by Lee Baldwin
“Wade, they did ID him with fingerprints. Peter Drake, a Navy Lieutenant, Tail hook. You guys were on the same battle carrier.”
He stands and paces the floor, yelling curses at the walls. “Pete you wacko, you insane little shit!”
Pacing, he turns to me. “Pete was always grandstanding. One of the best FA-18 pilots we had on board, flew a low pass over the deck one day inverted. Absolutely no fear.”
“Wade, when we were up in the glider, Roswell... I mean Drake, asked me questions about Mick. The dope deal I got busted for. If he is your guy, how would he know that stuff?”
Wade looks sheepish. “Sorry little brah, I regaled him with some stories about you one time. Some shit slipped out. Bragging on you, I guess.”
“Well he must have done some research after that, because he was telling me McIntyre has an appeal coming up. How would Drake know that name?”
Wade looks even sheepisher.
“Wade, he, and you, if I may be so bold, put me square on the police radar. I don’t care if he’s your friend. He did try to kill me.”
“No, man, he’s just a showoff. Way macho. He prolly figured if you were such a hot pilot...”
“Face facts, dude! Sure, I knew what it would take to save the glider. Most pilots would. But doing it is way risky. There are a dozen ways I could have failed... lost my grip, hit my head, taken too long. He wanted to murder me and make it look like an accident.”
Wade looks embarrassed and sad. “Well, then why? He and I were buds aboard ship.”
“You ask why. How about money? He knew about the plane, you were asking him to deliver it. What were you paying him?”
“Um, thirty five thousand. Part of that is already paid.”
“Thirty five thousand. And your buyer is paying what, a million or so?”
Wade has always been evasive about the price he’s expecting. He doesn’t meet my eyes. “Yah, around that.”
“Well think about it. Drake surely knew what a plane like that is worth. Killing me would mean you keep everything. Then he comes here afterward, takes the money, and kills you.”
Wade looks shocked, seeing I have a point. “Naw, he wouldn’t do that.”
I stand up in front of him to better press my attack. “Suppose you’re found dead. What kind of investigation would there be about you? You’re a literal nobody! Way you live your life, there is virtually no info about you. No trails anywhere. Police would be stuck. Drake could have walked with all of it. Hell, he could have flown the plane somewhere else! To his own buyer!”
“It would be hidden,” Wade protests.
“Torture and threats, dude. He knows you have a son. You paid him some already?”
“Gambling debt. He owes me from back then.”
This is too much. I wave my arms and take a turn around the kitchen. “A gambling debt!” Dammit to hell, man! You are so naive about people! “From what, fifteen years ago? How much?”
“Seventeen grand.”
I am sick in my gut at this point. I step up and put both hands on his shoulders where he slumps in his chair. “Wade, dude, grab a brain. He already wrote off that seventeen in his head. He never planned to pay you. So he stood to gain eighteen grand, while you pocket one or two mil.”
Wade winces at my guess, rubbing his chin, looking dubious. But I see he’s disappointed at himself. He doesn’t trust anyone, doesn’t trust the system. Yet he trusts an old Navy buddy who doesn’t pay his gambling debts. Why? Because he looks up to thrill-seeker pilots.
“And Wade, why would he go to my place? He assumes I’m dead, right? So why go to my house? How about to search my stuff, find anything that would help him.”
“Help him what?”
“Find you and the plane and cut you out of the deal entirely.”
Wade looks like his plug has been pulled, slumps deeper in the chair. He has barely the jam left to reply weakly, “Nah, dude, no way. We were best buds.”
“And why did he have the Roswell ID? He had this fake logbook and FAA glider rating in that name. Not his own. That took a lot of time and effort to create. Why would he need that? Covering his tracks.”
I fix him with my most menacing stare. “I’m saying he planned my murder. And yours too.”
We’re silent. I can wait. Let him think about it. At minimum, Wade’s coming to the certainty that Drake is dead. A key element of our plan is missing. No pilot, no go. I see he’s thinking that. But I have new intel for him, when he gets caught up.
