The Quintessence of Quick (The Jack Mason Saga) (15 page)

“Wilco, tower.” all business now, Sy called for the on-water approach and landing checklist, which Pete began calling out. The passengers exchanged a smile on hearing the first item, “wheels UP and locked.” Somewhere in the middle of the list, Sy pulled the power back, setting up a gentle sink rate. As airspeed bled off, his use of aileron to correct for the crosswind was even more extreme than that of Pete’s on takeoff. The water reached up for them, vignetting the Plexiglas. As the airspeed indicator dropped past seventy the Albatross’s keel hit the water’s chop, staccato rattling of the hull giving way to a surf-like roar as displaced sea momentarily cut off outside vision.

“Tower, 3312, down at 1327. Request immediate takeoff,” Pete advised.

9  JAI ALAI HIGH

Plunging into the cavern-like cool of
Norman’s, their watering-hole of choice in Coconut Grove, they luxuriated in the contrast to the sweaty sturm und drang of dropping the Albatross onto
Biscayne Bay
and driving it into the air again. Sharing the memory of reverberating Wright Cyclone horsepower, they regarded each other with mixed incredulity and exultation as they waited for their Daíquiris.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Pete, leaning back in his chair, “I’ll damn sure take our afternoon over the eighteen holes of cow-pasture pool that took up a lot of people’s time today.”

“Take that to the bank,” Linda said, smiling up at the white-jacketed waiter delivering their first round of drinks. “One thing’s for sure; whoever named them ‘flying boats’ got it exactly right. When she settled down into the water that first time, I had my doubts about her ever getting airborne again.”

“Yeah. Good thing that big-ass rudder’s got hydraulic boost. I’m not exactly looking forward to horsing that thing around boost-out.”

“I don’t even want to think about that,” she said, “at least not right now.”

“Your time will come, missy,” Pete said with a grin. “Sy’s not about to give you a pass on boost-out takeoffs and landings.”

Bristling slightly, Linda drained her drink. “No, and I wouldn’t want him to. You know me better than that.”

Still grinning, Pete lifted his hands in mock surrender. “I know, I know; guess I was subconsciously hoping that he might give me a pass. Of course, ol’ Sy never looked at me the way I caught him looking at you a couple of times today.”

Linda ended a withering seconds-long stare at him with, “Guys like you and Sy ought to act your age. Excuse me,” she said, getting to her feet and striking out for the ladies’ room, spine stiff with indignance. Both men had seen that posture often enough for them to know that her anger was likely to subside as quickly as it gathered. It would, however, have to be addressed, as a prudent yachtsman would tack around a summer squall.

Jack shot a wry grin at Pete. “Never know whacha gonna get back from a line like that, do you?” Catching the waiter’s eye, he raised his empty glass and received an acknowledging nod.

“Shit. One very basic thing about that woman just slipped my mind momentarily.”

“What’s that?”

“She’s absolutely incapable of accepting a compliment.” Pete almost added, “Just like her mother,” but under what were already ticklish circumstances decided not to. Talking about a shared lover’s not something I want much to do with in any case, he thought, and certainly not a shared lover’s mother.

“Damn!” Jack said as their fresh drinks arrived. “She will turn it around on you, won’t she? I was amazed at how quickly she learned to ride that little R27. She’s a natural motorcycle rider, and I told her so. Know what she said?”

“Let me guess. Something on the order of ‘nothing to it,’ the subtext being ‘and if you think there is, you’re dumber than I thought you were.’”

Jack’s bark of laughter and the table-slap that went with it drew surprised gazes from a score of fellow drinkers. “That’s it! Sort of, ‘Everything’s so easy for me; can’t imagine why it isn’t for you.’”

“And the hell of it is, she may be right,” Pete said, answering the laugh with a wry smile. “Shall we try to find out?”

“You mean we haven’t already?”

“Well, in day-to-day, more-or-less-inconsequential terms, yes, we have. I was thinking of upping the stakes a bit.”

“Better hold that thought,” said Jack, “unless you want to share it with her and that Hunt guy, plus somebody else I never saw before.” Linda, smiling broadly, brought the two men to their table in her wake.

