Drafting For Charlie
J Michael Blue

Miami International on a Saturday, low ceilings and low lighting, too hot and too crowded to produce much friendliness in the friendly skies. The moving crowds swelled and ebbed, shifting from one area of the terminal to another, and people with loud voices used both Spanish and English to yell instructions to their runaway children. Everyone seemed compelled to hurry and be harried. It was about as she’d expected.
"Is this yours?" The tall, security guard with the black brush mustache nodded at Marcy as she approached the machine to reclaim her carry-on bags.
She gave him her high voltage smile. "I think so. It looks like one of mine."
"I need to run it through again."
The noise from kids and trams and crossover conversations made it difficult to hear even those close by. "What?"
"There’s something. We need to look at your bag once more."
She shrugged. "Whatever."
He passed the small, plaid, duffel bag to the wide-bodied woman seated at the scanner, and Marcy watched as the conveyer belt sent an assortment of luggage in her direction. When it stopped, brush mustache moved up stream to stare over the shoulder of his co-worker at a frozen image on the green display screen.
"Back it up," he said.
The belt reversed and Marcy saw her bag snatched from the rear of the machine.
"Could you start this moving again, please. Some of us are in a hurry." A handsome, silver haired man in a dark suit, a raincoat over his shoulders and a Wall Street Journal in one hand, stood next in line.
"You'll have to wait your turn," Ms. Widebody replied, but she stepped on a pedal and started the bags moving again.
"What's the problem?" Marcie asked. "What's the big deal with that one?"
"We need to look inside," the woman said.
"Why? There's nothing in there but cosmetics and underwear."
"Just stand over there until we're finished. " The woman pointed to a spot out of the flow of traffic. "It shouldn't take long."
Marcie waited until the woman turned back to her work before speaking to her again. "Can I grab my other bags?"
Widebody looked up and frowned. She seemed flustered and frustrated. "What? I suppose so."
"Good luck in catching your plane, Miss," the silver haired man said to Marcie. He had cleared the walk through portal, and he moved quickly to scoop up a suitcase on wheels, and an expensive looking attaché case.
"Thanks," Marcie replied. "If this takes long, I'll need it."
The tall inspector, who had opened her bag, had obviously found something he didn't like. As he reached for a phone mounted on a post beside him, he pointed toward Marcie and called to a guard standing at the walk through. "Frank, Have that woman stay here."
The man named Frank, who looked more like a grandfather than a security guard, took a step in Marcie's direction. Two passengers, moving quickly to reclaim their belongings, bumped him from the rear and sent him scooting alongside her. "You'll need to take a seat, Miss." He pointed toward a short line of gray, formed plastic chairs near the glass wall that separated departing from arriving passengers.
"I don't have time for this," Marcie said. "You guys are being ridiculous."
"I'm sorry."
"Why don't you keep the bag and I'll go catch my plane."
"You'll have to wait," Frank said.
"Really?"
"I'm sorry," he said again. "A pretty young woman like you. I'm sure it's nothing."
"Everybody's sorry, but nobody acts sorry."
Ten minutes later a man wearing a wrinkled, yellow sport jacket, and a woman whose dark suit might have fit her if she gained twenty pounds, arrived and conducted their own inspection of the bag. They spoke quietly to the guy with the brush mustache, and he gestured in Marcie's direction as he answered them. Curious travelers, on their way to their gates, craned their necks to check out the luggage police and their current suspect. The woman in the oversized suit picked up Marcie’s bag and she and her co-hort cut through the line of travelers behind the x-ray machine.
"Good morning, Miss. If you have a paper ticket, I'd like to see it, please?" the man in the yellow sport jacket held out his right
hand, palm up.
"Hi," Marcie said, as she handed him her ticket envelope. "What's up with this? You're going to make me miss my flight"
"What's your name, please?"
"Marcie Arkwright, just like it says on the ticket. What's yours?"
"I'm Sgt. Andrews. This is Officer Stephanie Louis."
"Fine," Marcie said. "Can I go catch my plane now?"
"You're leaving for St. Thomas this morning?"
"That’s the plan. You want to go? There's still enough time if we hurry."
He waved the outside envelope flap at her. "No checked luggage?
"I’m only going for a week and I travel light."
"I see. Well, Ms Arkwright, we'd like you to come with us."
"To where and for how long?"
"We're going to a conference room around the corner."
"I asked you how long this would take."
"I heard you," he said.
