Fool's Flight (Digger) Read online

  "I’m just wondering if you had any idea about the accident. How it happened."

  She shook her head. "It’s hard to figure. Steve could’ve flown that plane in his sleep. So scratch pilot error. What’s left? A bomb? A lunatic? Equipment failure? Instrument failure? I don’t know."

  "Captain Donnelly was good, wasn’t he?"

  "The best. We were at Pan-Am together and he was a top captain. That was…"

  "Before he started drinking," Digger said.

  She looked at him in surprise.

  "I told you. I talked to Batchelor. And I talked to Mrs. Donnelly before that."

  "She ought to know about his drinking."

  "I know she’d drive me to drink," Digger said amiably.

  "Anyone. Listen, Abraham. Hey, you don’t mind, I just can’t call you Elmo, I couldn’t call a cocker spaniel Elmo. How deep are you digging into this? Why don’t you just get the F.A.A. report when it’s done?"

  "Look, let’s level. I’m not a cop. I’m not some kind of newspaper snoop or government inspector. All I do is go around and try to figure out how things happened so that just maybe they don’t happen again. So I look at everything. People’s frame of mind. Equipment. Procedures. Lunatics. You name it, maybe it’s important to me. I don’t know until I have it all figured out."

  She sipped her drink and stared at him. The liquor was startng to erase the washed-out look from her eyes. Finally, she nodded and said, "Go ahead, ask away. I’ll tell you anything I know." She said it as if she had weighed all the alternatives and, reluctantly, this was the only possible decision.

  "All right. Why don’t you like Mrs. Donnelly?"

  She hesitated. "I…"

  "You said anything."

  "I guess I did. My big heart gets me into trouble again. Aren’t you hot in that jacket?"

  "No."

  The question made her conscious of her own robe and she pulled it tighter around her shoulders, covering up her deep cleavage. She sipped at her drink, then swallowed it quickly. "Steve and I were lovers when we both worked for Pan-Am. I’m sorry you never met him. There was never anybody quite like him. He was happy and fun-loving and good-natured and I don’t think there was anybody in the world who knew him who didn’t love him."

  "What happened?"

  "Trini happened. She came along and made a run at him and she got him all messed up. We all knew what was happening but you can’t talk a man out of anything like that. She got him messed up."

  "How’d she do that?"

  "She got knocked up. So Steve, being Steve, married her. Then he found out she was a bitch on wheels. She wanted, she wanted, she wanted. She slept around. She drank like a goddam camel after three months in the desert. That’s when Steve started drinking. I still used to fly with him, but the heart was out of him. He was so damned low all the time. Then I left and I kind of lost touch."

  "Why’d you leave?" Digger asked.

  "A man. I got married. All very professional. Marriage, fights, separation, and divorce. It would have all fit in one week in a soap opera. I moved back to Atlanta with my folks and I was out of the business for a long time. I used to hear about Steve from friends. Then he left Pan-Am. They told me that the booze was really bad. Finally, I moved down here and found a job with Interworld and who’s there but Steve."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "Two years or so."

  "What was he like then?"

  "It’s funny. He had stopped drinking, so I guess his health was better, but I didn’t really see him when he was heavy on the sauce so I don’t know. He was still unhappy, though, you could tell."

  "No chance of picking up where you left off?"

  "No. You’re going to laugh at this," she said. "But he got religion. There’s this minister in town…Reverend Dariell or something."

  "Wardell?"

  "Yeah. Anyway, Steve was going to this guy and he was different, really different. He was off the juice and he was straight arrow with his wife. He even gave up smoking not too long ago. It wasn’t like the old days but at least he seemed happy."

  "You think it was this Reverend Wardell?"

  "Steve said it was. He always talked about him, tried to get us to go with him to church. That was a laugh. I mean, Randy and I, we’re not your average church types, but I don’t know, if Wardell could bottle whatever it is he’s got, I’d buy some and take it every day."

  "Vodka’s the closest thing I know in a bottle. Mind if I help myself?"

