Flight Dreams

by Michael Craft

  “I’m sure,” echoes Manning while handing Neil the phone.

  Neil dials, then waits while the other phone rings. “Hi, Rox, it’s me. Yes, a wonderful evening, thanks. I hope yours wasn’t too awful at the office. Roxanne, I think I’ll be staying here tonight—the rain, you know. Just wanted to tell you not to wait up.” He pauses, blinks, and puts back the receiver.

  “What’d she say?” asks Manning.

  “She hung up.”

  Manning whistles pensively.

  Saturday, October 17

  76 days till deadline

  BY MORNING THE RAIN has stopped, but clouds still churn the dark sky. At eleven o’clock, the streets are eerily quiet as Neil walks the few blocks from Manning’s loft to Roxanne’s building. An elevator is waiting for him, and he soon stands outside the door to her apartment, hearing the wails of one of her more eccentric recordings within. He braces himself as he enters, setting his shopping bag on the floor.

  Roxanne sits in the living room, listening to the music with the morning papers spread messily about. Her eyes are dark, her hair unkempt. The apartment smells heavily of smoke, and a hulky alabaster ashtray is filled with butts. She has been drinking—last night or this morning or both—Neil is not sure.

  “Well, good morning, Rox,” he says with an uncertain cheeriness.

  “Did you fuck?” she asks flatly, sternly, in a voice he barely recognizes.

  Neil is tempted to stretch the truth and confirm her suspicions, but his momentary triumph would quickly be quelled by her rage. On the other hand, if he answers truthfully, his denials would surely be met by her scorn and disbelief. It’s a no-win situation, so he decides not to dignify her question with a response.

  He tells her, “I’ve got some work to do on a new project.” He picks up the shopping bag, crosses the room, and disappears down a hallway to the den, where he closes the door behind him.

  Monday, October 19

  74 days till deadline

  ROXANNE REMEMBERS YOUNGER YEARS when even the worst bitch of a hangover lasted only twenty-four hours. Now the doozies last forty-eight. Her Friday-night binge, which flowed nonstop into Saturday morning, left her vomiting in bed by that afternoon. Sunday she could barely move. Dehydrated, wracked by both fever and migraine, she finally managed to eat something solid by evening while exchanging a few heated words with Neil. She was tempted to call in sick today, but there was far too much work needing her attention—besides, she deserved to suffer through a Monday’s penance at the office. So here she sits, propped by her forearms at her desk. Though the worst symptoms of her bout of intemperance have mercifully passed, she feels shaky and depressed in its aftermath.

  The latest edition of the Post lies before her. Its headline proclaims, waiting game may be over: investigators to get tough on heiress murder suspect. In the bylined story on page one, Humphrey Hasting has written, “The public may soon be offered a modicum of enlightenment into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance of airline heiress Helena Carter. Deputy Chicago police superintendent Earl Murphy revealed to the Post late last night that intensive administrative efforts are under way to bring a prime suspect to justice.”

  The article explains that Carter’s houseman, Arthur Mendel, will soon be the subject of an inquest. “The hearing is not technically a trial, as no formal charges have yet been filed. However, Murphy conceded that the inquest will in fact be held in a courtroom before a judge. No date has been set.”

  With a disgusted flick of her wrist, Roxanne tosses the Post to the floor, where it mingles with sections of the morning Journal, which she has skimmed for a similar story. There is none.

  Rising from her desk, she begins to pace the office, stopping at the window to bite her lip, looking out across the city without seeing it. She glances toward her feet and at the Post’s headline, reading it upside down. Things are heating up, getting messy. She really ought to phone Manning and discuss all this. But can she? She was justifiably pissed at him—as well as Neil—and she’s nursing the hangover to prove it. God, what made her do it? The reason has gnawed at her all weekend, but it has not, till now, congealed into thoughts formed in words.

  Jealousy? she asks herself. Yes, airhead, it’s got something to do with jealousy. Plenty. You needn’t be so analytical. This is no great mystery. You want to be screwed, right? A perfectly natural drive. Is that so hard to admit? You haven’t betrayed your career—or compromised your feminist instincts—by owning up to your desires.