Marcie took her purse and her garment bag and walked with the police officers back up the concourse. They moved quickly along a line of gawking passengers, to an unmarked door with a combination lock built into the doorknob back plate. Andrews punched in a series of numbers and led them into a narrow, windowless room with unadorned, cream colored walls, and a dark green tile floor. The air smelled stale despite its refrigerated chill.
"You guys need a decorator," Marcie said.
"You can put your stuff there." Andrews indicated a square wooden table, the top of which had been tattooed in coffee rings.
Agent Louis pulled out a metal folding chair from a stack against the wall. "Have a seat," she said.
"I'll stand, thanks. I won't be staying long.
Louis shook her head. "Sit down. Please."
Marcie sat.
For several minutes the two police officers stood together, their backs toward her, as they whispered, and prodded and poked through the contents of the bag. A witch and a warlock, Marcie thought, conjuring up trouble for their latest captive.
Finally, Louis turned and approached Marcie. "Could we see some other identification, please?"
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
Both cops had plastic badges with photographs on them. Louis pointed to hers as she took Marcie's wallet from her hand.
"This your correct address?" She passed the wallet to her partner.
"Yes," Marcie said. "Do I need a lawyer for this?"
"And is this your bag?" Andrews placed the duffel on top of one of the two desks in the room.
"I already said it was. What of it?"
"Why did you try to take this onto your plane?" He reached inside and pulled out a black canister, the size of a shaving cream container. Someone had taped a pair of signal flares to the back of the canister. The flares were so long that they stuck out several inches at both ends of the can.
Marcie stared in disbelief. "What is that? "
"You don't know?"
"I've never seen it before."
"What about this?" Andrews reached inside once again and extracted a key chain with a metal cylinder charm that had side by side openings in one end, and a chain attachment ring at the other. Three age-stained keys hung from the chain.
"It's not mine."
"Do you know what it is?"
"Is there a prize if I do?"
Officer Louis got a second chair and sat down next to Marcie. "Having an attitude won't help you with this. You're in serious trouble."
"I'm not in any trouble. I have no idea where any of that came from."
"That canister contains butane to light those flares, and the piece on the key chain is a loaded two shot .32 caliber firearm.
"That little tube thing is a gun?"
"Yes, and by attempting to take it onto an airplane, you've committed a serious crime. You can go to federal prison for this."
"You people are crazy."
"Was this bag out of your sight and control today?"
"I'm not controlling it very well at the moment."
"Could anyone have put anything in it without your knowledge?"
Marcie hesitated. "I left my stuff at my chair while I made phone calls in the Red Carpet Room."
"Whom did you call?"
"I called my… that's none of your damned business. Look, I'm going on vacation for the first time in two years. I'm taking sun-screen lotion, and a bikini I paid too much for, but I'm not hauling fireplace lighters or pop guns."
"It appears that you are."
Marcie looked at her watch. "Damn you," she said. "My plane has probably boarded without me."
"I'd say that's the least of your worries," Andrews said.
"Let's see what else is in the bag," Marcie said. "Dump it out and surprise me some more."
He stared at her silently.
"Either empty it, or give me a phone and I'll call my lawyer."
He brought the bag to the table and poured the contents out in a pile. There was no makeup and no women's underwear, only an assortment of paper backed books, an ancient electric shaver kit, and a collection of cargo shorts and cotton shirts.
"That looks like it belongs to some guy."
"You've never seen any of this?"
"Do I strike you as the sort of girl who would shave any part of her body with that thing?" She pointed a long nailed finger at the badly corroded razor.
Andrews picked up one of the books. "This has drawings in it that show how to make bombs."
Marcie shook her head. "Can I go now."
Officer Louis got up and retrieved the canister and flare pack from the desk at the back of the room. "We have to know where this came from and who gave it to you."
"No one gave it to me. Either somebody switched bags with me or I picked up the wrong one."
"Maybe you're carrying this material for someone else."
"Maybe you've been watching too much television."
"Are you traveling with or meeting someone?"
"No. I'm just hoping to get lucky once or twice while I'm gone. Look, I have my own business. I'm a responsible person, and I'm not going to put up with any more of this."
Louis sighed. "We can detain you until you decide to cooperate, you know."
"This is as cooperative as I get. In fact, if you don't stop harassing me, I'm going to show you how uncooperative I can be."
The two of them stared at her, neither one showing any signs of remorse for the trouble they had caused. At last, Andrews spoke. "We need some names. People we can call to verify that you
are who you say you are. We'll also run a check to see if you've had any previous problems with the law."
"How much time are you going to waste doing all of that?"
He cocked his head and studied her. "Are you always this difficult?"
"I do my best."
