Metzger's Dog

35 Porterfield stood aside and let the cabdriver haul the heavy suitcases out of the trunk but waved the waiting Skycap away from them. He wheeled the two suitcases along the walk, bending slightly at the knees to reach the handles while the porter leaned on his two-wheel dolly, shaking his head in disdain.

The pneumatic doors hissed and admitted Porterfield to the lobby. He made his way to a row of plastic seats along the window and sat down, his knees pressed against the two suitcases. He was sweating from the exertion, and his wristwatch had worked its way around to the inside of his wrist. As he adjusted the watch he confirmed that time was still with him. He had two minutes to spare, enough time to reach a telephone and call Langley. Porterfield let the thought exist for a moment, then dismissed it. Nothing had changed except that his fifty-nine-year-old body was preparing to remind him that it wasn’t in its prime. The quick reactions, the flexibility and force were gone, and now the way to stay alive was to think farther ahead.

The air was filled with the constant murmur of voices and the hum of conveyor belts and the rumble of baggage carts, but when the public-address system was activated there was an immediate change, a low hiss that seemed to muffle the random sounds and swallow them up. “Mr. Porterfield,” said the calm, unchanging female voice, “please pick up a white courtesy phone. Mr. Porterfield, please pick up a white courtesy phone.”

He stood up and looked around him. There was a white telephone a few yards away on a counter that jutted from the wall. He considered pushing the suitcases over to it but decided not to. They were so big that he’d attract attention pushing them around the lobby, and if they announced his name enough times someone who knew him might hear it. He rushed to the telephone and turned to face his suitcases as he said, “This is Mr. Porterfield.”

The telephone sounded dead. A second later there was a ringing. He waited, and it rang three times before there was a click. There was faint music and a recorded male voice said, “Please stand by.”

Porterfield watched as a young blond woman and three small children walked up and sat down behind the suitcases. He found himself humming along with the recorded music. The male voice came on again. “Please stand by.”

The middle child, a fat little boy wearing a T-shirt that said “Redskins,” straddled one of Porterfield’s suitcases as though he were riding a horse, jumping up and down and slapping the side with his hand. Porterfield winced. “Please stand by.” The mother looked on with bovine serenity as the little boy discovered that the suitcase had wheels under it. He leaned forward like a jockey and pushed off the floor with his feet, coasting a yard into the middle of a passing family of Japanese tourists, who eyed him with benevolent amusement. The smallest child, a little girl in a bright red dress that had a bow in the back, tried to climb onto the second suitcase.

“Please stand by.” Porterfield’s jaw tightened. The little girl’s legs weren’t long enough to mount the suitcase. She struggled to get on, beginning to whine. The oldest child, a boy about ten who had reached the age where his body was thinner and longer than his little brother’s, lifted his little sister and set her on the suitcase, then began to push the suitcase along the row of seats, barely missing the feet of an elderly man who was studying his ticket with a fretful look on his face.

“Please stand—” There was another click, and the female voice said, “May I help you?”

“I’m Mr. Porterfield.”

“Please hold on.” The three children were now riding the suitcases back and forth over the floor, their mother laughing and clapping her hands. Porterfield felt his collar beginning to tighten. The telephone clicked again. “Mr. Porterfield?”

He tried to sound calm. “Yes?”

“Your ticket is waiting for you at the American Airlines counter. Please don’t wait in line, go directly to the check-in area. You only have a few minutes.”

He hung up the phone and walked toward his suitcases. As he approached the nearest one, the oldest boy pushed the suitcase too hard. His little sister glided along for a few feet, then the case turned abruptly and toppled over. The little girl’s eyes widened as she fell off, and Porterfield saw her knee hit the floor. She lay there for a count of five as she gathered her breath for the scream.

Porterfield arrived in time to bend over her and say, “You’re okay, honey. Let’s get you up.” He lifted her to her feet, and she stared at him with a look of indecision.

The mother made her way slowly to the little girl, saying, “See? See what happens?”

Porterfield righted his suitcase and stepped toward the other as the little boy scooted away from him. Porterfield said, “Sorry, partner. Got to catch a plane.”

The little boy shouted, “No! I’m not through.”

