Also by Tony Vanderwarker:
Writing with the Master
And the forthcoming:
Ads for God
Say Something Funny
SLEEPING
DOGS
A NOVEL
TONY VANDERWARKER
Skyhorse Publishing
To John, my mentor and muse
Copyright © 2014 Tony Vanderwarker
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-62914-318-7
SLEEPING
DOGS
1
In flight over Massachusetts, August 14, 1958
Anyone would say it was too nice a day for bad things to happen. Bright sun, blue sky, puffy clouds. Routine mission—if anything was ever routine piloting a B-52 on its way to a rendezvous over Russia.
“Climbing to ten thousand feet,” Risstup answers the controller.
“Roger, climbing to ten thousand,” he hears. Risstup liked to explain to friends it was more like driving an eighteen-wheeler than flying a plane. Over fifty yards long, three stories high and capable of lugging thirty-five tons of nukes through the skies, the B-52 was a beast. Risstup loved to regale his buddies with his flyboy stories, always finishing up with, “And you know what its nickname is?”
A dramatic pause and then, “Buff—B-U-F-F—and that stands for big, ugly, fat . . .”
Not missing a beat, his friends immediately chorused out the answer and Risstup reveled in the chortling and manly grabass that followed.
Always amazed him that the damn thing got off the ground in the first place, up until the last feet of runway the huge wheel trucks lumbered on, weighing the plane down like ten-foot-tall wet boots, until finally in the last few seconds when there was precious little runway left the wings bulled the wheels into the air.
Risstup sits silently next to the pilot as the Connecticut countryside floods by two miles below. Even though Horton’s a chatterbox, there wasn’t enough small talk on the planet to fill up twenty-two hours of flying time. A blueblood know-it-all born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Horton was an okay pilot but to hear him tell it, he should have won the Distinguished Flying Cross years ago. His kickoff topic was always a bunch of sports babble followed by his latest sexual exploits. Risstup had been showered by the same blather at least twenty times. Just as they’re passing over Long Island, Horton starts to air his gums.
“So tell me, Major, whaddya think the Giants’ chances are?”
“I’ve got my fingers crossed, sir. The way Conerly’s passing and Gifford and Webster have been running I’d say their chances look pretty damn good.”
“They’ve led us down the primrose path before . . .”
“Tell me about it.” Prudish by nature and desperately wanting to avoid the inevitable blow-by-blow about the last covey of dames Horton’s bedded, Risstup flicks on his radar to check the weather.
“Wind from the east at twenty-four knots,” they’d heard from the briefer at the pre-flight, followed by the alarming, “Possible thunderstorms around coastal areas, some may be severe.”
With a max ceiling of fifty thousand feet, Risstup’s confident they can cruise over practically anything. But since they fly the pants off these babies to keep the Russkis scared shitless that we’ll annihilate them, lurking in the back of pilots’ minds is the nightmare of structural fatigue.
B-52s have been known to fall apart in mid-air, one weld out of thousands giving way, or a single rivet popping and a string of others following, huge gashes renting the skin and instantly making the plane unflyable. Pilots didn’t talk about it because the prospect was unpredictable, like cancer or a sudden stroke. But they thought about it. Particularly since they were carrying live nukes on board. So when it came to pushing the plane too far, it paid to be cautious.
Even though he’s seen everything in his thirteen years in the Air Force, what he next sees on the screen gives Risstup the willies. Barreling along at six hundred mph, they’re heading into a squall line that’s building before his eyes. Seemingly up out of nowhere, the radar image oozes like green slime across the screen.
Risstup shakes his head and grumbles.
“What’s the matter?”
Risstup runs his finger around the outlines of the storm, a noose that’s quickly tightening around them.
Never at a loss for words, this time “Shit” is all Horton can come up with.
Tilting his mike up, he tells the crew, “Boys, looks like piss-your-pants weather coming up, gonna be a wild ride for a while here. See you all on the other side.”
Just then all hell breaks loose. Like someone flicked the lights off, the sky goes from gray to black and the B-52 starts to rock ‘n’ roll.
“Let’s get this puppy up,” Horton shouts, hooking his arms on either side of the stick and straining to lever it back. But the damn plane is slamming into air pockets that fling it down so fast all Horton’s efforts are futile, the altimeter spins crazily, the pitching and yawing creating all kinds of ominous sounds Risstup’s never heard before, pieces of metal not liking each other, animal-like groaning punctuated with screaming shrieks as the fuselage comes close to its breaking point.
It’s only three in the afternoon but it seems like midnight with lightning crackling around, bolts exploding like they’re in the very center of a Fourth of July fireworks display. Horton’s screaming, trying to raise Westover on the radio, but there’s no talking in this pandemonium. The plane’s taking a real shellacking, like a crazy roller coaster ride going up, up, up and then getting punched back down, both pilots ragdolled around. Horton walloped so hard there’s blood dripping down his chin, Risstup guesses from chomping on his tongue.
