Fool's Flight (Digger) Read online

  "Did it work?"

  "Not a chance. She died and left all her money to my uncle, my father’s brother. He had two daughters. He named them Mary and Margaret."

  "That’s a stupid story. It doesn’t make any sense."

  "I’ve got a stupid family. Aunt Alma was the stupidest of all. But she was rich. She used to buy day-old bread. She had a closet full of it. I’d go to visit her and she’d feed me bread. A lot of times it had green mold on it and she’d tell me to eat it because it was penicillin and it’d stop me from getting gonorrhea. I didn’t even know what gonorrhea was. I was seven years old."

  "Did you eat the bread?"

  "I ate around the mold. I fed the mold to her pet parrot. The parrot died before Aunt Alma. I think he had gonorrhea."

  "I think you’re crazy," Jane said.

  "No. Aunt Alma was crazy. Well, maybe I am crazy, a little crazy. My boss thinks I’m crazy."

  "Why?"

  "He thinks everybody’s crazy. That’s Walter Brackler, but I call him Kwash ’cause he looks like he has kwashiorkor, a body-shriveling disease. He likes being in the insurance business. That tells you how sane he is."

  "How’d you get into the insurance business?"

  "I’ll show you my scars if you show me yours. How’d you get to work for Timothy Baker and Crash Airways?"

  "Don’t make fun of the folks who pay the rent. I was in college in Boston. I’m from Lauderdale."

  "Boston’s nice. If you get bored, you can go downtown and watch birds fly into buildings."

  "And that’s about all you can do. Half the city is townies and the other half is gownies. All the college kids, the males anyway, are gay. The girls all have three names and no brains. So much for one’s college compatriots. And then, the townies. The Irish hate the Italians. Both of them hate the blacks. The blacks hate everybody. All of them hate anybody from out of town. Some cities, some sections, you can’t drive through at night. Most of Boston, you can’t drive through in the daytime. I left after a year and came back to Lauderdale and no big deal, I answered an ad in the paper for a Girl Friday. Christ, I hate that title. Mr. Baker hired me. He was just starting the airline."

  "You didn’t invest in it, did you?"

  "Why, you trying to unload some swamp land?"

  "No, do I look like the type? No, it’s just that Baker looks a little underfinanced to me and I was wondering how he gets the money to start an air-line."

  "He used to be in some kind of big management job in New York. He got some investors together. They bought up an old Florida airline and changed the name and bought some used planes. But business hasn’t been very good. I think his investors are breathing down his neck."

  "They do that when they don’t get any return on their money. When’d that all happen?"

  "Almost three years. I’ve been here since the start."

  "And now, you’re going to be in on the finish?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "A missing plane, presumed crashed, isn’t going to flood your airline with business, is it?"

  "No. And, of course, it’s a tragedy, but I…I don’t know…."

  "You don’t know what?"

  "If the insurance company pays off, I think Mr. Baker would buy some good equipment. Better planes. Somehow I think…you know, I don’t know anything, but somehow I think…I’ve heard him talking sometimes and I think some more money into the company could help us turn the corner."

  "There’s a good side to everything?" Digger said.

  "You make it sound heartless. I don’t mean it like that."

  "I know, but has Mr. Baker ever talked about buying another plane?"

  "Only all the time. Will you be able to help him get his insurance, Elmo?"

  "I’m going to try. But I’ve got my own job to do, too."

  "I never did figure out what your job is."

  "Didn’t Mr. Baker tell you?"

  "Only that you had something to do with life insurance on the passengers?"

  Digger nodded. "The pilot too. Just checking out claims, all detail work. I’ve got to talk to the co-pilot and the stewardess and then I’ll about have a wrap on this."

  "They weren’t even on the flight."

  "I know, but you know how insurance companies are. Paper work. Talk, talk, talk. Write, write, write. When the pile of paper costs more than the claim, pay the claim. What was that co-pilot’s name?"

  "Randy Batchelor."

  "Is that a name or a title?"

