by Joshua Corin
“I understand, Mr. Faulks, but this is an international flight and unless I’m able to scan your ticket, I can’t let you board.” Not we can’t let you board but I can’t let you board. Was the pronoun switch conscious? LaTonya didn’t tip her hand, not with a wink or even the glimmer of a grin. “I am sorry.”
She expected him to huff and snarl and make a scene, perhaps sputter out a few more antebellum phrases. She wanted him to embarrass himself. What she wasn’t prepared for were his tears, which dribbled down his bony cheeks as if his ancient eyes were melting.
“Please…” he sobbed, “my granddaughter is getting married tonight…she’s such a good girl…she bought me this ticket…please…try it again…”
LaTonya girded herself. She would not feel sorry for this skeletal Klansman, no sir. But now the woman behind him was passing a handkerchief and Phillip was practically swooning with sympathy—and with all this drama, nobody saw the thug casually disconnect the podium’s phone cord, spool it around his right hand, and tuck it into his pocket, just in case the police phoned ahead to stop the plane—good luck with that now.
Gritting her teeth, LaTonya scanned Erskine Faulks’s ticket. She would be a good Christian and not stoop to his pettiness. She was going to allow him to board eventually anyway.
“Welcome aboard, Mr. Faulks,” she said.
The old man wiped his tears across his pipe-like forearms, muttered the word “Negress,” and continued on his way, though not before floating the soiled handkerchief back to the kindhearted woman behind him, Rhonda Coxcomb, who must have heard what he’d said because she immediately left the line to toss the rag into a rubbish bin. And so it was Rhonda’s bull-bald husband, Drake, who was now next in line. He passed his documents to LaTonya, who noted that, according to his passport, Drake Coxcomb was a retired cop. She suddenly felt the strange and sudden impulse to hug him. Her father and brother were cops. She chalked up her emotional rush to pregnancy-induced hormones and sent the man on his way.
Still, he waited at the gate for his wife.
“We are now ready for all remaining passengers. All remaining passengers, you are now welcome to board Flight Eight Sixteen with service to Cozumel.”
Slowly, gradually, the rest of the 174 men, women, and children were corralled on board the Airbus A321. LaTonya was too busy dealing with her cloudburst of emotions to give anyone else a hard time.
The old man was the last to board.
“I could not do what you do,” he told her. “You have the patience of a saint. Whatever compensation you receive from your employer is not enough.”
LaTonya was barely keeping it together before this and now she could feel thick tears budding at the corners of her eyes. Damn it, she would have to check her makeup in the ladies’ room. But his reminder that, despite a few bad eggs, humankind on the whole was good, was worth a smear of eyeliner. The old man fumbled for his ticket and passport and when they fluttered to the carpeted floor, both LaTonya and Phillip bent to help him retrieve them. Working in tandem, they scanned his ticket and with complete sincerity welcomed him aboard as he passed through the jetway.
They watched him go.
So did the thug. He sat alone in his seat. He thought about the cord in his pocket. The most foolproof way he knew to kill a man with a cord like this was to approach him from behind, lasso the cord around his neck, yank him off-balance and to the floor facedown, and then, while pressing one foot against the man’s upper back, pull up on the cord until the windpipe was crushed. Sure, there were swifter ways to strangle a victim—keeping him upright, for example—but the thug was a proponent of overwhelming force. He already missed his .44 Desert Eagle. To pass through security, he had to leave it in Larry Walder’s car. That large gun had served him well.
He did regret having to use it that morning on the policewoman. The first shot, the one that shattered her headlight, hadn’t been a miss. He did it to get her to turn around. He was a man of honor. He wasn’t about to shoot a lady in the back.
Now, here, without his gun, he felt a bit naked. Ah well. Maybe the police wouldn’t find the body in time. Maybe the plane would be able to taxi away from the gate without interruption and he wouldn’t have to stall the police—as the old man had suggested—and instead he would be able to return to the Audi and regather his weapon.
Either way, he’d know in the next few minutes.
Chapter 5
The thug got up and stood by the terminal’s wall of windows. The airplane backed off from the jetway.
