"I'm not resisting you," the man said. His voice was very calm. That was the next thing Curtis noticed, through the roaring in his ears. It was low and even and almost gentle, the voice of someone talking to a horse. "I'm not resisting. I'm going to keep my hands flat on this glass. My name is..."
"I don't care what your name is. Whose purse is that?"
"It belongs to a passenger. I'm returning it to her."
"Yeah? Which passenger?"
"Her name is Dolores..."
"He's lying," Curtis said. He was breathing hard. His hands were shaking and he folded his arms to hide them. "He came flying down the concourse. I saw him. He was running."
"I was running," the man agreed, his cheek pressed flat against the glass, "because I'm late."
"Late for what?"
The man did not answer that. He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, Curtis, who was standing at an angle where he could see the side of his face, watched him look out through the window, past his own breath fogging on the pane, at the white 737 sitting at gate B42 with its jet bridge attached and a fuel truck under its wing.
A phone was up. Curtis saw it at the edge of his vision, a young woman in a Kansas State sweatshirt holding her phone sideways, recording. Then another phone. Then three. The hockey coach was trying to herd his players back into their seats and they were not going.
"Ma'am, put that away," the guard said, over his shoulder.
"No," said the young woman in the Kansas State sweatshirt. "I don't think I will."
Curtis felt a flicker of irritation at that, a hot little flare, the feeling you get when someone at a meeting questions a number you're sure of. Then it was gone, because the janitor was coming.
He was an older Black man, sixty or more, gray at the temples, in the dark green coveralls of the airport custodial staff, and he had left his dust mop leaning against a pillar and was walking toward them across the carpet without any hurry at all. He was not big. He had a slight hitch in his left leg. And yet the young security guard, who had a radio and a badge and a neck like a fire hydrant, turned his head and watched him come the way you might watch a weather front.