Moonlight Dance Academy (Hotshot Book 5)

by Mike Faricy

  “I don’t believe it,” Olson laughed.

  “It could happen, never hurts to ask. Probably some sort of lottery, you know, beautiful women all trying to get a seat next to me.”

  “Stop it, both of you,” Douglass said. “It’s that banker you’re bringing back, right?”

  “Yeah, Ackermann. Daniel Ackermann. He and his Russian partner made off with close to three hundred million. They were named in about a hundred-and-fifty-count indictment. Bank fraud, money laundering, wire fraud, conspiracy, the list goes on and on. The FBI arrested both of them in 2007, and Ackermann was released on a ten-million-dollar bond. Obviously, with three hundred million in his pocket, a ten-million bond would keep him in line. Jesus, he’s a banker, of course, he can be trusted. He pled guilty to all counts in 2008 and was sentenced to seven years. They continued his bail at the time of sentencing, and he was out on self-surrender for like sixty days if you can believe it.”

  “You can’t make this shit up,” Olson said. “And they wonder why these guys keep trying to pull this shit off. Amazing.”

  “Yeah. At no surprise, he failed to turn up at Fairton Federal Prison once it was time to begin serving his term, surprise, surprise. God, and I can’t take an extra five minutes on a coffee break.”

  “Gee and he seemed like such a nice guy,” Douglass laughed.

  “I guess it was a girlfriend…”

  “Imagine that.”

  “…who turned him in. The reward was something like twenty-five grand.”

  “Is this the guy who told her they were finished, and he was going to go to someplace in the Virgin Islands or South America?”

  “Yeah, he cleverly bragged how great it was going to be, then dumps her on his way out the door. I think one phone call later, he ends up in custody as he’s trying to flee. Classic head up the ass.”

  “Maybe you can get some inside information or stock tips from him on the flight home,” Douglass said. “Guy like that, I’m sure he’s got the inside track on a couple of deals.”

  “You kidding? After hitting every pub in Dublin, not to mention the mob of gorgeous women he’ll meet in Dublin over the course of forty-eight hours, Ackermann will have to take care of Dildo.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Listen, fellas, relax. I’m going to be spending any free time I have visiting churches and saying prayers for everyone in the office. I intend to say a couple of extra prayers for the two of you. You’re bound to feel the extra grace of our Lord once I mention you to him.”

  “I believe half of that. You’ll probably end up on your knees, that’s for sure, but it won’t be due to praying.”

  “One can only hope,” Dillon said and smiled.

  “Ahh, Dildo. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, and just so you know, we’re all jealous. You don’t think it’s too late to put in a request for assistance? I mean me and Douglass, here, we’d be only too happy to help. Guide you on your way, as it were, past all the various temptations.”

  “You know, I thought about that, got the request approved as a matter of fact, but the Irish embassy denied entry to both of you. So now I’ve got to just struggle on alone. God only knows, try as I might I’m likely to fall for a temptation or two, but how will I ever know it’s the wrong thing to do unless I experience it for myself? Not to worry, I’ll pass on any information I come across.”

  “Maybe just pass on a phone number or two.”

  “Shut the hell up,” Olson laughed.

  They chatted for another forty minutes, then grabbed a taxi out to JFK Airport. Olson and Douglass flashed badges at security while Dillon went through with the few thousand passengers waiting in line. They walked him to his boarding gate. Along the way, they stopped in the duty-free store, each of them choosing a special bottle of Jameson, which they then put on Dillon’s credit card. They waited with him at the gate for maybe ten minutes, then said their goodbyes and wished him a safe journey.

  Chapter Four

  “Ladies and gentlemen, our new departure time will now be twelve-fifteen AM, New York time.”

  A groan went up from everyone seated in the gate area. It was the third new departure time they’d heard over the course of the last four hours. Kids were crabby, parents were crabbier, and no one smiled. Dillon looked at his watch and did some quick math, figuring he’d already lost the better part of a half-day in Dublin, and he hadn’t even boarded the plane yet.

  “Bollocks. We should be halfway home by now,” a voice from somewhere behind Dillon whined.

  “What a bunch of eejits,” someone else chimed in.

  So this is what international travel is like, Dillon thought. He went back to scanning the crowd for an attractive woman. He spotted more than a few women who fit the bill, a couple of blondes, a redhead, and an Asian girl who actually stared back at him for a brief moment. He dared to hope one of them might land in the seat next to him.

  The 12:15 departure time came and went. By this time, people were stretched out on the floor, sleeping. One young couple on the floor seemed to be linked in an intimate embrace just beyond the last row of chairs. She raised her head for a moment, and Dillon realized it was the redhead he’d put on his ‘hopeful’ list. From what he could tell, they appeared to still be clothed.

  The waiting seemed to go on and on. A couple who appeared to have been deliberately over-served had been engaged in an argument for the past twenty minutes over his gift of a pasta maker the previous Christmas. By now, it was almost two in the morning, and even the babies had stopped crying.

