7 Death
an excerpt

Lucky stood beside the baggage claim turntable, watching piles of luggage, piled haphazardly, tumble by. Her tapestry luggage was distinctive, and to aid in finding it she had tied big colorful rainbow colored ribbons to each handle. But it hadn’t come around. She was wearing her highest heels, silver spike sandals, with a pair of boot-cut skin tight black jeans, topped off by a raw silk bright red tank top under a long-sleeved black satin shirt. She had twisted her hair up in a careless-looking knot that had actually taken quite a bit of time to contrive.
Her two pieces of matching carry-on luggage were already on a cart, waiting. New luggage stopped coming. The same old luggage went by, went by, went by, fewer pieces each time. The crowd around the turntable melted away. Other people piled their luggage on carts and wandered off, laughing or talking on cell phones.
Finally two lonely pieces remained on the turntable, and neither of them were hers. Tottering on her heels, Lucky dragged her almost empty cart toward the administration desk. Where the f--- was her luggage? Almost a thousand dollars worth of really excellent consignment shop clothing, gone. She would have cried, but her make-up would run and she’d look like a raccoon. And her make-up and make-up remover and all her creams were in her checked luggage, because of that damn post-9/11 terrorism crap she couldn’t pack any liquids in her carry-on.
Fighting tears, so angry she could chew iron and spit nails, Lucky stood in line to complain. She handed over her baggage claim tickets and explained the problem. A disinterested woman scanned them in and shrugged. “Your baggage was checked into and out of your flight. There’s no reason you didn’t see it on the turntable.”
But it wasn’t there. Lucky frowned. “I need that luggage. I’m going on a cruise. Right away. You won’t be able to reach me to get it to me.”
The woman snapped her gum and shrugged. “My guess is, someone else took it by accident. Hopefully they will realized their mistake and call the airline or bring it back in.”
“You aren’t listening,” Lucky said with complete frustration. “I’m getting on a boat and it’s heading out into the ocean. I need my luggage now.”
“There is nothing I can do. The luggage went onto the plane in Las Vegas and came off the plane here. If you didn’t find it, I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“I am so screwed. What am I supposed to wear for two weeks on a cruise? I’ve only got what I have on, plus a bathing suit.”
The woman, who was overweight, frumpy and rather unattractive, she looked up Lucky up and down and tweaked one eyebrow, as if to say, you don’t look half bad as you are.
Grabbing her claim tickets back, Lucky stalked off, dragging the cart behind her with her two pitifully small carry on bags. She dug the paperwork out telling her where to go when she got off the plane. Supposedly someone was supposed to meet her. She kept dragging the cart, her ankles starting to wobble, toward the exit, looking for someone holding a sign with her name on it, or with (400 rabbits) or something she could recognize.
And then she saw something she could recognize. Her luggage. On a cart. Beside a swarthy man holding a sign that had her name on it, below the (400 rabbits) logo.
Son of a bitch.
Lucky took the longest steps she could in those heels toward the man. “You have my luggage!” She said, torn between outrage and joy.
“Yes, the contract said I would get it for you,” the man said, sounding a little like speedy Gonzales. The paper was still in her free hand. Lucky unbunched it and looked at it more closely, and it did indeed say that her luggage would be picked up by a representative from the production company.
“I’m an ass,” she said sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I was ready to bite your head off. And it was all my fault for not reading closely.”
The man shrugged. Lucky transferred her carry-ons to the man’s cart and left hers. Someone else could use it and not have to pay that way. That was the kind of person she was, and now that she’d located her luggage, she was feeling pretty good about the whole thing.
As she stepped carefully along behind the short swarthy man, it occurred to her to wonder how he had known what bags to take, and how he had gotten them so quickly. Since Lucky had been seated at the front of the plane, she had been one of the first out, and hardly any bags had been thumping down the ramp onto the turntable when she arrived at the baggage claim. Weird. They didn’t have her name visible or them or anything.
The short man took out a cell phone and made a brief call. Lucky was too far back to hear anything clearly, but it sounded like Spanish to her.
They emerged from the airport into sun, heat and humidity. Lucky was used to the first two from living in Vegas, where temperatures of over 100 degrees were common in the summer, but it was desert heat. This was more like jungle heat, even though they were still in the U.S. Almost immediately she started to wilt and a sheen of sweat appeared all over her body. She felt sticky and disgusting. Without hesitating, the man pulled the luggage cart forward. Lines of car and van taxis clamored for pick-ups. Lucky looked at them in dismay. A line of about two dozen people waited, their luggage piled beside them or hanging from them or on carts, for the next taxi to pull up and take them to their destination. Many of them were red-faced, sweaty and looked exhausted, and it was probably only the very beginning of their trip.
The small man darted between two bright yellow vans, dragging Lucky’s luggage. Her feet felt like they were swelling inside her expensive metallic sandals. She took quick baby steps. The pavement had those annoying rounded bumps on it, some kind of safety thing, that terrorized her ankles and her balance every time her spiked heel landed on one. In fear that she would break her shoes, she called, “Wait! Senor! I can’t walk that fast!”
A shiny black car, not a stretch limo but pretty nice, glided to a stop beyond the taxis. The guard who made sure no taxis or passengers jumped the line blew his whistle and waved the black car away. The Spanish man started loading Lucky’s luggage into the trunk, so she wobbled between the two vans. By the time she got to the car, which was blocking a lane of traffic, mostly taxis from another queue, the Spanish man had opened the back door for her. Cool air condioned air blew out at her. She sank into the soft grey leather with a sigh. The Spanish man climbed into the passenger seat up front and the car moved off, almost soundlessly.