by Dick Wybrow
"No!" came the yell from the nearby field. "No, don't shoot my plane, you idiots!"
Miguel and Alejandro turned to their leader, who was coming out of the scrub brush and onto the dirt tarmac. He was chasing the plane, calling out to the men as it passed them.
"But they are taking it!" shouted Miguel.
Silvio shouted, "Get the girl!"
Uncle Jerry was leaning into the controls when Anza put a hand on his shoulder. She pointed ahead, just about one hundred feet, to where they saw sparkle and purple and black leather.
"We can't leave him," Anza said.
"We're not." Uncle Jerry looked out the window to his right then left. "We can get close before those guys with the AKs do. We can drop the ramp."
Then shots rang out, and sparks flew up from the dirt runway, bullets obliterating small rocks. Through their cockpit window, they saw Angel shirk away from where they were firing, banking a hard left, away from them.
"Damn!" Uncle Jerry said and looked to see if he could steer over that way. "Open the door. Maybe he can make a run for it."
Anza did as he'd instructed, moving one large lever to the right, yanking hard on another, lifting the entryway open. She left its stairs locked in place and stared out the open door ahead.
Moving that slowly, they were running out of runway.
She heard a burst of fire and put a hand to her chest, as she could only watch Angel in the distance, running for his life after saving theirs, moving farther and farther away.
"Maybe he can run away," she said. "Get into the bush—"
"They won't let him get that far," Uncle Jerry called back.
Anza shouted to Angel but only got gunfire in return as several sparks burst in the open doorway. Outside, she heard a deep voice. "Stop shooting at my plane!"
She'd flung herself away from the door and was lying on her back in the cabin, trying to see into the darkness.
"Why doesn't he fly? He is an angel, yes? Why doesn't he fly?"
The Actor slowly walked up to the open doorway, his hands in the pockets of the tattered yellow robe. "Part-time angel. You heard him. He can't help himself, he can only…"
"What?"
A strange expression passed over the dwarf's face. He looked outside and ahead, just a few hundred feet of runway left, and looked at Anza. Then he jumped from the aircraft.
"What are you doing?"
The Actor hit the ground hard and rolled. Quickly, he got to his feet, a little unsteady, and did something Anza couldn't believe. He began running toward the two gunmen chasing after Angel.
"The Actor is outside," Anza said, leaping into the cockpit. "He jumped outside!"
"Now we've got to save both of them. Why would he do that?"
They watched, helpless, as their friend ran as fast as his legs would take him. He then began waving his arms and shouting. From behind, they heard Silvio firing his pistol at the Actor, sending hiccups of dirt flying around his feet.
The two Mexican gunmen turned at the sounds of the shots behind them and caught sight of the Actor. They turned and lifted the rifles to their shoulders. Angel stopped, put a fist to his mouth, and shouted something that neither of them could hear.
Silvio screamed into the night, "Don't shoot at him, pendejos! You'll hit me!"
"But you were just shooting at him!" called Alejandro across the dark expanse of runway. "What about hitting us?"
"I am a better shot!"
Miguel turned to his friend and mumbled, "He is not a better shot."
"Get the girl!" shouted Silvio, still running, his pistol raised. "Let me kill the fat little boy."
The Actor stopped and turned. "Who are you calling fat?"
Silvio fired a shot, which missed him entirely, and the Actor stood his ground. He clenched his fists as if he were going to throw punches while the drug lord threw bullets.
"What is he doing?" Uncle Jerry asked, rummaging under the seat, searching for a weapon. "What drug dealer doesn't have an extra Uzi lying around or something? There's nothing on this damn plane!"
Outside, the Actor remained still but could hear the two men behind him once again pick up pursuit, chasing Angel into the darkness. No matter how good he was at running in heels—the guy could probably run a marathon in them—this was a sprint. They would catch him.
Silvio slowed to a walk and fired a shot that smashed into the Actor's shoulder. The small man flinched and cried out but stood his ground.
