ten

When the public address system, which seemed unnecessary since the woman speaking into the microphone was less than ten feet from us—announced our flight was ready to board, I did not move.

Ms. Washburn stood up and reached for the tote bag she always uses to carry her laptop computer. The bag was now overstuffed with extra items she would not need on a normal day. She had added extra toiletries, a small pillow, an eyeshade, a book, a change of undergarments (a piece of information I would have been more comfortable without), and three protein bars. “They don’t feed you on the plane anymore,” she had told me.

I knew that fact, having spent the past three days reviewing and researching airline and hotel procedures and searching for facts that might have made this excursion unnecessary. I had unfortunately found none of the latter and now Ms. Washburn and I were sitting in Terminal C at Newark Liberty International Airport. To be more accurate, Ms. Washburn was standing and I was still sitting.

I was wishing this were a normal day.

“It’s okay, Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said quietly. “Air travel is statistically much safer than car travel.” That fact did not bring me solace; I have accepted the necessity of automobile travel but have never become comfortable with it. I do not drive a car, but now I wished I could pilot an airliner. Ceding that level of control was a terrifying thought. I wondered if I could sit in the cockpit with the captain to observe his technique and all safety measures.

That was a joke.

“I am aware of the statistics,” I said. Against my will, I stood up and picked up the small backpack I had taken for the plane ride. After having consulted various sources for the size of a bag to place under the seat in front of a passenger I had purchased the backpack, which fit the parameters of 19 inches wide by 9.5 inches tall as specified by the airline Ms. Washburn had selected for us to use.

Having consented to this trip—while still believing it was unnecessary and ill-advised—I had suggested taking at least two months to research the air travel involved and the area in which Ms. Washburn had booked two hotel rooms near Reseda but actually in Canoga Park, California. Given the reportedly deplorable state of mass transportation in the area, Ms. Washburn had secured a rental car reservation for the three days we would be in Southern California. I had agreed to no more than that amount of time, concluding that if we were unsuccessful in finding Reuben Hoenig in three days, the problem would not be one of time but attributable to a lack of reliable data.

None of this planning held any comfort for me. The idea of being that far from home for that long a period of time was frankly terrifying, and more than once I had considered informing Mother that I would not make the trip. I even thought of letting Ms. Washburn go alone and monitoring her progress by phone and computer, but that seemed somehow cowardly and I did not voice the suggestion.

I submerged myself in the best possible preparation for what I felt was a doomed expedition. The size of the baggage allowed was only the beginning. While a passenger is also entitled to have one suitcase of 9 inches by 14 inches by 22 inches that can be stored in what the airlines refer to as an “overhead compartment,” I had chosen to pack one wheeled bag Mother kept in our basement for her sporadic travels. I had never needed it before. It was larger than the overhead bag specifications, which would require me to pay the airline a fee to store the luggage while I was on the flight. That seemed an odd thing for which to require payment but there are no airlines making this flight that would waive the fee so I paid it and planned to pack strategically.

Given that this was not a leisure trip, I made sure the backpack I purchased could reasonably store my MacBook laptop computer. I would need more than my iPhone after reaching California and was not comfortable with Ms. Washburn’s notebook computer for both of us. That was the first thing I packed.

In accordance with the advice given by a number of websites, I also packed toothpaste and a toothbrush in special cases I obtained at the local drug store. Then I put the cases inside a sealable plastic bag to ensure there would be no leakage in or out. One small bottle of shampoo, under the 3.4-ounce limit allowed by the Transportation Security Administration, was also well sealed and placed in a separate plastic bag.

The front pocket of the backpack held my driver’s license and my passport, despite the fact that we would not be leaving the country on the flight. If for some reason Ms. Washburn and I found it necessary to travel to Mexico to find Reuben Hoenig, the passport would be essential. I considered that an unlikely possibility but one must plan for unlikely possibilities when traveling so far.

Online sources also recommended a change of underwear, which I did not pack in the bag to accompany me in the passenger compartment. If my suitcase was not brought with us to Los Angeles, a lack of proper undergarments would not be my first priority. Those can be purchased in any city. I would be considerably more concerned about such items as the laptop computer, which holds all my personal data, the passport, and the water bottle, which I had brought to the airport empty and filled from bottles of spring water I had purchased after passing through the security checkpoint.

That itself had been a major source of anxiety for me. If I had been called for a “random search,” as the Transportation Security Administration terms it, I do not think I would have been able to contain my anxiety. I had been careful not to wear a belt or carry any coins or metal objects with me when leaving for the airport. The passenger in line ahead of me, a middle-aged man in a Los Angeles Dodgers t-shirt and cargo shorts, had been required to empty all his pockets and had then been probed with a metal-detecting electronic wand after passing through the metal detector. A very unpleasant beeping noise, which caused me to cover my ears with my hands, had resulted from his stepping into the device, and an employee of the Transportation Security Administration had run the electronic wand over the man’s body, which caused him to look confused and made me break out in a cold sweat. The sunglasses he had hung on the round collar of his shirt had proven to be the trigger for the beeping and the man was allowed to go on his way.

