by Bill Bernico
Gloria stared out the window and jabbed me with her elbow. “Look at that,” she said. “Look how small the houses look.”
I quickly glanced out the window before returning my attentions to the cockpit, which lay a mere twenty feet in front of me. I could see the pilot of this small, charter prop plane. He was pulling back on the yoke and talking to the tower on his headset. He twisted a few dials on the instrument panel before leveling off the plane and reaching for a microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice on the intercom said. “Welcome to flight 602 non-stop to San Francisco. I’m your captain, Captain Walters. Our flight time will be approximately one hour and fifty-five minutes and we’ll be cruising at an altitude of about four thousand feet. Your stewardess, Miss Hastings, will be with you shortly to take your drink orders. Relax and thanks for flying Trans-California Airways.”
It was an early morning flight and there were only eight people on the plane including Gloria and me.
“The drink service shouldn’t take long,” I said, looking out the window past Gloria. “Hell, she could carry all the drinks she needs on one tray. Zip, zip, zip and she’s done. I don’t know how they can make any money on a flight with only eight people. That wouldn’t even pay for the gas.”
“So what,” Gloria said. “The fewer the people the more personalized the service.”
Gloria and I each ordered a Pepsi. Mine sat on the pulled down tray in front of me while Gloria nervously sipped at hers. I was busy watching the activity in the cockpit. It looked fascinating. What a responsibility it must be to pilot a plane like this one. I sat back and reached into the inside pocket of my coat and produced my pocket organizer. It was about the size of half a pack of cigarettes with a flip top. I pushed the button that released the cover to reveal a miniature LCD screen of three lines. I pressed a few buttons to view my phone numbers, memos and a tiny calculator. Pressing each of the buttons produced a high-pitched beep.
Gloria turned sharply toward me. “Do you have to keep beeping that thing?” she said. “Can’t you just put in back in your pocket and sit there? We’ll be in San Francisco in a little more than an hour. Think you can do without your electronic gadgets that long?”
I didn’t answer her. I silently snapped the pocket organizer closed and returned it to my pocket. I folded my arms across my chest and pretended to take a nap. Gloria returned to staring out the window. The next hour dragged by since I didn’t have my computer to keep me occupied.
I’d almost nodded off for real when a familiar voice came back on the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Walters again. We’ll be starting our descent in a few minutes. Please buckle your seat belts and…”
The voice trailed off in a wheezing gasp. I could hear coughing and sputtering coming from the cockpit. I leaned to the right and looked ahead. From behind me I could hear the stewardess running up the aisle. I pulled my head back in just as she passed my seat. She stopped alongside the captain and I could see her shaking his shoulder. He didn’t seem to respond. She shook him a little more and then pressed two fingers into his neck. A few seconds later she quickly stepped back and screamed.
The plane’s nose dropped slightly and the engine sound became higher pitched. The stewardess grabbed the intercom with a shaking hand and spoke. “Is there a pilot on board?” she said frantically. Her voice shook along with her hand. “Anyone? Has anyone here had flight experience? We need someone up here right now who can fly this plane. Please!” The mike fell from her hands and she dropped to her knees.
Ahead of me, the four seat first-class section was empty. I looked back up the aisle. Behind me sat a mother and her two children. Across from her there was an old couple, perhaps in there eighties, hugging one another. Behind them there sat a middle-aged man with dark glasses and a red-tipped cane. There didn’t seem to be any likely candidates in our group.
Gloria gripped my arm and squeezed. Terror filled her eyes but she was at a loss for words. I pulled myself away from her grip and stood. I looked back at Gloria once more and headed for the cockpit. The captain’s face was mostly blue, as were his fingernails. The edges of his lips were white and waxy. I helped the stewardess to her feet and the two of us extracted the pilot from his chair and laid him on the floor of the cockpit. I took my place behind the yoke and examined the instrument panel. Everything was where I remembered it to be. I pulled back on the yoke and the nose of the plane lifted and leveled out.
