Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  Joan was right behind her, face pale and jaw slack.

  In the living room, Coogan stretched out on the sofa. Lauren clutched Jordan’s arm and whispered frantically, “They took him, they took him back, and now he’s going to the plant, I know it, I just know it.”

  Jordan put an arm around her shoulder and held her close. “Where’s Lizzie?” he asked.

  “They took her, too,” Joan said. “Her, Mark and Paula.”

  “What do they want with Lizzie?” Marvin asked, lowering himself into a chair.

  “It’s not what they want with her,” Joan said. “It’s what Hester wants with her.”

  “Okay, okay, we don’t have much time,” Jordan said, “we’ve gotta get moving. Marvin, if he’s on his way …” Jordan left the sentence unfinished, staring at his friend with a lost look on his face.

  “I can try to make it in the car, but if he’s taking a plane, he’ll get there long before me.”

  “Couldn’t we at least try giving the plant a call?” Coogan suggested.

  Lauren said, “You could try, but I know they wouldn’t pay much attention to you, and when Mark arrived, they’d just have a big laugh about it.”

  “Maybe I could fly,” Marvin said.

  “How?” Jordan asked.

  Marvin shrugged and looked around the room for any help he could get.

  Joan went to Coogan’s side and said, “What about Flash?”

  “I thought of that, but …” He sat up slowly, one hand on his head, his face twisted with pain. “… I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Flash?” Jordan asked. “Flash who? Who’s Flash?”

  “Flash Gordon,” Joan replied.

  Marvin and Jordan exchanged a glance and Marvin said, “Honey, maybe you better lie down.”

  “No, no, not that Flash Gordon,” Joan said, animated now, speaking breathlessly. “Chuck Gordon. Everybody calls him Flash because he flies a helicopter. He takes people up for an aerial view of Mount Shasta, and once in a while he uses it for travel.”

  “Where is he?” Jordan’s voice had nearly risen to a shout.

  “Wait, wait just a minute,” Coogan said, still holding his head. “Flash is not a good idea. For one thing, he won’t have anything to do with this. And for another, he’s um … well, I wouldn’t go up with him.”

  “How many other people in this town fly?” Jordan asked him.

  “None that I know of.”

  “Then Flash is our man.”

  “That’s the problem. Flash is nobody’s man.”

  “He’s temperamental,” Joan explained, “and he drinks, but Coogan, he’s all there is.”

  “And he’s probably three sheets to the wind by now.”

  “You mean … he drinks … a lot?” Marvin croaked.

  “Every night,” Coogan said.

  Jordan said, “Well, let’s go make Flash some coffee.”

  3.

  The airfield was small and deserted. A few small planes and a helicopter were parked behind a utility shed with rusty corrugated metal siding. The hollow skeleton of an old snack bar stood between the small parking lot and the runway. The driver of the van drove across the parking lot, over a patch of rocky, weedy ground, and right up to the edge of the runway, where a Cessna waited, rotors spinning, lights shining brightly in the dark.

  A man sitting across from Mark in the back of the van got up before they’d stopped, unlatched the door and pulled it open. Hester took Mark’s arm and led him quickly out of the van to the plane, saying, “I hope you see now, Mark, I hope you really see that your wife is not on your side. She is still wallowing in her ignorance, you realize that, don’t you?”

  He nodded, but said, “I still wish I could have—”

  “No, Mark, no. No wishing. No looking back now. This is it.” They were at the plane and a man inside was holding the door open for him. She stood close to him, one hand placed flat against the middle of his chest. “Remember, Mark, you are your own god. You decide what is right for you to do. You are a part of the Godbody. Right now, you are an extraordinarily important part of the Godbody. And you are going to find the godness within you by doing what you were born to do.”

  The words did make him feel important, made him want to do this. But he felt so confused, his mind was spinning so fast. …

  “Go, now, Mark. And remember to meditate. I want you to chant and meditate during the whole trip.” She kissed him, then put her hands on his shoulders, turned him around and pushed him into the plane.

