I thought of the phrase which my Chief Resident, Eddie, instilled in me when I was an intern and I suggested to him that the fetal heart rate strip we were watching possibly warranted intervention in the form of an emergent cesarean section.
“We can sit here and discuss academically what the right move is, Mark,” he said. “What you need to realize, though, is that talk is cheap—and it takes money to buy whiskey. I’ve got just one question for you. Are we gonna keep lookin’ at that strip or are we gonna do something about it?”
I remember looking at him and saying, “I want that baby delivered. I can’t ride that heart rate strip anymore. I feel like that little fetus is saying, “Get me the heck outta here—I can’t frickin’ breathe!”
“Okay, then,” he said, “make it happen!”
I subsequently initiated, and, with Eddie’s direction, carried out my first stat cesarean section. The baby was fine, and the family was grateful. I learned one of the most important lessons of my obstetric training. Less talk—more action, but only when you knew the proper course of action and were capable of implementation.
As I drove down the interstate approaching New Orleans, I considered the amount of time and effort which had been spent preparing for the hours to come.
You were right, Eddie, I thought to myself, the time for talking has come and gone. It’s time to deal with the situation. No more talk—just action!
Chapter 37
“That was excellent,” Mandy said. “Best meal I’ve had in a long time.” We were walking out the door of Morton’s, where we had just enjoyed a delicious surf and turf meal. The service had been superb, the drinks were perfectly crafted, and the premium quality steak and seafood selections were some of the best we’d ever eaten.
“For that much money, it damn well should’ve come with a shiatsu massage and a happy ending!” I replied. “Actually, it was awesome. Worth every penny. You can provide the happy ending for me, babe.”
“Ooh, lucky me,'' she muttered. Then, meeting my eyes, she said, “Tomorrow, when you come back to me safe and sound.”
“Well, it was pretty good,” Hank commented, “but my scallops were a bit chewy and I was not crazy about the wine pairing that the waitress recommended. I think I’ve forgotten more about Chardonnays than that chick has ever known.”
“Well, of course. We all know what a wine connoisseur you are,” I said. “Your problem is that you are so impressed with yourself no one else will ever measure up.”
“True,” he said. “It’s a curse to be so perfect.” One of the things I liked about Hank was that he knew he was a cocky S.O.B.
“Perfect dick, that is,” I added.
“That’s what she said,” he replied, without missing a beat.
“Touche’!’”, was my only reply.
“Okay, funny boys—let’s get back to the hotel and start the show,” Mandy said, as she pulled out her phone and touched the icon which selected the Uber app. Within several minutes, we were back at our hotel and entering the lobby bar, where only a few empty tables remained. We sat an elevated four top and waited for our cocktail waitress to appear. After several minutes, a thirty-something server with bleach blonde hair and double D breasts appeared.
“Hi, y’all. My name is Debbie,” she said, as she leaned over the table and wiped it with a wet rag. “What can I get ya?” Her shirt was a V neck which showed ample cleavage, and she had approached the table opposite Hank to make sure he got a good look right down her majestic valley of flesh.
Hank took the bait and asked her if she had any suggestions.
“I can think of a few recommendations,” she said to him as she lifted her pen to the corner of her mouth and softly bit down on it. “Let’s see—”
“You know what, Debbie, just bring us three Coors Lights,” Mandy interjected, with an edge of irritation in her voice.
“Well,” Debbie said, “can I get y’all any—”
“Just the beers for now. We just came from a big dinner, okay? Thanks Debbie.” Mandy had anticipated her inquiry about something to snack on and had decided to shut her down before Hank could start his ritual of flirting.
Debbie got the hint and said, “Well, I’ll be right back with your beers. Let me know if you need anything else at all.” She still hadn’t taken her eyes off of Hank, who was staring back like a lovesick puppy. This was his preferred method of dangling the bait, and Mandy and I had witnessed his modus operandi many times previously.