Porterfield turned to the mother for help, but she had picked up the little girl and was glowering at Porterfield with some irrational sense of injury. “Come on, now. I’m in a hurry,” he said and lifted the little boy to the floor. The little boy struggled and let out a yell of frustration, then ran to his mother.

Porterfield sighed and wheeled the suitcase beside the other one, then pushed the two toward the American Airlines counter. Behind him he could hear that the two younger children had agreed on a decision and were now screaming in concert, competing for their mother’s attention.

Suddenly Porterfield heard footsteps behind him, then something jabbed his shoulder. He turned to see a man in his thirties, tall and thin, with his hair in a windblown fluffy halo around his head, and wearing tinted glasses.

“What did you do to my kids?”

“Not a thing. They were playing and one of them fell.” Porterfield turned and started to push his suitcases forward.

The man grabbed his arm. “Oh no you don’t.”

Porterfield stood straight, then slowly turned to face the man. The man looked surprised when he saw Porterfield turn, as though he had somehow misjudged and was beginning to sense his mistake. Porterfield’s eyes narrowed and his mouth assumed a look that could have been a smile. He said quietly, “I am about to miss a flight, and it’s very important that I make it. Ask your wife what happened.”

The man hesitated, then raised his voice. “You can’t treat my kids that way.”

Porterfield’s hand moved so quickly that only the most curious observer could have noticed. It was at his side, and then it was on the man’s shoulder. It appeared to be a friendly gesture, the collar of the man’s shirt hiding the fact that Porterfield’s right thumb was slowly crushing the man’s trachea. Porterfield’s smile broadened and he leaned close to him, whispering conspiratorially, “I’m really in a hurry and I don’t want to be bothered. Go back to your cow of a wife and the three little pigs and tell them you scared the hell out of me.” Porterfield let up on his grip, and the man’s mouth hung open. He gasped for air, his hands going to his neck.

Porterfield gave him a final pat on the shoulder and whispered, “Go on.” The man staggered back a step, then seemed to regain his composure. By the time he reached his disgruntled family his weak-kneed walk had acquired what could have been a swagger.

At the desk Porterfield said, “You have a ticket in the name Porterfield?”

“Yes, sir,” said a young man in a blue blazer and handed him an envelope.

Porterfield glanced inside. San Diego via Los Angeles. It was going to be a long night, he thought.

“Check your bags, sir.” It wasn’t a question.

“Fine,” said Porterfield, and accepted the two baggage stubs.

“Gate 78,” said the man. “You’d better hurry.”

Porterfield walked quickly across the lobby toward the bank of escalators that led to the metal-detectors and then beyond to the airplanes, not looking back.

PORTERFIELD SPENT THE TIME on the airplane reading magazines. There seemed to be nothing on this flight except the journals for money fanciers—magazines that contained excruciatingly detailed accounts of the economic exploits of men who were photographed with their coats off but their shirts unwrinkled and their ties clasped beneath stiff, immaculate collars. These men were all referred to as “CEOs” who had moved from one company to another because of their love of a challenge. There were other magazines that seemed to be all advertisements for objects that cost thousands of dollars and were handmade by European craftsmen. They were all special, some in limited edition, some numbered and signed, some just called rare. There were also beautiful advertisements for hotels in cities where he’d spent time—most of them tropical cities on the ocean, where large, futuristic buildings along the beach were crowded from behind by filthy shacks made of sheet metal and discarded plywood anchored in the rainsoaked mud. He slept for the last hour of the flight and awoke feeling calm and rested. As the airplane descended, he gazed out the window at the array of lights in the Los Angeles basin, fluttering and blinking in the distance. He reached into his pocket and glanced at his ticket again. He’d have only a few minutes to catch the airplane to San Diego. He would have liked to telephone Alice, but this was their home ground and they’d be watching him for that. Besides, Mrs. Goode would have reached Alice hours ago.

The crowd of people leaned and wobbled and bumped each other as they made their way down the aisle toward the door. Porterfield waited for an opening and joined them. He knew Los Angeles International Airport, and his baggage was checked through to San Diego, so he felt calm and resigned. The flight to San Diego was only forty-five minutes, and then this would be over. They’d have some way of throwing off any trap he might have set for them, but the exact nature of it didn’t pique his curiosity. He only hoped it didn’t demand that they kill him.

