If he could have trusted Fasil to go to New Orleans, Dahlia would be here now, Lander thought bitterly. He had no confidence in Fasil since the Arab announced that he would not be present at the strike. Lander had enjoyed the contempt for Fasil that flashed in Dahlia’s eyes. Supposedly Fasil was off arranging for some muscle to be employed at the airport—Dahlia had seen to it that he and Lander were not left in the house together.
One item remained on Lander’s checklist of materials—a tarpaulin to tie down over the nacelle. It was four forty-five p.m. The hardware store was still open. He just had time to make it.
Twenty minutes later, Margaret Feldman, formerly Margaret Lander, parked her Dart stationwagon beside the big truck in Lander’s driveway. She sat for a moment, looking at the house.
This was the first time she had seen it since her divorce and remarriage. Margaret felt some reservations about coming, but the bassinet and baby carriage were rightfully hers, she would need them in a few more months, and she intended to have them. She had called first to make sure Michael was not at home. She did not want him crying after her. He had been a strong and proud man before he was broken. For the memory of that man, she still had a great affection, in her fashion. She had tried to forget his sick behavior at the end. She still dreamed about the kitten, though, still heard it in her sleep.
Reflexively Margaret glanced in her compact mirror, patting her blond hair and checking her teeth for lipstick before getting out of the car. It was as much a part of her routine as turning off the ignition. She hoped she would not get dirty loading the carriage and bassinet into the stationwagon. Really, Roger should have come with her. But he did not feel right about going into Lander’s house when Lander was not there.
Roger had not always felt that way, she thought drily. Why had Michael tried to fight? It was over anyway.
Stooping in the thin snow on the driveway, Margaret found that the lock on the garage had been replaced with a new, stronger one. She decided to go through the house and open it from the inside. Her old key still fit the front door. She had intended to go straight through to the garage, but once inside the house her curiosity was aroused.
She looked around. There was the familiar spot on the carpet in front of the TV, residue of the children’s countless Kool-Aid drippings. She had never been able to get it clean. But the living room was neat and so was the kitchen. Margaret had expected a litter of beer cans and TV dinner trays. She was a little piqued at the neatness of the house.
There is a guilty thrill in being alone in someone else’s house, particularly the home of a familiar person. Much can be felt in the arrangement of a person’s belongings, and the more intimate the belongings, the better. Margaret went upstairs.
Their old bedroom told her little. Lander’s shoes were in a straight line in the closet, the furniture was dusted. She stood looking at the bed and smiled to herself. Roger would be angry if he knew what she was thinking about, did think about sometimes, even with him.
The bathroom. Two toothbrushes. A tiny wrinkle appeared between Margaret’s eyes. A shower cap. Face creams, body lotion, bubble bath. Well, well. Now she was glad she had violated Lander’s privacy. She wondered what the woman looked like. She wanted to see the rest of her things.
She tried the other bedroom, then opened the playroom door. Margaret stood wide-eyed, staring at the spirit lamp, the wall hangings, candle holders and the great bed. She walked to the bed and touched the pillow. Silk. Well, la-de-da! she said to herself.
“Hello, Margaret,” Lander said.
She spun around with a gasp. Lander stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob, the other in his pocket. He was pale.
“I was just—”
“You’re looking well.” It was true. She looked splendid. He had seen her in this room before, in his mind. Crying out to him like Dahlia, touching him like Dahlia. Lander felt a hollow ache inside. He wished Dahlia were here. Looking at his ex-wife, he was trying to see Dahlia, needed to see Dahlia. He saw Margaret. She brightened the air around her.
“You seem to be all right—I mean you look well, too, Michael. I-I must say I didn’t expect this.” Her hand swept around the room.
“What did you expect?” Sweat was on his face. Oh, the things that he had found again in this room did not stand up to Margaret.
“Michael, I need the baby things. The bassinet and the carriage.”
“I can see that Roger’s knocked you up. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, of course.”
