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shoulder.
Looks like I fucked up, he said, with no apparent concern. Sent for
the wrong guy. Sorry about that, pardner. He laughed.
What do you mean?
Thought you was in the know. Looks like it was that old guy.
Somebody wrote down the wrong seat number. Who s runnin this fucking
airline, anyway?
Meers would have liked to know the same thing.
Don t you have a copilot? What do you mean, in the know ?
Copilot had him a little accident. Night cops. They broke his fuckin
arm for him. He s in the hospital. The man shuddered. Could be three,
four months yet till he gets out.
For a broken arm?
The pilot gave him a tired look. He jerked his thumb back toward the
cabin.
Screw, why don cha? Get outta here. You ll get it, one of these days.
Meers stared at him, then got up.
He s dead, anyway, the pilot said.
Who s dead? The pilot ignored him.
Meers made his way down the aisle. The old man seemed asleep.
His eyes were slightly open, and so was his mouth. Meers reached over
and lightly touched the old man s hand. It was cold.
A big fly with a metallic blue back crawled out of the old man s nostril
and stood there, rubbing its hideous fore-legs together.
Meers was out of his seat like a shot. He hurried five rows forward
and collapsed into an empty seat. He was breathing hard. He couldn t work
up any spit.
Later, he saw the stewardess put a blue blanket over the old man.
* * * *
Denver. DEN. Tonight, it made Chicago seem like Ber-muda. The sky was
hard and fuming as dry ice, and the color of a hollow-point bullet.
Temperature a few degrees below zero, but add in the wind chill and it was
cold enough to freeze rubber to the runway.
The huge plate-glass windows rattled and bulged as Meers lurched
down the concourse, his luggage caroming off his hips, ribs, and knees. A
chill reached right through the floor and swept around his feet. He hurried
into the men s room and set his bags down on the floor. He ran water in the
sink and splashed it on his face. The room echoed with each drop of water.
He couldn t bear to look at himself in the mirror.
He had to find the airline ticket counter. Had to get his boarding pass.
Needed to find the gate, board the plane, make his connection. He had to
get home.
Something told him to get out. Leave everything. Go.
He walked quickly through the nearly deserted departure area,
slammed through the doors and out onto the frozen sidewalk. He hurried to
the front of a rank of taxis. It was an old yellow Checker, a big, boxy, friendly
sort of car. He got in the back.
Where to, Mac?
Downtown. A good hotel.
You got it. The cab driver put his car in gear and carefully pulled out
onto the packed snow and ice. Soon they were moving down the wide road
away from the airport. Meers looked out the back window. The Denver
airport was like a cubist prairie schooner, a big, horribly expensive tent to
house modern transients.
One ugly mother, ain t she? the cabbie said.
Meers saw the cab driver in profile as the man looked in the rearview
mirror. Bushy eyebrows under an old-fash-ioned yellow Checker Cab hat
with a shiny black brim. A wide face, chin covered with stubble. Big hands
on the wheel. The name on the cab medallion was V. KRZYWCZ. A New
York medallion.
Krizz-wozz, the man provided. Virgil Krzywcz. Us Polacks, we sold
all our vowels to the frogs. Now we use all the consonants the Russians
didn t have no use for. He chuckled.
Aren t you a little far from home? Meers ventured.
Let me tell you a little story, Krzywcz said. Once upon a time, a
thousand years ago for all I know, I was takin this fare in from LaGuardia.
To the Marriott, Times Square. I figure, that time of night, the Triborough,
down the Roosevelt, there you are. But this guy d looked at a map, it s gotta
be the BQE, then the midtown tunnel. Okay, I sez, it s your money. And
whattaya know, we make pretty good time. Only coming outta the tunnel
what do I see? Not the Empire State, but the fuckin bitch of a terminal
building. I m in Denver. I never been ta Denver. So I looks back over my
shoulder, Krzywcz suited the action to his words, and Meers got a whiff of
truly terrible breath, and no tunnel, just a lotta cars honkin at me, me bein
stopped in my tracks. And that s the way it s been ever since.
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