by Dean Ing
During his second helping, Lovett discovered that Cris Reventlo's wife had recently left him in Darwin after he bought into an Australian charter flight outfit and lost a bundle. Making money and losing it did not seem to concern Reventlo, who had too many skills to starve. The son of an English plantation engineer, Cris had grown up in Burma and was flying unlicensed from grass fields at sixteen. Then, as a youthful prisoner of war near Rangoon, he had learned Japanese before the war's end. He had never returned to England, but still spoke at times like a man happily lost in a time warp. Somehow, from Reventlo, it did not sound like an affectation; and women of a certain age seemed mesmerized by it.
When Lovett had finished his triple highball, another magically appeared to replace it. "Don't give me away, Pop," said a voice in his ear, and he turned to see Chip at his shoulder.
"Give you away? Right now I'd pay somebody to take you," Lovett muttered, with a look that was half amusement, half dismay. "I suppose you came for the floor show."
"Nah," said Chip. "I saw them getting ready. Makes me feel sad to see women whose idea of formal dress is two Dixie cups and a cork." With that, Chip whisked Lovett's plate away and was gone.
Neither Quinn nor Reventlo noticed this interchange, intent as they were on positioning themselves for a better view as the opening strains of "St. Louis Woman" flooded the hangar.
The two showgirls had more help than they needed as they mounted the runway, and except for the four-inch heels they were as different as gin and tequila. The tall blonde might have come straight from Vegas, long-haired, bedecked in fur and costume jewelry with a headdress that made her seem to soar. The Latina was more voluptuous with short dark gypsy curls, tricked out in lacy stuff that artfully failed to hide a great pair of legs. They strutted in unison, wearing bright commercial smiles, and made a parody of shy surprise to the calls of, "Take it off!" It was obvious that they would; and just as obvious that they would take their sweet time about it.
Then the music tape segued to a whispery piece from "All That Jazz" and Blondie began a stately slink, while Shortie took a folding chair onto the runway and appeared willing to wait her turn. But Shortie could not seem to find a comfort able position in that infernal little chair. She crossed her legs demurely, and showed fresh charms to her gallant viewers, and could not let the situation stand. She rearranged. herself, leaning one arm on the chair back and hooking an ankle behind a chair leg, and became more scenic still.
By the time she tried straddling that chair, whistles and hoots of laughter proved that Shortie, not Blondie, was the feature of this segment. Shortie, in her contortions, may not have been in love with that little chair, but she certainly developed a close relationship with it, Lovett decided. He cheered her acrobatic efforts along with the others and was not surprised when Blondie found it necessary to unwind before Shortie could divorce the chair.
Naturally, the blonde found her headdress a hindrance. Shortie, still fetchingly pretzeled in that folding chair, helped her get it off-all in cadence with the music. By the time they took their bows and promised to return, both performers glistened with perspiration and their audience had developed into two roughly equal camps, one fancying the elegant Blondie, the other more in rut for the smoldering Shortie. It was during the costume change that Lovett sought one of those nonalcoholic brews, while a few argumentative revelers sprayed one another with beer.
When Lovett regained his seat: "Good idea," Reventlo aid, eyeing Lovett's beverage. "And since poor Elmo didn't Sfollow your example he'll be courting a gyppy tummy, if I'm any judge."
Sure enough, Benteen had switched to harder stuff but then, so had a dozen others. The old fellow did look more determined than happy but you didn't withhold a man's booze at his own party, and Lovett only replied,
"The man said to stay conscious," and took a swig of his Kaliber.
Act Two began musically with the tawdry, brassy, "The Strip-per."
Blondie's fresh costume began to disintegrate on cue, helped by snaps and Velcro, and by a few urgent hands from below, while Shortie, in a long cloak, collected the debris. Before long, she was practically down to the Dixie cups and cork of Chip's description. And then Shortie threw off her cloak and issued forth in Flamenco dress, with music to match, and all those petticoats didn't hold up very well either, but the blonde's faction began to clap, chanting, "Blondie, Blondie," which didn't impede the, Spanish dancer at all.
