Эд Макбейн - Running From Legs and Other Stories

“Since when do you go sitting on fire escapes with strange men?”

“He’s not strange, he’s very nice.”

“Nice or otherwise, since when...”

“Since about nine-thirty, I guess. What time is it now?”

“In New York or in Chicago?”

“Anyplace,” Abby said. “Oh thank you, Randy.”

“How many of those have you had?” I said.

“Which?”

“Whatever you’re drinking there.”

“Oh, two or three, I guess. Listen, why’d you ask for Annie Iceman? That’s not very funny.”

“I didn’t ask for Annie Iceman. The guy who answered the phone was loaded.”

“It’s just not very funny,” Abby said. “Sam, when do you think you’ll get here?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to check in at the information desk as soon as I hang up, see if there’s a chance of the fog lifting tonight. If not, I guess I’ll have to sleep over.”

“What should I do?”

“I would suggest that you come in off the fire escape. A thirty-eight-year-old lady shouldn’t be sitting on the fire escape in a fog.”

“Sam, you don’t have to keep reminding me I’m thirty-eight. I don’t keep reminding you you’re forty-one.”

“Well, I’m not out on the fire escape.”

“Neither am I,” Abby said. “What should I tell John and Louise?”

“Tell them I’m stuck in Chicago and may have to skip their party.”

“Well, okay,” Abby said, and sighed.

“Abby?”

“Mmm?”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” she said.

“Goddamn airline,” I said.

“Mmm,” she said. “Sam?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I still don’t think asking for Annie Iceman was very funny,” she said, and hung up.

The operator, who had not signaled to tell me when I was talking overtime (as I’d asked her to do), now told me that I owed the telephone company a dollar and forty cents. I walked over to the cigar stand, changed a five-dollar bill, and then went back to the telephone to deposit the overtime money. I picked up my two-suiter at the baggage claim counter, and then walked through the terminal to the information desk. The airline’s ground hostess informed me that the forecast for Kennedy was still fog until morning, but that all Los Angeles-New York passengers were being provided with either rail transportation to New York or, if they preferred, overnight hotel accommodations in Chicago.

“Why didn’t the airline tell us that New York was fogged in?” I said.

“Didn’t the pilot make an announcement, sir?”

“Why didn’t they tell us in Los Angeles? Before we took off.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, “I don’t have that information.”

“I mean, I don’t know how long it takes to transmit a weather report across the nation, but New York is three hours ahead of Los Angeles, and it seems to me that unless this fog just suddenly materialized out of thin air and pounced down on Kennedy, it seems to me somebody in your wide-awake little outfit should have informed the passengers while we were still on the ground in Los Angeles. So that we could have decided for ourselves whether we wanted to spend the night there or here in Chicago. I don’t know about you, miss, but Chicago has never been one of my favorite sleeping cities.”

“Well, sir,” she said, “I don’t control the weather in New York.”

“Where do you control the weather?” I asked.

“Sir?” she said.

“There’s a man in New York your airline ought to hire. His name is Randy, he’s the head of creation.”

“Sir?”

“How do you expect to get that million-dollar bonus if you treat your passengers this way?”

“You’re thinking of another airline,” she said, and then turned away curtly to assist a sailor who looked as though he had never been outside of Iowa in his life and was now totally bewildered by jet terminals and smiling hostesses and glowering New York attorneys like me, Samuel Eisler. I kept glaring at the girl’s back until I was sure my indignation had burned clear through to her spine, and then I stalked off angrily in the direction of the airport bar.

Jennifer Logan was making a phone call in an open booth not a hundred yards from the information desk. She was wearing a very short green mini, a dark-green cashmere cardigan, and sandals. Her long blond hair spilled over the receiver as she spoke, and she brushed it away from her face impatiently and then said into the phone, “Well, you know; Marcie, what would you like me to do? Hijack a damn airplane? I’m telling you I can’t get on. Yes, sure, I’m wait-listed, but that can mean tonight or tomorrow or maybe St. Swithin’s Day.” Jennifer paused, pulled a face, looked directly at me, smiled, waggled the fingers on her free hand, whispered, “Hi, Mr. Eisler,” and then said into the phone, “St. Swithin’s. Oh never mind, Marcie.” She paused again, and then said, “When I get there. I’ll get there. Meanwhile, I see somebody I know. Give my love to Paul.” She hung up, felt in the return chute for any unexpected bonanza, rose, left her two suitcases and what appeared to be a hatbox outside the booth, reslung her shoulder bag, and walked toward me with her hand extended.

“Hi, Mr. Eisler,” she said again.

“Hello, Jennifer,” I said. “How are you?”

“Exhausted,” she said, and rolled her eyes. “I can’t get on a damn plane to San Francisco. I mean, I probably could get on a plane if I wanted to pay the regular fare, but I’m holding out for the student rate, and there’re like seven million kids trying to get back at the same time. It’s murder.”

“Are you going to school in San Francisco now?” I asked.

“Mmm, Berkeley,” she said. “What are you doing in Chicago, Mr. Eisler?”

“I’m in transit. New York’s fogged in.”

“Oh,” Jennifer said. “Hey, I’ll bet that’s what’s causing the pile-up here, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve never seen so many kids in my entire life,” she said. “So you’re stuck here, huh?”

“Looks that way.”

“What’re you going to do?”

“Right now, I’m going to get a drink.”

“Good idea,” she said. “Let me get my bags.”

I watched her in surprise as she walked toward her luggage. I would not have asked Jennifer Logan to join me for a drink three years ago, and I honestly had not intended my flat statement of purpose as an invitation now. But she picked up one suitcase, and then the hatbox, and then looked up plaintively and said, “Mr. Eisler, could you give me a hand with this?” and I found myself walking to her swiftly and picking up the second suitcase and then carrying that and my own two-suiter through the terminal while she walked swiftly beside me chattering about her habit of always carrying too much crap with her, like the wig, now really she didn’t need to take the wig home for spring vacation, did she? None of the other kids...

“Is that a wig?” I asked.

“Yes, a short one. It’s all curls like.”

“I thought it was a hat.”

“No, it’s a wig.”

... traveled with as much luggage as she did. She always came into an airport looking like a Russian peasant lady or something, it was really quite disgraceful.

“You don’t look at all like a Russian peasant lady,” I said.

“What do I look like?” she asked, and then smiled quickly and ducked her head, long blond strands falling over her cheek, hand holding the wig box brushing them back again, and added, “Never mind, don’t tell me.”