Plane in the Lake

by Neil Turner

  “I’m meeting a couple of people,” I tell her. “I’ll order when they get here.”

  “Oh!” she exclaims. “You wanna use our private dining room?”

  I stare back at her in slack-jawed surprise. “You have one?”

  “Downstairs in our apartment. Ha ha ha!” This cracks her up to the point at which she has tears in her eyes as she slaps her palms on her thighs.

  It’s not that funny, but her laughter is infectious, so I find myself chuckling right along with her. Hell, even Brian cracks a smile, albeit a very weak one.

  “How many guests?” Maiko asks while wiping a final tear from the corner of her eye.

  “Two.”

  “Plus you?”

  “Yup.”

  “Two plus you equals three, Tony-san,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “I hope you don’t help that beautiful daughter of yours with her math homework.”

  In a battle of wits, she’d take me down ninety-nine times out of a hundred—if I got lucky once.

  “You wait here while I fix you a nice table in back,” she says before bustling away toward the rear of the restaurant.

  A “nice table in back” is a little table crammed into a cubbyhole by the back door. It’s as private as things get at The Sandwich Emporium. God help her and Brian if a fire inspector ever happens by while diners are wedged into the shop’s only emergency exit. It’s where she stashes Penelope and me when we visit on Thursdays for our weekly working lunch. How in hell she plans to squeeze a third chair in there is beyond me. She returns a minute or two later, just in time to hear the door chime tinkle again when Pat walks in. Pat has exchanged the running gear for jeans and a powder-blue polo shirt. I’ve changed, too, of course, into a lawyer suit. I left the suit jacket and tie hanging on the back of my office door, where they’re safe from eating mishaps.

  “Miss O’Toole!” Maiko squeals with delight. Her eyes soften when she asks, “Are you okay?”

  Pat smiles and nods, looking mildly annoyed as she does. Continuing to be asked what she calls “the health question” the better part of a year after her shooting is testing her patience. “I know people mean well, but enough already!” she told me, following that up with “like I need constant reminders of the shooting every time I manage to put it out of mind.”

  Time to change the subject. “So, what the hell is The Sour Kraut?” I ask Maiko with a pointed glance at the daily special chalkboard.

  “Ah,” she says as her smile returns to full wattage. “German sausage with a lemon compote. Sour. Kraut. Get it?”

  Maiko stares at me expectantly, waiting for the laugh she’s sure is coming. I battle to keep a grin at bay and sternly point out, “You know that’s culturally insensitive?”

  Maiko’s hand shoots to her mouth as her eyes pop wide open, and she asks innocently, “Does that make me a bad person?”

  So much for keeping a straight face. I laugh and roll my eyes. “Probably not.”

  “Definitely not,” Pat says with an easy smile. “Sandwiches don’t have feelings.”

  The bell tinkles when the door opens again. Pat nods at the new arrival and takes a step forward with her hand extended. “Ben.”

  Ben Larose is not what I expected, sterling judge of unseen characters that I am. Having heard that he’s a pilot as well as an aviation writer, I was expecting a gung-ho, once-upon-a-time fighter jock. Why, I don’t know. I guess we all have our unwitting prejudices and misconceptions about all manner of things. Larose is as tall as I am but might weigh no more than one of my legs, and I’m not exactly bulky. The arms dangling out of the short sleeves of his sky-blue, plaid button-down shirt look like two wisps of straw. A prominent Adam’s apple protrudes like a bird’s beak out of a neck that barely looks substantial enough to support the weight of his head. Larose’s face looks as emaciated as the rest of him: sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, sliver of chin, all crowned with a mop of tousled shoulder-length straw hair. His face sports thick stubble that suggests he could grow a full beard within hours. He turns to me after greeting Pat and reaches for my hand. His blue-gray eyes sparkle with intelligence as an engaging smile appears. We exchange greetings before he announces that he needs a bathroom break.

  “What do you think?” Pat asks when he’s out of earshot.

  “I’ve been drawing this guy since high school!”

