by Dean Ing
He sold his sporty car and two aircraft in the following days, renting a subcompact and making arrangements to convert as much of his stock portfolio as possible. The figure he arrived at was a shade over 180,000, but that could evaporate fast- when he started shipping major items-a leased crane and maybe a barge came readily to rriind-to Location X. God only knew all the equipment they'd need, but he was guessin his funds wouldn't cover it all. Crispin Reventlo's resources were still a total unknown.
Someone in the States, he realized, should have power of attorney to free his funds and wire money to him as he needed it. Chip? Too young to qualify. Roxy? God, no; she might try to argue instead of following orders. Who, then? He hated to spend money on a local attorney, but it might be necessary.
He spent fruitless days showing off his beloved V -an'eze to prospective buyers, but none of them wanted to buy an aircraft in a disassembled state. If it was flying now, they said, why not sell it in flyable condition?
Because, Lovett told them, selling a whole aircraft you'd built yourself was a time bomb under your mattress. You sold it to Buyer One, who then sold it to Buyer Two, and ten years later Buyer Five's drunken idiot cousin stole it for a joyride and deep-stalled it hard enough to marmalade him on impact. Guess who must be responsible: you, the builder, must pay damages, having built a deathtrap for the innocent. Or so the god damned lawyers had claimed, time after time, virtually sending both Cessna and Piper into bankruptcy in the process. The trouble this caused to smaller commercial and private builders was beyond belief. No, thanks, Lovett said. He would sell a disassembled bird, and let the buyer rebuild it. You might not avoid torts and retorts entirely, but from Square One you sure packed a lot of crushed ice into the average shysters jockstrap-always a good beginning in the Litigious States of America.
Or the buyers could find airplanes in Mexico, where people were responsible for their own purchases-and where some airplanes were put together with duct tape and Silly Putty. The choice was theirs.
So far, they had chosen to keep looking. Try as he might, Lovett couldn't manage to feel crestfallen. Win or lose in the Pacific, it would be nice to know his flashy little wings would be waiting when he returned.
If he returned. Lovett was no pessimist ordinarily, but you could hardly turn over a shovelful of dirt in that part of the world without finding some optimist's bones. There was no such thing as a minor disease or a slight accident in a place that harbored gen-ns from Saturn and might lie five hundred air miles from the nearest medic.
Prompted by that thought, he checked the time and cursed, realizing he was late for his shots, taking the attache case with him. The tetanus booster was the least of his concerns. No matter how well he prepared, he knew there'd be some damn thing to hurdle at the last minute.
His first inkling of a Matterhom-sized hurdle came on a Monday afternoon, two days prior to Chip's arrival, with a Mr. Collins who was roughly Lovett's age and who reminded him of a frog in a three-piece suit. The guy looked about as threatening as a day in May, wore a rep tie and had little nose-clip glasses, with sparse mousy hair combed artfully across his scalp. His business card was from Lincoln Properties Management in Omaha. He was acting on a rumor, he said, that Mr. Lovett might consider selling his business. His client chose to remain anonymous for the present, but Lincoln Properties was prepared to vouch for his sincerity.
The idea had much appeal for Lovett after he found that Collins did not jump like a toad from a hot skillet at the mention of a quarter, of a mil. He ticked off the equipment on hand, the Varieze to be sold in pieces, the goodwill he had built up, the hangar itself-and then realized just how far it all failed to tally up to $250,000.
Collins remained unperturbed. He seemed more interested in Lovett himself-whether this was a retirement move, how Lovett was feeling about it, what he might consider next.
Over a steak and Chianti, the portly Collins revealed a weakness for word games: riddles, tongue-twisters, exercises in logic. If there was anything that interested Wade Lovett less, it was trying to think of something less interesting. That is why he deliberately made such a bad showing, in hopes he could turn the discussion elsewhere. He botched an easy "Anna's banned bananas" by multiple repetitions of the last syllable'i know how to say it but I don't know when to stop," he lied.
He flunked a simple problem in solid geometry, insisting that a three-inch cube cut into one-inch cubes would yield three oneinch cubes, resisting the impulse to say it was thirteen because the government took the other fourteen for taxes.
