Michelle braced herself against the car seat and pushed herself to her feet. There was a small plane up ahead, on the far side of the lot. Daniel had unlocked the pilot-side door, hoisted himself up into the cockpit.
There was no one around. No one in the little building by the field. No gold-toothed smugglers with bales of pot or bricks of cocaine. On a hillside some distance away, she could make out the lights of some sort of long, low building, forming the rough profile of a roof and archways, and she thought she could hear a strain of music drifting down from it, too indistinct for her to note anything but a vague melody.
He was right, it was cool up here in the mountains. She shivered a little and grabbed her sweater out of the tote bag, threading her right arm into the sleeve and draping the left awkwardly across her back and over the sling. She wished she could change, at least put on the shorts and shirt she’d brought, instead of having to wear the black dress. Maybe Daniel could help her before they took off.
She approached the plane. White with two-tone blue trim, “Caravan” written in cursive script above a logo on the tail: a trident inside a circle.
There was a creak of metal, and a door on the side of the fuselage opened, and then Daniel lowered a ramp ladder strung on chains to the ground. “Climb on up if you want,” he said. “Seats in here are pretty comfortable.”
He came down the ladder carrying a folded stepstool. “This strip’s used mostly by sightseeing tours—Caravans fly in and out of here a couple of days a week. I flew this one in before I picked you up. Paid the guy who works here during the day some ‘rental.’ ” He made finger quotes with his hands.
“Should I ask whose plane this is?”
“Nope.” He leaned the stepstool against the ramp. “I’m going to get the stuff in the car.”
Well, it wasn’t a tiny plane, Michelle thought, peering up the ramp. The running lights and cabin lights were on. There were a couple of padded bucket-type seats toward the cockpit and what looked like a larger cargo compartment aft.
“Pretty sweet, huh?” Daniel swung one sturdy-looking duffel into the plane, then another. “I should just buy one of these and be a bush pilot.” He grinned. “Fly medicine to war orphans, you know? Be one of the good guys.”
He headed back to the Jeep. Michelle followed. Her tote bag and purse were still there, and she suddenly wanted to load them on the plane, to just get on with the next phase of the trip, wherever it was they were going.
“I’ll take your stuff over for you.” He went to the rear of the Jeep, opened up the back hatch, and grabbed the bag of golf clubs.
“Need a hand?”
She didn’t need to see him to know that it was Gary. Of course. He came around from the side of the building holding a flashlight, aiming it straight at her.
“Oh, if you could see your faces right now—classic!” he said. “I wish I had a camera. But that’s really more Michelle’s thing. Isn’t it, honey?”
“Gary, look,” Daniel began.
“You thought I wouldn’t find out? You thought you could just pull strings and work around me? Now, what makes you think you can do that?”
There was a crunch of gravel behind them, the rough hum of an engine. A car.
“You go crawling to Curt Dellinger like he’s gonna save your ass, like you’ve got some kind of high card you’re holding over him.” Gary laughed. “You think he gives a shit about you? Well, he doesn’t. You know what he does care about? Problems. And that’s what the two of you are.”
“We’re not going to cause any problems,” Daniel said, staring at Gary’s hands.
“Okay, here’s the deal.” Gary stepped closer, and now Michelle could see, behind the glare of the big metal flashlight, that his other hand held a gun. Of course.
“We can’t have people talking. Not that anybody’s likely to believe anything you have to say, Michelle, but … it’s the principle of the thing. It sets a bad example when people just say whatever shit they want to say and then they get away with it.
“And you know the way it works? You tell one person, and then it’s just so much easier to tell somebody else. Isn’t that right, Michelle? Because you told Danny, didn’t you? Even after I told you not to say anything to anybody. You went ahead and talked. Didn’t you?”
The engine behind them shut off. A car door creaked open.
“And then,” Gary said, stepping closer, coming right up to her, “you told someone else. You told old Charlie, right? And look what happened.”
