Air Apparent

by John Gardner

  “Nobody can be sure. Except those who oppose you, President. But it seems right. The facts fit, if you follow me.”

  “And what course of action do you advise?”

  “I can set certain things moving. Naturally we would like to see his threat dispersed with minimum trouble. My country would prefer to deal with it quietly.”

  The president nodded. He continued to nod as the white man talked of plot and counter plot.

  *

  Boysie called Griffin from his flat on Tuesday morning.

  “You get an airline ticket in the post this morning?”

  “That Mr Oakes?”

  “As I live and breathe.”

  “I got the, ticket, but it’s a bit short notice. I try to please, but …”

  “Vital. Good pay. You said business was bad.”

  “Is this the matter we were discussing?”

  “Partly. I simply want you covering me in the first instance.”

  “And in the last instance?”

  “Another story.”

  “I’ll have to hear it, Mr Oakes.”

  “Not on the blower. Can you come down to my place?”

  Griffin sighed. “All right. Give me an hour.”

  “You won’t regret it.”

  “Are you sure, Mr Oakes? Are you really one hundred per cent certain that I won’t regret it?”

  There was a click in the earpiece and Griffin was gone. He arrived at the flat almost exactly one hour later.

  “You see that?” asked Griffin, tapping a small item on the front page of the Mail which lay on the table.

  The item concerned an unfortunate who had been fished out of the Thames near Waterloo Bridge.

  “Very neat job that.” Griffin looked pleased. “Nasty piece of work, that gent. And a nice, neat job. A testimonial if you like. Now, Mr Oakes, what’s the breeze?”

  Boysie told him all he knew. Griffin looked sad. “So you want me as a sort of hired gun?”

  Boysie nodded.

  “Don’t like the thought of the three young birds tooled up. Guns can be very dodgy on an aeroplane as perhaps you know. Pop-Crunch-Suck-and-Wheeee, if you follow.”

  “Closely.”

  “Don’t like that. Also, to be honest with you, Mr Oakes, I’m getting a bit old, a bit long in the tooth, to be capering about on this kind of fiddle.”

  A silence during which Boysie, blank-minded, counted from one to sixty-four.

  “Shooters and pirate airlines and illegal arms distribution and putting the big wooden spoon into Africa. Doesn’t sound like Mostyn.” Griffin finally spoke as though to himself.

  “It sounds like Mostyn,” said Boysie. “Mostyn’d make a good gun runner. Run his guns up you any time.”

  “I don’t care for it, Mr Oakes.” Griffin gave a sigh like a full stop; a definite point; a decision. “But as it’s for you, I’ll do it.”

  Boysie nodded. “Thanks. Incidentally, there’s a bird as well.”

  “I might have known.” Griffin did not smile. Birds and his kind of business did not go together.

  *

  “Are you allowed to share the secret of Frobisher Hall with me?” Boysie had taken the ticket over to Eaton Place and now sat on the bed while Snowflake Brightwater made decisions of moment concerning her wardrobe for the forth-coming trip. One large green Revelation Silverline was open, ready for packing, on the floor.

  Snowflake allowed some gossamer creation to sink slowly onto the bed cover. “They only want me to take the ride to Africa and put in a report. I am there as an observer. I am the eyes of the outfit.”

  “You might like to know I’ve hired protection.”

  “After the other night I need protection, darling. Don’t know what got into you.”

  The clouds came down again: the hum and whine of anxiety insinuating themselves into his mind, putting everything on a tilt. There was this minute spot in the centre of his being which told him that all was not well. The whine increased. It was as though the focus became more clear giving him almost a second sight. If someone had crept into the building and, now, had his hand on the door knob, Boysie would know. More, he could take action. The nerves reacted and there was an enormous sense of power. This was a transformation of his fears, as though all that had been soft and shaky was now turned into a new, hard brightness. It was a sense of advantage he must not jettison.

  He said farewells to Snowflake. A long farewell that involved bodies and their intertwining. When he hit the street it was like coming from a sauna and massage.

