by Clyde Witt
He knew the absolute minimum height he needed to get his chute to open would be about one hundred feet. Anything less and two broken legs would be the least of his problems. He pulled up and made a third run toward the spot, this time counting how long it would take to scamper to the cargo door and jump, but still have the plane skid on its belly into the rock formation he had selected.
A final check of the map strapped to his right thigh told him he had to start his descent from one thousand feet and a couple miles farther back. He’d just have to risk the chance that no one in that shack near the road would be awake to see the chute. One final check of the backpack lounging in the co-pilot’s seat. An hour left to burn off some more fuel and think about her. Had she made it from Ohio to Tucson on time? Would she be waiting where they’d arranged? Another glance at his wristwatch—the watch Yates had given him more than a dozen years before. It was the best that crapy PX in Saigon had to offer.
Starke smiled when he thought of how organized this final mission had been. “Planning this damn thing makes me feel like I was Yates. He was always the one for managing details. That’s why he’ll make the business a success. Me? I’m just here for the fun. And the insurance. And the woman,” he said to the dying sun, now over his right shoulder as he circled at two thousand feet.
He closed his eyes and practiced counting seconds, checking his accuracy against the watch. It had to be right. Angle of the plane, speed, uncluttered pathway back to the open cargo door. No mistakes. He sucked in a deep breath, unbuckled his seat harness and patted the instrument panel. “Okay, honey. It’s been nice to know you but now we both have to go die in the desert.”
Starke lined the plane on the star on the horizon he’d chosen. He stood and checked the passageway to the rear. As he pushed the yoke forward and stepped back, there was a sudden backfire. Black smoke poured from the right engine. He rushed back to the pilot’s seat to shut down the engine and feather the propeller. He struggled to actuate the single-shot engine fire extinguisher but could see the fire continued to burn.
“What the fuck is happening,” he yelled. “Okay baby, you got one good engine. Yer on your own from here. I got a hot date in Tucson to get to—alive. Don’t do any cartwheels when you hit the dirt.”
The neighborhood was quiet. Streets were empty and dark at three in the morning. Lillian Yates settled into the driver’s seat of the 1978 Ford Mustang, a gift from Joe for her thirty-third birthday. She laughed when she thought of the card he included: You’re in the prime of your life—Here’s a car to prove it. How would he know? He spent more time at that damn puzzle factory in the past two years than he did at home. Life had been crazy when he was a flyer, but at least—. Well that was then and this is now. Crazy is what she wanted, needed, not taking care of gardens or dealing with neighborhood squabbles over who did or didn’t mow their lawn.
She fumbled the ring of keys and removed the two for the front and back doors to the house. She rolled down the window and tossed the keys into the yard. Darkness did not bother her. All that bothered her was leaving baby Eric. Maybe she should take him with her. No, it was going to be a long drive, at least four days and she had to be as inconspicuous as possible. She would get him back when she settled into her new life. It would be less than a year she told the baby who could not understand.
Lillian glanced at her suitcase on the back seat. She ran a quick mental check. “If I don’t have something I’ll buy it when I get there,” she said to the steering wheel. “Let’s get on with this.”
Without looking, Lillian backed into the street, unaware that Ralph Brown was running late with the load of cement he was delivering for the morning’s first pour at Broadway Elementary school. Later, he told officers he was looking for a place to set his coffee cup on the passenger seat; that the Mustang backed out with no lights and he never had a chance to slow.
Chapter Five
Aston took two steps inside Bright Horizons Assisted Living, closed her eyes, turned around, and went back outside for fresh air. An aide, exiting the building, stopped on the steps next to her to light a cigarette. “Ain’t so bad oncet you get used to it, honey.”
“Smells like somebody pissed his pants in there,” Aston said.
“You right about that, girl. That’s what real life smells like, honey. And in here, everybody pisses in his pants,” the woman added as she walked toward a small, rust-colored Honda. The aide coughed on cigarette smoke, echoing the cough of the car’s engine. Aston watched the car until it rolled passed the exit gates.
