Chapter 22 - Where the Truth Lies

THE NEXT AFTERNOON found me pulling up to Vince’s home around three P.M. He had asked if we could start late, and I was all for obliging him. I wanted to be as reasonable as possible prior to giving him the third degree.

I parked my car in the motor court outside his home.

Basically, I had one edge going into this. I knew something about Vince (and Lanny) that he didn’t know I knew. I had to play this one little ace up my sleeve as if I were holding a flush. First I had to question Vince all around the topic of the last night the two of them saw Maureen, knowing—as no one else knew—that she had died there in Florida at the Versailles, almost certainly in their hotel suite. If I watched Vince carefully, led him disingenuously around the terrain of that time period, perhaps he’d slip.

After I’d covered that time frame as much as I felt was credible, I then planned to lead him into related areas so that he’d feel as if he were out of the woods. I’d ask him how he felt about her death, how it had affected his working relationship with Lanny, did he believe the public’s response to their partnership was altered by the sordid event, et cetera. I would let this become an airy and philosophical discussion.

That’s when I’d have to steel my nerves and play my ace for its full worth. There would be one moment, and one moment only, when I could calmly say to him something like “Yes, but when you packed her in the case with the lobsters and crabs, did you alert Sally Santoro’s boys in New Jersey about this or were you planning to unpack her yourselves after you checked into the hotel?” Perhaps this would not be the exact question (the moment and context would decide that), but it would certainly be the one and only time I could knock the wind out of him with one blow to the solar plexus. Then I’d have to bluff impeccably, putting across that this was merely one of many bits of inside information I had gleaned about Maureen’s death.

The beauty of my position was that I was not with the police. I did not have to read Vince his rights. In point of fact, he did not have the right to remain silent. Just the opposite. He was contractually obligated to N&N to cough up what he knew. To any other interviewer, he could simply say, “No comment.” Saying that to me would cost him a million dollars.

I walked through the walled-in courtyard to Vince’s door. I liked him. I had a crush on him. I was going to sleep with him no matter what. Oh, I suppose if I found out that he was a murderer and turned him over to the Miami authorities, he should probably not expect a conjugal visit from me in prison. That reminded me that an electric chair nicknamed Old Sparky was still percolating away in Florida, doing an inhumanely inefficient and protracted job of burning its victims from the inside out.

Here comes Vince to the door. I hear his footsteps. Yes, there he is in a lightweight olive sweater with a turtleneck collar, black-and-gray trousers, black socks, black loafers. Someday I would help him off with his clothes. Let me see if I (eager and self-promoting young thing that I am) can bait and spring a saw-toothed trap for him.

“Hi.” He smiled with a set about his lips that indicated this was not going to be his favorite afternoon. “Thanks for accommodating me on the time. We can go as late as you like.”

Anything he casually offered I was going to nail to the table while it was out there. “That’s good,” I murmured. “I do think this may take us late into the evening.”

He shut the door behind me and followed me into the house. He indicated the dining room. “I thought that might be the case,” he said. “So I’ve arranged for a hot and cold smorgasbord to be brought in from Scandia’s. I had them lay out the dining room for us. We can work through dinner if you like.”

I looked in the dining room and saw place settings and matching linen, water and wineglasses, a full set of cutlery, including fish and salad forks, dessert plates, and coffee cups.

The table was set for three.

“We’ll be having company?” I asked, a bit annoyed. If he thought that he was going to checkmate me by bringing in a third party, he was well mistaken. I watched from the dining room as he walked over to the living room couch, sat down, and lit a cigarette.

“Yes, I have a fairly big surprise for you.” He took a drag and exhaled. “Actually it’s a big thing for me as well. I’ve asked Lanny to join us today.”

I felt as if an intravenous drip of ice water had just hit my bloodstream, and yet at the same time my mouth went dry.

“Lanny?”

Vince nodded, biting at his lower lip. “Yeah. You know, Kerry, this will be the first time we’ve seen each other alone, at close quarters, in over thirteen years. Look at me.” He stretched out his hand and there was a small shake to it, although Vince the actor could have been faking that quite easily. “I’m nervous as hell.”

I sat down across from him. “Well, this is something,” I tried to purr. “Neuman and Newberry are certainly getting their money’s worth.”

