Due Preparations for the Plague

“He was.”

“Was?”

“He died in a car crash two months ago. September.”

“Oh,” Samantha says. She feels winded. She can feel a red-hot trail fizzle out. “What date?”

“Four days before the anniversary,” he says. “So you don’t know everything.”

“There’s way too much I don’t know.”

“You hadn’t been hounding my father the way you hounded me?”

“I apologize for hounding you. I guess I was obnoxious. I’m sorry.”

“Well, not obnoxious,” he says. “But relentless, yes.”

“I’m sorry. I get like that every September.”

“Yeah,” he says, softening. “I freak out too. Every year.”

“I’m obsessive-compulsive about it, I guess. About anything to do with the hijacking.”

“I am too, but in the opposite way. Compulsive avoidance. But if you’re, you know, so obsessive, how come you didn’t hound my father?”

“I only just found out about him, from Françoise. People like your father aren’t listed in the telephone book.”

“How’d you find out about me?”

“The passenger list’s always been available. Each passenger listed one next-of-kin with the airline for notification. Your mother listed you.”

“Yes, I suppose she would. How’d you find this Françoise?”

“I didn’t. She contacted me. On the website for Flight 64.”

“I avoid anything like that,” Lowell says.

“So. Do you want to meet me and talk?”

“I’m not sure. Where’s this area code? D.C., isn’t it? Is that where you live?”

“Yes. But I could come up to Boston for a weekend. Or we could pick somewhere in between, like New York.”

“Maybe,” he says. “I’m not sure. I have to be careful.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Lowell says nervously. “I don’t mean anything.”

A hole-in-the-wall café in Penn Station is not where Samantha would have picked, but Lowell insists. He has a soft-sided overnight bag with him and he keeps it on his lap. He looks around.

“Are you expecting someone?” Sam asks.

“What? No. No, no. Just checking the joint. It’s like lead in paint.”

“Lead in paint?”

“Old paint. Before they banned lead. Once you know about it, you see it everywhere. I’ve had medical problems,” he says. “Even walls become dangerous, know what I mean?”

“Uh-huh,” she says doubtfully, trying to follow.

“I paint houses,” he explains. “Lot of old houses in Boston, peeling paint. I have to strip them. Lead levels are up in my blood.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know much about—”

“Heart problems. Nervous system. I get tested every month. You live with it.” Eyes darting, he checks each stream of New York commuters spilling into the concourse at Penn. “You get to expect danger. Could come from any direction.”

“Got you,” she says. “But, ah, it’s not lead poisoning you’re checking for here.”

“No.” Their eyes meet for a moment, then skitter away.

“Message received,” she breathes. She suddenly wants to call Jacob. She wants to check in with him, make sure he is okay. “I could order us a bottle,” she says to Lowell. “I need a drink, don’t you? But I wouldn’t trust the house wine here. Sweetened cleaning fluid.”

Lowell blinks at her. “Wine? No, not my poison. Whatever’s on tap,” he tells the waiter.

“Your father was in Intelligence.” Sam’s voice has dropped to a whisper.

Lowell says warily, “If you were hoping for information about that, I don’t have any.”

“Your half-sister thinks—”

“This Françoise—”

“Yes. She thinks your father—her father—knew about Flight 64. In advance, I mean.”

Lowell is holding his overnight bag tightly against his chest. He feels the skin of the bag incessantly with his fingers as though checking that its internal organs are still there. He prods at something, and reassures himself about its outline, a rectangular one. A book, Samantha thinks; or perhaps a box. One of Lowell’s feet against the leg of the bistro table is making the metal rattle against the floor.

“You’re not surprised,” Sam whispers, watching him closely. “You knew that your father knew.”

Lowell lurches and the table tips and Sam grabs for her wine. An amber wave sloshes over the edge of Lowell’s beer glass. “What? I am surprised,” he whispers fiercely. “Of course I’m surprised. Why wouldn’t I be surprised? Besides, the statement’s ridiculous. Flights to the US are always at risk, all the time. My father knew that, the way all of us know it, only he was more aware of it than most. Naturally.”

“This was quite specific, Françoise claims. There was a tip-off about Flight 64.”

The bistro table is rattling so noisily that both Lowell and Sam lean forward on the marble top, dampening the racket with their weight. Sam can feel the tremor reaching her fingertips. When Lowell speaks, she can feel the puff of air from his lips. “There are scores of tip-offs every week,” he says. “Most of them hoaxes.”

“But not this one. The French police had Charles de Gaulle on high security alert, except the passengers weren’t told. Françoise thinks your father knew. She thinks his information was quite precise.”

Why? Lowell’s lips form the question, though no sound comes out. He is beginning to hyperventilate.