Gloria had left her seat and was now standing beside me, pulling on my arm. “What do you think you’re doing?” she almost screamed. “You can’t fly a plane.” There was desperation in her voice now.
I looked at the stewardess. “Would you take her back to her seat, please? I don’t need any more distractions.” Gloria hesitated a few seconds before leaving with the stewardess.
The stewardess pulled a reluctant Gloria back down the aisle and buckled her back into her seat before returning to the cockpit. “You sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked.
“Sure, Miss Hastings.” I said confidently.
“It’s Debbie,” she said.
“It’s all right, Debbie,” I said. “I could do this in my sleep. Done it a thousand times before. Hell, I could land this plane upside down if I had to.”
The stewardess’s eyes widened as she licked her dry lips.
“But I’ll keep it right side up this time,” I assured her. I smiled and patted her on her shoulder. “Just keep the passengers calm and we’ll get through this fine.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said as she returned to the cabin.
“Me, too,” I said under my breath.
I slipped the headphones over my ears and adjusted the microphone that stuck out in front of my lips. I found the transducer knob and twisted, looking for a setting with some noise. I twisted until I heard a voice.
“San Francisco tower, this is flight 602. Come in please,” I said, trying to sound in control.
A voice on the other end said, “Who is this?”
“San Francisco tower,” I repeated. “This is Trans-California flight 602 from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Come in please.”
“Trans-California 602 this is San Francisco tower,” came the answer through my earphones.
I sighed and wiped my brow. I took a deep breath before continuing. “San Francisco tower, we’ve lost the pilot. I think it’s a heart attack. Can you help us in?”
I could hear an undertone in the conversation on the other end for a second or two before the voice came back on the air. “Trans-California 602, who’s flying the plane? Identify yourself, please.”
“My name is Elliott Cooper,” I heard myself say. “We have eight passengers and one crew member beside the pilot.”
I jerked my head to the left and yelled back into the cabin. “Debbie,” I said, “I’ve got the tower on the line.” The words were no sooner out of my mouth when I heard a sickening ripping sound. I turned back to the instrument panel and saw the jack to my headset dangling from the transducer. The ripped wire hung down several inches. The rest of the wire dangled from my headset. “Oh shit,” I said out loud to no one in particular.
The radio was a blur of crackling noises and squeals. I turned the set off just as Debbie returned to the cockpit. I held the headset up to her. “Looks like we’re on our own now,” I said, pulling the useless headphones from my head and tossing them on the floor.
Debbie looked me in the eye. “Can you do it?” she said. “Can you land this plane?”
“I’m going to give it my best shot,” I said and looked ahead of me. Several miles in the distance I could see the strobe lights that lined the runway. They beckoned me on as I ran through the steps in my mind. “All right, Elliott,” I told myself, “Concentrate. You can do it.”
“Keep the runway in your visual path,” I thought. “That’s it. Now full flaps down.” I pulled on the lever marked ‘flaps’ and the plane rose in the air slightly. “Reduce
power to forty percent.” I pulled back on the throttle to just below the halfway mark. “Okay, landing gear down.” The lever marked ‘landing gear’ pulled easily and I could hear the wheel locking into place. “Elevators one third up.” I set the elevators accordingly and continued with my mental checklist.
“Runway centered,” I said softly. I agreed it was centered and moved down my mental list. The plane slowly dropped. I could see the altimeter dial spinning counter clockwise. Seven hundred feet, six hundred, five hundred. I held the yoke firmly in both hands. And pulled back on the throttle a little more. Two hundred feet. One hundred. Fifty feet and dropping. I gritted my teeth and braced myself for impact.
The knuckles on my hands were polished bone now. “Flare out,” I heard myself say and pulled back on the yoke. The rear wheels made contact with the asphalt. I pulled back all the way on the throttle and the engine whir became low and throaty. The nose wheel eased itself down onto the runway and I stepped hard on the nose wheel brakes. The end of the runway was still a quarter mile away but closing fast. The air speed indicator still showed fifty and dropping. I could see the end of the runway just ahead of me.