  She giggled. "Both, I guess. He just got back this morning. Melanie, too."

  "That’s the stew," Digger said.

  "Ah, yes. Melanie Fox. The Queen of the Skies. One of our stewardi. Or flight attendants, as she’ll be sure to tell you."

  "How do I reach them?" Digger asked.

  She paused, a forkful of salad hovering near her mouth. "I don’t know," she said. "I don’t think…"

  "Listen, Jane, I’ll tell you something I didn’t even tell Baker. Steve Donnelly filled out some kind of insurance form with us, but there’s a mix-up on the beneficiary. His wife and his kids have a chance of not winding up with a dime. I’m trying to straighten that out. Maybe Randy and Melanie can help."

  She chewed slowly as she thought.

  "Well, call me at the office and I’ll give you their addresses."

  "One other thing and it’s really important," Digger said. "Steve’s medical record."

  "Oh, I couldn’t do that," she said.

  "Just take a peek at it and let me know what’s in it. Maybe there’s some kind of insurance examination from some time back. It might help his wife. And those poor sweet little boys."

  "All right, I’ll try. Call me when I get back to the office."

  "Sure," he said. "You’re doing a good thing and I’m going to try to help. Mrs. Donnelly. And Interworld."

  "Maybe we could talk about it over dinner to-night?"

  "I don’t know. I’ll try but I don’t think I’ll be able to swing it."

  "Why not?"

  "I’ve got somebody from the home office with me."

  "Bring him, we’ll ditch him later."

  "It’s a her. Some old grouchy harridan dastard. That’s it, a dastard. She’s got the room next to me and she listens at the wall. She’s on the phone with my office twelve times a day."

  "Poison her," Jane suggested.

  "I can’t. I think she’s immune. I think she’s a secret drinker and she’s getting jaundice ’cause she’s this funny color, like yellow. All that alcohol and she can’t catch anything."

  "Try to ditch her."

  "I’ll try." He looked at her beautiful bosom, as had every other man in the restaurant, and said it again. "I’ll try."

  Randy Batchelor’s apartment was in a long, low, three-story building in the shape of a backward C. There was parking for tenants on both sides of the building and, without looking, Digger knew there would be a pool in back, inside the arms of the C, with a large ice machine, chaise lounges, patio tables, and a lot of young women.

  As he drove into the parking lot, a young man with dark hair and a Clark Gable mustache walked from the side exit of the building. He was wearing white trousers, a blue Navy blazer and a yachtsman’s cap. The cap was bent down on both sides, toward the ears, in the style that World War II pilots used to affect. It was called a fifty-mission crush, implying that its wearer had flown so many missions that the earphones he wore over his hat had permanently crushed it into that peculiar saddle-shape.

  The young man strolled toward a brown Porsche and Digger glanced at the license plates. There were no numbers; just the word FLYBOY.

  He walked to the car just as the young man was unlocking the door.

  The man turned around, startled, to look up at Digger, who at six-feet-three was four or five inches taller than he was.

  "Yes?"

  There was a hint of nervousness in the voice and Digger jumped on it.

  "Glad I caught you here, Batchelor. Might save you a trip dow
ntown."

  "Who are you? What’s this…"

  "Name’s Lincoln. I’m looking into that plane crash."

  "The F.A.A.? I already talked to…"

  "I’m working with the local police, too. They put me on to you. I need a couple of questions answered." Digger leaned against the fender of the car and lit a cigarette.

  "You want to go inside, Officer…."

  "Lincoln. No. Here’s all right. And nobody calls us officer anymore. Here’s fine."

  Territoriality, Digger knew, was one of the keys to interviewing. When you wanted people to be at ease, you interviewed them at their homes, in their offices, wherever they felt comfortable. When you wanted them to be a little on edge, you tried to talk to them in uncomfortable places where their discomfort level worked for you. Digger had found what he considered the best middle ground: he interviewed people in bars, whenever he could, because most people were ill at ease in unfamiliar surroundings and Digger was as comfortable as a clam in silt. But parking lots were okay, too.

