Gordita Conspiracy

by Lyle Christie

  I checked my watch and realized it was nine p.m. back home, so I decided it was time to check out the cocktail lounge. I headed up the aisle and down the stairs to the front section of the plane and found my new favorite hangout. The lounge was pretty large and filled with low slung tables and comfortable looking leather chairs, while the actual bar was circular and sat directly in the middle. Soft music was playing, and lovely subdued blue light set the mood as I made my way through the crowd and took a seat at the bar. It was tended by a decidedly attractive woman in a form fitting maroon cocktail dress, which seemed pretty risqué for the airline of a mostly Muslim country, but, I suppose the UAE was desperately trying to lure western businesses, and the strategic use of feminine wiles was probably a good start. I grabbed a seat, and the bartender immediately placed a cocktail napkin in front of me and asked what I would like to drink.

  “Vodka martini, shaken not stirred,” I said, doing my best Sean Connery imitation.

  “Right away, Mr. Bond,” she said, with a smile.

  She added the vodka and vermouth to a stainless steel shaker then gave it a healthy shake, the process also making her very lovely bosoms shake as well—the entire process providing me with some excellent, although unintentional, entertainment while I waited. Finished, she poured it into a large martini glass before garnishing it with an olive and setting it in front of me. I took a sip and had to smile.

  “Is it to your liking?” she asked.

  “I’ve often said that heaven was the combination of a beautiful woman and the perfect martini, so, right now, I’m in heaven.”

  I wasn’t kidding. She was indeed beautiful and had made the perfect Martini. While some people thought of a martini as just a glorified shot of booze, I loved the nuance and subtlety of its flavors, and that only occurred when it was made with the correct amount of vermouth—not too much, not too little. I tilted the glass to my lips yet again and relished the soft burn on my palette as the alcohol began its welcomed journey into my bloodstream, where it instantly created that brief euphoria one always felt while taking the precious first sips of a cocktail. Feeling that the world had improved ever so minutely, I turned in my chair to do a little people watching by taking stock of my fellow passengers. I liked to think of bars as zoos for humans, and, while it wasn’t exactly a natural habitat, it was a convenient place to observe a wide array of interesting behaviors. I saw the couple who had been sitting a few rows behind me now sharing one of the nearby tables. I still wasn’t sure if they were business associates or an actual couple until I spied his hand resting on her thigh, so it stood to reason they might be both. To their left was a group of guys in suits, probably talking business, sports, or women. The scope of the male mind often wasn’t all that complicated, so it was fair to guess it had to be one of the three. I saw movement at the other end of the bar and noticed that my fellow steak eater had just arrived at the bottom of the stairs. Lovely—I wonder what I could say to offend her this time?

  She took a seat at the opposite side of the bar and ordered a Vodka martini. It arrived shortly thereafter, and, as she took her first sip, she looked over and noticed that I had the same drink. I tipped my glass to her, and she raised hers in return. Progress. I ordered another then looked up to see Mr. Friendly arriving at the bar. He sat almost exactly between steak eater and myself then ordered some fifty year old highfalutin Chivas Regal and gulped it down before ordering another. You’d think the pig would at least sip a scotch of that quality. Fifty years is a long time in a cask to be chugged like a forty-ounce malt liquor. He gulped the second one as well but thankfully slowed down on his third. He obviously had a lot of money and enjoyed drinking it away—which would essentially be the same as pissing it away after it all made its way into his bladder. Oh well—to each his own, I suppose.

  My second martini arrived, and I decided that I’d better make it last, or I was going to be thoroughly trashed. Steak eater had also ordered another, but, this time, she held her glass up to me. I smiled and tilted my glass towards her and took only the smallest of sips. Mr. Friendly, meanwhile, had quite a glow on and was soon looking around the room at all the available females, where I suspect he was perhaps hoping to find some new potentials for his harem. It didn’t take long for his libidinous eyes to fall on steak eater, who was by far the most beautiful woman in the room. He picked up his drink and headed around the bar then sat down beside her and whispered something indiscernible in her ear. Her expression quickly evolved from shock to anger, so I was guessing Mr. Friendly was about as funny as me. He leaned in and whispered something again, but this time she stood up and began to walk away, but he managed to grab hold of her by the arm and roughly pulled her back to the bar. She looked at him with an indignant stare, and he muttered something under his breath that made her reach out and push him away—the move sending him stumbling before he recovered and stood menacingly with his teeth bared in an angry grimace. He moved towards her, his eyes ablaze with drunken fury as he slapped her across her face and knocked her back a step. She recovered quickly and stood her ground, raising her fists, obviously ready to face off against her drunken bearded nemesis.

  The bartender, seeing the exchange, quickly spoke into the onboard intercom, and, a second later, Asma came hurrying down the stairs and stepped in-between Steak eater and Mr. Friendly, who were now squared off and looking at each other as though they were standing in a proper boxing ring rather than a lounge. It was giving me the obvious feeling that the extremely drunk Mr. Friendly was about to drastically up the violence level, so it was time to politely intervene. Asma was doing her best to deescalate the situation, but he was inconsolable and temporarily directed his rage against her by giving her a push that sent her sprawling onto a nearby table. Steak eater had experienced enough of Mr. Friendly and stepped in and front kicked him in the chest and sent him flying back onto his ass. It was a damn good kick and gave me the impression that she had done some martial arts or, least of all, some kickboxing classes. Good for her. I liked a woman who could some kick ass.

