The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [84]
Annie. Wrong to get you involved.
Stay out of this. Go home. Love you.
She squeezed the birthday card into a tight ball, shoved it into the pocket of her father’s old flight jacket. “Goddamn him.”
“Pardon? Are you okay?” the older of the receptionists asked her. “The woman said to give you the card.”
Annie asked, “What woman? Who left it? What did she look like? Did she give a name?”
“No, no name. Just an elderly woman,” replied the receptionist defensively. “She said that someone had asked her to drop off this card, that you were in the military. We thought it was strange but she said she was running for a plane and she left.” Both receptionists went back to helping other customers.
Annie looked everywhere in the Admirals Club, even waited for a man to come out of the bathroom and asked him if anyone else was in there. No sign of her father. Not much of a surprise. Her cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number. With foreboding she answered it. She almost wasn’t shocked to hear Jack’s voice. “Annie, you okay? Where are you?” He sounded out of breath.
“The Admirals Club in St. Louis, damn it! Where are you?”
“You made it! Sam gave me your cell number but it wasn’t answering. Where’s the King?”
“Terminal E. Are you back at the Royal Coach?”
“Annie, listen.” He gathered more breath. “Tell me the password. Tell me the password! I’ve got a pencil. Go.”
She was pacing so intensely that the Admirals Club receptionists stopped what they were doing to stare at her. “No, you give me my mother’s name. That’s the deal. Give me her name.”
Between short breaths he said, “Geraldine Jeffers…The cops are all over this place. If I try to get to the King, they’ll grab me.”
Memory clicked. “Geraldine Jeffers was in Palm Beach Story. Claudette Colbert played her! Fuck you, Dad.”
“Calm down. Just walk out, go back to the King. There’s a panel in its tail. Use the key I gave you. There’s a courier case in the panel. Take it to Raffy. You understand? Go to the Dorado in Miami. Raffy will meet you there. He’ll find you. Help me out, Annie. And don’t talk to anybody unless you have to. If you have to, say I never showed at the airport, say I blew you off. Don’t let them know you’re going to Miami.”
Her father sounded so close that Annie jerked quickly around to look, as if he might be calling her from a few feet away. But the modern expanse of lobby, granite floor and cherry wood walls, was empty. From the doorway a slender middle-aged woman, wearing flip-flops and a pink sweatshirt with kittens on it, looked in tentatively, then as if she’d made a mistake, closed the door. A small gray-haired Japanese couple in matching blue blazers came in and studied the Departures screen.
“Hang on, Dad.” Annie ran out into the terminal gates area and checked up and down the busy connector to see if she could spot her father. She wasn’t sure whether she would still recognize him even if she did see him. “Are you here in this airport?” she yelled into the phone. “Goddamn it, answer me!”
The young good-looking man in the blue T-shirt, who was still reading at the news rack, glanced over at her.
Annie turned her back on him and lowered her voice. “Answer me, Dad!”
“…I’ve got to go. Just be careful, Annie. I don’t want you hurt.”
She took a fast breath. “A little late for that!”
“We’ll hook back up in Miami. Bring the case. And thank Brad. Here I go.”
Annie muttered, “‘Thank Brad’?”
The phone went dead.
She felt in the pocket of the leather flight jacket. The emerald was there. So was the tiny key. “Use the key,” her father had said. “There’s a panel. Take the case to Raffy.” What case? What panel? She hated this, having her life flipped upside