  Back at the flat, Boysie prepared himself a hot milk drink, stripped and performed ten minutes of strenuous exercise. The Diamondback was on his night table, loaded. Two tablets with the hot drink and an alarm call for five o’clock the following afternoon. Boysie climbed into bed.

  The night noises of the Earl’s Court Road filtered up from the street. Feet on the sparkling pavements, the rev of motors and the whoop of loud bucko boys tearing up the town.

  There was spray in his face and Mostyn stood beside him. Mostyn wore a big black and gold cocked hat with the skull and crossed bones insignia embroidered large on the front. He also wore a medallion with a cobra spitting fire engraved upon it and carried a flintlock pistol.

  There was carved wood. But they were flying and the spray came from the clouds which rolled by them like bucking seas.

  When he woke it was eleven in the morning. Wednesday morning. The morning of Wednesday the tenth. Consciousness began to flood in. Boysie dammed the flow, covered his head and retreated into sleep again.

  *

  The troops moved fast and with skill. They were mixed, black and white, wearing jungle green combat suits. They worked with precision, making the obstacles look easy.

  Colonel Peter Suffix, in his distinctive denim uniform, gun belt and the silver locket, watched the men as they cleared the final obstacle in the assault course, a barricade of logs and barbed wire.

  Suffix nodded to Tilitson who stood beside him. “They look good. You’re happy with discipline?”

  “No problems, sir. They’re your men. There is absolute obedience.”

  “That’s what we must have.” Suffix was not merely thinking about the tight-rope action in which they would be involved tomorrow evening. Suffix’s mind travelled well ahead to the moment, two or three days hence, when he would be in total command of the army.

  *

  President Anthony smiled. The white man stood before him with a dozen members of the Government Security Corps: his most trusted men.

  “You see,” said President Anthony, “we have many friends. I understand that a large portion of the army has left the capital and are engaged in exercises in the north.” He signalled to a pair of the GSC men, tall, young, solid looking with wide shoulders. “The troops on exercise are under the command of Colonel Impato. A good friend. At two o’clock tomorrow afternoon, no earlier, you will hand these personal instructions to Impato and then return here.”

  The president held out a thick envelope which was taken by the taller of the two GSC men.

  Inside the envelope were orders that had been drafted by the white man. The orders were simple and explicit: they called for immediate action. All communications posts were to be manned immediately by men who were undoubtedly loyal to the president. This was to be followed by the arrest of certain officers and technicians, including the transport officers. The further orders called for cool calculation and speed.

  *

  The Girls all looked sharp and bright. They had taken the trouble to have their uniform scarlet tunics and flared pants pressed; each had been to the hairdresser, and the combined make-up would have done credit to the dolly svelte models of Monsieur Yves St Laurent.

  Boysie had rejected the idea of being ultra geary. He wore one of his better dark suits, a Cardin, close-waisted with flared vents. He carried an airline overnight bag with spare shirt, underwear, and an Aramis Trip Kit. His peaked cap was on his head and the Diamondback, heavy
and deadly, in his hip pocket. He looked like a man going places.

  “Okay kids, let’s go and sock it to ’em. All got your cutlasses and hook hands?”

  “Sic transit gloria mundi,” plummed Ada.

  “Who dat?” Aida asked.

  “Old Confucian proverb,” explained Alma. “Means if your sick in transit don’t worry because you’ll be seeing Gloria on Monday.”

  “Ah so,” they chorused, swinging out into the street.

  “Will I do?” said Aida falling into step beside Boysie.

  “For what?”

  “For hostessing on a jet-plane?”

  He took a long look. “It’s right. Black is beautiful. Very beautiful and there’s no justice.”

  “Why thank yo’ Mistah Bow-sea. I shua take kindly to dem compliments.”

  The Victoria Coach Station scene was freaky. Boysie approached it in his usual manner and simply went through the actions, pretending it was not really happening. Faces young, old, indifferent, gnarled, worried, frightened, tired, amused, loomed up and around him. Squash and chatter. The eternal problems.

  “You’ll just have to wait for us, I’m afraid, my little girl has to use the toilet.”

