From A Dead Sleep

by John A. Daly

“It’s time to embrace the twenty-first century, Mr. Coleman. You should never leave home without one. It will save you a heck of a lot of trouble in the future.”

  The small phone resembled a child’s toy at the center of his excessive hand. He studied the gadget so intently that he looked like an archeologist trying to determine what kind of fossil he’d just discovered.

  “The buttons are so tiny,” he muttered. “I’ll be lucky if I can punch in a number.”

  “You’ll get used to it. I promise,” she said with a giggle. “I made my phone number easy for you. I added myself as your number one contact.”

  She pointed to a larger button in the upper left portion of the phone’s keypad and added, “Just push this one and then the number one.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” he conveyed with a touch of uncertainty.

  The two gazed at each other for a strained moment before Lisa let her eyes flow to the row of large television monitors that hovered at an angle above the wide and busy hallway they stood in.

  “Well, I’d better be moving onto the next concourse,” she said. “My flight should start boarding in about fifteen minutes.”

  He nodded as large herds of people shuffled their way around them in both directions. Only bits and pieces of other conversations lingered in the air while he struggled to come up with the words to offer as a parting farewell.

  “I hope you have a good flight,” he eventually blurted out, instantly regretting his choice.

  He took a breath and extended his hand to her. She ignored the hand and swept her body in close, delivering a tight embrace around his large frame. The side of her face pressed against his chest and he wondered if she could hear his elevated heart rate as he breathed in her fresh scent. He hadn’t expected such a sign of affection, but he timidly returned the hug.

  “Thank you,” she whispered before her arms slipped from his back.

  He noticed her eyes shift and narrow before she craned her neck over his shoulder. “What?”

  “That sore, or whatever it is on your head,” she noted. “It’s healing.”

  Only then did Sean Coleman realize that the itch at the back of his skull that had persistently nagged him for longer than he could remember had escaped his notice for two straight days. His hand went to the back of his head where a solid scab marked its mending.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered under his breath.

  She wiped a misty eye with the side of her soft hand and then latched onto the elevated handle of the leather carry-on suitcase that stood behind her. Its wheels strolled on thin, gray carpet and then linoleum as she made her way toward the escalator that would take her down one floor to the tram. She only turned back once, waving goodbye to the man from Colorado who hadn’t yet moved.

  He waved back, a hint of sadness in his face.

  She held a finger and thumb to the side of her face in the shape of a phone and mouthed the words, “I’ll call you.”

  He nodded and took a breath, watching her body and then the top of her head float down below the floor until she had disappeared from sight.

  She leaped off the last step of the escalator before it disappeared into the floor at the bottom of its metal track. It was a habit that had formed from her childhood when she used to travel with her parents—one that she’d never given up for whatever reason.

  While waiting for the interterminal train to arrive, she watched in amusement as a handsome man, probably in his later thirties and wearing khakis and a polo shirt, dragged his young daughter across the pale, linoleum floor. The little girl was probably only three years old with long and curly blonde hair. She had wrapped her arms and legs tightly around her father’s larger leg, and he made funny faces, much to her delight, as he walked around in circles to tote her along. Her sister, who looked a couple of years older, joined in her laughter, and their pretty mother watched on, displaying a pleasant smile.

  It occurred to Lisa at that very moment that she was no longer shackled by disappointment and false hope. There was a new life out there for her somewhere—a fresh start toward the things she wanted and often dreamed of. Once her old life was sorted out in Las Vegas, a new chapter would begin and maybe her story would unfold somewhere other than Nevada.

  When she reached her concourse and made her way down to her departing terminal, she learned that her flight had been delayed by twenty minutes. To kill time, she meandered her way over to the terminal’s small food court where she purchased a poppy seed bagel and glass of orange juice. She sat with her legs crossed in a seat along an empty row that faced the walkway and enjoyed her snack. A couple of pilots, clad in short-sleeved, white uniform shirts with dark ties, took notice of her as they walked briskly by, pulling their luggage behind them. She offered a polite smile before glancing down at her watch.