The speed gauge read twenty now. I stepped down hard on the brake pedals and the nose shimmied and jumped as the plane slowed to a stop. I cut the engines and the plane sat there, silent. I released my grip on the yoke and let the air out of my lungs that I hadn’t even realized I was holding. The color came back into my hands and I shook them at my sides.
I could hear a roar, albeit a sever-person roar, from the cabin. Gloria rushed into the cockpit and threw her arms around my neck. Debbie gave me a brief glance and a subtle smile. Out the cockpit window I could see dozens of people running toward the plane. From behind I heard the wail of the emergency vehicle sirens and watched as several red trucks surrounded the plane.
Debbie pulled the hatch handle and opened the cockpit door. Outside several men had shoved a rolling ladder up to the door. Gloria and I waited until the other passengers had exited down the stairway before we emerged. At the bottom of the stairs flashbulbs were going off everywhere. Reporters, news crews and cameramen were everywhere. We descended to the runway and had several microphones shoved into our faces. Everybody was trying to talk all at once.
Security people whisked us away to the terminal with the media close on our heels. They steered us into a large room just off the main concourse. Gloria and I were instructed to sit at a long table filled with tabletop microphones. The reporters from outside soon filled the room, joining the ones already there to cover the air show that was still going on outside.
Like a swarm of locusts, everyone started talking at once again. I looked left and right and straight ahead, not sure who to answer. A man in a three-piece pinstriped suit stood up in front of the table and waved his hands over his head. Silence fell over the crowd. He pointed to a woman with a microphone. She stepped forward with her equipment.
“What’s your name and how did you manage to land the plane?” she asked, trying to overstep her boundaries of one question. The undertone in the crowd increased and the pinstriped man stepped in again to silence them. He turned back to me, waiting for my answer.
“Well, uh,” I said. “My name’s Elliott Cooper and this is my business partner, Gloria Campbell.” I put my arm around Gloria’s shoulder.
The newswoman repeated the second part of her question. “Mr. Cooper, how did you manage to land the plane by yourself?”
“I’ve had some experience flying all kinds of planes,” I said. “Small ones, two-seaters, ultra-lights, P-51s, Sopwith Camels and even planes like the one we arrived in.”
Gloria looked at me in amazement and disbelief. “When… How?” she said. She couldn’t find the right words to finish her thoughts.
A third newsman stepped forward. “Did you get your training in the service, Mr. Cooper?” she said into his microphone. “Perhaps in the Gulf War. Are you a commercial pilot?” He turned his microphone toward me now.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began. “Just let me say this. I don’t even have a pilot’s license.” The crowd erupted in spontaneous conversation. Pencils scribbled busily on notepads. “My partner here has always accused me of spending far too much time on my personal computer at the office,” I continued. “Maybe now she will understand just how much my computer meant to me—and to us.”
Another newsman stepped forward and said, “Can you explain that for our viewers, Mr. Cooper?” he shouted, shoving his microphone at me. He pointed to the television camera to his left.
“You see,” I said. “I concede that maybe I do spend a little too much time playing with, or should I say, getting to know my computer. So what. It’s something I really enjoy.”
Pinstripe turned to me. “That doesn’t explain your experience and your ability to land a plane like this one unassisted, does it, Mr. Cooper?”
“I’ve never flown a real plane,” I said. “I got all the experience I needed without ever leaving my office—on my personal computer. My favorite program, gentlemen, is my virtual flight simulator.”
I turned to Gloria and smiled. “Care to add anything?”
55 - If Dogs Could Talk
I looked through the binoculars, squinted and rolled my fingers across the focus knob until my subject came in clear. I panned back and forth, checking the paths that led past the park bench where my prey sat. The man on the bench was alone, except for his dog and a small boom box. He was leaning forward, petting the head of a large dog that sat at his feet. There wasn’t another person within a hundred yards of my subject, yet his mouth was moving as if engaged in conversation. Maybe that’s what became of men who killed other men for a living. They had no one to talk to and no one to share the day’s events with and eventually ended up talking to their dogs.