  The pilot slammed the door, got into the cockpit, and aside from telling Mark to strap himself in, said nothing as the plane began to move. Mark stared at his lap for a while, trying not to think, trying to slow down the dizzying spinning in his head. When the plane increased speed, he looked out the window and saw Hester speed by. The ground outside became a blur, then began to fall away, giving him a sickening feeling in his stomach. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back and tried to put himself in a meditative state of mind. It seemed impossible at first, but once he started to meditate—“Gaaawwd-baaawwd-eeeee,” he droned quietly, “Gaaawwd-baaawwd-eeeee”—the sound of the plane and the motion of flight disappeared and Mark felt himself floating naked in blissful, silent nothingness.

  4.

  Benjamin rushed toward Lizzie with a guttural roar, then he stopped inches from her and motioned toward the ground. She dropped to her knees, screaming, but stopped abruptly, angry at herself for losing her control.

  He motioned downward again, growling, and Lizzie sat. She watched as Benjamin turned away from her and began stalking around the lantern again, mumbling to himself and slobbering.

  Lizzie wondered what she’d done or said to upset him so. She put her head in her hands and prayed silently for the right words, the right actions, anything that might win Benjamin’s confidence.

  She watched him stop his aimless circling, reach behind a thick stalagmite and remove a bulky rag that was wrapped around something. He unrolled it and a spoon, a fork, a rusty can opener and a small comb fell into his enormous hand. He plucked the comb up with a thumb and finger, put the others back in the rag and set them on the ground.

  Turning to the doll, he pulled its blanket back and lifted it gently from its stone bed, then carried it to the rock where he’d been sitting earlier. He lowered himself slowly to the rock, staring at his doll, then held the doll in his lap and began to comb its stiff hair. He was clumsy, though, and far too forceful for the task. With each stroke of his hand, strands of hair tore out of the vinyl head and remained tangled in the teeth of the comb.

  Lizzie saw that he was using the small end of the comb where the tiny teeth were positioned close together. At the other end, the teeth were spaced farther apart.

  He made a sad growling sound, stopped combing and began to fidget on the rock.

  “Benjamin?” Lizzie whispered.

  Holding the doll to his chest, he stood suddenly, roaring as he shot her a hateful glare. His entire body trembled as the roar grew louder, reverberating throughout the cave, until he threw the comb at Lizzie and stopped. He remained standing for a while, watching her, waiting for her to make a wrong move, then sat again and began to rock the doll slightly in his hands.

  Lizzie looked at his hands, with their bulging knuckles, leathery, knotty skin and tiny lumps of fingernails. They were the same hands, no doubt, that had killed, or at least brutalized, the reporter Jordan and Marvin had been looking for before they’d gotten so sidetracked. They were probably the same hands that had killed Joan’s friend Paul Kragen and who knew how many others. And yet, she watched them now as they rocked an old doll as gently as if it were a living infant. There was something inside that hulking body that could be reached, if she could only figure out how.

  “I know how to comb your doll’s
hair so it won’t come out,” she said quietly.

  He grunted at her, as if to say, Shut up.

  “I’ll show you, Benjamin.” She leaned forward and picked up the comb that had bounced off her shoulder when he threw it. She held it up for him to see and pointed to the large end. “See here? The teeth are farther apart on this end of the comb. That way, the hair won’t tangle and pull out.”

  He leaned back his head to see out from under the thick ridge that slanted downward and stuck out over his uneven eyes. His enormous mouth hung open beneath his flat, lumpy nose as he thought about what she’d said.

  He can’t decide, she thought. He can’t decide whether to believe me or his mother.

  “I’ll show you, if you’d like.”

  Another grunt, this time with an inflection that said, I dare you.

  “Do you want me to come over there? Or would you like to bring the doll over here?”

  Benjamin stroked the doll as he stood uncertainly. His steps were cautious, halting, and a couple of times he looked as if he were about to burst into another rage. But he finally stood before her, bending down timidly to offer her the doll.