  The news that her flight’s delay had been increased to thirty minutes was delivered by a woman’s voice over a loudspeaker. The news didn’t faze her. What’s an extra ten minutes? she thought to herself. Moments later, another announcement was broadcast through the intercom. This time, it was a man’s voice, requesting that a passenger return to Gate 27. Had it not been for the name of the passenger, the page would have completely escaped her notice. Its familiarity however, triggered her attention.

  She knew that name—Lawrence Falcone. It belonged to the man who she’d met one night long ago at a restaurant back in Las Vegas. Kyle had presented him as a retired coworker from the FBI. She shook her head with an abandoning sigh, appraising again the lengths her late husband had gone to in order to prolong his sham. She wondered who that man had really been. Probably a blackjack dealer or some bartender Kyle had paid off.

  Lisa finished up her bagel and juice and disposed of her plastic cup in a tall, metal trashcan that stood in front of a bathroom entrance that she passed by.

  Her wandering eye evaluated the lit-up destinations displayed on digital signs that hovered above each gate as she made her way back. The flight at Gate 23 was headed for Phoenix. The one at 25, for Miami.

  Lisa had never been to Miami. She almost flew there a year and a half ago when some teacher friends of hers and their spouses invited her and Kyle on a Caribbean cruise that departed from a port in the city. However, a last minute assignment—or so she’d been told by her husband—came up a week beforehand and their plans were cancelled. She wondered now what the real story had been.

  When she passed a gate with the destination of Newark, she glanced over at a stout, broad-shouldered man with a shiny, bald head and wearing a cream-colored suit. His back was toward her as he stood at the flight desk, speaking quietly to the middle-aged woman who worked the counter. If it wasn’t for the excessive amount of sweat running along the sides of his neck and the base of his skull, she’d have probably not noticed him at all.

  His feverish nodding at whatever instructions the airline employee was giving him sent out a signal that the man was deathly afraid of flying.

  When the man turned his head to point his pudgy finger in the direction of the nearby gate, Lisa slowed to a near stop. With his profile exposed, she realized that she somehow knew him. The shape of his face, the placement of his eyes, the curl of his mouth. Wherever she recognized him from, he looked different than before. He had hair before, not just on his head but also on his face. A goatee or perhaps just a mustache. Her mind strained to picture him as he was at that time. She never forgot a face and knew she wasn’t mistaken.

  She’d only been to Colorado once before—a weekend trip with Kyle to Copper Mountain a while back. Perhaps he was someone who’d stayed at the same lodge or who worked there.

  Her breath left her when she noticed the gate number above his head: 27. Her eyes gaped open before she carefully turned her face away from the desk and picked up her pace until she was safely concealed from view behind a large support pillar. She pressed her back against it, feeling her own pulse tap her chest. She twisted her neck and peered around the edge of the pillar to catch a closer look at
the man she had known as Lawrence Falcone from that enlightening night out with her husband in Vegas. His hair and mustache were both now gone, but it was undoubtedly him.

  She tucked her head back between her raised shoulders like a turtle preparing for a predator and noticed that her suspicious demeanor had caught the eye of an elderly woman, sitting in a chair across from her who was knitting what looked to be a scarf. While the woman’s fingers didn’t flinch from her needlework, her invasive, judging eyes peered up through gold-framed spectacles and advertised her interest in the odd behavior she was witnessing.

  Lisa stole a breath and forced herself to appear relaxed. She smiled politely at the woman to diffuse the conjecture but the woman’s gaze was trained on Lisa like that of an astute owl that was instinctively aware of its surroundings.

  Lisa’s pleasant grin morphed into an annoyed scowl, and she reached into her purse to pull out her cellphone. She held it to her ear and shuffled out from behind the pillar and closer to the flight desk, careful to keep her back to the man who stood in front of it. She pretended as if she was engaged in a casual conversation while she discreetly weaved in and out through fellow travelers until she stood just mere feet away from the man.

