Odyssey (28 page)

After fifteen minutes Sovereign got up to look for his brother. He went into three different men’s toilets accessible in that section of the airport. He looked under stalls. He called out, “Eddie!” But his brother was gone again, as he had been all those years before.

The plane came to the gate and disgorged its passengers: New Yorkers mostly, down for business from the look of their clothes. When the passengers on his flight boarded, Sovereign was the last to get on. Next to him was his brother’s empty seat, a kind of visual reminder of the space he’d carried around since his brother left the first time, since his grandfather had taken his life while Sovereign bought soda.

While they were still on the ground Sovereign felt sorrow over Eddie’s abandonment. But when the jet built up velocity this feeling evaporated. As they gained altitude Sovereign felt a growing jollity in his chest, legs, and arms. He was happy to be on the move, going somewhere.

He grinned, lay back, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

“Excuse me, sir.” Someone was shaking his shoulder. “Sir.”

Sovereign woke up and looked into the eyes of a young, mocha-colored woman. She seemed worried.

“Have we landed?” he asked.

“Yes. You were out the whole flight.”

Sovereign leaned forward to get up but was held back by the seat belt. He unbuckled, took in a deep breath, and lurched toward the front of the plane. He passed the pilot, copilot, and two more female flight attendants on the way out. They were all staring at him—probably angry, he thought, that he was making them wait.

Halfway down the enclosed exit ramp Sovereign thought of Eddie. He missed his brother but was not sad. Then he remembered the photo album. He’d put it down on the seat next to him. He turned to go back to get the eighty-one pictures and the one of his sister.…

“Mr. James,” a man intoned. The voice came from the exit of the ramp, an airport official, Sovereign thought.

Turning again, Sovereign was approached by three men in business attire. Two of them grabbed him by the arms, pulling them together at the wrists at his back.

The third man said, “You’re under arrest,” as handcuffs were snapped shut behind him.

“My photo album,” he said. “I left it on the plane.”

“Come with us,” the mouthpiece of the trio said.

“What’s the charge?”

“Patriot Act.”

“They arrested you for what?” Lena Altuna asked when Sovereign was finally allowed a call—twenty-five hours after his arrest.

“My brother,” Sovereign said. “He was wanted for a bank robbery thirty years ago. He left the country but comes back from time to time. The government says that he’s using forged papers and so they’re after him on some kind of national security charge.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“He came to my house and said that my mother was worried and wanted to see me. We went down to South Carolina to visit her and were supposed to fly back together. I came alone, though.

“What I need you to do is to tell the judge and Toni that I’m under arrest and can’t make it to trial.”

“Where are you?”

“Federal courthouse in Brooklyn … I think.”

“What are the charges?”

“They’re just holdin’ me, Lena. They say they can do that as long as they want.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“When is the last time you spoke to your brother?” Curtis May, a young, caramel-colored agent, asked.

“At the airport.”

“Did he have a ticket?”

“You know he did.”

“A ticket you bought.”

Sovereign didn’t answer, because they’d already covered that ground.

“You bought the ticket for a man named Aldus Martins,” Agent May said.

“Yes.”

“Even though you knew that was not his name.”

“Drum changed his name. At least that’s what he said.”

“He was wanted for bank robbery.”

“That was thirty years ago. I thought there was a statute of limitations.”

“Your brother is a criminal.”

Sovereign snorted and shrugged. He’d had only a few hours’ sleep, and that was sitting upright in a tourist-class airplane seat.

“I have the power to keep you in custody indefinitely,” the federal agent said. It was less a warning and more an open threat.

“I have nowhere to go, Agent May. You can send me down to Guantánamo for all I care.”

“Where is Drum James?”

“I don’t know. We were sitting down at the gate and he said he had to go to the bathroom. He went and never came back.”

“Why didn’t you stay to find him?”

“Because I’m supposed to be here standing trial for attempted murder.”

