Mrs. Plansky's Revenge by Spencer Quinn

Author:Spencer Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

* * *

Back in her room—Corporal Avery waiting in the lobby—Mrs. Plansky took out her phone, went to photos, examined the picture she’d taken of the top page of Mr. Perryman’s printout. She read it from beginning to end, a bureaucratic summary of her case prepared by a colleague of Mr. Perryman’s with the initials FR in the appropriate box, now posted back stateside. Mrs. Plansky went over it a few more times, coming to the conclusion she was learning nothing new. Only the angle of incidence, as Norm would say, was different. Except for one little thing, a handwritten notation in the margin, with a handwritten FR at the bottom. This notation was what Mr. Perryman had circled in red.

Suggestion: Loop in Max Leonte in Alba Gemina? Then in parenthesis came a string of digits she took to be a phone number.

Mrs. Plansky took a deep breath and started entering in that number. But. But. There were so many buts circling around this little move. If she was going to take a shot—almost surely a one-shot sort of shot—shouldn’t she maximize her chances? But how, exactly? There, one more but, just what she didn’t need. Mrs. Plansky put away her phone and started packing. She’d emptied out her suitcase the night before, of course, hanging the hangables in the closet, with her mules and her ballet flats on the shoes shelf on the bottom and her foldables on the shelves above.

Mrs. Plansky went to the desk, found that Uncle Sam had taken care of her bill.

“This all?” said Corporal Avery, lifting her suitcase even though it had wheels.

“Yes, but you don’t have to—”

“My pleasure, ma’am. My mom travels just like this, too, real light.”

“She sounds like a very smart woman, Corporal.”

“That’s for sure, ma’am. No one messes with my mom.”

Corporal Avery dropped her at the international doors at the terminal. Not quite dropping: in fact he carried the suitcase, walked her to the door, extended the suitcase handle, held the door.

“Safe travels, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Corporal. Thanks for everything.” Did her voice catch a bit, there at the end? She began to think this particular day was a strange one indeed.

Mrs. Plansky checked the board, saw that she had plenty of time, which was how she handled air travel. She got out her passport, stuck the boarding pass inside, entered the security line.

It turned out to be one of those slow-moving lines, through a not very big yet endless maze. But it was for this very type of situation that Mrs. Plansky allowed herself extra time! The line shuffled forward, halted, shuffled forward, halted. At the halts, she took to reading the purloined document, not technically purloined since she’d merely photographed it, but still. Then came a halt where she pocketed the phone, said, “Excuse me,” and stepped out of line.

Mrs. Plansky reversed course and made her way out of security. A few minutes later she was at the counter of a rental car company she couldn’t pronounce the name of.

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