  There was a new group of airline staff at the desk next to the boarding door looking thankful that most of the crabby folks had either drifted off to sleep or were comatose. A few minutes later, a fresh voice came over the PA system once again.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, rise and shine. Flight seven-six-two-eight will begin boarding in just a few minutes. We’d like to invite all our passengers who, at this time, will need special assistance to approach….” A cheer groaned out from those few still awake in the crowd. Those passengers camped out on the floor, slowly stretched and began to sit up, smacking their lips and rubbing their eyes. One or two babies screeched. The couple on the floor behind the last row gave a final few frantic bumps and grinds before he rolled off her, and she sat up wearing a smile.

  Forty minutes later, Dillon was seated in an aisle seat toward the back of the plane. Seat 38B, to be exact. He waited as some guy kept bumping against him while attempting to cram a too-large suitcase into a too-small space directly over Dillon’s head. He was about to say something when the flight attendant told the guy he’d have to check the suitcase, and the guy grudgingly went back up the aisle, muttering all the way.

  The window seat next to Dillon was still empty as the line of boarding passengers began to thin out. At this point, he decided he’d be just as happy, in fact maybe even more so, if a gorgeous blonde never showed up. Careful what you wish for.

  Chapter Five

  She caught his attention the moment she oozed into the cabin, and he prayed it wasn’t going to happen. She stopped for a second or two and said something to the sexy-looking, blonde flight attendant. He was too far away to hear what she said, but whatever it was, the words wiped the polite smile off the flight attendant’s face, and she stood there wide-eyed, apparently speechless and looking shocked.

  She was large, very large, make that extremely large. So large that she had to walk down the aisle at an angle, and even then her massive stomach, enormous thighs, and jiggling rear bounced off the seats on either side of the aisle. She was clad in possibly the largest fluorescent pink garment he’d ever seen, billowing cloth draped down to her ankles. Massive forearms, easily the size of his thighs, sported a large dimple where her elbow would be. Her hands looked like links of bratwurst. Her chins seemed to spread out to the ends of her shoulders, eliminating any semblance of a neck.

  The suitcase she pulled behind her seemed to crash into every other row of seats, which caused
her to sneer at whoever had the misfortune of being seated in her way. As she passed, heads leaned out into the aisle and looked back at the massive body that had just waddled past. A number of people stood and turned round to stare, no doubt eager to learn where she would eventually settle. One woman gave her the finger and looked about to say something until the man she was with put his hand over her mouth and whispered something in her ear.

  Oh, God, no, please don’t let this happen, Dillon silently pleaded, and then quickly followed up his request with a number of very quick, sincerely heartfelt prayers.

  The odds she might take some other seat continued to decrease at an alarming rate with each thundering step she took. Unfortunately, she stopped at row thirty-eight and glared down at Dillon through blue jeweled glass frames as a wave of heavy perfume enveloped him like a cloud of mustard gas.

  “I believe we have the window seat,” she said, then oozed back a few steps so he could step out of his seat and let her in.

  “How about if I give you a hand putting your suitcase up there?” he asked and smiled.

  “Please,” she said, making the word sound more like a command than a thank-you. Experience had taught her that in these situations, one had to take control. Immediately. She was too large for Dillon to reach past her, so she hoisted her suitcase up, careful not to brush against the contraband wedged in her cleavage. In the process, she nearly decapitated the individual across the aisle in 38C.

  “Hey, watch it,” the guy shouted, and picked his baseball cap up from the floor, and rubbed his head.

  She ignored him, and thrust the suitcase toward Dillon, forcing him back a step or two, then she turned and began the process of wedging herself into the window seat.

  Dillon hoisted her suitcase up over his shoulder and crammed it into the overhead bin. He noticed the two guys in the seats behind him had gone red-faced and were silently laughing. The balder of the two had tears running down his face. Dillon just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  She had wedged herself in front of his seat, reached down, and raised the arm between the two seats, then forced her way over toward the window, a version of ten pounds in a five-pound bag. Her thighs appeared to be easily twice the size of Dillon’s waist. The fluorescent pink garment had wedged up her butt crack, and as she fought her way toward her seat, she reached back and extricated the cloth with a meaty thumb and forefinger then dropped into the seat.

  The seat gave a loud cracking sound, and the two red-faced guys behind her suddenly weren’t laughing anymore. The one directly behind her seat automatically thrust both hands up in an effort to stop her from falling back. Not that it would have done any good.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll use the restroom before we take off,” Dillon said, then hurried toward the rear of the plane in search of a flight attendant to rescue him.

  Three of them were huddled together, nervously chatting and shaking their heads as he approached. The attendant facing him directed her attention toward him, and the dark-haired attendant with her back to him suddenly turned round to face him.

  “Excuse me, sir, I’m afraid you’ll have to take your seat. We’re just about to take off.” She flashed a pseudo-smile showing teeth, which suggested she was dealing with yet another passenger who didn’t seem to listen to the safety announcements. Her face took on a look that said at this rate they were never going to get off the ground

  “Actually, I was hoping you could put me in another seat. Any seat will work for me.”

  “Another seat? Does there seem to be a problem? We’re almost ready to take off. We’ll be departing just as soon as everyone gets seated.”

