Six Passengers, Five Parachutes

by Ian Bull

  “Turn it around, now!”

  I jump out, lift my red dress, kick off my heels, and dash past three squad cars and an ambulance. Heads turn but no one stops me.

  Police officers in black form a ring around paramedics in yellow who surround Rikki’s green BMW. Through their arms and legs, I can see into the car—there’s a wrist coming out of a purple Chanel jacket, blood flowing off the fabric and down her fingers. The red and yellow lights pulse, reflecting off her wedding ring. I feel an ache. She still wears her wedding ring. Why didn’t I notice that before?

  I can’t see Steven. I push closer, until a police officer blocks me.

  “You have to step back,” she says.

  “Are they dead?” I ask, but the officer stays stone-faced. I could plow through these people with all the adrenaline in me right now. The officer grabs my shoulders in case I try.

  A flash goes off behind me, lighting up the interior of the car long enough to see Steven slumped against the other door, blood streaming down his face, a paramedic’s hand on his throat. He can’t be dead. I still love him, and I’m too furious at him right now.

  A big man in a Hawaiian print shirt, goatee, and a USC Football hat snaps my picture. “Julia! Are Rikki Lassen and Steven Quintana dead?” he asks, blinding me with more photos.

  “Okay, back up,” the officer says, motioning for help.

  “Poor little rich girl loses it all? I’ll make a fortune here,” the paparazzo says.

  I lift my dress and show him my legs. He stops snapping photos and stares. I swivel my hip and kick his knee, trying to turn him into a stork. There’s a loud pop as he collapses to the pavement, howling in pain.

  “You broke my leg!”

  “Call a cop, asshole.”

  Two officers rush to help him as two others grab me.

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  Robert Snow

  Day 1: Saturday Night

  Tegucigalpa, Honduras

  Enrique, our driver, slides through every curve, tossing Tina, me, and our camera gear like pills in a bottle as we speed toward the National Penitentiary in Comayagua, Honduras. Tina and I must cast a prisoner and get Boss Man to approve him tonight if I’m going to keep my reality TV competition show alive.

  And we must eliminate Steven Quintana, but only I know about that wrinkle.

  Tina opens the window and a warm breeze fills the car, drying our skin. She stares at the dark fields zooming past. Beautiful Tina Swig, my casting director with the curly dark hair and glasses, looks so sexy in her white shirt and khaki pants. I can’t lose this project, or her.

  “Glad that we’re casting again?” I ask, putting on my cool Ryan Gosling imitation.

  “I’ve been to Lebanon, Brazil, Rwanda, Bulgaria, and now Honduras,” she says. “Four continents in eighteen months, and I found you four great cast members. Do we really have to cast all six people before the Boss Man gives us the green light again?”

  “Yes. One prisoner from here, and then an Asian prisoner from Hong Kong.”

  Boy, can I lie. I don’t call this lying, though; I call it good producing. All projects stall at some point, and Quintana digging around is what stalled mine, not Boss Man’s displeasure with Tina’s casting. But a good producer keeps his parade moving until his luck changes, and my luck changed for the better three weeks ago, when Boss Man’s people found Quintana traveling, living on the down low while doing research on us. Knowing Boss Man would soon squash him like a bug, I asked him for permission to resume casting and to fund this trip to Honduras.

  Tina moves her lips as she looks out the window. She’s practicing her ultimatum, her line in the sand, her it all ends here unless speech. It’s so cute. She turns back to me, ready.

  “Instead of spending holidays with my son, I’ve been sneaking around the world with you. Then we rush back to our ass-sucking jobs hours after we land. I’m exhausted.”

  “You’ve been well-compensated,” I say.

  “I’m not looking for part-time casting work. I took this gig to be an executive producer and to get rich. But the show’s been in limbo for weeks. I’m ready to walk.”

  I glance toward Enrique in the front seat. His white knuckles grip the steering wheel as he peers into the darkness. He thinks he’s in a Formula One race, so he’s not hearing any of this.

  “I’ll take care of you, Tina. I’m the best producer in the world at this.”

