Harry sat in silent appraisal of the moment, Mickey and Didi sitting in the seat just ahead as the train pulled out of the Station in Davos -- headed for Zurich.
And a song intruded on the moment, a song that played in his mind as the train lurched and glided away from the platform: Alone Again, Naturally.
And it hit him then, and hit him hard. He'd never felt so alone. Even watching Mickey and Didi had left him feeling ripped from the womb of human emotion -- until that song hit him in the gut, anyway. When that music found him, he had felt like disappearing from civilization for a while...hiding from his loneliness -- as if that was possible.
And he was scared, too.
It had been more than six years since the Old Man in the Cape had told him that Frank would live to see Elizabeth's seventh birthday, and now that day was fast approaching. Sitting there in the train, he wondered just what the Old Man had meant -- as in, had he pronounced sentence that day, or were things still not written in stone? If not, would Frank leave soon -- pass into the night? The thought had burrowed away into nothingness almost as soon as he'd heard it, yet it had remained just beneath the surface ever since, a pustulant reminder that time was indeed still stalking them all, but Frank most of all.
And he could see Didi and Mickey laughing through the space between their seats. And it bothered him.
Well, he said to himself, this was their time now. He'd had his fair share of moments like this, hadn't he? and he'd seen it happen. Mickey, like he'd been struck by lightning? Didi suddenly receptive -- like the petals of a flower opening to the sunshine.
Then his mind wandered to Iraq. Would the army finally follow through and get him to train replacements? Or...maybe he could send Rooney instead, now that he knew the system...
Because he had to himself admit now, he'd simply lost interest in flying after his time in Iraq. He tried to imagine flying firefighters up into the mountains and his mind closed down like it had been caught in the grips of a tightening vice -- all he could think about was breaking free and disappearing -- again.
By the time their train pulled into Zurich's Hauptbahnhof he was hard-pressed to think of anything he still wanted to do -- except sit at his piano. There was a puzzle to solve, wasn't there? And the puzzle was not something he could turn his back on any longer. He had to find the missing pieces, now, before they were lost forever.
'Should I stay in the reserves?' he wondered. After all, even now when people asked him what he did he usually replied he was a cop. Because he was a cop, most knew, but also because there was something in the identity of being a cop. It wasn't something you could put on or take off like a jacket, it was a state of mind. 'It's my state of mind," he had to admit, and with that said his mind was made up.
They caught the local out to the airport and Didi went with them to the Swissair counter and got them checked in, then they walked with her to the El Al counter and did the same. But Didi was different; she wasn't just another passenger -- she was Mossad -- so she had been flagged for special screening by the omnipresent Israeli airline security personnel.
"I'll have to leave you now," Didi said to Harry and Mickey. "I should be free to come to San Francisco within a week or two."
"I hate this," Mickey replied. "I should go with you, ask him to his face."
"You will have that opportunity, my love," she gently told him before she kissed him for the billionth time. "Now...go! Do not make me cry!"
Harry led Rooney through the small main terminal to the TWA Ambassador's Club lounge and, as they were flying to JFK on Swissair before switching to TWA for the flight to SFO, he decided to take advantage of his membership and use the lounge. Callahan grabbed a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, while Rooney asked for a scotch on the rocks.
"Man alive, Harry...what a week this has been!"
"No kidding. So, what's next for you two?"
But Rooney just shrugged the question away. "I think I've got to get back into work, figure that out before anything else."
"And Didi is coming in a couple of weeks? What do you do once she arrives?"
"I don't know, Harry. I've been in the Army almost my whole life, ya know? No wife, no kids...Hell, not even a dog. I haven't got the faintest idea what to do?"
"Okay. Well, if you need someone to talk to about it, let me know."
"Yeah, well, what do you think I need to do?"
"Well, she's moving to a new country and at the same time, she's leaving everything she's known behind. What do you think she needs?"
Rooney shook his head. "Man, I don't know..."
"Well, put yourself in her shoes. How would you feel?"
"I don't know, man. I'd want to go to a few bars, check out..."
"Hold it right there, okay?"
"What?"
"You're thinking like a twelve-year-old, Mickey. In other words, you're thinking about yourself, putting your wants ahead of her needs."
"Yeah, that's why I'm asking you, Harry. I'm clueless about anything that doesn't relate to helicopters, ya know?"
"Yeah, Mick. Sorry. Here's the scoop. She's going to feel stressed as hell if she thinks you haven't been doing things to get ready for her. That means finding a place to live that's safe and clean. That means finding out what kind of paperwork she's going to need, also why she needs it, then helping her get it filled out and delivered to the correct office. How is she going to get around, how is she going to know where to shop for food or even a new pair of underwear? See what I mean?"
"Is she still going to be working for you?"
"Yup, but she'll probably start working for Cat, too...but I'm not sure about that yet. But even so, it'll be real easy for her if you two live real close to the Cathouse, like walking distance, at least for the first year or so. Let her figure a lot of the little things out for herself, but help out with the big things, especially when she first gets there."
"Man, Harry...you know, I've been bunking out at the condo, at your old man's place, and I've even stayed at Pattison's when he's rotated up to the mountains..."
"You don't have your own place yet?"
The intercom clicked, then: "Passengers Callahan and Rooney, please report to the front desk."
"Okay," Harry said, "got your carry-on?"
"Yessir!"
"Okay, let's go."
They followed a lounge attendant to their gate and boarded early, then went up to the upper deck on an almost brand new 747-300.
"Geesh, Harry, remind me to fly with you more often...did you see the legs on the stewardess?"
"You know, this might not be the best time to bring this up, but you just asked a girl to marry you. That means forsaking all others, in case the meaning ain't clear..."
"I know, I know..."
"And it would probably be a very good idea to remember that her father is a colonel in the Mossad and that he trains hit teams for a living."
"Fuck."
"Yeah, I kinda think that's the right word for the occasion, Mick. Fuck works real good. And keep in mind she's also my good friend and business manager too, while you're at it."
"Harry, did you see that stew? What a dog!"
"Yeah, well, that's Swissair for you."
_________________________________
DD met them at the gate and walked with them to the baggage claim, and when she saw the look in Harry's eyes she backed off of the idea she might talk to him before he went up to Sea Ranch. He looked positively livid, she thought, and she found the idea somehow incongruous to the time and place.
"Have a nice flight?" she asked Mickey.
"Yeah, man, you wouldn't believe the service on Swissair! They came by with a cart at dinner and carved roast beef right there in the aisle. All the champagne you could ever want, too!"
DD smiled as she looked at Harry, who seemed to have borne Rooney's presence for about as long as he could stand, then -- as they waited for their luggage to get to the carousel, she pulled him out of earshot and asked him what was up.
"Well, we've got a few months of catch-up to get through," he snarled, "and a few things regarding Mickey we'll need to clear up before Didi gets here. Other than that? Hell, what do I need to know right now?"
"Frank is no longer in remission, Harry. He didn't want me to tell you but I think you need to know before you see him."
"How bad does he look?"
"Not too bad -- yet."
