Spyfall

by John Hegenberger

  I successfully swallowed an explosive laugh as the cabin door clamped shut and the plane lurched toward the runway.

  My arms and hands began to sweat. Fleming leaned back like the seasoned traveler he was and closed his eyes. Norm leaned over to try and see out the port window. I followed his gaze and, as we rolled past the terminal, I thought I saw Suzi waving from the observation deck. The woman there wore shades and a Dodgers ball cap, so I couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure it was my lady.

  There was a groaning turn and a pause in our forward motion and then the pilot brought the turbos to a banshee scream and released the brakes with a jerk. While I tried to concentrate on my copy of Time, we hurtled down the runway and jumped quick into an easy climb that briefly put my stomach into free fall.

  Khrushchev’s pudgy mug was on the magazine’s cover. Explorer VI was revealing an intense belt of radiation around the Earth. Arlene Francis was taking over the Jack Paar show for a week and her first guest would be the French actress, Simone Signoret.

  Norm appeared to be deeply involved in a book entitled, The Pirates of Shan. Fleming hadn’t changed position. Could he be dead? Then he yawned. So did I, and my ears popped. I switched to reading the newspaper, casual as a snake-charmer, while the plane banked to the east.

  Bright sunlight slid across the sports page. The Dodgers were going to play the Braves in Milwaukee later that day for the National League pennant. The new Philip Marlowe series would debut that night on ABC-TV. Over in the comics, Pat Ryan crossed verbal swords with the Dragon Lady again, but I knew she was nuts about him. Had been for years.

  The scream of the jets died down into a soothing, low-pitched whistle and we were told we could unfasten our seat belts but not get up yet.

  I wanted to stretch my legs, just on principle. Almost everybody, except Norm and me, fired up a cigarette. The stews came around and took drink orders. I popped my ears again, trying to hear what Norman was saying.

  He smiled weakly. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  I leaned away as he soiled his autographed sick bag. The stewardess with the dark hair and eyes took the bag and gave him a pill. We all waited.

  Outside the window, the shining jigsaw puzzle pieces of the Salton Sea flashed back the glare of the sun as we passed effortlessly over them. I tried to distract Norm from his displeasure by chatting about anything that would interest him, detective work, mostly.

  “What was your--” Burp. “--first big case?” he asked.

  The flashing reflected light caught my eye again and I thought back to the early 1950s when Buster Keaton had told me that his walk-on in Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard was “inspired direction.”

  He’d had no lines, of course, playing cards with the other actors in one brief scene, but that was fine by him, since he was famous for his performances in silent pictures. His talkies were not big hits, but his silent features still charmed audiences around the world. Come to think of it, that was exactly the same attitude as Norma Desmond’s line in the script, “It’s the pictures that got small.”

  Keaton told Mr. P and me that he thought Billy Wilder was a true genius. “These German directors have it all over us in America,” he said. “Europe is a terrific place to make movies, especially back in the old days when Murnau, Lang, and Pabst were at their heights.” Keaton’s tired face remained stony. “Billy will go a long way, you watch.”

  Mr. P tried to bring him back to our immediate problem. “Okay, so Wilder is a genius and a great alibi for you at the time of the murder, but that doesn’t mean the cops won’t still try and pin it on you, Buster. You and Von Stroheim where the only two people there when the script girl died in the swimming pool.”

  “Yeah,” I added my two cents, “but I don’t think she drowned there.” I wanted to impress Mr. P. “Those bruises around her neck looked like strangulation to me. Whoever tossed her body into the pool did it to cover up the real cause of death.”

  Keaton smiled, just a tiny bit.

  Mr. P rubbed his left shoulder where he’d been stabbed accidently last month by Basil Rathbone. “You’re right, Stan,” he said slowly. “You’ve a real knack for this detective work.”

  I’m sure I swelled up like a balloon full of self-pride. But I didn’t spoil the moment by popping off. Instead, I wandered around to the other side of the pool that Paramount had built here at the Getty mansion near Wilshire Boulevard, rather than Sunset. Wilder had called us in to investigate the unfortunate girl’s death, on the QT.