  She was confident he wouldn’t recognize her as long as she didn’t make eye contact with him, but she wondered how he’d react if she did. Part of her wanted to confront and castigate the imposter for playing a role in her husband’s deception, even if that role was quite small. Yet, it was her grim curiosity that kept her as a mere observer. She managed to eavesdrop on bits and pieces of Lawrence Falcone’s conversation with the airline employee. It sounded as if the man who had once posed as her husband’s partner at the FBI was being granted an upgrade to first class.

  If there was any doubt left in her mind that she indeed had the right man, it was erased when the sound of his raspy voice fell within earshot. There was a touch of an accent that hadn’t been there before, but otherwise, its distinctiveness was so identifiable that it brought back vivid memories of the discussion she’d had with him over steak and cocktails that night.

  He had portrayed the role of a retired agent flawlessly, primarily due to his convincing presentation as a man of authority. He seemed to hold a nearly parental influence over her husband and the way he began to command results from the airline employee again projected that persona.

  Falcone padded his beading head with a handkerchief before returning it to his jacket.

  “You’ll be in seat 3C, Mr. Falcone,” said the woman from behind the counter. “The first-class section will board first. That should be in about thirty minutes.”

  “What about on the second leg of the flight?” he inquired. “Can we go ahead and upgrade on it too?”

  “You’ll have to check with the gate in Newark for your continued service to Rome. We can’t guarantee a seat in first class at this time.”

  Falcone scoffed and snatched his freshly printed boarding pass from the woman’s hand and grabbed the handle of a small, camel suitcase beside him. The woman’s professional grin vanished as he stormed off. When his head spun during the about-face, Lisa turned away from him and mumbled some pleasantry nonsense into her phone. She kept a subtle eye on him as he lumbered out into the hallway, around a young couple engaged in a deep kiss and onto the moving walkway headed toward the central area of the terminal.

  The way he carried himself generated suspicion in Lisa that this man wasn’t just some schmuck who her husband had once paid off to fool his wife. He was a man of importance, who she had just learned was on his way out of the country.

  “Moretti,” she whispered into her powered-off phone.

  Her husband’s former boss hadn’t yet made it out of the state. If he made it out of the country, he’d most likely avoid justice for good.

  She waited until the bulky fugitive was nearly at the end of the escalated walkway and about to step onto the next platform before she began following him. She kept the phone to her ear as an excuse for her lowered head not to draw suspicion if he somehow took notice of her. Her eyes darted through the terminal for anyone dressed in a security uniform, but she spotted only civilians and a short, dark-skinned man who was part of a clean-up crew. She lowered her cell only long enough to punch in a couple of numbers before it returned to her ear.

  Sean Coleman stood just inside the closed doorway of the tram shuttle that was rapidly decreasing in speed. His hand tightly gripped a vertical support bar for balance while the intrusive banter of cheesy, departure-safety instructions blasted through an intercom positioned above his head.

  When the instructions concluded, he could hear a low, pulsing noise from somewhere near him. It repeated itself twice before the man next to him pulled out a small, silver cellphone from his pocket and announced, “It’s not me.”

  Sean’s eyebrows arched and he reached into his pants pocket to retrieve his own phone. Its display screen was lit up with Lisa’s name.

  “Oh crap,” he grumbled while trying to figure out how to accept the call.

  The ringing continued, unhindered, and Sean grew angry. “Come on, you piece of shit.”

  “Just press the ‘talk’ button, man,” said a teenage girl with purple hair and a nose ring who poked her head around Sean’s shoulder. “It’s the red one.”

  Sean complied just as the sliding doors of the train were preparing to open.

  “Hello!” Sean shouted.

  “Sean, he’s here!” came Lisa’s voice.

  “What?”

  He could barely hear Lisa’s whispering over the noisy crowd of people pushing their way to the side of the train.