  "What can I do for you?" Batchelor said. He noisily glanced at his watch.

  Digger pressed. "If you’ve got an appointment or something, we can arrange something later. Down-town."

  "No, no, that’s all right. What is it you want?"

  "Just tell me how it was you weren’t on that death flight?"

  "Death flight? Christ, you sound like the National Enquirer. I already told your people."

  "Yes, and there’s a report drifting somewhere through channels and it’ll be on my desk in a month or a year, but in the meantime, it’d help if you told me yourself."

  "Okay. I went into the cockpit where Steve was. I got sick. Upchucking goddam pukey throwuppy sick. I went back to the crew lounge. I couldn’t even walk. Foxy had to help me."

  "Foxy?" Digger made a show of writing down the name.

  "Our stew. Melanie Fox. It’s a nickname, for Christ’s sakes. We call her Foxy."

  "Oh, I see." Digger made an equally large display of crossing out Foxy from his note pad. Notes were nonsense. He could feel his tape recorder vibrating gently against his back. The open-mouthed frog tie clip that housed the unit’s microphone was picking up more of Randy Batchelor than notes ever could.

  "Anyway, we were in the lounge and I was heaving like I had morning sickness and before we got back to the plane, Steve is taking off. It’s too late to do anything about it, so we’re left there holding our hands on our asses."

  "Very strange."

  Batchelor shrugged. "I guess. I know a lot of times pilots take off without passengers. They leave some of them behind. I almost did that once. I had a charter out of Pittsburgh and I was so goddam busy getting the plane ready that when the tower told me I was cleared to move into takeoff position, I forgot that I was still waiting for these corporate bigshots. So it happens. Stews are left behind a lot, especially if they’re a couple of minutes late. But not cockpit crew. That’s weird."

  "It certainly is. In all my years of experience with planes, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like that," Digger said. "What do you think happened?"

  "I don’t know. The flight was a local. Steve could handle a hundred like that by himself. You wouldn’t want a better pilot."

  "I understand he had a drinking problem?"

  Batchelor shook his head. "No, that’s not right. He had one once but that was a long time ago. He didn’t believe in drinking anymore."

  "Sounds born again," Digger said casually.

  "Something like that. He was in a church and he had straightened out. No more booze. I thought he was nuts because he was a good drinking buddy in the old days but who knows what gets into people. He was so good lately he was a pain in the ass." He glanced at his watch again.

  "I’ll only be a few more minutes," Digger said. "Whose idea was it that you leave the plane when you got sick?"

  Batchelor thought for a moment. Then a look of understanding came over his face. "It was Steve’s," he said. He thought some more. "Sure. It was Steve’s. I was feeling like cooked shit and he said, better go back to the crew lounge. Get some Pepto-Bismol or something. The walking would do me good. Yeah. That’s right. And he told Foxy to go with me to make sure I was all right."

  He stopped, looking off into space as if he had just understood something that had been puzzling him for a long while. Digger looked at him carefully, wondering what he had just discovered.

  "The passengers were aboard by then?" Digger asked.

  "Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess they all were."

  "Did you fly with Captain Donnelly a lot?"

  "I was here first when Interworld first opened. Then Steve came. We were generally a team. He had stopped drinking but we still used to bounce around a little. Then he got religion and we didn’t bounce much…I don’t know, I always thought religion was supposed to make you happy, but he wasn’t exactly Maurice Chevalier."

  "Few of us are," Digger said. "It’s so hard towhistle while you’re dancing. Were you close friends?"

  "Like how?"

  "You know. Golf together. Weekends at the old cabin in the woods. Make-believe business trips out of town. Wives and husbands together for a four-hand game of gossip. You know what I mean."

  "No, never like that. Steve was too inside himself lately. And I never liked his wife."

  There was something in the way Randy answered that last question, Digger thought. Wasn’t there? It seemed as though Randy was no longer worried about Digger, but something entirely different.

