Journal of a UFO Investigator (14 page)

The words had turned meaningless. I closed the book. A stewardess yanked at the door, and it swung shut. “Was this United flight two-five-seven?” I asked her.

She nodded. She hurried away. I wanted Julian to be here.
Julian
, I'd say to him.
Rochelle must have missed her flight. How are we going to link up with her now?

But there wasn't any Julian either.

 

I went back to the ticketing area. I couldn't remember just where Julian had said he was going to meet us. The space around the ticket counters seemed darker than it had before, and a lot more deserted. I was puzzled. With so few people left in the terminal, there
had
to be parking spaces. What was taking him so long?

I wandered back and forth between the counters and the terminal doors, while a woman's voice droned announcements over the PA system. One of these began, very gradually, to penetrate my awareness.

“Albert Bender, meet your party in the baggage claim area for United Airlines flight two-five-seven. Albert Bender, meet your party . . .”

Albert Bender?

The Bender of the three men in black? The Bender to whom Julian had been charging his phone calls? Bender had to be a common name. Surely there were Albert Benders in Miami, just as in Bridgeport.

“Albert Bender, meet your party . . .”

A few nights earlier, while Julian was driving, I'd asked about those telephone calls. He'd given a very long answer that made very little sense. I may have dozed off for part of it. But I remembered his saying, more than once: “I send a message. By using Bender's name, I send a signal. You understand?”

I hadn't understood. A signal for Rochelle? A message for Tom?

But maybe I was the one the signal was for. And it was being sent right now.

I ran for the escalator.

 

The baggage claim area for United Airlines was deserted when I got there. At the other end of the hall a large group of people, apparently passengers on a TWA flight that had just arrived in Miami, milled around and waited for their suitcases to appear. But the belt for United flight 257 wasn't moving any longer. Only a few pieces of unclaimed luggage remained. Two dark-skinned men gathered the luggage onto carts and wheeled it off to some storage room. Both of them wore what I guessed was the uniform of the airport workers—black jacket and pants, black ties, black caps.

Cubans, they had to be. Refugees from Castro.

I bent over and examined the bags still on the belt. The light was pretty poor. But I could make out, on a tag attached by a small chain to the handle of one powder-blue suitcase, the name Rochelle Perlmann. There followed an address in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. A telephone number, with a Philadelphia area code.

I looked up. Through the plate glass window I could make out at least four taxis standing by the curb, presumably waiting for the TWA passengers. I could take the suitcase. I could get a cab to our hotel. I could wait there for Julian. Rochelle might have left a message for us inside the suitcase, explaining why she hadn't been on flight 257. I picked up the suitcase. I began to walk toward the doors.

“
Hey!
”

I stopped and turned around. One of the baggage workers was walking toward me, grinning amiably. He was a tall, powerfully built man with a swelling stomach and a large pockmarked face.

“That your suitcase, kid?”

I looked down at the suitcase, still in my hand. “I
think
it is,” I said.

“Kind of a funny color suitcase for a fella to be carrying, wouldn't you say?”

Again I looked at the suitcase, a bit longer this time. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess you might say it is.”

His grin broadened. He looked like he was about to laugh. I prepared myself to laugh with him.

“What's your name, kid?”

He was at least forty years old. Yet I couldn't shake the sense I was facing some loutish kid from my phys ed class, getting ready to gather his friends against me, to taunt me for their usual stupid reasons.

“Albert Bender,” I said.

“You got a claim stub for that piece of luggage?” came a voice from my left.

I turned to see the other baggage worker—small, wiry, snaggletoothed. I put the suitcase down and made a show of hunting through my pockets.

“I can't—I can't—can't seem to find it,” I said. “I must have left it—”

“You must have left it on the plane,” the tall pockmarked man said. “Isn't that right? You left it on the plane.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I left it on the plane.”

“Let's have a look at that bag,” said Snaggletooth.

Neither he nor Pockface had a trace of a Cuban accent, or southern for that matter. Seen close up, neither of them had any Hispanic features besides their dark skin. The color had a strange artificial quality about it, as if they both had decided to stain themselves brown for some reason I couldn't begin to fathom.

“Tag says Rochelle Perlmann,” Snaggletooth announced. “It doesn't say no Albert Bender. Tell me, Al. What the hell you doing with Rochelle Perlmann's suitcase?”

“Rochelle's my sister,” I said.

“Your sister?”

“My sister. I'm picking up her suitcase for her.”

“Why can't your sister pick up her own suitcase?”

I thought of telling them she'd gone to get the car and had asked me to bring the suitcase out to her. But then they might insist on my taking them to her or waiting with me until she arrived with the car. “She missed her flight,” I said. “I was supposed to come meet her, but she missed her flight. Seems like her luggage got on the plane, but she didn't.”

“Thought you said you left your claim stub on the plane,” said Pockface mildly.

“I did? I said that? I—I—”

“Now it sounds like you weren't on the plane at all,” said Pockface.

“I was—I was—I must have been confused. I got all flustered, I guess.”

“Flustered,” said Pockface. He seemed to consider this idea. “You're a pretty nervous kid, Al,” he said. “You know that?”

“Where was your sister flying in from?” asked Snaggletooth.

“Albuquerque,” I said. “New Mexico.”

“We know where Albuquerque is,” said Pockface. “Been working at airports all our lives.”

“What I don't understand,” said Snaggletooth, “is what's a lady named Rochelle Perlmann doing being the sister of a guy named Albert Bender. How does that figure, Al?”

“She's married,” I said.

“Married,” said Pockface.

“To Fred Perlmann,” I said. “In Philadelphia. About two years ago. Now she's flying in from New Mexico, to visit—to visit the family.”

“Your family's right here in Miami, huh?” said Pockface.