She smiled, unthinkingly, despite the insult, trying to get past the moment, trying to get away. That smile meant to Lander that she thought infidelity was funny, a joke they could laugh about together. It pierced Lander like a red-hot poker.
“I can get the things from the garage.” She moved toward the door.
“Have you looked for them yet?” Show it to her. Show it to her and kill her.
“No, I was about to—”
“The bassinet and the carriage aren’t there. I put them in storage. The sparrows get in the garage and speckle everything. I’ll have them sent over.” No! Take her in the garage and show it to her. And kill her.
“Thank you, Michael. That would be very nice.”
“How are the kids?” His own voice sounded strange to him.
“Fine. They had a good Christmas.”
“Do they like Roger?”
“Yes, he’s good to them. They’d like to see you sometime. They ask about you. Are you moving? I saw the big truck in the driveway and I thought—”
“Is Roger’s bigger than mine?”
“What?”
He could not stop now. “You Goddamned slut.” He moved toward her. I must stop.
“Goodbye, Michael.” She moved sideways toward the door.
The pistol in his pocket was burning his hand. I must stop. It will be ruined. Dahlia said it is a privilege to watch you. Dahlia said Michael you were so strong today. Dahlia said Michael I love to do it for you. I was your first time, Margaret. No. The elastic left red marks on your hips. Don’t think. Dahlia will be home soon, home soon, home soon. Mustn’t—Click.
“I’m sorry I said that, Margaret. I shouldn’t have said it. It’s not true, and I’m sorry.”
She was still frightened. She wanted to go.
He could hold on a second longer. “Margaret, there’s something I’ve been meaning to send you. For you and Roger. Wait, wait. I’ve acted badly. It’s important to me that you’re not angry. I’ll be upset if you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry, Michael. I have to go. Are you seeing a doctor ?”
“Yes, yes. I’m all right. It was just a shock, seeing you.” His next words choked him, but he forced them out. “I’ve missed you and I just got disturbed. That’s all. Wait one second.” He walked quickly to the desk in his room, and when he came out she was going down the stairs. “Here, I want you to take these. Just take them and have a good time and don’t be mad.”
“All right, Michael. Goodbye now.” She took the envelope.
At the door, she stopped and turned to him again. She felt like telling him. She was not sure why. He ought to know. “Michael, I was sorry to hear about your friend Jergens.”
“What about Jergens?”
“He is the one who used to wake us up calling you in the middle of the night, isn’t he?”
“What about him?”
“He killed himself. Didn’t you see the paper? The first POW suicide, it said. He took some pills and pulled a plastic bag over his head,” she said. “I was sorry. I remembered how you talked to him on the telephone when he couldn’t sleep. Goodbye, Michael.” Her eyes were like nailheads, and she felt lighter and didn’t know why.
When she was three blocks away, waiting at the light, she opened the envelope Michael had given her. It contained two tickets to the Super Bowl.
As soon as Margaret left, Lander ran to the garage. The bottom was out of him. He began to work very rapidly, trying to stay above the thoughts
rising like black water in his head. He eased the rented forklift forward, pushing the fork under the cradle that held the nacelle. He switched off the forklift and climbed out of the seat. He was concentrating on forklifts. He thought about all the forklifts he had seen in warehouses and on docks. He thought about the principles of hydraulic leverage. He walked outside and lowered the tailgate of the truck. He attached the sloping metal ramp to the rear of the truck. He thought about landing craft he had seen and the way their ramps were hinged. He thought desperately about loading ramps. He checked the street. Nobody was watching. It didn’t matter anyway. He jumped back on the forklift and raised the nacelle off the floor. Gently now. It was a delicate job. He had to think about it. He had to be very careful. He drove the forklift slowly up the loading ramp and into the back of the truck. The truck springs creaked as they took the weight. He lowered the fork bearing the nacelle, locked the brake, chocked the wheels firmly, and secured the nacelle and forklift in place with heavy rope. He thought about knots. He knew all about knots. He could tie twelve different knots. He must remember to put a sharp knife in the back of the truck. Dahlia could cut the ropes when the time came. She would not have time to fool with knots. Oh, Dahlia. Come home. I am drowning. He put the loading ramp and the duffle bag of small arms inside the truck and locked the tailgate. It was done.