“Fuck you, Gary,” she said.
Daniel put a hand on her arm. “No one is going to say anything else. Let’s not make this complicated.”
“Believe me, I’m planning on keeping things simple.” Gary took a step back, out of Daniel’s reach. “I’m willing to give you a break, Danny, just this once. Because, frankly, you’d be a pain in the ass to replace right now. So I’m giving you a onetime opportunity here. You show me that you’re loyal. You walk away from her, right now, and you do your job. That’s all you have to do.”
“I’ve always done my job,” Daniel said, his voice tight. “Always. You spun this whole bullshit paranoid fantasy in your head—you made this whole thing happen, for nothing! You fucked up, Gary—you fucked up big time. So here’s my offer: Let me take her home. You leave her alone, we’ll forget about all this, and I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
She stood there helpless, listening to the two of them discuss her like she was some kind of package and the argument was about whom she belonged to and where they should send her.
“I don’t think so.”
Gary glanced deliberately over their shoulders, at the car behind them. Michelle turned to look, since that seemed to be what he wanted.
The car. The one that had taken her to the dump. Leaning against it, the man, the big man with the mustache. The policeman. She was sure now.
“This isn’t a negotiation. You stick with her and pay the consequences or you walk away right now.”
Daniel looked as well. “Jesus. Come on, man. This isn’t right. You can’t … you can’t do that.”
“She doesn’t have to ride with him,” Gary said. “He’s just here to provide a little incentive.” He was close enough for her to see him smile. “If Michelle’s a good girl, she gets to ride with me.”
“Why don’t you just fucking shoot me?” Michelle said. “That’s what you’re going to do anyway.”
“Oh, sweetie, don’t tempt me. Because it’s definitely an option.” He turned to Daniel. “But I’ll tell you what: You show me you can behave, maybe I’ll let her go. I like that deal better, now that I think about it. Keeps you from getting any funny ideas once you’re on your own, up in a plane somewhere.”
Daniel stood there, rigidly still, his hand beneath the strap of the golf bag, the bag resting on his shoulder, and for a moment she thought he’d risk it, that he’d go after Gary, that he was calculating the odds, the angles.
“So what do you say?” Gary asked.
Daniel slowly unshouldered the golf bag and propped it against the Jeep.
“Okay. What do you want me to do?”
Gary jerked a finger at the plane. “Fly that back where it belongs.” He snorted. “Jesus, you really thought you could just take it out from under my nose?”
Daniel nodded. “I need to do the preflight first.” He turned to her. “It’ll be okay,” he said, his expression blank, and then he trotted off toward the plane.
So that’s it, Michelle thought. He’s not going to get me out of this. He’s going to fly away and leave me here.
I’m not that guy, he’d said.
She stood there, feeling empty of anything other than rage.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Michelle,” Gary was saying. “I’ve got some acquaintances with a hacienda not too far from here. Out in the country. Nice and quiet.”
She could see Daniel over by the plane. He’d climbed up on the stepstool and was checking something under the no
se.
“You’ll stay there while we sort things out,” he said. “And we’ll see what we can do about your attitude.”
“My attitude?”
“To start with, you really should be a little more polite to me.” He moved closer, and in a way she was glad he had his hands full. “All things considering.”
Behind him she saw Daniel hop off the stepstool, walk toward them, lift a hand in the direction of the man by the car. “Just need more light,” he called out.
“What is it, Gary?” she asked, and it felt good not to hide her contempt. “Do you want to fuck me, is that it? But you, you’re such a chickenshit you have to do it this way? With a gun?”
He laughed. “You really are something, Michelle.”
“Or is it Danny you want to fuck? Is that why you wanted us to hook up? So you could hear all about it? Maybe listen in on your spy phone?”
Gary swung his flashlight, almost casually, cracking it against her broken arm, and she fell back against the side of the Jeep, gasping.
“That’s enough,” he said. “Now, be a good girl and maybe I won’t make you ride in the trunk.”