Now Wade is grinning at me, laughing. “Hey brah, you are totally twitching.”
Well okay, I suppose I’m that obvious. “Can we see her now?”
Wade laughs, getting up. “You’re hungry for that old bitch aren’t you?”
Outside we’re walking the graded path into the trees. Tall barn doors slide back a long way, wide enough to clear the wings and four-bladed prop of the vintage World War II fighter plane waiting there. I stand outside looking, so hungry for this moment over all the months and years. Wade is flipping switches by the door. From high rafters powerful floodlights blaze, glistening on graceful metal skin of what we liked to call ‘our airplane.’ A North American Aviation Mustang P-51B pursuit fighter.
There’s a history to everything. For several years before prison I’d been living in a Hollister farmhouse, care-taking, because it was close to the gliderport. The owner had died and his kids back east were squabbling over what to do with the place. None of them came. To them, Dad was a looney who loved old airplanes and they were into their east coast careers, families. There was a semi-trailer parked in the barn, covered with dust and bird droppings. I’d been curious, and opened it up. Found the Mustang’s fuselage, wings, tail, engine, all in pieces. Told Wade and he went majorly ballistic. It was a fixer-upper, a project plane, but most of it was there.
That was how things stood until I got busted. Wade went to the farm to gather my gear. He looked in the trailer and became completely obsessed. In spite of being an agoraphobic paranoid, he managed to drive the trailer to his farm. It was an extreme move for him, but he was hot for the Mustang and pulled it off. Yeah, he stole it.
As the forlorn Mustang’s unusual past surfaced, we began to understand the value. We didn’t plan a rivet-by-rivet restoration, we wanted a flyable project plane. Wade’s buyer seemed to think it’s an important part of history, and wants to put it back the way it was 70 years ago. That’s why there is no paint on this bird. So many of these types have been modified as air racers. Wings shortened, radiator scoops removed, modern electronics in place of the original. There are more of those now than authentic restored ones.
Many postwar P-51s became bare-metal racers. Widely available at war-surplus prices in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, the combination of a 12-cylinder Rolls-Royce engine and dogfight reflexes made P-51s natural pylon-shavers. Far as we know, no one is looking for this one. At least not around here.
During the last four years, Wade’s skilled work as an aircraft mechanic, his fanatical attention to detail, my income from the swimming pool, my aircraft parts business, have slowly brought this ship to flight readiness. At least we hoped it was flight-ready. It’s seldom put a wheel outside the barn.
Walking around it now, the Mustang looks wicked, seeming bigger than the trainer I rode in on Sunday. Gazing up at the massive prop I recall the day Wade and I cracked a rafter in here mating that heavy thing to the propeller shaft. I find it flat-out daunting to imagine sitting in the cockpit and making that propeller turn.
A long workbench under one wing, a line of familiar boxes. They’d been sent one at a time by little old me under cover of my vintage parts business in Felton. The last components we need to make her flight-worthy are here.
We’re clambering up on the wings, looking down into the open cockpit, pointing at things, discussing, flipping switches pushing buttons wiggling this and that.
“Wade, I’ve been thinking.”
He looks at me with a cockeyed grin. “Oh God her
e we go. You thinking is always dangerous.”
I give him half a laugh. “Sunday I went for a joyride. There’s an F6 trainer at Hollister. I’ve got video on my laptop. Sean’s start-up sequence, all his control moves on takeoff, the landing approach and touchdown. I’ve seen it a dozen times. I’ve flown the simulator a thousand times.”
I stop and wait, until he’s looking at me steady. “I can do it.”
Wade is shocked. “You think a fricking glider pilot is going to get this monster off the ground? You don’t know anything about power flying.”
I’m shaking my head. “I’ve been flying the sims. Wade, we are behind schedule, and I could get arrested any day now. You say your buyer’s ready? All the parts are here. I’m on a collision course with this detective. With Mick’s enforcers. The parole system. Montana. I’m out of options. I’ve got to disappear right now!”