Curtis May, Fiona Lockhart, C. W. Fordheim, and a man named Stockton had taken turns questioning Sovereign. The prisoner maintained a sense of tranquillity by studying his wardens’ faces. He was still amazed by the miracle of returned sight.

For long periods they left him alone in the small interrogation chamber. He remained seated so as not to cause the need to urinate. They didn’t let him go very often and so he drank little and kept still.

But even with all these precautions the urge to go was rising again. He was alone and despairing at the loss of the snapshot of his sister. He heard a sound outside and looked to the door, realizing as he did so that he had not tried to see if it was unlocked. It was at that moment that the door swung open and Fiona Lockhart entered with a tall man in a lime-green suit.

Lockhart was short and slender but her pale face was harder than her male counterparts’. She was wearing a man’s suit with no tie and patent-leather, lace-up black shoes. The man next to her had a deep tan and gray eyes.

“Where is your brother, Mr. James?” Lockhart asked.

Sovereign had no intention of answering the question again, but even if that was his desire, the man in the green suit spoke before he would have been able to.

“My name is Didem, Mr. James. I’m a special assistant to the mayor’s office.”

“His office?”

“Lena Altuna has made a complaint to the city about your situation, and Judge Lowell wants you in her courtroom.”

“I don’t understand,” Sovereign admitted.

“I’m taking you out of here. Come with me.”

“You might as well stay, Mr. James,” Agent Lockhart said. “As soon as we file the papers there will be a federal warrant issued.”

“Come on, Mr. James,” the man called Didem said. “You look like you could use some rest.”

Lena Altuna was waiting for him at the outside entrance of the government building. She wore a maroon suit with a pale violet collar. Behind her, at the curb, was a chauffeur in a black suit standing at the side of his black Town Car. Seeing this man made him think of Theodore and his excursion through the middle South.

“How are you?” Lena asked her old classmate.

“A little dazed.”

“Did you tell them anything?”

“Everything I knew. Almost all of it. And what I didn’t say they didn’t ask me about.”

“Good.”

“How did you do it, Lena?”

“Even the Patriot Act needs a court order to validate arrest without warrant. I just called in some favors with city hall.

“I know you’re tired. But give me a minute before we get into the car. I know the driver but I don’t want him to have to lie for me.”

“Sure, Lena. Talk.”

“I’m taking you to a hotel in the West Village, to stay in a room paid for by my offices. That way if the government wants you they’ll have to work at finding you. You’ll have an expense account with the hotel, so you won’t have to use your credit cards, and I’ll give you a thousand in cash for incidentals.”

“Thanks. That’s above and beyond.”

“I’m just taking it out of your advance. Tomorrow morning I’ll have a car bring you to court. Judge Lowell, at my request, will change the venue half an hour before the hearing. That way she can set a trial date without interference from the feds.”

Sovereign smiled and nodded, took an envelope stuffed with twenty-dollar bills, and climbed into the car with his lawyer. A minute after settling into the plush leather seat at the back of the Lincoln, Sovereign fell deeply asleep. He wasn’t aware of sight or time, weight, or even the desire to go to the toilet. He didn’t dream. Some weeks later, when he remembered this nonmoment, he
thought that it was a blinking of his soul—an instant of complete spiritual blindness. It was as if he was gone from the earth completely: not dead but way beyond the Land of Nod.

“Sovereign. Sovereign.”

They were stopped at the busy corner of 14th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. He could have walked to his apartment from there.

Staggering out onto the sunny street of the bustling city, Sovereign James was amazed. The sights and sounds, even the feel of the breeze on his skin, were things remembered and things new. For a time all of his senses had ceased and now they were roaring back to life. He grinned and opened his mouth to take in as much air as possible.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“Come on, Sovereign,” Lena replied. “We have to go.”

Walking down along the street, Sovereign tried to keep on a straight path but the life of the city distracted him. There was a young black woman with big legs and a very short skirt, a satisfied sneer on her lips about something good. Her gait and expression brought to mind a storied character dancing down the sidewalk, a nearly mythological personage whom many tales and exaggerations were based on.