I knew it was her standing by the baggage pickup before she even turned around. The woman had baggage all right, and some of it was me.

“Hi Amber,” I smiled. “How are you this fine morning?”

“You…” she explained.

Miss Pawlik looked as stauesque as ever — if the statue was the one the dame dumped down the airshaft in The Fountainhead. She looked like she’d been crying, and her blouse was stained with Miracle Whip. She was carrying a copy of that new Clinton book with the rape stuff in it, and it looked like it had already seen some use, if you know what I’m saying.

“Relax, baby,” I said. “I know things are tough. We shared some wild times all right, but it’s all different now. I’m just a guy passing through on business.”

Amber looked meaner than a sack of weasels. “My boyfriend will be here any second,” she said. “And if I say the word, you’ll be leaving this town like Michael Jackson in a 9-11 Islam. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“You’re always talking like that. No, I never can make sense of it actually, Amber.”

A giant goon of a gorilla was muscling his way toward the baggage carousel. It seemed like time to stop hanging around like a bunch of bananas.

“Maybe we’ll have lunch this week,” I said, adjusting my bag. My luggage, that is. “We’ll see how you feel once you’ve had some time to think it over,” I said, walking away.

“I doubt I’ll be doing much thinking,” she called after me. I gave her a “Sadly, No” and thought about old times as I walked through the exit and into the parking lot. I had to admit I missed her.

There are lots of billboards for get-rich-quick schemes and Matt Furey products around Bush Multinational Airport. That’s just one of the things you notice. In fact, it was the last thing I noticed before my head exploded in a nimbus of pain-stars and the world went pitch black.

When I awoke, the next thing I noticed was that I was crammed into a car trunk, and that the car was pulling slowly to a stop on a gravel road. And the thing after that was the unmistakable smell of rubber cement.

***