delivery of their drinks. He checked his watch and decided to settle his bill in advance. He said impulsively, “The lady’s is mine, too.”

  She thanked him again and tapped her glass against his. “To what, then?”

  “You started this toast, so you have to do the honors.”

  “How about to absent friends?”

  Morbid, but undeniably appropriate given his present dark state of mind. Hector countered with, “Sticking to the Royal Navy tradition, ‘Ourselves.’”

  They tapped glasses again and sipped their wine. Heady stuff, indeed.

  Hector realized on top of his other drinks, he’d need to throttle back after this one or else risk a serious buzz. He also had some mild blood-sugar concerns to keep an increasingly wary eye on these sorry years. He settled their mutual tabs and turned back to face her. “You read a lot?”

  “Yes, but mostly thrillers—you know, your kind of novels.”

  “Where bound?”

  “England for a day or so, then pressing on to Japan.”

  Better and better. He smiled and said, “As am I.”

  “Maybe we could arrange to sit together, at least to our shared first stop?” Another smile. “That might be wonderful.”

  It might be. But give voice to hope? Dare to share your plans out loud? Do that, and you risked hearing God’s capricious chuckle.

  So very little ever went according to uttered plan in Hector’s stormy experience.

  Take their meeting tonight for example:

  By their journey’s still-distant end, both would be regarded as quite dead to the rest of the world.

  2 / Strangers on a Plane

  Playboy had sprung for first-class seating for Hector—exactly that much was working in his favor. Haven was also flying first-class, but across the aisle in a row of four. The author’s actual neighbor was a fidgety, nervous looking little Asian man—a fortyish Japanese who quickly pulled down the window shade at his side. Well, there goes what little there was of the view, Hector thought.

  To steel himself for the long transatlantic flight, Hector rejected the stewardess’ offer of another straightforward cocktail, asking instead for an Irish coffee. The little man next to him ordered club soda, then dug out a Vick’s inhaler he proceeded to thrust up each nostril, noisily sniffing at it one side, then the other, then back again.

  Hector sighed, sipping his coffee and whiskey. It was going to be a long journey with this man at his side. Hector watched as Haven Branch talked quietly and emphatically with their stewardess, who in turn vigorously nodded. He had a sense Haven was showing or displaying something to the flight attendant whose fetching rump otherwise blocked the author’s view of whatever was in Haven’s hand.

  More head shaking ensued, then, with a faint smile, Haven rose and squeezed past the tallish, rather fey man seated alongside her. The man scowled at Haven, looking far more put out than it seemed circumstances warranted.

  Their stewardess, lithesome, paled-skinned and redheaded—an endearing, faint bridge of freckles dappled her prettily upturned nose—leaned across Hector, a generous breast brushing his drink arm. She softly tapped his neighbor on the shoulder. She said, “Sir, I’m afraid I have to ask you to move. It’s only just across the aisle. Sorry, but it really must be this way.” Another smile. “And, anyway, you don’t seem terribly keen on a window seat.” She indicated his already closed window shade.

  The Asian man started to balk, but his English failed him in the moment; the titan-haired flight attendant held her ground.

  Looking perturbed, the little man squeezed past Hector, almost upsetting his spiked coffee. He plopped angrily into Haven’s vacated seat. The blond man glared at his new neighbor, then back at Haven as, facing Hector, she gracefully brushed past the author’s legs and assumed the Asian man’s empty seat.

  As she did that, the stewardess smiled and nodded at Hector, looking more inquiringly at him for some reason. Just what had Haven said to her about him, he wondered.

  “I hope you don’t mind my presumption in getting that chap moved,” Haven said, “but I’m frankly arrogant enough to think we’ll both be much happier for my having done so.”

  Much, almost assuredly, he thought. Hector smiled and presumed to order Haven another glass of red wine. “You’re on safe enough ground, no fear there,” he said. “But what in God’
s name did you say to secure this blessed swap?”

  Haven accepted her glass of wine. Once again, the hostess studied Hector with amplified interest. Haven offered her glass for another tap, then said, “Given what you do for a living, can’t you leave a woman some mysteries of her own?”

  “Fair enough,” Hector said, bumping his drink against hers.

  She sipped her wine and nodded at the paperback balanced on his leg. “I take it that one’s good? I mean, your foppish president says it’s so, right?”