We don’t exactly settle it, at least not that minute. We start taking parts out of boxes, talking while we work, checking off changes and adjustments to be made. I’m relentless, slowly convincing my older brother that I in fact know what I’m talking about.
Wade’s face becomes thoughtful when I tell him Sean had given me the controls of his Mustang trainer, and what he’d said after I set her down.
And it’s probably unfair of me, but somewhere in there I pull out my most convincing argument. Argument? Nah, call it a guilt trip. Wade couldn’t stay after Dad died. Had to go back to his fleet, his life on a United States aircraft carrier as a jet mechanic.
But this was about Mom. I’d stayed home taking care of her, teaching flight lessons and working a skunky job driving auto parts around the Bay area, while she got sicker and sicker, gradually to the point she could no longer take care of herself. We hocked the house for home care, then hospice. It was hard. She turned real bad and Wade tried to make it home, but he was two days late. I wouldn’t ask him this, but I’m sure he hasn’t forgiven himself. What I do know is, that’s when he got respect for his little brother.
We work. By late afternoon I have this major itch on. I wanna see the thing run.
“Com’on Wade,” I say for the umpteenth time. “Get your tractor over here. Let’s pull her out and crank it up.”
While having a beer break we’d watched the cockpit video I’d made in the trainer. Wade agrees it looks simple enough. Complicated, yet straightforward, requiring quick hands and finesse to not fuck it up and die immediately. I’d written a checklist. Finally I am done talking, walk over and climb on the tractor, park it just in front of the Mustang’s high nose.
“Okay, okay,” Wade relents. “You go out there and spot me. We’ll point the tail toward the field.”
We could not start a 1600-horsepower engine inside the barn. The prop blast would blow everything around in there and maybe knock down a wall or two. If it caught fire the whole barn would catch and no chance of saving it. Outside is best. I’m standing here signaling and shouting to Wade on our walkie-talkies as he eases the wings through the barn doors with about a foot clear on either side. We get her turned, tail pointed toward a plowed field. We tether the main landing gear to the tractor, parked behind the plane. The tractor weighs 1100 pounds, the plane has parking brakes and won’t get away from us. I hope. I have no idea how strong she’ll pull, 1600 horses is a lot.
We climb up on the wings, I step into the cockpit, open my laptop, Sean’s video and my startup checklist where I can see them. Just for good measure I have the Mustang’s maintenance manual on my lappy. It has a startup checklist too. I start through the steps.
Finally I engage the starter, switch both magnetos on, and the whole airframe shakes as the prop swings around. I count off six blade passes, then flick the fuel boost pump switch, the electric primer, push the mixture lever up into NORMAL position. Two loud smoky bangs from the exhaust manifolds. The Merlin catches with a roar, sputters to a stop. In the abrupt silence we both get it that Wade standing out there on the wing is not a good idea. Number one, he’s right in line with the six exhaust ports on that side of the long nose, and the prop blast could pelt him with stones. He climbs down. Also, I remind him over the handheld radio, he needs to grab a fire extinguisher.
He’s standing near the port wing now, we exchange a couple of observations via radio.
“It wanted to catch,” Wade says. “We pressurized the oil system, but the thing hasn’t turned over in months. Why not crank until you think it’s almost flooded?”
“I can push it a bit.”
I roll the canopy closed. I start the sequence again and this time count eight blade passes. Fuel fumes around the exhaust manifolds shimmer like mirage heat as the huge prop turns. One manifold barks. Another, then another. The engine catches stuttering rough but keeps running, tach comes up near 1800 RPM, the whole thing shaking.
The sound smooths out, it’s beautiful, viciously loud, a musical din. Blue flames knife from all 12 manifolds. Wade is aiming the bell of his extinguisher around but there’s no panic. I bring the RPM up to 2500, switch the magnetos from one side to the other. There’s very little RPM drop when I do that, a good sign. I hear the sharp whip-cracking sound that tells me the prop tips are supersonic. I bring it back to idle.