“Jesus, Hank! Not tonight, okay? I’d like to think that both of you have your heads in the game,” Mandy fussed, as she lightly backhanded him on the shoulder. “I’m already nervous enough and don’t need to be wondering if you are thinking about banging Debbie in the ladies’ room as I send Mark off to take care of business. Don’t worry, you’ll be back tomorrow, and you can try to get into Debbie’s pants all you want at that time.”
“Damn, Mandy, I didn’t even say anything to her,” he protested. “Marky-Mark, did I say anything to that lovely young lady that suggested I was interested in her? Did I?”
“Dude, you had her caught in your tractor beam, just like always. You don’t have to say a word for anyone in the room to tell what you’re thinking,” I said.
“Well, I guess I just radiate sexuality,” he concluded. “I’d say, ‘I’m sorry,’ but well—I’m not. It’s a gift.”
We each drank our beer. Then, over the next hour, we ordered double Vodka tonics and two rounds of Patron shots. We each poured the latter three rounds into our water glasses, making sure that none of the other bar patrons were watching. I got up and picked out a couple of songs on their wall mounted jukebox. I made a point of acting like I was getting lit and made sure that I was noticed by the bartender and the other two cocktail waitresses by asking for advice about the best late-night clubs and strip joints in the area. To make sure that Ryan knew where we were and what we were up to I pretended to accidentally ‘butt dial’ her. She had answered the phone sleepily and asked what was wrong and why I was calling her so late. I apologized and, before hanging up with her, I let Mandy and Hank give her their ‘hello from New Orleans’ and ‘sorry to have awakened you’ comments, so that there would be no question in her mind about where we were and what we were up to.
Just after midnight, Mandy informed Debbie that she was cutting me off and that she was taking me back to the room to go nighty-night. I playfully argued for a few minutes before conceding that it was time to call it a night. We cashed out and headed through the lobby to the elevators. On our way, I stopped at the check-in desk and inquired about breakfast, then Hank and I took turns getting cash out of the lobby ATM in order to get our faces on the camera. Mandy and I had checked Hank in earlier while we were registering. He had dropped his bag off with the bellboy on his way to the restaurant, and had it taken up to his room, so we were able to head straight up to our adjoining rooms.
Once there, Hank and I changed out of our nice clothes and threw on some jeans, hooded sweatshirts, and tennis shoes. Mandy walked us to the door, where we inspected the contents of our student style backpacks as we went through our checklist of the clothing and equipment we would need over the next eight or so hours. We agreed it was all there and we were good to go.
“Please be careful!” Mandy emphatically begged. “I need you to come back to me safe and sound, and I don’t want to wonder every time the doorbell rings if it’s the cops coming to arrest you.”
“I know,” I said. “We’ve got everything figured out, babe. We’re going to be just fine and there will be no reason for the po-po to even consider me to be a suspect. Brandon is going to be a victim of random street violence. There’ll be no connection to me or Hank. I love you and I’ll see you later this morning. Please have some Bloody Mary’s waiting for us.”
“Actually,” Hank said, “I don’t like Bloody Mary’s, so I’ll take a pitcher of Mimosas.”
Mandy looked at Hank and said, “You are a total fag! You can order your own fu
cking girlie drink when you get here. Just kidding. You’re are doing us a solid here, so I’ll order you your super gay Mimosas and I’ll make sure that they add some maraschino cherries and a little umbrella.”
“Hey, I’m comfortable enough in my masculinity to drink pretty drinks, so bring it on,” he replied. “Mimosas rock!”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Game on. Let’s get the fuck outta’ here.”
“Wait, you dumbasses!” Mandy said. “Give me your phones. Jesus, guys! You almost screwed up the very first detail of the plan. Now I feel totally confident—not!”
“Honey, honey, honey,” I replied. “Check the room safe in the closet. I already put the phones in there. We’ve got Hank’s burner phone he uses when he sets up dates with the skanks he finds on Tinder. He doesn’t want any of those slutty bitches having his real phone number.”
“Hey, motherfuckers, I date classy chicks only. But even they can go totally Fatal Attraction on you, so, yeah—I use burner phones. That’s just good fucking sense. Plus, I don’t want Jodi tracking my calls. I think she might have the impression I’m monogamous with her.”