Vince shook his head. “I thought that if I was going to discuss for the record something that made such an impact on both of our lives, professionally and personally—we’ve declined to comment about the incident since it happened—I thought it would be only fair for Lanny to hear what I have to say and be given the chance to respond. There may be something he wants to add from his own recollection, or even contradict. My memory isn’t always the best.” He nodded toward his bar. “A lot of my gray cells have been put out of their misery over the years.”

I started to unpack my tape recorder, still trying to figure what the hell I would do, but not wanting Vince to think I was anything but pleased about this development. “Well, it’s going to be fabulous to meet Lanny,” I chirped, reaching for my microphone. “I mean, in researching you, I’ve certainly read a ton about him as well.” Oh, God help me, I couldn’t get my brain to operate. I kept picturing Lanny walking in the door and seeing me for the first time. The first time since Bonnie Trout had fallen asleep in his arms at the Plaza Hotel. “I’m sure I’ll have a ton of questions for him. When is he due to arrive?”

“He couldn’t be here until three-thirty, but he’s always right on time. I didn’t even have his number—I had to have my manager call Irv Fleischmann to track it down.” He took a last drag and stubbed out his cigarette. “I can’t tell you what it was like to call him.”

I smiled to cover my inner hysteria. “Oh, I think you should tell me. This is a huge event in both of your lives, and I’m just thrilled that I’ll be here for it.” Thrilled, yeah. The structure of my universe was being picked apart like a game of jackstraws.

What would I say when Lanny saw me? A fabulous wash of absolutely opposite and extreme emotions was churning inside me, like the first, formal introduction of nitro to glycerine. Yes, I was angry at Lanny. Yes, I was hurt. But this was simply that stupid “love” stuff. Lanny would say, “Bonnie?” And Vince would say, “Kerry? Why is he calling you ‘Bonnie’?” And then Lanny would no doubt explain to Vince that I had apparently wangled my way next to him on a flight to New York, lied about who and what I was, flirted with him until he had me right where I wanted him. Vince would look at me, think of our little agreement, and recall that I had certainly done my share of the propositioning with him—oh God, I was sunk. At best, Vince might continue to work on the book with me, but he’d hereafter perceive me as an unscrupulous whore who was not to be trusted in any way. Far more likely, he’d get on the phone with Neuman and Newberry and state that my behavior with his ex-partner was unethical and duplicitous, that he wanted me off the book, and that all my work thus far should be barred from publication. Oh, would Greg Gavin have a pipe-sucking festival with that crisis. If word ever got out in the trade (and it would, rest assured) that I’d blown their million-dollar advance by becoming sexually involved with one of the two men about whom I was writing, and done so while lying about my name, my address, my profession, my life story—in fact, being fraudulent about virtually everything except my orgasms…

My first reflex was to tell the truth. (I know. “Fancy that.”) But what I’d done was so damning, even given my best presentation of the facts, that the truth offered me little more than the option of shooting myself in the head rather than facing a firing squad.

I had one dim candle of hope but very little time before Lanny’s breezing in would snuff that right out. “Well, this is very exciting.” I beamed. “If you don’t mind, I’d just like to run to the powder room before Lanny gets here.”

Vince looked wounded. “Oh, your makeup was fine for me, but for Lanny you need to touch yourself up?”

“No, actually, it’s a ‘woman thing,’ ” I said and excused myself. No man has ever challenged that answer and, to my knowledge, none has ever requested more specific information.

Vince’s guest bathroom was, thankfully, not by the front door but down a dark paneled hallway to the right of the foyer. I opened the door and checked to see if Vince could see me, but luckily, I was angled out of his sight line, assuming he stayed put. I entered the bathroom, leaving the door open. It was all done in black lacquer, and I recognized the engravings on the wall by Piranesi, from his Imaginary Prisons of Rome: Incredible vaulting arches supported narrow galleries bridging the way to staircases that descended hundreds of feet into the hopeless gloom of secret dungeons. I turned on the cold-water tap and then left the bathroom, shutting its door loudly as if I’d closed it behind me and I were still inside. I moved down the hall toward what Vince had once indicated to me was his bedroom. I’d not seen it yet, but I was about to.

I opened the door as quietly as I could manage. I had no time to note details, but it was done in various shades of rust and navy blue and very smart indeed. The bed was low and as big as a dance floor in a small nightclub; I still hoped to dance there with Vince someday.