  The blank look she gives me slowly morphs into a grin and a chuckle. Pat’s a talented artist; in fact, one of her paintings hangs over the fireplace mantel at our house. I can’t paint for shit, but I have a rare gift for drawing stick people. I’ve kept Pat and others amused many a time over coffee with my little creations.

  She touches a fingertip to the bandage on my forehead with an amused smile. “How’s it feel?”

  “Like I got hit with a sink.”

  “I’m happy to report that the sink escaped the encounter unscathed,” she assures me with exaggerated relief.

  As soon as Larose reappears, Maiko bustles over and shoos us toward our freshly prepared private table. It sports a crisp, black plasticized tablecloth, utensils wrapped in designer paper napkins stuffed into a water glass in the center of the table, and a set of salt and pepper shakers in the shape of two swans. A trio of sweating water glasses completes the picture. It’s a good thing Pat and Larose take up about as much lateral space as a pair of broomsticks, I think as Maiko shoehorns us into our seats.

  “Three daily specials?” she says with a stubby pencil poised above an order pad.

  Pat and I nod. Larose glances at us, shrugs, and says, “Sure.”

  Maiko favors him with a motherly smile and departs.

  “I take it you two are friends?” Larose asks.

  Pat replies, “We worked together on our high school newspaper and have done a little investigative work together lately.”

  Larose’s brow furrows when he looks at me. “I thought you were a lawyer?”

  “Oh, he is,” Pat says. “Valenti couldn’t cut it as a newspaperman.”

  Maiko swoops in with our sandwiches, three unordered glasses of draft beer, and a pile of extra paper napkins. The sandwiches smell great. The beer smells better.

  “I, uh, don’t drink,” Larose informs Maiko as she turns to go.

  She glances back over her shoulder. “You do today!”

  He laughs and nudges his glass across the table until it sits between Pat and me. I get the sense that he’s perpetually entertained by the world around him, as if the absurdity of life is a source of unbridled amusement.

  We tuck into our Sour Kraut sandwiches, pausing frequently to grab one of a quickly diminishing supply of paper napkins to wipe our chins. Larose narrates a quick recap of his life and times between bites: private pilot license at eighteen; journalism degree at twenty-three; commercial flying license at twenty-four; three years trying to break into aviation journalism while building up flying hours… “neither of which paid for shit.” He holds up his sandwich, takes a bite, and mutters, “Good stuff!” around a mouthful.

  He’s right. Maiko and Brian have managed to slap together yet another bargain-bin gastronomical marvel.

  I push my empty paper plate aside and reach for Larose’s untouched beer. “Let’s cut to the chase,” I suggest after drinking off a long draft of brew. “What are we doing here?”

  “Did you read the Sun-Times this morning?” he asks.

  I nod and lean in closer while we lock eyes. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

  His eyes cut to Pat. “Really? You thought that?”

  Pat shrugs. “I don’t know what to think, Ben. I don’t know you all that well.”

  His tone, which carried an edge when he fired his question at Pat, softens. “True enough, but remember that I called Tony before this morning’s paper came out.”

  “Which doesn’t exactly exonerate you,” I point out while tapping my middle finger on the table to punctuate my words. “The story didn’t materialize out of thin air overnight.”

  L
arose smiles as his eyes turn to Pat. “Ah, he is a lawyer.”

  Pat chuckles as a return smile lifts the corners of her lips. “For better or worse, that he is.”

  The good humor fades when Larose turns back to me. “Cutting to the chase, then. I started hearing last week about some of what we read this morning. That’s not the type of thing anyone at the NTSB puts out.”

  “And?” I prompt.

  “I made a couple of calls. My NTSB contacts are pissed. They claim Irving didn’t get her information from them.”

  “Law enforcement?”

  “My first thought, as well,” Larose mutters with a hint of approval for my insight.

  I flip a thumb at Pat. “The thought occurred to her.”

  “Sandy Irving,” Pat explains in reference to the Sun-Times reporter after hastily swallowing a bite of sandwich. “She’s tight with the police.”

  Larose nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, she is. Here’s the thing, though. My NTSB sources say they haven’t called in the police, at least not to this point.”

  I sink back in my seat and blow out a lengthy breath. “Good to know, I suppose.”