But the spray from shaken beer bottles did. Any sober idiot can tell when a professional entertainer is pretending to lose her patience and when she really parts from it, but some drunken idiots cannot. That is when some other drunken idiot will launch a wild swing at Idiot Number One, causing idiot Three to grapple with Idiot Two, and so on. With her runway teetering, Blondie slid into the melee and Shortie went to her aid. Lovett began to back away, holding his chair in front of him to shield his retreat, and tripped over someone trying to crawl under a table.
Usually, an audiotape of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has a certain canning influence. This time it had little effect. What sent a dozen men lumbering for hangar doors was the series of piercing blasts from a police whistle. There were those who said a police whistle ought to be the B.O.F.'s national anthem.
By the time Lovett managed to disentangle himself from t fallen chairs and stand erect, doors were slamming all over the place.
No police showed. A sobbing Blondie hobbled on a broken hee I to the dressing room grasping what was left of snapped ostrich plumes, while Shortie fed a stream of barrio invective' to the caterer. Of the original partygoers, only half a dozen remained.
"Mayday, mayday," Lovett heard, and saw Cris Revendo bending over their host who was either hors de combat or asleep at his table. The Brit's glance was searching as if for fighter escort, and Lovett reached them a step ahead of young Chip, who seemed untouched by it all.
"Aw shit. Who hit him," Lovett said, because he could see Elmo Benteen shake, his breath chuffing.
"Jack Daniels," the Brit replied, checking for a pulse. "The self-indulgent, bloody old fool; diet be blowed, he will have his fun even if it kills him."
"That's Elmo, all right, as long as I've known him," Lovett agreed.
"Get a shoulder under him," said Reventio. "Wade, can you get some car keys from the strongbox?"
"Plymouth wagon, parking lot," Chip said, wasting not a syllable as the two men lifted Benteen, who seemed to have no bones in him. Chip sprinted out ahead of them and, as they stumbled outside, the youth was already wheeling a huge old '57 station wagon toward them. A pair of whopping surfboards lay stowed on the roof rack and the men clambered in from the rear door, the hapless Benteen unable to help.
"But what's this all in aid of," Reventlo called toward Chip. "He needs an emergency room."
"I could use a navigator," Chip called back, steering with one hand, holding a cellular phone in the other.
Lovett crawled forward beside the driver, found himself sitting on a huge bag of Doritos, noted a road sign as he belted up. Chip, meanwhile, was murmuring into his phone with inhuman calm. "MacArthur to Bristol, north to Hemlock. Got it. Tell them to expect us," he said, and put the phone into its dashboard cradle. Then, perhaps for Reventlo, he called,
"Communities Hospital, five minutes."
"We're on MacArthur," Lovett said, as a freeway crossed beneath them.
Chip had the old Plymouth roaring along now, passing other cars.
"Cellular phone, huh? Chalk up one for the yuppies."
"We could be losing him, lads," Reventlo called over the din.
They didn't lose him then. They got Elmo Benteen to the hospital in record time, and Reventlo saw to the admission rigarnarole while Lovett stayed with the old man, so much bigger than life for so many years, now so tiny on that gurney.
Minutes later, Benteen was wheeled away as Chip entered, having parked the car. Reventlo strode up to hear Lovett say, They're getting him stabilized, whatever that involves."
"Stable?
That will be a lifetime first for Elmo," Reventio said, and turned to Chip. "Don't know what we'd have done without you."
Chip, with a shy smile: "I thought maybe Pop here could use a designated driver."
Reventlo stared at Chip, then at Lovett. "This is your son?"
"Grandson," Lovett said. "It's a long story, and even I don't want to hear it. For that matter, I don't yet understand it. But Elmo Benteen owes you, Chip."
A shrug from the youth. "It was an honor."
Reventlo sighed and gazed down the hospital corridor. "I just hope," he said, "the honor won't be posthumous for 4 Elmo.
The Samaritans mooched around the waiting room long enough for two of them to sober up. When Lovett suggested that the caterer had blown that police whistle, Chip laughed and pulled the little gizmo from a chain around his neck.
"Mom made me wear it," he said. "The only musical instrument that helps when you shred your stick in a killer barrel."
Reventlo looked up. "Can that possibly be the Queen's English?"