I was praying he had a bedside phone, and my prayers were answered. It was a custom Italian designer model in maroon, and it was so sleek and stylish that I couldn’t figure out where you talked into it or how you dialed. Fuck! I had to decrypt a MoMA award-winning designer’s rethinking of a touch-tone. I found a button flush with the receiver and pushed it, heard the purr of an open line. I then hit zero and dialed a New York City number. The operator kicked in. “Collect call, Operator,” I advised her in a whisper. She asked for (and I gave her) my name. I listened to dead air for about ten seconds. If Vince caught me making a surreptitious call here in his bedroom, I had no idea what explanation I could give, but it didn’t matter. I was at least unhampered by doubts about the wisdom of what I was doing, just as a basketball player in the last second of a losing effort has no second thoughts about shooting an eighty-three-foot basket in an attempt to tie the game. Neither of us had any choice.

There was a discernible click, and the other end of the connection rang on the line. It was six-twenty P.M. in New York. Everything depended on Beejay having gotten home on time and not having gone anywhere since. On the fourth ring I actually felt the sting of self-pity welling in the corners of my eyes; then I was pulled back to life by a sharp click on the line. I wiped away my twin tears with my left index finger as I heard Beejay’s voice, heard her say yes to accepting the phone call, and I had her.

“Beejay, it’s Kerry, I have to talk fast.”

“I’m glad, kiddo, ’cause if you’re in L.A., I can’t afford you calling collect.”

“Beejay, I need you to do exactly what I tell you, and I have no time to tell you why, okay?”

“Yeah yeah yeah, shoot.”

One minute later I walked out of Vince’s bedroom. I heard him doing something in the kitchen and was able to duck into the bathroom, quietly opening and closing the door behind me. I turned off the faucet and flushed the toilet for further effect.

It was three twenty-four, and if Lanny was even a minute early, this wasn’t going to work. I strolled back from the bathroom and found Vince staring at the view that filled his wide windows, a veritable relief map of downtown Los Angeles. He gazed thoughtfully at nothing in particular. I adopted the most casual, glib manner I could muster, considering that I wanted to make like Peter Lorre in Casablanca and beg, “Rick, hide me!”

“Sorry if I was long,” I said breezily.

Vince half-smiled and stepped away from the window. As he did so, I noticed that behind him on an end table alongside one of his low couches was a multiline telephone with five clear, square buttons and a red hold button to the left of them. I realized that if, as was likely, the bedroom phone was one of those lines, then when I had picked up the phone in Vince’s bedroom, it would have illuminated one of the buttons on the master phone in the living room. Of course, as long as Vince was staring out the window at that time, or occupied in the kitchen, or doing anything but looking at the phone, I was okay. If not, I was surely suspect, as there was no one else in the house. But again, in a strangely blissful way, I had no choice but to brazen it out until either I escaped or the whole mess exploded in my face. Like an expert defusing an atomic bomb while a timer ticked down from sixty seconds, I could only try to clip the right wire. At this point, running for cover would be of no use.

I flopped down on the couch as if I’d be staying there forever. “Well, this is pretty damn exciting, Vince,” I gushed, plugging my microphone into the recorder. “The only question for me is, will Lanny let me record what he has to say? I guess we’ll have to ask him that when he gets h—”

The phone rang. I saw the third translucent button flash slowly.

It rang a second time. I waited for Vince to answer it, but he was looking only at me, interested in the end of my sentence. The phone rang for the third time. I smiled casually. “It’s okay, you can get that.”

Vince waved dismissively. “No, that’s the number I give to the press, people I’m working with short-term, you know, landscapers.” Of course, this was the number that Vince had given me, which I had given Beejay. “I don’t answer it unless I’m expecting one of them to call. Otherwise it rolls over to my office.”

The ringing stopped.

At this point my fate was in the hands of Beejay. I could only act as if everything was sunny and fine. “Well, tell me, did you speak to Lanny directly on the phone?” I asked in as reportorial a fashion as I could manage. Vince nodded a grim yes and I pressed ahead: “What was that like? I know you haven’t seen each other in over a decade, but have you ever spoken on the—”

There was a louder ringing sound from his phone than before, and my eyes could see the right-most button flashing.