  "No. Do mine, too. The change in Steve was really good to see."

  "But it didn’t last," Digger said.

  "How’d you know that?"

  "I don’t know. Your tone of voice or something. What happened?"

  "A few months ago, suddenly he became like edgy. You know how sometimes a guy’s been dry for a while without any problems, and then all of a sudden staying away from the booze really gets to be too much for him."

  "Do you think it was the liquor?"

  "No. He still wasn’t drinking. But he was edgy. He started smoking again. Thanks. Cheers, Abraham."

  They clicked glasses.

  "What about the night of the flight? How do you explain his taking off without you? You think his mood might have had something to do with that?"

  "I’ve thought about that every day since then and I don’t know. I just don’t know," she said.

  "Maybe something unusual happened that you just don’t recall. How about the passengers? What were they like?"

  "Stiffs. But it’s what you expect when you’re flying religious nuts. Actually, though, these were older than most. And usually people come on the plane for a charter and they’re partying. These people were, I don’t know, quieter, I guess. Some of them, I think, already had a whack on ’cause they were asleep as soon as they hit the seats. That’s normal though in charters."

  "None of them said anything to you?"

  "Nope." She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head and repeated, "Nope."

  "What about Batchelor getting sick?"

  "He was the last one on the plane. He’s always the last one on, even though the co-pilot’s supposed to be on first and do the slug work in the flight cabin. Steve never complained about it; he was that kind of guy. So Randy waltzes in late and sits down and he’s ready to go to work. Then a couple of minutes later, he got sick and started to throw up. Maybe he drank too much or smoked something or something. If he did, he didn’t tell me, but he didn’t look it."

  "Did he have anything on the plane?"

  "No. They’re too busy for anything like that. No." She sipped hard at her drink. "He had some coffee. Steve always used to tease me about the plane’s coffee, how bad it was, so he always brought a thermos and the first thing he did was pour some out. Randy’d always come in and drink some."

  "Why’d you take Batchelor to the lounge?"

  "Steve was worried about him. He told me to, in case he needed help. Steve trusted me to make a good decision and let him know, like, if Randy couldn’t fly and we’d have to get somebody else. The passengers could get along without me for a while so I went."

  "When did you find out Captain Donnelly had taken off?"

  "Randy vomited some and then he was okay. We got out of the lounge and went back to the gate but the plane was already gone."

  She started to say something else but the question popped into Digger’s mind and he cut her off. "What’d you do then? Exactly."

  "What was to do? We watched." Digger noticed that she seemed to twist uncomfortably in her chair.

  "You might have gone upstairs and told the traffic controllers."

  "We didn’t think of it," she said, but there was a sharp defensive edge on her voice.

  "Melanie, look. I’m not trying to get anybody in the soup. No government agency’s going to see my report. I’m really more like working for the airlines. I just want to know what happened. I can’t believe that neither of you thought of going up and trying to contact the plane from the
tower."

  She drank some more of her vodka and Digger got up and brought the bottle and a tray of ice cubes back to the table. He touched her neck as he passed her.

  "What did Randy tell you?" she asked.

  "Nothing. I forgot to ask him."

  "Okay. We had good intentions and we’re both probably going to get reamed by the F.A.A. in its report. We were going to go upstairs but Randy said if we did that, Steve’d get into trouble. The flight was a quick and easy one so why not just let it slide? We could hop another plane down to P.R. and fly back with Steve. No one ever had to know. The only squawk might come from a couple of passengers when they didn’t get a drink or something, but who’d know otherwise?"

  "Makes sense to me," Digger said.

  "Us, too. But then the tower, we heard that the tower lost contact with the plane and Steve didn’t answer the radio. So we had to go upstairs and report what happened, just to cover our-selves. And you know what happened then. Poor Steve."

  "Wife and kids, too."

  "Kids anyway," she said bitterly.

  "What about Batchelor? How’d he get along with Captain Donnelly?"

