"He's got a woman's purse."
"I don't care if he's got the Queen of England's purse. I've known this man eleven years. He flies out of this concourse three, four times a week. Brings me a coffee on Fridays and asks about my grandbabies by name." Wendell had come close enough now that Desmond could see him in the edge of the glass, a reflection standing next to a reflection. "You think a man like that is out here snatching pocketbooks? Let him talk."
"It's from the south checkpoint," Desmond said to the glass. "TSA. A supervisor named Garrido gave it to me. You can call her."
"Badge," Desmond said quietly. "It's around my neck. Under the shirt. I'm going to keep my hands on the glass and you can pull it out."
There was a pause. Then a hand at his collar, rough, fumbling, and the lanyard dragged up over his chin, and the badge swinging into view, his own face on it eleven years younger with a little more hair, CORDILLERA AIRLINES, CAPTAIN, HALE D., with the gold holographic strip and the barcode.
"These can be faked," said the man in the gray suit. He said it fast, the way people say things they are trying to make true by saying them first.
Desmond turned his head just enough to see him. Late forties. White. Good suit, beginning to strain at the middle button. A heavy, handsome face, florid now, sweating along the hairline. A small gold pin on the lapel shaped like a snowflake inside a sun. He had his arms folded so hard across his chest that the fabric pulled.
And pale blue eyes. Desmond noticed the eyes, and a small cold thought began to form at the very back of his mind, and he set it aside to look at later, because he was a pilot, and pilots learn early that you deal with the emergency you have before you deal with the one you suspect.
"Everything can be faked," Desmond said. "That's why there's a sergeant coming."
* * *
There was, in fact, a sergeant coming. Somebody in the crowd had called it in, or the guard's radio had, and she came down the concourse at a brisk walk with a younger patrolman a step behind: Denver Police, airport bureau, a compact woman in her fifties with a gray-blond ponytail and a face that had heard every story there was and was not impressed by any of them. Her nameplate said WHITFIELD.
"Okay," she said, before she had even stopped walking. "Okay. Everybody's hands where I can see them. Officer, let him off the glass. Now, please."
Brent let him off the glass.
Desmond turned around slowly, his back to the window, and brought his hands down and held them open at his sides. His right wrist ached where it had been twisted. There was a smear of something on his cheek, and he did not touch it. His roller bag lay on its side on the carpet, and the garment bag lay beside it, and the tapestry purse with the roses on it lay on top of the garment bag where it had fallen, its brass clasp still shut.