“Sir?”
Kek glared. “In addition to all other annoyances, does KLM also hire clerks who are deaf?”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but if you have any complaint, I’ll be only too happy to do what I can...”
“Then I suggest you try magic,” Kek said sourly. He dug into a pocket and brought out a ticket stub. “This, in case you’ve never seen one before, is a receipt for baggage. I arrived on your flight eight thirty-two from Buenos Aires three hours ago and I’ve spent that time looking for my suitcase! Three hours! I’ve had porters looking for it, I’ve spoken to the people who bring the luggage from the plane to the terminal, but do you think they ever bother to look at what they’re doing? Never! Irresponsible, that’s what it is! I went to the baggage master—”
“I’m sorry—”
“Sorry! Who cares if you’re sorry or not? I’d scarcely expect you to be happy! But that doesn’t get me my bag, does it? Is that the way you people handle baggage?”
“Oh, no, sir,” the young man said fervently and wished he had either taken the day off or chosen another line of endeavor completely. “We seldom lose luggage, but accidents do occur, you know—” He reached under the counter for a form and slid it hesitantly across the counter, anticipating an explosion. “If you’d care to fill this out...” He swallowed. “Our liability is limited to—”
“The devil with what you think your liability is limited to! Do you think I’m intimidated by a flock of small print on the back of a airplane ticket? Don’t be silly! And I don’t fill out forms, for your information, without my lawyer’s approval!” He looked at his wristwatch, his handsome face dark with righteous anger. “Three hours! That flight’s in Amsterdam by now! It takes less time to get from Lisbon to Amsterdam than it does to find a suitcase, for God’s sake!” He glared and muttered. “Amsterdam!”
A thought came to the young clerk, out of thin air.
“Sir — maybe your bag was mis-ticketed...”
“How the devil could it have been mis-ticketed? I have a stub right here that says Lisbon, doesn’t it? You may be deaf but you can read, can’t you? How could even the most misguided employee of yours manage to put a tag on a suitcase for Amsterdam and then give me a stub for Lisbon? Even at your company?” He snorted.
“Sometimes tags come off in transit, sir, or get mutilated. And sometimes, if it happens at the departing airport, the baggage handling people try to remember—”
“Try to remember? Who gave them which for where? A guessing game? Good God! What a way to handle luggage!”
“I mean, sir — we usually take any unidentified luggage to the home airport, sir. In this case, Schiphol...”
Kek shook his head at this new evidence of mismanagement.
“My God!” he said and then gave in grudgingly. “Well, I suppose it’s a possibility, even if a small one.” He waited a second and then looked up, glaring at the red-faced young man. “Well, what are you waiting for? You’ve got a teletype to Amsterdam from here, don’t you?”
The young man snapped erect. “Oh, yes, sir, we do. We do!” He disappeared into a back room only to appear again almost instantly. “A description, sir—?”
“Why?” Kek asked tartly. “Do you expect to find a dozen extra suitcases that have been mis-ticketed in Amsterdam? I wouldn’t be surprised! Well, it’s a one-suiter, brown plastic; it’s in a plaid-design canvas suitcase cover.”
“And your name, sir?”
“You’ll be wanting my fingerprints next, I expect! The name is Huuygens, Kek Huuygens. The bag has an identification tag under the handle — if one of your people hasn’t torn it off by now—”
“Yes, sir!”
The boy hurried back into the rear room; the sound of the teletype starting up could be heard, stammering electrically. Kek bit back a rather shamefaced smile; acting the part of the heavy did not particularly please him, but in this case it was essential. He wanted reactions to be automatic, not reasoned. He only hoped the boy was adding a bit of description about his recalcitrant customer. When it was all over, he promised, he would manage to apologize in some fashion — write them it was part of Candid Camera, or something. There was a pause in the rattling noise, a sharp ring, and then the stuttering returned. Kek waited, giving every indication of impatience. At long last the young man emerged from the back room. He was weak with relief.
“We’ve located your suitcase, sir. It was ticketed for Amsterdam. How, we don’t know, but they have it at Schiphol, sir.”
If he expected this news to transform the terrible-tempered client across the counter from him, he was doomed to disappointment.
“And what am I supposed to do? Run up to Schiphol and claim it?”
“Oh, no, sir!” The young man was shocked at the very idea. “We’ll fly it back on the first plane—”
“And I’m supposed to wait for it here? My dear young man, I have a plane to Barcelona that leaves in less than two hours. TWA flight one eighty-six. Can you fly my bag back here before I embark?”
The young man’s face fell. And everything had been going along so well, too! “I’m afraid not, sir.” Suddenly he brightened, coming up with the suggestion seconds before Kek would have led him to it. “But we could fly it to Barcelona from Schiphol, sir. You could pick it up there.”
Huuygens considered this possibility. His face clearly indicated that he wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect of continuing on without his bag, but there seemed to be no other solution.
“Well, all right,” he said at last with poor grace. “But do me a favor; put on that teletype the fact that I fully intend to carry this matter farther! It’s pretty bad when a paying customer has to go chasing all over an airport to get his bag, simply because of the errors of someone else someplace else!”
“You won’t have to chase around, sir. We’ll have a representative bring it to you in the international division, sir. It’s where you arrive when you get into Barcelona from Lisbon. Between immigration and customs, sir. You’ll be paged, sir.”
“I know where it is! This isn’t the first trip I’ve ever made, you know!” Kek said testily. “Well, if that’s the best you can do... Get back to your teletype and tell them to send it to Barcelona, or they’ll have it in Beirut, or someplace equally outlandish! And you can definitely inform your management that they haven’t heard the last of this matter, believe me!”
He turned away abruptly without a word of thanks for the young man who had located his suitcase. The clerk sighed, shook his head, and went back to his teletype to beg the folks in Amsterdam to please for God’s sake get the maniac’s bag on the first plane to Barcelona. Then he put through the call letters for Barcelona to give instructions and commiseration to the poor devil there who had to deliver the suitcase to this unreasonable customer.
Kek climbed the steps to the balcony and walked out onto the terrace. He still had over an hour for his plane, and a drink would taste good and take the savor of his play-acting away. He sat down at a table and waved for a waiter.
So far, so good. His widely traveled suitcase was about to be shipped off to Barcelona while he would shortly take off for Madrid. He shook his head sadly, but his eyes twinkled. What a way to run an airline!
Trans World Airlines flight number 186 banked sharply in the high, cold air, moving into its landing pattern for Barajas Airport in Madrid. Above the tilted wing Kek could see the mountains, snow-capped and formidable, looming to the north. The plane straightened for its final leg; the city of Madrid tipped straight in the distance. Madrid, seen from the air, gave the appearance of a walled encampment; the apartment buildings marched to the end of the wide avenues and then stopped abruptly. There appeared to be no suburbs as other cities had, no gradual dwindling of structure or tone of neighborhood, no increase in vegetation. Madrid, Kek always thought, looked as if it had been made by some gigantic chef in the form of a huge brick-colored five-layer cake, with the chef, his creation finished and neatly trimmed, wiping away the excess dough.