Through a red haze, she saw Daniel coming up behind Gary.
“Hey, Gary—can I borrow your flashlight?”
Gary turned, and Daniel came out of a half crouch, launching himself at Gary, plowing the crown of his head into Gary’s gut. They landed on the ground in front of her, rolling in the gravel, the flashlight spinning out of Gary’s hand, and she couldn’t see what was happening, just hear their animal grunts, running footsteps, and then gunshots, seeming to come from everywhere at once, one close enough to her head for her to feel the spit of copper. She dropped to the ground, landing on something. The golf bag. Her hand closed on the head of a club, a thick wedge of cold metal beneath her fingers. She yanked it out of the bag.
When she looked again, she saw Daniel straddling Gary, who lay on his back. Daniel held the gun, and he pointed it at Gary’s head.
“You tell your friend,” Daniel said between gulping breaths. “You tell him to get in his car and drive the fuck away.”
Gary lifted his hands. “Okay. Okay. Guillermo!” he shouted. “¡Súbete al coche—vete a Tres Cerros!”
Daniel thrust the gun muzzle closer to Gary’s face. “He better not be coming back. Or calling any friends.”
“Don’t worry. He won’t do anything till I tell him to. Right, Guillermo?” he added loudly.
They waited. From behind the Jeep, she heard retreating footsteps. Then a car door slam, the engine start up, wheels crunch on gravel.
“That guy’s such a pussy,” Gary muttered. “Should’ve figured he’d be hiding behind a car. You gonna let me up now?”
“Thinking about it.” Daniel swayed a little.
“Hey, well, look here,” Gary said. “You’re bleeding. Now, how’d that happen?”
Michelle used the golf club to push herself to her feet. “Danny?”
“I’m okay.”
As Daniel started to rise, Gary drove his knees into his calf, and Daniel fell hard to one side, and then Gary was up and kicking at his hand that still clutched the gun until Daniel’s fingers finally opened and the gun skipped onto the dirt and gravel.
Gary took two quick steps and bent down to scoop it up.
Michelle raised the golf club with her good arm, braced with her bad, and slammed it as hard as she could against the base of Gary’s skull.
“Fuck!”
His hands went to his head; he stumbled forward, regained his balance. Michelle swung again. This time the club caught him against his cheekbone, and she didn’t care about the flare of pain down her arm, the stabbing in her ribs.
“Fuck you, Gary! Fuck you!”
She lifted the club over her head with both hands, brought it down on his neck, and he fell to his knees. “Murdering cowardly cocksucking asshole!” She swung once more, against the side of his head, and then again, aiming for the same place.
He collapsed and was still.
She stood over him, breathing hard, the pain in her shoulder making her dizzy.
“Wow.”
Daniel had managed to sit up. Even in the dark, she could see the patch of black against the faded white of his shirt. Blood, soaking the shirt from the chest down to the ribs.
“Did you just take out Gary with a golf club?”
[CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN]
“I don’t think it’s too bad,” Daniel said.
“I can’t even see it out here. Danny, we need to go to a doctor.”
“No.”
Gary moaned at their feet. Blood from his nose covered the lower half of his face like a mask.
“There’s no exit wound, right? No bleeding out the back?”
“No, but …”
His hand hovered over his collarbone, near where the bleeding was. “Probably from that other asshole’s gun. Could’ve been worse.”
“You think you can fly a plane like this?”
“Come on, how many times have you driven drunk and made it home?” He tried to smile. “Look, I don’t think we have a better choice. I don’t know whether you killed this fucker or if he’s just going to have an even bigger hard-on for us when he wakes up. It’s not good either way.”
Gary moaned again.
“What do we do with him?” Michelle asked.
Daniel shrugged. “Leave him here.”
• • •
There was a first-aid kit on the plane. In the cabin light, Michelle could see the ragged purple edges of the wound, a hole about the size of a dime.