As she started back inside, several more woman, all dressed in the same cranberry-colored scrub uniforms passed through the first set of the double doors. All nodded to her but no one spoke. One aide scanned Aston’s outfit, cargo pants and a T-shirt, and smiled. Aston drew in a deep breath and walked back to the reception desk.
“Who?” the woman shuffling papers on the desk said without looking up.
“Who, what?”
“Who you here to visit since I don’t know you and who you are related to.”
Aston turned and looked back through the entrance doors. “Okay, I’m from Tree Top Flyers Puzzles, dropping off a few puzzles for your recreation room.”
“Recreation room? Ain’t that rich. If these peoples ever rec-reated we’d be calling 911 twenty times a day. Honey, just go down that hall to your left and through those doors. Put ‘em on the table. Pick up any they ain’t chewed on.”
Aston turned to her left, took a step and came back. “Is there something wrong with your neck, honey?” she asked.
The woman looked up and ran her hand across the back of her neck. “Ah, no. Why?”
“Well, I couldn’t be sure if you were injured or if your head was so full of shit you weren’t able to look up.” She turned and started down the hallway.
“Okay, smart ass. I’m calling security on you, right now.”
Aston thought about giving her the finger, then remembered she was on the job. It might reflect badly on Eric’s company if she were to be arrested.
Aston walked as quickly as she could down the dim hallway, working hard not to look into any of the rooms, nor pay attention to any moans and groans. By the time she reached the recreation room, she felt confident that the odor of stale urine and menthol wouldn’t kill her. A dozen people were scattered around a room lit only by sunlight coming through the windows. Most of the people were slumped in wheelchairs, asleep. Two men sat at a corner table leaning over a checkerboard. A gray-haired woman, wrapped in a camouflage-patterned blanket, sat near the largest window watching activity at a bird feeder. Aston set the three puzzle boxes on the table and walked to the woman by the window.
Without turning, the woman said, “I don’t understand why they expend so much energy after they take a seed and fly somewheres else to eat it. Why not just eat it here?”
“Good question,” Aston said as she settled onto a folding chair next to the woman’s wheelchair. “Maybe they’re afraid another bird might steal it.”
As she spoke, a small brown bird with a prominent white eyebrow flew to the feeder, looked in the window, grabbed a sunflower seed and flew off. “Oh my, did you see that? Thryothorus ludovicianus,” the woman said.
Aston looked down at her. “Shit, you know your birds, lady. Carolina Wren is a great spot these days after that rough winter we had.”
“Yes. Many of them got wiped out I’m afraid.”
Aston leaned back in the chair and looked around the room. The woman’s interest in the feeder did not wane. After a few chickadees came and went, Aston said. “I was never good at the Latin names, except for Turdus migratorius.”
“And you only learned that one because the name made you laugh. I taught ornithology and Latin for a while, so I knew how to get a laugh out of kids.”
“Right you are,” Aston said and again looked around the room. Neither of the checker playe
rs appeared to have made a move. The sleepers seemed to be drifting deeper into wherever they were. At a table in the farthest corner a man in a wheelchair was hunkered over a jigsaw puzzle. “Not much stimulation around here for a birder, is there?”
“Less for a Latin teacher.”
Aston smiled and looked at the nest of silver curls created by the woman’s hair. “I’d figure living here would be good for someone who speaks a dead language. So, what’s it like, living in a nursing home after you’ve led a pretty active life?”
“It’s where you end up if you’ve been too active,” the woman said and smiled at Aston. “And it’s called assisted living, not nursing.”
Aston looked around the room. “Yeah, I can see that most everybody in here could use a little assistance.
