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  • The Escort
  • Richard Burgin (bio)

A man had started talking to him from the next seat in the bar at Terminal C. The man was friendly at first until he said, “I’ve seen you here before.”

“Really?” Kane said, focusing more intently on the man’s face with its narrow slit-like eyes, which, until five minutes before, he’d never seen.

“You travel a lot?”

“No, not a lot,” Kane said.

“I ask because I’ve seen you here a number of times.”

“Must have been someone else.”

“No, no, I’m sure it was you.”

Kane shrugged. “I really don’t see how.”

The man smiled. His slit-like eyes were green yet strangely unanimated. “You like airports a lot, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you especially like this airport?”

“The airport’s ok, sure.”

“I’ve seen you spending a lot of time in this part of the airport in particular. Always in Terminal C.”

“This part?”

“Yes, from Chili’s down to the Men’s Room.”

“Do you work here?” Kane blurted, immediately regretting that in all likelihood he’d now prolonged the conversation.

“I spend a lot of time here, too. That’s why I thought you’d remember me.” [End Page 141]

“No, nope. Never saw you before,” Kane said. He was starting to feel a little nervous as Slit Eyes continued to speak in riddles.

“You really don’t?”

“No, nope. I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

“You know the expression ‘Ignorance of the law is no excuse’?”

“I think everyone does.”

“Well, it isn’t, is it? It isn’t an excuse.”

“Have I broken the law?”

Slit Eyes didn’t answer immediately, which made Kane still more anxious.

“There are many different laws,” Slit Eyes finally said. “The law of the jungle, the law of the police and then my law—which, unfortunately, you did break.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible since I’ve never met you before.”

“If you keep repeating that you’re going to start believing it. No, you broke the law all right. You broke the territorial law, the oldest law there is.”

Kane’s eyes fluttered excitedly just before he readjusted his glasses.

“This territory doesn’t belong to you,” Slit Eyes continued, “yet I’ve watched you walk up and down it for hours as if you owned it. What are you doing all this time anyway? I know you never actually get on a plane.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“That’s hard to believe, buddy. I mean you don’t come here to look at all the travelers, just certain ones you want something from, am I right?”

“Nope, nothing,” he finally said, suddenly realizing that Slit Eyes was substantially larger than him. “This is just a mistake.”

“The only mistake is the one you’re making setting up in my territory, you hear me?”

Kane suddenly thought it was drug dealing or maybe some kind of prostitution ring and rose from his seat. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said. [End Page 142]

“No, I bet you don’t, so sit down please.”

Then Slit Eyes took out his cell phone and made a call. “He’s at the bar” was all he said. In a matter of seconds, another man appeared before him, oddly stiff, as if he were made of porcelain, who was apparently going to escort him out of the airport.

“Let’s go now,” he said.

Kane followed him in silence but as soon as they were out of Slit Eyes’s sight, he began appealing to the escort.

“Don’t worry I’m leaving,” Kane said to the escort. “I understand, I mean, I don’t understand but I’m leaving, anyway. You think I’m doing something wrong, so . . .”

“My instructions are to accompany you out of the airport.”

“Ok, but I’m leaving anyway. I was already leaving when you arrived.”

“Maybe in your mind but your body was still in Terminal C.”

“But, don’t you see this isn’t necessary? That I was already trying to leave when you arrived?”

“I’m just...

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