  It was a reference to that list that had been released of Jack Kennedy’s supposedly favorite novels of the year. The word through back-channels was an aide or someone had actually suggested Ian’s title’s inclusion to the mix in a cynical bid to make blue-blooded Jack appear more the everyman.

  Hector shrugged. “Just like JFK, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, you know.”

  A soft smirk. “So I’m to gather you’re a Republican or whatever, of some sort?”

  Hector shrugged. “Whatever if anything. Not a Democrat, anyway. Probably not anything, really. I’ve never much been one for politics.”

  He relented. “But I like Ian’s writing just fine. I’m flying to England to meet Mr. Fleming, as a matter of fact. Then we’re pressing on to Japan together. A writers’ Asian holiday, so to speak.”

  It tinged on name-dropping, particularly in light of Ian’s lately burgeoning fame. Well, what the hell? It also had the virtue of being true.

  “My God, I’d love to be a fly on that wall,” she said. The wine at last seemed to be reaching her, its effect there just a bit in her silky but thickening voice. “Japan—I seem to remember reading you were part of your country’s war effort. Were any of those patriotic efforts undertaken there?” She closely studied him over the rim of her glass.

  Hector chose his next words carefully. He’d nearly been court-martialed by General George S. Patton and his minions in the aftermath of the last war for blurring certain critical lines.

  “Mostly I was in the European theater,” Hector said. “Never made to it the Pacific when all that was really active, and thank God for that. And I wasn’t any kind of fighting man, per se.”

  That last was a downright lie. And, loathe as he was to run a highlighter over his age to the younger Haven, he nevertheless said, “I was a bit long in the tooth for front line stuff, even then. At the end of the day, I was pretty much just a war correspondent. Ian and I did make a bit of a run into Japan shortly after the surrender, but it was just for a couple of days on a kind of silly lark. Nothing really came of any of that. Quixotic nonsense.”

  Fruitless though that last trip may have proven, all of that was still buried under layers of secrecy, even after all these years, bolstered on Ian’s end at least, by the Official Secrets Act, and on Hector’s by Patton’s drumhead court and its no-statute-of-limitations’ disclosure order that could land Hector’s ass in some military jail, even now, if he ever publically spilled the beans.

  Throughout the war, Hector had quietly been an agent for the Operation of Strategic Services. His OSS duties had actually led to Hector’s first meeting with Ian, and, yes, that had happened in Japan during that other, still secret trip—but he simply couldn’t confide any of that to Haven, even if he had felt impelled for some reason to do so.

  He said, “You used the phrase, your country. You’re British, at least English by birth, I take it?”

  “London-born, but elsewhere bred,” she said. “I don’t ask this based on accent, but rather from memory—you’re a Texan, isn’t that so?”

  “Born in Galveston,” Hector confirmed. “Grew up on the Gulf Coast.”

  “Mr. Fleming says Texans are the best of Americans, you know. He’s written that more than once at any rate. Bond’s CIA friend, Felix, is a Texan, yes?”

  Felix Leiter. Yes. “So you have read at least some of Ian’s Bond books?”

  “Of course, just not that one you’re reading presently,” Haven said. “Since the success of the film back home—you know, Doctor No—your friend is growing quite famous in Britain. His novels are unavoidable if you’re any kind of reader at all.”

  “Ian has arrived,” Hector said softly, fighting a wave of professional jealousy. The first Bond movie hadn’t landed in America quite yet. He said, “I’m invited to visit the set of the next Bond film, the one they’re making of this book next year. I’m asked to go to Istanbul with Ian for a few days.” Hector held up the paperback copy of From Russia with Love. “Still deciding on that trip.”

  “Then I’m quite jealous,” Haven said, smiling. “Sean Connery is. . .well, that handsome, strapping Scot is really quite something. He’s much more attractive to me than the Bond in the books, who I find something of a dark neurotic. As those sorts of characters go, I’ll confess that I really much prefer Heath Dirk.”

  Heath had been Hector’s recurring character through a series of eleven novels in the 1930s and ’40s. “I’ll confide now that I was utterly distraught when you offed him,” she said. “I was really angry at you for a time, mister. Dear God, nobody does that, not to that kind of continuing character, you know.”

  Hector well knew. Hell, that was the very reason for doing that thing as his interest in Heath waned. He’d be damned if he’d ever continue to write about a character who no longer engaged him. Always the envelope pusher—that was Hector on a good day at his writing table.