"Tough little man!" The drug boss laughed and spun in place. "Let's see if you can withstand one dead center in your pretty-boy face." He lifted the pistol and aimed again.
Passing the deadly scene, heading to the end of the runway, Uncle Jerry called out for the Actor to run, but either the man couldn't hear him or was just ignoring his friend. "Why doesn't he run? He needs to run!" The old pilot looked ahead then at the controls and punched the dash. "Why doesn't he run?"
Anza looked to the far side of the runway and saw that the two gunmen were slowing their pursuit. Ahead, it looked as though Angel had made it deep into some brush and was nowhere to be seen.
She asked, "Can you turn plane around? Lift off the other direction?"
"Uh, I've never done that, but, yeah, I suppose."
The pilot banked hard to the right then made a large loop, darkness filling their windscreen.
The two gunmen who'd been chasing Angel also turned and lifted their rifles, training the Actor's head in their sights. The man between Silvio and his henchmen squeezed his eyes shut. Silvio laughed, shaking his head, then lifted his pistol once again.
Uncle Jerry was heading back the way they'd come and caught sight of his friend in the crosshairs. "No!" he shouted. "What good is any sort of angel if they can't even save themselves!"
"They can't," Anza said, looking into the dark sky. "They can only save others."
The Actor waited for the shots to ring out but instead heard a strange thwap-thwap-thwap then the clatter of metal. He cracked open an eye and saw Silvio had been lifted up and flung into the nearby creek. His gleaming silver handgun lay on the runway.
The Actor spun to see the other two staggering to their feet after being thrown down the runway onto a small hill covered in dead grass.
"About fucking time," the Actor said and lifted his arms.
Angel swooped down unevenly and grabbed both of the man's hands, rocketing for the plane. The Actor began to laugh, but when he realized the speed they were heading toward the open cabin door, his smile turned into an open-mouthed frown.
"Too fast, too fast, too fa—" he said but then felt his world spin as Angel twisted them into a two-person missile, which landed very hard inside the cabin. "Motherfucker, that hurt!"
Angel was still on top of him, breathing heavily, as he lay on his back. "That was very brave."
The Actor nodded. "Can you get off me?"
The other man patted the Actor on the head and gave him a kiss on the lips.
"Dude!" the Actor said then shrugged. "Whatever."
Anza shouted, "Get us out of here, Uncle Jerry!"
"Check and double-check," the pilot called back.
The plane picked up speed as the three outside found their footing and began running back toward them. Silvio was screaming at his men.
Angel looked around, his wings retracted, and crawled into a seat. He tried buckling himself in, but his arms were heavy, weak.
One of the men outside had gotten close enough to fire again, his shots clanging but not pelting the cabin walls.
"They're shooting out the landing gear!" Angel shouted then coughed.
As if on cue, one side of the plane lurched and drooped. The sound filling the cabin was like the roar of a thousand lions, and Uncle Jerry struggled to control the plane.
"Hold on!"
The Actor strapped into his own seat, his fingers clawing into the armrests, and said, "Like he needs to tell us that!" He then took a long look at Angel. "What's wrong with you?"
The en
gine whine grew louder, and they moved faster and faster, but their pilot struggled to keep the plane level. They were listing too far to the right, the damaged landing gear pulling them askew.
Anza was trying to strap herself into the copilot's seat but was struggling to hold on. "Can I do anything?"
Uncle Jerry surveyed his controls then shook his head. He scanned what was left of the runway in front of him.
"We'll… have enough speed, I think… I hope," he said, his hair matted with sweat as he fought the wheel. "But we need to be more level. I can't hit the gas at this angle."
"Maybe"—Anza searched in front of them—"Maybe there is ramp."
Uncle Jerry couldn't help but laugh. "Ramp? No, there's no—" He didn't see a ramp, but he did need to get the right side of the craft higher, just slightly. "Oh, shit," he said. "I'm gonna go to hell for this." He then turned the plane toward the runway’s edge.
Outside, it was relatively quiet. Darkness and dust and dying grass. Lovely, beautiful, tasty dying grass.
