Journal of a UFO Investigator (27 page)

“I wish I could tell you it shocked me when I heard the announcer say it. Or stunned me. Or something like that. But it didn't. I think I knew it was coming.

“They'd found him by the side of the road, outside the town, sitting in the car. In the driver's seat. Suffocated. Police said there were signs of a struggle. They were seeking his companion as a prime suspect in the slaying. Young white female, attractive, medium height, dark blond hair. And so on and so forth.

“I said to myself,
Old girl, it's time we got you out of here.

“Five minutes later I was all packed, the room key was on the dresser, and I was walking downtown with my suitcase, calm and easy and slow. Dying with fear each time a car went by.

“But nobody stopped me. Nobody arrested me. The car rental office finally opened, after what felt like about a hundred hours. There was a moment of panic when I thought I didn't have enough cash to cover the rental. But they found me a cheaper car, and I was on my way. I drove straight to the Albuquerque airport, without stopping.

“My ticket was for Miami, but I knew I couldn't go there. There'd been a reason they left me with my money and my ticket. It had to be the same reason they didn't just take me off and kill me together with Tom, when they could have done that so easily.

“They wanted me in Miami. To be waiting for me when I stepped off the plane. I think they also wanted to catch whoever I was meeting there, along with me. They wanted to have the full force of the law behind them when they did it; that was important to them. And as far as the law was concerned, I was a murderess.

“So when I got to the airport, I went to the United Airlines desk. I got my ticket stamped for flight two-five-seven to Miami. I checked my suitcase through to the Miami airport. Then I walked off to Eastern Airlines and bought a different ticket for myself, nonstop to Idlewild.

“Idlewild, Danny. You remember Idlewild. That was what they used to call Kennedy Airport, back before the assassination. This was September 1963. The assassination wasn't going to happen for two months yet.”

“No,” I said. “I remember Idlewild. That wasn't what puzzled me.”

She looked away from me. She looked very uncomfortable.

“You just told me you had barely enough cash to rent the car,” I said. “Where did you get the money for another airplane ticket?”

Somewhere in the Tombs of the Kings, birds chirped.

“I lied to you,” she said finally. “I didn't drive straight to the airport. I made a number of stops along the way. All in motels.

“Wherever I stopped I went into the front office. I asked about their rates. Twin beds or double bed. In season or off season. That kind of thing. Whoever was working the front desk would answer my questions, and I'd say thank you and go. And that would be it.

“But I knew that a fair number of the people in those motel offices would be guys, working alone. And sooner or later one of them would try to make time with me.

“The one who finally did was a nice boy. About twenty; tall, brownish hair, freckles. Bluest eyes I've ever seen.

“I asked him my questions, and we talked a few minutes, and he asked my name. His voice shook a little bit when he asked. I remember that. And I answered right away, without even thinking—”

“Rosa,” I said.

“No. Not Rosa. Why did you say that? Do you know something I don't?”

“No. No. It's just . . . I once knew—I once cared about—”

“The name I gave was Rachel Partin. I don't know where that came from. But I knew, as soon as I said it, that I was Rachel Partin now. And I was going to keep on being Rachel Partin for a long, long time.

“We talked ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Him on one side of the desk, me on the other, and we were leaning toward each other. I'll never forget those wonderful blue eyes. He didn't take them off me for a second. Finally he said, very nervous, ‘You know, there's not much business. I could put up a sign, BACK SOON, and we could go walk somewhere. Nobody'd mind. Nobody'd even notice.'

“And I said, ‘Uh-huh,' and smiled.

“And he said, ‘We've got some empty rooms here. We could go to one of those rooms, even, and we could—'

“He was blushing then, and he couldn't finish the sentence. I nodded, real slowly, and I said: ‘Yes. We could.'

“But when he'd gotten the keys for the room, and he was fumbling with the BACK SOON sign, I said to him: ‘One thing, Jason. There's something that gets me real, real hot. You want to know what it is?' I said: ‘You go into the room first, by yourself. Then take off all your clothes except your underpants. Then lie down on top of the bed, so I find you in your underpants when I come in. Don't get under the covers. Just on top of the bed? OK?'