“Look who I found, sitting at the back table like a couple of Mafiosi,” she said, clearly enjoying both the surprise appearance of Hunt and his associate and regaining the initiative. “This is Howard’s and my old buddy from
Havana, Bernie Barker.”

Jack stood automatically, followed by Pete, who took his time. Barker, half a head shorter than Jack but easily twenty-five pounds heavier, extended his hand. “Howya doin’?” he asked, his American accent belying his Latin, Jack guessed Cuban, physiognomy.

“Fine,” said Jack, returning Barker’s closed-lipped smile and registering the quick interplay of glances among Linda, Pete and Hunt. “Y’all have a seat.”

“Howard and Bernie were just leaving,” Linda interjected. “They’re going to the
Miami
fronton for some jai-alai, and asked me if we’d like to join them.”

“I don’t know if Linda told you what we’ve been doing today,” Pete said, “But it’s going to be all I can do to sit here, soak up a few more Daíquiris, and head for the barn. You kids go ahead.”

“Much as I’d like to,” Jack said, “I need to get Pete’s opinion on a couple of dozen things before I head back north. I’m gonna take this opportunity to do that, if y’all don’t mind making it a threesome.”

The almost-imperceptible tightening of Linda’s jaw muscles gave way to a just-barely-overdone smile. “Suits me,” she said. Then to Jack: “Bernie broadened my gambling horizons to include jai-alai in the good old
Havana
days,” eliciting a deprecating smile from Barker. “It’ll be like old times.”

“We had some good times at the old Capri, fooling around with George Raft and donating money to Carlos the blackjack dealer,” Barker offered, “but jai-alai has a charm all its own.”

“Well,” said Hunt, “charm school awaits, if you gentlemen are sure you won’t join us. We won’t be too late. You haven’t moved?” Hunt had found their Coconut Grove house for them, at Barker’s request, it had turned out.

“Nope. Sorry we’re not joining you, but Jack and I do need to cover some ground before he goes. He’s headed to
Pensacola
for flight training.”

“Really? Hey, that’s great,” said Barker, shaking Jack’s hand a second time with a good deal of added vigor. “I flew B-24’s in the big war. Shot down over
Germany, but that’s another story. Best of luck, young man.”

“Thanks, Mr. Barker.”

“Bernard, please.” he smiled deprecatingly. “Linda’s the only one who calls me Bernie.”

“Bernard it is. Thank you sir. I’d like to hear about your war sometime.”

Barker’s smile faded noticeably, but stayed. “My war’s still going on, but that, too, is another story. Buena suerte, amigo.”

“Y usted también,” said Jack.

“With that, we’re off,” said Hunt. “ I didn’t get shot down, but as a naval officer in that same war, let me add my own buena suerte to that of Bernard’s. No disrespect, compadre, but Naval Aviators are the world’s finest.”

“Suits me,” said Barker with a grin. “Hell, I was a bombardier. Can’t imagine landing on an aircraft carrier.”

“Neither can I,” said Jack, “but I guess I’ll get used to it.”

The jai-alai contingent departed, still laughing at Jack’s riposte. “Jesus, if my throat wasn’t dry before- yes, please, another round,” he said to the waiter who had hovered at the edge of the group. “Courtly jaspers, aren’t they?” he said as they resumed their seats.

“That’s one way to put it,” said Pete. I wonder when Barker left
Cuba.”

“As soon as he could, I reckon. Didn’t he work for Batista?”

“Yeah, but my impression is that he wasn’t at any even medium-high level. Castro couldn’t have gotten rid of all of Batista’s people, much as he’d no doubt have liked to. You can’t run a country, even
Cuba, without bureaucrats. Since he’s obviously Hunt’s buddy, he may have stayed there in his job, but as an undercover counterrevolutionary.”

“Undercover? For whom?”

“One, or more, of our intelligence outfits. During that long-ass session that I had with Hunt the first time we met him, he as much as told me that he worked in intelligence. For our side, that is. ONI, CIA, ASA; somewhere in that alphabet soup. Don’t guess it matters which one; they all want to get rid of Castro.”

