Aces and Knaves

Stan drove away I stood there for a minute and gulped the cool night air. It brought back some sense of reality to me. Everything that had happened since I had entered James Buchanan's home was outside my known world. But I was afraid it would end up being a quickly fading dream.
    I would fly home in the morning, talk to my father, commiserate with him briefly about Ned. He would formally thank me for trying to help, say he didn't need my services anymore, probably have a check made for me. Then we would go our separate ways again.
    As for Ned, my father would make sure that his wife and children were provided for, financially. He would attend the funeral, perhaps give a eulogy. Then he would set about finding a replacement for Ned. The company stock would drop briefly, but it would recover.
    Detective Washington and her partner would file their report. They would attempt to find witnesses to Ned's shooting and fail. The case would go on the books as an unsolved murder. Life would go on. Without Ned.
    I walked into the hotel and asked the night clerk how I could get to the airport in the morning. He said he would get me a reservation on a shuttle bus. I also asked for a wakeup call and gave him several dollar bills from my wallet.
    I took the elevator to the fourth floor, unlocked my room with the plastic magnetic card I had been given and went in. I used the toilet, brushed my teeth and threw my clothes in a chair. My travel clock read five minutes of two; I set the alarm for 6:30, not trusting the wakeup call. I wouldn't get my usual eight hours of sleep.
    Almost as an afterthought I noticed the message light blinking on the telephone. I pushed the appropriate buttons and listened to messages from my father and Detective Washington. Their messages were old news, but the shock of Ned's death returned. I hung up the phone.
    As I collapsed on the bed I wondered whether I would get any sleep at all. I had about two minutes of wondering and then I stopped wondering about anything.

    Chapter 7 DEBRIEFING
    The southbound traffic on 101 was lighter than the northbound traffic heading into San Francisco and the airport shuttle I was riding in made good time to the airport. The weather became sunnier and warmer as we went farther south.
    The newspapers at an airport shop had front-page stories about Ned. I bought one and scanned it as I was waiting at the gate. The story of the shooting didn't say anything I didn't already know. It described Ned as a high-tech pioneer. Dionysus was mentioned but I wasn't. Good.
    The window seat beside me on the plane was empty; it was Ned's seat. I moved into it after the plane took off, to get away from the large man in the aisle seat, who really needed a seat and a half, and although I rarely slept on airplanes I dozed most of the way to LA.
    After we landed at LAX I raced along the aisles, dodging other passengers like a running back. I rode down the escalators and then strode outside to the noise and fumes of motor vehicles cruising by. A security officer with a reflective shirt appeared from nowhere whenever a driver tried to park and wait for an arriving passenger. In a time of heightened security everybody had to keep moving.
    My plan was to catch an airport shuttle home. Suddenly, Arrow appeared in front of me, breathless. I gave her a startled "Hi" and she said, "I was afraid I'd miss you. Richard asked me to pick you up and take you by the office for a debriefing."
    Before I could protest she grabbed my bag and led the way across the airport access road, where the cars, limos and a myriad of vans and buses—parking lot shuttles, rental car shuttles, hotel shuttles and airport shuttles—all tried to violate a law of physics by fitting into the same space at the same time. The metered parking lot had been permanently closed so Arrow had parked in the short-term lot, which had a minimum charge of three dollars. Well, at least I didn’t have to pay it. The noise and confusion precluded much talking until we had stowed the suitcase in the trunk of her car and climbed inside.
    As she backed out of the parking place Arrow said, "You must have had a horrible night."
    "Not as bad as Ned's," I said, wondering how her night had been. She was wearing slacks and a sweater and didn't look as put together as she had yesterday.
    "Poor Ned. I can't believe it. I was asleep when Richard called me to ask about your hotel. I hardly slept at all after that."
    I felt like a traitor because of the few