“He nodded. He couldn't talk. He just handed me a key and went off, his legs shaking, and left me in the motel office. By myself.

“I cleaned out the cash register, and I took off for Albuquerque. As fast as the car would go.

 

“Well, Danny. I imagine you can guess the rest.

“I got off the plane in New York about the same time the United Airlines flight was supposed to arrive in Miami with my suitcase. I phoned the Miami airport from Idlewild with that Albert-Bender-meet-your-party message. I'd arranged that with Julian as a signal, a long time before. He would have known what to do. I never dreamed you'd be all alone in the airport, with
them
.

“And no, I don't know what happened to Julian. I have no idea where he was that night. Where he is now, for that matter. I've not had any contact with him; I don't know what's happened to our lab or the observatory. For all I know, the old farmhouse isn't even standing. I haven't been in touch with anyone in the States. I haven't been back to the States since that night. I haven't set foot outside Jordan.

“I can't. I don't have a passport. And I'm wanted for murder.”

 

“I wandered around the airport for a while. I didn't have any clear plan. I knew I had to get out of the country. I could have rented a car and driven down to the farmhouse and hidden there. But it would have been too risky. There was a real good chance they'd have thought of that too, and there'd be somebody waiting for me.

“So I let my feet carry me, and pretty soon I found myself in front of the Air Jordan ticket counter. There was one person working there, a young woman. It was already late at night, almost eleven o'clock, and there weren't many people around. I went up to her and started talking in Arabic, even though I guessed she was an American and wouldn't understand me.

“She said, ‘I'm sorry, I don't speak Arabic.' And I nodded and smiled and looked very sad. And she said, ‘I'll get the manager for you,' and I nodded again. And she called out, ‘Mr. Makdisi!' and I felt my heart lift. Because the landlord we had in Jerusalem, years back, was named Khalid Makdisi, and it was a fair guess that this ticket counter manager Makdisi would be somehow related to him and they'd know each other. That's the way things are in Jordan.

“His name was Tewfik Makdisi. He brought me into his office behind the ticket counter, and invited me to sit down. He didn't ask who I was or what I wanted to see him about. He said, ‘Please sit down,' and then he said ‘Coffee?' and when I nodded, he poured me coffee.

“We talked. It turned out he and Khalid Makdisi were second cousins. He'd worked for Air Jordan, even back then. He lived with his family in Amman when he wasn't in New York, but he used to come to Jerusalem often and visit his cousin.

“He'd known Daddy. He'd known Mama too. He even knew me, though I'd been too little to remember. We'd all gone to tea one afternoon, in Khalid Makdisi's garden. The ladies let me serve the tea. I'd given him his teacup on the brass tray, and I'd said to him, ‘
Tafaddal
,' which is Arabic for
Please
. He remembered how well I pronounced the word. I looked like a solemn little blond owl, he said, in those thick eyeglasses of mine. But I spoke just like a little Arab girl.

“He asked me, ‘How is your daddy? And your mama?' And I said, ‘They've gone to the mercy of God.' And he said, ‘Both of them?' And I nodded. And he said, ‘God is the most merciful of the merciful.' And then he said, ‘I'm very sorry.' And then he said, ‘Please. More coffee?'

“I began crying, and he gave me a box of Kleenex and let me cry. When I stopped for a few seconds, he poured the coffee for me. And then I cried some more.

“Now you hold it right there, Danny Shapiro! I know just what you're thinking.
Never trust a woman's tears.
Isn't that right?”

I didn't know how to answer. The truth was I'd been thinking of poor Jason, lying on that motel bed in his underpants and how it must slowly have come to him he'd been tricked and abandoned and robbed. The thought of him wouldn't leave my mind.

“Well, you stop thinking that. It's not true, not at all. A lot of what I told Tewfik Makdisi that night I made up on the spot. I admit that. But I didn't make up the tears. They were real.

