“Yeah.”
“And you remember what I said to him?”
“You said, ‘No fucking way’.”
“Really?” She removed the cap from the tube. “Well, that guy was a jerk.”
2
“No fucking way.” The words rang out too loudly for the man’s taste, and they were distasteful coming from this Amazon-looking, blond woman.
She was standing over him, and he was unfortunately seated at a desk in the front corner of a large open-air hangar. The desk was made of mahogany and once had been beautiful, but now the surface was gouged and delaminated. Black oil stained the front legs. The owners didn’t pay him enough to look after all of the custom shit that they stuffed in front of him, so he didn’t.
Airplane parts were scattered across the remainder of the large hangar. Puddles of purple hydraulic fluid splattered the concrete. The hum and pop of an electric arc welder showered sparks nearby and gave off an ozone smell of high voltage and burned insulation.
He shuffled a stack of papers and fixed his attention on the woman. She had a determined expression and a wide-eyed, unblinking gaze that fixed on his face. He sensed superiority in her manner and this irritated him further.
“But madam, you have been contracted to fly the airplane,” he replied, as if he was talking down to a child. His chair scraped the concrete floor as he pushed back and stood to his full height. The woman still towered over him.
“I haven’t signed anything yet,” she yelled over the pulsing hammer of a pneumatic wrench.
A trimmed black mustache covered his down-turned lip. “I’m afraid you don’t understand—”
“Didn’t you hear me?” She leaned on his desk. “I said I’m not flying that piece of shit parked on the ramp!” She pointed a chipped, red fingernail in the direction of the airplane parked outside.
A man stepped from a shadowed door at the corner of the hangar, roughly in line with the woman’s extended arm. He approached the desk in a measured stride, a vague form with broad shoulders.
“I sure hope to hell you’re an American,” she said, turning fractionally toward him. She hefted a polished, metal paperweight from the table, a fast-pitch softball made of steel.
“Take it easy now…” O’Brien said. He put an edge to his voice, rolled it forward. Getting brained with what appeared to be a small fuel pump was not a pleasant prospect.
He studied the woman. She was tall with a solid, athletic air about her. Her blond hair was tied up away from her neck. This emphasized her height, gave her more stature in both the physical and psychological sense. Rather than play down her size as most large women would, O’Brien could tell that she went for the opposite effect.
“Are you the commandante?” the manager asked in a raised voice. “Are you the commandante?”
O’Brien nodded as he stepped up to the group . “I am the captain, and I agree with this lady. We are not going to fly that airplane parked on the ramp outside.”
The man pulled nervously at his mustache. “But señor captain, that is the reason you are here—to fly the plane.” He held out his hand and inclined his head. “I am Señor José Azevedo, the manager of the charter operations here.” He sniffed. “And this señorita, I would suppose, is your co-pilot.”
O’Brien took the man’s bony hand and looked down on a bald pate combed with no more than five strands of black hair. He nodded to the woman and spoke to the man. “There is a fuel leak under the left wing, señor, and a hydraulic leak in the wheel well. The lady is correct. We are not flying this airplane. And I haven’t even looked inside.” A welder twenty feet away was showering sparks next to the spill of grease and hydraulic fluid. If the hangar went up in a ball of flames, he wouldn’t be surprised.
“It’s worse,” the woman declared. She proceeded to categorize a litany of other mechanical faults as she offered her hand. “Lucy Amudsen,” she said.
Her fingers were soft, but her grip was firm. There was muscle in her arms and shoulders. “I thought I might be dodging that pump,” O’Brien said, nodding at the hunk of metal.
“This?” The woman turned the device over as if looking for the balance point. She placed it on the table. “You wouldn’t have dodged it.”
The manager picked up the telephone and spoke in rapid Portuguese. Beads of perspiration broke out on his brow. The words por favor and claro were repeated.
“I am terribly sorry to say this...” He set the telephone carefully back on the cradle. “But you must fly the airplane.” He swallowed.
