count of five as she gathered her breath for the scream.
Porterfield arrived in time to bend over her and say, “You’re okay, honey. Let’s get you up.” He lifted her to her feet, and she stared at him with a look of indecision.
The mother made her way slowly to the little girl, saying, “See? See what happens?”
Porterfield righted his suitcase and stepped toward the other as the little boy scooted away from him. Porterfield said, “Sorry, partner. Got to catch a plane.”
The little boy shouted, “No! I’m not through.”
Porterfield turned to the mother for help, but she had picked up the little girl and was glowering at Porterfield with some irrational sense of injury. “Come on, now. I’m in a hurry,” he said and lifted the little boy to the floor. The little boy struggled and let out a yell of frustration, then ran to his mother.
Porterfield sighed and wheeled the suitcase beside the other one, then pushed the two toward the American Airlines counter. Behind him he could hear that the two younger children had agreed on a decision and were now screaming in concert, competing for their mother’s attention.
Suddenly Porterfield heard footsteps behind him, then something jabbed his shoulder. He turned to see a man in his thirties, tall and thin, with his hair in a windblown fluffy halo around his head, and wearing tinted glasses.
“What did you do to my kids?”
“Not a thing. They were playing and one of them fell.” Porterfield turned and started to push his suitcases forward.
The man grabbed his arm. “Oh no you don’t.”
Porterfield stood straight, then slowly turned to face the man. The man looked surprised when he saw Porterfield turn, as though he had somehow misjudged and was beginning to sense his mistake. Porterfield’s eyes narrowed and his mouth assumed a look that could have been a smile. He said quietly, “I am about to miss a flight, and it’s very important that I make it. Ask your wife what happened.”
The man hesitated, then raised his voice. “You can’t treat my kids that way.”
Porterfield’s hand moved so quickly that only the most curious observer could have noticed. It was at his side, and then it was on the man’s shoulder. It appeared to be a friendly gesture, the collar of the man’s shirt hiding the fact that Porterfield’s right thumb was slowly crushing the man’s trachea. Porterfield’s smile broadened and he leaned close to him, whispering conspiratorially, “I’m really in a hurry and I don’t want to be bothered. Go back to your cow of a wife and the three little pigs and tell them you scared the hell out of me.” Porterfield let up on his grip, and the man’s mouth hung open. He gasped for air, his hands going to his neck.
Porterfield gave him a final pat on the shoulder and whispered, “Go on.” The man staggered back a step, then seemed to regain his composure. By the time he reached his disgruntled family his weak-kneed walk had acquired what could have been a swagger.
At the desk Porterfield said, “You have a ticket in the name Porterfield?”
“Yes, sir,” said a young man in a blue blazer and handed him an envelope.
Porterfield glanced inside. San Diego via Los Angeles. It was going to be a long night, he thought.
“Check your bags, sir.” It wasn’t a question.
“Fine,” said Porterfield, and accepted the two baggage stubs.
“Gate 78,” said the man. “You’d better hurry.”
Porterfield walked quickly across the lobby toward the bank of escalators that led to the metal-detectors and then beyond to the airplanes, not looking back.
PORTERFIELD SPENT THE TIME on the airplane reading magazines. There seemed to be nothing on this flight except the journals for money fanciers—magazines that contained excruciatingly detailed accounts of the economic exploits of men who were photographed with their coats off but their shirts unwrinkled and their ties clasped beneath stiff, immaculate collars. These men were all referred to as “CEOs” who had moved from one company to another because of their love of a challenge. There were other magazines that seemed to be all advertisements for objects that cost thousands of dollars and were handmade by European craftsmen. They were all special, some in limited edition, some numbered and signed, some just called rare. There were also beautiful advertisements for hotels in cities where he’d spent time—most of them tropical cities on the ocean, where large, futuristic buildings along the beach were crowded from behind by filthy shacks made of sheet metal and discarded plywood anchored in the rainsoaked mud. He slept for the last hour of the flight and awoke feeling calm and rested. As the airplane descended, he gazed out the window at the array of lights in the Los Angeles basin, fluttering and blinking in the distance. He reached into his pocket and glanced at his ticket again. He’d have only a few minutes to catch the airplane to San Diego. He would have liked to telephone Alice, but this was their home ground and they’d be watching him for that. Besides, Mrs. Goode would have reached Alice hours ago.
The crowd of people leaned and wobbled and bumped each other as they made their way down the aisle toward the door. Porterfield waited for an opening and joined them. He knew Los Angeles International Airport, and his baggage was checked through to San Diego, so he felt calm and resigned. The flight to San Diego was only forty-five minutes, and then this would be over. They’d have some way of throwing off any trap he might have set for them, but the exact nature of it didn’t pique his curiosity. He only hoped it didn’t demand that they kill him.
He yawned as he stepped across the threshold into the carpeted corridor and walked toward the terminal. He walked to the television screen mounted on the pillar in the center of the room and looked for his flight, then went to Gate 19, picked a bench away from the crowds, and sat down. It would only be a few minutes.
He heard the voice on the public-address system, and it sounded exactly like the one he’d heard in Washington. “Mr. Porterfield, please pick up a white courtesy phone. Mr. Porterfield.”
Porterfield walked down the hall and picked up the telephone. To his surprise, there was a voice on the other end. “Mr. Porterfield?”
“Yes.”
“Please come to the American Airlines desk at Gate 72.”
Porterfield said, “I’ll be right there.” He smiled. It was simple enough. There would be another ticket waiting for him, and another flight to another city. It was the trick, the way they’d planned to break up the trap. It wasn’t bad. They’d have redirected his baggage with the change in reservations. They were watching him now, he was sure. There was no way he could let anyone know where he was going.
At the end of the corridor he entered another large waiting area, the mirror image of the one he’d passed through moments ago. As he made his way toward the desk at Gate 72 something seemed to be wrong. There was no young man in a blue blazer to meet him, only another passenger waiting there. He noticed that the passenger was a girl with long brown hair and a rather good figure, then she turned toward him and he noticed that she had large, clear green eyes. He moved up beside her to wait for the attendant to return.
Suddenly the girl turned and threw her arms around him, smiling. “Daddy!”
PORTERFIELD STOOD STILL while the young woman embraced him hard, her hands moving to his back. He said, “You don’t really have to frisk me. You saw me get off an airplane.”
“That’s true, but you probably have a little card on you that says you can even shoot people on airplanes when you’re in the mood, and electronic underpants that jam the metal detectors.”
“Interesting idea,” he said, returning the woman’s embrace so she could finish her search.
She reached into his breast pocket and extracted the envelope with his ticket in it, then appeared to study it. “Okay, time to move on.” She walked across the lobby and Porterfield followed. They walked to the line of people waiting to board the flight to San Diego.
As they waited in the line, Porterfield said, “We seem to have made the flight. Are you going with me?”
She stared at him. “I’ll be with you. Other people too.”
As they neared the portal at the narrow corridor leading to the airplane, people huddled closer, and Porterfield felt himself bumped twice. He decided not to speak. She didn’t seem to care if he asked questions, but in the press of the crowd he knew she wouldn’t answer. As they reached the doorway she grasped Porterfield’s hand and pulled him to the side.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“No problem. Come on.” Then he noticed that she no longer held his ticket. She must have handed it off to someone in the crowd, he thought, but he resisted the temptation to look down the corridor to see which one it might be. He followed her across the lobby again, and they sat down together.
She lit a cigarette and said, “I noticed you’re not wearing a bulletproof vest.”