“I was fifteen years old, for heaven's sake! My . . .
friend
had just been murdered. If I'd been caught, that would have been the end of me for sure. You think any jury would have believed my story?

“I was about to leave my country. I wouldn't ever come back. I'd never be Rochelle Perlmann again. I saw all that, clear as the coffee in my cup. I would never see any of my friends, not Julian, not anyone. I wasn't going to see
you
again. I'd been having a few daydreams about what we might do together once we met in Miami, you and I. And not just a few either, if you want me to be honest about it.”

“I didn't know that,” I said.

“No. I guess you didn't. I guess you had no idea at all.”

She looked straight into my eyes. “So what do you think?” she said. “Suppose you'd been in my place. Do you think you might have done a little bit of crying yourself?”

 

“Tewfik Makdisi asked me then, in the most roundabout and delicate way you can imagine, how he might help.

“I said, ‘I'm a fugitive.' I said, ‘They're trying to kill me. I have to get out of the country, tonight if possible.' I said, ‘I don't have a passport. And I don't have any identification papers. And not much money either.'

“I gave him details. I can't tell you all the things I said. I talked about how cars would slow down as they passed me, people screaming things out the window, mostly in some language I couldn't understand. Then they started throwing things at me from the cars. Finally they'd started shooting. To scare me, it seemed, rather than kill me. So far.

“There were knocks on my door, late at night. Interrogations. Endless questions about all sorts of grotesque crimes that had taken place somewhere; they never explained just where or when. I'd say, ‘I didn't do it. You must believe me, I didn't do it.' And they'd say, ‘Who's accusing you? We're not accusing you. Are you accusing yourself?' They always ended by warning me not to say anything to anyone about what I'd seen. And I'd say, ‘What are you talking about? I haven't seen anything.' And they'd say, ‘If you tell anyone what you've seen, we'll find you. When we come back, we'll find you. We always find those we want to.'

“Most of this just came into my head while I was talking to him. But you want to know something strange? It all felt real at the time. As real as what happened in Roswell. Real as my sitting next to you now, telling you this. Realer, maybe.

“He kept his eyes fixed on me while I talked. I watched him too. His expression never changed. I couldn't tell whether he believed me. Finally he said: ‘Who are these men? Do you know?'

“I said, ‘I don't know.'

“He said, ‘Are they the Zionists?'

“I looked away from him then. It was the only time while we talked that I looked away. I said, ‘I don't know.'

“He said, ‘Can you describe them? Tell me what they looked like?'

“I said, ‘There were three of them. Always three. Though not always the same three. They all dressed in black, always. Black suits. Black ties.'

“He nodded very slowly then and looked at me, with a look of such understanding and compassion I have never seen on anybody's face before or since. He said, ‘Yes. The Zionists. I've got to help you.'

“He stood up. He said: ‘You'll tell me the rest another time. But now we have to move fast. The plane leaves in less than an hour.' I looked at my watch; it was already past midnight.

“He said, ‘What name will you use?' I said, ‘Rachel Partin.' He said, ‘Rachel is a Jewish name, you know that.' I said, ‘I don't care. It's my name now.' He nodded and said, ‘I understand.' Then he said, ‘It'll be all right.' He said, ‘Excuse me. I have to leave for a few minutes. I'll be right back.'

“He wasn't, of course. I knew he wouldn't be. These things can't be done in a few minutes. It was almost forty-five minutes before he was back, with a manila envelope under his arm.

“He said, ‘Hurry, please. We've got to go.' He handed me the envelope and said, ‘There's another envelope, sealed, inside this one. Don't open it. Just keep it with you and give it to them at passport control in Amman. Everything else in here you can read,' he said. ‘But not now. When you're on the plane. We have to hurry.'

“Later, after the plane had taken off, I read everything he'd put in the manila envelope. Except, of course, the sealed letter. I still don't know exactly what that was, although I can pretty much guess.