Vince muttered, “Excuse me, that might actually be Lanny,” and instantly picked up the phone. He listened and looked at me with concern. “It’s my office, there’s a woman, a friend or relative of yours, it wasn’t clear. She says she called on the number you gave her, my number. Says there’s a problem, your family…”

I stepped quickly to the phone, and Vince handed it over watchfully. “Yes?” I asked. I was speaking to Vince’s secretary, the woman I’d met at the Burbank Studios. She told me much the same as Vince had just said, and that my friend or relative would call back again on the same line as before, only Vince would pick up this time.

Almost in the same instant, the third line rang. Vince took the phone back from me, answered, and handed me the receiver.

“Hello?” I asked, concerned.

“Hi, kiddo,” said Beejay. “Now listen, your brother Clifford has just been rushed to the hospital. He was doing some construction work when a thing—”

“A steel girder?” I asked in a concerned voice.

“That’s it. So you better get back to the city and make your peace with him, ’cause the doctors don’t think he’ll last the night. I’ve booked you on the next flight via American Airlines, I’m waiting here for you in front of the terminal. I’ll drive your car home for you.”

“Thank you, Sharon,” I said to Beejay and hung up. Vince watched what I hoped was my controlled hysteria as I first started packing up my recorder, then abandoned the task. It was three twenty-seven. “Can I leave this stuff here, Vince? I have to go to the airport. It’s my brother. They say he may have very little time.”

“How can I help?” he asked, concerned.

I shook my head. “They’ve reserved me a seat on the next American flight to New York. I have to get to the airport this instant.” I grabbed my pocketbook and was already moving to the door. I hoped he would view my rudeness simply as touching, sisterly concern.

Vince walked with me. “I’ll get you a ride there.”

Behind me, I heard the loud “hot” line of his phone ringing again, but Vince ignored it. I waved him off. “No, Sharon is waiting at the airport for me. I’ll turn my car over to her at the white zone for the loading and unloading, you know. It will be quicker than if I wait for someone to pick me up here.” I was through the courtyard now.

“I’ll drive you in my car,” he said.

“What, and have you stand up Lanny Morris? Then the two of you won’t talk for another dozen years. It’s easier and faster this way.” I had reached my Caprice. A few more steps and Lanny would never see my face. “My deepest apologies to Mr. Morris and, of course, to you, Vince.”

I was behind the wheel, turning the ignition. Even if Lanny arrived now, if I could just be pulling out of the driveway, I could probably angle my face so he wouldn’t recognize me through the windshield as I drove by. In a movie, the car wouldn’t start and I’d struggle with the ignition, but the car did start (suddenly my car wasn’t so pathetic) and the wheels spat gravel as I pulled away from Vince.

All down Tortuoso, I kept waiting for Lanny’s car or limousine to pass me as he ascended the hill. I’d quickly put on my sunglasses and wrapped a scarf around my head. I thought that under the circumstances it would be difficult for him to recognize “Bonnie Trout” behind the wheel, and I kept my head as low as I could without losing sight of the road. I also twisted my mouth like a character out of Dick Tracy to further distort my appearance. I wished I could take the descent faster than thirty miles per hour, but with the road’s extreme turns and unrailed edge, there was simply no way. However, by the time I got to Sunset Boulevard, I’d encountered no limos nor had I passed any driver who looked anything like Lanny.

Now my body allowed the adrenaline level in my system to drop to normal. All the icy thoughts of dread and panic that I had fended off were melting into a flood of slush, which I felt rushing down into the pit of me. It was terrifying how close I’d come to being exposed in the most awful way. I could hardly breathe, and I found myself jumping a red light to try to outrun the feeling, but it was no use. Once paranoia is in full bloom, it’s difficult to uproot, and in my case, my anxiety had been as justified as that of a whore strolling the alleys of Whitechapel circa 1888.

Home was the one place I didn’t want to go for the moment. Vince might have noticed his bedroom phone line being lit only two minutes before my emergency phone call. As a matter of fact, there’d been a click on the line that I’d assumed was the phone system, but that might have been Vince on the living room extension. Vince knew where I lived, and in case he had his doubts about my poor brother’s accident, or if he good-naturedly decided to leave a note for me, I didn’t want him to find me walking in or out my door when I was supposedly on a plane to New York.