“Do you think that’s what brought Hunt to
Miami
in the first place? Getting rid of Castro, I mean.”

“Could be. A couple of middle-aged ex-military types, one of ’em Cuban? Stranger things have happened.”

“Well, Linda obviously thinks old Bernie’s the greatest thing since sliced bread,” said Jack. “How much do you suppose she’s had to say to him about how y’all happened to be in
Cuba
in the first place?”

“Just what I told her to say, assuming she stuck to the script, and I have no reason at this point to assume that she didn’t. She has that well-known tendency to run off at the mouth when she’s drinking, but she knew, and knows, damn well that making sure our story holds water’s in her own best interest.”

“So Barker still thinks that the three of you just came down to work in the casinos?”

“As far as I can tell. No doubt he gave Hunt a full briefing before he asked him to help us find a house here. I know that he sounded Johnny out about us early on, probably right after he and Linda met for the first time at the
Capri.”

“Johnny told you that?”

“Sure. He didn’t want any extra attention from Barker, or anyone else from the government. He knew about Dieter getting killed, of course, and that he’d been Linda’s lover, but he wasn’t real happy at the thought of her out cruising solo, gambling and rubbing elbows with people like Barker. After all, he did me a hell of a favor in getting those casino visas for us in the first place.”

“I guess so,” Jack said. “You guys must’ve been pretty tight, growing up, for him to do that.”

“Yeah, we were. A couple of kid-palookas, beating each other’s brains out, thinking that we had it in us to be prizefighters. He smartened up about that a little sooner than I did; gave it up to be a button man.”

“A mob guy.”

“Bingo. And old Pete flunked out of NYU and joined the Navy. How’s that for some b-grade
Hollywood
shit?”

“Not so b-grade, if you carry it into Hitler’s
Germany
and on into dear old Bisque. That’s a story that
Hollywood
would kill to sink its teeth into.”

Pete grinned, waiting to respond until the waiter had set down fresh Daíquiris and moved on. “Yeah, probably so. Maybe you can peddle it someday, after I’m dead.”

“Would that I could, O mighty co-conspirator. You might’ve been a lot busier then I was getting us to this point, but I don’t want any curious lawmen backtracking this story, as good as it is, any more than you do. So anyway, your money’s on Linda keeping her trap shut.”

Pete’s steel-gray eyes bored into Jack’s. “If it weren’t, buddy, she’d be someplace else by now. By the way,” he said, “I probably owe you an apology. I didn’t really know what to expect from that run up the river, but I figured y’all needed to spend a little time alone. Am I wrong, or was it as bad an idea as it appears to have been?”

Jack put a dent in his new Daíquiri, then said, “Oh, I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was a bad idea. I wouldn’t take anything for gettin’ back to the old home place that way. Through the back door, so to speak. I doubt one in a thousand Bisqueants has a clue that they’re twenty minutes away from a boat ride to
Miami. It’s a completely different world on that river. Just picking out what looks like a safe place to tie up for the night’s something you think about all day.”

“Yeah, I envy you the trip. What I don’t envy’s what seems to be the state of affairs between you and Linda since you’ve been back.”

“You noticed.”

“Hell, son, Helen-fucking-Keller woulda noticed. I know that being with her in Bisque was probably more than you bargained for, but y’all are just being way too nice to each other. Now, tell me it’s not my business and I’ll butt out. But since I’m responsible for the two of you havin’ met in the first place, and since I love both of you, and since a word or two in the wrong ear might put us both behind bars, I hope you won’t do that.”

“I’m not about to do that,” said Jack. “I was also not about to shove off again without us getting our heads together and figuring out what we can do about this mess. Or at least trying to.”

“Well, since the lady saw fit to leave us, why don’t we have at it. And her leaving us is probably a good place to start. If things were good between you two, she’dve ducked that jai-alai invitation altogether. Or, if she’d felt constrained to accept for old times’ sake, you’dve dug in your heels. Neither of those things happened, and what that means to me is trouble in paradise.”