The woman’s laugh changed into a dry cough, as she covered her mouth with a small handkerchief. She turned to Aston, “Oh, you’ll get along well, in here, young lady. You new here? You seem too young to be an inmate. And you’re too nice to be an aide.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Aston could see the man at the puzzle table back away and began to approach them. She opted not to turn to face him, but sensed him give her a full body scan. She figured he was going to lick his lips or stick out his tongue like drunks usually did. Instead, half-way across the room he turned and wheeled toward the table where she had deposited the puzzles. He studied the pictures as he rearranged the boxes.
“This the best ya got?” he mumbled without turning to face her. His voice sounded like gravel being shoveled from the back of a truck bed.
“What’s the matter Gabby Conrad,” the older woman said. “Price too high for you?”
“Get back to your ornithological research, Bird Lady.”
Aston looked at the woman. “Bird Lady, is it? I’m Aston.”
“Yes, you get tagged with a name when you get put in here. You’ll never guess why they call him Gabby.”
Aston walked over to the table where Gabby had re-stacked the jigsaw puzzle boxes, three new ones on the right, four others on the left. He studied a new box with an illustration of van Gogh’s Starry Night. She slid a chair closer to him and sat.
“Hey, Gabby. I’m Aston. Brought these over from Tree Top Flyers Puzzles.”
The old man didn’t say anything, as he tapped his finger on the box. “Painted this in 1889 while he was in a loony bin. Kinda like this place I suppose, but I’d be willing to bet it had more ambiance. The artist called it The Starry Night. People forget the ‘The’ part.”
Aston looked at the box. “Van Gogh was quite the man. I wish I could have met him.”
Gabby glanced up. “Ya know, scientists compared his turbulent play of light and shadow to the turbulence in things like whirlpools and air streams, shit we know about now, and found Van Gogh’s paintings mathematically match up. They think he figured out how to communicate that agitation, or turbulence, by using exact gradations of luminescence.”
“Don’t listen to that old fool,” Bird Lady said from across the room.
Gabby looked over at her. “Keep yer eye on that feeder. An eagle might show up. ‘Bout all you can see these days with those bad eyes of yours.”
Aston smiled. “She your girlfriend?”
“Ha. Chicks like her are a dime a dozen around here. You know what else about van Gogh?”
“Nope, but I bet you’re going to tell me.”
“See this star here, just to the right of the tree?” he said, and tapped the picture with a gnarled finger. “Astronomers figured out that’s the exact position of the morning star, planet Venus really, he would have seen on the day he painted this by looking out the window of that lunatic asylum. Still some argument about the position of the moon, though.”
“You know your shit, Gabby.”
“You bet I do,” he said as he backed his chair from the table, the new puzzle box secure on his lap. He stopped and rolled back to where Aston remained in her chair. In a low voice he said, “There’s a lot I know and could tell a smart, good-looking young lady—if you see any around.”
Aston stood, smiled and rested her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a week or so. Don’t run off with Bird Lady over there.”
“Not much chance of that. Neither of us has much tread left on the tires of these wheelchairs.”
“Speak for yourself, old man,” Bird Lady said without turning.
Aston tapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, this has been fun. I have to get back to work or the boss will figure I like it here so much I decided to stay.”
Gabby looked at the puzzle box. “Tree Top Flyers’s, huh? I could tell you a thing or two about that outfit, too. Knew the two guys who started that company, Yates and Starke, and what they did before making jigsaw puzzles.”
Aston hesitated and sat again on the arm of a nearby chair. “You mean Eric’s father?”
“Yep. Both dead now. Eric tell ya why they called the company Tree Top Flyers?”
“Nope. Didn’t ask.”
Gabby rolled his chair closer to Aston. She felt his knee press against hers. He lowered his voice. “Most people don’t know the full story. Well, Yates and Starke were both pilots in ‘Nam. Helicopter jockeys first, then fixed wing, whatever flew off the ground, they drove. Back then, they’d coast along at tree-top level so the VC couldn’t get a bead on ‘em when they was bringing our boys in for a fight, or maybe dropping shit.” Gabby’s shaky hand illustrated airplanes clipping the tops of trees “When those two, and plenty of others, got back from the war, they used their low-flying skills to carry whatever they could, to and from Texas or Arizona, in and out of Mexico—if ya get my drift. How do you think they raised the money for that business?”