  "Randy gets along with everybody."

  "Donnelly wasn’t standing between him and a promotion or something?"

  "No, nothing like that. You don’t know anything about how airlines work, do you?"

  "Not really."

  "Honest Abe," she said. "How’d you get a job like this?"

  "My uncle is connected."

  "Good for you and your uncle. I wish I was connected. Maybe then, my age, I wouldn’t be scratching around this place."

  "Your age? C’mon."

  "Yeah, my age. I’m all right now but it won’t be long, I ask them coffee, tea or me and it’s gonna be coffee or tea. Your uncle married?"

  "As married as you can get. Aunt Brunhilde looks like a Russian field weapon."

  "Too bad. How about you?"

  Digger reached across the table and touched her hand. "Not me, little girl. I’m not the marrying kind."

  "Guess I’ll have to keep looking."

  "Probably best. You wind up being named Mrs. Elmo Lincoln and you’d die of laughing."

  "Buy me dinner?"

  "I have to make a phone call first," Digger said.

  Digger dialed his motel and asked for his room. There was no answer. He waited for the motel operator to come back on the line but after three minutes, he gave up and dialed again. There were no messages, either. Now where the hell was Koko?

  "Who’d you call?"

  "I’m in town with my supervisor. A crabby old dastard. I’ve got to keep her happy."

  "No deal on dinner then?"

  "She’s out, so why not? Who knows what she’s doing?"

  Chapter Thirteen

  Melanie Fox spent dinner trying to be charming and eating as if she were about to enter a Mexican bread-and-water prison the next day.

  Digger spent dinner picking at food, drinking more vodka, and three times calling his empty room.

  After the vodka course and before the coffee-and-vodka course, he found the business card in his wallet and called Detective Dave Coley at home.

  "This is Burroughs. Did you get that list today at the motel?"

  "Yeah. I got it. I ran it through our files. It’s like a drunk tank list. Half of your people had records for drunkenness or fighting or disorderly, all shit cases. You know, we haven’t talked about money."

  "I thought a couple of hundred dollars," Digger said.

  "Is four a couple?"

  "I never could count. Four it is."

  "I’ll drop the reports at your hotel desk when I go to work in the morning," Coley said.

  "I’ll leave the money in an envelope with your name on it," Digger said. "There’s no crazy terrorist bomb-thrower in that batch of names, huh?"

  "Nope. The biggest thing was throwing a brick through a saloon window."

  "Shit. Thanks anyway."

  "My pleasure," Coley said. "Don’t forget the envelope."

  Back at the table, Melanie Fox ordered cappuccino with sambuca on the side. When the drink came, three coffee beans were floating in the clear thick sticky liquid.

  "Do you know the legend of the coffee beans?" she asked.

  "Yeah. It’s a lesson for our times. Some guy figured out how to raise the price of a buck-and-a-half drink to two and a half bucks by dropping in one cent’s worth of coffee beans."

  "You’re not much of a romantic."

  "That’s not true," Digger said. "I never met a coffee bean I didn’t love."

  "I’ve had enough drinking. Do you want to go to a party?" she asked him.

  "A party without drinking?"

  "You’ll be able to drink if you want," she said. "It’s just that there are alternatives."

  "Just a minute," he said.

  Digger called Koko again. No answer. He came back to the table. "Sure. Let’s go to a party."

  The party was in a rundown old mansion at the farthest southern end of Lauderdale. By the time Digger and Melanie arrived, there were fifty cars parked near the house, on the street, in the drive-way, upon the grown-over lawn. Every car must have arrived packed with people because the giant old house looked and sounded as if it were bulging with life.

  A familiar bittersweet aroma wafted through the yard as they approached the house and Digger said, "I love the smell of freshly-lit grass."

  "It’s like a junkie’s garage sale," Melanie said. "Something for every taste."

  "Whose house is it anyway?" Digger asked.

  "Damned if I know. Randy invited me."

  The air hung thick with marijuana smoke when they stepped inside the front door.