From inside the cabin, there was a massive thump! Briefly the plane hopped up on its right side, and for an instant, they were level again. It was all the time Uncle Jerry needed.
He pushed the accelerator all the way forward, the engines screaming, and they rocketed toward the fence line faster and faster.
"Oh, shit!" he shouted as if saying a prayer, and at the very last moment, just before the wire and rotting wood of the barricade, they lifted off. There was a shearing sound as the damaged landing gear got caught up in the fence and torn away, but they were free of it, safely in the air.
The Actor cheered from the cabin as their pilot made a wide arc over the ocean, got a little altitude, and turned west for the opposite coast.
Anza gave him a big hug but pulled back—"Yucky"—from Uncle Jerry's sweat-soaked body. Then she hugged him again. Sitting back in the copilot's seat, she smiled as she finally strapped herself in. "Uh, I thought we don't go and hitting cows. Innocent bovine creatures of nature, yes?"
Uncle Jerry shook his head. "It was a coyote."
"Uh-huh," she said. "That was a big, big coyote."
"Yeah, with utters," he said. "Nature's a crazy bitch, huh?"
Then Anza turned to Angel, and the smile fell from her face.
Chapter Thirty
Anza hovered over Angel, two damp towels in her hands, unsure where to put them first. Finally, she pushed them both at the river of blood coming from the drag queen's belly.
The Actor stood by, his mouth moving faster than the words coming out. "How… how did that happen?"
Angel waved his hand at him. "Oh, you see… those guys? They had guns."
Anza's lips quivering as she tried to stop the flow of blood.
"What can we do? Can we get you to a hospital?" the Actor asked, his eyes moving from injury to injury. "Wait, how is this happening? I mean, I'm under contract, too, so when he shot me, it stung but not… this."
"No," the man in the perfectly coiffed black wig said, shaking his head. "Different boss, different rules. I'm a part-timer, so I’m not afforded any of that sort of…" He paused and, given his appearance, smiled at the irony of the word. "Glamour."
"This can't be right!" the Actor shouted. "There's no way this is right! Or just! Or good!"
Angel smiled with blood-stained teeth. "He has a plan, as with everything. I can only play my part."
Anza sobbed. "Your part is to dying? No, no, no."
He started coughing, blood dribbling down his lips.
The Actor reached out and wiped some away with his sleeve. "This can't be happening," the dwarf mumbled.
Down on one knee, Anza pulled a strand of hair from her face. "Tell us what to do. How can we save you?"
Angel laughed. "Oh, sweet Anza," he said. "I am Saved."
"No, no," Anza said. "Not that kind of saved. The other kind where you don't die because I don't want to lose a friend!"
He lifted a hand and put it gently on her cheek. "You won't lose me," he said. "I will never be very far from you. You are very special, Anza. Be good."
She shook her head, watching Angel's eyes fade. But then she realized it hadn’t just been his eyes. A moment later, all that was left were the two damp, bloody towels. Angel was gone.
* * *
The final leg to California had taken just a few hours. I'd even gotten used to the blur in front of me to the point of almost being lulled to sleep.
After racing to get to FriendBook's headquarters, it was actually exhausting to sit and just wait. Sally and I just stared, watching the whirring little devices.
It was midafternoon in the middle of summer, but in northern California, that didn't mean it was warm. The sun was still pretty high in the sky, but clouds were floating up from the south after teasing the arid lower half of the state.
"They are curious creatures," the gunslinger said, her hands behind her head as we lay on the small grassy hill. We were both waiting, facing the gleaming building in front of us about two hundred yards in the distance.
I watched one of the motorized disks plod along the well-trodden grass, making its quick trip over the hill. All of the devices looked exactly the same—puck-shaped objects with wheels we couldn't see, little blue lights bouncing up and down every time they hit a bump or rock or fat bug, however, on several occasions, the bugs were no longer visible once the machines passed over with a disquieting sucking sound.
We'd parked Bucephalus a half mile up the road underneath a canopy of trees. At the time, Sally had said, "Good thinking. Yeah, don't want nobody spotting it."