“Drugs?”
“Starke once told me his favorite girl’s name was Mary Jane.”
“Shit. You haven’t been stealing meds from the Bird Lady, have you Gabby?”
He laughed and leaned back in his chair, looking over at Bird Lady. “Oh, Sweetie, I could tell you a lot. Maybe someday, when you have some extra time.”
“I have time, now.”
“Later, dearie. A good lie has to be premeditated.”
Aston leaned her bicycle against a tree and released a puzzle box from the bungee cords holding it on the rack. The bike was her choice on days that threatened rain or snow. She glanced up to where Gabby waited in his wheelchair next to the reception desk. Before she could enter the building, he rolled through the lobby toward her.
“Hey gal, you’re just in time to save my life.”
“Oh, is that so,” she responded, waiting for the punch life.
“If I don’t get some fresh air I’ll croak in there and smell like the rest of the population. Man, it stinks in this place.”
“A rat smells his own cheese, Mister Conrad,” the receptionist said.
“What a thing for a nice girl like you to say. Besides, Aston, they won’t let me go outside without adult supervision and for that you qualify. Today at least. Whatcha got in the box there?”
Aston looked around. “It’s kinda chilly, but warm enough in the sun. Roll yourself over to that bench. I have an idea here I want to run past you.”
“You gonna push me over there?”
“Nope. Not only do you need fresh air, you need some exercise of something other than your vocal cords.”
“I get plenty of exercise. I jump to conclusions all the time. Jesus H. Christ you’re tough on an old man,” he said, pausing for breath.
“Ought to see what I do to the young men, Buster.”
Gabby smiled and started toward the bench. “Oh, be still my heart.”
Aston tapped her fingers on the brown paper covering a puzzle box and waited for him to maneuver his chair into place. The drumming of a woodpecker caught her attention as Gabby reached to take the box from her.
&nbs
p; “Hey, hold on there pal. I’m trying to find a bird here.”
“Downy Woodpecker. Everyone knows that by the multiple taps. Not a Hairy.”
“Well, you’re better at birds than I thought.”
“Yeah, well, when you’re stuck in the same room with Bird Lady you better learn the language or you’ll be talking to yourself like half the other loonies in here.”
Aston smiled and shook her head. “So, you and Bird Lady got a thing going, huh?”
“Don’t lose hope young lady. I’m still available.”
Aston eased the wrapper from the box and Gabby leaned forward to study the picture. She turned the puzzle box toward him to reveal what appeared to be a street map; an aerial view of a neighborhood, as seen from a couple thousand feet. The image had ragged exterior edges.
Gabby tilted his head a bit to one side then the other. “So, it looks like, ah, Washington D.C., I’d say. No street names. Street pattern’s correct though, as I remember it.”
“And you’d be right. But what’s different about this?”
Gabby studied the picture. “No street names, for one thing. Oh, I get it. The Rotunda is smack in the middle and there’s a piece cut in the shape of a rotunda.”
“Right. That piece is called a whimsey. Old time puzzle makers used to cut pieces in the shape of animals or chairs or whatever they fancied.”
Gabby turned the box and studied the layout grid of the nation’s capital. He turned the box again and looked up at Aston.
“How many pieces?”
“This one? A thousand. We can cut them in as many pieces as you want. What else is different?”
Gabby turned the box to an unfamiliar vertical orientation rather than horizontal.
“Shit! It’s cut in the silhouette of President Toneff. No straight edge pieces.”
“Exactly,” Aston said and punched Gabby on the arm. “You’re a lot smarter than Bird Lady says you are.”