Plane in the Lake

by Neil Turner

  Max’s expression leaves little doubt that he wishes the guy wasn’t doing even that well. I’m totally in sync with his thinking. Mind you, we’d all like to hear everything the guy can tell us. Then he’s free to croak.

  “We’ve done some digging on the guy,” Jake continues. “He’s not from Italy, after all. He’s from Toledo and is connected to the Luciano family’s operations there, though he’s pretty much retired now. It turns out that his family traces their roots back to Calabria and the Cosche assholes there.”

  Papa’s eyes switch from sorrow to rage in an instant, but he holds his tongue.

  Jake gives him a moment to say something, then moves on. “We were right. Some sorry old bastard from over there is behind this.”

  “What do we know for sure, Jake?” I ask.

  His lips tighten into an angry straight line that suggests frustration. “The line between Italian law enforcement and Ndrangheta gets a little murky at times, so I had Interpol do a little poking around Calabria to smoke out these fuckers.” His eyes shoot to Brittany and Pat. “Sorry about the language, ladies.”

  Brittany, who has been plucking leaves off the oak tree we’re standing beneath, is now absently picking one apart. She waves the apology aside and hisses, “They are fuckers.”

  I feel Bobby Harland’s eyes on me when I don’t react. I won’t correct Brittany for saying what we’re all thinking. When my eyes meet Bobby’s, I offer him the slightest nod. He responds with the ghost of a smile. Damned if I don’t like this kid.

  “Anyway, until we work this out, Francesco needs to make himself scarce,” Jake concludes.

  “We’re working on a plan for that,” I inform him.

  His eyes cut to mine. He spins his hand in a “come on” motion and waits for me to explain.

  “We’re thinking we might spirit Papa away to stay with his sister in Italy.”

  Jake’s brow furrows as he absorbs the news. “Italy?”

  “Who’s gonna look for him there?” I reply. “Plus, he’ll be with people we can trust.”

  “I guess there’s some twisted logic in that,” he allows after he thinks for a minute, but he’s clearly skeptical.

  Max jerks a thumb at Jake and addresses Papa. “I hear this guy told you that you’re on your own now?”

  Papa nods.

  Max shoots Jake a pissed-off look. “Well, he don’t speak for all of us, Francesco. You’re moving your ass out of your house, right?”

  Papa nods.

  “Good move,” Max says before he turns to me. “Tell me about this plan of yours.”

  I explain our nascent plan, such as it is.

  “I kinda like that,” Max says. “When do we leave?”

  We?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Papa and I arrive at Cedar Heights Police Department headquarters shortly after eight o’clock three evenings later. In an echo of the September evening when my father shot a man a year ago, we’re ensconced in the Spartan reception area while someone fetches Detective Plummer. Once again, he leads us to the last in a row of metal desks that have seen better days and seats us in a pair of folding chairs placed in front of it. It’s déjà vu all over again, including the stench of charred coffee. At least Papa isn’t behind bars tonight, although he’s not exactly a free man—not with a death sentence hanging over his head yet again. This one seems more threatening. Instead of the prospect of due process in a courtroom, this threat could end at any moment with a bullet to the head.

  Jake’s eyes look like a shattered windshield with the cracks rimmed in red. I’ve never seen him wearier. Trying to track down his friend’s killer of is taking one hell of a toll on him. “I’m still not sure what to make of this caper of yours, but I’m glad Max is going along for the ride,” he says.

  Caper? I think with an inner smile. Who in hell uses that word nowadays?

  Max arrives while I’m trying to come up with a suitable response. Like Papa and me, he’s dressed all in black and has a matching ski cap in hand. He looks us over, nods in approval, shakes hands all around, and faces Papa when he’s done. “Your timing sucks, Francesco.”

  My father’s response is a blank look.

  Max sits his ass on the corner of Jake’s desk. “Oktoberfest is over, and it’s too early for the Christmas markets. You wanna take me on any more European adventures, you gotta plan better is all I’m saying.”

  Jake shakes his head with a bemused expression, then slaps a hand on his desk. “I’m coming with you as far as Bolingbrook.”

  Bolingbrook?

  “No need,” Max counters.

  “Shut up, Max,” Jake says. “I arranged the rides and I’m tagging along.”