  When I’d heard that the case involved Keaton, I begged to be the one to come along instead of Gunther or the big man, Jeremy. I’d seen several of Keaton’s early films at USC and he’d become my favorite silent actor. We finally eliminated him as a suspect for the girl’s murder, days later, but not before I’d saved Mr. P’s brother from being tumbled over the edge of a cliff in Benedict Canyon.

  “That’s really funny,” Norman said, looking less green now. “Around that same time, I saw a different picture that made a lasting impression on me, too. It was John Ford’s Rio Grande.”

  My throat was dry, so I signaled the stew for a Coke. They didn’t have Pepsi on the plane. “Is that the one where John Wayne says, ‘Get it done’?”

  Norm nodded. “It’s what the British call keeping a stiff upper lip.”

  Fleming had no comment for that.

  I leaned across the aisle. “That race where the riders stand up on the backs of two horses is a US Calvary tradition.” A chariot race in flashed across my mind. “I wonder if Yakima staged that race and other stunts in Ben Hur? Have to ask him when we get back.”

  Norm simply said, “Yoh.”

  Fleming appeared to have been put to sleep by our movie talk. It wasn’t a bad idea, and now that Norm had settled down, I wanted to snooze myself. But the stewardesses came around at that point and brought us a surprisingly tasty lunch of steak, fresh vegetables, and ice cream with brandied apricot sauce. ‘No tutti-frutti,’ the Noir Man silently groused.

  Fleming and I were famished and enjoyed our heavenly meal. Norm passed, focusing on reading a story called “War Game” in his issue of Galaxy. He said it was written by Phil K. Dick. Fleming had never heard of him, but I knew Dick was one of Norm’s favorite “sci-fi” writers.

  While we finished our dessert, I took the opportunity to talk with the British writer on my left. He said a few things that lead me to believe he was, indeed, more than a simple creator of suspense novels. He’d heard me mention Ben Hur earlier and his eyebrows went down now, as if I’d tapped him on the skull when I mentioned the scene where it looked like a stunt man had been trampled.

  “It’s my understanding, Mr. Wade,” he said, fixing another cigarette into his holder, “that a man actually did die during the shooting of that scene.”

  “That’s what it looked like to me in the preview I saw. And you can call me Stan.”

  He didn’t offer for me to call him Ian.

  The dark-eyed attendant smiled down. “Anything more for you two gentlemen?”

  Both Norman and Fleming declined, but the Brit went on in hushed tones to advise me that it would be highly embarrassing for America, if the Reds could ever prove that someone indeed died during the filming of a huge, international motion picture.

  Upon reflection, it didn’t seem to me to be all that serious of a threat, but Fleming was adamant. “Dominoes, Mr. Wade. Dominoes. The East won’t wait long before starting the fall.”

  I said, “Okay,” and wondered why I needed to protect such an obviously well-informed and capable man.

  Another hour passed while we soared on at near 30,000 feet and I filled the time listening to slow jazz from my seat’s stethoscope earphones.

  I dozed off once and caught myself wondering again about Walt’s “opposite number.”

  The Noir Man warned, ‘There’s something he’s not telling you. The trouble’s just starting.’

  I said, “Shut up.”

  Norm said, “Were you just t
alking to me?”

  Outside, the sun was setting far behind us in the golden, distant west. And I was journeying farther and farther from home.

  CHAPTER 10

  The transcontinental flight seemed to go on forever. Finally, around 5 p.m. local time, our plane landed in Miami and Fleming said, “Explain to me again why your friend had to come along.”

  I was a little irked by this and leaned over to quietly confess, “He’s the smartest person I know, Flem. And, besides, he hates commies.”

  The writer’s eyes grew cold from my taunt. “Most amusing,” he commented in what must have passed as standard British humor. “Wait until he hears about Castro.”

  “Last I heard,” I said, sort of showing off, “Castro is just a guerrilla rebel who forced the Cuban President into exile months ago. In fact, a respected news source quoted him as not being a Communist.”