No secret to either pilot that unless the storm lets up, this baby isn’t making it. The instruments pop and sizzle, fried by the lightning. They’re not even flying the plane anymore, the storm’s taken over. Only a matter of time, Risstup’s thinking, either we break through the weather or she comes apart at the seams.
Standing orders are to jettison the nukes over deep water in case of an accident. But the instruments are useless, the radar screen black, no knowing where they are now. He screams for orders about the weapons. Of course Horton can’t hear.
More crashing and cracking, then a tremendous roar, a lion two inches from your ear. Like the aircraft had taken a huge punch to the belly and the plane begins a slow lean into a right bank like the wing’s ripped off. Then a screaming sound, turning into a deafening whistle. Part of the fuselage is gone and that’s the ball game, Risstup thinks, jerking the lever to jettison, feeling the lurch as four tons of nuke departs the plane.
Just before everything goes black.
2
New Brunswick, New Jersey, Monday afternoon, October 23, 2003
He set a perfect trap for her. But he was the one who ended up falling in
to it. Which is what he intended all along.
“I just want to talk, that’s all,” the coed with the spare tire and four hundred dollar shoes said to him.
“I told you, I don’t have time.” He was almost double-timing across the quad and she was falling behind, he could hear her panting. This was the fifth time he’d stonewalled her in the past two weeks. Sooner or later she’d catch his drift.
“C’mon, I’ll buy you coffee?” she pleaded over his shoulder. Except for a few hayseeds who’d go out with anyone, she’s having no luck finding a date for the sorority party. And she wanted desperately to prove she could bag a boy.
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“How about a smoothie, then?”
“No, thank you, but no.”
“I’ve seen you working out over at Werblin.”
“What?” Her comment stopped him. He was sure he was off everyone’s radar but why was she bringing his workouts up?
“Actually, maybe I would like a latte . . .” he said, turning toward her and amping up his brightest smile.
His beaming face made her spine tingle. “There’s a Starbucks in the student center and I’m buying.”
“My name’s Mehran,” he said, “Mehran Zarif.”
“I know,” she said, “I know everything about you. Your nickname’s Denny, you’re from Iran, you study engineering, you’re a big swimmer and there’s one more thing,” she said, trying like hell to act coy so it didn’t come across as a bald come-on, which of course it was.
“What’s that?’
“You’re cute as hell.”
“Stop,” he said, “I’m not going there, okay?” And Mehran put enough edge into his voice so she’d get the message.
She blushed. She’d never been good at coming on to guys and now she’d been caught again. But he was so cute and his skin was to die for. Mocha colored, just like the latte she carried over to the table where he was sitting.
“Thanks,” Mehran said as she set the coffee down in front of him and joined him at the table.
“No problema,” Melanie said, trying to conjure up the smile she’d practiced a million times in front of a mirror. Despite the thousands her parents had spent on her face, it was still a mess from her bouts with adolescence.
“Funny, but I’ve never seen you at Werblin.” He needed to poke around the edges just to make sure she wasn’t onto something.
“I don’t go over there half enough, doctor says I need to do an hour a day but I can’t stand it.”
“It’s the only way I can get through my studies.”
“But isn’t your country mostly desert?”
“Ever heard of the Persian Gulf or the Caspian Sea? Half of Iran is surrounded by water. I’ve been swimming since I was this high,” he said, holding his hand just below the table.
“Ooops, my bad.”
“So I swim to how do you say it, reduce the edge?” He knew what the expression was, just wanted to act like a language-impaired foreign student.
“Take the edge off, I think you mean,” she corrected him, hiking up her skirt just a touch above her knee to show off her legs, which were nice. At least she had a few assets, nothing like her sorority sisters who were all size 6 blonde goddesses with perfect figures, deep tans and little turned-up noses their daddies bought for them.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I really must go,” Mehran said, quickly standing, shooting a quick glance down at her exposed knee and frowning ever so slightly so she’d get the idea it wasn’t where he wanted to go. “Thank you so much for the coffee.”
“Bye, Denny,” she said, almost wanting to pull her skirt back down but figuring, what the hell, I’ve blown it anyway. He’s probably Muslim and thinks I should be wearing one of those black towels over my head.
As much as she tried to run into him on campus, she only caught him once or twice out of the corner of her eye and only one time was she even able to get the slightest wave out of him. So she gave up on Denny, the Iranian swimmer and engineering student, went to the sorority party by herself and kept herself gratified with Internet porn and her little pink machine with the amazing fingers.
So she was shocked when she opened her email two weeks later and saw the message from Mehran Zarif with the attachment. And she almost fell off her chair when she opened the picture of the beautifully muscled young man standing poolside wearing a wide smile on his face and a Spandex swimsuit that left little to the imagination. So he’s huge or he’s hard, Melanie thought to herself. Either way I can’t wait to get my hands on him.