  She tilts her head and shoots me a sexy smirk. Her white shirt clings to her skin. She’s five years older than I am and she’s a single mom, but I’d date her if she’d let me. We’ve made love four times, but always on the road, and for her, what happens on the road stays on the road.

  “Then tell me I can quit my job and give me my first salary,” she says, patting my hand. “Hate to be mean, but I’m all about the green.”

  I’m a tall, dorky white kid from the suburbs of Miami, with dirty blond hair, no muscles, and too many freckles. In a nightclub, I’m the dumbass in the corner with a beer in my hand. If I ever get the girl, it’ll be because of my success, not my sexiness. But when this show goes, I’ll be rich enough to get any girl I want, and I want her. We have the same kinks.

  “What if I could get us the green light tonight?” I ask.

  “That would make a world of difference,” she says, then touches her hair and smiles. She’s sending me “available” signals. I imagine doing the dirty deed with her here in Central America, and then again in Hong Kong.

  “I won’t disappoint you,” I whisper, and grab her hand. I lean in, hoping for a kiss, but she just winks and gives my hand a squeeze. She’s playing me until I come through.

  Tonight will be tough. Not only must we cast a great prisoner, Boss Man wants to promote him as “American.” I convinced him once that a white-looking Central American with ties to the USA is as close as we can get, but he’s harping on it again. But I’ve already sold him on the show; now I’m gambling that I can sell him on this contestant, too. And if his men don’t stop Quintana, none of this matters anyway.

  An hour later, we’re in a cement room in one of the worst prisons in the world. My phone says that there’s 80% humidity tonight. Everything is coated with a moist slime—my metal chair, the folding table, even the pen in my hand—and it all smells like a used gym bag.

  I love the entertainment business. It’s just so glamorous.

  Tina sits next to me, drumming her pen on her stack of papers. Prison doesn’t bother her at all. A prisoner in a blue jumpsuit enters the room and stands on a small wooden riser.

  “Can you take off your shirt, please?” Tina asks him.

  “Why?” He juts his chin out, defiant.

  I fight to keep a straight face. This convicted killer has no hope for freedom except this chance to be on my show, yet he cops more attitude than a YouTube star.

  Tina pushes her glasses into her curly hair and shoots him her thousand-yard stare. I love this part; I’ve seen Tina stare down toothless fishermen and rich, sociopathic housewives with those green eyes of hers. A prison guard stands at the metal door, and two more stand against the back wall. If the prisoner lunged off his platform, he’d get his fingers around her neck before any of them could stop him, but Tina doesn’t flinch.

  I check his image on the camcorder next to me. He is half-lit by one overhead lamp, and his scarred face looks mean. This guy can create a movie moment, so I check his one sheet: Juan Pedro Pacheco. Brown hair and skin, mustache, five feet, nine inches tall, guilty of one murder. I’ll see five more like him tonight. Juan Pedro finally looks down. Tina wins again.

  “If you have a good body, it can help you get on the show. Understand?” Tina asks.

  Juan Pedro nods. He steps out of his blue cotton jumpsuit, pulls off his shirt, and stands in his black boxers and rubber slippers. He looks like a UFW Fight Night welterweight, 150 pounds of muscle and tendon. Juan Pedro then turns and reveals the left side of his body, which is a mass of burn scars. Thick, dark kelo
ids intersect over smooth and shiny pink skin, like a 3D highway map from his knee to his shoulder.

  “What happened to you?” Tina asks, her voice catching.

  I answer for him. “Comayagua prison fire, here in Honduras. February of 2012. Four hundred people died in the worst prison fire in history. And you survived.”

  “I was on fire and still made it past the barbed wire. It took a week for them to catch me.”

  I glance at Tina. His English is good. He may be the “American” our show needs.

  “He’s not American enough,” she whispers, as if reading my mind. “I don’t want to lose another green light over the wrong casting choice.”

  “I can’t bribe the warden and guards in an American prison. Too risky. Boss Man knows Honduras is as close as we’ll get. With the right video, I can sell him to Boss Man.”

  Tina picks up the next one sheet in front of her. “The next prisoner grew up in the States and got extradited to Honduras at age twenty-seven. He’s got Anglo features. He’s the American Dream gone bad. We can sell him easier than this guy.”