  He traced the rim of his glass with a forefinger. “Name for me a book series where the eleventh volume in the arc was even half as good as the first installment, or even the fifth or sixth novel. And, old Dirk? He’d well run his course, at least for me. My God, I really didn’t want to be writing him forever, not like Dame Agatha and that fussy damned Belgian of hers, or Estelle Quartermain, and her Albanian accountant-cum sleuth. None of that endless, ageless hero stuff for me, thank you very much. I loved Dirk too much to ever consider doing that to the poor bastard.”

  “I can’t read either of those female writers anymore, either. No patience for their mysteries, even if they are my countrywomen, more or less. Thrillers are what I love. Your kind of books.”

  Hector said, “Forgive me, but this is threatening to turn into shop talk, at least from my perspective. I’m far more interested in you, Haven. So, you’re going home?”

  “That’s right. Very briefly, then flying on to Japan.”

  “What brought you stateside?”

  “A cousin’s wedding. She went to school here. Promptly fell in love with a Yank. By now they’re honeymooning in the Bahamas. I’m not convinced the union will endure, however. Anyway, I just flew up from Florida.” That explained her mild sunburn, not yet faded to a tan.

  Their discussion was abruptly interrupted by static, then pre-flight instructions.

  The storm outside was also picking up. As they at last took to the air, the weather worsened. The Pan Am jet was buffeted by the wind and engulfed in frantic forks of lighting as it made its ascent.

  Haven took his right hand in hers, gripping tightly. Hector reassuringly squeezed back. They kept holding hands for quite some time, even after their plane mounted far above the storm clouds and the roughness of the ride smoothed out.

  Haven let go first; Hector brooded on that.

  ***

  About three hours into the flight, his new friend was dozing. Hector unfastened his lap strap and rose on cracking knees to head to the restroom to splash some cold water on his face and otherwise freshen up. The forward facilities adjacent to the flight cabin were already occupied and sporting a longish line of fellow first-class passengers, fidgeting from impatient kidneys denied relief when the jet was still bucking through the storm front. Hector headed toward the back of the plane.

  After splashing cold water on his face, Hector toweled off and twisted the handle, stepping back out into the rear portion of the Pan American Douglas DC9.

  The fey, tall blond man originally slated to sit next to Haven Branch stepped into Hector, blocking
his path. Hector scowled and moved to step around the man, but the stranger mirrored Hector’s course correction, freshly intercepting him.

  “Please, Mr. Lassiter, we don’t have much time,” the man said, his tone low and urgent. “My name is Terrence Hunt.” He lowered his voice further, his gaze restlessly roaming around them. “I’m with the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Lassiter. You know, CIA. We know you’re planning to rendezvous with Mr. Ian Fleming, and we think we know why.”

  Hunt looked over his shoulder again, making sure nobody was approaching. He said, “The man now sitting next to me, the Japanese, is a suspected member of a radical conservative movement in his homeland. A newly resurgent organization called The Black Dragon Club or Kokuryū-Kurabu. The woman, whom you know as Haven Branch, the woman who contrived to be seated next to you, is also not remotely what she probably appears to be to your eyes, not just some dishy, roundheels tourist. She’s actually—”

  Hector warned the man with his eyes.

  Arching a dark eyebrow, Haven Branch said, “Gentlemen.” A perfunctory smile, then she said, “So sorry to crowd you chaps, but the queue for the loo up front is rather epic just now.”

  “Very formidable, agreed.” Hector smiled, gesturing at the door to the restroom. “Why we’re both back here. Or call us egalitarians. Anyway, the commoners’ facilities are all yours, Miss Branch.”

  Hector made a show of reaching for his Zippo as she squeezed past them. He said to the blond man, “That light you asked for, pal,” Hector said.

  Fortunately, the man indeed had some cigarettes in his pocket—his yellowed fingernails had tipped Hector he was a heavy smoker.

  The man called Hunt cupped Hector’s hand as the writer held his old lighter up to the man’s Camel cigarette. Hector tolerated the stranger’s touch. Once the alleged spy’s cigarette was going, Hunt turned the lighter to better see it and then read aloud its engraved legend, “One True Sentence.” He said, “It means something?”

  “To me at least, sure,” Hector said. He motioned with a hand to indicate the American agent should lead the way. After hearing Haven lock the lavatory door, they slowly set off toward the front of the plane.