"Well, give us the names and it'll go faster."
It took them more than two and a half hours to satisfy themselves that they might as well allow her to leave. In the meantime she had to remain seated at the table in their interrogation room, while Louis and Andrews took turns leaving the room. She couldn't even get them to bring her coffee or water or a urinary leg bag.
"You want us to hurry, so sit there, be quiet and don't slow us down," Louis told her.
*
"You do have a record," Andrews said, when he returned at last, to release her.
"You mean I've been arrested a couple of times."
"Yes, and one of the two arrests involved the smuggling of contraband."
"Not on an airplane, and not by me. Besides, I wasn't charged, in that supposed conspiracy, let alone convicted."
"But you were charged on a counterfeiting bust."
"And the charges were dropped, and all of that happened more than five years ago."
Andrews stood over her, his hands on his hips. "My partner believes you're dirty on this."
"Why would anybody try to take that stuff on board in a carry on? There's no way you'd get away with it?"
"We know."
"So, does Louis thinks I'm brain dead?
"She doesn't know why you were doing it, but she believes that the canister and the gun are yours."
"What do you think?"
"I'm not sure. I don't see you as someone who likes to waste her time or who walks around wearing a "dummy" sign."
"You're a fun guy, you know that, Andrews?"
He handed Marcie her tickets and backed away from her chair. "Anyway, you can go. We know where you live, if we decide we want to talk to you again."
Marcie gathered her belongings, minus the plaid duffel. "I'll be sure to sit by the phone."
He opened the door and held it for her. "You do that."
Once in the concourse, she sought out a rest room and a drinking fountain, stopped at a snack bar, and made two full circuits of the terminal before heading back toward the security checkpoint.
Things were quieter now, fewer panic propelled families, not as many vacation bound singles and pairs. Traffic had thinned and slowed, and the air had lost some of its electric buzz. A new crew had taken over at the x-ray machines, and no one paid special attention to her as she processed herself and her bags through the metal detectors.
The silver haired man who had followed her through security was waiting in the departure lounge for a flight to Grand Cayman Island, and as Marcie came into the waiting area, he cleared his belongings from the chair beside him, giving her a place to sit down.
"How'd it go?" he asked.
"As smooth as your manicure, Charlie. They took longer than I expected, but otherwise it went as planned. How about you?"
"I couldn't have had it easier. They got so involved in checking out your little duffel, that the woman on the machine shot my bags through there like she couldn't wait to get rid of them."
Marcie smiled. "Just like a bicycle rider drafting behind a moving van. The van gets pulled over and whoosh, there goes the bike." She deepened her voice in an imitation of Charlie's resonant baritone "Could you start this moving again, please? Some of us are in a hurry."
"Figured it couldn't hurt."
"You did good, Sweetie, and Mama will give you a big reward just as soon as she gets back." She pressed her hand on his thigh and leaned over far enough to plant a wet kiss in his ear.
"I wish I were going with you."
"No, Baby. This has to be a solo flight. You know that. The guys at the other end are expecting to take delivery from an unaccompanied female. They're sure that this is a safe package because it's coming to them off a plane and some dumb bimbo is bringing it."

"You have me doing things and getting involved in things I never would have dreamed I'd do for anyone."
"I know," she said. "You're my angel, and I promise I will turn your body into a pleasure palace as soon as I come home."
He turned to look at her. "What's under the false bottom of the bag I carried in here?"
"I told you, Charlie. It's better if you don't know."
"But, I should know now. I took the risk, and I worry about you leaving here with it."
"Do you have my tickets?"
He reached inside his suit jacket and extracted a ticket envelope. "Yes, but I'd still like to know what's in the bag."
"Let me put it this way," Marcie said. "That bag looks safe and ordinary, but you wouldn't want to be the one to open it, and once I deliver it, and get away from there, we'll be rolling around on silk sheets for a long, long time."

J. Michael Blue turned to writing crime and mystery fiction four years ago. Since then his work has appeared in Blue Murder Magazine <http://www.bluemurder.com>, The Belletrist Review, Byline, The Timber Creek Review, The Concho River Review, Blue Fiction Magazine, The Flying Island, Papyrus, and The Unknown Writer, among others. A dozen of his short stories have won awards. Justified Crimes is his first novel, just out from Blue Murder Press. More information is available on his website at jmblue.com 
Jim Blue says he is a mid-westerner by both history and inclination, but he has lived on both coasts and a dozen places in-between. He and his wife Shirley Anne currently live in Indiana, Michigan, Florida, and California, depending upon the time of year.