What a clear, rose-rimmed morning.
The thug smiled.
In a reflection on the glass, superimposed over his own reflection, a small battalion of men in uniforms rushed toward the gate.
The thug’s smile faded. Ah well.
Among the airport security officers was a curly-haired sapling named Morris Kincaid. Morris Kincaid was Pegasus Airlines’ on-duty manager and he went straight for LaTonya, poking one of his well-manicured index fingers within inches of her face while haranguing her for not answering the phone. The thug briefly considered lassoing the phone cord around the tiny man’s rage-crimson neck, but no, no, for the sake of his countrymen and the mission, he refrained.
Instead, he held up his bare hands and proclaimed for all to hear: “Hello! I shot the police! Take me now to the jail.”
This was what those in law enforcement referred to as probable cause. The seven officers launched themselves at the big man: three to hold the big man down, one to cuff the big man’s wrists, two to search the big man for weapons and/or contraband, and one to supervise, which was only fair as he, Lieutenant Elvis Dundee, was their shift supervisor.
It was Lieutenant Dundee who made the call to ground Flight 816. Despite the thug’s enthusiastic confession, Captain Larry Walder remained a person of interest and needed to be brought in for questioning. Grounding Flight 816 proved easier said than done, though, as the airplane had reached an altitude of ten thousand feet and climbing, which prompted Lucy Snow, chief purser, to perform her duty of informing the passengers of some very good news via the PA:
“Ladies and gentlemen, at this time you may activate your electronic devices. In a few minutes, we will begin our complimentary beverage service. In the meantime, we invite you to sit back and enjoy our in-flight media, which includes popular Hollywood movies, TV shows, and albums in both English and Spanish. A guide to our media offerings can be found in the back of the in-flight magazine. Once we reach our cruising altitude, the captain will turn off the seat belt sign, but until then, we ask that you remain in your seats. Thank you again for flying Pegasus Airlines!”
She then repeated the announcement word-for-word in Spanish. Heck, after all these years, she could have recited it in Pig Latin. Sometimes when she lay down at night, she could hear the words of the speech echoing among the shadows of her room. Once, to win a free shot of Cuervo Gold off a co-worker, she rattled off the speech in under ten seconds; to win the second shot, she recited it backward—in under ten seconds. And yet she was still single. What a cold, cold world this was.
In the business-class cabin, Maryann and Deja took their positions on either side of their beverage cart, although half of the first row was zonked out on sleeping pills. The other half of the aisle had an empty window seat; beside it sat the old man, all kindness and gentility. He hid his mangled left hand in his sleeve.
“Good morning!” he said. His dark eyes twinkled with good humor. “When you have a chance, I would love a cup of black coffee.”
On the other side of the curtain, in economy class, Addison was strutting toward 29C. And why had this passenger pressed the call button? Addison never knew what to expect when it came to requests. Would they require a blanket? Would they need help with the overhead fan? She made her way past rows and rows of people who were connected by the wires in their headphones to the screens on the backs of the seats in front of them; not a one flagged her down, so involved were they in whatever programming they’
d selected.
Before reaching 29C, Addison paused to check on the memorable occupants of Row 22. These were the barely conscious duo who had required wheelchairs and the cute male aides who had accompanied them. Addison had a thing for cute male aides. Only sensitive and patient men became aides. Bonus points for the matching tattoos on their necks. Sure, they had tried to hide them with concealer, but Addison had years of experience helping her mother powder away bruises. Having a wife-beater for a father tended to make one an expert in certain matters. Addison flashed the aides her perfect smile and asked if they needed anything, but they both shook their heads. Neither of them was plugged into a screen. They just sat there in rapt tranquility like proper gentlemen should.
Twenty-Nine-C turned out to be pimple-pocked Davey Wood.
“Can I have a glass of water?” he asked.
“So he can take his fat pills!” teased Kenneth.
“Yeah, your fat pills!” teased Kip.
Davey blushed so red that his acne glowed like embers.