“I wonder what gave her that impression,” I said. “But now is not the time to discuss any of your hoe bags. Let’s bounce! Mandy, thank you for your concern, but like I said, we’ve got this mission all planned out and we’ll execute it flawlessly. Just keep your phone on you and be ready to let us back in through the side door when we return. Adios, muchacha—I love you!”
“Later, you scrumptious little piece of ass,” Hank said with a leering grin. “Seriously now, I’ve got my boy’s back and I’ll bring him home safe.”
I kissed Mandy goodbye and we exited the room into the hallway. We walked down the corridor in the opposite direction of the elevators. I had scouted the building layout shortly after arrival the previous afternoon and confirmed what I’d hoped to find. There were security cameras in the small elevator lobby on each floor, but there were none at the ends of the hallways where the staircases were. We entered the stairwell, where we descended the eight floors to street level. I knew from my previous recon run that there was a security camera covering the side entrance to the hotel. It was mounted about three feet above the key card reader that was just to the left of the door. I approached the exit door and deployed the full length of my 26-inch retractable nightstick, which I’d always kept in my car after purchasing five of them—one for each of the glove compartments in the Bishop family cars driven by me, Mandy, and the kids. I’d purchased with cash at the 2013 Rockwall Gun Show, so I knew there was no possible record of me owning such an implement. After making sure our hoods were covering our faces in the dim, early morning stairwell light, I looked at Hank and said, “Okay, let’s do this!”
There was a small window in the exterior door which provided access to the stairwell from the service area on the side of the building. We peered through it to make sure no one happened to be approaching the door or walking by on the side street. There was nobody in sight, so Hank quickly opened the door and I stepped through, staying right against the building and directly below the security camera. I used the night stick to smash the lens of the camera, making sure it would be completely dysfunctional from that point on. We then walked six blocks to the $25 per day parking lot where Hank had parked his rental car before meeting us at the restaurant the previous evening.
I continued walking down the street as Hank veered away from me and strolled through the parking lot to his rental car. He hopped into the silver Hyundai Sonata and took off toward New Orleans Lakefront Airport, catching up with me a block later. As he pulled aside me and unlocked the doors, I yanked the back door open, dove inside, and pulled it shut behind me. The whole maneuver lasted but a few seconds and there was no one on the street to witness my impromptu hitch hiking. I remained lying down in the backseat of the sedan until we were well underway, at which time I crawled up into the front seat.
We both knew most of the measures we were taking to conceal our activities were probably overkill. However, as we had drawn up our master plan for the entire mission, we made sure to acknowledge that potential witnesses of our movements and behaviors were all around us. It was not unthinkable the authorities would at least consider the possibility that Brandon was the victim of a premeditated murder. We had to assume, should this be the case, the cops would at least take a cursory look at the alibis of people who were prominent figures in his life. For this reason, I remained appropriately paranoid about being caught on camera or seen by anyone who could refute my claims regarding my location during the hours in question.
Never missing an opportunity to be crude, Hank spoke as I crawled headfirst into the front of the car, “Hey, as long as you are down there, do a friend a favor?”
“You wish, fuckstick!” That was all I could muster as I pulled myself into an upright position.
There wasn’t much traffic, so we were able to quickly find our way to I-10. Traffic on the interstate was moving a little slowly. We guessed that the drivers, many of whom had probably had way too much to drink, headed out of the French Quarter on their way home or back to their cheap hotels which were well outside the famous New Orleans entertainment district. We traveled along I-10 through the Seventh Ward and St. Roch, moving in a northeasterly direction toward Lake Pontchartrain. As we drove, it occurred to me that the city was still buzzing with activity, even in the late night and early morning hours. In some ways, it resembled a beehive or an ant pile in which there were continuously tasks to be carried out, regardless of the time of day or night.