I turned right on Sunset, away from both our homes. Fairly soon, I saw a sign for the San Diego Freeway south. It came into my head that if I wanted to work as much truth as I could into my lie, as was my policy, it would be a good idea to take the Freeway to LAX, as if I had in fact been going to catch the next American Airlines flight to New York. I could see how long that would have taken, see what flight would have been the logical one for “Sharon” to have booked me on, and when it was supposed to arrive at either JFK or LaGuardia. For all I knew, Vince, who was a very thoughtful guy, might call American Airlines himself to see when that was, when I might arrive, if the flight was delayed. It would help my recounting to base it on as much reality as possible. I certainly had nothing better to do with my afternoon.

I parked my car in the lot near the American Airlines terminal and headed over to the ticket counter to look at the Arrivals and Departures display. There was a nonstop to JFK at 4:30 P.M., Flight 49. It was the last of their flights out of LAX to New York until the red-eye left at 10:00 P.M. for a dawn arrival. The 4:30 P.M. was the flight I would have taken, and I would have just barely made it had I really been trying to catch it, but the Departures board said it was now scheduled to leave thirty minutes later. That was good to know. I’d have to wait and see when the plane actually left, in case the flight got canceled. Fearful of being caught in a lie, I was collecting data as if creating a detailed alibi for a murder I planned to commit.

I thought of another piece of information that would be useful to know. I walked over to the ticket counter and asked a pleasant-faced woman, “Could you tell me how much a ticket is to New York if I bought it right now, one-way, economy?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “I know,” she said, apparently agreeing with me about something. “People come up to me and they’ve heard about it and they still don’t believe it. Up through next Thursday, ninety-nine dollars each way. The flight can’t be rescheduled, though, without having to pay the regular full fare, and you have to return within fourteen days.” She looked very pleased. “People ask me what the catch is, and I tell them the catch is that TWA lowered their rates, so our boss is undercutting them. American can absorb the loss because we’re bigger. And, we like to think, better. When did you want to leave?”

I instantly decided it would be worth eating ninety-nine dollars to have a receipt for my emergency flight. The tickets always came in layers of three. I could “accidentally” leave the receipt for the ticket on Vince’s coffee table one day, and later call and ask if he’d found it, since I needed it for tax purposes. To have concrete validation of my flight seemed cheap at any price. I wondered if there would be any problem when I didn’t take the plane. The airlines were getting warier of letting a plane take off when a no-show passenger’s luggage had already been checked on board. But I wasn’t going to be checking any luggage. People missed their flights all the time. I’d missed more than one, and no one had ever held the plane for me. It would be fine. I’d stay at the cheapest hotel at LAX and “return” to Los Angeles and my home late tomorrow night. Instead of killing off my nonexistent brother Clifford (which would necessitate my having to stay in New York for his funeral, et cetera), I’d plunge him into a deep coma and let him remain a vegetable until well after my book with Vince was published.

I gave the American Airlines clerk my Master Charge card and told her pointedly that I had no luggage to check. She took a look at the Departures board; the flight was now scheduled to depart from Gate 4A at five-fifteen.

I went up to the Flight Deck Bar and readied myself to have a leisurely, much needed Scotch and soda while I waited to see when the flight I would miss actually managed to leave. I sat back against a black leatherette banquette and eagerly caught the eye of a waitress. She was still in the miniskirt and black mesh stockings she’d been issued in the mid-sixties, and even then she’d been a little too old for the outfit. Her name was Teena, or she had stolen Teena’s name tag out of sheer envy. I looked and saw that the bar had neither Ballantine’s nor Chivas. “Dewar’s and soda, please.”

I sat there, eyeing the Departures board to see if Flight 49 to JFK was being delayed further (and what did I care?), listening to Tom Jones sing “Delilah” over the American Airlines P.A. system, when Tom suddenly spoke my name. He said my name twice and asked me to pick up the nearest courtesy phone and ask for Guest Relations. It took me a moment to realize that the music had stopped and that this was an American Airlines employee speaking over the P.A. I asked Teena if the bar had a courtesy phone. It did.

The woman at the Guest Relations extension said there was an emergency phone call for me and that she was connecting me now. It was Vince. “Wow, Kerry, I’m amazed I caught you,” he said. “When does your flight leave?”

What an absolute godsend that I was here when he called. Now my story was rock solid. “It was supposed to leave twenty minutes ago. At the moment they’re saying five-fifteen, but who knows.” I looked at my ticket and reeled off the detailed information impressively. “American Airlines Flight 49 departs LAX four-thirty P.M., arrives JFK twelve forty-five A.M.”

