3 of a Kind by Rohan Gavin

few rows behind him, dressed casually in sunglasses, headphones and a baseball cap pulled low to obscure his face – but watching Darkus and Tilly’s every move and tapping notes into his smartphone.

    Darkus was woken by the flight staff raising the shades on the windows. He leaned up and looked out at a blazing orange sunset, glaring down over a range of dusty hills, dotted with palm trees, white houses and mansions. Below the hills was a layer of soupy-looking smog, similar to what he imagined lurking in the streets of London in Victorian times. Only this smog didn’t creep around gaslights and hansom cabs; it crept around a cluster of glass-clad skyscrapers that reflected the hard desert light,surrounded by a seemingly endless sprawl of low-lying homes stretching in all directions. The streets were arranged in a near perfect grid, overlaid with a tangled web of ten-lane-wide freeways, full to capacity with gleaming cars, trucks and lorries. Darkus recognised the landmarks: the funnel-shaped Capitol Records building with the needle pointing upwards; the familiar letters of the Hollywood sign propped on a hillside.
    But the overwhelming thought on Darkus’s mind was: how on earth would they find Bogna in a city of this magnitude?
    The captain’s voice arrived over the PA system: ‘We’re beginning our descent into LA. The local time is just after 7.05 p.m. It’s currently a balmy twenty-seven degrees, that’s eighty-one Fahrenheit, with a combination of gentle winds and a coastal marine layer to the west …’
    Knightley Senior stirred, his arms jolting to life. ‘The Co – the Cohhhhhm – the Combination!’ His eyes popped open, taking in his surroundings. ‘Doc?’ he blurted. ‘Where am I? And why am I wearing these ungodly slippers?’
    ‘It’s OK, Dad, we’re about to land in Los Angeles,’ said Darkus. ‘I’m really glad you’re back,’ he confessed.
    Knightley smiled, looking around, bleary-eyed. ‘These seats really are comfortable. I slept like a log.’

    *

    The plane performed a textbook landing and ten minutes later the trio exited on to a jet bridge leading to the Bradley terminal of Los Angeles International Airport. Darkus felt the wave of California heat through the gangway as they passed into a glass corridor, following the signs to Immigration and Customs, then descended an escalator under an American flag and a smiling photo of the President of the United States.
    ‘He still owes me one,’ Knightley muttered. But, even after consulting ‘the Knowledge’ that was stored in his head, Darkus had no idea which case he was referring to.
    They joined a queue that snaked around several rows of barrier posts, then approached a glass cubicle containing a stern-looking immigration officer. The three of them presented their passports and the travel papers supplied by Uncle Bill.
    ‘What’s the purpose of your visit?’ asked the officer.
    ‘To find an old friend,’ replied Knightley.
    The officer looked them over for a few moments, then abruptly stamped their passports in quick succession and waved them through.
    Having beaten them through the queues, the teenage boy in the baseball cap, headphones and sunglasses observed their movements from the baggage carousel, unnoticed.
    The Knightleys and Tilly loaded their carry-on luggage on to a trolley and wheeled it through customs without delay, entering the main concourse. The teenager in the baseball cap walked briskly ahead, whispered something to a representative at a car rental desk, then vanished through the automatic doors into the gathering dusk.
    Knightley Senior took the lead, scanning the rental kiosks until he saw a slightly sweaty man in a white shirt, sporting a goatee beard and holding a misspelt sign that read: Knightly .
    The trio approached the man cautiously.
    ‘The Knightleys?’ asked the man enthusiastically. ‘I’m Todd. I’ll be your greeter.’
    ‘Greeter?’ asked Darkus.
    ‘It’s an American thing,’