  “If she wants a lavatory, madam, she must have one. All part of the Air Apparent service.”

  “She doesn’t need a lavatory.” The woman was thin and not to be trifled with. “She needs somewhere to be sick.”

  “A good start.” Boysie felt the first tweaks of his own anti-flight obsession.

  There were coats and hats, suitcases and handbags, parcels, umbrellas, warts, spectacles, magazines, trembling hands clutching at the rails of the coaches, dinky shoes, clumpy shoes and big cheap golden buckles. Boysie, having heaved what seemed like sixteen tons of baggage, stood back and watched Aida shepherding the clients aboard the big six-wheelers.

  As he watched he was suddenly attacked by a monstrous hate for the crush, grab and bite of life in the teeming seventies. This is it, isn’t it? Life lived to the frolicking full. The high-risers; the rising highs; the set-jetters who have overtaken the jet-set; everybody stand in line and wait your turn ’cause it’s coming as sure as hell. Wait for the beautiful hamburgers pre-packed and swimming in tomato sauce that never saw a tomato let alone knew what one looked like. Or, lady, take the pre-taste-extracted beans, every nodule an explosion of flavour. Stand in line and we’ll take you there on the limb of luxury: fruit cake, fortune cookies, whisky, gin, brandy, rum-flavoured wrist watches (or whatever happens to be in style) with six dials and a silver strap, baseball bats, credit cards, bank accounts, shops stuffed with people buying what they cannot afford and do not want while the other half starves (I gave my donation to Save The Children and Shelter), heady fabrics, soft next to the sweating skin oozing fragrance from bottles filled at twenty new pounds an ounce; stainless steel and silent painless porcelain cups. Oh what they would do for a bread roll and my magnificent mistress’s left tit.

  An illuminated hoarding across the road displayed a post office advertisement: a dolly bird, all slim thighs and black stockings, held a telephone to her ear, obscured by hair, her dress encrusted with numbers: Remember said the ad, All-figure Numbers Now; further down, the message wilted because they told you to ask the operator for Freefone Service 2013. “Ah, de numbers racket,” spat Boysie, heading for the lead coach.

  The transference of the passengers from their care to the tender mercies of the Excelsior ground hostesses was carried out with the minimum fuss.

  Now they waited on the transit side of the building for the car to take them out to the aircraft ahead of the clients.

  Boysie began to write his first novel in his mind. It started, Gatwick shimmered in the light from twenty thousand kilowatts. The plot became unsteady after that so he gave up. The girls chattered about the short course they had taken on Tuesday. Across the airport the roar of a Trident on take-off killed all speech.

  The car arrived and dumped them near the forward gangway. There was activity and the throb of a dynamo. Boysie tried not to think about the actual experience of flight. He was faintly surprised to see how quickly the girls had learned. Once up the gangway they were nipping about making sure everything was neat for the arrival of passengers. Ada checked the loudspeaker system and turned on the tape. Mantovani and his strings softly insinuated themselves into the main cabin.

  Boysie took off his jacket and put on the white steward’s coat hanging in the galley. From the flight deck he could hear the three crew members going through their pre-flight checks. He went forward and stood in the flight deck door. The captain stopped work and leaned back: a man of around fifty, bearded, bald and smooth.

  “I’m Captain Morgan.”

  Boysie stifled the grin, nothing could be better than the bold bad pirate Henry Morgan.

  “You’ll be Mr Oakes from Air Apparent?” continued the captain.

  “Acting unpaid steward.”

  “Well, just keep the coffee coming and the passengers out of our hair and we’ll do fine. The first officer’s name is Evans and that’s Eric McKensie.” He nodded towards the flight engineer who was checking things beyond Boysie’s limited comprehension. “You know we do one scheduled unscheduled stop to refuel at Otuka?”

  Boysie inclined his head.

  “We’ve got a spare crew there as well. Use it as a slip station. Okay?” The captain turned back to the frenzy of instruments. “You can let ’em on as soon as they arrive.”