The woman raised an eyebrow and said, “And why must we fly this airplane?”
His eyes slid away. “Señorita, we have boxes of medicines already in the airplane that must get to the hospitals in Monrovia. There are many volunteer doctors but few medicines there.”
“Then it looks like you have a big problem,” O’Brien said. “Too bad about the medicine, but you’ll have to find some other pilots.” He took a step toward the exit and the woman turned to follow.
“But señor!” the man shouted.
“Or,” he added in a sharp voice, “Get an airplane in good condition here by tomorrow.” He reached in his pocket and unfolded a piece of paper. “I’ll be at the...Gran Marquise Sol Melia. Do you know that?”
Señor Azevedo nodded slowly. He ran a hand over his scalp.
“That works for me too,” the woman said. She joined O’Brien step by step to the door. “Now let’s get a frigging cab. Maybe we can see the city as long as we’re down here.”
“I’ve already got a frigging cab.”
“Okay,” she said with a bright smile. “Then can I ride along?”
O’Brien blinked into the midday brightness outside the hangar. A fireball of a sun baked an ancient yellow Mazda sitting on a square of hard-packed earth. A cabbie stood by the car. His pinched face was covered with a week’s growth of black stubble and his tongue rested on a slack, lower lip. He had a hostile expression, as if he might visit O’Brien’s room later in the evening with all of his cousins.
“Look at that guy,” Lucy said. “I don’t think he likes you.”
O’Brien reached into a pocket and retrieved the keys to the cab. “I had to take these away from him. Maybe I slapped him in the process.”
She shot a glance. “That’s kind of dangerous down here. You think you’re some kind of tough guy?”
“Nah. I just told him to wait. He didn’t want to.”
“You could have asked politely.”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “I noticed you were courteous to the guy in the hangar.”
“You were there all the time?”
“I heard most of it.”
“Well, my language gets away from me. I grew up in a dominant male household.”
“You’re forgiven.”
Lucy opened the right rear door as O’Brien sank into the cracked, rear seat behind the driver. He handed the keys forward. “Por favor, back to the hotel, the Gran Marguise Sol Melia. Comprendé?”
“Es claro, Señor.”
A clatter and pop squirted from the engine as the driver fired the ignition and mashed the accelerator. The rear wheels slung dirt and gravel from under the rear bumper.
“So you’re bi-lingual, too,” she observed with a crooked smile. She made it a statement as opposed to a question.
“Very funny. This is going to be an interesting trip if we ever take it.”
“I’ll second that. My God, look at that piece of crap. And we were going to fly that?” She shook her head. “Not me. But I guess I was going to be your co-pilot, huh?”
“Could be still if they bring us a decent airplane.” The taxi bounced back through the perimeter gate and onto the airport road. “You said your name was Lucy?” The back windows were halfway down and the woman shook out her hair in the breeze. She nodded back at him with a hairclip between her teeth. One hand disappeared into her purse and came out holding a bright red scrunchy, the same as his wife had once used to tie her hair.
>
“And you’re Daniel,” she said, passing both hands behind her head. She emerged seconds later as a ponytailed blond.
“That’s me.”
“So, have we got a plan, Captain Daniel?”
“Yeah. Let’s meet for dinner tonight,” he said. “It’ll give us the afternoon to scour the internet for some better contracts, and we can talk about the finer points of this enterprise over dinner.” He was interested in knowing a little bit more about his partner before they blasted off across the Atlantic Ocean, in the unlikely event Azevedo came up with another airplane.
“Are you kidding?” She looked at him in surprise. “I’m going to hit the beach and do my nails this afternoon.” She held them up. “See. The polish is wearing off.”
He sat up. “Okay, but later—dinner? Anything special you like to eat?”
“I like everything.”