  “If not the police or the NTSB, who is Sandy Irving talking to?” Pat asks.

  “I hoped you might have some ideas,” Larose mutters. “Nothing pisses me off more than some asshole trying to use me to push a false narrative.”

  Pat nods sympathetically. I nod as well, but a little guiltily. As a lawyer, I’m well schooled in the art of pushing false narratives. Shame on me. Probably best not to mention that just now.

  Larose scowls and continues, “I got a phone call last week from some guy who took great pleasure in identifying himself as an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter.”

  Pat laughs softly. “God, don’t you just love asses like that?”

  No need to get personal, I think dryly.

  Larose snorts. “Give me a normal source instead of some wide-eyed amateur playing Deep Throat to my Woodward and Bernstein.”

  I look at the reporters in confusion. Who in hell are we talking about?

  Pat seems to intuit my unspoken question. She gives me a sympathetic look and pats my hand. “The source and reporters who broke Watergate,” she informs me while sharing a disbelieving look with Larose.

  I’m apparently some sort of news-history ignoramus. Never mind that Watergate happened in the early 1970s, when I was in diapers.

  We fall silent. I run the Sun-Times article through my mind while they polish off their sandwiches and push their plates aside, then ponder Irving’s source. I suspect Pat and Larose are doing likewise. I’m first to take a stab at connecting the dots. “Could it be the owners of Windy City Sky Tours trying to get a narrative out there to taint Billy and Rick?”

  “Billy and Rick?” Larose asks.

  “R & B Ramp Services,” Pat answers. “Windy City’s maintenance vendor. Also Tony’s clients.”

  Larose nods his understanding. “Irving was also peddling the possibility of bad fuel. Her source wants the fuel vendor to look bad, too.”

  “Yeah, but it’s pretty common knowledge that AAA Avgas is all mobbed up,” I say. “They hardly need to be tainted in the public eye, do they?”

  “No, they don’t,” Larose agrees thoughtfully while Maiko swoops in and clears the table. We decline her offer of dessert.

  “I think Billy and Rick were the primary targets of Irving’s story,” I mutter angrily after Maiko walks away. “It really pisses me off that she put Billy and Rick in bed with Avgas.”

  “Pretty clever ploy to paint your guys as common crooks,” Pat says when her eye settles on me. “Who might want to do that?”

  The pieces of the puzzle settle firmly into place. “My money is on the bastards at Windy City.” Sooner or later, it’s a sure bet that Billy and Rick are going to find themselves in court against their Windy City pals, who have just fired the opening salvo in what promises to be a nasty battle to shape public opinion.

  Chapter Six

  Francesco Valenti pokes his head out the back door of his Liberty Street home. “Coffee?” he asks Ed Stankowski.

  Ed shoots a look to his fossil partner for the day, Max Maxwell, who is a granite block of retired Chicago PD sergeant with a graying military brush cut. Max is seated on the opposite side of the patio from Ed. They both wear jeans and short-sleeve, police-department-logoed golf shirts with well-worn leather shoulder holsters holding Glock pistols.

  “Coffee?” Ed asks.

  “Nah, just makes me hafta piss,” Max grumbles.

  Ed smiles at Francesco and holds up a single finger. “Just one, pal. Thanks.”

  “The guy makes a hell of a sandwich!” Max says after Francesco disappears back into the house. It’s his first day here. Sharing his sunflower seeds with Deano has made him a fast canine friend. The dog is lounging in the grass a couple of feet away from Max, patiently waiting for his new pal to toss another sunflower seed his way.

  They’ve just finished paninis piled high with every Italian cold cut known to mankind, compliments of Francesco, who has insisted on feeding the fossils lunch every day. He’d gotten downright pissy the one time a fossil brought a sandwich from home.

  “Seems like a nice enough guy, too,” Max adds.

  Ed belches and slaps his stomach. “Yeah, he’s good people. We’ve been able to shoot the shit quite a bit over the past week. Interesting guy.”

  Max frowns and digs a hand into his ever-present bag of Spitz sunflower seeds, causing Deano to go on point. “Seems strange to be talking that way about a guy who killed a cop, don’t it?”