He yawned as he stepped across the threshold into the carpeted corridor and walked toward the terminal. He walked to the television screen mounted on the pillar in the center of the room and looked for his flight, then went to Gate 19, picked a bench away from the crowds, and sat down. It would only be a few minutes.

He heard the voice on the public-address system, and it sounded exactly like the one he’d heard in Washington. “Mr. Porterfield, please pick up a white courtesy phone. Mr. Porterfield.”

Porterfield walked down the hall and picked up the telephone. To his surprise, there was a voice on the other end. “Mr. Porterfield?”

“Yes.”

“Please come to the American Airlines desk at Gate 72.”

Porterfield said, “I’ll be right there.” He smiled. It was simple enough. There would be another ticket waiting for him, and another flight to another city. It was the trick, the way they’d planned to break up the trap. It wasn’t bad. They’d have redirected his baggage with the change in reservations. They were watching him now, he was sure. There was no way he could let anyone know where he was going.

At the end of the corridor he entered another large waiting area, the mirror image of the one he’d passed through moments ago. As he made his way toward the desk at Gate 72 something seemed to be wrong. There was no young man in a blue blazer to meet him, only another passenger waiting there. He noticed that the passenger was a girl with long brown hair and a rather good figure, then she turned toward him and he noticed that she had large, clear green eyes. He moved up beside her to wait for the attendant to return.

Suddenly the girl turned and threw her arms around him, smiling. “Daddy!”

PORTERFIELD STOOD STILL while the young woman embraced him hard, her hands moving to his back. He said, “You don’t really have to frisk me. You saw me get off an airplane.”

“That’s true, but you probably have a little card on you that says you can even shoot people on airplanes when you’re in the mood, and electronic underpants that jam the metal detectors.”

“Interesting idea,” he said, returning the woman’s embrace so she could finish her search.

She reached into his breast pocket and extracted the envelope with his ticket in it, then appeared to study it. “Okay, time to move on.” She walked across the lobby and Porterfield followed. They walked to the line of people waiting to board the flight to San Diego.

As they waited in the line, Porterfield said, “We seem to have made the flight. Are you going with me?”

She stared at him. “I’ll be with you. Other people too.”

As they neared the portal at the narrow corridor leading to the airplane, people huddled closer, and Porterfield felt himself bumped twice. He decided not to speak. She didn’t seem to care if he asked questions, but in the press of the crowd he knew she wouldn’t answer. As they reached the doorway she grasped Porterfield’s hand and pulled him to the side.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“No problem. Come on.” Then he noticed that she no longer held his ticket. She must have handed it off to someone in the crowd, he thought, but he resisted the temptation to look down the corridor to see which one it might be. He followed her across the lobby again, and they sat down together.

She lit a cigarette and said, “I noticed you’re not wearing a bulletproof vest.”

“Should I be?” He smiled. His sportcoat had panels of Dupont Kevlar sewn into it, so it would stop any bullet smaller than a .45 caliber.

The young woman shrugged. ‘It’s your wardrobe, but I would have thought something like that would be required if you want to dress for success in your line of work.”

“Or yours.”

“I’m flat enough as it is. But the point is this. You’re not some kind of kamikaze, are you? Eager to die for the cause?”

“I’d prefer not to. What’s the cause?”

“We thought you might be a little cranky about what’s happened.”

“If the money is all you want, I don’t think we have much to worry about. I didn’t set any traps. I didn’t know I was going on a flight. If I had, I wouldn’t have known where. Most people would have assumed it would be any place but Los Angeles.”

The young woman looked away from him through the large plate-glass windows. The airplane was slowly moving toward the runway. She blew smoke in the air, then pushed her cigarette into the ashtray. “I hope you’re telling the truth, but we’ll know in a minute when we try to get out of here.”

They stood up and walked to the escalator, then rode it down to the ground floor and stepped onto the moving walkway. In front a family wearing Hawaiian shirts blocked them from passing, but the young woman didn’t seem to care. They stood on the long conveyor and drifted sedately toward the main foyer. In a moment, Porterfield knew, they’d be past the bank of metal detectors. From here on there would be danger. Armed men could reach this part of the airport from the parking lots without even passing security guards. He said quietly, “Did you have the courtesy to make a return reservation for me?”

