“Child molester,” said Bottomley, as she peered at the sixty year old white man in 2B. “Look at the way he sucks his pen top. Definitely a pedophile.” In her late thirties, Bottomley was blond and fit, and still looked like a million bucks in her uniform.
The plane hummed in the background.
“Well, he could molest me any day,” Walton said. A slim man in his mid-thirties, Walton sported a well-trimmed mustache, short brown hair, and milk chocolate brown eyes. “I think he’s cute.”
“You think everyone wearing Armani looks cute. How about 3C?”
“Recently escaped from a Turkish prison where he was serving a twelve-year sentence for drug possession.”
Bottomley laughed. “Drug possession?” The man in question looked more like a priest — thin, almost gaunt, with a sallow complexion and deeply pocked skin.
“Hashish,” Walton insisted. “Look at the tell-tale, bloodshot eyes. And his fingers are stained.”
“He could just be a cigarette smoker.”
Walton paused for a moment, a pair of Coke cans in each of his hands. “What’s up with you?” he asked her.
“What do you mean?” Bottomley leaned over to fetch a few more sodas from the locker.
“Look at you. You’re positively glowing. Was Peter in town? Did you finally get laid?”
“Derek! I know it’s a slow snowy night and all, but the natives are restless. If we don’t serve them some alcohol soon—”
“Wait!” Walton dropped the Coke cans back onto the trolley and snatched the senior flight attendant by the hand. “Don’t tell me. He didn’t, did he?”
Bottomley smiled an impish smile but still didn’t say anything.
“He did, didn’t he? Why, you sneaky little bitch! Well,” Walton huffed. “Show me.”
Bottomley reached into the pocket of her navy blue uniform and pulled out a ring.
“Oh, my God!” Walton gasped. “What a rock!”
The diamond was at least two and a half carats. It glimmered hypnotically in the harsh airplane light.
“It’s beautiful,” Walton said. “Put it on. Put it on. Let me see.”
Bottomley slipped the ring on her finger. She held out her hand for him to admire. “The setting is platinum. It was his grandmother’s ring.”
“Gorgeous.” Walton leaned forward, as if holding a loop to his eye, and examined it closely. “Looks like something one of Kim Kardashian’s brooches might have farted out after breakfast. It’s about time that bastard proposed.”
“He’s not a bastard. That was last week, Derek. Well, last month, really. Now, he’s my honey-lamb.”
“I think I’m going to throw up.” Walton reached for a vomit bag. Then he smiled, issued a tight little squeal, and threw his arms around Bottomley. “Congratulations… honey-lamb,” he said. “I guess this means you’re going to break up our award-winning What’s My Line? team, huh?”
Bottomley extricated herself from his grasp. “All good things come to an end. I’ve been doing this for almost twe—” She smiled. “For a long time, Derek. I’m tired of being a frequent-flyer punching bag. And I’m not getting any younger. If I want to have a baby…” She stopped talking abruptly and turned toward the porthole in the emergency door, when the plane pitched suddenly portside.
Bottomley screamed as she was thrown to the deck. The jet roared, rolled and shuddered as the fuselage ripped apart like a can of sardines.
The last thing she saw was the man from 2B being sucked through the opening. Then fire as Walton flew by with a scream. Then nothing but cold as she floated through emptiness, surrounded by thousands and thousands of twinkling stars, each winking as brightly as her brand-new engagement ring.
CHAPTER 3
Decker lived in a two-story townhouse on Thirty-first Street, near Corcoran, in the historic district of Georgetown. He parked his BMW Z8 in the Custom House lot right next door and slipped into his garden through the side entrance — a cast iron gate featuring floral motifs, set in a twelve-foot, glass-studded brick wall.
Marisol was inside, in the kitchen. Decker could see her framed in the window by the magnolia tree, leaning over the sink, watching TV as she washed the dishes. It was late, around ten, and Becca was already in bed.
Decker stood there for a moment in the garden without going in, simply watching. Bare of their leaves, the branches of the great pair of sixty-foot sourgum trees straddling him were riddled with stars. He could pick out Orion, the belt and, below it, his sword. He could pick out the Dog Star, bright Sirius, too, the hunter’s loyal companion. With a sigh, Decker entered the house.
Marisol was happy to see him. Barely five feet, with a friendly round face, his housekeeper was anxious to leave. “It’s my niece’s quinceañera tomorrow. I’ve got to go home to make the pavo en pepián,” she told him in the machine-gun-fast Spanish dialect unique to her Tacanec region of Guatemala. But she still insisted on making him dinner. “You need to eat,” she informed him, using vos instead of tú, another sign of her heritage.
Decker spun her about, trying to turn off his mind. He plucked her jacket from the peg on the wall. “I’ll make something — don’t worry,” he answered in Spanish. “Any trouble at bedtime?” He handed Marisol her jacket and they moved away from the kitchen, down the hall, toward the foyer.
“No, no problem. Becca is good girl, Mr. John,” she said, switching to English. “Good girl. She finish her homework, watch SpongeBob, take shower. Then she go right to bed. No problem.” She slipped on her coat. “I see you tomorrow? Six-thirty, Mr. John?”
“Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Decker, closing the door.
Though the brick townhouse was originally constructed in 1858, the previous owners had renovated the kitchen less than a year before Decker had bought it, and it featured a sixty-inch BlueStar Gas Range, a sub-zero refrigerator, and a glass-fronted wine cooler. It filled Decker with a great wave of indescribable pleasure to see the glimmering stainless steel stove, with its six powerful burners, plus two ovens, each large enough to accommodate an eighteen by twenty-six-inch pan. A man and his tools, Decker thought.
He took off his jacket, threw it over a chair, and poured himself a glass of Merlot. The ten o’clock news was on the TV in the corner, churning out the latest gore porn. Today, it was some airplane disaster.
“…the mid-air collision of America Airlines flight 1561 and Apex Air flight 24 occurred over the Milk Creek County Forest Preserve near Batavia, Illinois, some twenty-five miles west of Chicago. According to airline officials, 223 passengers and crew were aboard the two planes, and all are believed to have perished. A preliminary report indicates that a computer malfunction within the air traffic control system may have been the cause of—”
Decker turned off the TV. He linked his Samsung droid to the wireless sound system and John Coltrane’s ballad “Naima” started to play. He checked the refrigerator. Nothing much. Some old Chinese takeout and a plastic container of pasta with pesto. A wedge of manchego. That plate of leftover Thanksgiving turkey. And a package of chanterelle mushrooms that had seen better days. Decker took out the mushrooms and two cage-free eggs. As he separated the yolks from the whites, he paused for a moment to listen. The ballad was written as a love letter to Trane’s then-wife, Juanita Naima, and the rich, complex cords were so reverential and restrained that they seemed to stand still, to almost hover there… in mid-air.