He threw up in the garage. Mustn’t think. He walked to the liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of vodka. His stomach heaved up the vodka. The second time it stayed down. He took the pistol from his pocket and threw it behind the kitchen stove where he could not reach it. The bottle again, and again. Half of it was gone and it was running down his shirt front, running down his neck. The bottle again, and again. His head was swimming. I mustn’t throw up. Hold it down. He was crying. The vodka was hitting him now. He sat down on the kitchen floor. Two more weeks and I’ll be dead. Oh, thank God, I’ll be dead. Everybody else will be too. Where it’s quiet. And nothing ever is. Oh, God, it has been so long. Oh, God, it has been so long. Jergens, you were right to kill yourself. Jergens! He was yelling now. He was up and staggering to the back door. He was yelling out the back door. Cold rain was blowing in his face as he yelled out into the yard. Jergens, you were right! And the back steps were coming up at him, and he rolled off into the dead grass and snow, and lay faceup in the rain. A last thought, consciousness glimmering out. Water is a good conductor of heat. Witness a million engines and my heart cold upon this ground.
It was quite late when Dahlia set her suitcase down in the living room and called his name. She looked in the workshop and then climbed the stairs.
“Michael.” The lights were on and the house was cold. She was uneasy. “Michael.” She went into the kitchen.
The back door was open. She ran to it. When she saw him she thought he was dead. His face was white with a bluish tinge and his hair was plastered flat by the cold rain. She knelt beside him and felt his chest through the soggy shirt. His heart was beating. Kicking off her high-heeled shoes, she dragged him toward the door. She could feel the freezing ground through her stockings. Groaning with the effort, she dragged him up the stairs and into the kitchen. She jerked the blankets off the guest-room bed and spread them on the floor beside him, stripped the soggy clothes off him and rolled him in the blankets. She rubbed him with a rough towel, and she sat beside him in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. At daylight, his temperature was 105. He had viral pneumonia.
19
THE DELTA JET APPROACHED New Orleans over Lake Pontchartrain, maintaining considerable altitude over the water, then swooped down toward New Orleans International Airport. The swoop lifted Muhammad Fasil’s stomach unpleasantly, and he cursed under his breath.
Pneumonia! The woman’s precious pet got drunk and fell out in the rain! The fool was half delirious and weak as a kitten, the woman sitting beside him in the hospital, bleating expressions of pity. At least she would see to it that he kept his mouth shut about the mission. The chances of Lander being able to fly the Super Bowl in fifteen days were exactly nil, Fasil thought. When the stubborn-headed woman was finally convinced of that, when she saw that Lander could do nothing but puke in her hand, she would kill him and join Fasil in New Orleans. Fasil had her word for it.
Fasil was desperate. The truck bearing the bomb was moving toward New Orleans on schedule. Now he had a bomb and no delivery system. He must work out an alternate plan, and the place to do it was here, where the strike would be made. Hafez Najeer had erred very badly in allowing Dahlia Iyad to control this mission, Fasil told himself for the hundredth time. Well, she controlled it no longer. The new plan would be his.
The airport was jammed with the crowd arriving for the Sugar Bowl, the college invitational bowl game that would be played in Tulane Stadium in three days. Fasil called eight hotels. All were full. He had to take a room at the YMCA.
The cramped little room was quite a comedown from the Plaza in New York, where he had spent the previous night—the Plaza, with the national flags of foreign dignitaries hanging in front and a switchboard accustomed to placing international calls. The flags of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey hung among the others during the present United Nations session and calls to the Middle East were common. Fasil could have had a comfortable conversation with Beirut, arranging for the gunmen to report to New Orleans. He had finished encoding his message and was ready to make the call when he was interrupted by Dahlia on the telephone, telling him of Lander’s stupid debacle. Angrily, Fasil had torn up his message to Beirut and flushed it down his elegant Plaza toilet.