"Don't expect too much when it's past his bedtime," Lovett told his old friend.
"When your surfboard breaks up in a monster wave," Chip explained.
"Ali," said Reventlo, and was satisfied. "The whistle was a piece of quick thinking, lad." Lovett nodded agreement.
After a moment Reventlo went on with the reticence of a bygone era,
"Lovett, ah, about bringing your grandson to a Bof extravaganza: we don't, um, well, it isn't done, you know.
"I didn't bring him in, he snuck in; Christ knows how I'm gonna square this with his mother," said Lovett in a fast monotone.
"You won't have to. She thinks I went surfing, Pop," said Chip patiently, then glanced away as a nurse padded toward them, gum-rubber soles squeaking on polished linoleum.
"Wayne Lovett," she said'. "Mr. Wayne Lovett?"
"Wade," he said, standing.
"Your uncle is asking for you," she said.
"You're the only family he has here, old man," Reventlo put in quickly.
Shut up and go, his tone warned.
Two floors up, Lovett was ushered into a room where he found Elmo Benteen behind a curtain, with tubes in both arms and another taped below his nostrils. "Aw Jesus, Elmo," was all Lovett could say.
The parchment eyelids fluttered open. Turning his head seemed to require heroic effort from Benteen, whose lips formed the faintest of smiles.
"Just cut it too close with that sour mash," he said, so low that Lovett moved nearer. "Well, they warned me. Call it pilot error."
"Any landing you can walk away from," Lovett said, implying that all would be well now.
"Ain't walkin' away this time, kid," Elmo said. "Just as well it's you here. Some of the boys I could name might not wanta-share what I have to say." He was having more trouble talking now.
"They'll have you up and around again, nice as you please, if you just behave."
"You don't get it, Wade. Listen up, 'cause this is what you call a death or death situation." A long breath, as if marshaling energy. Then:
"Early in '45, back when your fist was still a virgin, the Japs hid away a fleet of planes for an al lout suicide war when we invaded Japan."
"Kamikazes. I remember," Lovett put in, but Benteen cut him off.
"Shut up, Wade." Another pause, . as Benteen's eyes closed. "This was bigger. Hundreds of planes, maybe thousands, stashed everywhere. More than they had pilots to fly 'em. They were recruiting high school kids as cadet pilots near the end, and we were finding late-model air chines hid away for years afterward, regular aerial armada. But the Abomb scrapped the invasion plans. Damn good thing for both sides."
He fell silent for a long moment, and Lovett touched the thin wrist nearest him. The eyes opened. "Wade?" The hand groped for Lovett's, gripped with surprising strength. "But they didn't find 'em all. I found a half-dozen, maybe the last on earth in mint condition, in a cave twenty years later, after my forced landing. I believe they're still waitin' for the day that didn't come. It's a fuckin' bonanza, kid."
"Maybe they've been found by now," Lovett guessed.
"Bullshit. I paid attention and I'd have heard. So would YOU."
Lovett swallowed hard, knowing it was true. A Mitsubishi"7xke" in flyable condition brought up to a million dollars, now that so few remained. After fifty years gathering cobwebs, they'd need a lot of refurbishing-0-rings, corrosion, fabric. Most of the aircraft flown as Zeroes in films were American trainers reworked to look something like a Zero. The real thing was almost literally worth its weight in precious metal. Lovett felt gooseflesh rise on his arms. He said, "Who else knows?"
"What I've said? A few, most dead now. Served 'em right-tryin' to hog the deal." A brief silence. "They never got the details, and there's a hell of a lot of islands out there. Two months ago-when medics said I was ready for scrap-I said damn straight I was ready. Bad enough I can't cut the mustard; now I can't even lick the jar. But what a shame to leave all those ol' air chines to rot, huh?"
"Elmo, hang in there. We'll get specialists-"
"You been monitoring the wrong frequency? I've had specialists." Another silence, and a subtle change in Benteen's breathing rhythm. "That Nip squadron belongs to any Boffs who'll put their butts on the line for it, kid, and those only; but see that Met gets a share.
"I'll try, Elmo." The old fellow gave no sign that he'd heard. "Want to tell me how to find this bonanza?"
