by Reid, Joseph
All the more reason to keep her, I thought.
Or prevent her from going someplace else.
I’d finished listening to about half of the articles on Garcia when I noticed we’d begun banking our way through the approach to Phoenix.
As the plane turned, Max started to stir. Physically at first, shoulders and arms twitching while her eyes remained closed. After a few moments, though, she bolted upright, her head jerking to each side. Realizing where she was, she yawned and smacked her lips. “We there?”
“Almost,” I said. “Just need to land.”
After a soft touchdown, we taxied back across the airport to the cargo area. With no seat-belt light to obey, I watched the deadheads. As soon as we stopped moving, they all unbuckled, so I did the same and retrieved the duffel from the overhead.
Musselman emerged from the cockpit wearing his cap again. As he opened the side door, an intense blast of heat and noise entered the cabin.
I motioned for Max to follow me, and we got in line behind the other crew exiting the plane. When we reached the door, I thanked Musselman again and set the duffel down to shake his hand.
“Try and keep cool out there,” he said. “You know where you’re going?”
“We’ve got to meet someone over at general aviation.”
“There’s a shuttle bus you can call. Just ask inside.”
Max and I dashed from the plane to the Azimuth office and then out to the shuttle at top speed. Each time we exited the air-conditioning, it felt like stepping into an oven.
The shuttle bus wound us along a narrow access road that circled one end of the runways before heading for a series of stand-alone buildings lining the opposite side. Many resembled Azimuth—single-story warehouses receiving cargo from tractor trailers. Ultimately, though, the bus pulled into a parking lot belonging to a newer two-story building constructed of steel and tinted glass.
Once again, we dashed across the few yards of asphalt to sliding doors that yawned open as we approached. A loud gust of AC blew over us as we entered. The lobby of the building was constructed as a two-story atrium, with a reception desk on one side and banks of sofas and comfortable chairs on the other. I steered Max toward the seating.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“An FBO.”
“An FB-what?”
“Fixed base operator. They’re like rest stops on the highway. Almost every airport has one so private planes have a place to fuel up or tie down.” I wedged the duffel beneath a chair that backed up against the glass wall and faced the front door, then sat with my feet splayed on either side of it. Max plopped into the seat next to me.
“So we’re taking a private jet on this next leg?”
“Something like that,” I said. Although we were alone in the seating area, I scanned the rest of the space, looking for anything suspicious. “We’re meeting our next contact here, but it’s going to be a little while.”
“What are we supposed to do? Just sit here?”
I nodded at an interior wall perpendicular to us, where a large TV was running cable news on mute. Spinner racks of newspapers and magazines stood on either side. “Read,” I said, “or watch TV. It’ll just be a couple of hours.”
“Hours?” She made the word sound three syllables long.
Over the next thirty minutes, people filtered in and out of the FBO. With a copy of Sports Illustrated open in my lap, I eyeballed each new arrival. Virtually all were men, mostly middle-aged or older. No tattoos or guns; they seemed more interested in the urns of free coffee than Max and me as they stationed themselves in various chairs around the seating area.
A few minutes later, Max announced, “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“I’ll—”
She glared at me. “It’s right over there.” She pointed toward the reception desk. I had an open line of sight to the door.
“Okay. Don’t talk to anybody.” But Max was already off her chair and several steps away.
As I scanned back across the seating area, I could see several men’s eyes following her.
A couple then turned to look at me.
I met their gaze for a moment before glancing elsewhere.
Max and her damn clothes.
Was she really so desperate to have her ego stroked that she’d risk us being spotted over it?
Apparently, yes, she was.
When Max reappeared, she angled toward the TV wall. Pausing at the corner of it, she fished in her pocket and pulled out some money. I heard a hollow clunk, she bent down, and then she was sauntering back to our chairs, sucking on a Popsicle.
Again, heads followed her.
The smile she wore, while slight, was unmistakable.
I didn’t say anything as she slipped back into her chair. I just glanced back down at the magazine. Several moments later, she gave the Popsicle tip a particularly loud suck, then whispered, “Why are you all angry?”
“I’m not angry.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“The little veins on the side of your head look like they’re about to pop.”
I sighed again. “I didn’t like the way those guys were looking at you.”
“Aw,” she said. “You jealous?”
I snorted. “I think you’re asking for trouble.”
“How?”
“Dressing like that.”
“Like what?” Her voice had grown singsongy. She was enjoying this.
It took effort to keep my voice quiet. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“If guys want to look,” Max said, folding a leg underneath her, “I think it’s flattering. Besides, maybe they recognize me. Maybe they’re fans.” After drawing out the last syllable, she stuck the Popsicle back in her mouth.
“They’re a little old for you. And they weren’t looking at your face.”
She withdrew the Popsicle again, releasing a little giggle with it.
I decided to drop the issue there, although my stomach continued to churn. Ten minutes later, Max reached into the bag Brian had packed. “You want something to drink?”
“No. Thanks.”