  I motion to the guard at the metal door. “Bring in the next prisoner.”

  “Dos, que quieres? Dos en el mismo tiempo?” he asks, shocked.

  Two, you want? Two at the same time?

  I can’t back down now. “Yes.”

  The guards load their rifle chambers and my heart races like I’m in an action movie. The next prisoner enters and joins Juan Pedro on the platform. He’s taller, with lighter skin and more European features. He’s Rico Perez from El Salvador, who crossed illegally into the States at age ten and grew up in San Francisco, where he joined the MS-13 gang. He committed six murders in Honduras, each time returning to California. A traffic stop led to his arrest and extradition.

  “Take off your shirt,” Tina says.

  Rico strips. He’s less cut than Juan Pedro, more like a wrestler than a boxer. His neck, chest, back, and arms are covered in gang tattoos, with a big American flag across his belly.

  Tina leans over and whispers. “If we had to pick, he’s the closest.” I smell rose water mixed with her sweat. I want her so badly right now…. Whoa, enough ADD, I need to focus.

  Juan Pedro has a better body and story, but Rico has white features and that flag tattoo. Which one is more American? I can’t decide. I need a Xanax. What I really want is a text that tells me Quintana is gone. Then I’ll be able to focus.

  “I want you to fight,” I tell them. They narrow their eyes as if they didn’t hear me right.

  “Whoever is on the show has a chance to win freedom and two million dollars. Or you may die. Which of you wants it more?”

  “I should call the warden,” a guard behind me interrupts.

  “The warden just wants the money. Money that you’ll get, too,” I say and turn back to the prisoners. “You still want in?”

  Juan Pedro and Rico both nod. I’m a thirty-year-old son of a dentist who grew up playing video games and watching reality TV. I wouldn’t last a week in this prison, yet here I am, pitting two killers against each other.

  “Robert, you’re taking this too far,” Tina says.

  “There is no ‘too far.’ The line is always moving, and we have to be the ones moving it.”

  Rico and Juan Pedro make the sign of the cross on their chests.

  “First man to surrender loses. Three…two…one…fight.”

  Juan Pedro connects with a left jab that breaks Rico’s nose, spraying blood and snapping his head back. Rico rushes in and bear hugs Juan Pedro off the ground and body slams him against the cement wall. Juan Pedro’s skull bounces; the skin of his scalp splits and blood gushes forth, covering both men.

  I look at the guards. They’re mesmerized. I get a rush of confidence. This show is going to work. I look at Tina. She’s breathing faster. She grabs my leg under the table. She likes it, too. My chances for tonight are improving.

  My cellphone vibrates with a text: Handling Los Angeles problem now. Updates coming.

  My luck may be changing.

  Rico wins and goes to the infirmary to get his nose set. I pay off the warden, and an hour later, we are back in the Marriott Hotel in Tegucigalpa after another high-speed race that earned Enrique a hundred-dollar tip. After that prison sweatbox, we need a first-world hotel.

  And I need one more text about Quintana. Otherwise, I’ll lose the project and Tina.

  I pull out two more beers from the minibar and step through the sliding glass doors onto the balcony. Tina leans against the railing and stares out over the flickering lights of Tegucigalpa, the murder capital of the world. Her ass looks like a peach in her white hotel robe. She faces me and smiles as she pushes back that awesome curly hair of hers, still damp from her shower. My heart flutters. We clink bottles and sip, then look out at the city.

  “How soon before Boss Man approves Rico?”

  “I uploaded the footage and he’s looking at him now,” I say, which is true. “You were right about your boy Rico. He’s more American.”

  “So we have a green light?”

  “Just waiting for the text to come.”

  “I’ll need to see it,” she says.

  “Should we open the hard stuff? There’s whiskey,” I say, hoping to keep the party going.

  “It will just dehydrate me for the flight tomorrow,” she says, and glances at her watch, which is a bad sign. “I can’t be sick on my first day back at work.”

  We both have shitty jobs working for the American branch of Velodrome International, one of the largest TV production companies in the world, with branches in twenty countries.