Most men would have called the game on account of idiocy at that point but Collins was made of more curious stuff, claiming Lovett's efforts were "capital, truly capital." He asked what Lovett had eaten for breakfast, and choked on his cheesecake when Lovett smiled and said,
"Pussy, as I recall." And then Lovett added that all this intellectual work was giving him a headache.
Collins relented then, paying with an Amex card, and Lovett made no obvious reaction when his gaze swept the receipt Collins signed, and even upside down he could tell with an instant's glance that the name on it was not Collins but Collingwood.
And when "Collins," driving him home, asked what could be in that attache case that made him carry it to dinner, Lovett said, "I haven't the foggiest idea, forgot the combination months ago. It just makes me feel good." And the little man smiled and, said he understood. Perhaps he thought he did understand. In any case, he accepted the offer of a nightcap and made no remark at the disaster area of Lovett's apartment, with half-empty cartons of Chinese takeout from days ago and back issues of Kitplanes strewn about like autumn leaves. "Sample anything that looks good and isn't green," Lovett said as he headed for the kitchen.
The little guy sat on the edge of a chair already full of periodicals, knees together, looking at those cartons of leftovers as if wondering how far they could strike from repose.
Lovett's guest took a few sips of his martini before claiming he was late with a long drive ahead of him. Lovett wondered if he was going to have to remind the guy that his Chevy rental was still at the hangar.
But Collins/Collingwood did a fair incitation of suddenly remembering at the door, and drove a bemused Lovett to his hangar. There he promised a follow-up call, and Lovett watched with mixed emotions as the man drove off.
Lincoln Properties might vouch for the sincerity of anyone they liked.
But who would vouch for Lincoln? Not the Omaha directory assistance, nor nearby Council Bluffs, nor the city of Lincoln, nor Grand Island, as Lovett discovered from his hangar office simply because he didn't want to spend the rest of that evening in an apartment made empty by Mayday's absence. Either these property management folks were very exclusive or they flew false colors, Lovett concluded. He had experienced both. He did not expect to get that follow-up call, and turned his attention to a fax that had come in from Crispin Reventlo during dinner.
"Man oh man," he muttered, scanning it a second time. Reventio wasn't sure, but thought he might have a chance to ferry an old transport from Oregon to Alice Springs. The plane Was an ancient C-47, the Model T of the air in its civilian DC-3 version, which Brits called a Dakota and Americans had once dubbed the Gooney Bird. The big old twin engine workhorse had many names, and a surprising number of them could still be seen galumphing slowly across primitive regions sixty years after their introduction. Douglas C47s had flown cargo over the Himalayan Hump, towed gliders into combat, dropped paratroopers, hauled kings and cabbages and cattle and salmon, and had served as a sturdy gun platform against ground troops.
Several companies had existed solely to rehabilitate worn out DC-3s, of which more than ten thousand copies had been built. Some of the weary had been turned into diners, mobile homes, even warehouses. One had been found on a farm in Canada, in use as a chicken coop; a year later it was flying again in South America. They groaned and grunted, ran rough, bounced like golf balls, their wings flexed like a humniingbird's-and promised to keep on doing it forever.<
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This particular old classic was being fitted by Everkeen with long-range tanks because, even by island-hopping across the Pacific, you needed a three-thousand-mile range to make it with any kind of decent fuel margin. And the C-47 had whopping big tires that could land on sand, and take off the same way. It would fly, more or less, on one engine until hell exported glaciers and it could be repaired by anyone with an A and P-aircraft and power plant-ticket. No wonder some rancher smack in the middle of the Australian outback wanted this one. According to Reventlo, there was no official cargo to be flown, which meant there was room for the strictly unofficial kind. That was the really good news.
The bad news was that the Aussie rancher wanted this old war horse picked up as soon as the tanks and maintenance were finished. "Damn and blast," Lovett said aloud. According to the schedule forwarded by Reventlo, the C-47 would leave for Hawaii the day before Lovett's National Emergency. That meant the Brit would have to make a wide diversion merely to get a snapshot or so of the island-and to justify it to a copilot and flight engineer without giving the game away. Perhaps, Reventlo had scrawled, he could develop an imaginary case of cylinder weevils and use the landing strip Elmo Benteen had indicated. Either way, Cris could hardly be in Wichita and halfway to Hawaii simultaneously. "Ta," he had written.