  Mr. Friendly was now in a pure blind rage as he stood up and pulled a gold ceremonial dagger from under his suit jacket. How in the flying fuck did he get that past airport security? Clearly, it was good to be a local when you flew Emirates Air. Now, however, it was imperative that I intervene before anyone got seriously hurt—most likely him. He suddenly made an angry lunge with the dagger, but I stepped in and managed to grab a hold of his right wrist and brought it up and around then barred my left forearm across the back of his elbow and pushed him all the way down to the ground. Of course, the maneuver was made a hell of a lot easier by the fact that he was heavily inebriated. Now, he was looking a bit dazed as he lay there face down, but he recovered enough that he started to fight back. I went with his energy, however, and allowed him to bend his arm, which opened him up for an even better long term hold—a figure four. I slipped my left arm over his forearm and grabbed my own wrist, creating with our arms what more or less, looked like a number four. From there it was a matter of lifting him onto his side and applying a little hand twist to force him to drop the dagger, thus allowing me to keep Mr. Friendly adequately supplicated until official help arrived.

  Still, the curmudgeonly fucker continued to struggle, snarling, and hurling off-color insults until the Sky Marshal arrived, cuffed him, and dragged him kicking and screaming out of the lounge. The entire room was now particularly quiet as everyone calmly watched the action officially come to an end. The table of guys suddenly started clapping, then the rest of the lounge joined in, and applause filled the room.

  “Next show is at eleven,” I said, raising my hand and directing the praise to steak eater.

  She reluctantly gave a polite nod then turned back to the bar and downed the remnants of her martini before following it up with a long sigh of relief. The bar scene quickly returned to normal, and I returned to my seat to have an apologetic looking Asma arrive a moment later.

  “Thank you for your hel
p, but I am very sorry you were brought into this detestable altercation!” she said, looking concerned.

  “It’s kind of making me miss flying coach,” I joked.

  “Believe me, this was the exception rather than the rule, so I can assure you the rest of your flight will continue without incident,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it. I just see it as a little extra in-flight entertainment.”

  Asma smiled solemnly and left only to be replaced by steak eater.

  “Thanks for your help, but, just so you know, I think I could have taken him,” she said.

  “Without a doubt. I only stepped in to make sure you didn’t kill him and get sent to prison, where I doubt they’ll have grass-fed filet mignon.”

  She smiled.

  “I’m Olivia, by the way,” she said.

  “I’m Tag, nice to meet you.”

  “So, Tag, what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a comedian.”

  She finally smiled.

  “Now that’s funny.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Flying the Friendlier Skies

  I SPENT THE next two hours talking, drinking, and learning all about Olivia, the woman formerly designated as steak eater. It turned out that she had a good sense of humor, but I had caught her at the end of a long and stressful day. She, as I already guessed, was a high powered attorney, and she was toiling away in the very final stages of a difficult and turbulent contract negotiation between a Silicone Valley computer company and the government of the UAE. Unfortunately, being a woman with Olivia’s obvious beauty was more of a curse than a blessing in the business world, and the majority of her peers spent their time admiring her looks rather than her mind. Now, I was fortunate to experience the true Olivia, and she was smart, funny, and, like me, a native Californian. Her firm was in San Francisco, but she lived in Marin County and had a pug, a BMW M3, and took kickboxing classes at the Bay Club in Corte Madera. She was also unmarried, though in a serious relationship with an attorney from her firm, who had stupidly not gotten off his ass to propose. In my opinion, the fact that he hadn’t already done so showed that he was clearly not intelligent enough to have a woman like Olivia.

  “So, Tag, I have to ask. Were you really in a plane crash this morning, or was that a cheap sympathy ploy to make up for your creepy comment?”

  “It wasn’t a ploy, the private jet I was flying in lost power in both engines and had to make an emergency landing.”

  “Holy shit! That’s insane!”

  “Yeah, it was, but the overly tan pilot at the controls managed to restart one engine, and we landed safely back at SFO.”

  “Wow, so I owe you an apology for calling you a shitbag.”

  “Nah, I probably would have said the same shitbag comment regardless of the plane crash, but I am curious if I really did make that bad of a first impression,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, you did.”

  “So you pretty much hated me right from the start?”

  “No, I didn’t hate you, but I definitely didn’t like you, in spite of the fact that I found you somewhat attractive.”

  “Wow, I must be quite the ladies man if you thought of me as a somewhat attractive, though unlikable, shitbag. Clearly that’ll go down as one of my top five best first impressions.”

  “Hey, don’t feel too bad. I deal with a lot of shitbags in my daily life, so, when a new shitbag, even one I find mildly attractive, makes a weak felatio innuendo, my default reaction is scorn and loathing.”