  Ed has no qualms about being in Francesco’s corner. He’d initially been a little conflicted about protecting a cop killer, but Jake Plummer considers Francesco’s exoneration a righteous acquittal, and Jake’s word is gold with Ed. The story about how Francesco had rescued his sister and put down the sack of shit who raped and kidnapped her also earned him some serious props with the retired detective. Taking down a mobster face-to-face to save a loved one at age twenty or thereabouts took some balls. Too bad Jake won’t let me share that story with the fossils, Ed thinks. The guys would appreciate what Francesco did and would feel better about being here.

  He looks Max in the eye. “Andrew O’Reilly was a sad excuse for a cop.”

  “Can’t argue that point,” Max mutters.

  Their heads snap toward the crack of splintering wood at the back of the yard. The old cops are still frozen in place when a figure wearing a black balaclava steps around the corner of the garage.

  The man—it’s gotta be a man judging by the gait and build, Ed thinks as his mental synapses fire to register the deadly risk they’re facing—looks around the yard, his eyes following the arc traced by a handgun thrust ahead of him in a two-fisted hold. The turning head stops at Ed. The gun follows. Ed is reaching for the pistol in his shoulder holster as the intruder’s gun barrel settles on him. People weren’t shitting me. That fucking gun barrel looks ten feet wide.

  A streaking Deano shoots past the rose garden and launches himself at the attacker. The dog’s jaws clamp shut on the shooter’s biceps in the same instant the man pulls the trigger—a fraction of a second too late. Ed spins around with the impact of the bullet and topples off the edge of the patio into a rose bush while a bolt of fire rockets up his arm. The crack of more gunfire permeates into his brain, accompanied by the fierce snarling of Deano. The shooting stops in the same moment that the dog’s growl is abruptly cut off. It’s replaced with a pitiable whimper before the back gate slams shut.

  When the yard falls silent, Ed is face down in the dirt, gritting his teeth and squeezing his burning biceps with his good hand.

  “Max!” he cries out frantically as his eyes track across the patio. A battered pair of Reebok cross-trainers stop a couple of feet away from Ed’s eyes a moment later. I hope to hell those belong to Max.

  “Hang in there, brother,” Max says as he kneels down and pushes his face in front of Ed’s. “Jus
t the arm wound?”

  “Just?” Ed moans through clenched teeth.

  “That’s it?” Max asks sharply as his eyes lift to survey the yard.

  Ed finally gets it. Max isn’t about to piss around with a nonlethal wound while the threat of an active shooter persists, no matter how much the fucking thing hurts. Ed nods and waves Max away.

  “What happen? I hear the shots!” Francesco shouts as he bursts through the back door. His wild eyes quickly lock on Ed. “You are shot?”

  No fucking kidding. Ed shoots a disbelieving look at Francesco and shouts, “Get back inside, you dopey old son of a bitch!”

  Max gets up in Francesco’s face and bodily shoves him toward the door. “Get your ass back in there and call 911!”

  “Now!” Ed adds while Max’s eyes sweep the yard with his Glock at the ready.

  Given something useful to do, Francesco seems to get a grip on his initial panic. He nods and hustles back inside.

  “Did you get the fucker?” Ed asks when Max returns and kneels at his side.

  Max’s eyes continue to sweep the yard. “Don’t know. Didn’t wanna hit the dog, and the garage blocked my line of sight to the gate, so I only had a split second to shoot after Deano dropped out of sight.”

  Speaking of which, Ed thinks as he struggles to sit upright and casts his eyes around the yard in search of Deano. “Oh shit,” he mutters disconsolately when he spots an inert mass of black fur just inside the back gate.

  Max’s eyes track Ed’s. “Fuck!” he growls before he gets to his feet and marches toward the back of the yard, pistol leading the way in a two-fisted grip. Given the murderous expression etched on his face, Ed suspects Max is hoping a target pops into view.

  They both startle when the back door slams open again and Francesco pokes his head out. He’s got a telephone jammed tight to his ear. “The police! They come!”