Straub, Peter - Koko by Straub Peter

Author:Straub, Peter [Straub, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780525246602
Publisher: Dutton
Published: 2012-02-25T14:37:34+00:00

PART FIVE

The Sea of Forgetfulness

23

Robbie, with Lantern

1

Two days later, it was as if the world had flipped inside-out. The suddenness of events and the haste of Poole's preparations had left him so breathless that he could still not be certain, carrying two bottles of Singha beer toward the table in the airport bar where Conor sat blinking at his progress, what he made of it at all.

Underhill was supposed to come with them on their flight, and part of Conor's look at Michael as he came toward him from the crowded passengers-only bar was a gathering doubt that the writer would make it to the airport on time. Conor said nothing as Michael set down his beer and took the seat beside him. He bent forward as if to examine the floor, and his face was still white with the shock of what had happened back in New York while they had been making their separate tours of Bangkok. Conor still looked as if a loud noise had just awakened him.

Michael contented himself with a sip of the strong, cold bitter Thai beer. Something had befallen Conor two nights earlier, but he would not discuss it. He too looked as if he were remembering some of the sentences Underhill had written in his dialogues with himself. Poole guessed that these questions and answers were a way of kicking a disused engine back into life: Underhill was teaching himself to work again. Along the way he had described what he called the Pan-feeling. According to Underhill, this had to do with 'the nearness of ultimate things.'

'What are you thinking about, Mikey?' Conor asked.

Poole just shook his head.

'Stretch my legs,' Conor said, and jumped up and wandered toward the gates through which the passengers came for their own and other international nights. It was fifty minutes before the scheduled flight time, which an airline official had informed them had been delayed an hour. Conor bounced on his heels and scrutinized the people streaming through the gate until Underhill's failure to arrive made him so nervous that he had to spin off and take a quick tour of the gift shop windows. At the entrance to the racks of duty-free liquor he checked his watch, shot another glance at the new arrivals, and dodged inside.

Then minutes later he emerged with a yellow plastic shopping bag and dropped into his old seat beside Poole. 'I thought if I went in there, he'd show up.'

Conor forlornly examined the Thais, Americans, Japanese, and Europeans pushing into the International departures lounge. 'Hope Beevers made his plane.'

Harry Beevers was supposed to have taken a flight from Taipei to Tokyo, where he was to connect with a J AL flight that would bring him to the San Francisco airport an hour after their own arrival. They were all to take the same flight to New York from San Francisco. Beevers' immediate reaction to the news of Pumo's death had been the observation that the asshole would still be alive if he had come with them instead of staying behind to run around after his girlfriend.

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