  They’re the two men you’ve wanted most and apparently have the least chance of getting. Neil is the best-looking man you’ve ever met, and you’ve known from the start that he’s not available. Yet you’ve tortured yourself through more than ten years of “friendship,” hanging on to the dim hope that maybe someday he’ll lay you. And then there’s Mark—intelligent, sensitive, eligible—a perfect match, or at least a good candidate for a long, comfortable affair. You’ve had him exactly once, but it was years ago, and you sensed even then that his heart wasn’t in it.

  Face it: You’ve wanted each of them, both of them, to splay you like some damned animal. And what did you get instead? An evening home alone, guest of honor at a party for one, while the two of them spent the night together. God only knows what went on over there—you may have lost them both for good. And who’s to blame? Who brought them together? Wouldn’t it be a scream, the very height of perverse justice, if you ended up losing them to each other?

  Roxanne licks her lower lip, now puffy and raw, grated by her teeth. Squatting clumsily in skirt and heels, she snatches up the Post and shoves the tabloid into the wastebasket by her desk. Then she kicks at a section of the Journal that lies near her feet. The broadsheets of newsprint respond with a dull, unsatisfying slap against her shoe, so she kicks at Manning’s paper again, breaking a heel. She drops to her knees, pounding the scattered pages into wads that crinkle between her hands, gathering the shreds into her arms, pressing them to her chest and face, finally stuffing the mess into the wastebasket. Tears stream down her cheeks. Her shoulders heave with convulsive sobs.

  When she has regained control, she hobbles to the desk and wipes her eyes, as a child might, with swipes of her palms. She takes a mirror from her purse and checks her face, only to find it smeared with streaks of black from her hands, filthy from the Journal’s ink. She stares at herself in disbelief for a long silent moment, then erupts into laughter.

  Several blocks away, at his desk in the Journal newsroom, Manning has also trashed a copy of the Post, though without the theatrics indulged in by others that morning.

  “Mail call!” intones Daryl as he sidles into Manning’s cubicle. He examines a note-sized envelope. “Looks like a love letter,” he coos. With a single silky movement, he hands over the letter and disappears down the aisle with his cart.

  Manning turns the envelope in his fingers and finds no return address on either side. There is the imprint of a generic postage meter, but no postmark. His curiosity stirred, Manning slits the envelope and removes a single sheet of plain white bond. He unfolds it and reads the message, carelessly typewritten:

  Mark Manning,

  AnyonE with a modicum of imagination could figurE out that thE housEman did it. I sEE thEsE things. I know. Now you do too.

  PEoplE in your position should take thEir social responsibility more sEriously. An untimEly End faces thosE who betray thE public trust.

  You arE warnEd by

  —A FriEnd

  Manning holds the letter up to the fluorescent ceiling lights to see if the paper has a watermark. His suspicion confirmed, he laughs openly. Setting the letter on his desk, he reaches for the phone and dials.

  Daryl cruises by again with his cart, breaking stride long enough to ask, “A secret love?”

  “Nah,” says Manning, bored with it all. “Death threat.”

  “I’m impressed,” Daryl says over his shoulder as he trundles off in the opposite direction.

  Manni
ng’s attention returns to the phone. “May I speak to Roxanne Exner, please? This is Mark Manning.”

  After several tinny measures of “Tea for Two,” the Muzak cha-cha is cut off by Roxanne’s voice. “Mark!” she says with a strange combination of surprise and restraint. “I was about to call you. You’ve seen the Post?”

  “Sure,” he tells her. “I’ve also just read one of Humphrey Hasting’s less predictable literary efforts.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” she asks with confused inflections, straining to establish a chatty tone.

  “I got something from him in this morning’s mail. Listen to this.” He reads her the note.

  “How perfectly dreadful,” she tells him, her concern now genuine. “But what makes you think it’s from Hasting?”

