Read Time to Run for Free Online Page B

floor near the coffee shop in Concourse C,” she explained.
    Of course, he thought. The collision in the hallway.
    â€œI hope you didn’t have any cash,” she said, “because it was turned in empty.”
    â€œYes, I had cash!” Vinnie boomed, drawing stares. “I had eleven hundred dollars!”
    Ms. Customer Service made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Well, it’s all gone now. In the future, you might want to consider traveler’s checks.”
    Oh, how very helpful. It’s always nice to know what you should have done after you’ve been caught not doing it. “What about my credit cards? There should be one Visa and one MasterCard in there.”
    The Customer Service lady hummed a little as she stalled for time. “Oh, okay, there they are. Yep, I see a Visa and a Master, plus a Costco card, and—”
    â€œI don’t care about the others,” Vinnie said, cutting her off. “And I presume that you have my driver’s license, or else you wouldn’t have known to page me.”
    â€œYes, sir, that’s exactly right. We have a set of keys, as well.”
    Vinnie couldn’t believe it; but sure enough, when he patted his pants pocket, they were gone, too. “Oh, my God,” he said.
    â€œI have one key that looks like it’s a house key, and another that has the word Ford printed on it.”
    â€œMy house and my car,” Vinnie said. “Jesus, my pocket’s been picked.”
    â€œDo you know when it happened?”
    â€œYes. A guy ran into me in the hallway here. It was a big collision, and in all the confusion, he must have lifted my stuff. He was good.”
    â€œYou should file a police report,” said Ms. Service. “I can page them, too, if you’d like.”
    Vinnie shook his head. What would be the point? With terrorism alerts and God only knew what other kinds of distractions, his pickpocketing incident wouldn’t go to the top of anyone’s priority list. Besides, he had a flight to catch. “No, the guy took the money, and that’s my fault. The important stuff is still there.”
    â€œBut sir, if he’s still here at the airport, don’t you want—”
    â€œWhat I want is to catch my flight. In eight hours, I intend to be sitting in Paris, meeting with clients, and enjoying the sights. There’s plenty of time for me to expense the cash I lost. Now, if you could just tell me where to go to get my property back . . .”
    * * *
    It felt great to be free again. For Brad Ward, it was the greatest feeling in the world. The fact that it was over a hundred degrees there in the long-term parking lot didn’t bother him a bit, any more than it would have bothered him if it were thirty below zero or blowing like a hurricane. He didn’t think it was possible for people who’d never been in prison to understand just how precious—how priceless—fresh air could be. Even if it was only as fresh as an airport on the outskirts of Washington, DC.
    Simply seeing the sun without craning your neck was life-affirming—or inhaling the aroma of freshly cut grass. Hell, even the smell of dog shit beat the stink of inmate shit.
    He walked calmly down the wide aisles between cars, the slap of his flip-flops keeping time with a song that only he could hear. At the little bus stop where the shuttles took you to and from the terminal building, he stooped and reached under the trash can to recover the Leatherman tool he’d stashed there. Security in the airport might not be all that the government wanted you to believe, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that he could have gotten the Leatherman through the checkpoint. Think Swiss Army knife on steroids. While he walked on, he slid the tool’s leather pouch onto his belt.
    In a perfect world, he’d have been in shorts instead of chinos, but he feared that the glaring whiteness of his flesh might