The Messenger (5 page)

“Don’t waste it,” he says severely.

Only now does she realize that he too has volunteered to die. For a moment she thinks about kissing him, but he is so prim that it would probably give him a heart seizure, so she only smiles. All the bridges have been crossed now. All the decisions have been made.

“I’m ready,” she says, and the shock begins.

The flight attendant wakes her with the present of a hot towel, which she pretends to use, just dabbing it on her eyes. On-screen the little airplane is still over the blue but getting closer … closer.

The second meal service comes with complimentary wine, even a selection of varietals. A pasta dish for the vegetarians, a fish choice, or the inevitable beef.

Outside is an iron-gray sea with wispy clouds. Thousands of feet below, a great cargo tanker is just a tiny gash in the water.

Everything is still moving too quickly. Almost as soon as the meal has arrived, the dinner things are cleared away. Somewhere in the back a baby is crying on and on. There are chimes over the intercom and a request for everyone to fold their tables away and raise their seats to the standard height.

“This is the part I hate.” The Sinhalese woman looks across at her and smiles. As they get lower, Lufthansa 7416 seems to go faster. The air thickens. The great plane tips from side to side as if suddenly discovering its weight.

Her ears swell shut with the pressure and there is a sharp pain that flicks across the bridge of her nose. She swallows and opens her mouth, trying to clear her sinuses. Through her window, far away, is a coastline; a ragged road around an undulating bay. Then the pilot banks, and she is given her first glimpse of the city.

A tremor runs through the great airliner. The fuselage is shivering, like a huge animal suddenly excited as it approaches the stables. Go with God, she has been instructed. An arrow. Straight to the heart.

Below her, millions wait for death.

N
ight. Rain. A storm system coming up from the Gulf. Joyce, the last of the season’s hurricanes. Spawning tar balls and tornadoes.

But more than the wind is knocking at his front door.

Sam Watterman pads downstairs, snaps on the light, peers out on the porch to see a female Decatur police officer and a man in a suit. It’s nothing good. Never anything good at this hour.

“Hold on a second.” He shudders. Then he turns off the alarm and undoes the deadbolt.

“Yes?”

“Dr. Samuel Watterman?”

“That’s right. What’s the problem?”

He can hear the tremble in his own voice as his brain parses the possible tragedies. Should he invite them in? Do they have a warrant?

The man in the suit raises his hand—a clip-on badge and photo ID in a plastic protector. “I’m Special Agent Michael Lansing, Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’d like you to come to the field office with us.”

“It’s pretty late. Can’t I come by in the morning? No, no … that’s not very realistic. Well, I can’t leave tonight anyway. Who’s
going to take care of my wife? She has a medical condition.” The tremble has gone and he’s whining now, standing up for his constitutional rights on his own two spindly legs. The rain is spraying on them all, blowing under the little porch overhang.

“Do you have an alternate caregiver you can call?”

“No.”

“The officer can stay here. We’ll send a nurse out.”

“Is this really an emergency?” he challenges. “It’s three in the morning.”

“I’ll be glad to stay with her, sir,” volunteers the Decatur officer.

“Okay. Okay. Okay … Hold on …” Watterman says, turning back toward the stairs.

“One of us has to go with you, sir.”

He stops. “Oh … right. You think I’m going to kill myself. This is bullshit, you realize, don’t you? Come on.” They go up the stairs to the bedroom.

“What is it?” Maggie says from the bed.

“I’ve got to go downtown. They think I’m going to kill myself. They want to leave Officer … um?”

“Payne, ma’am. I’m sorry for the intrusion—”

“Officer Payne is going to stay here with you while I go. Is that okay?”

“No, it’s not okay.” Maggie’s face has gone white. “What do they want?”

What can he say to that? He’s been through it all before, and she has too. For a moment they just look at each other. He finally shrugs, and she looks down at the duvet, then at him. For better, or for worse, or for really, really bad, her eyes tell him.

“Do you know first aid?” he asks the cop.

“Yes, sir, I’m trained in that.”