  “Even though it’s not signed, his style is unmistakable. What’s more, the stationery carries the Post’s watermark. The clincher, though, is the typing. Hasting mentioned at your party that he still uses an old newsroom typewriter. In the days before electronic typesetting, reporters wrote their copy using multiple carbons, and newsroom typewriters usually had their type modified, replacing the lowercase ‘e’ with a block-style capital so that it would remain distinct on fuzzy copies. The letter I got was typed on just such a machine. It has to be from Hasting.”

  “Good Lord,” she says, convinced of the letter’s authorship. “Do you think he’s actually capable of harming you—physically?”

  “I doubt it. More likely, he’s simply trying to lend credibility to his houseman accusations, hoping I’ll jump on the bandwagon, which would enhance his Post campaign with the Journal’s stamp of legitimacy. I’d actually admire the man’s cunning if he weren’t so inept.”

  “Even so,” Roxanne tells him, “it’s frightening to think that he would make a scapegoat of Arthur Mendel, that he’d be willing to sacrifice that dear old man for the sake of concocting a few headlines.”

  “He may talk a good line about the ‘public trust,’” Manning tells her, “but his personal ethics are nil. I’m driving up to the Carter estate tomorrow to interview Mendel and see if I can make any sense of this.”

  “Good luck,” she tells him.

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I learn anything. But actually, Roxanne”—his tone is now distinctly less serious—“I didn’t phone you to talk about conspiracies or death threats. I was wondering what you and Neil have planned for Saturday afternoon.”

  The mention of Neil’s name hits Roxanne like a slap, reminding her that she’s miffed. She tenses at her desk and grips the receiver with blanched fingers, her nails digging into the fleshy base of her palm. She exhales an indignant puff of breath into the phone before responding tersely, “We have no plans. Why do you ask?”

  Manning’s voice buzzes from the earpiece, “There’s a cat show in the suburbs this weekend, one of the largest in the Midwest. I’d like to check it out—to get a bit of background—since Helena Carter was a big-time breeder. As long as you and Neil aren’t doing anything, maybe you’d like to join me. Who knows? Might be interesting.”

  Roxanne doesn’t mention that she is allergic to cats. If she declines the invitation, Manning will surely extend it to Neil anyway, and she’s damned not going to hand them another opportunity to frolic as a twosome. Thank God for antihistamines—they were invented for just such predicaments. “Sounds like fun,” she tells Manning with feigned enthusiasm. “Are you driving?”

  After detailing the logistics of their excursion, Manning tells her, “I’m glad we could work this out. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Neil. Thanks for introducing us.”

  She tells him flatly, “My pleasure.” After a moment’s hesitation, she adds, “It’s too bad that Saturday’s outing will be dampened by the farewells—Neil is leaving Sunday, returning to Phoenix. You knew, didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Roxanne could have predicted Manning’s answer. Neil’s decision to cut his visit short was arrived at only last night after her testy confrontation with him. She made it clear to Neil that he had worn out his welcome.

  “I’m so sorry,” Roxanne tells Manning. The news has clearly hurt him, and she has summoned with difficulty a facade of sympathy to mask her pleasure in delivering it.

  Tuesday, October 20

  73 days till deadline

  NEXT MORNING, AS MANNING drives north again from the city to Bluff Shores, he listens to Bud Stirkham interviewing Humphrey Hasting on his radio program. The author and the reporter are trading platitudes about “the capitalist agenda” and “the common man,” bucking up each other’s zeal with the giddy enthusiasm of two soul mates, long lost, now found. Just at the point when Manning decides he’s heard enough of them, their conversation captures his interest.

  “The mystery of Helena Carter’s disappearance,” Stirkham intones gravely, “may soon begin to unravel, thanks largely to the selfless, untiring efforts of this dedicated journalist. Tell me, Humphrey Hasting, how did you come to focus your investigation on Carter’s houseman, Arthur Mendel?”

  “The conclusion was obvious, Bud, a real no-brainer! I’ve received numerous calls from certifiable clairvoyants, all delivering the same message: The butler did it. Their word is good enough for me, and apparently it’s good enough for the state’s attorney too. As you may have read in yesterday’s Post, the mechanisms are at last in place to bring this rogue to justice.”