The view was spectacular, and the smell of grilled fish, sautéed leeks, garlic, peppers, the whole smoky mess filled the air. O’Brien was seated next to a balcony window in the roof restaurant of their hotel. He worked on a beer and gazed. To the east, as far as he could see in the fading light, lay the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The darkening sky lent a purple tinge to the horizon over the ocean. He never understood why.
Earlier, he’d walked the beach-side town. Fortaleza was a modern coastal resort built around the stone walls of an ancient Portuguese fort. The narrow, cobblestone streets of the old section were permanent reminders of Portugal’s empire days in the sun. Nowadays, the city was a jumble of neon-lit hotels and commerce spreading north and south behind the bunkered sand dunes of the southern Atlantic Ocean. There were open bars on every corner, and crowds moved under bright, high-tech billboards advertising Sony and Phillips electronics. It might be Miami’s South Beach, he thought, only here there was a frenetic energy about the place, like a fire ant colony poked with a stick.
The city had one unique characteristic that set it apart from any other place in the Western Hemisphere: It represented the closest point to the continent of Africa from any location in North or South America, and that was the reason he was here.
Lucy walked in. She wore an open, dark-blue jacket with a gold-filigreed tunic collar. Her blond hair draped her shoulders and matched the gold in the collar. A pink blouse underneath the jacket, along with what he took to be black, silk pants completed her attire. He had trouble believing she was the same co-pilot he’d seen just a few hours before.
He stood as a waiter rushed to seat her. The fellow reminded him of the hangar manager.
“My, these Latin guys are polite,” Lucy remarked, as the waiter pulled out her chair. She threw him a look.
“I was trying to get there,” he said.
She settled, ordered a beer, and eyed him. “And you don’t look at all like the tough guy I thought you were.”
He fingered his wrinkled, charcoal blazer. The jacket topped a dark polo shirt and khaki pants, an outfit he’d worn in twenty-five countries and counting. “I’m not a tough guy,” he said. “Just a casual traveler who likes new experiences.” He looked around the room. The place was becoming crowded, although eight o’clock in the evening was still too early for most Brazilian locals. Ferns and green plants dotted the interior and gave the restaurant a tropical feel, as if they were sitting in the courtyard of a coffee plantation. Overhead, the most intricately woven wicker fans he had ever seen turned slowly, not quite in rhythm with the five-piece band of energetic musicians pushing the The Girl From Ipenema into a Motown sound.
He brought the ice-cold bottle of beer to his mouth. Brahma wasn’t a brand he was familiar with, but he sealed his lips around the opening and savored the liquid before he allowed it to cascade down his throat.
The waiter thumped a beer in front of Lucy. She nodded as he tipped the bottle toward a glass. “Gracias,” she said, as the foamy head rose exactly to the rim. She circled the glass with her polished, bright-red nails.
“So you’re bi-lingual too,” he said.
“Got me.” She grinned and took a swallow.
He leaned back and stretched his legs under the table. “So how was the beach? You’ve got some sun on your face. Nice nails.”
“You like the color? It’s called Candy Apple Hot.”
“Great. Look, Lucy, about the airplane...”
“Yeah, about that. Frankly, I think the whole thing is bullshit. The Azevedo guy was almost crying with humanitarian concern for the people of Liberia? I don’t buy it.”
“Exactly.”
“Although, I saw lots of boxes stacked inside the cargo nets.”
“There probably is medicine—”
“But that’s not the reason someone wants that airplane in Liberia?”
“God, we’re suspicious individuals.” He took another swallow of beer. A belch of fizzy carbonation whizzed out between his teeth. He missed the first one, caught the second in a closed fist against his lips.
“Very polite, Daniel.” Her eyebrows went up. “Did your wife teach you that?”
“I don’t have a wife.” The label on the bottle was intriguing. The Brazilians certainly had a way with bright colors.
“Really? A hunky guy like you? You’re not gay are you, asking about my nails and all?” She smiled, a little tease in the question.
He laughed. “Who knows? How do gay people act?”
“For starters, they don’t stare at my...well, my boobs the way you did.”