  “He’s here!” she repeated, this time as forcefully as her discretion would allow her.

  Sean noticed from the glares of those around him that they could all hear Lisa’s voice as well as he could, at ample volume.

  “You turned on the speaker phone, dude,” said the same ratty-looking girl who had helped him before.

  The doors slid open and a ripple of travelers pushed their way into Sean. He staggered backwards and out of the train as they herded him toward a pair of upward-bound escalators.

  “Who’s where?” he shouted over the commotion.

  “Moretti! He’s here in the terminal. He’s trying to leave the country!”

  His skeptical eyes tapered and he shook his head. “What do you mean? How can you know? You told me you never even met the guy.”

  “It’s a long story, but I know it’s him. This is for real. Believe me.”

  “Okay, okay!” he said before pushing his way back against the oncoming crowd.

  Clusters of travelers were already entering the train from the opposite side, and Sean feared the doors would close before he reached them. He shoved and forced his way against the tide, ignoring the angry protests of others as he did. Just as the doors began to close, he slid back inside.

  “Listen, I’m back on the train. I’ll be there soon! Terminal C, right?”

  “You’re still in the airport?” she said. “Good! Yes, it’s Terminal C. I’m going to try and find airport security.”

  Lisa’s voice through the cellphone’s open speaker was attracting attention, this time from a new group of travelers. Sean ignored their glares and kept the phone to his ear.

  When she didn’t speak for a few seconds, he frowned. “Lisa?”

  Silence.

  “Hello? Hello!” he snarled to no avail, other than commanding the attention of everyone seated and standing around him. “Lisa?”

  Lisa watched Moretti use the sleeve of his jacket to repeatedly brush sweat from his forehead. He continued the action about every eight seconds or so, resembling a car’s windshield wipers on an intermittent setting. He continually twisted his head in different directions to assess his surroundings. She believed he was keeping an eye out for people in uniforms, just as she was, but for different reasons.

  She remained in the distance, merging her way in with families and other clusters of peop
le to avoid sticking out.

  “He’s a short, heavy man in a cream-colored suit,” she spoke into the receiver. “He’s bald.”

  When Sean didn’t respond, she realized that the call had been dropped.

  “Dammit,” Lisa muttered before dropping the phone into her purse.

  She watched Moretti approach a newsstand and dig through his wide pants pocket. He snatched out some change and grabbed a folded newspaper from the countertop after the vendor acknowledged him with a nod and took his money.

  Lisa slowed her stride and huddled herself next to a tall terminal directory. He rifled through the tall pages of the paper with his suitcase at his feet. She kept a close eye on him, wondering what could be running through his mind at that very moment. Maybe he was looking for some mention of himself in the headlines.

  She wondered if he believed he was about to get away with murder or if he feared being caught before he landed on Italian soil. She hoped he was afraid. She hoped he felt at least a little bit of the same fear that her husband must have felt as he stood on that bridge with a gun pointed to his head. She hoped he felt an inkling of the fear that the others had felt—the ones who lost their lives in the mountains because of him.

  She was staring down an evil man who had bestowed pain on more people than he probably ever bothered to consider. Yet, the man probably knew her husband far better than she ever did.

  A rumble of static lightly echoed off the walls of the terminal. The sound hooked her attention, as it did Moretti, who quickly lifted his newspaper in front of his face to subtly conceal himself. The noise had come from a radio attached to the side of an older, bearded man wearing a sky-blue uniform with dark pants and matching tie. A gold badge was pinned just above his left shirt pocket. Airport security. He was walking casually toward the area where Moretti was standing, though the relaxed mannerisms revealed that he had no interest in anything or anyone in particular. Just sweeping the perimeter. He wore a gun holstered on the opposite hip as his radio.

  Lisa made certain Moretti wasn’t watching and discreetly waved her hand at the guard, careful not to lift it high enough to capture the notice of unwanted eyes.