I handed the glasses to my friend, Lieutenant Dean Hollister, who promptly cranked down his window and zeroed in on the park bench. He lowered the glasses.
“The son-of-a-bitch is just sitting there,” Dean said, “Without a care in the world. Man, that’s cold.”
I sipped from my cardboard coffee cup and looked over at Dean. “Well,” I said, “When you’ve been in the business as long as Frank has, you learn to tune out the rest of the world along with your own emotions. Hell, I’ve heard tales where he slit a man’s throat before breakfast and then chowed down like it was his last meal.”
“So tell me once more,” Dean said, “Why is it this guy hasn’t fried in the chair yet?” Dean aimed the glasses at Frank once more.
“A little technicality called witnesses,” I said. “Without witnesses we can’t make a case. Witnesses, if you recall, are the one thing this guy is good at eliminating. Remember that old landlady on Highland? What was her name? Polly, Molly something-or-other?
“Sally,” Dean said, surprised that he’d remembered. “Sally Randolph. Yeah, kinda hard to testify with your tongue cut off and shoved down your throat.”
The cars sped by on South Alvarado Street as we sat there, waiting for our surveillance duties to be taken over by a relief duo from the twelfth precinct. Dean handed the glasses back to me and grabbed his own coffee cup from the cup holder protruding from the dash of his unmarked squad car. I found Frank Ross again in my field of vision. He was still sitting alone, petting his dog and talking to it. The dog seemed to enjoy the one-sided conversation and Frank seemed to have plenty to say. Then, as if on cue, he picked up the boom box and slipped a tape into the tape player part of it. His face went soft when the music started. At least I assumed it was music. I couldn’t hear it from where we sat watching. Another few minutes in total relaxation and Frank stood up, untied the dog’s lease from the bench and walked away with his dog and his boom box.
I laid the glasses on the seat next to me and started the engine. “Let’s roll,” I said.
The coffee in Dean’s cup sloshed up over the side as I left the curb. “Take it easy, will ya, Clay?” Dean said, wiping the coffee off his lap.
I turned the corner at West Sixth Street and slowed to fifteen miles per hour, waiting for Frank to emerge from the north end of MacArthur Park. Through the bushes I could make out the shape of a large dog being followed by a man. The dog stopped at the curb, as if trained to do just that, and waited. When the light turned green, he proceeded, dragging his master behind him. Frank walked another two blocks east before turning in to his own apartment building.
“Well,” I said, turning to Dean, “There’s another day shot watching our boy go about his business. He didn’t meet anyone, didn’t call anyone and didn’t stop anywhere except the park bench. We still have nothing.”
Dean extended his arm out the car window and dumped what was left of his coffee in the street. He turned back to me and said, “Thanks for helping out on this stakeout, Clay. I’m sure you must have had better things to do with your time.”
I waved him off. “Nothing that Elliott and Gloria can’t handle until this is over,” I said. “Besides, lately when I’m around them I feel like a fifth wheel.”
“What’s this?” Dean said. “You think there’s something going on between those two?”
“Well,” I said, “They’ve been working together a lot lately. It’s bound to be just a matter of time before some sparks fly. I wouldn’t doubt it.”
“Wouldn’t that be something if they ended up getting involved?” Dean said. “Or married.”
“Elliott?” I said. “I don’t see it happening. He’s too independent. He’d never let himself be trapped by any female.”
“Don’t be so sure, Dad,” Dean said. “Your boy’s a red-blooded American male and Gloria’s pretty easy on the eyes. I’m just saying.”
I dismissed Dean comments and sighed a loud and heavy sigh.
“I have an idea,” Dean said. “I don’t know if it’ll work, but we’ve tried everything else.”
“I’m game,” I said, eager for more details.