  I can see that Max is pleased to have him along when he nods at Jake. So am I, even if his presence underscores the jeopardy Papa is in.

  Jake’s desk phone rings before I can ask why we’re going to Bolingbrook. He listens briefly and then says, “Right. We’ll be right down.” He hangs up, pushes back from his desk, and gets to his feet. “Suit up, folks.”

  Max pulls his ski cap on low over his forehead, so Papa and I do likewise. Then we troop out of the squad room after Jake, who leads us down a back stairwell.

  “The fewer people who see us leave, the better,” he explains while he peers through a peephole in a door that must lead into the rear parking lot. Apparently satisfied with what he sees, he pushes the door open and motions us out.

  Max leads and ducks into a Cedar Heights PD black-and-white cruiser. Papa and I pile in behind him, then Jake hops into the front passenger seat, slaps a hand on the dashboard, and says, “Let’s go.”

  As we zip out of the parking lot, Jake tells the driver that we’re going to a bookstore and gives him the address on Berwyn. He told us upstairs that we’ll be switching vehicles. News of a bookstore stop comes as a surprise.

  “We gonna score some girly magazines?” Max asks.

  Jake snorts. “It’s a bookstore, Max, not the kinda place that sells your style of reading material.”

  Max shrugs. “Whatever.”

  “Do you know Zack Menzies?” Jake asks him.

  “Sure,” Max replies, then does a double take. “Oh! This is his bookstore?”

  “Yup.”

  “Always wanted to visit.”

  “You won’t be browsing the shelves tonight,” Jake says. “We’ll be going in the front door, hustling through the mysteries and police procedurals, then straight past the thriller section and out the back door.”

  Max chuckles. “What? No romance section? No classic literature? No sports?”

  “Maybe a sports book or two,” Jake allows. Then he turns to Papa and me. “Zack’s another old cop. Bought himself a little bookshop when they pensioned him off.”

  The cruiser zooms along the damp streets without regard to posted speed limits, slicing through a steady drizzle and the haze wafting off the pavement as it evaporates. How is it that nights like this seem to swallow all light? It’s like driving without headlights.

  “And here we are,” Jake says ten minutes later when the cruiser coasts to a stop under a streetlight. Zack’s Used Books is a little storefront establishment in a well-weathered block of them. A Closed sign hangs in the door window.

  “There’s an unmarked panel van waiting in the alley out back,” Jake tells us before he opens the door. “Heads down and follow me. Don’t stop, don’t look around. Getting in and out of here is our riskiest move.” He hops out, takes a quick look up and down the street, then yanks the cruiser’s back door open. “Let’s go!”

  I swallow and follow him across the sidewalk. A silent man in a fedora and raincoat stands beside the front door and swings it open for us. This is even more noir than the Brooks and Valenti temporary offices.

  “Thanks, Zack,” Jake says without slowing. He leads us through the narrow aisles of the darkened store, which is illuminated by a handful of recessed lights with dimmers dialed almost all the way off. Either that, or Menzies found a bun
ch of two-watt light bulbs somewhere. The only sound breaking the ghostly silence is the squelching of our rubber soles on the polished hardwood floor. Tall shelves crammed with dusty-smelling books tower above us on either side, teetering ever so slightly as we hurry past them. The prospect of being buried beneath hundreds of books puts an extra pop in my step. I’m right on Jake’s tail when he steps into an alcove that houses another exterior door.

  “Move your ass, Francesco,” Max grumbles from behind us.

  Jake has a half smile on his face when his eyes meet mine. “Right into the van out there. Keep your head down. No stopping to gawk.” Then he peers through another peephole, shoves the crash bar to open the door, and waves us out.

  With his warning that this is the riskiest part of the trip fresh in my mind, I hustle across the four-foot gap between the building and the waiting vehicle. When I plant my feet to stop outside the van’s open side door, my shoes slide on the slick pavement. “Shit!” I cry out as I crack my shin on the rocker panel and crash facedown on the van’s grimy, smelly floor.

  Max rolls me deeper inside as he enters behind me. “Smooth move,” he says with a smirk.