  “Ah, yes. Clairvoyants,” says Stirkham. “I had the pleasure to attend a cocktail party not long ago at the home of attorney Roxanne Exner. In fact, you were there too, Hump, but before you arrived, the rest of us had a chance to engage Mark Manning, reporter for the Journal, in an energetic discussion covering everything from psychics to erotic dreams.”

  “Really?” asks Hasting, intrigued. “Did Mr. Manning offer any opinions of the paranormal?”

  “He said that he’s dealt with many mystics, and he feels they have no powers at all. He went so far as to say that he acknowledges no force in the universe beyond the perceptions of his own mind.”

  With a cynical laugh, Hasting asks, “Now why doesn’t that surprise me? While it’s only fair to acknowledge that Mr. Manning has steadfastly reported on the Carter mystery since day one, the public has understandably grown weary of his foot-dragging, his refusal to draw self-evident deductions that could prompt official action on the case. It is, after all, a reporter’s sacred duty to shape public consensus and to orchestrate the cry for justice. Mr. Manning’s flagrant disregard for his social mandate can only lead one to suspect the motives for his unconscionable silence.”

  Hasting pauses a moment, allowing his innuendo to register fully, then leans close to the microphone as if to share a secret: “I am not alone in this suspicion. During my discussions with deputy police superintendent Murphy on Sunday night, we speculated at length on this issue. I am now in a position to reveal that the state’s attorney is prepared to summon Mark Manning to testify at Arthur Mendel’s inquest. Manning’s waffling stance on this story has clearly hurt his credibility, suggesting that his role in the mystery may be other than that of an objective observer …”

  Hasting’s speech is aborted when Manning turns off the engine of his car, now parked in the courtyard of the Carter estate.

  Manning mindlessly checks his pockets for notebook and pen while stepping up to the front of the house and ringing the bell. When the door opens before him, he is surprised to be greeted not by Arthur Mendel, but by Margaret O’Connor.

  She smiles and says, “Good morning, Mark.” Her tone has an air of business to it, a hint of urgency that precludes small talk. “Arthur’s just a wreck over all this,” she tells Manning, ushering him into the hall. “He’s in the kitchen—he’s been anxious to talk to you.” She strides off toward the back of the house. Manning follows without speaking.

  As they enter the kitchen, Arthur stands, switching off the radio that has been playing. Manning hears just enough—“a modicum of social responsibility
”—to know that Arthur is fully aware of Humphrey Hasting’s rantings. There is no mistaking the fear in the old houseman’s eyes as he reaches to shake Manning’s hand with both of his, saying, “I’m so glad you’re here.” In deference to the Journal’s reporter, he does not wear his usual work clothes, but is dressed uncomfortably in an ill-fitting tweed suit. Manning cannot help wondering if the clothes once fit better, if the suit remained constant over the years while Arthur’s body shrank.

  Margaret excuses herself from the kitchen, letting the door swing closed behind her. The two men sit across from each other in a breakfast nook, where a bay window overlooks the lake. With an unsteady hand, Arthur pours them both coffee from a glass pot, already half empty.

  Manning tells him, “Don’t take Humphrey Hasting too seriously.” He laughs before adding, “No one else does.”

  Pointedly, Arthur observes, “The police seem to. It’s just unbelievable—it’s depressing—to hear that guy suggest I had anything to do with Mrs. Carter’s disappearance. Good Lord, she was all we had. Aside from the fact that I thought of her as more of a sister than a boss, I’d be crazy to do anything to harm her. It’d be like bitin’ the hand that feeds you.”

  Charmed by Arthur’s candor, Manning hopes that the old man will not feel intimidated by the appearance of his steno pad. He uncaps his fountain pen and begins scratching a few notes. The reporter wants to explore two topics regarding the heiress—cats and religion—and he finds that Arthur knows a great deal about the cats, but almost nothing about Carter’s religious life, except that she seemed devout.

  Their conversation stretches on for nearly an hour, detailing Arthur’s history of service to the Carters, which spans more than thirty years, back to the days when there was a full stable of horses to tend. Manning asks him, “When your gambling debts caught up with you, and Ridgely Carter paid them off, was the incident widely known—that is, was it known beyond the household? Were there any news accounts of it?”