“I’ll be right back with your water,” Addison promised and made a mental note to get Francisco to deal with the kids before they got too rowdy. If anyone could settle down a pair of Grade A brats like these, it was Francisco.
Shortly thereafter, the plane reached its cruising altitude. The anxious fliers, like Murray Bannerman in Seat 22C, allowed themselves to relax—a bit—comforted by the fact that most airplane fatalities occurred during takeoff. Sure, they were still trapped in this steel coffin and suspended several dozen thousand feet above the planet, but statistically speaking, the worst was over. The enthusiastic fliers, like Leticia Morgan in Seat 23C, ruminated with wonder and awe at the fact that they were, at this very moment, soaring above the clouds like something out of Greek mythology. What a god man had become!
It was time for the captain to make his opening remarks. Larry activated the intercom, and whatever complimentary media the passengers were listening to cut out, only to be replaced by a popping, followed by a clicking, followed by the sound of their captain taking a deep, dry swallow.
“I…sorry about that…ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain and it…I mean…it is my pleasure to…”
He stopped—and the reason he stopped was because the next words ready to leap from his mouth were to inform them just how fucked up their day was about to become. There were 174 passengers on this plane, men and women with families of their own, children whose lives had barely begun, and here he was prioritizing his own kin over theirs. How was this anything other than selfish? He tried to swallow, tried to generate enough moisture to speak, but his throat had gone all Sahara on him.
“Skipper,” muttered Reese, “you OK there?”
These men with the barcode tattoos were kidnappers and killers. What would happen once Larry landed the plane? Did the lives of Marie and Sean really outweigh the lives of 174 innocents?
Yes.
Yes, they simply did. And that was that.
Larry turned off the intercom. “Reese, I need you to remain calm.”
“Hey, chief, I hate to break it to you, but the last thing you want to tell a guy you want to remain calm is to remain calm. What’s going on? All our readings look five by five. Altitude, engines, fuel, speed, yaw, navigation…although shouldn’t we be over the ocean by now?”
Reese checked his navigation display, then stared at his captain with genuine confusion. This was Larry Walder. The man was a veteran pilot. Everybody liked Larry and, more so, everybody trusted him.
And yet, where was the fucking ocean?
“Captain, I’m going to be straight with you: You’re scaring the shit out of my balls. Now tell me what the holy hell is going on or so help me, I’ll…”
After 9/11, the US government voted to allow commercial airline pilots to carry handguns; however, some of the countries to which these commercial airlines regularly flew did not see eye-to-eye with the United States on this point of law. The compromise that Pegasus enacted for its international flights was simple: Stow the captain’s and first officer’s handguns in the footlockers under their seats.
This was what Larry had filched from Reese’s footlocker and this was what Larry now with his right hand pointed at Reese’s face, this fully loaded semi-automatic Glock 17.
“I need you to remain calm,” said Larry. “Please.”
Chapter 6
At 7:01 A.M., precisely thirty minutes before Larry Walder hijacked Pegasus Airlines Flight 816, Xanadu Marx finished off her third cigarette of the day, plinked its stub into her empty can of Red Bull, and seriously contemplated pitching the can with full force at the chipper-grinned, pneumatic-breasted twentysomething currently jogging along her sidewalk.
Alas, no, because at that moment Xana’s hippie Hindu flatmate Moonbeam—or was it Sunbeam?—flip-flopped out the front door and perched herself beside Xana on the hillock of cracked bricks that functioned, more or less, as their house’s front stoop. And so Xana’s window of opportunity had passed. The youthful jogger had gone out of range.
“Can I have a sip?” asked Moonbeam. The breeze turned her hip-length gray hair into Victorian curtains.
The same breeze did absolutely nothing to Xana’s obsidian pixie cut. She handed the Red Bull can to Moonbeam and stared out with her old-soul eyes at their front lawn, all wheat yellow save for the weeds. The weeds were green. The weeds were thriving.
Moonbeam upended Xana’s can and choked and then coughed and then spat out the wet remains of Xana’s third cigarette into her palm. What came next out of her mouth was a series of colorful, euphonious Hindi epithets, ending with: “If I weren’t a pacifist, I’d punch you in the brain.”