“Pour some water on it,” Daniel said. He sat in one of the leather passenger seats on the aisle. “To irrigate it. Then alcohol. Just do it.”
She found a bottle of Evian stashed in the cabin’s mini-fridge.
After that was done, she ripped open a package of sterile cotton per his instructions, pressed it into the wound, taped it down, and wrapped a roll of gauze over that, winding it under his arm and across his chest. Then an elastic bandage around his wrist, which was scuffed and swollen where Gary had kicked it. A couple of his fingers had puffed up like sausages.
“Okay,” he said. “I think I’m good to go.”
“Danny, are you sure?”
“Close enough. I flew her over from PVR myself, all fueled up, checked from nose to tail, and assuming Gary didn’t fuck with the plane, we’re good.”
“Assuming … Should we assume that?”
He shrugged. “He wanted me back in the fold, and he’d hate to waste a good bird. Anyway, I checked the big stuff. We’re just gonna have to fly with it.”
They exited the plane one more time, to remove the chocks and cowl covers and tailstand, Daniel moving slowly and deliberately, at one point grabbing a wheel strut to steady himself.
Gary had rolled over onto his back, was muttering something Michelle couldn’t make out. “I guess he’s not dead,” she said.
She crouched down unsteadily next to him. Patted his shorts. Grabbed his wallet from the back pocket and then his BlackBerry from a clip on the waistband. Daniel gave her a hand up, and she stood. Dropped the BlackBerry on the ground. Stomped on it with the heel of her foot, again and again, feeling the plastic crack, grinding it into the dirt.
“We should take the clubs. Maybe do a quick wipe-down on the Jeep, at least get rid of your prints.”
“I can do that. Why don’t you watch him?”
There was a bottle of Windex in the plane, and with that and a clean rag she wiped down the Jeep’s doors and the steering wheel and the dashboard, and finally the rear hatch, while Daniel stood by Gary, gun in hand, swaying slightly. She thought he looked very pale, but in the darkness it was hard to tell for sure.
She managed to pick up the bag of clubs, staggering a little from the pain in her hip and ribs, and carried it over to the plane. Then she went back for the club she’d used on Gary. A wedge, she thought, recalling her brief flirtation with the sport.
For a mom
ent she stood over Gary, starring down at him, resting the club on her good shoulder. He was conscious now, and when he saw her, he made a noise low in his throat and tried to sit up, then cried out and fell back, one hand clutching at his temple.
“Bitch,” he said. “You bitch.”
She smiled at him. “Don’t tempt me, sweetie.”
“You wanna ride shotgun?”
“I guess.” She slid into the copilot’s seat. The cockpit smelled of oil, leather, and hot wire. “What do I need to do?”
“Nothing. Just relax.”
Right, she thought, looking at his pale face in the darkened cockpit, the bloodstained shirt, his swollen fingers fumbling on the switches and dials. “What if you pass out?”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“What if it does?” she insisted. “At least show me what to do.”
He hesitated, and then he nodded. “Yeah, okay. Once we hit cruising altitude, I’ll give you some flying lessons.” He grinned. “It’s fun. You’ll pick it up in no time.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. But she had nothing to lose from trying.
“What about Gary?”
“His car was on the other side of the building. I took his keys and his phone and the keys to the Jeep. Should slow him down for a while anyway.”
“But he’ll come after us.”
“Probably.”
The engine started with a rumble and a whine increasing in pitch as the propeller on the nose began to swing counterclockwise, then clockwise, joined by a lower buzz, growing louder as the plane taxied slowly from the field to the strip.
“Here we go,” Daniel said.
The plane bumped down the strip, picking up speed, the propeller now a blur, and she almost didn’t notice when the wheels were no longer touching earth; they seemed to hover over the strip for a while and then suddenly rise into the night sky.
Now they were above the darkened mountains. She could see the lights of a small town nestled between the peaks, a little cluster of them, like a gathering of stars.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
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