Inside was wine-color marble and blue-green plaster. There was a sweep to the way the building was put together that probably seemed futuristic in 1950. Now it was a fucking dinosaur. Like that elevator stuck in the middle of everything, housed in a cylinder with a staircase curved around, the cylinder covered in garish red plastic that had bubbled in places.

The first thing I did was check the downstairs cans. They were all pretty big (four stalls-three pay and a free) but even with the airport in a kind of lull right now, it was clear none of them would do. Then I climbed the staircase that circled the elevator and before I got started in on the upstairs cans, I saw him.

There was a priest and a young couple in their twenties and a soldier and a sailor and two old ladies and a businessman, all sitting around the indoor observation deck on the black-cushioned seats, looking out the big picture window at the runway. He was the priest.

All in black, of course, except for the white clerical collar. And a gray putty face, gray except for where some burst veins roadmapped his nose. He was wearing a black toupee that looked like one. He had on dark sunglasses.

A priest. With that Jewish nose and sunglasses at dusk, no less, he’s going to pass for a priest. With some guys you might just as well stand to the side and wait for them to kill themselves, they’re that stupid.

He didn’t catch me looking at him so I went on ahead and checked out the cans on this floor. I took in both halls that branched off the central tower building and found a can apiece and a lot of empty offices. One hall had activity in the end office, so I settled for the can down the other, completely deserted hall. That was fine because it was the best in the building, the other one on this floor being like the downstairs johns, big and designed with airport cattle in mind. Mine was for the paid help, with a single free one-seater but lots of room to stand and smoke. Also, every other can in the airport had a push door with no lock; this one had a firmly closing door with locking knob.