She said, “Here. You might as well have this.” She reached into her purse and produced another airline ticket.

Porterfield accepted the ticket and studied it, then said, “This plane leaves in forty-five minutes. Am I going to make it?”

“As your travel agent, I sincerely hope so. You will unless you managed to get word of your itinerary to someone.”

“How could I do that?”

“The airplane has a radio, and I’m sure you also have a little card that says you can use everybody’s radio.”

“No, my electronic underpants cause static.”

The couple in front of them wearing Hawaiian shirts whispered together. The husband shook his head, but the wife said loudly, “He said ‘electronic underpants.’ I heard him.”

When they reached the end of the conveyor the young woman walked across the main foyer and through the exit to the sidewalk. Hundreds of people were moving into and out of the airline terminal, taxis stopped and started, pudgy little buses deposited streams of passengers. Porterfield said, “What now? We drive to a desert shack and hold me hostage for another”—he glanced at his watch—“thirty-eight minutes?”

“Some other time. Our desert shack is being remodeled, so the paint’s still tacky in the guest room. You’ll have to drop in and see us later. We’re expecting to be able to entertain more lavishly soon.”

“Thank you. I’d enjoy that. What do we do while we’re waiting?” He stepped back to allow a cabdriver to swing a suitcase onto the curb.

“Nothing,” she said, and put her arm in Porterfield’s, walking him to the bench beside the wall. “Sit here, relax. Some nice men in cars out there in the darkness have rifles trained on you right now. Some others are in the airport waiting for you to make a move, so you won’t be lonely. Right now I have to leave you, but I’ll be back.” She turned and walked down the sidewalk and into the terminal again.

Porterfield looked out at the thousands of cars in the lot, then scanned the five-story parking ramp across the drive. He could see nothing for certain—there were silhouettes of heads in many of the cars, and people stood on some of the tiers of the parking ramps, some fumbling with baggage, others just loitering, apparently without another way to pass the time before they expected an airplane to arrive or leave. Probably she hadn’t lied, and at least one of them was there to blow his head off if something went wrong. There was no reason to doubt it, and he knew he wouldn’t do anything different if there were no one watching.

The plan wasn’t bad, he thought. Even if he’d managed to shake the woman and get to a telephone, there was no way he could have done anything. He could tell the San Diego field office that a person arriving on the seven-thirty flight would pick up two brown suitcases that he had baggage claims to match. It would have taken longer than the three-quarter-hour flight even to organize a team, and then they’d see fifty or sixty people arrive and pick up two brown suitcases each. They had no way to arrest anyone or even examine the suitcases. Meanwhile, Porterfield would be here with guns trained on him. It wasn’t bad. He smiled as he glanced at his watch again. It was after seven-thirty already, and the baggage would now be rolling down the ramp in the San Diego airport. He waited.

The young woman appeared again far down the sidewalk. He watched as she walked toward him. She had one hand in her purse, fumbling around for something. His jaw tightened, then the hand emerged and it held a cigarette and a lighter. He leaned back on the bench and sighed.

She stopped in front of the bench and lit the cigarette. “Stretch your legs, Daddy. You’ve got a long flight ahead of you.”

“That’s a relief.” Porterfield stood up. “My wife will be pleased. I left word I might be gone for a couple of days.”

“You people have wives?” She seemed startled.

“Sure. Wives, kids. Of course, my kids are grown up and married. We even had a dog, but he died a few years ago.”

They walked on in silence between the metal detectors, along the moving walkway, and up the escalator to the boarding area. Finally she stopped him. “Wait. Here’s the locker key. Inside the locker is the original set of papers. You’ve got a minute or two. Don’t bother to be careful about the briefcase or the papers. There aren’t any fingerprints on anything.”

He stared at her. “That’s not necessary. We have copies.”

“But we wanted you to know, and we thought that if you had them back—”

“Know what?”

“That it’s over. As of this minute, we’re out of this business. There’s no reason now to hunt for us.”

Porterfield handed the key back to her. “Do me a favor. Just take it with you and burn it. Burn the other copies you have. Forget you ever saw it.” He turned and walked to the boarding gate.