“And when did I do that?”
“When we first met in the hangar. I’m very perceptive about that sort of thing. The creepy guy was staring too.”
“Maybe that’s because they were right at his eye level.” He flicked a glance over her chest.
“See. There you go again.”
“Lucy, can we get back to the subject?”
“Whatever.” She bounced her focus up to the ceiling and back.
“So why are we so suspicious about this contract? Because, for one, the plane’s a piece of shit as we both know.” He extended a finger, then another. “Two, that Azevedo guy is a total greaseball who looks and acts like he’s hiding something. And three? Well, it just smells illegal. And if it smells illegal, it probably is. That about sum it up?”
“Yeah, but there’s something else.”
“What?”
“What if they got another plane, one in decent shape. As I recall you were interested.”
“So what?”
“I need a landing, Daniel.” She pulled the large menu into her lap and opened the front fold. “This contract has us going to Liberia, then to London by way of the Azores. If I don’t get one of those landings I’ll go non-current, and that means—”
“Yeah, I know. You’ll have to go back to a simulator and take a check ride with the FAA.”
“It’s expensive, and I’ll have to pay for it. We don’t work for an airline that does this stuff for us.” She took a sip of her beer and concentrated on the menu.
He picked up a fork and tapped it on the tablecloth. A simulator check ride would run into the thousands, a needless expense for Lucy or for practically anyone, especially when it could be avoided so easily. He opened the large plastic cover of his own carte.
After a long moment she looked up. “Let’s think about it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You act like it doesn’t matter to you.”
“I don’t really need the job and I’ve been to Liberia before. It’s a tough place.”
“What? You rich or something?”
“Something.”
“Shit.” She slapped the menu. “Pardon my language again. I need to find someone rich.” She sighed and turned a laminated page. “If you knew about my pathetic love life you’d probably shoot yourself—or die laughing. Why can’t I find anybody? And what is feijoada, anyway?”
“What?”
“Feijoada. This entrée item on the menu.”
“Jeez, Lucy. I don’t know.” O’Brien flipped his menu
on the table. “Let’s go with the waiter’s recommendation.”
“Feijoada is the national dish of Brazil, señorita,” the waiter said as he placed a massive serving of rice, black beans and pork in front of Lucy twenty minutes later. An equally large platter of fresh fish, shrimp and vegetables was offloaded in front of O’Brien.
“Caruru,” the server informed him before he asked.
Lucy’s nose wrinkled with the steamy aroma. She picked up her salt shaker and began seasoning the entrée.
“You’re not even going to try it first?”
“Are you kidding? It’s the American way.” She pushed into the food with her utensils, separating the pork from the rice, the rice from the beans, and finally took a bite. She rolled her eyes after a taste, then a second. “I think I need a bigger fork,” she said.
Her father had played pro football for the Packers, she informed him over dinner. In the space of only six games his leg was fractured and he was released from the team. He turned around and bought into a flying service and she grew up around airplanes. A brother flew for FedEx.
“My brother’s a big guy, Daniel. Bigger than you.”
“How come he’s not playing football?”
She shrugged. “He saw what it did to my father, and anyway, he got into martial arts in a big way. Got his black belt instead of some football trophy.”
“And ended up flying for FedEx?”
“Eric’s a DC-10 captain, and as you know that’s the big time, at least as flying jobs go.” She gathered the remains of her feijoada into a corner of her plate. “He’s back and forth to Europe almost every week. I keep thinking I’ll run into him in Paris or something.”
“Kind of hard to do in a 737. We don’t often fly that far.”
“Yeah, I know.” She pushed back from the table and crossed her legs. “Okay, I’ve got to ask. What’s with the burn scars? You’ve got them all over.”
He looked at his hand, flipped it palm side up and let her see the ridge of calluses and burn scars that ran lengthwise to his elbow and beyond. “A car accident.”
Errand of Mercy: How far do you run, and where do you hide? Page 2