  I’m on my back with both hands clutching my skinned shin when the door slams shut and the driver stabs the gas, throwing me backward to smack my head on the steel of the wheel well. Great. The wound on my forehead from Pat’s bathroom has almost healed; let’s start a new one on the back of my thick skull.

  Max shakes his head as he watches, then turns to Jake. “Maybe we should drop Tony off at Loyola Emergency along the way so he’ll be in good hands when he really hurts himself.”

  “Fuck off, Max,” I mutter through clenched teeth, even though my leg feels as if it could use the ministrations of Loyola’s Level One Trauma Center staff right about now.

  My cursing prompts a deeper laugh from Max. “We’ll turn you into a potty-mouthed old bastard like the rest of us yet!”

  I work myself into a sitting position with my back braced against the van’s side panel and look around in the dim light. If the outside of this thing is in as poor shape as the grubby interior, our wheels won’t attract any attention. The roaring road noise bleeding through the bare steel floor and shell of the van make me long for the cathedrallike hush inside my Porsche.

  “Did we get away clean?” I ask Jake.

  “Yeah. I had uniforms stationed at both ends of the alley to make sure no one saw us pile in here. We should be good.”

  I roll my pant leg up and frown at the angry two-inch gash on my shin. Max smirks before he looks away. I follow his gaze to Papa, whose eyes are glittering with excitement. At least one of us seems to be enjoying our little caper.

  “Is fun!” Papa exclaims when he catches me looking.

  “First time I’ve heard a target talking about how much fun it is to be out dodging bullets,” Max mutters with a dark chuckle.

  Papa and Max will be on a flight to Europe by morning, but I’m not yet privy to the logistical details of their departure. In fact, I don’t even know what airport they’ll be leaving from. This whole production is an eye-opening glimpse into a darker cloak-and-dagger world than I’ve never experienced. When I travel, I simply catch a cab or drive myself to the airport.

  “What next?” I ask Jake a few minutes later, after the van accelerates up a ramp and settles into a steady pace. We’re obviously on a highway, most likely Interstate 290 or I-55.

  “We’re on our way to the airport. If anyone’s tracking Francesco, it’s most likely a Mickey Mouse operation using cars and shoe leather. They won’t be prepared to track an aircraft.”

  “Are they leaving from O’Hare or Midway?” I ask, referring to Chicago’s two major airports.

  “Neither. They’re flying out of Clow.”

  So, now I know why we’re going to Bolingbrook.

  Jake turns to Max. “I’m looking forward to seeing this place.”

  “Nothing to write home about,” Max says with a chuckle. “Damnedest little ‘international’ airport I’ve ever seen.”

  I’ve heard about the place from Billy Likens and am intrigued. Clow International Airport is a general aviation facility in the far-southwest suburb of Bolingbrook, around thirty miles away from downtown Chicago. The man who founded it as a grass strip in the 1950s, Oliver Boyd Clow, managed to bring a little fun to the staid world of airport nomenclature by attaching International to the name of the field. I smile as I recall Billy telling me that Clow had said his airfield was named on a lark that bordered on the ridiculous. He had that right. I wonder how many—if any—of the little aircraft flying in and out of Clow have the range to reach the Canadian border in a single hop, let alone wing their way across oceans to Europe and beyond.

  “We’ll be monitoring the comings and goings at the airport to make sure nobody gets a good look at what’s going on,” Jake says as he turns back to me. “From Clow, our boys are off to Minneapolis.”

  “We’ll be flying KLM from there to Amsterdam,” Max says.

  “Minneapolis?” I ask.

  Jake nods. “Yup. The Luciano clan might have eyes at the Chicago airports. Their reach doesn’t extend to Minnesota.”

  Makes sense, but I was expecting to be home within the next hour or so after seeing Papa and Max off. “Guess I won’t be spending the evening at home, after all,” I grumble. “Hell, I’ll be lucky to be back by morning.”

  Jake’s eyes cut to me. “You’re going to Minneapolis? That isn’t in the plan.”

  “I’m going to see Papa off,” I announce firmly. Jake considers arguing for a long moment, then lets it go.

  “The more the merrier,” Max quips before he outlines their travel plans beyond Amsterdam. “We’ll be traveling south by train through Germany with stops in Hannover and Munich on the way to Innsbruck, Austria. Francesco’s nephew will pick us up there, then it’s an eight-hour drive to Francesco’s sister’s place.”