I was very grateful that no such sound was emitted after I passed through, put my hands up as instructed, and was scanned by a fluoroscope to prove I was not carrying anything not permitted onto the plane. Ms. Washburn, the next passenger after me, was also not “flagged” for any special treatment.

Now at the gate, I took a very deep breath. This was the moment I had been dreading, although other passengers seemed to have been virtually uncontained in their anticipation. Ms. Washburn looked at me. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “Come on. Everybody’s getting ahead of us in line.”

I stood still and looked at her. “Aren’t our seats reserved?” I asked. “Why is it important to be on the plane sooner?”

Ms. Washburn smiled. “Yes, our seats are reserved,” she said. “But the overhead bins aren’t, and there won’t be room for our bags up there if we don’t get on right away. Don’t worry, Samuel.” She held out her hand.

I did not take it. “I don’t have a bag to put into the overhead bin,” I reminded her. “You go ahead. I’ll join you shortly.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure you will.” The hand gesture was repeated. “Come on, Samuel.”

There was a short discussion after which we boarded the plane. The inside of the aircraft was extremely cramped and narrow, two things that do not appeal to people like me. I think Ms. Washburn noticed my breathing becoming shallow and frequent. She looked up at my face as I followed her down the aisle toward our seats.

“You’re white as a sheet, Samuel,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t think so. Perhaps we shouldn’t go.”

She avoided smiling, but I believe it took some effort. “Nice try.” Ms. Washburn opened the overhead bin above our seats and found it full with other passengers’ baggage. The thought of mingling my belongings with so many strangers’ made me feel relieved I had not brought anything to store in there. Ms. Washburn sighed. “No place to put this one.”

She walked down the aisle a bit farther and found an open bin where she stored the bag she had brought. “Is that ethical?” I asked when she returned to the aisle containing our seats. “Now some other passenger will have no storage space.”

“It’s the rule of the jungle on an airplane, Samuel,” Ms. Washburn answered. “Do you want the window seat or the one in the middle?” She gestured toward the row.

“This is my first time on an airplane,” I reminded her. “I do not know which is better, but I am fairly sure it will not help me to see clearly out the window as we travel.”

“Some people find the middle seat a little confining,” Ms. Washburn warned. “Will that bother you?”

“The whole trip bothers me.” I was acting more irritable than I should have, but my anxiety level was not falling as the takeoff time approached. “We can find Reuben Hoenig from home.”

A man in sweatpants and a jersey bearing the logo of the New York Rangers hockey team stood in the aisle behind me and pushed a little into my back. “Let’s go, pal,” he said. “You’re holding everybody up.”

“I am trying to decide whether I should take the window seat or the middle seat,” I informed him.

“Window,” the man said. “Now, sit.”

“I don’t think you understand,” I explained. “This is my first flight and I am trying to determine what is the safer alternative.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he answered. “If the plane goes down, we’re all dead no matter what seat you’re in. Sit.”

“Come on, Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said, again taking my hand. “I’ll take the window.”

It took a great deal of effort to sit in the center seat after Ms. Washburn positioned herself in the tight quarters and maneuvered her tote bag under the seat in front of her. I stared at the man in the Rangers jersey for a moment and then sat down in my designated spot.

“I do not understand hockey fans,” I told her after I had carefully placed my bag in the area specified. I would have preferred to hold it, but a flight attendant passing by said that was not an option, “for your own safety.” I did not see how a small backpack was going to be a threat to my safety, but the attendant moved on before I could ask her the question.

A small man took the aisle seat next to me just as the flight door closed. He stared straight ahead and had no baggage with him. I thought it would have been best for me to have acted as he did, but it was too late now. I would have the backpack washed when we arrived in Los Angeles.

It is probably best to omit the details of the takeoff. I was in an agitated state, which some people in the plane appeared not to comprehend. Ms. Washburn tried to explain, but it was hard to hear over the engine noise and my own vocalizations.

Once the plane had reached its cruising altitude and I realized there would be another five hours on this aircraft before we landed, I became more acclimated to the surroundings, although I was never comfortable. But it would have been considerably more difficult to have the airline abort the flight and return to New Jersey than to contain myself until we reached California, so I opted for the latter.

Ms. Washburn took out her laptop computer despite the fact that there was no Internet access on this flight. She was searching through notes on the question we were researching, she said, because she thought she’d missed something in the conversation I’d had with my uncle Arthur and it was bothering her. “I have the time now,” she said.

Given little to do, I still did not remove my MacBook because I was concerned about draining its battery before we arrived in Canoga Park. I wanted to read the magazine in the seat pocket facing me, but it had been well thumbed by previous passengers so I asked the flight attendant for a fresh copy, which she supplied. The articles were not especially enlightening.