She flopped back around into her seat, holding a bottle of water. Cracking it open, she sucked down a third of it. She drank so fast, in fact, the rippled sides of the plastic crackled and snapped as they compressed.
“Really?” I asked.
“What’s wrong now? I’m drinking too loud?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
I sighed. There was no winning at this.
In my peripheral vision, it looked like Max was smiling again, but when I turned to check, she’d donned her sunglasses and begun staring out the window.
We both remained quiet for a long time after that. Whether it was the silence, the air-conditioning, or something else, I didn’t know, but gradually the heat seeped out of my face. Although my earpiece had shifted back to playing the tech podcasts I usually listened to, they weren’t holding my attention. Fortunately, the seating area had cleared out—only one guy was left, reading a newspaper over at the far end of the space.
“What’s going to happen to your movie now?” I asked. “The one you were coming out here to make?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you worried they’ll replace you if you don’t show?” Irvine’s comments about child actors echoed in my head. So far, although the LAX shoot-out had become national news, no one had connected it to Max, so the people producing this new film would have no idea why she was AWOL.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” she said, “till now. Thanks. I’m sure my father will be as thrilled about it as you are.”
“I’m not trying to gloat or anything,” I said. “Really. I was just asking. What does your dad have against you being in movies, anyway?”
Max’s head slid back against her shoulders, her eyes pointing up at the ceiling. “He just hates the idea of me having any freedom at al
l. Of me doing anything I want.”
“Oh, come on. He can’t be that bad. I’m sure—”
“He is, okay?” Max’s voice spiked, and she glared at me. “Can we please not talk about my father? Like, ever?”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s talk about going home. When we get to Austin, it’s going to be a little weird for a while. You’re not going to be able to see your friends or anything until we make sure we have all this under control.”
“You don’t have to worry,” she said. “I don’t have any friends in Austin.”
“What do you mean?” Last night she’d seemed awfully eager to get home. If it wasn’t to see friends, I wondered exactly what it was.
“I just don’t. We lived in Missouri most of the time I was growing up, until we moved to Texas to try and get Charlie to sign me. Since then, I’ve been too busy for stuff like that.”
“What about the kids you go to school with, or play sports with?”
“I don’t really go to school anymore. I have tutors, sometimes. But that’s about it.”
“How can that be legal? You’ve gotta—”
“My dad’s a lawyer. Don’t you think he knows exactly what’s legal and what isn’t?”
My eyes flashed to the guy with the newspaper. He looked up at the sound of Max’s voice. I turned back to her and said very quietly, “I’m sorry, I—”
Max ripped the sunglasses off. Her eyes had narrowed to slits, but tears were swelling on either side of them. “Bullshit. You’re not sorry—not at all. You’ve been all over me, criticizing me about everything since we met. God! My clothes, my career—now school? Where do you get off judging me? I’ve made more money at sixteen than you’ll probably ever make. So fuck you!”
With that, Max slumped down in the seat and turned her back to me. Her shoulders shook slightly, and I guessed she might be crying.
I glanced back at the guy who’d looked our way. He shot me a dirty look, but then returned to his newspaper.
I started to say something once or twice, but didn’t get past opening my mouth. Max was wrong on the money thing—she didn’t know about my patents, obviously—but otherwise, she had a point. When I was her age, all I worried about was school and whether I could maybe get a girl to kiss me someday. My idea of a job was summer landscaping work for six bucks an hour. Nothing like the pressure of supporting a family.
Or an entire record label.
Over the next thirty minutes or so, the FBO began to fill again. Apparently this was the postlunch crowd, as they went for sodas and chips from the vending machines instead of the coffee.
Finally, an older guy entered through the sliding doors. Bushy white curls poked out from beneath his red Wisconsin baseball cap. The hat seemed to match what the sun had done to his ruddy complexion: it was like all his freckles had connected beneath the white hair on his arms.
He ambled over to the edge of the seating area, then yanked the aviator shades off his face. Jabbing the tip of one earpiece between his lips, he glanced around until his eyes settled on us. That’s when he pulled the glasses from his mouth and made a beeline for our chairs.
“You Seth Walker?” he asked in a nasal voice.
I stood up. “Yes, sir.”
“Jerry Norgard. Glad to meetcha.” An impish smile spread across his face as he extended a hand to shake.
“Thanks for making room for us.”
“Oh, no problem. I gotta make the trip, anyway. And any friend of my Christa is welcome to grab a ride. You got all your stuff?”
I glanced at Max and the bags. She still wasn’t looking at me. “Yep.”
“Okay, great. Let me hit the little boys’ room, and we’ll get out of here.”
Norgard shuffled back toward reception, following the same track Max had traveled earlier. When he returned, the sunglasses were perched on the brim of his hat, and the collar of his white golf shirt had been turned up. “Let’s get a move on, kids.”
