Now I kept my eyes closed, conscious of Maynard’s gaze. When I finally opened them, he was looking puzzled. Probably it had
dawned upon him that I’d made it altogether too easy for him to stick with me. Soon he’d realize that I’d lured him into a
situation where he would be unable to contact any of his people for forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes that Hy and Habiba
needed to make their move.
Fort Myers was another standard-issue airport, quiet at this time of morning when few flights were arriving. I spotted the
women’s restroom, crossed to it, and followed a woman in a long flowered skirt, flimsy pink blouse, and absurd floppy hat
inside. She took the hat off immediately, turned, and extended her hand. “Edie Rosen.”
“Sharon McCone.”
Edie Rosen was about my height and had shoulder-length black hair styled very much like mine. She kicked off her sandals and
began stripping off the skirt and blouse. “We better hurry; your flight was late.”
I traded my jacket, jeans, and Tee for them, then sat on the floor and began unlacing my athletic shoes. Edie jammed the floppy
hat—also pink, with mauve roses—on my head. And started to laugh.
“What?” I asked.
She pointed toward the mirror. “It’s definitely not you.”
The image that confronted me was a cross between Blanche DuBois and my neighborhood bag lady. “My God,” I said. “And I have
to go out in
public
like this?”
Edie sat down next to me and began putting on my shoes. “Yeah, you do look kinda pathetic, but you’d fool your own mother,
and that’s what Lanny said you wanted.”
“Lanny?”
“The guy whose house you stayed at in the Keys.”
“Oh. He wasn’t there and his name never came up.”
“That’s Lanny—real careful about his name, and too damned casual about his place.” She stood up and dumped the contents of
a plastic purse decorated with seashells on the counter, then handed it to me. I transferred my things to it and gave her
my straw bag and airline ticket. She handed me another ticket envelope.
“Okay,” she said, “stand up and walk for me.”
I took a few turns around the restroom. Edie watched, then imitated me.
“Not bad, huh?” She smiled confidently, pulling the straw hat low on her brow. “I’m an actress, or at least I’m trying to
be. Lanny promised that after this next flick we’re making he’ll get me some legitimate work.”
Legitimate work. So porno film-making was what went on at Lanny’s island. God, Hy had collected a motley assortment of buddies
over the years!
Watch it, McCone, I cautioned myself. That motley buddy and his friend Edie are getting you out of a tight spot.
Edie handed me a shopping bag she’d been carrying. “There’re some jeans and stuff in here. I didn’t think you’d want to travel
ail the way cross-country in that getup.” She checked her watch. “Time to go now. Lanny will’ve called and had your guy paged
right after we came in here. If I know him, he’s managed to keep him on the phone the whole time, and from the booths you
can’t see anything but the backs of people leaving the restrooms. You go first; your flight to Tampa’s already boarding. My
Orlando flight’s about to board. With any luck at all, your guy’ll follow me.”
I clasped her hand. “Edie, thanks.”
“It’s nothing. I love to act.” She winked. “I’ll do almost anything to act.”
I winked back and went out onto the concourse. As I moved toward the gate I slumped a little and altered my walk. The door
to the field seemed miles away; I forced myself to keep my pace normal and not look back at the phones. When I finally held
out my ticket to the attendant he said, “
Love
your hat.”
I couldn’t wait to get on the plane and rip the ridiculous thing off my head.
At the top of the steps I allowed myself to take a quick look back at the terminal. Through the window I saw Maynard buying
a ticket at the podium for the Orlando flight.
Tampa, Florida, 9:21
A.M.
“Worked like a charm, McCone!”
Hy gathered me in his arms and swung me around; one of Edie’s too-large sandals flew off my foot and fell to the tarmac. Hy’s
skin felt damp and overly warm. When he set me down he looked me over. “What the hell’re you supposed to be?”
“If you think this is bad, you should’ve seen the hat I ditched on the plane.” I reached with my toes for the sandal and slipped
it on while studying him. His color was high and his dark eyes glowed with erratic fire. “You feverish again?”
He put a hand on my shoulder and walked me away from where Habiba was watching the line people refueling the twin-engine Beechcraft
his friend Lanny had rented for us in Key West. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “The fever keeps spiking, then falling
off again. I think they gave me the wrong kind of drugs in Santo Domingo.”