Now he was stuffed in this shabby cell in New Orleans with the plan a shambles. It was time to look over the ground. Fasil had never seen Tulane Stadium. He had depended on Lander for all that. Bitterly he walked outside and flagged a taxi.
How could he make the strike? He would have the truck. He would have the bomb. He could still send for a couple of gunmen. He would have the services of Dahlia Iyad, even if her infidel was out of it. Although Fasil was an atheist, he thought of Lander as an infidel, and he spat as he muttered the name.
The taxi mounted the U.S. 90 expressway over downtown New Orleans and headed southwest into the afternoon sun. The driver kept up a steady monologue in a dialect barely intelligible to Fasil.
“These bums now don’t want to work. They want something for nothing,” the driver was saying. “My sister’s kid used to work with me when I was plumbing, before my back went out. I never could find him half the time. You can’t do any plumbing by yourself. You have to come out from under the house too many times, you don’t have nobody to hand you stuff. That’s why my back went out, all the time crawling under and coming back out.”
Fasil wished the man would shut up. He did not shut up.
“That there’s the Superdome, which I think they’re never gonna finish. First they thought it would cost 168 million dollars, now it’s two hundred million dollars. Everybody says Howard Hughes bought it. What a mess. The sheet metal workers took a walk first, and then ...”
Fasil looked at the great bulge of the domed stadium. Work was under way on it, even through the holiday. He could see tiny figures moving on it. There had been a scare in the early stages of the mission that the Superdome would be completed in time for the Super Bowl, rendering the blimp useless. But there were still big gaps visible in the roof. Not that it mattered now anyway, Fasil thought angrily.
He made a mental note to investigate the possible use of toxic gas in closed stadiums. That might be a useful technique at some future time.
The taxi shifted into the high-speed lane, the driver talking over his shoulder. “You know, they were gonna have the Super Bowl there, they thought for a while. Now they got a terrific cost overrun because the city thinks it looks bad, embarrassing you know, not to be through with it. Double time and a half they’re paying to work on it through the holidays, you know. Put on a show of really hustling to finish it by spring. I wouldn’t mind some of that overtime myself.”
Fasil started to ask the man to be quiet. Then he changed his mind. If he were rude, the driver would remember him.
“You know what happened in Houston with the As trodome. They got cutesy with the Oilers and now they play in Rice Stadium. These guys don’t want that to happen. They got to have the Saints, you know? They want everybody to see they’re getting on with it, the NFL and all, so they work over the holidays too. You think I wouldn’t work Christmas and New Year’s double time and a half? Ha. The old lady could hang up the stockings by herself.”
The taxi followed the curve of U.S. 90, turning northwest, and the driver adjusted his sunshade. They were nearing Tulane University now. “That’s the Ursuline College on the left there. What side of the stadium you want, Willow Street?”
“Yes.”
The sight of the great, shabby tan-and-gray stadium aroused Fasil. The films of Munich were running in his head.
It was big. Fasil was reminded of his first close view of an aircraft carrier. It went up and up. Fasil climbed out of the taxi, his camera banging against the door.
The southeast gate was open. Maintenance men were coming in and out in the last rush before the Sugar Bowl game. Fasil had his press card ready, and the same credentials he had brought on his flight to the Azores, but he was not stopped. He glanced at the vast, shadowy spaces under the stands, tangled with iron, then walked out into the arena.
It was so big! Its size elated him. The artificial turf was new, the numbers gleaming white against the green. He stepped on the turf and almost recoiled. It felt like flesh underfoot. Fasil walked across the field, feeling the presence of the endless tiers of seats. It is difficult to walk through the focal area of a stadium, even an empty stadium, without feeling watched. He hurried to the west side of the field and climbed the stands toward the press boxes.