“I haven’t had one for twenty years. I do remember, because my mom told me I said it, that I felt like I lost a puzzle piece of my life.”
Lyle chewed on it silently until she asked him to let her in on the secret. He smiled again. “Bad habit of mine,” he said, “retreating into my brain to look for puzzle pieces myself. I’m thinking about the different kinds of seizures.” He told her about the small subset of powerful seizures that involve considerable memory loss, accounting for the loss of six hours or more preceding an electrical storm. By way of an answer, her blue eyes settled on him with an arched brow communicating: So what exactly are you saying?
He shrugged, communicating: Yeah, maybe what you’re thinking.
“Like I had a seizure, or we all had a seizure, and we all forgot landing in Steamboat?”
“Or flying there. Right, well, that just sounds insane. It sounds insane, right?”
“For a guy who is not a psychiatrist, you’ve got a pretty clear handle on the definition of insanity.” She smiled and so did he. “But, yes, it sounds insane.”
“What else don’t you remember, Eleanor?”
“Is that a serious question?”
“In a poorly worded, roundabout way. I mean: How much is missing for you? Do you remember flying, pulling into the jetway, or whatever you normally do?”
No, she told him, for the most part, no. She felt like she had memories of all that stuff but they were tenuous.
“I recall becoming aware that I was parked at the terminal. There had been a communications glitch.”
“You remember that?”
She closed her eyes as if grasping for it. “The truth is, it’s what I was told.”
She explained that she received a call when she had returned to San Francisco—her home base—and was told to come in for a meeting. She blinked rapidly and she held tightly to the beer mug such that Lyle wondered if she might crack the porcelain.
“You’re holding something back.”
She cleared her throat. “A passenger died.”
He’d come to expect almost anything at this point, given what had happened the last few days. Still, this caught him off guard. Eleanor’s eyes started to water and she willed away the tears.
“It’s my first duty,” she said.
“A passenger died?”
“I’m being officially investigated for dereliction of duty,” she said. “If anyone knew I was here right now…”
He waved his hands. Of course he wouldn’t say anything. “My word but I—”
“I can’t be seen talking to you because it would look like I’m monkeying with an investigation. But I am here; you’re damn right I’m here. I had nothing to do with a passenger’s death.”
“Someone is saying that?”
“No, not exactly. I… why do you keep looking over my shoulder?” She sounded exasperated.
“Sorry, rude. I’m feeling paranoid. Some guy keeps walking back and forth out there and I—”
“If you’d rather—”
“I’m sorry, go on.”
She explained to him that a passenger named Milt Vener had died. He was an old guy and sometimes people died on planes. It had happened to her twice before, once owing to a stroke and another time, relatedly, to a blood clot. This time, though, blunt force trauma.
“Someone hit him in the head,” she said.
Lyle felt again the ripple of familiarity like déjà vu that disappeared as quickly as it came. Then a moment of panic in which he wondered if he’d hit an old man on the head. This was all lost on Eleanor who seemed now intent on getting her story out. She said the investigators for the airline and the FAA had been very formal, giving her little information. They’d treated her in two meetings and a brief preliminary one by phone as if she hadn’t been a valorous twenty-year veteran.
“The only hint I’ve had where they might be going with this is that they’ve asked a lot of pointed questions about my first officer. His name is Jerry Weathers, and they’ve—”
“Say it again.”
“What?”
“Jimmy Weathers?”
“Jerry.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Why?” She studied Lyle. “Who cares?”
“I’m having one of those moments.”
She nodded, and described the first officer as lanky, all elbows, full head of brown hair, a bit of buggy eyes. “Bit like a fish,” he said and, just as he said it, she said the same thing.
“You know him?” she said.
“I think he’s been walking around outside.”
Eleanor moved so quickly that she very nearly whirled around. Her elbow hit her water glass, sending the last drops spinning. She turned back to Lyle. “Damn it, are you serious?” She quickly lowered her voice to try to limit what already was too much attention caused by her spill.
“Seems to describe the guy. He’s gone, I think. I don’t see why you’re so—”
“Have you been listening?” She leaned in so close he could smell her soap and the touch of perspiration and tension seeping through. “I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t know if he’s playing me in some way, or what he’s up to.”
Lyle got it now. This first officer might be turning on her, but for the life of Lyle none of that made sense.
“I’ve got to go,” she said.
“Please, wait.”
She shook her head. She looked at the doorway to the right of the counter, the hallway to the bathroom, and a back door. Lyle felt a terrible urge to say I can help you but he didn’t know if it might come off as patronizing when that wasn’t what he meant at all. Most of all, he didn’t know if he was capable of helping her when he couldn’t help himself or even decide if he wanted to. He watched the pilot walk away and felt an immediate sense of loss. It was the very feeling he’d had for years crystallized into a moment—he should be doing something or saying something because life was slipping away—and being unable to do anything about it. There was nothing he could do about it now.
Outside it was fully dark. Lyle absently got on his bike and let a million questions slide around his brain without focusing on any particular one of them. With the sun down, the early evening took on a decided winter chill. He was glad he’d put on this wool sweater. He pedaled along the west side of the park on Scott, figuring he’d go left on Fell. He saw the driverless car.
It crept along behind him in modest residential traffic. At the corner of Oak, a thoroughfare with thickening traffic, Lyle thought about Occam’s razor and the likelihood of the simplest explanation. Maybe there were just a lot of these cars around. He took a right onto Oak, heading east, away from home, just to test the theory. A quarter way down the block, he looked back and saw the driverless car take a right too. Okay, thought Lyle, still nothing certain, given Oak’s popularity. A car horn exploded.
The driver was warning Lyle that, distracted, he’d swerved into the lane. The human driver shouted something Lyle couldn’t hear. Lyle stopped along the edge of the far right lane. The fracas and pace and bouncing headlights of the cars speeding Oak disoriented Lyle. The feeling jostled him, sparked a memory of Steamboat, the cold and dark, that he couldn’t quite grasp. He looked into the fray of oncoming lights and couldn’t see the bubble car now. Had it disappeared?
Then, boom, there it was again, nearly on him, just a car length back. It had been hidden behind larger vehicles. The bubble neared. Fear jolted Lyle and he pedaled again.
Lyle willed himself to take a deep breath. He went right on Steiner. The traffic thinned. Lyle kept a modest pace. He craned over his right shoulder. The bubbly autonomous vehicle turned right on Steiner. So dutiful, it used its blinker and slithered onward, a perfect citizen, an innocuous robot, a guileless storm trooper. Lyle sped up. Then screeched the brakes when a car door opened. He swerved, righted himself, then at Duboce Avenue he went left and made a quick right on Sanchez Street; glancing behind him, he took another right on Fourteenth.