The man in the aisle seat next to me put on a pair of eye shades and leaned his seat back to the point that I believed the woman sitting behind him could see the bald spot on the back of his head. He soon began to snore loudly and frequently.

I found it difficult to close my eyes during the flight. The motion of the aircraft was unpredictable. The sound of the engines coupled with the air conditioning and cabin pressure made sleep virtually impossible. I was trapped in a seat between Ms. Washburn, whose laptop computer’s screen was glowing dimly, and the sleeping man to my right, who added to the noise and commandeered the armrest between us. I pulled my own arms close in to my torso, sat straight and tried very hard not to think about the 35,000 feet of air between my body and the ground.

Looking forward to spending time in a hotel room that was not my own didn’t calm me down at all. The total lack of control over my life this trip would necessitate was not only inconvenient; it was alarming. And the only way to return to the life I very much preferred would be to go through this process again in the opposite direction.

It was very difficult not to cry out. A few times I felt myself shake with frustration. Ms. Washburn noticed once, put her hand on my triceps and told me there was nothing to worry about. I appreciated the sentiment, but she was mistaken—there was a great deal to worry about.

Out of sheer boredom coupled with anxiety, if that is possible, I forced myself to concentrate on the question we were flying to Los Angeles to answer for Mother. The few facts we had managed to establish so far indicated that at some time in the past year or two Reuben Hoenig—who had left New Jersey twenty-seven years before and arrived in Reseda, California, by way of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Seattle, Washington—might have been standing in the window of a structure owned by Kaplan Enterprises, a company which bought and sold advertising time on radio and television. The legality of that enterprise was questionable but probably verifiable. I would ask Ms. Washburn to check with an attorney in California on the possible difficulties such an operation might face.

According to employee records from Mendoza Communications it appeared—again, without confirmation—that Reuben Hoenig was now operating under the name George Kaplan. This name was taken from an Alfred Hitchcock film, North by Northwest, which my mother said was a favorite of Reuben’s. The reasons behind that change were not clear. One obvious possibility, given the text of the letter my mother had received, was that Reuben had found himself in some kind of legal difficulty in Seattle and needed an alternate identity, which might have precipitated his transfer to Mendoza in Reseda.

But we had absolutely no facts that were clearly established other than that my mother had received a letter she said was in her husband’s handwriting.

The fact that Arthur Hoenig, my uncle living in Chicago, had first refused to supply an address for his brother and then contacted someone in the Los Angeles area—either Reuben or the man who had impersonated him on the telephone—to alert him to my call, was confusing. If Reuben was interested in hearing from Mother and by extension me, he would not have needed the intermediary. If he was not interested in contact, he could easily have ignored Arthur’s message and avoided any further communication.

So it was puzzling that someone pretending to be Reuben called my cellular phone and then answered Ms. Washburn’s under the name George Kaplan, which we had assumed Reuben was using.

The complete lack of verifiable information about this question was almost as worrisome as the rattling of the airplane and the snoring of the little man in the aisle seat. I would have liked to have done some walking up and down the aisle, particularly with the possibility of deep vein thrombosis, which can cause life-threatening blood clots on a cross-country flight. But his presence made it difficult to move.

I knew hydration was a priority and had my water bottle filled in the backpack. I was careful not to drink too much, as the idea of using an airplane restroom was not in any way acceptable. I also did some sitting ankle turns and other exercises that I had discovered on various online sites.

“Look at this,” Ms. Washburn said as I was contemplating climbing over the snoring man to do some walking in the aisle. She turned her laptop computer screen toward me and tilted it up for me to get a better viewing angle.

The screen showed a map of Reseda, California, and was delineated in terms of the neighborhood’s zoning. Reseda is actually a part of Los Angeles itself, not a separate community. So the local laws pertaining to Reseda would be those of the city as a whole.

“Look at the zoning for the street where Kaplan Enterprises is located,” Ms. Washburn said. “It’s zoned as a residential area.”

“Yet George Kaplan, whomever he may be, is operating a business out of that property,” I said, nodding. “Not a huge offense, really. People are running businesses from their homes much more frequently now than they did before. If Kaplan Enterprises doesn’t have a large number of employees or use any heavy machinery, it’s unlikely that would be a legal problem.”

“Not usually, but look here.” Ms. Washburn pointed at a spot on the map’s legend in the bottom right-hand corner. It read, “Property assessment 2014, pending.”

I didn’t immediately understand the significance. “If the properties were assessed for taxation in 2014, the property would be taxed under that estimate,” I said.

“But it’s pending,” Ms. Washburn countered. “I did some research after I noticed that. The real assessments are due this year, maybe as soon as next month. And with the water problems the area is having, the city is looking to raise as much tax money as it can. So a business running out of a house might be assessed higher than it would have been then.”

“If it is assessed as a business,” I said.

“Exactly.”

I considered the fact. “Is this really about the local assessment of a house?” I asked.