We let her run for 10 minutes like that. Sight of that giant prop blurring by the windscreen fills me with foreboding. Wade puts on his motorcycle helmet and jumps up on the wing again all thumbs up. Eagerly his eyes scan the control panel looking at temperatures, boost pressure, oil pressure, any number of things that can spell success or disaster. Finally I shut her off. My ears are ringing. I make a mental note to find industrial earplugs to go under my radio headset. This thing is just plain loud and I won’t be talking on the radio anyway.
We jump down and were hugging each other hooting and hollering. For the moment we’re ignoring the small matter of the 900-mile night flight with a pilot who has no power experience. Certainly never with a 1600 HP engine under his hand.
With the tractor we pull the bird into its coop. We’re silent, looking up at the magnificent ship. Recalling my hands-on flight and landing with Sean, I’m sure I can fly this thing, but my stomach is reminding me that when I release the brakes and put the throttle all the way forward, I’ll be completely over my head. No test flight, no instructor in the back. My first powered flight ever will be my first solo.
I can land her, because I can land a glider. It’s the takeoff that will have my full attention.
It’s near dark, the barn doors are closed, everything’s cleaned up. We’re feet up on the coffee table, telling stories over beer, chips and guacamole. Wade wants to know how I got hooked up again with Montana.
“Man, it came out of nowhere. All of a sudden she’s there in my life. I didn’t know she was around, hadn’t thought of her for years. Then bingo, she’s my parole agent.”
“And the day you fly with Pete, you get home and there he is dead. Your detective says Montana was close by. And she’s lying about it.”
“I’ve gone over it in my head hundreds of times. She denies it, totally shrugs it off.”
“It was a dark and stormy night,” Wade is chuckling. “She wants to kill you?”
“She’s hooked up with someone gangsta though, gotta be Mick, telling her what to do.”
Wade considers. “Well, he asked you to shoot a guy once, it’s conceivable he’d tell her to do the same. But why you why now?”
I shake my head. Why me indeed? Same thing Wolfe wants to know. But something is nagging at me, something bugging me about going through with all this. Besides possible death ruin and disaster. Wade says his buyer is ready. But what if I don’t go?
I mean yah deliver the plane, but what if I don’t run to this new life I’ve scoped out? After all the dreams of it. So perfectly planned, it would be a shame to not see it work. I’ll see more of Wade that way. But is getting away from the system worth having a life like his? And, I remind myself, now that Wade has hinted at the take from this deal, my chances of hiring a hig
h-powered attorney are looking damn good. If I can just not kill myself in the next week.
I take a different tack. “Wade, what if you come out in the clear? What if you give up your secret existence and just came out as yourself?”
He laughs. “Think about it Buckaroo, it’s been so long, this life is my real one. I file taxes, have a twelve-year-old son I love. Only thing gonna change is my hidden income. But then I won’t have this airplane ruling my life. And,” he grins, “we will have the money.”
I sigh. He has a point. But me? I don’t have a fake life that’s become my real one. What if I stick it out, face things as they are, work through them, live the life of a reformed felon. But then there’s Wolfe digging into my past connections with Mick. And Montana. If she doesn’t kill me first, she’ll rat me out. She’s on the run and dangerous. Deep down, I’m hoping Wolfe can reel her in.
Conversation orbits around the flight, plans for delivering the plane. Wade is explaining how he has it worked out with the buyer.
“I set it up to avoid Pete handing over the plane in exchange for cash. Traveling home with cash is too risky. And tell you the truth, I was worried about Pete being alone with it. So what you’re going to do is circle the landing area first. There will be one guy standing by a motorcycle near a long dirt strip. Smoke flare at the last waypoint. You will land about a mile from the guy, then call my burner. When he sees you he’ll call his people out here to meet me with the money. After I count it and they’ve left, I’ll tell you. That’s when you taxi over to the guy with the motorcycle and shut her off. You get on the bike and you leave.”
“Wade, since you mention cash...”
He gives me a grin, his favorite devilish one, like when his poker hand has all the cards.
“A paltry two point three,” he says. Wade always did like fancy words.
“Two point three, as in...”