  "When you saw the plane taking off, what did you do?"

  "I said ‘shit.’"

  "Nothing else?"

  "What else? Throw rocks at it?"

  Batchelor glanced at his watch again. "Listen, I really…"

  "It’s all right," Digger said. "I’m done for now. If anything else comes up, I’ll be in touch. Thanks for your time."

  Batchelor nodded and turned to the car door.

  "One last thing," Digger said. "Any ideas on what caused the accident?"

  "Got me. Mind if I go? Some women aren’t meant to be kept waiting." He smiled conspiratorially at Digger who winked and nodded.

  Digger walked back to his own car. For all his hurry to depart, Digger noticed that Batchelor was taking his time. He had started his engine but he was just sitting behind the wheel, apparently deep in thought. Then he backed the car out of the space and sped away.

  Digger watched the FLYBOY license plate turn onto the street. A thirty-five-thousand-dollar car. The fifty-mission crush in a yachting cap, for Christ’s sakes.

  Batchelor was a little too flashy, for Digger’s taste.

  Chapter Twelve

  Every old city was laid out the same way, Digger thought. There was a poor and busy central core, surrounded by a not-so-poor, not-so-busy ring. Then from the ring came four spokes. One led to the rich section and the opposite spoke led to the poor neighborhoods. The other two spokes led to middling sections. Melanie Fox lived in one of the middling sections.

  The stewardess had tired brown eyes, the color of a cooked steak that had been left in the refrigerator too long. They were in a pretty face but the face was tired, too. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and from the corners of her nose to her mouth, and they were mileage marks, not laughter lines. Her body was bounteous, ripe and full, but only one clock-tick away from being a good middle-aged body instead of a wonderful young body.

  It was late afternoon and her dark brown hair was messed. She was wearing a long dressing gown when she let Digger into the apartment and he surmised that she had not been out of bed for long.

  "Mister Lincoln," she said, looking Digger over as he stepped through the doorway.

  "I’m sorry if I woke you when I called. Please call me Elmo."

  "Elmo?"

  "Elmo."

  "Come on. Nobody’s named Elmo except some guy who eats nails and lifts weights in a circus."

  "It’s a long story," Digger said. He found himself talking to her back. Sh
e was walking across the soft pile carpeting to the sofa with the indifferent ease of a woman who was not terribly frightened by the idea of having a strange man in her home.

  "I’ll call you Abraham," she said as Digger closed the door. "I’m just having coffee. Want some?"

  "I’d rather have a drink but if you’re into coffee…"

  "Have coffee, then a drink," she said. "I don’t know if my stomach’s up to watching somebody drink this early."

  Digger sat in a chair facing the sofa, across the glass-topped coffee table. There were two cups on the table and she poured coffee from an electric pot, connected by a long white extension cord to a wall socket across the room.

  She took a long sip of her coffee. "So," she said. It was a question.

  "I’m doing a routine check into the accident. International Association for Plane Travel Safety. Eye-APTS. We’re an international consortium of private and governmental boards and agencies charged with the responsibility of…"

  "Spare me the brutal details," she said. "I’m too tired to remember it and too bored to be impressed. What do you want to talk about?"

  "I was talking to Mr. Batchelor about the accident."

  "I don’t know what I can tell you that he didn’t. Christ, coffee’s good. I don’t think I’d want to live in a world without coffee."

  "Or women."

  "Or men."

  "Or vodka."

  "You win," she said, laughing. "I’ll get you that drink."

  "I thought I was going to have to beat it out of you."

  "Not me. I’m a piece of cake," she said. She walked into the kitchen, her voice carrying to him from the other room.

  "So what do you want to ask me?"

  "Do you want me to roar my questions at the top of my voice?" Digger asked.

  "No. You can come out here."

  In the kitchen, Digger saw she had poured two large glasses of vodka, no mix. She nodded toward the kitchen table. Women love to sit at kitchen tables.