  Within ten minutes Boysie and Ada were standing at the top of the gangway as the great straggle of passengers disgorged themselves from the coaches below.

  Among the first to board was Snowflake Brightwater, wearing the black velvet pants suit, leather coat and wide hat she had worn at her first meeting with Boysie.

  Snowflake paused at the top of the stairs and shook out a tiny smile at Boysie. “I have come to enter belly of great winged silver bird,” she said.

  “And great winged silver bird welcomes you,” Boysie replied.

  A few seconds later, Griffin plodded aboard with a swift nod.

  Still they came. The cabin began to fill. Then, Boysie glanced down to see how many clients remained. His eyes widened. Mounting the gangway were five black gentlemen, each clothed in identical dark blue suits, wearing bowler hats and carrying Samsonite briefcases. It was Mister Colefax and his muscle men.

  “W-we s-sit at the b-b-b-back,” said Mister Colefax without explanation.

  Snowflake Brightwater, Griffin and the Colefax Boys. It was a good title for a movie, thought Boysie as his gut began to churn in apprehension.

  12

  The fool’s rim of terror. The apocalyptic moment of anxiety. There had been a time when, even to Boysie, this particular fear, seen in retrospect, contained humour. Not any more.

  He tried to be logical, stimulating the brain to accept facts: that once you had a certain aerodynamic shape, a definite amount of power producing a particular thrust, at a given moment the shape would take to the air and fly: a scientific proof as obvious as rain, hail and all the natural elements.

  But, for Boysie, none of these things mattered. Science could go stick its polluted butt into some of its own manufactured fertiliser. When the power built up, making the aircraft strain and shake like a giant in labour: when the brakes came off and she began that long run into the sky, the bluest funk, starkest terror, heart-thumping, nerve-strangling anxiety took over. It was not funny and he could do nothing about it.

  They seemed to have been roaring down the runway for ever. Then the smoother sensation, followed by a slight drop and tilt. Thump and the landing gear retracted, locking away.

  On the flight deck it had been a normal routine take-off with no problems. The First Officer called London radar and was given his clearance out. As he started the after-takeoff checks they climbed through cloud to an operational height of twenty-five thousand feet, turning onto airway Amber Two which would take them across Europe down through Italy. The first leg. The fl
ight crew unbuckled their seat belts.

  In the cabin, the No Smoking: Fasten Seat Belts sign flicked off. Boysie, skin still singing from shock, reached for his cigarettes with relief, then realised that he had work to do. Ada had already gone past him to the loudspeaker system while Alma and Aida took up positions in the main aisle, each holding a life jacket.

  Boysie moved forward as Ada began her spiel about safety. The other two girls pointed out the emergency exits; they demonstrated the oxygen masks that would drop in the event of depressurisation and told the passengers how to hold them over their faces. They said nothing about how quickly lack of oxygen hits you, or of the split second you needed to get one of those masks onto your face in such an emergency.

  Boysie standing behind Ada, watched as she read the printed form as though she had been doing it for a thousand years. She was a natural, he thought, what with that posh voice she managed to downgrade for this kind of activity.

  Ada got to the bit about the lifejackets being under the seats and how you had to put them on and how you must not inflate them inside the aircraft and the flashing light and whistle and all. Alma and Aida were going through the motions all the time, putting on the life jackets and showing people where the little whistle and flashing light were. They did it with poise, yet differently from airline hostesses Boysie had seen in the past. It was not until they reached the end of the demonstration that he realised what the difference was. These girls were making it sexy. They could have been strippers in a first rate joint like the Crazy Horse or that place he had been told about where they shed their threads on parallel bars.

  “Okay, Oaksie.” Ada finished the safety lecture. “Let’s get the show on the clouds. One drink the Excelsior man said, then shoot the dinner to them. Don’t encourage any more drinking and get the dinners on quick so they’ll sleep.”

  Alma and Aida joined in.

  “That looks real good.” Aida rolled her eyes. “Lady in Row K: Seat Five. Very pregnant and could well have it in flight.”

  The terrors of takeoff vanished. There were problems here that Boysie had never dreamed about.