“Flight 49, that’s what I figured. You said American, and I know that’s the last one of the day. I’ve taken it myself a couple of times. You get the tailwinds, which knocks fifteen, twenty minutes off the flight. Listen, I ordered a limousine to pick you up at JFK. He’ll be holding a sign that says ‘O’Connor.’ This way, no matter how long the flight is delayed, you’ll have someone who can take you directly to your brother.”

Oh God. “Oh no, Vince, no. My family’s going to meet me.”

He wouldn’t have any of this. “I’m sure they don’t want to leave your brother’s side. And they’d have to get out to JFK after midnight and they’d have to park the car. It’s already booked with Fugazy. The driver’s name is Adolfo, I know him—the airport police always let him park right by the baggage claim area, so you’ll walk out and you’ll be on your way. He knows all the quickest routes. You want me to call your family for you? I’ll let them know they don’t have to pick you up. What’s their number?”

“No, no, I’ll call them,” I said. “It’s very nice of you, Vince. Very thoughtful. But really, you know, I’d much prefer—”

“Have you heard anything about how your brother is doing, and what hospital he’s at?”

What hospital. If I said anything, he’d have flowers or surgeons on their way. Even if I didn’t, he would just have his secretary start calling every hospital in Manhattan searching for a patient named O’Connor who’d been admitted in the last six hours. I had to at least block that from happening. “Vince, he’s not in Manhattan, he’s in—hold on, I think they may be calling—and his name isn’t O’Connor, he’s my half brother, it’s—Vince, sorry, they’re boarding my plane, thanks so much, I’ll call you when I know where I’m staying and let you know what’s going on.” Go ahead, let his goddamn secretary accrue a list of every patient in every borough except Manhattan whose name is anything other than O’Connor.

“Hey, wait, you haven’t—” Vince began.

“I have to call my family and tell them they don’t have to meet me. Thanks so much for the limo, Vince.” I hung up the phone. Fuck. “Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck!” I cursed, causing Teena to race my drink over to me and fearfully set it down at the bar.

I was going to have to take the next frigging plane to New Fucking York. For no good reason other than to let Adolfo report that he had picked me up successfully.

I could think of no way around it. If I didn’t show up, Adolfo would call his dispatcher at Fugazy, and Vince, worried, would start searching even harder for me and my brother Clifford. The only hope I had was that goddamned Flight 49 would be scrubbed completely. If so, I’d kill off Clifford tonight and say that in his will, he’d requested there be no funeral.

I took a big pull on the ample Dewar’s and soda that Teena had brought over. My mouth reacted, my lips reflexively drew back across my teeth. It tasted really weird, but I didn’t think Scotch could go bad. I tried the drink again and detected the strange sweet-tartness of quinine.

“You made me a Scotch and tonic!” I yelled at the bartender. His stupid thumb had hit the Q button on one of those hateful multifunction spritzers instead of the S button.

He was going over receipts with Teena. “Oops. Call me Mr. Dumb-Thumb!” he laughed, forgiving himself with ease. “Make you a fresh one in a minute,” he said affably. “No extra charge.”

“All passengers for Flight 49 destined for New York JFK International Airport must now be boarding at Gate 4A. This will be the only boarding call for all passengers in economy and first class. Final call for Flight 49—”

The bartender was nowhere close to finishing his totals. I took the Scotch and tonic, gritted my teeth, and downed it in two long pulls. I slammed a five-dollar bill onto the bar and started rushing and cursing my way to Gate 4A, which I knew would be nowhere as near as “4A” might sound, and I was right. God help me, I was taking a cross-country flight for no purpose, I’d have a limo waiting to take me to a hospital where I had no business—and then I also remembered I was flying economy on the last flight home for the day, seating configuration three-five-three with an undoubtedly packed house. I’d have to beg and cajole the stewardess for a miniature of Dewar’s at two bucks a pop, and when I wanted a third, she’d tell me they’d locked up the liquor cabinet because they were arriving so late, whatever that would mean. The meal would be meat à la thing with a tiny roll and a three-greens salad, meaning that’s how many lettuce leaves there’d be to soak up my plastic thimble of Kraft French dressing. I had no book to read, no yellow legal tablet, no bevy of Bic pens with which to write. And the in-flight movie would turn out to be The Black Windmill. Arguably the worst film ever made starring Michael Caine.