“I think we should—”
“No time. You’ve been checked out in this type of aircraft. If I can’t pilot, you can take over.”
I looked at the Beechcraft. I’d logged some hours in one with a friend of Hy’s, but still…Wouldn’t we all be better off if
he saw a doctor and we holed up for a while?
He sensed what I was thinking. “I mean it when I say we’ve got no time to waste. Lanny made some calls, asked around about
Maynard. He runs a good agency and they’re hooked in with Associated Investigators.”
Associated was a nationwide network whose members provided one another services on a cooperative basis. “Damn. By now he knows
about the switch, and it won’t take him long to figure out which cities I could’ve flown to. He could have someone here pretty
quick.” I paused. “What’s the range for this plane?”
“Around twelve hundred miles. That’s approximately five hours at near max airspeed. I figure we’ll take her to New Orleans,
see if you and Habiba can’t pick up a commercial flight there.”
“I don’t like that; it’s exactly what Maynard would expect us to do.”
“Well, we could try Houston or even Dallas-Fort Worth, but it’ll slow us down.”
I considered. By now Dawud Hamid was in San Francisco. His arrival there could set in motion events that would further endanger
the Azadis—to say nothing of Joslyn. I needed to get to the Bay Area quickly, but I also needed to insure Habiba’s safety.
The little girl had to be my first priority.
“Let’s go to Dallas,” I said.
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, 2:21
P.M.
Hy went to the phone to inquire about flights to San Francisco, and I settled Habiba’s sleeping form on the backseat of the
Beechcraft before taking the shopping bag full of more practical clothing to the restroom in the general aviation terminal.
The little girl stirred and threw out her arm; her fist was clenched tight. I held it for a moment, uncurling her fingers,
then gently laid it on her chest.
It was hot here in Texas, but without the oppressive tropical humidity I’d endured the past five days. For a moment I stood
on the tarmac, looking across the flat landscape at the distant towers of the metropolis. Then I asked the lineman to keep
an eye out and not let anyone near the plane, and walked toward the terminal.
Hy leaned on a counter, receiver to his ear, his back toward me. At a machine I bought a cup of what I call cardboard coffee
and carried it to the restroom. The jeans and purple Tee that Edie had provided me fit on the loose side; the long gaudy skirt
and flimsy blouse went in the trash can. I washed my face, then went looking for Hy.
He stood next to the Beechcraft, chatting with the lineman while he refueled it. His color was still too high, but he looked
better than he had that morning. When I came up, he shook his head to my offer of a sip of coffee, said “Thanks, buddy,” to
the lineman, and steered me toward the plane.
I said, “No flights, huh?”
“Oh sure, plenty of flights. No seats, though. We forgot one detail—it’s Memorial Day weekend.”
“Damn!” I’d totally lost track of the date—the day, even. “You also tried flights to Oakland and San Jose?”
“And L.A., San Diego, and Sacramento, as well as anything departing for Houston, San Antone, Austin, Wichita Falls, and Amarilio.
Nada.
You could go standby, but that’s not a good idea, in case Maynard’s got associates looking for you along the obvious routes.”
I slumped against the plane, tired and discouraged. “So what now?”
“We push on to Phoenix. Maybe we’ll get lucky there.”
Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, Arizona, 7:48
P.M.
Habiba was awake but still silent when we arrived in Phoenix. I took her to the bathroom while Hy went to ask about commercial
flights. My attempt to wash some of the accumulated grime from her face left her muddy-complected and passively miserable,
so I gave up on it and bought her a Coke and some Doritos for consolation. She consumed them hungrily, but without pleasure.
Hy came over to where we sat and shook his head.
“Terrific,” I muttered.
Habiba looked up anxiously, trying to read our expressions.
“Look, Ripinsky, why don’t you take Habiba outside and show her the planes in the tie-downs? I think I saw a Citabria there.
In the meantime, I’m going to make a phone call.”
He held out his hand. “Come on, copilot.”
Surprisingly, she responded, “You called me sailor before.”
“That was in Florida. When there, we sail; when in Arizona, we fly.”