“Good. She uses these tanks to augment her respiration. They pop on and off. Beyond that she can take care of all her own needs, can’t you, hon?”

“Anything special you need to show me, that will be fine, sir.”

“Okay … You’re going to watch while I get dressed?”

“No, I will,” says the FBI agent.

He puts on his pants, then reaches for the chair at the corner of the bed. His hand stops, poised above yesterday’s shirt, a little lost. “How long am I going to be gone?”

“I really have—”

“Right … right. Okay. Be on the safe side, right.” He takes a fresh shirt out of the plastic, unfolds it. It’s distracting with Lansing standing there watching, and, out of his rhythm, he ends up leaving the shirt cardboard on the blanket at Maggie’s feet. Thinking, It’s stupid, a fresh shirt. The first thing they’ll do is take his clothes and put him in a jumpsuit. He turns the shirt around in his hands for a moment and then pulls the little purple dry cleaner’s tag out of the bottom buttonhole. He has no choice anyway. Not about the shirt. Not about anything. It’s happening again. A burst of radio static from out in the hallway where Officer Payne is calling in.

“What exactly is wrong?” Maggie asks.

“I really can’t say, ma’am.”

“Same old, same old. Crap and bullshit allegations. Just crap …” Sam says and then shuts up, trying to curb his tendency to rant at the slightest provocation.

“Unless you know what’s happening, Sam, just don’t go.”

He has always been able to count on Maggie to push the envelope. There is a pause, Lansing waiting for him do the negotiating.

“I don’t think I have a lot of options, hon.”

“Don’t we at least get an explanation?” Maggie says. She’s getting angry, which is wrong, almost rising off her pillow and waving her hand at Lansing.

“No, no, don’t worry, just keep calm,” he tells Maggie. “She’s supposed to stay calm,” Watterman says to the agent.

“Make sure the officer has her medications,” the agent says.

“Right …” No choice involved, just obey orders while they take you to the wall, while they shovel you into the ovens, just do what they say. He pulls a sweater on.

“I’m retired, you know. I’ve been completely out of work for a decade except a couple of times here and there. This is bullshit. Reopening something like this? The man in question is dead.
Dead
. Did you know that?”

“I don’t know anything about it, sir. I’m just the messenger boy.”

“Right, right …” It’s that old feeling starting to overwhelm him, being under someone’s thumb, the loss of control. A prisoner all over again.

“Oh, God … these people …” Maggie says.

“I’ll get a chair and sit out in the hall. If you need anything, ma’am, just call me,” the officer says.

“I’ll take care of this and be right back. You’re going to be all right, hon,” Watterman promises, kisses her goodbye, shoots a meaningful look at Officer Payne, and follows the FBI agent out into the rain.

The car is a slate-gray sedan. If you looked closely, you could see the antennas. Lansing lets him ride up front. They head into the storm, out of Decatur, toward Memorial Drive, making for the Federal Building in downtown Atlanta, he guesses.

“They’re going to send out a nurse for your wife. She’ll be here within the hour.”

“Right,” Watterman says. And then, a moment later, he suddenly shifts in the seat. “Goddamn it,” he spits.

“You all right, sir?” Which Watterman translates as,
Do you want me to cuff you?

“No, no, I’m fine. Yeah, I’m fine. Absolutely terrific.”

He looks out at the rainy street. They’re at the intersection of Memorial Drive. He’d hoped all this shit was over and done, and now … up from the bloody grave it comes again. He’ll never be able to shake it. Never. They’ve been going the wrong way for several miles and now Lansing ramps onto the beltway. “Where the hell are you taking me?”

“Out to the field office, it’s up off of 85 there,” Lansing says.

“I know what’s happened,” he says. “People have small minds. They have their crappy little reputations to protect …” That’s what it is, that’s what it must be, he thinks. “I’ve got enemies, okay?” he says to the young FBI agent. “It could be Dean Stansbrey, or maybe even Reilly, somebody at Georgetown. And I can tell you, plenty of people have built healthy careers blaming me for their screwups. Or
maybe you geniuses at the FBI or the CIA want me to go over my testimony again and catch me lying.”

