The Widower's Two-Step

57

San Antonio's main terminal was lollipopshaped— a long corridor with a carousel of gates at the end. At the centre of the circle was a magazine kiosk and a pricey snack shop and a souvenir stand where you had your last chance to buy authentic Texas pickled jalapenos and stuffed armadillos and rattlesnakein plastic toilet seats.

The American flight for New York would be departing from gate twelve. I was an hour early. A flight from Denver had just deplaned—a few businessmen, a couple of college kids, lots of pale retirees, winter Texans.

I got myself a fourdollar draft beer at the bar and sat at a table behind a row of bromeliads, facing the gate. At the table next to me a couple of outofuniform airmen were trading stories. They'd just been let out of basic training at Lackland and were heading home on leave for a week. One of them was talking about his wife.

Nobody I wanted to see came to the gate. The desk wasn't checking anybody's tickets yet. A couple of stewardesses ambled out of the gate, all blond hair and long legs and wheeled luggage. The overweight captain walked behind them, appreciating the view.

Over by the window a little Latino kid who reminded me a lot of Jem was putting his face against the glass wall of the observation area. He blew his mouth against the glass until his cheeks puffed out, then ran a few feet and did it again. The glass was a smudgy drooling foggy mess for a good twenty feet. Dad was a couple of rows away, watching sports coverage on an overhead TV. He probably wasn't much older than I was. The kid was probably five.

Finally a ticket checker changed the signs on the gate display. NEW YORK. ON TIME.

He clacked a few keys on his computer terminal, then joked a little with one of the airport custodians.

Passengers started to arrive.

The airmen got up and left, shaking hands. One was heading to Montana. I didn't know about the other.

I bought another fourdollar beer.

The little Latino boy got tired of sliming the windows and came over to climb on his dad. Dad didn't much care. Pretty soon it looked like Dad was growing a small pair of flailing blue Keds out of his shoulder blades.

Finally the newly christened Allen Meissner arrived, twenty minutes before flight time, just before the airline would start preboarding. He was wearing a cowboy hat that shaded his face pretty well and clear glasses and faded denim clothes that weren't his normal look. He'd dyed his hair a shade or two lighter and I suspected that his cowboy boots were a little taller than they needed to be. He'd taken lessons on how to disguise himself, just like he'd taken lessons on how to construct his new paper identity. He wouldn't have attracted any casual onlookers. He would've stood a fair chance of slipping by any random encounters with acquaintances, unless they knew who they were looking for. I did. He was definitely my man.

The new Mr. Meissner was travelling light—a single backpack, dark green. It was pretty much exactly like mine.

I walked up behind him as he was getting his boarding pass.

I let him check in, answer the questions, mumbled thank you to the attendant. When he turned around he ran into me at such short range that my face didn't register. He started to plow around me, the way strangers do, just another bumper in the pinball game.

Then I took his upper arm and backed him up.

He focused on my face.

"Hey, Allen," I said.

I've seen a lot of shades of red in my time but never one quite that bright, quite that quick to take over a complexion. I'm not sure what Brent Daniels would've done if we'd met under different circumstances, but here in a crowd, without a backup plan, he was stuck. It was my call.

"Buy me a beer," I said.

For one second I really thought he was going to bolt. His knuckles on the strap of the backpack went white. Then he shoved past me, angry but slow—heading for the bar like a kid who'd been told to go to the principal's office and knew the way by heart.

We sat at the same table I'd been occupying. My seat was still warm. Brent slid across from me with a beer. One for me—none for him. He passed the beer over and then waited for my reaction, like I might tell him he could go now.

I didn't.

"New York," I said. "Where then?"

Brent let out a little hiss of air. He looked strange with the fake prescription glasses, older somehow. He also looked strange because for the first time, he'd taken pains with his appearance. Real pains. He was closely shaven and immaculately clean. Not bad for a guy who had been a charred pile of ashes a few days ago.

Apparently a few papery lies floated through his mind before he decided not to try them. Finally he just said, "I don't know."

"Les hadn't thought it that far ahead?" I asked. "Or you just don't know what he had pla

Brent shook his head. "What do you want, Navarre?"

He didn't sound very anxious to hear the answer.

"I don't need a confession," I said. "I know the basics. Les had to go somewhere when he got scared away from his hiding place on Medina Lake. He'd already decided you were a kindred soul—you'd spent time together, you didn't give a damn, you knew what it was like being a shell. You also knew what it was like getting suckered into something by Miranda."

I waited for him to contradict me. He didn't.

" Les came to you and you agreed to put him up in the upper room of the apartment.

Maybe a week and a half ago?"

Very slightly, Brent nodded.

"At some point, Les got drunk. Then he got stupid. He was a pill popper. He thought he recognized something in your medicine cabinet—something cosmetically similar to one of his favourite drugs. He took it and collapsed— diabetic coma. Maybe he didn't die right away. Maybe he stayed in a coma for a while, but eventually you realized you had a dying human vegetable on your hands. Les already had plans, had an identity, had money and an escape and everything he needed to get a new start. A man in his forties, with money and no co

Again I could only judge the truth of what I said by Brent's eyes. Nothing snagged in his expression. He let it roll over him, not pulling back, not giving any indication anything was wrong. Or maybe he was just too dazed to let any reaction show.

"That's why Les never collected his fifty grand from the boat shed. He wasn't alive to do it, and you didn't know anything about it. How much did you know about, Brent?

With the keys to Les' new identity, maybe a change of photo or two—you could have whatever you wanted. To make it work, you must have access to at least a few of the late Mr. Meissner's accounts."

"You want to go now?" he asked. It was clear the "you" was actually "we," that he expected somebody to put on the cuffs.

"No," I said.

Brent stared at my beer. He let his shoulders sag down under the weight of the backpack.

"No?"

Total disbelief. Incredulity. I felt some of that myself, but I still shook my head. I heard myself saying, "You've got ten minutes. Maybe I think you deserve it. A lot more than Les SaintPierre did."

Brent stayed frozen at first. Then slowly, testing the theory, he got to his feet.

"One thing," I said. "One thing I need an answer about."

He waited.