Rescue

back.
    I noticed that the name of the last person killed in 1975 lay just eight vertical feet below the name of the first killed in 1959. They were separated only by roughly the same depth at which each of them, all of them, would have been laid to rest.
    Nancy was right, I needed to come here, but that seemed as good a point as any to walk away.

    Cabbing it back to the hotel, I told the driver to leave the meter running while I rousted the bell captain and reclaimed my suitcase. In the taxi again, I tied a “John Francis“ luggage tag to the handle.
    At National, I checked my bag and went to the gate an hour early. Waiting, I watched the anonymous progression of harried business people and leisurely retired people, happy married people and cheerful disabled people. One man of the married people constantly played the same practical joke. He had a twenty-dollar bill on a thin wire hooked to a remote device in his hand. He’d put the bill on the ground near an arrival gate, then when someone stooped to pick up the bill, he’d activate the remote and tease the twenty away, some of the passengers chasing the bill for three or four awkward steps. After one passenger screamed and clutched her heart when the bill danced away, the man’s wife made him stop playing with it.
    The first-class passengers got boarded quickly, “John Francis“ at a window seat on the starboard side. I was barely settled before the flight attendant asked if “we“ would like a cocktail before takeoff. I declined, but my seatmate on the aisle, a big florid man in his forties, accepted readily.
    After the first three gulps of his martini, he turned to me. “I always fly first-class. Know why?“
    “Because you can afford it?“
    “And because if I don’t, my kids will.“
    I closed my eyes as he hailed the flight attendant for another round.

    The captain’s voice woke me up, announcing our approach to Miami International Airport and calling our attention to Fort Lauderdale below us. I looked out my window to the west and down.
    The shoreline trailed into the water, the beaches appearing deserted, whitecaps on the aquamarine water. Then I realized that my perspective was off, that the whitecaps were the wakes of the bigger boats, the smaller ones just metallic specks in the late afternoon sun. I adjusted for the houses, even the condo towers surrounded by parking areas seeming too small, the roofs like square white dots in a hundred tipped dominoes, with the occasional square, clay-pot mansion. The black access roads to the smaller development houses looked way too wide. Then more whitecaps told me I had another bad perspective, the “access roads“ being instead the intracoastal waterway system, man-made doglegs and diagonals that, from the air, didn’t lead anyplace but into cul-de-sacs and dead-ends. I thought briefly of what this view would have been like fifty years ago. Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma.

    Twenty steps into the muggy Jetway, my shirt was plastered to my skin, chilling me as I hit the air-conditioned arrival lounge. Justo Vega’s “man“ wasn’t hard to spot. About six feet and slim, the black hair was balding front to back, the bandit mustache full. I put him around thirty in a designer short-sleeved shirt and some kind of shiny slacks that didn’t use a belt to keep them up. He held a hand-printed piece of cardboard saying just FRANCIS on it.
    Walking up to him, I said, “What if there was more than one ‘Francis’ on the flight?“
    Bright, flashing eyes. “Then I ask you your first name.“
    It came out, “Den I ass chew chore furs name.“
    “Good answer. Call me John.“ I offered him my hand. “Be gentle, I burned myself a few days ago.“
    Quick, light grip. “Pepe. You got the luggage?“
    “One suitcase.“
    “Let’s get it.“
    “I need to make a call first.“
    “Phones over this way.“
    I reached them, Pepe lazing against an opposite wall, maintaining a discreet, disinterested distance. I was lifting the receiver of the first one before noticing it was good only for credit card calls. I replaced the receiver and found one that took coins, feeding a quarter into it. I dialed Nancy’s home number, was told electronically to feed some more, and got her tape machine. After the beep, I said that I’d arrived safely in Florida and would call again when I could. Hanging up, I moved back over to Pepe.
    He started down the corridor toward baggage claim before I did, walking like a