  “We shall see,” Fleming said in a way I didn’t like.

  The Miami International Airport mirrored that of LA. I thought for a minute we’d made an in-air U-turn. The same bustling crowd of passengers and visitors; the same ticket counters and vending areas; the same runways, gates, rows of stiff, uncomfortable chairs; and even a few palm trees, nodding in the breeze.

  We located our connecting flight on British West Indies Airways and boarded for takeoff to Kingston in twenty minutes. It was a two hour flight on a Gulfstream twin-engine turbo-prop. There were three other passengers, including someone we all recognized, Boris Karloff.

  Living all my life in and around the City of Angels, I’d learned that most movie stars are just exaggerated personalities. Somehow, Karloff transcended all that. Norm was in hog heaven upon seeing the “old chap” again. He’d met him before somehow, during the filming of Frankenstein 1970 and they chatted briefly before takeoff. Karloff looked to be in his seventies and walked with a cane. “Children adore me,” I heard him tell Norm. “They don’t have to get undressed for bed at night. I scare the pants off them.”

  Norm strapped himself back into his seat next to me, all aglow. “Boris is on his way to Porto Rico to do Arsenic and Old Lace at the San Juan Drama Festival.”

  Then, before I was fully prepared for it, we were aloft again, soaring out over the Atlantic in a plane that sounded like a Mixmaster and banked like a rollercoaster. I could soon see dark spots in the ocean below that were actually the shadows of small clouds above us. I didn’t know if I wanted to be higher or lower.

  Karloff was seated over my left shoulder. Across the aisle and a couple of seats directly behind me sat a bearded man who had been the first to board. This fellow remained quiet during the first half of the flight, but now moved up the aisle as if searching for his bag in the overhead rack.

  One of the stewardesses approached him, just as the plane shook from entering a storm front.

  I watched the bearded guy hand her a piece of paper. Her face went white and her eyes searched the folds of his jacket as if to measure him for a gun.

  His coat did appear to hang oddly and despite the buffeting of the flight, his right hand never left the jacket pocket.

  “Oh, miss,” I called, glancing at Norm, who was also studying the situation. He reached into his vest and placed a thin packet the size of a matchbook into my palm--one of his tiny radio transmitters. “Miss?” I called again with more urgency, watching.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment, sir,” she said, eyes still on the bearded guy.

  “Don’t give me that,” I protested, rising from my seat.

  Norm popped an earphone into the side of his head.

  I came forward, pretending not to notice the stern look on Bearded Guy’s face. “Can’t you see that my friend back there needs attention? He suffers from severe air sickness.”

  Norm moaned on cue.

  “Get him a pill or something.”

  Fleming began to take an interest, along with Karloff farther back in the plane.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” The stew tried to smile, as I dropped the listening bug into the mouth of her uniform’s hip pocket. “You’ll have to wait your turn. Now, please return to your seat.”

  I caught a glimpse of the note clutched in her hand and read a word that chilled me. Bomb.

  Bearded Guy and the stew went into the pilot’s compartment and closed the door behind them.

  Another stewardess, a blonde this time, came forward with a paper cup of water for Norm. He accepted it with a worried smile and asked for more please. The girl went back down the unsteady aisle as I came back to my seat.

  Norm listened with one ear and told me. “He wants to go to Cuba. Says the plane can be used to help the rebels.”

  “That’s insane,” Fleming contributed. “The rebels have won already in Cuba.”

  “Hey, I don’t write this stuff,” Norm said. “He’s a fruitcake. Says he has a gun and will use it on the co-pilot.”

  Outside the aircraft’s thin skin, the weather turned rougher.

  “We’re still in hurricane season,” Fleming offered, tightening his seat belt.

  I swallowed dryly, ears popping again.

  “Something bad is going to happen,” Norman warned.

  The blonde stew must have had the same idea, because she moved up to the front and watched the closed cockpit door where her co-worker had gone with Bearded Guy.

  The plane jumped and tilted through a sudden flash of lightning to our starboard.

