Page 7 of The Bad Weather Friend

He said only, “You won’t have to worry about him hitting you anymore,” and he quietly closed the door.

LOS ANGELES

The Mayweather Universal Air Freight facility associated with LAX contained hundreds of cardboard cartons and sturdy wooden crates of various sizes and shapes. They were stacked on wheeled pallets, with the north side of the building reserved for outbound freight, the south side for incoming.

The shipment from Boca Raton had arrived during the night—the plane was still being unloaded—and the crate stood now on its own pallet. Judging by the unusual size and shape of the container, Felix Domenico figured it must house a cast-metal part for a large machine, maybe an armature that couldn’t be sent in pieces.

When he checked the paperwork in the attached plastic packet, he saw that the sender wasn’t a manufacturer and the recipient wasn’t an industrial enterprise; both were individuals, and the contents were books. He was suspicious.

Before being loaded on the plane in Florida, the consignment had been cleared by state-of-the-art digital-olfaction robotics that analyzed molecules rising out of the crate. No drugs or explosives had been detected.

However, the cargo could nevertheless be something illegal, anything from ghost guns built by 3-D printing to counterfeit Rolex watches to elephant tusks that had been smuggled into Florida in a previous shipment from Africa. The stated contents—books—seemed unlikely, as they could have been sent more cheaply and conveniently in smaller packages through United Parcel Service.

As manager of the facility, Felix possessed the authority to inspect shipments under certain limited circumstances, acondition to which customers acceded when signing a contract. He wouldn’t open the crate unless an initial, less intrusive method of inspection gave him reason for concern.

The big warehouse bustled as incoming shipments were palleted according to local delivery routes, waiting trucks were loaded, and manifests were prepared. In counterpoint, outbound consignments moved to planes on the tarmac, up motorized conveyors to cargo-bay doors. Felix directed a tug cart operator to relocate the wheeled pallet holding the Boca Raton crate to a remote corner of the building, where he could conduct the inspection without distraction.

He began with a fiberscope, a flexible bundle of transparent fibers with a tiny objective lens at the far end and an eyepiece at the near end. This was an industrial tool similar to the medical instrument a gastroenterologist would employ to determine the precise location of a patient’s bleeding stomach ulcer.

First, he stood on the pallet, beside the crate, and used a battery-powered drill to make a half-inch-diameter hole in the lid. Then he fed the objective lens and the fiber bundle through the hole, into the crate.

He slipped the spring headband around his brow and adjusted the eyepiece. The handheld control was about the size of a TV remote.

He dialed enough light into the fiber to inspect the shipment, moving the lens slowly over what appeared to be a smooth—perhaps steel—surface, seeking some detail that would identify the object. If the crate contained books, they were evidently packed in a series of metal boxes. Except ... as far as he could determine, the sleek object lacked divisions and particulars other than bullnose edges. It seemed to be insulatedfrom the sides of the crate by dense foam board to prevent it from shifting.

The fiberscope lost power, and the interior of the crate was lost to view. The light at the high windows and at the open doors rapidly dwindled and vanished as if the sun had been extinguished.

A sense of speed alarmed him, as if he were racing through blackness toward a precipice. He became aware of a siren.

Light returned. He was lying on his back, strapped to a gurney in an ambulance. An automated blood-pressure cuff wrapped his left biceps. An oximeter was clipped to one index finger. To his right, a wall-mounted cardiac monitor reported his vital signs.

The EMT, a thirtysomething guy with a shaved head and a red mustache, wore an earpiece with a mic extension. He seemed to be in the middle of a running report to someone, perhaps to the driver or an ER physician at the hospital. “BP coming up fast, ninety over fifty. Pulse coming down, two hundred ... one ninety.” Then he met Felix’s eyes. “Hey, the patient just regained consciousness.” To Felix, he said, “Abdominal pain?”

“No,” Felix croaked. His throat was dry.

“Back pain, chest pain?”

“No. No pain. None.”

The EMT continued his report. “BP up to one hundred over fifty-eight.” He hesitated. “One zero four over sixty-two. Pulse down to one seventy. Blood oxy up to ninety-three. Does this sound like a ruptured aorta anymore?” A pause. “Yeah, not to me, either. BP one zero six over sixty-seven. Pulse one sixty-two.” Heregarded Felix as though a miracle must be unfolding. “It’s cool. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not,” Felix said. “Not much. Just ... confused.”

The driver cut off the siren. They must be near the hospital.

Unwinding the blood-pressure cuff, the EMT said, “You were way out there, way out past the edge, but you’re coming back strong. You’ll need to undergo tests. What happened, Mr. Domenico?”

Felix had no memory of what happened. He didn’t know what he’d been doing when he fell into darkness. The last thing he recalled was coming to work at six o’clock that morning. A plane out of Florida needed to be unloaded. “What time is it?” he asked.

Consulting his watch, the EMT said, “Eight forty-five.”

Felix had lost two hours. He strained to remember. Nothing. As his vital signs improved, fear rose in him. But fear of what?

HOME

When Benny arrived home from his late breakfast with Fat Bob Jericho, he parked his Ford Explorer in the three-car garage, two stalls of which were vacant, and he went through the house to the covered patio in back. He walked past the teak tables, chairs, and lounges. He stood where the limestone paving gave way to the lawn, and he stared out at the glimmering Pacific. His house was on a high hill, east of the coastal highway, in a community called Cameo Highlands, at the southern end of Corona del Mar. The sea was in the distance, not up close and dynamic, but it was still there, as real as it was for people who lived west of Pacific Coast Highway and on the low bluff above the shore. The house was 3,120 square feet. The lot measured just three thousand square feet short of a half acre, spacious for this neighborhood. He had done well for a young man of twenty-three, exceedingly well. He had good health, money in the bank, delightful friends, the love of Jill Swift, whom he would soon ask to marry him, and no debts except for a seven-figure mortgage that had not troubled him until now.

He refused to be eaten by worry. Life was always throwing a changeup at him, and he survived all of them. If he worried about every curveball, he would have been sent back to a farm team years ago. Instead, he was still up to bat and confident of his swing.

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