The stewardess, noting his activity, was hovering over him, the usual professional smile for a fellow nonsleeper oddly missing from her pretty, vacuous face. It would never occur to her to wonder why some stubborn farmer might choose to sweat out his years on barren soil somewhere in the vast unknown beneath the steady wings. To her, the flight would be a familiar tunnel filled with night and small coffee cups, with Kleenex and whiskey-sodas, with Dramamine and unfolded blankets, which you entered quite normally at Port-of-Spain in Trinidad, and from which you routinely emerged at Galeão in Rio de Janeiro. The romances of her life, he thought, would draw their substance from the occasional presence aboard of a famous movie star, a flirtation with a handsome pilot or influential passenger, or the controlled, shared fear of a stuttering motor over the dark emptiness below, bringing from the subconscious that momentary doubt of eternity that always came with the unexpected.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“Quite all right, thank you.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked up at her sharply; this was not routine.
“Quite sure,” he said, uneasiness beginning to stir his stomach.
“Could I bring you some coffee?” It was an obvious retreat; the uneasiness grew.
“Please.”
He noted her eyes fixed upon the briefcase as she straightened up, as if it were slightly obscene and therefore exciting. Her breath caught unintentionally as she forced her glance away. A sudden terror gripped him. Ach, so? he thought; so soon? But it could not be; it was too early! No one should have known until tomorrow; it was to be held until he had passed customs and was safe in the hotel! What could have happened? The two-hour delay in Trinidad? But even so, it was only two hours, and they knew planes could be late. The difference in time? But they must have known there was a difference in time. Somebody slipped, somebody was precipitous, it was that simple; somebody moved too quickly!
To quell the rising panic, he forced a note of humor into his thoughts, disciplining them, thinking of the stewardess. Have I added one more small romance to your limited repertoire, my dear? Where do I stand in relation to Fred MacMurray, or Linda Christian, or even a sudden lurch in a tropical storm? He stared rigidly out of the window, attempting to lure his thoughts from the disaster they sensed in the involuntary gasp of the stewardess; in her eye fixed upon the briefcase, in her oversolicitousness; but it was all in vain. The panic remained.
In his imagination he could picture the startled looks on the faces of the crew bunched in the eerily lit nose as the message came clattering over the air; the discreetly flashing light calling the stewardess forward, her nonchalant air as she picked her way down the aisle, tucking in a blanket here, adjusting a pillow there, until she could disappear beyond the softly closing door leading to the pilot’s compartment without arousing suspicion. And just how had they told her? Did they say: “Hey, cutie, what’s the man in 6B like? Is he big? Hard? Gangster type?” In spite of his panic, he was forced to smile at this. Or did they say: “Take a good look at 6B, he has two million dollars in cold cash in that innocent-looking briefcase, stole it and left for Brazil one step ahead of the police”? Or possibly they may have said: “Look, honey, see that 6B gets all the service his little heart desires; he’s a famous man, we may have to borrow money some day and it never hurts to have friends”? The smile faded; how they had told her wasn’t too important. What was important was that both he and his briefcase were now well known to the plane’s crew, who meant nothing. But just as well known, without a doubt, to the Brazilian authorities in Rio de Janeiro four hours away. That was quite important.
In sudden resolve he slipped from his seat and walked hurriedly down the aisle to the rest room, the briefcase bumping against his legs in the confined space. He could feel the eyes of the stewardess upon him as he edged through the narrow door and slid the latch shut. In nervous haste he stripped off his jacket and shirt, removed his undershirt and stuffed it into the briefcase over the stacked blocks that lay within. After a moment’s thought he added his socks, putting his shoes back on over his bare feet. A paperback mystery from his jacket pocket went on top, and then, in desperation, his pocket handkerchief. He searched himself for other detritus to add to the cache; there was nothing. He considered and rejected the idea of stuffing towels from the lavatory into the offending emptiness.
That’s all I need, his sardonic humor whispered — to be caught for stealing!
He washed his face fiercely, and was in the process of scrubbing it dry when the pain struck. As always it gave little notice, welling up within him in a sudden wave. The towel fell from his stricken hand; his fingers gripped the edge of the small sink grindingly, as if in an attempt to transfer the shards of agony into the vibrating airplane. When the first spasm had passed, he took a small pill from his pocket and slipped it beneath his tongue. Always the pain and always the dreams, he thought. I will not die now; I must not die now. It has never killed me before, and it will not kill me now. He waited several more minutes until the pill took effect and the pain settled, the torture slowly easing. Then, unlocking the door with trembling fingers, he returned unsteadily to his seat.
The coffee arrived. He could feel the stewardess waiting silently at his elbow as he sipped it, but he continued to stare out of the window until she reluctantly left and padded quietly back to the galley. He finished the hot drink, placed the empty cup on the floor near the aisle, and hunched back into a sleeping position. There was nothing to be done until their arrival; the grim finality of this thought strangely calmed him. The briefcase nestled under his arm as he closed his eyes and attempted to doze for a few more hours.
Well, he thought bitterly, it didn’t start in New York. The nervousness there was wasted. Nor did it start in Rio de Janeiro, where it was supposed to start. Just for the record, should anyone ask you, or should you ever be in a position to answer, it started somewhere twenty-five thousand feet over northern Brazil, on a brilliant sunlit morning, high over a tiny toy house lost in the immensity of rolling brown hills and shiny twisting streams, when a radio message reached out and brought surprise to a tired DC-7 crew bored with flying. And brought romance to a dull stewardess with greedy eyes. That is where it started.
I only wish I knew where it ended, he thought; and slept.
Chapter 2
The airport buildings at Galeão glared blinding white, their black shadows empty caverns in the shimmering tarmac.
He shaded his eyes against the painful reflection and followed the silent file of tired passengers into the long low building, the sweat beginning to rise under his tight collar and run down inside his shirt. His ears still buzzed faintly from the hours of motor noise, and the briefcase suddenly seemed unbearably heavy to his wrist. In dismay he noted that he had forgotten to undo the chain; in haste he fished the key from his watch pocket and unlatched the tiny lock; no one seemed to notice.
They were halted by a rope slung across the corridor; beyond they could see the open window of the Health Office and Immigration, with uniformed figures inside shuffling papers endlessly and staring blankly at the incoming passengers. There is something fascinating about the similarity of customs procedures and officials in every country, he thought. True, the original instincts of self-preservation in all basic groupings probably have common roots, but it still seems rather startling that, stemming from different mores and habit patterns, following completely diverse paths of development, they all seemed to have arrived together at the same paper-shuffling, blank-faced bureaucracy, reflecting their mutual fear of strangers in identical rituals of pointless documents and illegible rubber stamps. They must have hidden antennae for secret communication, like ants, he thought. Or more terrifying, radio and television, like humans.