  I got up, not sure what to do exactly, but wanting to do more than just sit back and not enjoy the ride. As I crossed over Norm’s feet, he placed a make-shift weapon in my left hand. I looked down at a plastic toy dart with a small red rubber ball stuck on its point.

  I gave Norm a questioning look.

  “I got it last night at the Phrog,” he said.

  I gave him another look, the one that said, “We’re going to have a serious talk, if we live through this.”

  He turned a little greener as the plane shook like Don Knotts.

  The blonde was about to knock on the cabin door, when she saw me coming toward her. Thunder rumbled all around and the plane bounced like a cork in the ocean of night.

  I was starting to feel queasy, but there wasn’t time to explain, so I reached out and pinched her hard on the left breast.

  She screamed and cursed like a longshoreman, causing the door to bang open.

  I pushed her aside and down, breathing, “Sorry, miss.”

  The plane lurched up and to port. Bearded Guy swiveled a black automatic in my direction. The stew beside him contributed a scream of her own, and I thumbed the rubber ball off the point of the dart and let fly.

  Up in the stormy night sky, seventy miles out over the Florida Straits, the dart silently soared and sank deep into Bearded Guy’s hand, which opened when he shook it. The gun dropped to the deck while his bomb-laden body fell back on top of the co-pilot and his control panel.

  The automatic pistol kicked off the deck and fired, sending a bullet past my right ankle. Someone behind me yelled. Sparks flew up past my eyes as I dove forward, my heart thumping in my chest. The co-pilot was tangled up with Bearded Guy’s body and a couple of wires hung from it like dark snakes.

  The pilot hunched his shoulders and banked the Gulfstream on a course that promised to put us in the real Gulf.

  I wanted to get to that bomb. Bearded’s eyes were fierce and locked onto mine.

  He plucked the dart from his hand and started to grab at something under his coat.

  The stew next to him was still screaming, but she started kicking a pointed shoe at the skyjacker. It wasn’t enough to stop him.

  I planted a hard right fist into the middle of his “Cuba Libra” exclamation and followed up with two quick lefts, because my left is pitifully weak.

  It was enough.

  Out of breath, I helped the stew lift Bearded off the co-pilot. Another flash of electricity beyond the windshield joined the sparks coming from under the plane’s dials and gauges.

  “I don’t have contr
ol,” the pilot shouted.

  “My God,” the stew shouted back. “We’re going down!”

  “Get back to your seats and strap in,” the pilot ordered loudly.

  “And stop shouting,” the co-pilot shouted over all of us.

  We hustled aft, dragging Bearded by the collar.

  The blonde produced a set of handcuffs from somewhere and we belted Bearded’s dead weight into a front row seat, hands locked behind him.

  “What happened?” Norm, Fleming, and Karloff asked me in overlapping dialogue.

  “I’ll tell you about it when we land,” I said, buckling into my seat.

  The aircraft jumped again as the engines whined and rain pelted the windows.

  “You mean, if we land,” Norm said. He turned in his seat. “Mr. Karloff, I just want you to know that it’s been an honor--”

  “Just. Shut. Up,” the old man roared, raising his cane. “Strap in and keep your trap shut.”

  That’s when we both noticed the blood leaking down the left leg of Norman’s trousers. Norm noticed it too and immediately conked out.

  I didn’t know that an unconscious person could still throw up.

  The plane continued to be buffeted by the heavy weather. We all hung on. During one slip slide, the fillings in my teeth were nearly rattled loose. We reduced altitude, dropping at one point like a high-speed elevator.

  The rain let up and I saw a cluster of trees flash by in the faint moonlight. The airplane came down hard on its tail wheel. The front wheels struck and we bounded high into the air. Fleming’s face held the color and sheen of a pearl.

  We came down hard again. The right landing strut collapsed and the fuselage scrapped with the sound of a circular saw. The right wingtip dug into the ground. We spun around, rose into the air, and tried to flip over. Norm’s book smacked me in the face. Then the left strut snapped.

  The plane slid on its belly and came to a stop. Everybody exhaled as our collective adrenalin slowly lowered.

  ***