Roscoe, she would never admit she noticed me now.
I shuffled out the gate, up the stairs into the airplane, and buckled up in a window seat at the back of the small jet.
Ten minutes later we were in the air.
Chapter Eight
Miami International Airport has changed a lot since I saw it the first time when I was a kid. It used to be a sleepy place, the kind of airport you saw only on the way to somewhere else. It had been a large airport with a small spirit. It apologized for where it was and politely helped you get through to your destination. It was like being in a backward foreign country that had spent all its tax money to make one public building look modern, but instead it looked like an animal shelter in downtown Cleveland. It was homely, but kind.
But sophistication came. Miami had grown tremendously, not always in the right directions. So had the airport. The shyness was gone, and the politeness. Now it seemed false and brash, like a recycled set from “Miami Vice,” and it was busier than Mexico City at rush hour, except the transportation wasn’t as good. In fact, the transportation wasn’t even as good as the San Diego Freeway at rush hour. The whole airport was carefully laid out so that no matter where you were going you had to walk at least twenty-five minutes to get there.
My flight from Key West arrived ten minutes late as the result of taking an eastward turn to avoid a bad thunderhead. It took me five minutes to find a screen listing arrivals and departures. Three people in airline uniform resolutely refused to help me. When I finally found the display terminal I was jostled seven times as I looked for my flight information. A kid spilled a Coke on my foot and then yelled. His mother glared at me.
I finally read my flight number. The plane to L.A. was leaving from a far-off terminal. I had ten minutes. I ran through four and a half miles of blind passages, sticky floors, and crowds thrashing by at a panicky gallop. I made my turn and pelted through seven construction zones, eighteen Latin American Shriners conventions, nine hostile cleaning crews, three metal detectors, two detachments of dope-sniffing dogs, and then outside for a final half-mile sprint in a rainstorm.
I made it to the gate as they were locking down the doors on the plane. Somehow I caught the gate attendants on an off-day. Instead of giving me a snotty explanation that I was too late, they actually smiled as they undogged and opened the door for me, wished me a pleasant flight in Spanish, and sent me on my way.
By the time I flopped into an aisle seat, gasping for breath, and shoved my bag under the nun in the seat in front of me, the plane was already moving backwards, headed for the runway. But this was Miami; after backing out and turning slowly into position, the plane simply stopped dead for fifteen minutes. The air-conditioning in the cabin went off. Within thirty seconds it was sweltering hot and the pocked Plexiglas windows were steaming over.
Within two minutes the cabin smelled like the Raiders’ locker room at halftime.
The intercom beeped and clicked on. I could hear someone take a ragged breath. Then it clicked off again. The nun crossed herself.
And we sat there on the runway.
At the back of the plane a door opened and closed. A smell slid up the aisle. It reminded me of Boy Scout camping trips, when somebody peed on a pine log fire.
I thought about Roscoe. I had not really been his friend, but I was maybe the closest thing to a friend he had, because he trusted me for some reason. He was too ambitious, too aware of political risk, to have real friends in the LAPD. Friends slow you down; you might be held responsible for their mistakes and so you had two backs to watch instead of one.
But he remembered the time he spent in my car, and he came to me. The fact that he had come, even though I was still a political hot potato in LAPD, showed how important this had been to him. The only other thing that had ever
I shuffled out the gate, up the stairs into the airplane, and buckled up in a window seat at the back of the small jet.
Ten minutes later we were in the air.
Chapter Eight
Miami International Airport has changed a lot since I saw it the first time when I was a kid. It used to be a sleepy place, the kind of airport you saw only on the way to somewhere else. It had been a large airport with a small spirit. It apologized for where it was and politely helped you get through to your destination. It was like being in a backward foreign country that had spent all its tax money to make one public building look modern, but instead it looked like an animal shelter in downtown Cleveland. It was homely, but kind.
But sophistication came. Miami had grown tremendously, not always in the right directions. So had the airport. The shyness was gone, and the politeness. Now it seemed false and brash, like a recycled set from “Miami Vice,” and it was busier than Mexico City at rush hour, except the transportation wasn’t as good. In fact, the transportation wasn’t even as good as the San Diego Freeway at rush hour. The whole airport was carefully laid out so that no matter where you were going you had to walk at least twenty-five minutes to get there.
My flight from Key West arrived ten minutes late as the result of taking an eastward turn to avoid a bad thunderhead. It took me five minutes to find a screen listing arrivals and departures. Three people in airline uniform resolutely refused to help me. When I finally found the display terminal I was jostled seven times as I looked for my flight information. A kid spilled a Coke on my foot and then yelled. His mother glared at me.
I finally read my flight number. The plane to L.A. was leaving from a far-off terminal. I had ten minutes. I ran through four and a half miles of blind passages, sticky floors, and crowds thrashing by at a panicky gallop. I made my turn and pelted through seven construction zones, eighteen Latin American Shriners conventions, nine hostile cleaning crews, three metal detectors, two detachments of dope-sniffing dogs, and then outside for a final half-mile sprint in a rainstorm.
I made it to the gate as they were locking down the doors on the plane. Somehow I caught the gate attendants on an off-day. Instead of giving me a snotty explanation that I was too late, they actually smiled as they undogged and opened the door for me, wished me a pleasant flight in Spanish, and sent me on my way.
By the time I flopped into an aisle seat, gasping for breath, and shoved my bag under the nun in the seat in front of me, the plane was already moving backwards, headed for the runway. But this was Miami; after backing out and turning slowly into position, the plane simply stopped dead for fifteen minutes. The air-conditioning in the cabin went off. Within thirty seconds it was sweltering hot and the pocked Plexiglas windows were steaming over.
Within two minutes the cabin smelled like the Raiders’ locker room at halftime.
The intercom beeped and clicked on. I could hear someone take a ragged breath. Then it clicked off again. The nun crossed herself.
And we sat there on the runway.
At the back of the plane a door opened and closed. A smell slid up the aisle. It reminded me of Boy Scout camping trips, when somebody peed on a pine log fire.
I thought about Roscoe. I had not really been his friend, but I was maybe the closest thing to a friend he had, because he trusted me for some reason. He was too ambitious, too aware of political risk, to have real friends in the LAPD. Friends slow you down; you might be held responsible for their mistakes and so you had two backs to watch instead of one.
But he remembered the time he spent in my car, and he came to me. The fact that he had come, even though I was still a political hot potato in LAPD, showed how important this had been to him. The only other thing that had ever
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