I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entrance and put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurrying over.
"Cab?"
I shook my head. "Just waiting."
Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb.
I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggage claim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ran through my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfied me.
I should not have been there, that much I knew; I should be with a man named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussing something very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what could I do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take the bag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself.
No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until—until what?
A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out of the entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on a pair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I could tell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain the whole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my own business.
But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and started across the street to the parking area. I could have called to him, "Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag." But I didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claim counter out of the side of my eye.
The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the ramp to the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I went inside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bag on the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. The clerk nodded and moved the bag to the rear room.