by Don Porter
“No, I’m sorry, we’re fully staffed, and we use Pierson’s janitorial service. I really don’t think….”
The door of the private office on the right popped open and the shout startled both of us.
“Hey, Alex, what’s happening, man?” It was Freddy. We’ve known each other since he was dispatching for Hawley Evans at Fairbanks Air Service and both of us were flying for the Tanana Valley Air Search and Rescue. We were flying free, building up hours. That’s not an FAA requirement. We both had our commercial licenses, and the required hours for those are laughable. In Alaska, it’s the insurance companies that rule the charter business, and their mandate is two thousand hours before they’ll even talk to you.
“Hi, Freddy, in town for a few days and looking to starch up the bankroll.”
“Oh, oh, let me guess. Was the problem named Jody?” He’d come to the counter and plunked his elbows down to make a chin rest of his hands.
“A gentleman would never tell, but yeah, I do need to earn a few hundred bucks to support my lavish lifestyle.”
“Alex, I never thought you were the type, but you must have been sent from heaven. Pipeline is running us ragged. How the devil did you get time off in the fall? Everyone here is trying to beat winter with last summer’s projects.”
“Yeah, well, you guys have a pipeline. All Bethel has is a pipe dream, but I really do have just a few days off. Do you have something?”
“Show me some paper.” He pulled a big ledger-type logbook from under the counter. I handed him my license and medical. He started copying numbers. “You’re current on the turbo-twin Otter, of course.”
“Well, not….”
“Good.” He didn’t want to hear me say no. What he was proposing isn’t quite kosher, but it is standard procedure. In theory you have to stay current in each aircraft you fly, but in fact, it’s sort of like renting a car from Avis. You don’t care who made the car. Switches may be a little strange; it might take a minute to figure out the wipers and the AC. The gearshift may be different from the Masserati you drive at home, but you get in and drive with no lessons. With thirteen thousand hours in the air, and experience in at least twenty different aircraft, you can do the same with airplanes.
“There’s a new turbo-twin out front with a load of pipe fittings that they’re screaming for in Wiesman. I was going to send Tommy up when he gets back from Prudhoe, but if you’ll run it up, it’ll save a lot of arm twisting.”
“It’s already loaded?”
“Yep, actually about five hundred pounds overloaded, but I promise it’s perfectly balanced.” He closed the ledger and stuck it back under the counter. Apparently I was now employed. He handed me a ring with two keys. “Second key is to the office. It may take a while to connect with their people and get off-loaded. If the office is closed when you get back, just fill out a flight ticket and put it on Celeste’s desk.” He indicated the pretty blonde ledger lady who was still standing at the counter. We gave each other little waves to acknowledge our introduction, and I tried not to stare at her fetching dimples when she smiled.
I snapped Freddy a military salute, an old joke from the Air Search days, and took the keys. If I’d been writing the scenario, it couldn’t have been better, and I was very sure the office would be closed when I got back.
“Alex, the Otter is a cinch. Like driving a baby buggy with rubber bumpers. If you have any questions, give me a shout on the Unicom.”
“Yes, sir.” I started for the door.
“Oh, and if you could drop by about noon tomorrow? Another load for Atigun Pass, but half of that won’t be up from Anchorage until eleven.”
“Why don’t I remember an airstrip in Atigun Pass?”
“You land on Chandalar Shelf, no problem.”
“Oh, you mean I’m using a helicopter tomorrow?”
“Just wait until you’ve tried that Otter.” He gave me a wave, dismissive this time, and I strolled out to the flight line to see what I’d gotten into.
Geoffrey de Havilland was twenty years old when he started designing the aircraft that tipped the advantage to England during WWI, and he, or at least his company, has never stopped. He built a four-passenger airliner in 1919, an eight-passenger in 1921, and in 1925 he built the Hercules that carried mail and passengers throughout Europe and Africa. At the same time he built his Moth, then the Gypsy Moth and the Tiger Moth that set the standard for light aircraft.
It was de Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. that built the Beaver, then the Otter, then the Twin Otter. They were built for bush work. They’re slow, but consummate flying machines when strips are short and quarters tight. Equally at home on wheels, skis, or floats, they set the standard that others strive for. When they took the reciprocating engines off the Twin Otter and replaced them with turbines, they lightened it by three hundred pounds and almost doubled the horsepower.
Nine-Two Bravo was like new. It even had a hint of the new-plane smell in spite of the boxes that were netted down from the back of my seat to the rear bulkhead. The turbines started instantly. I taxied to the end of runway one-eight and was cleared for takeoff. It’s a little disconcerting to wind up the engines and hear a whine instead of a roar, but she was chomping at the bit. I released the brakes, and we were gone. Overloaded or not, that sucker took off like an over-inflated dirigible.
The strip at Weisman is eighteen hundred feet long, but I was remembering Chandalar Shelf as half that, so I used the landing for practice. The flaps came down like barn doors, airspeed dropped to sixty, still no shudder of impending stall. Fifty-five, still solid. Fifty, slightest tremor. Touch of power, and solid again. It was like landing a parachute. When Bushmaster gets rich, we’ll buy a turbine Otter.
Since getting home late was the agenda, I wandered over to the portable cook shack after the valves were offloaded. One thing you can always count on at remote camps is excellent food, lots of it, and always available. I helped myself to two pieces of apple pie that had just come from the oven. I figured an hour and a half back to Fairbanks. Stan had said the office was officially closed at six, but no reason to cut it close. I settled down on a green vinyl-upholstered love seat in the lounge with a cup of fresh Yuban coffee and watched videotapes of I Love Lucy until five. Television has turned colored and seems faster, but it isn’t any better. It was hard to leave the lounge.
I drifted down over Farmer’s Loop Road at six-thirty and was cleared for a straight-in approach to runway one-eight. The rented Dodge was the only car in the lot, and the office was dark. I tied the Otter to the cable, gave it a pat like the faithful horse it was, and opened the office door with my key.
The light switch was beside the door. Fluorescent tubes flickered on until I felt like I was in a spotlight. My problem was that there were no window shades, and once the lights were on, I couldn’t see much outside, but I would sure be visible in the office. Freddy had left a flight ticket on the counter for me, numbers already filled in. All I had to do was note the arrival time and sign it. I carried it back to Celeste’s desk, sat in her chair, and dug a pen out of her center drawer. A whiff of perfume reminded me of the dimples, altogether pleasant.
Two large drawers on the right side were labeled In and Out. I pulled the In drawer and finger-walked to the front. Several invoices were loose, then a folder, and the tab was dated yesterday. The next file was the day I wanted. I tried to look down and riffle pages without being terribly obvious. Pages were in reverse order, the earliest pickups at the back, latest in front. The final pickup of the day was the Nevada Kid grocery store, four hundred pounds of perishables at four-fifty. Before that was Fairbanks Building Supply, a thousand pounds of hardware picked up at four-twenty. Neither seemed likely to be hanging around after six. I moved down to the bottom drawer.
I had just opened the drawer when a pickup stopped outside and two doors slammed. Conscience doth make cowards of us all. I pretended to study the flight ticket while I shoved the drawer closed with my
knee and cursed myself for leaving the pistol under the car seat.
The door burst open and two cops came in. One held a big, ugly .45 pointed right at my face, but this cop was wearing a badge and it said Airport Security.
“Keep your hands on the desk and don’t breathe. What are you doing here?”
“Filling out my flight ticket.” I tried for an innocent smile. “I just got in, you must have seen me land the Twin Otter.”
“Maybe, but I haven’t seen you around before.”
“New hire, just started today.”
The partner had picked up the phone from the counter and consulted a list from his pocket. He dialed, and turned away so I couldn’t hear his conversation until he looked up and spoke to me. “What’s your name?”
“Alex Price.”
He nodded and waved his partner to put the gun down. That was a relief. Staring down the barrel of a .45 automatic is decidedly uncomfortable and sweat inducing.
“Thanks, Freddy, it’s him alright. Big and ugly, brown hair nineteen fifties style and a cut from a barroom brawl on his forehead.” He nodded. “Sorry to bother you at home.”
They turned toward the door. The one who had been threatening my life said, “Have a nice day.” Car doors slammed again and they were gone.
I took a couple of deep breaths, promised myself a drink shortly, and opened the bottom drawer.
The last outgoing shipment was Fairbanks Furniture Factory, eight hundred pounds at three in the afternoon. I checked the next folder, and the first shipment of the day was Stan’s motor, listed at eight in the morning. There was his signature. I just stared at it, feeling that all this couldn’t be real. I needed to wake up from this nightmare.
I noticed that the next shipment was charged to Alyeska Pipeline, five hours of Twin Otter time, and another for the pipeline in the afternoon. I glanced back at the previous day and that, too, had two charges for the pipeline. No wonder they could afford new aircraft.
I closed the drawer, signed the flight ticket claiming a six-fifteen arrival. I left it center desk with the keys on top of it, switched off the light and left. I should have known that when getting into the office late was so easy, it wouldn’t do any good. Murphy’s Law would never stand for a plan working that well.
Angie was sitting on her bed, propped up on pillows, white blouse, dark skirt, hair shining and shoes off. Seinfeld was bantering with Elaine on the tube.
I rinsed off the travel dust and made a nest on my bed to join her. Maybe television still has some redeeming qualities.
“Any luck?” she asked.
I gave her an appropriately doleful headshake.
The program ended and she switched off the set.
“New clothes in the bathroom, next to a hot shower and a disposable razor.” I took that to be a hint. I did feel like a new man by the time I put on the dress slacks and shirt she had picked out. Nice threads: tan slacks, blue shirt with button down collar, and no little pictures of alligators or logos confirmed her good taste. She hadn’t asked my size, and our mutual loss washed over me again. Stan and I wear, or wore, the same sizes and she knew it. I stepped back to the bedroom in all my sartorial splendor and was greeted with appropriate applause.
“Alex, I’m going crazy. I spent most of the afternoon crying. I know that won’t bring Stan back. I’ve got to think about here and now, and you’ve got to help me. Do you happen to know who broils the best lobsters on the planet?”
“Matter of fact, I do. That would be The Broiler, if we can get a table.”
“We probably can. We have reservations in twenty minutes.”
I nodded and extended my left elbow, she took it and I led her out. The pistol was on my right. Angie was caught in a culture warp and struggling. The one thing that her Athabaskan Indian ancestors have in common with the Eskimos on the coast is that the men die violently and early. In the villages, it’s hunting or fishing accidents. Angie and Stan had reached for an urban, or Gussak lifestyle, so she hadn’t expected to be widowed in her twenties. Now it had happened to her, just as it had to her mother before her, and she was struggling for the Indian stoicism that should have been her heritage.
It was only eight blocks to the restaurant, but six stoplights, so we made it with three minutes to spare. A neat young man wearing a tuxedo greeted us with a friendly smile. He plucked two menus from his podium and led us past the gleaming cavern of the bar to a corner table in the dining room. We didn’t bother with the menus. Naturally, we both ordered the broiled African lobster tails. That was the whole point of going to The Broiler.
“You know, Alex, they have a bottle of 1971 Pouilly Fuissé, and tonight you can drink white wine without having to keep looking over your shoulder.”
I nodded to the waiter; he nodded back and went to fetch the bottle. So, Angie did know I was an unforgivable bumpkin for drinking the wrong wine, and she hadn’t said a word. I really appreciated that. I once had a fling with an actress in New York who would have thrown a tantrum, caused a scene, and refused to eat with me. I was giving Angie points for being much more the sophisticate.
Our waiter poured a sample and I deferred it to Angie. She sipped and smiled. How could she not? The only wine in the world better than a 1973 Pouilly Fuissé is the 1971. He poured and left in search of our lobsters.
“Total bust getting into the freight records? You were gone so long I thought you must have made it. I pictured you as their new night janitor.”
“Pretty close. I’m on the payroll, today and tomorrow, and I had the records all to myself, but there weren’t any late shipments, going or coming. Someone was there late for some other reason. All we have to do is figure it out.” We both sipped and both smiled. “By the way, I work again tomorrow, approximately noon until six. What say we decontaminate the pickup and retrieve your canoe, if it hasn’t already been liberated?”
She nodded and scooped her glass out of the way. The waiter set down trays with our lobsters and local potatoes, baked and stuffed. If you know The Broiler’s lobsters, then you know why there was no more conversation, and why we were miserably full but still smiling when we drove back to the hotel and crawled upstairs to our room.
Chapter Seven
I looked that pickup over like a Missouri farmer about to buy a mule. One advantage of machines from the Eighties is that you can look up from underneath and see past the engine. I opened the passenger door rather than the driver’s and leaned over to pop the hood latch. The engine was clean. Angie was in the house packing more clothes because she had decided to go back to work. There was nothing we could think of that she could do, at least at the moment, and she didn’t want to spend any more time sitting in a hotel room thinking.
There was no traffic on the road. The camp robbers were squawking and arguing, but not concerned with trespassers. I went inside, borrowed a flashlight and looked up under the dash, nothing strange. I shoved the key in the ignition, gritted my teeth, and turned it. It was anticlimactic. The rusty old engine just coughed to life.
To get to Badger Loop Road, we had to drive back through Fairbanks and out the Richardson, so Angie drove the Dodge back to town, parked it at the hotel, and joined me in the pickup.
The canoe sat right where we’d left it, paddles underneath, shotgun still wedged inside. We balanced the canoe on the cab, tied the ends to the front and rear bumpers, and delivered it back to the riverbank behind the cabin. I couldn’t quite part with the shotgun. You just never know when you’ll need to shoot a pheasant, or an assassin.
“How about an old towel or something to wrap it?” Angie seemed to concur. She went inside and came back with Turk’s blanket and a box of number six shot.
“Alex, this is too weird. There isn’t a safer or more peaceful spot on earth, and you’re hoarding guns like it was Washington, D.C.” By hoarding, she meant the pistol that was in my belt. “When is it going to end?”
“It’s going to end when we find who killed
Stan. We have to believe they still plan to kill us. The strange part is that we don’t know who they are, they may not know who we are, or at least what we look like, and we’re hunting each other. They do know this pickup, so let’s get it stashed back at the airport.”
We stopped in town, Angie followed me to the airport in the Dodge, and we put the pickup to bed in its nest beside the Sea Airmotive hangar. I transferred the shotgun to the Dodge trunk because it wouldn’t fit under the seat. It wasn’t handy, but it felt good to know it was there.
“You sure you want to go to work this afternoon?”
“Yeah, I think so. You’re going to be flying late again tonight?”
“Probably about five-thirty or six. I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
“Good. I’ll walk back to the hotel when I get off. I may not stay at the station too long, but I don’t want to spend the afternoon alone.”
“Okay, but do stay wide awake. I really don’t think any bad guys know you by sight or where you work, but they will be trying to find out, so watch it. Check the street before you open the door, jaywalk across Second and cut through the drugstore to Third. If anyone seems the least bit interested, lose yourself in the biggest crowd you can find. Call the cops if you even get a premonition….”
“Been watching too much television? Aren’t you going to lend me your pistol?”
“Do you want it?”
“No, I’m being facetious. Don’t worry about me, Alex. I’ll be careful, but I’m not hiding under beds just yet.”
“Might not be a bad idea.”
***
When I walked into the office at noon, Celeste gave me a friendly smile, flashing bright blue eyes and those fetching dimples under her platinum blonde pageboy. Apparently we were now old friends. She picked up her phone, punched two digits, and Freddy came from his office.
“So, what did you think of the Otter?”
“I’m taking it back to Bethel with me. I’ll just leave the Cessna 310 parked in the spot and you probably won’t notice the difference. Sorry about the cops last night.”