Lovett realized it was only 7 P.m. in Portland, Oregon, where Reventio awaited his airplane from Everkeen. He did not call the Brit, but spun his Rolodex to locate an Everkeen test engineer who, though too young to be a B.O.F., had built a Varieze like Lovett's. Well, not exactly alike; Lovett's nose wheel retracted only when it was supposed to and this guy's winged tricycle had a mind of its own until Lovett exercised the gremlin for him.
The connection was good, in more ways than one. "Nah I'm in Wichita,"
Lovett toldfiim, and reminded him of the favor he'd promised. "I believe you're refitting a weary old C-Fort with long-range tanks there. I need you to keep it there for an extra week or so." Whereupon, the voice from Portland became slightly wary.
Knowing the engineer was a Perot believer, Lovett began, "Okay, so here's the deal," and after that it was a lock-in.
Lovett rang off and called Reventlo, who would not believe the news at first. "No, I bloody well can't be there because I'll be on the bleeding airplane for about a thousand years going bugger-all from those damned droning engines," he said irritably.
"Not if there's a series of minor delays at Everkeen that you can't affect," Lovett said, "and I am reliably informed that there will be."
"How can you do that? Everkeen doesn't do that. What the bleeding hell have you duh-done?" Reventlo was stammering by now.
"Actually, I don't know, and you don't want to know, said Lovett.
"Nothing to jeopardize -the flight. But if your schedule just happened to slip, I wouldn't fall over in a dead faint. Possibly several slips.
As many as it takes to set your departure back, oh, say, ten days."
A long silence from Oregon. Then as if talking to himself, "If that happened, and I signed on a copilot and mech I fancied, at very attractive rates to the client, it might solve a lot of problems. I don't suppose our tough little Benteen bird is rated for multi-engine."
"I can find out," Lovett said. "I'm type-rated for those old ash cans and I could sign on either as flight engineer or copilot."
When it sounds this slick, someone has usually greased my skids on a long slide into Shit Lake," the Brit responded, "but I've been there before. Let me put it this way: I am going to forget this call unless and until a series of bizarre incidents puts me on the bloody beach when I am supposed to be filing a flight plan. For the record, who's your inside man here?"
"For the record, none of your goddamn business," Lovett chuckled. "I just wanted you to be ready for a hop to Wichita, if fate fucks up your original plan."
Reventlo's sigh breezed through the earpiece. "I've had the fickle finger of fate diddling up my arse so long I've grown accustomed to the blockage."
"Explains why you're so full of crap," Lovett replied. "Listen, Cris, if you really don't want to make the meeting, I can undiddle your schedule."
"No, no, I'm beginning to like the idea." A moment's pause. "I may haunt a surplus store or two around Portland tomorrow; locate some emergency rations, all that sort of thing."
Lovett endorsed the suggestion and hung up after promising a vacaift couch for Reventlo. He filed the latest fax in his attachd case and took it all with him when he locked his office, facing a humid night breeze.
The apartment was still a howling mess but he could spare a few hours of cleanup before bedtime. What he truly hated was his new regimen of a three-mile run every morning, though he had to admit he hadn't felt better in years. Maybe, he thought, it was just the prospect of having Chip visit. Or maybe it was having a goal again. There was nothing like a big, preposterous, risky project to motivate a man. Or to kill him.
Chip came in by commercial air two days before the meeting and claimed the guest bedroom as usual. "Cool," he said, gazing around at the apartment's unexpected neatn ss. He gave it the new pronunciation,
"coowul," a reminder to his grandfather that if Chip Mason was no longer a boy, he was not yet entirely a man.
Protected by his elders, Chip still kept a youthful nayvetd, and liked to quote some unknown savant to the effect that life was like a box of chocolates. Lovett hoped it would not shatter too many illusions when Chip learned that the box held half chocolates, half horse muffins; and that whichever you got, you had to keep chewing.