“That's right,” I said.

“What's your address?”

“Twenty-two-oh-eight Orlando Avenue,” I said.

This was the address of our hotel and the only Miami address I happened to know. Snaggletooth took a small notebook out of his pocket and, with a nasty snicker, wrote something down. I realized I'd just made one more mistake.

“What does your brother-in-law do?” Pockface asked. “For a living, I mean. Up in Philadelphia.”

“He's a lawyer.”

“A Philadelphia lawyer!” said Pockface. He gave an odd snorting laugh. “It sure does figure. From his name, I mean.”

“He sounds like a gentleman of the
He
brew persuasion,” Snaggletooth said. “Am I right about that, Al?”

“Yes,” I said. “You're right about that.”

“Tell me the truth,” said Pockface. “Doesn't that bother you, just a little bit? Your sister marrying one of them.”

“No,” I said. “Why should it?”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Pockface. “Just, a lot of guys it would bother, that's all. You're a real liberal guy. I respect that.”

“It'd bother the hell out of
me
,” said Snaggletooth.

“Yeah, that's you,” Pockface told him. “But Al's not like you. He's a liberal kind of guy. And he's right about that too! The Jewish, they're just like you and me. Isn't that right, Al?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That's right.”

“Fuck that,” said Snaggletooth. “What I want is a closer look at that suitcase.”

“
Good
idea,” said Pockface. “Let's all go down to our office, have better light to see by. Al can sit down, take a load off his feet. Don't worry about the suitcase, Al, I'll carry it. What's that book you got with you?”

I handed him
The Book of the Damned
. He looked at the title as we began walking. It seemed mildly to surprise him. “Good book?” he asked.

“I think it is,” I said.

“
The Book of the Damned
. All about you, right?”

I must have stopped walking. Pockface pushed me gently on the arm to keep me moving down the long white corridor.

“
Just
kidding,” he said. “I'll read the book sometime. Always looking for good books to read. That's the way you broaden yourself, isn't that right, now, Al?”

WE MADE TURN AFTER TURN, THROUGH A MAZE OF IDENTICAL
corridors. I tried to keep calm, to remember every turn we took. There was no one in the hallways. The TWA passengers had left long since. For all I knew, we were the only people left in the terminal.

They led me to a small office. It was almost bare, except for a filing cabinet in the corner and a scuffed brown desk pushed against the wall. Fluorescent lights shone all around us. A third man, dressed in the same uniform as the others, sat behind the desk in a straight-backed wooden chair. His skin had the same strange brown tint as theirs.

“Hey, Corky!” said Pockface. “Got a young fella here. Found him walking off with somebody else's suitcase. Says it belongs to his sister.”

Corky stood up and pushed the chair away from the desk. Pockface laid the suitcase on the desk. I set
The Book of the Damned
beside it. Pockface gestured toward the chair. “
Asseyez-vous
, Al,” he said cordially.

I hesitated.

“Don't know much French, do you?” he said. He took me by the shoulders and pushed me roughly into the chair. It slid back a few inches as I landed. He towered over me.

“Let's get down to business,” he said. “You got any ID on you, let's see it.”

“I've got my driver's license,” I said, getting up from the chair. “And I'll be glad to show it to you. But first I'd like to see some ID of
yours
, please.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Pockface mildly. And stood absolutely still for a second or two.

I didn't see him pull his hand back. I might have caught a glimpse of his large, hard palm swinging through the air toward me. My head jerked violently to the right; a burning pain flooded my face. Dazed, I sat back down. It took a few seconds before I could open my eyes.

Everything was a blur. My glasses had gone sailing off my face. Somebody was lashing my wrists together behind the chair, tightly, with wire. “Fun and games is over, Al,” Pockface said. “You wanted to play I'll show you mine if you show me yours, you shoulda done it out in baggage claim. Where there were people around, so they could hear you when you hollered.”

“What pocket you keep your wallet in?” Corky said from behind me. “Nev' mind, here it is.
Damn
if it isn't stuck tight.” He poked his fingers into my hip pocket. I tried to squirm away. “No, no,” he said. “Don't bother getting up. I got my razor right here.”

Click!
I felt my pocket pulled tight, then noisily cut away. I pressed my thighs together, hard. My wallet went flying through the air. Pockface caught it.

“Got it,” said Corky. “No trouble at all. Didn't have to scrunch up your face so much, did you?”

“We ain't hurt you none, yet,” said Snaggletooth.

“Hey, whaddaya know!” Pockface cried out. “This isn't Al's wallet. Belongs to some guy named Daniel Shapiro. In Pennsylvania, looks like.”

“Bet that's another one of Al's brother-in-laws,” said Snaggletooth. “Bet he's got
two
sisters, both of them went and married Jews. Then Al stole this guy Shapiro's wallet. Figured there'd be plenty of money there, didn't you, Al?”

“Hey, Al, you know what?” said Pockface. “Your brother-in-law's only thirteen years old. That's what it says on his license. Right by the photo. Damn if he isn't the
ugliest
kid I've ever seen. Glasses thick as Coke bottles.”

“You got some weird family,” said Snaggletooth.

“Where's my glasses?” I said.

“Right here on the floor,” said Pockface. “Reminds me, we got to be careful. Might step on them just by accident. If we're not careful, I mean.”

“How the fuck did this kid get a driver's license if he's only thirteen years old?” said Corky.

“Who knows?” said Pockface. “Maybe that's the way they do it up in Pennsy. Now, Al,” he went on. “You listening to me? Corky is gonna play a little game with you.”

I felt Corky's arm snake around my neck. His hand grasped my face. His finger lifted my left eyelid and held it open. There was a powerful smell of gasoline. In front of my eye something metallic gleamed, too close for me to focus on it.