It’s easy to forget that while most of the population sleeps, the nocturnal movements of thousands of delivery truck drivers, road and bridge repair crews, truck stop cashiers and waitresses, and even freighter crews negotiating the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal go unnoticed. There were activities going on all around us that night as we traveled to the airport. As we drove, I gazed out through the rental car windows and I was amazed at how little the city had slowed down despite the setting of the sun and the rise of the moon. It occurred to me how impossible it was to know the intentions of any particular individual one might encounter as he or she moves through the concealing darkness of the night. In general, most of us assume that the busy bees buzzing around the moonlit hive of the city are merely engaged in some form of harmless recreation or are working to fulfill the duties and obligations which define their vocation. However, we also know that not all nocturnal activities are so innocent and unremarkable.
I wondered, as we drove, how many other people were out there using the busy city around them and the night itself as cover as they moved among the night shift workers and late-night merrymakers on their way to commit sinister acts such as the one Hank and I were about to commit. I suspected there were many habitual criminals moving toward or returning from the locations of their crimes, just as we were. I remember feeling somewhat ashamed of the fact that I was willingly joining the ranks of those nocturnal evildoers who committed their cowardly crimes under the cloak of darkness, on whom I had always looked down with disdain and contempt. Although the ultimate purpose of our mission was to take the life of another human being, I had to remind myself that the motivation for our enterprise was to protect, rather than to prey upon the innocent. Our crime would be ‘one and done,’ unlike the nightly nefarious rituals which were committed by the unseen or, at least, unnoticed criminals all around us.
We arrived at the airport in less than fifteen minutes, although the ride seemed longer. I had a feeling that the time leading up to our attack on Brandon would seem to stretch on interminably, in anticipation of the horrible, but vital, act that fate had forced upon us to save my daughter. We jumped out of the Hyundai, grabbed our backpacks and headed to Hank’s plane.
The Cessna 340A is a six passenger, twin engine, pressurized plane which has a sleek profile as it stands atop its retractable landing gear. The pressurized cabin allows for comfortable flight at high altitude and the twin 310 horsepower en
gines are able to propel it at a max speed of 279 miles per hour. Hank, being Hank, had paid to have some expensive modifications to the power plants and he claimed he was easily able to cruise at over 300 miles per hour. He claimed his motivation was to set his plane apart in the market and give it a higher resale value. Any of us who knew him well, however, knew that he was mainly motivated by the extra inches that having the fastest version of that particular plane added to the length of his dick. Regardless, Hank’s plane was certainly a sight to behold. It was painted a candy apple red—the same exact color and shade as on his vintage Mach 1 Ford Mustang. Like his car, there were twin white racing stripes running down the middle of the craft. Additionally, however, there were similar twin stripes approximately two thirds down the length of the wings. Yes, Hank also had a fast boat with the identical color scheme; and yes, he had once lined all three vehicles up on the runway in Paris and taken multiple pictures of all of his pretty horses, which he then posted on social media. As I have previously stated, my friend was a tool, but he was a predictable and loyal tool. Besides, for the most part anyway, you couldn’t help loving the guy.
“Ahh, there’s my baby!” he said. “It looks like the maintenance guys got her all cleaned up, just like I requested. The fuel tanks should be topped off as well.”
As much of a goofball as Hank could sometimes be, he became completely professional when it was time to fly his plane. One could not help but respect the way he refused to hurry or cut corners while going through his pre-flight checklist. He clearly understood the responsibility that came with a pilot’s license and he seemed to always rise to the occasion when I saw him climb into the pilot’s seat and engage the engines.
Okay, sure—he may have periodically breached an FAA guideline or two. For instance, I’m pretty sure that being on the receiving end—or the giving end, for that matter—of mid-flight fellatio was, per the letter of the law, considered taboo. While we’re on the subject, I believe that there are sections of the multi-volume Flight Training Manual published by the FAA discourage pilots from engaging in in-flight distractions such as hand jobs offered by an honorary co-pilot or air-to-ground phone sex sessions. Be that as it may, I believe Hank usually used good judgement while he was behind-the-yoke, so to speak. In all honesty, there was no doubt Hank had participated in some high-altitude hijinks. However, during time periods where lackadaisical adherence to flight inspection guidelines and/or unprofessional behavior during take-off and landing procedures could put lives at risk, Hank was a consummate professional and a model pilot.
Fatal Flaws Page 22