“Don’t give me a hard time, sir.”

“Tell me, have you ever been in court? I don’t mean in your capacity as a willing tool of the state, or everyday shit like being sued for a car accident, but real court? Serious court? That ever happened to you?”

“No, sir. I haven’t.”

“Well, you don’t need to murder people in this country. You can do it completely legally. That’s when you discover who your real friends are. It’s a transformative experience. I still haven’t paid off my legal bills. May you be so lucky something like that never happens to you.”

“This is a Homeland Security matter, Doctor,” Lansing says, keeping his eyes on the road.

Daria cannot keep from looking out the window. Landing at JFK, the heart of Manhattan settling in the distance, the plane touches down.

They exit the mammoth aircraft,
danke, danke
to the pretty women and the dark-haired boy, and are channeled through Jet-ways and glassed-in corridors.
Welcome to the United States of America
is everywhere, along with some artful shots of the president looking all-knowing. But the building is cold, there are no amenities, surveillance cameras are bolted to every post and pillar, and policemen and soldiers are on patrol carrying M16s. Once again air travel has ceased to be glamorous, and they find themselves herded about like animals in some vast slaughterhouse. Great attitudinal African American women with holsters and pepper spray canisters snapped onto their belts shoo them from phase to phase. They are separated and separated again by the storm.…

Some of the barriers are temporary. People are required to divide themselves based on the first letter of their last name, which of course means however it is written on the passport, nothing at all to do with a “last” name.

There’s nothing hidden about the security procedures. It is open, admitted. Obvious. A nation proudly guarding its border. “Give me your tired, your poor” … wasn’t that the famous poem on the Statue of Liberty?

In the varied colors of the security workers’ skins, she sees revealed the United States’ much vaunted commitment to equality.

Her nervousness has completely disappeared due to the sheer length of the process. She smiles at all of the border guards—thank you, thank you for doing such a good job of protecting us. Since each touch of her documents is a death sentence, she gladly hands over her passport and customs declaration. By the time they deal with her individually, she is ready.

The immigration officer sits tiredly at his kiosk; she approaches, smiles, hands him the passport. He takes it and looks away. Camera, she is thinking. As instructed, she places her thumb on a digital reader. Now Daria Vermiglio is in the system. The officer flips through her passport.

“Italiano …” he says.

“Yes,” she says, smiling. A visitor proud of her English.

“You’re here on business?”

“Yes, I am a reporter.”

“You’re working? You’re on an assignment?”

“From
Klic!
magazine.” The officer looks at her blankly. “It’s for teenagers …”

“Okay. How long are you going to be in the United States of America?”

“Only two weeks, maybe one week longer, if they will fly me to Hollywood.”

He doesn’t even look at her standing there, still smiling.

“Well, what you’ve got is a thirty-day visa. If your publisher wants you to stay longer, you have to reapply at any U.S. consular office. Have a nice stay.” He uses his stamp to validate her passport.

Customs, immigration, Homeland Security—it passes like some dream. Once again she encounters the well-dressed woman as they exit with their baggage. “Do you know the city?” the woman asks.

“Not really.”

“Your first time?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, you’re going to have fun. Where are you staying?”

“At the Grand International? It is supposed to be charming.”

“Your magazine must really love you. You will definitely enjoy it. And if you get into any trouble, you must call me. It always helps to have a friend.” She passes her a card.

“Thank you, I will.”

“And there is my email on there too. I don’t do the, uh … Twitter.”

“Yes. Tweet.”

“Like birds. Tweet-tweet, yes. I don’t do that. It has been very nice meeting you, signorina.”

“Arrivederci e grazie …”

“
Niente, nessun … è stato un piacere incontrarla
. You know, I am at the Pierre, it is only just on the other side of the park. We could share a cab. It’s better that way in New York, if you’ve never
been …” the Sinhalese woman says with a little shrug. It is a gesture that says that although she may have been rich for these last few decades, she still remembers how to pinch a rupee or two. Daria knows instantly it will look better that way.