She took his hand and they left the terminal.
I went to a pay phone and placed a call to Mick’s cellular unit. When he’d bought it I’d thought it a waste of money; now
it was a lifeline. He answered on the first ring. Simultaneously we asked, “Where are you?”
“Phoenix,” I told him.
“Russian Hill,” he said. “Hamid’s holed up in a building on Francisco near Leaven worth. Condo belongs to—”
“Alejandro Ronquillo. Hamid went straight there from the airport?”
“After a couple of phone calls, yeah. Came out once, bought a bottle at a corner store, and hasn’t shown since.”
I considered, then thought of Ronquillo’s housekeeper and dug in the hideous shell-encrusted bag for my notebook. “Take this
down, please: Blanca Diaz. She works for Ronquillo. Here’s the number there.” I read it off to him. “Call her and tell her
you’re my assistant and Ricky Savage’s son—”
“What’s Dad got to do with this?”
“She’s a fan, the one you asked him to send the autograph and tape to, remember? Ask her what’s happening with Hamid; I’m
sure she’ll be willing to tell you whatever she knows.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Not now. I’ll be in touch.” Hy was approaching, minus Habiba. I hung up and went to meet him. “Where is she?”
“In the plane. She closed up on me again, said she was tired.”
“Poor kid. She’s really been put through it these last few days. Ripinsky, what should we do?”
“Take the Beechcraft all the way to the Bay Area.”
“Flying time?”
“Probably four hours or more.”
“That seems long.”
He hesitated, his expression guarded. “I didn’t want to mention it before, but the starboard engine’s been acting up. Nothing
we can’t live with, but we’ll want to baby it some. And I’m feverish again; I need you to pilot. Feel up to it?”
I glanced out the window at the gathering desert shadows, then shrugged. “I feel up to anything that’ll get us home soon.”
6,500 feet above the Mojave Desert, 11:48
P.M.
“Ripinsky?”
No response. He slouched in the seat beside me, eyes closed.
“Ripinsky!” I put my hand on his knee and shook it.
“Unh?” He jerked his head up, blinking.
“I’m losing power in the starboard engine. And listen to that.”
He cocked his head to the side.
“You hear it?” I asked. “It sounds like a car that’s leaking exhaust.”
“Yeah, I hear it.” He leaned over, checked the fuel-pressure gauge. “Well, there’s no blockage or pump failure.”
“I know. What is it, then?”
“Maybe a leaking cylinder head gasket. Where’re we?”
“About fifty miles southeast of Barstow.”
“Shit. Let me take over, study on this.”
I relinquished the controls gladly. When I glanced into the backseat I saw Habiba curled into a little ball under a blanket.
Her face was covered and she lay very still; I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or awake and listening.
Hy said, “Yeah, got to be a leaking gasket, or maybe just a stuck valve.”
“Can we make Barstow?”
“I don’t want to chance it. I know a little airstrip not far from here. Not much of one, but the guy who runs it is a mechanic,
lives at the field, and stocks parts. We’ll put down there.”
I looked out at the black and seemingly limitless expanse of the Mojave. How the hell was he going to
find
the airstrip in that untamed land?
“Relax, McCone,” he said. “I’ve found smaller strips in far worse places.”
How had he known what I was thinking? How did he always know?
Mirage Wells Airport, 12:10
A.M.
The tiny airstrip was eerily deserted, a hot gritty wind blowing from the Granite Mountains to the north. As Hy ran toward
the Quonset hut by the side of the field, I stood next to the Beechcraft, breathing air that had a faint chemical tang and
trying to locate the source of a ghostly whine and clacking that came from beyond the glowing landing lights.
Large shapes hulked over there. I moved toward them, saw tidy rows of jetliners, some two dozen, with heavy protective material
secured with tape over their windows and engine housings. As I went closer I made out faded insignia on their tail sections:
Pan Am, Midway, Eastern.
Ghost planes of dead airlines?
The clacking was louder now. I slipped under the belly of a 747 and looked up at its wings. The protective material had blown
off its engines and their turbine blades rotated in the wind; its once-sleek body was sand-scoured and pitted. How long had
it sat grounded here in this strange imitation of flight?
Soft footsteps behind me. Hy.