  Lizzie lifted herself onto a rock, took the doll as if she were taking someone’s baby, and said, “Now watch.” She ran the comb carefully through the doll’s hair. It worked. The comb moved smoothly as Lizzie tried to cover the bald spot with the hair that was left.

  Benjamin made a sound of pleasant surprise. When she looked up at him, she saw that he was thrilled. His head was bobbing back and forth and his mouth bent into that mangled smile she’d seen earlier.

  “See?” she whispered. “Isn’t that better?”

  She gave him the doll and the comb and he tried it himself.

  “Gently, Benjamin.”

  He did as she suggested. As he combed the doll’s hair delicately, he turned, went back to his rock and sat down again, cooing at the doll and murmuring to himself.

  She watched him awhile, enjoying the sight. He seemed so happy. He lifted his head, grinned at her as best he could, and nodded his approval—or perhaps his thanks—then went back to combing. He continued for a long time, acting as if he were alone. Then, when he seemed satisfied with the job, he stood, stroked the doll’s hair gently with one finger and put the doll back to bed.

  Benjamin returned the comb to the rag on the ground, picked up the can opener and went to his collection of canned foods. He chose a can, went to his rock and opened it. After picking up the fork, he began to eat Vienna sausages noisily.

  5.

  Flash Gordon’s house was dark. Leaning on Joan’s shoulders and limping, Coogan led them across the dead lawn, around the broken-down lawn furniture and up to the front door of the rickety shack that was Chuck Gordon’s home. Coogan’s firm knocking seemed to shake the entire structure.

  “Hey, Flash! It’s Coogan!” Then, to the others, he muttered, “Boy is he gonna be pissed.”

  A dog began to bark inside the house.

  After a few more knocks, a rough voice shouted, “Awright! Awright! But this better be damned good.” Stomping feet, more rapid-fire barking, then: “Will you shut up, dog!”

  The yellow porch light came on, locks clicked and rattled and the door opened on a short, wiry man with a head of thin white hair that was standing up in places, a face as craggy as a walnut shell and the red, bulbous nose of a man whose best friend is a bottle. He wore a threadbare terrycloth robe of indeterminate color and spattered with food stains. At his feet was a four-legged mop with a dirty, matted snout, eyes hidden behind a thick layer of bangs and unwashed hair that was almost the same color as Flash’s robe. The dog’s tongue bobbed in and out of its mouth as it stared up at them, fidgeting and wagging its tail.

  “What the hell do you want?” Flash croaked. Then, after seeing the others with Coogan: “And who in thee hell are all these people at my damned door at this hour?”

  “Well, Flash, if you’ll give me a minute, I’ll—”

  “What the hell time is it, anyway?”

  “Uh, I don’t know, but that’s not important right now because we’ve got to—”

  “You wake me up, it sure as hell is important! I gotta get outta bed and come to the door and you tell me it ain’t—”

  Joan shouted, “Shut up, Flash!”

  He flinched and looked at Joan as if she’d hurt him. “Well, Joanie … what’re you so rattled about?”

  “Flash,” Coogan said, “we need your help and we need it now. Have you been drinking?”

  “In my sleep? Hell, no!”

  “We need your ’copter,” Joan said.

  “Nobody flies that chopper but me.”

  “That’s what I mean. We need you to fly somewhere for us.”

  “In the middle of the friggin’ night?”

  “Can we come in, Flash?” Coogan sighed, exasperated. “Please? I really need to sit down.”

  It wasn’t until then that Flash noticed the bandage on Coogan’s forehead and the discolored swelling on his cheek.

  “What in hell happened to you, Coogie?”

  “Please, Flash. Let us in.”

  “Ain’t gonna do you no good, ’cause I ain’t flyin’ nowhere in the middle of the son-of-a-bitchin’ night.”

  “We’ll pay you,” Jordan said.

  “Hell, I don’t even know you.”

  “My name’s Jordan Cross. Two hundred dollars.”

  “Hell, I can make more’n that in a day of—”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “C’mon in.”

