This was something to do with Ross.
22
Had Tabari also noticed his mistake? Hard to tell. He didn’t at once pick up the thread of conversation, and in fact neither of us had anything to say during dinner. He ate some sort of vegetarian thing that looked mostly like a large scab, and I ordered, as I always do, the Chateaubriand, because that’s prepared on the plane and is likely to be a bit less awful than the other choices. Neither Tabari nor I had liquor, he asking for ginger ale and I club soda. He ate everything on his plate, including the roll and both crackers, while I just picked at my food, since I’d be eating a real dinner later on with Anita. Beyond his sharp-featured puffy-cheeked face the sky was already graying toward twilight, though it had only been one in the afternoon when we’d started. But we were flying away from the sun, losing three hours; it would be nine at night when we arrived in New York. A February night in New York; I shivered, thinking of it.
But what I mostly thought about was Tabari. Who was he really? What game was he playing? And what should I do about it? He was important enough to have arranged to be put in the seat beside me and boarded before every other passenger; so was he actually who his card claimed him to be? And if so, what sort of principality or emirate was this Dharak? He had spoken passionately against what he called “outlaw nations,” but was that merely blowing smoke, the devil claiming to be an angel?
If his approach had been more direct, I would probably have been far less suspicious. But he had come to me under a cover of lies. Still, thinking back over our conversation, I couldn’t figure out what it was he wanted. He hadn’t seemed to pump me at all, or even to be particularly interested in me. He’d given vent to some dubious political statements, that was about it.
Should I brace him, tell him I knew this was no chance meeting? My instinct told me not to, that nothing would be gained that way. He’d simply deny it, of course, look at me as though I were crazy, ask me what I thought he was up to. And what would I say next, since I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was up to? Either I’d wind up telling him about Ross or I’d fade away into silence; and I was definitely not going to tell anybody about Ross.
The only advantage I had, it seemed to me, was that possibly Tabari didn’t know he’d made that error. So, for the rest of the flight, I’d be polite and noncommittal, I’d chat with him and listen carefully to what he said, and try to figure out what he was up to.
Except it didn’t work that way. Tabari had apparently lost all interest in conversation. When the meal was over — I had coffee, he had more ginger ale — he actually offered me a choice of the magazines he’d squirreled away (I chose The Atlantic) and went back to his Scientific American to read about insect larva after all.
We had another hour before landing. Full night spread across the world outside the windows, I leafed through Salute the Devil once more and had another cup of coffee, and Tabari folded his hands and closed his eyes. The pilot announced that we were crossing over Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Fasten Seat Belt sign went on. The No Smoking sign went on. The pilot told us the time in New York — eight fifty-seven, Eastern Standard Time — and the weather — twenty-one degrees, cloudy, some chance of snow by morning. The plane juddered as the landing gear was lowered. The pilot told the stewardesses to take their seats. I decided to follow Tabari when he left the plane.
23
One of the many contrasts between my New York and Los Angeles lives is that in L.A. I have four cars — or did, until one of them became It in that game of tag — while in the East I have none. Usually in New York my own feet or a taxi will do, but for special occasions I have an account with a small limousine and car rental outfit on West Fifty-sixth Street. My usual driver is a heavy set white-haired Irishman named Ralph, and he it was who stood waiting beyond the revolving doors at the end of the long walk from the plane. I saw him, and nodded, and saw Tabari behind me reflected in the glass of the doors, carrying over his shoulder his black garment bag.
I had made my good-byes brief — Tabari hadn’t suggested a later meeting, or a shared ride to the city, or any of the continuations I’d been expecting — and had made sure to get off the plane ahead of him, moving as quickly as possible among the other passengers. When I reached Ralph, therefore, Tabari was visible but was some distance back down the corridor, having been forced through the same channel as the rest of us. Ralph grinned at me, pointed at the attaché case, and said, “Will that be it, then?”
“Yes. Ralph, there’s a fellow behind me, probably just coming through the doors, about fifty, hard-faced, three-piece pinstripe suit, carrying a garment bag. See him?”
“It’s the well-dressed thug you’d mean,” he said, looking over my shoulder.
“That’s the one.” I moved toward the exit, and Ralph moved with me. “We’ll keep in front of him here, but then we’ll follow him. I want to know where he’s going.”
Ralph grinned at me. “So Packard rides again, does he?”
“Come on, Ralph,” I said. “Don’t make fun. And as we go outside, glance back and see if he’s gone off to get any checked luggage.”
The automatic door opened, letting frigid air in and us out. Ralph hitched up his overcoat, head turning left and right to ease the collar. “No,” he said. “Your fella’s coming right along behind.”
“Good. Brrrr! Where’s the car?”
“Just to our left here.”
I was in the casual jacket and slacks I’d worn for my meetings with Ross and Danny, and the pilot had not been wrong about the temperature. I strode at a swift but dignified pace across the pavement to the limo parked by the No Parking sign, and clambered in to cozy warmth, Ralph shutting the door behind me. This car was merely a stretch Cadillac with good legroom, a pair of jumpseats, and ordinary upholstery. Only the tiny refrigerator echoed SSTAR 23.
As Ralph went around the rear of the limo to the driver’s door, Tabari came out of the terminal and paused. A slender young man in a cloth cap and gray overcoat approached him, carrying another coat over his arm. They greeted each other as master and servant, and then the young man took the garment bag, handing Tabari the coat. It was heavy, of black wool, with a black fur collar. From its pocket Tabari pulled a dark fur hat, shook it, and put it on. The young man, carrying the garment bag over his arm as he’d carried the coat, led him off to the right, and as he walked, Tabari took black leather gloves from the other pocket.
Ralph got behind the wheel, shut the door, and nodded at Tabari and the other man. “That’ll be the fella from the maroon Sedan de Ville,” he said. “I noticed him before, with the diplomat plates.”
“We follow him.”
“No problem at all,” he assured me.
The young man held open the rear door of a maroon Cadillac, and Tabari slid in. Ralph shifted into drive, and we eased forward. He said, “Want me to stay in front till we’re beyond the airport?”
“No. It’s possible he’ll be going to another plane, or an airport hotel, or almost anywhere.”
“Would I know who this fella is?”
“No more than I would,” I told him. “I was preboarded, and he was already there, in the next seat. He pretended he’d never heard of me, pushed a conversation, and then let it slip that he knew I was an ex-cop.”
“Planted there. National Enquirer, do you think?” Ralph was a constant reader of the Enquirer, and from time to time would bring me up-to-date on the rather rackety life I led in those pages.