"Oh yeah," I'd said. "Actually, I was just putting her in the shade so she doesn't get too hot in the sun."
The motorcycle trilled at my words. Sally had frowned and given me one of her variety of grunts.
As we sat facing the FriendBook HQ, she began to snore again. I looked over as we leaned against the rise in a grassy hill, facing the gleaming building that seemed to grow straight out of the ground, to see she'd pulled the cowboy hat over her eyes.
Staring again into the sky, I searched for their plane.
When Anza had called minutes earlier, she'd told me they would be flying from the west.
"Uncle Jerry says we are harder to spot with the ocean. We are flying very low to avoid the radars."
"Too fucking low!" came a shout over the phone.
"The Actor says hi."
"I did not say that!"
"You sure you guys are off the radar?" I asked. "I mean, I would think the Pacific seaboard would be looking out for low-flying planes."
Anza said, "Is drug plane, so Uncle Jerry says there is lotta gizmos that keep us from being seen. Very next-tech stuff!"
We'd seen that in our previous adventure. Having commandeered the jet of the "urban entrepreneur" in Atlanta who liked to avoid detection, we'd come across an entire system, updated across the dark web, that gave us secret locations to land.
As far as anyone knew, commercial airlines didn't have that stuff. Hell, the US Air Force might not even have it yet.
It was strange. The bonfires of some of humankind's greatest technological advances were started by kindling paid-for and provided-by the darker parts of human nature. Hell, if it weren't for the billion-dollar porn industry, our webcam tech would still be circa 1994.
Anza had also told me about her friend.
That hit me with a sadness I couldn’t handle right then, so I tucked it in a box and put it up on a shelf. Although, in deference to Angel, the box had a purple ribbon on it.
"I can still feel him, though," she had said. "He'll always be with me, I think."
According to their GPS, they were set to arrive any minute.
For the moment, I simply stared and marveled at the tiny, circular machines whirring across the flattened grass, bump-bump-bump, over the hill and back again into the belly of the building.
Standing to stretch my legs, I took three or four paces before I heard a hammer being drawn back on its pist
ol.
"No shooting," I said without turning around. "I just want to take a quick walk over the hill."
"Sorry, habit," she said. "Why you walking away?"
"I wanna see where those weird little machines are going."
As she tipped her head up, her hat slipped a few inches down her face, so I could just see her eyes. "Thought you said there was cameras all 'round here."
"Sure, but—" I pointed to the edge of the building's moat and guard shack. "They're mainly focused on what looks like a twenty-foot perimeter."
"Oh? How do you reckon that?"
"Uh, you can tell by the way they swivel."
After a few moments, I got another grunt, and Sally pulled her hat back up.
Slowly, I started back toward the hill and mumbled to myself, "'You can tell by the way they swivel'? Thank god she's an eighteenth-century philistine or—"
"Nineteenth," Sally said from beneath her hat. "And if you get us busted, the next thing to swivel will be your head at the end of a long rope."
"Yes, ma'am," I said and sped up toward the hill. "You have… very impressive hearing."
Ahead of me were two of the big pucks jostling and bumping along, and at that distance, I could hear their little motorized electric engines propelling them forward with a whine that hiccupped every time they bounced.
I stepped on their matted-down path. Behind me, I heard another approaching, managing the bumps, its happy little blue light bobbing up and down like the old watch-the-bouncing-ball sing-along videos.
In front of me, I saw two others slip over the other side and disappear. A moment later, another came over the hill, moving much faster than the ones before. I stopped for a moment, eyeballing it, but it buzzed past with a cheery little whrrr.
"It's lighter now," I mumbled.
I turned to look back at Sally. Her chest was moving up and down, and beneath the sounds of the big motorized pucks, I could hear her snoring louder.
I braced myself for what the other side of the hill might reveal. But really, how bad could it be? What I did finally see was… unimaginable. Sick and twisted. I put my hand to my mouth so I wouldn't cry out in horror.