  The dog went into another fit of barking, jumping up on their legs as they filed into the house. Before they went through the door, Marvin leaned close to Jordan and whispered, “I go up in a ’copter with this guy, I’m a dead man.”

  Jordan patted him on the back, but said nothing.

  Inside, the air was greasy with the smell of garlic and scorched butter. Flash turned on lights as he led them into his living room.

  “Now,” he said, flopping into a ratty old easy chair with torn vinyl upholstery, “what the hell’s all this about you needin’ me to fly someplace?”

  “Tonight, Flash,” Coogan said. “Right now. We need you to take Marvin, here, to the Silicon Valley.”

  “Where in the Silicon Valley?” Flash asked.

  “Hollis Airpark,” Jordan replied. “Unless you can land closer than that to the Diego Nuclear Power Plant.”

  “Diego? What the hell you want at Diego?”

  Joan said, “We can’t explain everything right now, Flash, but—”

  “We want to stop someone who’s planning to trigger a meltdown,” Jordan said. “Call ’em. Tell ’em.”

  “Do you want the five hundred bucks or not?” Jordan asked.

  “Well … I don’t know. Five hundred might not be quite enough for this kinda—”

  “Do you want the five hundred or not?”

  Flash wiggled his tongue in his mouth thoughtfully, making a slurping sound. “Well …”

  He turned to Marvin. “You ever been up in a chopper before?”

  “No.”

  Flash smirked. “Okay. Lemme get dressed.” He got up, crossed the room, then turned to Jordan. “That gonna be cash?”

  “I’ve got it with me.”

  Flash left, nodding.

  “I’m telling you,” Coogan whispered to Marvin, “this isn’t a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  He glanced at the others nervously. “Well, you can tell Flash doesn’t make much of a living from his helicopter tours. He doesn’t do it for the money. He just, um … he likes to scare the piss out of tourists.”

  Marvin took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  Jordan said, “We’ll just have to make it clear to Mr. Gordon that Marvin’s not a tourist.” He turn
ed to Marvin. “Don’t be afraid to show him your gun if you have to. I doubt that Flash has ever had a passenger who could scare the piss right back out of him.”

  They waited in silence until Flash returned, dressed in old baggy jeans and a dirty chambray work shirt. “Okay,” he said. “Gimme my pay and we’ll go.”

  “It’s in the car,” Jordan said as everyone stood. “Half now and half when you get back.”

  “Hey, wait just a son-of-a-bitchin’ minute, you said—”

  “We do it this way or not at all. This way, we make sure you do a nice, safe job of flying, without causing my friend here too much stress. Understand?”

  Flash glared at Coogan, then at Joan, then back to Coogan, as if he knew they’d been talking about him while he was out of the room. Then he nodded before giving a loud whistle and shouting, “C’mon, dog, let’s go!”

  The mutt skittered down the hall and into the living room, jumping and wiggling with excitement.

  “You’re not taking the dog,” Jordan said.

  Flash glared at him, then, standing close: “My dog goes everywhere with me. Or else I don’t go.” He led the way out of the house, turning off lights as he went.

  Coogan shook his head slowly as he limped out, muttering, “He loves to have the last word.”

  6.

  “Do you remember your father?” Lizzie asked.

  Benjamin gagged on his food, swallowed and growled, raising the fork threateningly.

  What does that mean? Lizzie wondered. He hates his father, or he just doesn’t want to talk about him?

  Benjamin continued eating.

  “You do remember him, don’t you, Benjamin?”

  Another growl.

  “His name was Mike Lumley. I understand he was a very nice man, and he’s—”

  He dropped the can and its contents splashed over the ground as he rushed her again, bellowing as he waved his arms. She was ready for it this time; she didn’t move, just kept talking.

  “—and he’s living in a hospital now. He’s not allowed to leave, ever, because—”

  Benjamin fell to one knee, gripped her shoulders and shook her, screaming in her face.

  Lizzie’s head was jerking back and forth, but she raised her voice and continued: “—because people think he’s very sick, but—”