Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(2)
But if you looked closer, you might note his pallid cheeks, his neck rashed and jeweled with scabs—where once there was a beard, razored away the night before. You might spot his white-knuckled grip on the briefcase. The redness vining the corners of his eyes after a sleepless night. And his clenched jaw, the muscles balled and jumping.
This is the busiest time of day, when the security guards, the flight attendants, his fellow travelers, notice the least, the airport a flurry of bodies, a carnival of noise. The motion detector above the entrance winks and the electronic double doors open and he enters baggage claim. Here is a gaggle of Japanese tourists wearing neon-green tracksuits. An obese man spilling out of his wheelchair. An exhausted-looking couple dragging behind them red-faced children and overstuffed backpacks. An old man in a gray Windbreaker and Velcro shoes, saying, “How did that get in here?” leaning his head back and squinting up at the metal rafters, where a crow roosts.
He cuts through them all, walking up an escalator, moving past the ticket counters to security. His eyes dart wildly about him even as his body remains tense and arrows forward. He brings his hand to his breast pocket, where his boarding pass, printed up the night before, peeks out like a neatly folded handkerchief; he fingers it, as if to reassure himself that it’s actually there.
The security guard has a buzz cut and fleshy body and he barely glances up when he spotlights the man’s license with a blue halogen flashlight and then initials the boarding pass before handing them back. “Okay,” he says, and the man says, “Thank you.”
The line is long but moves fast through the maze of black ropes. When he passes through the metal detector, he closes his eyes and holds his breath. Then the guard is waving him forward, telling him, “You’re good.” A moment later the X-ray machine shoots out his tray and from it he collects his shoes and briefcase and wallet and silver watch, whose face he glances at when buckling it to his wrist—his flight does not board for another forty minutes.
He has not eaten this morning, his stomach an acidic twist. But the smell of fast food, of sausage and eggs, is too much for him. His hunger rolls over inside him. He orders a breakfast sandwich and paces while he waits for it. When his number is called, when he collects the bag, he rips it open and can barely find his breath as he shoves the sandwich in his mouth and gnaws it down. Then he licks the grease off the wrapper before crumpling it up to toss in the garbage. He suckles his fingertips. He wipes his hand along his thigh, unconcerned as he smears his pants with grease, and then glances around, wondering if he has caught anyone’s attention. And he has. An old woman—with a dried-apple face and dandelion-fluff hair—sits in a nearby wheelchair, watching him, her mouth open and revealing a yellowed ridgeline of teeth. “You’re pretty hungry,” she finally says.
He finds his gate and stands by the rain-freckled window. His reflection hangs there like a ghost, and through it he observes the plane parked at the gate. Beyond it, fuel trucks and luggage carts zoom through black puddles that splash and ripple their reflection of the world. Men wearing fluorescent orange-and-green vests over their raincoats throw luggage onto a conveyer that rises into the belly of a plane. Off in the distance, a Boeing 747 blasts down the runway like a giant bullet, steadily gaining speed, its nose lifting, the plane following, angling upward and abandoning the tarmac. And then it is gone, lost to the clouds.
He glances at his watch often. His tie is too tight. His suit is too hot. He wants to peel off his jacket but can feel his shirt sticking to his skin and knows the fabric will be spotted in places, nearly translucent along his lower back, where the sweat seems to pool. He uses his boarding pass to dab at his forehead. The ink bleeds.
The desk agent gets on the PA and lists off their flight number and destination, 373 to Portland, Oregon. Her voice is tinny and rehearsed. At this time, she says, first class is welcome to board along with premier and executive elite card carriers. He glances at his watch and checks his boarding pass for what must be the hundredth time that morning. They will depart in twenty minutes and he will board with Group 2. He wants to pace. He has to concentrate to stay footed in his place.
A few more minutes pass. He considers joining the mob of people standing next to the counter, waiting to board, but the thought of all those bodies, their heat and smell, keeps him alone by the window.
Passengers with young children and in need of extra assistance are now welcome to board. And then Group 1. And then, at last, Group 2. He hurries toward the gate but isn’t sure at first where to go, who is boarding and who is waiting to board, among the confused mass of bodies and rolling suitcases. They aren’t moving—they are a wall of meat—and he wants to shove them, throw something, but manages to contain himself, to steady his breathing and circle around the crowd and find the actual line of passengers shuffling toward the agent, who scans their tickets with an empty smile and a thank you, thank you, thank you.
He has not noticed up to this point the extra security detail that stands next to the jet bridge. A man and a woman, both of them big shouldered and big bellied, bulging out of their uniforms. They are studying the line. They are waiting for him, he feels certain. And soon, any second now, they will rush forward and throw him to the floor and cuff his wrists. He is only a few feet away when they pull out of line a woman in a floppy hat and floral-patterned muumuu, apologizing to her, saying they’re randomly screening passengers. “For your safety,” they say.