  “True. I’m sure Gil will grill us in the Monday morning meeting,” I say.

  “Don’t remind me.” She takes a long chug of beer.

  I’m the Director of Development. Tina is the Director of Talent and Casting. Gil Krauss is the Vice President of Development and our boss. He’s a domineering narcissist who has three goals—get TV shows on the air, take credit for our work, and crush our spirits.

  “Remember our first casting trip together?” I ask.

  “We were in Atlanta, casting for Drama Queens. Good show,” she says.

  It was a TV concept I created about a talent agency for babies. It ran for four seasons.

  “Velodrome made millions on the international sales alone,” I say. “Imagine if we had gotten even ten percent of that.”

  Tina nods, remembering. That Atlanta trip was also the first time we shared a bed, and it was incredible. Maybe she’s remembering that, too.

  “You’ll get more than ten percent on this project. A lot more,” I say.

  She glances at her watch again. “I’m thirty-five now. Did you know that?”

  “So? You look fantastic,” I answer.

  “I’m talking about my life, not my looks. I can’t keep doing this. Living out of a suitcase, traveling around and finding crazy people desperate to be on TV. I should go back to my room.”

  My phone vibrates. I pull it out of my front pocket and look at the text: You have a green light.

  That Army photographer messed with the wrong powerful people. I pity him for not understanding how the world works. I show her my phone and her whole face lights up.

  “Thank God. I can phone in and quit tomorrow.”

  “Not me. I’m doing it during the Monday morning meeting,” I say.

  Tina throws her head back and laughs louder than I’ve heard her laugh in months.

  I touch her arms, feeling her toned muscles, then pull her close and kiss her. Our mouths open and our tongues touch lightly. She presses her body harder against mine. She bites my lip, almost drawing blood, and pinches my ass. I get a rush. She remembers that I like the pain.

  “I brought some Peter Heyworth crash videos. Want to watch one to get started?” I ask.

  Tina breathes fast. It gives her a rush. Her skin flushes and she nods. “I love his crash videos. Do you have Elvis and Ann-Margret from Viva Las Vegas?”

  �
��I sure do,” I answer, and she kisses me long and hard.

  It’s going to be a great night.

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  Steven Quintana

  Day 2: Sunday Morning

  Los Angeles, California

  I’m floating. Am I on a boat? I open my eyes. No, I’m in a hospital bed. My right arm is tied with Velcro to the metal rail, and there’s an IV going into my vein. My left arm is tied to the other rail like I’m a thrasher in a mental ward. Have I lost my mind?

  Through a break in the white curtain, I can see the 405 Freeway out the window. If that’s the 405, that means I’m in the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles. Rikki Lassen and I just passed this place last night.

  My heart races as it all comes back to me. Rikki’s pleading face, the Audi, the gun, the crash. I must find Julia. I try to sit up, but pain shoots through my torso.

  “He’s awake.” A nurse pulls back the curtain. Her nametag says Major Rita Smith. She’s an attractive black woman around fifty, with short hair and wearing pink scrubs. She pushes my forehead down, checks my monitors, then pulls the Velcro tabs and sets my arms free.

  “How long have I been here?” I ask.

  “You went into surgery at eight a.m. It’s one p.m. right now,” she says. “You got friends in high places. People pulled strings to get you in here.”

  I want to ask about Rikki, but don’t. “How bad am I?”

  “Let’s all look together,” a doctor in a white coat says as he walks into the room. He’s Asian, tall, with a full head of black hair. He’s also not military; he’s too casual. “Dr. Andrew Hyun. I usually work trauma for USC General.”

  Rita opens my gown and the doctor lifts my left arm up to my shoulder. It feels like he’s prying the muscle away from my ribs with a hook. I grit my teeth to keep from screaming. Major Rita tilts a mirror so I can see. My left side has four red, oozing volcanoes on it, surrounded by purple skin with swollen blue veins.

  “The vest saved your life. I didn’t do much surgery except to clean and suture,” he says, running his fingers across my skin. “It’ll hurt, but start moving it today. Use it or lose it.”