  We sipped our drinks for a few quiet moments, then she turned to me—all the while using her left hand to play with a lock of her hair.

  “So, Tag, I’m curious—what did you think of me when we first met?”

  “Honestly, I thought you were somewhat attractive as well.”

  She playfully punched me in the arm.

  “Fuck you. That’s my line. What were you really thinking?”

  I looked into her beautiful eyes and felt the answer coming out before I could stop it.

  “That you were strikingly beautiful.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but strikingly beautiful and a little cold.”

  She smiled.

  “Fair enough.”

  She took a sip of her drink then eyed me curiously.

  “You’ve been a hell of a listener, but I still don’t know anything about you. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself. I assume that you’re not actually a comedian?”

  “Not officially. My true occupation is private investigation.”

  “So you’re a private dick?”

  “Yeah, and a public one on airplanes, apparently.”

  She let out a little chuckle.

  “Is it an exciting job?”

  “Actually, it’s surprisingly boring a lot of the time.”

  “So boring that you happen to be an expert martial artist?”

  “Meh—that was just a little kitten play. It’s easy when you’re opponent is completely drunk.”

  “Hardly! You stepped right into the fray when that asshole pulled out that dagger. Any man who can handle that doesn’t live a boring life.”

  I laughed to myself.

  “OK, maybe it’s not entirely boring.”

  We took a moment to sip our drinks, then Olivia turned back to me with her eyes sparkling with interest.

  “I’m getting intrigued. Tell me more,” she said.

  “Well, I hate to say it, but a lot of my cases are divorces and lost pets.”

  “I know divorce isn’t fun, but lost pets seem as though they could be kind of interesting.”

  I thought about my most recent lost pet case that involved the infamous obese feline Mr. Pickles and realized she was correct.

  “On occasion, that’s true.”

  We both took another sip of our martinis.

  “And how about your personal life? I don’t see a wedding ring, but I can’t imagine that you’re single,” she said, as she scooped the olive out of her glass with her tongue, the subtly suggestive nature of it distracting me from answering her question.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer your last question, as it’s—um—well—it’s complicated.”

  I smiled at my use of the words it’s complicated. I used to loathe them, because every fucking client that ever walked through my door would start with those two words—regardless of how complicated or, in most cases, uncomplicated their problems might be. Now, however, it was my go-to response for any time that I didn’t have an adequate answer to a question.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I’m technically single, but there recently was a special woman, and she’s very likely marrying another man this coming weekend.”

  “Sorry, that can’t be fun.”

  “No, though it’s probably for the best, as we’re not exactly at the same place in our lives at the moment,” I said, taking a sip of my martini.

  “Yeah, I know how it is. I’m in a similar predicament with my boyfriend, and, honestly, I don’t even know why I’m still in the relationship. We’re totally incompatible, but the thought of being single is a little daunting at the moment. The minute we broke up, there would be an elite cadre of jackasses at my firm more than willing to try and take his place.”

  “With good reason.”

  She smiled.

  “Unfortunately, none of those jackasses are as charming as you,” she said.

  “Or mildly attractive and, more importantly, grass-fed,” I added.

  “True,” she said, as she smiled, placed her hand on my forearm, and looked into my eyes.

  It was likely an innocent touch, but some body language experts might interpret it as a subtle come-on. All I knew was that it was making my heart race and my loins swell. Our brief moment of potential intimacy came to an end, however, when the bartender came by and asked if we would like anything else. We both abstained, as we had already had plenty
of alcohol.

  “Oh well, it’s getting late, so I—ugh—guess it’s probably about time to call it a night,” she said.

  “Yeah—good idea, as I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a busy day tomorrow.”

  We exchanged contact information via our iPhones then headed upstairs and paused at the opening to the first class compartment.

  “I really enjoyed talking with you tonight,” I said.

  “Yeah, me too. We should do it again sometime.”

  A silence ensued, and we stood there awkwardly with neither of us apparently sure what to say.

  “Well—uh—good night,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’ll see you in the morning, and maybe we can do breakfast.”

  We parted ways, and I returned to my seat only to be joined by Asma, who thankfully helped me convert my little cubicle into a sleeping chamber. It turned out to be surprisingly comfortable, though it wasn’t quite the king sized mattress that I was used to on the Vandenberg jet. I laid my head back on the pillow, closed my eyes, and tried to relax, but memories of the day kept playing in my mind—everything from Estelle’s sad departure to the averted plane crash, bar ruckus, and my unexpected evening with the beautiful Olivia. Fuck. I rolled over and tried to get more comfortable by using the extra pillow as a kind of surrogate sleeping partner, but, again, I couldn’t sleep. Just as I was about to shift and try sleeping on my stomach, I heard a chime from my phone, and I looked over at it and saw that Olivia had just texted.

  “You awake?” she had written.

  I sat up and grabbed it.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Can’t sleep,” came back a moment later.

  “Me neither,” I wrote.

  “Do you have any special technique for falling asleep when you’re traveling?” she asked.

  I was still under the influence of my martini buzz and wrote a rather cheeky response.

  “I find that really good sex usually helps,” I wrote, before hitting send and instantly regretting it.