The security guard was moving in closer. At least, Arnie thought he was. His heart was pounding so hard he was sure everyone around him could hear it. He felt like the old man from “The Tell-Tale Heart,” except there wasn’t a body behind that steel wall. There was a box of money. It was Arnie’s first real lucky break, and, he hoped, the last he’d ever need.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Where is my damn bag? Arnie thought his head might spin right off his shoulders. Please, God, just let me have this one thing—just this one thing.
And then, like an answered prayer, there it was. The top of the tweed case slowly emerged through the curtain of thick rubber strips and inched into view until Arnie could see the red sticker his brother had stuck across the lid. William loved stickers. Arnie shoved his way past several other people, saying “Excuse me” all the way. He snaked his wiry frame through the crowd toward his luggage. “Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me.” An older woman mumbled something as he pushed past her, but Arnie ignored her. He didn’t even see her. He stopped seeing people altogether, or security guards, or crushing prison cell walls. All he could see was that suitcase, and now he was only a few feet away. He nudged his way closer until he could get a grip on the leather handle and hoisted it off the conveyor belt with a renewed vigor. The act of lifting the bag made him feel stronger. He felt whole somehow, as if he’d just reconnected to a lost limb. As he turned to walk away, he could feel the excitement set in. He could feel the anxiety begin to melt away and he finally stopped sweating. Arnie homed in on the massive set of double doors leading outside. He navigated his way through the crowd and toward those doors with tunnel vision. All he could see was the sunshine on the other side of the sliding glass. He picked up the pace and slammed right into the airport security guard who may or may not have been standing there the whole time.
“Whoa—slow it down there, sir.”
“Sorry.” Arnie regrouped and kept walking. The young airport cop reached out for Arnie’s suitcase, but Arnie snatched it away and held it up to his chest.
“I’m going to need to see that, sir.”
Arnie just stared at the slim mocha face of the young man, unable to form any words. He tried to move to the left, but the guard sidestepped him and blocked his way. His voice stayed calm and smooth. “Sir, is everything all right?”
“What?” Arnie wasn’t sure what was happening. Stars were bursting in his peripheral vision. He felt sick, as if he might throw up.
“I said, is everything all right?” The guard’s eyes narrowed slightly with suspicion, but Arnie had trouble keeping eye contact. He couldn’t focus. The walls of the airport baggage claim began to breathe and warp.
“Yeah. Everything is fine.” Arnie struggled to stay in the moment—to focus. “What?” he said. “What do you want?” He stood as still as he could while he tried to form the right words but Arnie’s gut instinct was to run—to just bolt for the doors. He probably would have, too, but he couldn’t get his feet to move.
“I need to see your claim ticket?”
“My what?”
The young guard’s voice sounded like a distant, untuned car radio.
“Your claim ticket, sir. For your luggage.” That time Arnie made out the request through the static in his head. He relaxed a little—barely—and looked down at his hand. He was still holding the crumpled slip of paper—and his phone. He hadn’t ended the last call. William was still waiting on the line. That grounded Arnie in reality.
Why hadn’t the little weirdo hung up?
Still fighting the voice in his head telling him to just cut loose and run, but better equipped now to move his limbs, Arnie set the suitcase down at his feet, handed the airport security guard the claim ticket, and held the phone to his ear.
“Willie, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“I gotta go. I’m going to hang up now. Just stay put. When you’re done there, go with Bobby and wait. I’ll call you back.”
“I’m hungry, Arnie.”
“Well, eat something, then—shit,” Arnie blurted into the phone, before ending the call and slipping it into his back pocket. William might’ve been his meal ticket, but he drove Arnie crazy with all his weird shit. Arnie looked at the young black man in the uniform with all the disgust he felt for his little brother and Bobby. He was feeling better, his paranoia subsiding, leaving his body like an apparition. He even smiled a little. “Are we good here or what?”
The security guard carefully inspected the sweat-soaked ticket and matched it to the sticker on the handle of Arnie’s suitcase. He handed the ticket back to him. His eyes were bright green. Arnie wasn’t sure why he noticed that.
“How about it, Smokey? Can I go now?”
That crack didn’t sit well with the young guard, but he was used to stupid white people at the airport. He took a slow breath and answered almost robotically. “Yes. You’re free to go. Is there anything I can help you with? Do you need directions to the cab stand or the car-rental area?”
Arnie ignored him and grabbed the suitcase. He was already making for the sliding glass doors leading to the sunlit outside world. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the guard talking into his radio—or maybe he didn’t. He didn’t care. All Arnie Blackwell knew was that he wanted the hell out of that place—and now he was.
* * *
Arnie didn’t fully relax during the entire cab ride—even when he made a quick stop by the post office on Gaston Road to get the package Bobby had mailed to their prearranged PO box.
At least that pothead sack of shit didn’t screw that up.
Arnie’s anxiety melted away even further, like a layer of liquefied fat, once he tore open the package marked up with Bobby’s handwriting and saw the five disassembled pieces of the Sig Sauer—each component bundled neatly in bubble wrap and all perfectly surrounded by a small sea of foam packing peanuts. Potheads, he thought. Everything they do is like a high school science project. Arnie let loose a small giggle thinking about Bobby carefully premeasuring the tape, wrapping each piece, and tucking each one into the box along with one magazine and individually wrapped bullets. Arnie shook his head. He pictured Bobby standing at the counter of the post office carefully tapping NO to the questions listed on the keypad for the clerk.
Anything liquid, fragile, or combustible?
“Nope.”
Any lithium batteries?
“Nope.”
And then walking out of the post office with his sunglasses pushed close to his face to hide his bloodshot eyes, smiling that dopey smile of his. “Good job, Bobby,” Arnie whispered to himself, and eased back into the seat of the cab. The tension in his muscles had loosened but allowed a fresh new ache to set in, like a runner would experience after a 10k race, and despite the feeling of safety that having a gun gave him, Arnie was still so spun out from the airport that his leg wouldn’t stop bouncing up and down in the back of the yellow Corolla. He discreetly unwrapped each piece and put the gun together down low behind the side passenger seat, using the speed loader Bobby had included to fill the magazine with 9mm hollow points. If the Iranian cab driver saw him do any of it, he was either accustomed to having people with guns in the back of his car or he didn’t care. When the cab finally pulled in at the Days Inn, Arnie had already stuffed the gun in his pants and handed the driver two twenties for the eighteen-dollar ride. Arnie was finally feeling good. This was how he was going to be living from now on—large and in charge. The driver wanted to get chatty due to the big tip, but Arnie slipped out of the car, holding the suitcase tight against his chest, and bumped the car door shut with his hip while the driver was still talking. He left the open cardboard box filled with packing foam and bubble wrap on the floorboard of the car for someone else to clean up. He was done cleaning up messes. By the time he’d entered the lobby of the motel, he couldn’t have even remembered what the man driving the cab looked like, or if it was even a man. He only knew he had gotten away with it. He did it. He finally did it. It was easy-peasy from here on out—nothing but high-dollar bourbon and uptown pussy from this day forward. First class all the way. The receptionist behind the counter, however, was quick to stick a pin in Arnie’s inflated ego balloon.