  Melanie was greeted by only three people, all women, who looked over her shoulder as they were talking and made Digger feel like a lambchop.

  "Foxy, it’s nice to see you."

  "Foxy, it’s nice to see you."

  "Foxy, it’s nice to see you."

  "I love honest displays of warmth," Digger said.

  "Make yourself at home," Melanie said. "I’m going to look around."

  No one spoke to Digger and when he saw that no one was going to volunteer the information on where the bar was, he asked a young woman with red hair and acne scars.

  "The kitchen." She pointed toward the back of the house. "I think. If not the kitchen, the patio."

  It was the kitchen. A large table had been set up as a bar. There was Chablis, sangria, tequila, and one bottle of Fleischmann’s vodka. Digger poured himself a large glass, then when no one was looking, hid the bottle under the sink. Just in case that was all they had.

  Glass in hand, he wandered through the crowds, listening, not saying much. The topic on everyone’s lips seemed to be the federal government’s fascistic infringement on everyone’s human rights as demonstrated by their cracking down on drug shipments from Mexico. To listen to these people talk, Digger decided, one would get the impression that marijuana and cocaine were the two basic staples of the American diet, and that bread and vodka were only artifacts of a bygone age.

  He saw Melanie Fox sitting on floor cushions in a corner with three other women. They were passing a joint back and forth along the line. She looked very happy.

  He went back to the kitchen and sneaked himself another drink from the bottle under the sink. The bottle was only half full and he was faced with conflicting worries. If he drank it too fast, he would soon wind up without any. On the other hand, if he poured himself a small drink, someone else might find the bottle and drink it all up before Digger could make a reasonable run at it. He voted for the present over the future and filled his glass to the brim. Live today, let tomorrow take care of itself.

  Back outside, he saw a face he recognized.

  In a far corner of the room, Randy Batchelor was standing, still wearing his crushed yachting cap and blue blazer, a glass in his hand, an amused smile on his lips. As Digger watched, an Amazonian tall blonde sidled up to Batchelor and talke
d into his ear at close range for a few moments. Batchelor nodded and reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a shiny brass cylinder, approximately the size and shape of a .38 caliber bullet. The woman took it, kissed his cheek, and walked toward the stairs. Very interesting, Digger thought. Randy Batchelor was dispensing cocaine. As he watched, another young woman approached Batchelor, talked to him, and he pointed her in the direction of the stairs, up which the Amazon had just gone. She too kissed his cheek and walked quickly to the stairs.

  Digger found a phone in the kitchen and called his room. While the phone rang, he topped his drink. Koko did not answer.

  In the living room, a pretty woman put her hands around his waist. He twisted loose before she felt his tape recorder.

  "You wanna?" she said. She seemed to think this was very funny patter because she giggled.

  "Do I wanna what?"

  "You know."

  "Not now," Digger said. "I’ve taken a vow of purity."

  "Lemme know when you decide to break it."

  Batchelor passed out three more hits of coke as Digger watched from across the room, but he saw no money changing hands. Maybe the flashy young pilot was just a public benefactor. Sure. And the Palestine Liberation Organization was just a group of fun-loving bedouins.

  Later, he stopped thinking about Koko. He found the pretty woman who had wanted to.

  "Let’s," he said.

  "Sure," she said.

  And they did, amid a pile of coats in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The woman seemed very grateful.

  Back downstairs, he drained the last of the vodka from the bottle under the sink and told himself it was a chintzy party. Out in the main room, he looked for Melanie Fox, but he couldn’t find her. Nor could he find Randy Batchelor.

  He was on his way into the kitchen to deposit his empty glass in the sink, when as good fortune would have it, he turned and looked at the liquor table and saw another bottle of vodka there.

  And who said God is dead, he thought. And poured himself another drink.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was after 4 A.M. when Digger got back to his room. He bumped quietly against a wall. He couldn’t remember that wall being there. He would have sworn that side of the room opened onto a beautiful oriental garden.