“I bet you get plenty of them, a pretty girl like you.”
She shook her head. “I hardly ever do unless I buy them myself.”
“Valentine’s Day will be coming up pretty quick now.”
“I suppose.”
“Tell you what. Give me your address, and I’ll see you get our Valentine’s Day assortment.”
Candy looked stricken. “I can’t.”
“I understand.” He folded his hands in his lap.
“I don’t mean that. I’m moving, and I don’t know yet where to. Most of my stuff’s in storage.”
He brightened. “I suppose you’ll have to find a new apartment after this trip? Do you live by yourself ?”
“I did, yeah … . I’ve been thinking of moving here, to tell the truth. You come here often?”
“Pretty often. On business.”
“Maybe, you know, you could bring it. Meet me somewhere. It wouldn’t have to be Valentine’s Day.”
“I’d like that. I’d like for you to try all our candies, Miss …”
“Garth. Catharine Garth.”
“Do they call you Cathy?”
She smiled shyly. “Sometimes.”
“Here’s my card. I’m John B. Sweet.”
Candy giggled. “Is your name really Mr. Sweet? And you make candy? Gosh, you’re an executive vice president.”
“You can call me John.”
“I’m going to call you John B. I know too many Johns already.” Holding the card, Candy glanced around. “My God! My purse! Where’s my purse?”
“You lost it?”
Her eyes were round as saucers. “I must have left it back at the hotel. All my money—my ticket—”
“Where were you?”
“In the coffee shop. I know I had it there—you know, I paid the waitress. I must have left it on my seat in the booth.”
He took her hand. “Don’t worry, Cathy, she’ll find it and turn it in.”
The driver, a melancholy Pakistani, glanced over his shoulder at them. “Wha’ airline?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Wha’ airline, sirs? Where you want stop?”
“Oh. United.”
“John B., what will I do?”
“Well, to start with, you ought to call the hotel and see if anybody’s found it. Then you should check with your airline—which one was it?”
“En double-you. Is that Northwestern?”
“Right. Check with them. Tell them you’ll have to make a later flight.”
“I don’t even have money to pay for this cab,” Candy moaned.
“Don’t worry—I’ll take care of it. I’ll lend you twenty too, so you can get back to the Consort.”
The cab rushed past a sign: RENTAL CAR RETURN.
As she had feared, the blue suitcase was locked. It was a combination lock with four wheels, the kind the user can set for himself in any of a thousand different ways. “Something easy to remember,” Candy whispered to herself. The only other woman in the ladies’ room glanced at her, then back at her mirror.
She tried the quadruple numbers first—oooo, 1111, 2222, 3333 … . None of them worked. Then 1234, 0123, and on a wild impulse, 8910. None of them worked either. Neither did the year. There was a cutlery shop in the airport, she knew, where you could buy Swiss Army knives. She could get one and a couple of little plastic overnight bags to carry what she wanted to keep. Let’s see, World War II? She spun the little dials to 1940, 1941, then rapidly through the war years to 1946, all without effect. Anniversary? When would that woman have gotten married? Nineteen sixty, 1961, 1962. The catch slid smoothly back.
There were two pairs of shoes inside, and both fit her beautifully. She selected the lizard-skin ones because they had closed toes, and hid her rubber boots in a corner beside the vinyl-covered couch. In a moment more, she had put on panty hose and a clean wool dress. There was even a purse in the bag and some makeup in the purse, with fifty-seven cents in change and an opened package of gum. Candy put two sticks of gum in her mouth and went out into the airport lobby again, still carrying the blue bag. A line of cabs waited where she and John B. Sweet, Executive Vice President of Mickey’s Jawbreakers, had arrived a few minutes before. A driver stowed her blue suitcase in the trunk while she settled herself in the back seat.
“Where to, lady?”
“The Greyhound station. The big one downtown.”