3
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, the Monday before Thanksgiving
Odd, Collyer thinks as he crosses the campus, how your heart can bring you back even though your head’s not in it. It was ten years since he’d been on Grounds but as he walks down the well-worn path, bits and pieces of memories from the past elbow their way into his brain. Bonfires blazing up and down the long, grassy courtyard as the ragtag pep band played the school’s fight song and the team carried him into the victory celebration on their shoulders.
He pauses halfway across the Lawn, stopping to look up at the arching trees for a few moments, then lets his eyes wander along the portico toward the magnificent Rotunda at the far end.
The celebration lasted well into the morning with some diehard fans blearily greeting the dawn. Collyer’s apartment was wall to wall with his frat buddies and teammates lying around on sleeping bags and blankets, great heaps of beer bottles accumulating in the corners, everyone determined to continue savoring the incredible victory. Howie finally had to curl up in a closet and pull the door shut to get some sleep.
He was the most unlikely hero and his kick was a miraculous fluke. But having had only a handful of victories in the past ten years, to the students at the University of Virginia this win was as sweet as they come. And they all knew they had one member of the team, Howie Collyer, to thank for it.
Virginia football fans quickly forgot the field goals Howie had missed that fall. As dependable and consistent as he was his first three seasons, in his senior year he choked, twice failing to bail the team out of a loss, and talk around campus was that the coach was seriously considering shifting a backup quarterback who had kicked in high school to replace him. So the pressure was on as Howie loped out onto the field that day, snapping his chinstrap, listening to the roar of the crowd and praying his right foot would come through for him.
Howie didn’t disappoint.
As the crowd went silent, the ball caromed off the inside of the left upright and milliseconds later, while thirty-seven thousand fans held their collective breath, some say a puff of wind, some the hand of God, but some force partial to the Virginia Cavaliers intervened to nudge the ball slightly east so it dropped like a stone into the end zone, winning the game for UVa, salvaging the team’s season with a win over a nationally ranked opponent and earning Howie an immediate and permanent place in UVa athletic lore.
His amazing kick was memorialized with the nickname bestowed on him by a sportswriter for the local rag, The Boot, a handle that has stuck to Howie throughout the almost four decades since his graduation. Howie never took his achievement that seriously for he knew that if the pigskin had tumbled one inch the other way, he would have been no more than another face in a yellowing team picture on the walls of Mem Gym. And he realized his kick paled in comparison to the achievements of other Virginia football greats and would have been a minor footnote had it not been the one bright spot in an otherwise abysmal season.
Howie’s ability to laugh at his good fortune and to put his achievement in perspective enabled everyone who met him to share in the extraordinary event and somehow over time added to the kick’s luster.
“With Lady Luck smiling on you the way she was on me that day, anyone could have made that kick,” Howie was fond of saying. And since it was close to the truth, Howie greased the skids of a successful career with his feat, had more than a few free drinks slid his way
and in his younger years found the kick to be an easy conversation starter with any young thing who happened to know a thing or two about UVa football.
“You aren’t The Boot, are you?” a chick meeting Howie for the first time would exclaim, and Howie’s “aw shucks” manner, boyish mop of auburn hair, bright green eyes and ingratiating manner would soon have the tantalized woman falling all over him.
The last thing Howard Collyer wants to do a couple days before Thanksgiving is lecture a bunch of students halfway out the door for the holiday about lost H-bombs. But Drummond’s an old friend and he’d committed months ago. Heading down the columned walkway, he sees a delightful-looking young lady standing at the end waiting as he approaches. Howie has to squint to make sure his vision isn’t playing tricks on him. Drummond told him he would have a student waiting to guide him through the maze of corridors to the classroom. With any luck, Howie’s hoping, this lovely thing is my escort.
“Hi—Mr. Collyer?” Tall, blonde, and marvelously constructed, the Virginia coed wears a white button-down and the shortest kilt Howie has ever seen, leaving his imagination little to fill in. Not only is her skin perfect but the top two buttons of her blouse are undone. Howie wonders if she can tell he’s about to start drooling. Hand outstretched, gracious smile, she radiates the kind of fresh beauty matched with a blooming sexuality that makes older men curse their age. Howie nods as he shakes her hand, all the while struggling to maintain eye contact.
“Hi, I’m Bridget, Bridget Heard. Welcome to the University of Virginia. We are honored to have you lecturing to us, Mr. Collyer,” she says as she half turns and scoots sideways, leading Howie through a doorway and down a corridor. Her legs are tanned and perfect, the hem of her mini-kilt swishes and swings tantalizingly, and Howie brings himself to say the only words he can think of at this point in time.
Clearing his throat to keep his voice from breaking, he asks, “So what year are you, Bridget?”
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