  “No, there doesn’t seem to be a problem. There is a real, major league problem. The woman sitting next to me should have purchased two tickets. She’s huge.”

  “Oh, must be the pink moo-moo dress,” she said by way of explanation to the two attendants standing next to her. They nodded in agreement.

  “Sorry,” one of them said.

  “I was just about to bring a seatbelt extension up to her. You’re in row thirty-eight, is that right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll bring that extension up in just a moment.”

  “An extension? We’re in seats A and B. Only, she’s taken up both seats, there’s no room for me. Can’t you move me to somewhere else? I’ll have to stand for the entire flight.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that. I’m sorry, but as you can see, it’s a completely full flight.”

  “What about first class?”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s full as well.”

  It was at this point that Dillon decided to take command. “Here’s the deal, ma’am. I’m a US Marshal, on official business.” He pulled his badge out of his pocket and showed it to her, let her have a good long look, so she realized who she was dealing with. “Now, I’ll be escorting a prisoner back to the States from Dublin this coming Sunday. I have a ticket, it’s been paid for, but right now there’s nowhere for me to sit.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I suppose we could put you on tomorrow evening’s flight. That would have you arriving in Dublin the following morning. You’d still be able to make your return flight on Sunday.” The two women behind her nodded like this somehow sounded like an acceptable alternative.

  “No, that won’t work. I’ve people meeting me tomorrow morning, paperwork to review with the local authorities. You can’t move me up to first class? Or even move her?”

  All three of them seemed to look at him for a solution to the problem. “I’d really better get this extension up to her,” the flight attendant eventually said, and hurried away.

  “You can’t help me?” he asked the other two attendants with the blank looks on their faces.

  “Like we said, sir, I’m afraid the flight is sold out. There simply are no other seats available.”

  “What about the cargo hold?”

  They smiled and shook their heads.

  “So, I’m screwed?”

  “Afraid it looks that way, sir.”

  He walked dejectedly back up the aisle. “Good luck,” the flight attendant who had run off with the seatbelt extension said as she hurried past back toward the rear of the plane. Her tone suggested there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell it was going to work out. A voice suddenly came over the intercom, telling everyone to take their seat and that as soon as they were seated, the plane would be cleared for takeoff.

  As Dillon approached the seat, he became aware of a number of air vents on in the immediate area, all loudly blowing air. As he drew closer to his seat, the smell of a sickly sweet perfume seemed to hang like a cloud. The arm between their two seats was up, and her massive thighs, stretching the fluorescent pink cloth, oozed more than halfway across his seat. He felt a headache begin to start at the back of his skull, stomp its way up into his temples, then throb across his forehead as if someone was inside hammering to get out. He attempted to sit down and wedge himself into what remained of his seat.

  “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind shifting over just a little more,” he pleaded as he attempted to squeeze in next to her.

  “There’s no room. They make these seats so small, it’s absolutely criminal,” she groaned just as the plane pulled away from the gate.

  He could hear the two guys in the row behind him attempting to silently laugh and failing miserably.

  Chapter Six

  Dillon did some quick calculations and wasn’t all that sure the plane would be able to take off with the weight factor in row thirty-eight, but somehow the flight managed to get airborne. Five minutes into the flight his seat partner looked around then thrust a hand deep into her cleavage. She rummaged around, almost elbow-deep for the better part of a minute before she pulled out a small, scruffy, brown dog with large black eyes. The thing wasn’t much larger than a double cheeseburger.

  The woman gave an angry glance in Dillon’s direction, just to ensure he remembered his place. She raised the small dog
toward her face, holding him between her two hands while gently turning him from left to right, kissing him a number of times.

  “Yes, yes, yes, you are so good.”

  God, she’s going to eat the damn thing, Dillon thought.

  She shot another warning glance in Dillon’s direction and thought, You just sit there quietly, and don’t you dare say a word. Then she held the tiny animal up and continued to kiss it repeatedly.

  “Oh, Mister Nibbles, you are such a good boy. Yes, yes. I know, I know, it’s too bad,” she cast a quick glance at Dillon from out of the corner of her eye, “but we have to share the seat.”

  At this point, Mr. Nibbles looked toward Dillon and growled, “Grr-err, grr-err, grr-err.”

  “Now, now, Mr. Nibbles, we’re just going to sit quietly for the rest of the flight and relax. We’ll be there in a few hours,” she said, then seemed to sort of wiggle back and forth, oozing farther into Dillon’s seat and forcing him over toward the aisle.

  “A beverage, ma’am?” the flight attendant asked a half-hour later.

  “I think just a Coke, better make it a diet Coke and maybe three or four bags of pretzels. You wouldn’t happen to have any chocolates in your cart, would you?”

  “I’m afraid not.” The flight attendant smiled.

  Dillon thought he could see the wheels turning behind the flight attendant’s eyes.

  Mr. Nibbles had apparently scurried back down into her cleavage and, at this very moment, was no doubt wedged and suffocating in some massive roll of fat, never to be seen again. He almost felt sorry for the little thing but stopped short of attempting to reach for him.

  “When will you be serving dinner?” his seat-mate asked. She seemed to look hopeful and licked her lips in anticipation.