  “They can travel in the EU without passports after they clear customs in Amsterdam, so tracking them after that won’t be easy,” Jake explains.

  Papa’s sister has been safely tucked away in the town of Penne in Italy’s Abruzzo province since she fled Orsomarso some fifty years ago. We’re hopeful Papa can also fly under the radar there.

  Buried in the back of the van as we’ve bounced and jostled our way along since leaving the expressway, we haven’t seen much other than streetlights and the occasional building flash past. The first visual clue to our arrival at Clow comes when we pass through a pair of large sliding doors and find ourselves inside an aircraft hangar. Who knew there were hangars at Clow?

  We tumble out of the van and find ourselves standing beside a gleaming white, high-winged airplane. It’s bigger than I imagined Jake’s “puddle jumper” would be, although it’s small by airline standards. The hangar isn’t expansive, either—maybe twenty feet wide by thirty feet long, and twenty or so feet tall. Only about one in three of the overhead lights is switched on. The place smells of airport—whiffs of grease and oil overlaid with the sharp stench of aviation gasoline. My eyes settle on the aircraft. It looks familiar. The first inkling of why is a stylized red-and-blue Cessna decal that is mounted on the lower half of the fuselage just forward of the pilot’s door. Beside that sits an emblem that reminds me of a Roman soldier’s helmet.

  “What?” Max asks when he sees me staring.

  It can’t be. I shake my head. “Nothing. Where are the suitcases?”

  “Already on board,” Jake replies. “We shipped them ahead. Wouldn’t do to have Francesco and Max seen hauling luggage around, would it?”

  “Good point,” I reply. He seems to have thought of everything. Maybe he even knows what kind of aircraft this is. I point and warily ask, “Is this a Cessna 210?”

  “Pretty sure it is.”

  A kid comes around the front of the aircraft, smiles at us, and gives Jake a quick half hug. There’s a slight family resemblance there, something in the chin and cheekbones. But whereas Jake is a
little on the short side and balding, the newcomer is tall and gangly with mussed black hair covering his ears. He’s wearing blue jeans, a button-down, western-style, long-sleeve shirt and a pair of beaten-up Nike sneakers that may have been white at some point in the distant past. Think castles, knights on white chargers, lots of kings and queens in charge of the Western world—that far back.

  “Is this thing a Cessna 210?” Jake asks the youngster.

  “Yup. A Centurion.”

  Holy shit. Given what happened to the only other Cessna 210 I know anything about, I’m not sure how I feel about flying in this thing. “Does it fly?” I ask in a lame attempt at humor.

  The kid gives me an odd look before he leads us around the airplane and opens the door leading into the rear passenger compartment. I follow Papa and Max inside and glance up to greet our pilot, but the left front seat is empty. I glance back outside and see Jake talking with the kid.

  He slaps the youngster on the shoulder. “Thanks, Tony. I owe you one.”

  “I’d say you owe me several!” the kid counters with a grin.

  “Jake’s nephew, Tony,” Max explains when he sees me watching. “We’ll call him Tony Junior for tonight.”

  Jake pokes his head inside while we strap in, Papa and me in the rearmost seat looking forward and Max in a seat that backs onto the pilot’s seat and faces us. Our knees are maybe three or four feet apart.

  “Have a good trip, guys,” Jake says as he shakes hands all around. “Good luck,” he adds pointedly to Papa and Max before he turns and walks away.

  Tony Junior speaks briefly with another man who is wearing the type of coveralls Billy Likens and Rick Hogan wear on the job. Junior then climbs into the pilot’s seat and starts flicking a bewildering array of knobs and switches and dials while the mechanic waits.

  I take advantage of the opportunity to examine my surroundings. There are windows on either side of us with a pretty good view outside, the roof is close overhead, and the black floor is made from the same type of material I’m accustomed to seeing under my feet in jetways when I board or exit real airplanes. The seats are leather, or a pretty decent imitation thereof. I’m reminded of piling into the cavernous back of our old Pontiac station wagon as kids when we went on road trips… and I’m going to fly how many feet high in this thing?