"All on map-hangar," Benteen managed to say.
Now the old man was fighting for breath and, in response to some unseen monitor, a blue-clad nurse whisked in. "You'll have to go," she said to Lovett. "Now. Please."
Elmo's gaze held Lovett's as he tried to continue but in moments, more blue smocks bustled in. Lovett, hands in pockets, slouched in the hallway listening to the futile efforts of the hospital staff. He was not thinking about maps as he muttered, over and over, "Aw, Elmo; damn it, Elmo."
It took Elmo Benteen another fifteen minutes to "head west," but at last the staff began to file from the room, not hurrying. Lovett caught the eye of the nurse, motioned her to him with an expectant look.
"He just slipped away," she said. "I'm sorry. This can't have been a surprise," she added, "with multiple organ failures."
"Did he say anything?"
She paused, then shrugged. "Nothing that made sense. Usually they don't."
"Anything at all," Lovett persisted, shamed that he would be thinking again about a navigation chart.
"He said, 'Mean old Bub Merle.' I think he tried to say it again, but..." A larger shrug.
Lovett nodded and turned away, wondering if there was any point in pursuing this fantasy further. He had known Frank "Bub" Merrill, a famed barnstormer and test pilot of roughly Benteen's age. "Mean" was hardly an apt description for Frank Merrill; "deaf as a cast-iron hitching post" would be more like it, during, the old fellow's later years. In any case there was no point in looking Merrill up. A respected member of the B.O.F.s, cheerful to the last with his familiar, "Well, how you doin', stud?" the old boy had died somewhere in south Texas a year or so previous.
Lovett had not kept track of the time. When he found Chip and Reventlo, the youth was dozing but snapped back to alertness. Their faces fell at Lovett's headshake. "He knew damn well he shouldn't be drinking," Lovett explained. "I think he never expected to live past the weekend. And he didn't much care."
"And those hints he dropped, broad, as a barmaid's arse, will just become part of his legend," said the Brit.
"Maybe part of ours," Lovett said. "He made a, uh, call it half of a deathbed confession."
"And you believed him?"
"I believe it',s worth checking out."
So who's to pick up the pieces? You Yanks have such quaint legal constraints," Reventlo said.
"I don't know. His son Mel, I suppose." A sudden image flickered across Lovett's inner eye: an air nav chart folded into some attorney's briefcase, hidden away from the people Benteen meant to see it and meaningless
to anyone else. He said, into Chip's yawn: "But before tomorrow we've got to find something in Elmo's hangar." -Then, infected by Chip, he yawned, too.
"Let me point out," said Reventlo as they left the building, "that it's already tomorrow. Are you sure you're up to it?"
"I have a million reasons to," said Lovett.
Chip broke a thoughtful silence as they left the parking lot.
Pop, let's not get into breaking and entering, okay?"
"Not if we're lucky. Tell you what: you drop us off and go get more coffee."
"I can stop on the way," Chip pointed out.
"Drop us off, and go-get-more-coffee," Lovett repeated very slowly.
"Gotcha," Chip sighed. If there was to be any break-in, he wouldn't be present at the time.
"This had better be very, very important," Reventlo warned.
"You decide," Lovett replied. "Remember Benteen never told anyone where he was marooned, back in '68? Here's why.
The outside doors to the hangar offices had been locked, presumably by the caterer, but no one had thought to check the hangar doors. The two men shoved one of the towering door panels aside enough to squeeze through, then closed it again. The huge cavity inside was still littered with overturned chairs and stank of stale beer, lit only by a few phosphorescent tubes against girders above. Reventlo, hands on hips, surveyed the mess. "In the hangar, not in one of his aircraft outside,"
he prompted.
"So the man said."
"We're looking for a nav chart. Philippines? Indonesia?" Benteen's famed disappearance had fueled speculation into both areas, once upon a time.
"They fold to the same size, Cris," said Lovett, with the patience he might display to an idiot.
"You're lecturing me on ONC charts?" Reventto vented a snort of derision. Operational Navigation Charts, unlike the sectionals used by stateside pilots, folded down only to briefcase size and were identified, not by some city name, but by a letter and number.