At least the youth had grown adult enough to worry about his integrity.
"Friend of mine has a problem, Pop," he mumbled through a mouthful of BLT with cheese at the next morning's breakfast, as Lovett attacked its twin across the table. He got only a nod, Lovett's mouth being full.
Sandwiches for breakfast had been Chip's choice; it was their habit to alternate the meal decisions. "Call it a loyalty problem," Chip added.
And he sipped at his nonalcoholic Kaliber, which Lovett usually stocked.
When he had swallowed, Lovett said, "You pick your friends for what they're selfish about, Chip. If narrow selfinterest is his only priority, don't count on him for much."
"No, I mean, two loyalties. He's promised one person to keep an eye out for, uh, what another person's doing. He loves that person. Both persons," he corrected.
"Love," said his grandfather, with an eye roll.
"Not jump-your-bones love; best-friend love," Chip explained. "Actually, they all love each other."
Lovett replayed the first part of that conversation to himself, nodding, chewing. Then: "So what's the second person doing that merits your spying?"
Chip flinched at that word as if struck; seemed to wrestle with it a moment, then could not stop a blush. "Nothing that 1, my friend, can tell. Spying. Yeah, I guess." He pounded a fist on the table. "Yeah, dammit, let's call it what it is! Why do people do bad crap for good reasons? It only confuses things."
"Sorry, kid, but that's our big bad world-and welcome to it." Lovett thought he knew the problem in essence. He could worry around this Gordian knot with Chip for hours, or he could cut it. He chose to slash very gently. "So what does Roxy think I'm gonna do? Corrupt you? If that's it, don't take another swig of that beer. It looks like it might have alcohol." His grin proved that he was joking.
Chip's frown mirrored vexation. "Ah, hell, Pop. Am I that transparent?"
"Pure quarter-inch Plexiglas," Lovett replied, still amused. "And I'm not surprised she's worried about you. Look, you're all she has, and she knows damn well I'm not a Bobbsey twin."
A blank stare. "What's a Bobbsey?"
"I was born sixty years too soon," Lovett muttered. Never mind. It means I'm not your standard model gram ps with his la probe and faithful old Shep by his rocker. My daughter knows that, bless her heart. The fact that you're here means she knows she has to let go pretty soon. She-"
"No it doesn't," Chip fired back, more vexed than
ever. "Spying. Well, I don't do that, Mom. I should've told her that. And if I had, I wouldn't be here now. Or maybe I would anyway," he.said, his face alight with grim satisfaction. "Pop, she sent me here. I even pretended I didn't much want to," he admitted. "That sealed it; here I am."
"So you got here by promising to, unim, report on how it goes." Lovett got a nod and a decision to speak, instantly reconsidered. He went on,
"Well, then make your reports. I'll try to see there's no drunken orgies or high-stakes poker or mud-wrestling bimbos in the living room. It'll be an effort, but I'll try to make like a role model. Okay?"
But Chip had worked himself up to anger now, and would not be put off by these attempts to gloss over the problem. "It's not okay." His smile was brief and lopsided but, "Old Shep by your rocker, huh? Pop, they think you're off your rocker. Mom tried to weasel word around that, and I know she wants what's be ' st for you, but that's what it comes down to. I mean, she sees her own mom every week, and I'm here to tell you the old lady isn't all there."
" 'Course not. She married me, didn't she?" Despite his efforts to keep this business on a trivial basis, Lovett knew his daughter's concern was genuine. He did not doubt that his ex got the best care Roxy could find for early senility. He also had no doubt that RQXY was used to getting her own way. "So your mom thinks it's time she took me in hand, now that her other son is nearly grown," he said, to prime the pump.
"Yeah," the youth snickered through his irritation. "And you know how hardheaded she can be."
"Whim of steel," Lovett replied, his W. C. Fields imitation, flicking an imaginary cigar ash.
"You're not taking this seriously enough, Pop," Chip warned.
Lovett shrugged. "Why should I? You're almost ready to leave the nest with that magical eighteenth birthday coming up in June, and it's her problem. What could she do?"