To which Xana responded, in perfect Hindi: “I’d like to see you try, bitch.”
Moonbeam reeked of patchouli and mint and decades of nude beaches had transformed her subcontinent skin to rich Corinthian leather but she had a soothing voice and when used to sing one of her self-composed songs, even the dust paid attention. Her voice was a warm blanket on a cool night and the only real reason Xana hated Moonbeam was because Moonbeam was here at this house and Xana really hated this house—except that wasn’t the whole story either…
“How do you know Hindi?” asked Moonbeam. “You are not Indian.”
“I also know Spanish, but I’ve never been to Spain. No, that’s a lie. I’ve been to Spain. Want a cigarette?”
“My body is a temple.”
“My body is an amusement park.”
“Alice is in the kitchen listening to her police scanner at full volume. Again.”
Xana flicked her Bic and held the flame up to the sun.
Moonbeam continued, “Why do you think she does that? The police are nothing more than bullies with badges.”
Xana shut her lighter and tucked it back in the breast pocket of her loose silk blouse. The shirt was an oldie but goodie. The red-and-yellow MANCHESTER UNITED insignia on the breast pocket had faded with time and the stitching had come loose, but the red devil was still to all appearances a red devil and the words were as readable now as they were almost twenty years ago when she bought the shirt at a street fair in Istanbul. Her blue jeans, bought a year ago at the mall, were in much worse shape.
“Is it pretty?” asked Moonbeam.
“Is what pretty?”
“Spain.”
“It’s the same as everywhere else—as pretty as you want it to be.”
“You’d have to be higher than the sun to think this neighborhood is pretty.”
“That must be why there are so many crack houses. But none of us are here by choice, are we?”
Moonbeam shook her head no. Her long gray hair whipped back and forth like legs.
“Someday I think I’d like to go to Spain,” she said.
“The last time I was there, I watched a man jump off the nave of a thousand-year-old cathedral.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t want to get shot. In the end, I guess you could say he was lu
cky.”
“Why’s that?”
“He didn’t get shot.”
Xana stood up—and up and up, nearly six feet tall from pigeon toes to crow’s-feet. She headed inside the house and followed its short and narrow corridors to the white noise emanating from Alice’s police scanner, which was propped on the birchwood countertop right beside the sink and its leaning towers of dirty dishes. Alice, in a wife-beater that effectively showed off her full sleeves of tattoos, sat at the three-legged table and stared into space for a thousand yards, her pupils oscillating on their own.
“Officer down on I Seventy-Five S,” she told the air. She had the tone of voice of a lobotomy.
Xana opened the pantry door to scrounge for food from the sparsely populated shelves. She found a box of unsalted wheat crackers and brought it to the table.
“When?” she asked Alice.
“A little while ago.”
“Is the officer going to be OK?”
“No,” Alice said flatly. “She’s dead.”
Xana chewed on a cracker. It tasted like a cigarette butt. She brimmed with sympathy for Moonbeam.
“They have an APB out for a suspect named Laurence Walder.”
“Sounds like Laurence Walder is about to have a well-earned very bad day.” Xana scooted over to the fridge and checked the Styrofoam container on the top shelf in the door. Empty. What kind of asshole leaves an empty Styrofoam container in the fridge? Xana grunted in frustration and shut the door, leaving the empty Styrofoam container in the fridge.
“There’s Pop-Tarts in the freezer,” said Alice.
Xana opened the freezer door. Sure enough, beside a massive box of chicken potpies sat a few foil-wrapped Pop-Tarts.
By way of obligatory explanation, Alice added: “Evelyn likes to eat them cold.”
Ah, Evelyn. The pinch-nosed headmistress of their abode. Evelyn Ward maintained the list of chores fastened to the fridge by a magnetized five-year chip. When the taxicab had dropped Xana off at the house three days ago, it was Evelyn who, despite the rain, had been waiting for her on the stoop; Evelyn, who, at age fifty-two, was not much older than Xana, and the first words out of Evelyn’s wide crimson mouth had been: