“Well, it’s been a night,” I said. “I’d better get on to bed.”
I stood up and he looked up at me, suddenly sad. I remembered he’d just been sleeping with my roommate and got pissed off all over again. How many women were enough for him?
“You’d better go. There shouldn’t be any strange men in the dorm this time of night.”
He started to speak but then nodded. “Good night.”
I stood in front of my door and watched as he got on the elevator. If he was gone, there was no reason not to sleep in my own bed.
Sandy was sitting up when I came in. “I saw you out there. Did you like him?”
I stared at her. Was I the only woman in this entire damned dorm that thought about something other than sex? “Should I have brought him back for you?”
Sandy shook her head. “No. It would have been nice, but I passed out. Of course, if you like him—”
“Not at all. You can have him.”
She lay back in her bed. “I don’t think he really fancied me or he would have stayed. It would have been nice to have a little piece of him. But that’s the way things go, sometimes.”
“A piece of him?”
She turned on her side. “That’s the interesting thing about men. When you have sex with them you own a little piece of their heart afterwards. A small bit that they can never give to anyone else ever again.”
“What a twisted idea!”
“Isn’t it?” She clapped her hands. “I got it from this evangelist that tried to convert me years ago. Just think: Someday, when David Sabado is playing in some great concert hall, he’ll think about our one night and the mixture of regret and sadness and joy will just come pouring out.” She sat up. “At least, it would have if we hadn’t drunk so much.”
“So his heart is intact.”
“Well, I didn’t break it, anyway. The most we did was make out a little. Maybe you did something to him.”
“Not likely.”
“You talked to him longer than I did.”
“Too long, I think.”
She pointed towards the door at the other end of the room. “And I think he puked in the bathroom. I haven’t had the courage to look.”
Did it make any difference to me that they hadn’t actually had sex? That he had left? I had no idea.
I didn’t say anything. I just turned off the light. Whatever mystery awaited us in the bathroom could keep waiting until morning.
Chapter 1.8: David
Of course she was angry with me. She had every right to be. She thought I had just had sex with her roommate and now I was coming on to her.
Did it actually matter that I hadn’t done anything with Sandy? I had in fact wanted to, for a while at least. My reasons for leaving while Sandy was still asleep were obscure to me, much less anybody else. It wasn’t as if my body wasn’t ready to go for it. It wasn’t as if Sandy wasn’t about as beautiful a woman as I would ever be likely to meet. Even so, the idea gave me a queasy feeling—I felt compelled by that beauty. Still, Sandy had been willing—enthusiastic, even. I could have woken her up or waited.
I had a sudden image from high school biology: the decapitated praying mantis mindlessly humping as the female chowed down on his head. Was I afraid of Sandy?
Maybe, I thought while I waited for the elevator to reach the ground floor. Maybe the compulsion of physical beauty was something I didn’t want. And where did Katelin come into this? I felt stricken by her poor opinion of me at the same time I felt relieved to be away from Sandy.
I had mistaken her for a boy! I rubbed my forehead.
“Maybe you’re gay,” suggested Misty from the elevator switchboard. “Not that I would care, you understand.”
“I’m not gay.” How could I have mistaken her for a boy? She was obviously a woman.
“Of course, you would say that if you were in denial,” Misty said.
“I’m not gay.”
“Is it that important one way or the other?”
I didn’t answer.
As I left the dorm I was as angry and cramped as an old man.
The weather had changed outside. It had warmed and the air had grown close and thick—clammy, almost. There was no wind. It felt as if a fat man had sat down on the town.
I looked around. It was a little past midnight, now. Should I go back to Carl’s? Back to the party?
To hell with all of it. I picked a direction at random and started walking. I’d end up somewhere or I wouldn’t.
Past the lights. Past the unlit stadium. Past what looked like an inflated balloon over a swimming pool. Past a square building wreathed in suspicious steam. Up the hill and past the shopping centers until I reached the clear outskirts of Columbia. The road divided. Up to now, the road had run north to south but now an east/west decision had to be made. The sky was gray, low oppressive clouds hung overhead. I chose west: in the direction of the setting sun, California and Japan. Maybe if I hurried I’d get there by morning.
“Not likely,” sniffed Misty.
“You have no faith.”
A cool wind started to blow from behind me.
“Being gay might have its comforts. Especially if you’re attracted to women.”
“Will you shut up about that?” I said savagely. “I can’t be gay. I like Katelin.”
Misty thought for a moment. “Of course, if you were gay and you met a girl you liked, your subconscious might trick you into thinking she was a boy.”
I barely heard her. I liked that girl. I liked her when I saw her dancing—boy or girl, there was something about her that attracted me. Something beyond hormones and a cute figure.
What? I thought. Do you like a girl because you don’t think she’s pretty? Now there’s a secret you’d have to take to the grave. If it were true.
“She looks pretty good, actually, David,” Misty interrupted. “For a girl, I mean.”
She did, didn’t she? With that huge smile erupting out of those thin, pursed lips and the eyes that locked on you like laser sights one moment and then melted into sharp amusement the next. I remembered the way she felt when I took her hand. A forgiving hand, maybe. Certainly a trusting hand. I remembered the way she smelled.
“Oh, God.” I stopped in the middle of the road. Columbia was barely a glow behind me. I could hardly see the road. In the distance around me there were a few distant mercury lights signifying farms but nothing else.
“I like her,” I said dully. “And I already screwed it up.”
The clouds above me rumbled. Slowly, inevitably, it began to rain.
Chapter 1.9: Katelin
I hadn’t been to bed more than twenty minutes when my beeper went off. I sat up suddenly, an alarm-driven reflex. I turned off the alarm and the beeping continued. I picked up the phone.
“Hello?” I said thickly.
Still beeping.
Finally, it penetrated that I had to pick up my beeper. I found it still in the storage compartment of my stick. I turned it off and looked at the readout: they could use a flyer. I called the police department and found out why: a semi had run off the I-70 Bridge. The officer on duty told me to go directly to the site. Sheriff DeWitt would be waiting.
I went in the bathroom and washed my face. I looked around. If David had been sick in here, he had cleaned things up. My respect for him went up a couple of notches.
I grabbed a Starbucks out of the fridge and chugged it down as I got dressed. I needed to be awake.
I was a fully licensed VFR pilot: fixed wing and rotary, ultralight and self-propelled—those were the actual terms, lame as they may be. They came under part 91, part 103 and part 103A of the regulations. My stick was a fully certificated flight vehicle. When I flew it, I could fly it as a self-propelled part 103A aircraft—what I had been doing most of the night—which allowed me to fly below normal airspace boundaries and within municipalities. Something similar to the dispensation granted to police helicopters. I could fly it part 103, ultralight, which allowed
me limited access to normal airspace—though that didn’t apply here since ultralights were not allowed to fly at night. Or I could fly it part 91, which granted me full access to the airspace but meant I had to maintain above a specific altitude, keep up a certain speed and fly with lights. I hated flying with lights; they stuck out of the envelope and caused a lot of drag. It made flying six times harder than flying without them.
But I needed to get over to the bridge quickly and I didn’t want to take a chance on braining myself on some tower I didn’t see. Besides, they might have a helicopter at the site and nobody sees anything at night without lights. I didn’t want to be diced into chutney.
I pulled out my headset and plugged in, quickly tested out my transceiver. Then, downstairs to the landing and outside. Great. It was raining. I looked down and then up, listened to the automated weather briefing. The ceiling was three thousand feet but I wouldn’t get that high. I muttered a quick curse about Tabitha Purlin, settled my fanny in the seat and took off. I made a quick climb to just below pattern altitude for Columbia Regional, then called in and gave them my particulars. They were pretty understanding—I figured DeWitt must have greased the wheels ahead of time—and in a few seconds I was following a vector over Columbia at twelve hundred feet, lights deployed and breathing hard. I figured this was the equivalent of a two-mile run. I could run two miles in my sleep. That was my story and I was sticking to it.
Ten minutes later, I could see the bridge. The police had spotlights up and that gave me enough light to work with. I gave Columbia Regional a kiss goodnight and switched to the police band as I descended. DeWitt was waiting by the phone. I landed next to his cruiser. Arnie was with him, his hand in a plastic cast.
The three of us went to the edge of the roadway. The semi had broken through the guardrail and made a straight run down the embankment into the water. I could see it half submerged in the water about sixty feet below us.
“We figure he drove it down after he lost control or the whole rig would have tumbled.” DeWitt pointed at the sides. “I have two divers to go down there and get him out, if he’s still alive. But the climb down is dangerous and the currents are tough. I don’t want to risk it in the dark if he’s dead. Can you fly over there and see if he’s worth it?”
“Give me a minute.” I walked up along the bridge for a bit, trying to see if I could manage to get down there without getting disoriented. Flying here, in the dark and the rain, had been pretty strenuous. But I’d had the lights of the city and the highway as well as the spotlights on the bridge to guide me.
But here those same lights washed out any contrast and the brown muddy water was the same color as the mud-splashed truck. I couldn’t look up at the bridge to get my bearings; I’d be blinded by the spotlights. DeWitt wasn’t kidding about the current. Some of the river was lit by the spotlights and every now and then, you could see a whirlpool boil up and shake the truck. The spring rains from up north were still working their way downstream. I could be hovering just a couple of feet over the water and get caught by an uprooted tree. But the rain was steady and clear. There was no real mist to make things too vague to see.
“What do you think, Katelin?” Arnie said from behind me.
“I think it’s dicey.” I leaned over and looked down. Dark as a dungeon, way under the bridge.
“Then don’t do it,” Arnie said promptly. “Tell DeWitt to hell with it. You know that man is dead.”
“There’s a chance he might be alive.”
“Katelin, there’s no chance,” Arnie said slowly. “You need to understand this. You’re going to fly down there and find that man is dead—probably be a pretty gruesome sight, too. And then, you’ll have to fly yourself back up here.”
I stared at him. “You’re trying to tell me this is what it’s like to be a cop.”
He nodded. “Most of the time you’re going through the motions trying to save a lost cause. This is one of those times. If you go down there, you have to understand the situation.”
I nodded and turned back to the railing. It came clear to me what Arnie was talking about. There were rewards that came from being a police officer. But they were bright little flashes in a big landscape. A lot of the time it would be dull and mostly thankless. Sometimes it would be dangerous and dull. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the result would be a foregone conclusion.
I didn’t know the trucker. But maybe he had family. Even if he’d lost control, he still tried to ride that thing down into the water. He didn’t just give up and let it tumble. He deserved some kind of a chance. Morning was hours away. If he was still alive, he could be long dead by then. Somebody had to do something and right here and right now I was the person to do it. Maybe that was what it meant to be a cop.
I went back to DeWitt’s cruiser.
“Well?” he asked.
“I need you to point the spotlights directly on the cab from the middle of the bridge. So I can fly down there with all the light at my back. Can you do that?”
DeWitt looked at the bridge a moment. “Yeah. Give me fifteen minutes.”
Arnie got me a snack and some coffee. I wolfed down both of them. I knew the coffee was hot and the sandwich was dry but that’s about all the taste I got from them.
Then, twenty minutes after I’d gotten here, I took off.
I slipped between the girders of the bridge and out into the darkness, keeping my eyes fixed on the cab of the truck. It was the only real point of reference I had. I had planned my route to run far out over the river and then back to the cab to avoid any part of the bridge supports. If I hit one of them, I’d lose my concentration and gravity would take over.
When I was fifteen feet or so above the cab, say twenty feet over the water, I leveled off and approached along with the current. The obvious way to check on the driver would be to ease down in front of the cab in a hover and look in the window. But I didn’t like the odds. If I messed up, or the truck shifted, I’d only be a couple of feet over the water and that was too close for comfort. Instead, I came in over the cab and pushed on it with my foot. It seemed more or less solid so I eased down to the side door. The river pushed itself along the middle of the window. I’d hoped I could kick it open and squat down or maybe lie on the cab and look over. But now I could see if the window was suddenly opened, the river would pour in. It might or might not fill the cab, but it would bring the awful force of the river to bear on the cab and I didn’t want to take the chance it would shift the truck.
I moved over to the high side and caught a flash from the spotlight full in the face. For a moment, I was lost. I had no idea what was up or down—I fell and caught myself on the airhorn. Somehow, I held on to the stick. I looked back into the shadows until my eyes adjusted back and then brought the stick up again. It had to be a hover approach. There was no other way. I brought myself above the cab again and backed out in front.
The light at this angle only shone part way into the cab. My own shadow got in the way. I pulled my flashlight out of my pocket and lowered myself until I was hovering a foot over the boiling water. If something happened now it would be nasty.
I brought the light up slowly, keeping my concentration on where I was. Precision, I thought. Sam? Is this precise enough?
The driver had been crumpled against the wheel and part of the dash. It looked in the shadows that he had been torn into pieces. I didn’t dwell on that. I let my mind take the picture and store it somewhere. The driver was dead. I’d think about it later.
I rose over the truck and then backed out of the light so I could look around without getting blinded. Altitude was what I needed now. This is like Everest, I thought. When you get there you’ve only gone halfway.
But as I gained altitude I began to breathe easier. From above, the outline of the bridge was clearly illuminated by the glare back from the river and the truck. The lights of stalled cars on both sides of the highway helped. I threaded my way back through the girders and eased down to the road. Arnie was t
here in a moment, helping me down. I felt as if I’d run all the way to Saint Louis.
DeWitt was there a moment later. “Do I send down a crew?”
I shook my head. Arnie gave me another sandwich. This time I could taste it. Tuna salad. Normally, I don’t like tuna but this tasted wonderful.
“He’s dead. He must have died when the truck hit the water.”
DeWitt nodded. “I thought so. How about staying here for a while?”
“Have a heart, Connor. She’s all in,” Arnie laid a blanket over me but I was sweating from the exertion. I shrugged it off.
DeWitt shrugged. “Just asking. The river has been rising all day and it’s going to rise some more tomorrow. I was just hoping she might to stay and help at first light. “
“Right now, she’s going home with me.” Arnie stood up and helped me stand up. “She’s going to get some sleep and a nice breakfast. And tomorrow when it’s light out and the weather’s good and she’s inclined, she might do you a favor.”
DeWitt shrugged and waved us away. I followed Arnie to his car. He made sure I was seated and then leaned in. “Mattie would have my skin for a doormat if I let you go home like this. You save my ass and let me boss you around just this once, okay?”
I smiled at him. “Just this once.”
Chapter 1.10: David
The rain didn’t let up. After an hour, the wool coat gave up any pretense of water resistance and became a great, heavy sponge. My shirt and jeans were soaked not from the rain but by the continuous streams of water that seeped through the coat. I found out what wool smells like when it’s thoroughly soaked.
My pant legs slapped wetly against one another, the coat flapped in the wind. My feet splashed through the sheet of water on the road. I felt like a wet, pissed off one-man band.
If I could have figured out somebody else to blame, I would have indulged myself in some heartfelt vitriol. As it was, I just silently steamed—literally—in the dark.
“Did I tell you to take a walk?” Misty complained. “No. We could have turned and gone back—there was a perfectly serviceable Starbucks in the shopping center just before we started this death march to the end of the world!”
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