I slung the duffel over my good shoulder and shepherded Max to follow him out the sliding doors and around the building. Intense was the only word to describe the heat—the way it attacked your skin felt deliberate and threatening. Unlike back home, there was no breeze here; the air sat perfectly still other than a slight updraft off the concrete. Despite some scattered clouds, the sky above us was unrelentingly bright. The sun blazing overhead seemed to have bleached everything—the tarmac, the terminal buildings—to the same drab tan.
Even from behind, I could see Max’s head checking each of the sleek jets we passed to see if it might be the one. But Norgard led us past all of them to an area filled with smaller prop planes. Max’s gait slowed and gradually he pulled ahead, eventually ducking under the wing of a white Cessna adorned with Wisconsin-red stripes.
Max stopped short of the plane, and her head whipped around to face me. “That? You think I’m going to ride in that?”
My lips drew into a narrow line, and I nodded.
“Oh no.” She started shaking her head. “That thing is way too small—”
“It’s perfectly safe,” I said. “I hate heights, but I’m not afraid of planes like these. As long as you’re enclosed, it feels like riding in a car.”
I could see her throat muscles clench as she swallowed hard.
I moved past her and stepped under the wing. Although the shade dropped the temperature at least five degrees, the air still felt like it would boil water. “You don’t sound like you’re from around here, Jerry,” I said, loud enough for Max to hear.
“Nope. Grew up in Wisconsin. Been down here fifteen years now, though. Better for my arthritis. And my cholesterol,” he added with a chuckle.
“How long have you been flying?”
“Uncle Sam taught me a couple of decades before you both were born,” he said.
I glanced over at Max and tried a soft smile. It didn’t seem to help. When she still hadn’t moved after I buckled the duffel into one of the rear seats, I crossed back over to her. “What’s going on?”
She shook her head. “I need . . . I need to go to the bathroom.”
I rolled my eyes, then called to Norgard that we’d be right back. Although Max stayed silent as we retraced our steps, she walked quickly, and I noticed she kept her arms locked straight, her fists clenched.
Once we got back inside, Max went directly into the ladies’ room. I took up a position next to the door to wait for her.
After a minute, I checked the time on the burner phone. Then I kept checking, until five and finally ten minutes had gone by.
I knocked on the door. “Max? You okay in there?”
When no response came, I wondered whether I might need to repeat the gesture, or do something even more drastic.
But then she reappeared. Although her hair was damp with sweat, her arms now hung limply by her sides.
I placed my hand on her shoulder and leaned down so our faces were just inches apart. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
She kept her eyes down, her chin almost touching her chest. “I’m just . . . I was . . . nervous.”
“Did you get sick?”
She nodded weakly.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have a choice—”
“I know,” she said. “I’m ready now. Let’s go.”
“Are you sure? We can wait a few—”
“No,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She led the way outside, and when we reached the plane, Max headed straight for the empty rear seat.
Norgard watched her buckle herself in, then turned to me. “Everything okay?”
I shrugged. “Hope so.”
“Then let’s mosey.”
Max remained quiet through taxi and takeoff. When I finally glanced back from my seat in the front, I found her leaned against the duffel, eyes closed and mouth open.
“She all right back there?” Although he was directly to my left, Norgard’s voice sounded distant over the intercom.
“Yeah. She’s tired, and I don’t think
she’s ever flown in a little plane like this. But she’s asleep now. You make this run often?”
“Couple of times a month. Since I retired, I been flying almost every week. Last year, a guy I know at the airport asked if I’d pick something up for him—Las Cruces ain’t a major hub, but folks still need parts and stuff. He paid me a hundred bucks plus fuel, so now I do this on and off, and it helps cover some of my costs.”
Norgard remained chatty, telling me about his daughter, Christa, one of the first flight attendants I’d met upon becoming an air marshal, and his dream to island-hop through the Caribbean on a seaplane. Before I knew it, the altimeter on the panel in front of me said we’d begun descending, and Norgard began talking with the tower about our approach.
Although dull-brown mountains ringed the horizon, the terrain beneath us seemed to be nothing but a wide expanse of desert sand freckled by dark scrub. A single ribbon of highway stretched from right to left as far as you could see—I-10, I guessed from my earlier looks at the map—while the city itself loomed off to our right as strings of white dots surrounding collections of weird, flat shapes traced on the ground.
The airport below had three runways—two longer ones arranged perpendicularly in an X and a third connecting their southern ends. We banked a couple of times until the third, shorter runway stood as a straight, pale line directly ahead of us. Through the seat, I could feel Norgard bleeding off speed and altitude. As we descended even farther, the ground revealed an added third dimension: suddenly you could discern the variations between hills and ditches. Finally, the runway widened before us, Norgard angled up the nose, and the airplane bounced softly onto the ground.
We continued down the runway until all the plane’s excess speed had dissipated. Finally, near the end, Norgard slowly turned the Cessna toward a series of buildings and hangars that lined the tarmac.
But as he did so, a loud, chattering sound filled the cabin.
The noise eclipsed the sound of our engine, and while I heard Norgard asking the tower about it in my headphones, a quick check out my window revealed a white helicopter overhead, following the direction of the runway.