“About twenty-five gallons,” Jake said.
“Twenty-five gallons of jet fuel for a one-way flight,” Jill said. “And you paid four dollars and eighty cents a gallon at Santa Monica, correct?”
“Correct,” Jake said.
“That means that every round trip you take from here to LA and back will cost you two hundred and forty dollars in fuel alone. And how often do you suppose you’ll be making the trip once you get a house built and you move in?”
“If I have a house here and I’m working on something in LA, I’ll fly home every night. I won’t stay in LA at all if I don’t have to. That’s kind of the point of the whole thing.”
“So, we’re talking about five round trips a week on average?” Jill asked.
“Sounds about right,” Jake said.
“Two hundred and forty times five is twelve hundred dollars a week in fuel just for the aircraft. That’s forty-eight hundred dollars a month.”
“What is your point?” Jake asked her.
“That’s a lot of money, Jake,” she said. “All of it for an unnecessary project.”
“Yeah, but I’m a rich motherfucker, Jill. I can afford shit like that. You only live once, right?”
“It’s a frivolous waste of money,” she insisted.
“Fuckin’ A,” he agreed. “And I’m happy that life has made it so I can be frivolous in this manner. Now then, let’s see how easy it is to get into this airport. It looks pretty dead there from up here.”
“A poor choice of words, perhaps?” asked Laura.
“Perhaps,” he agreed, giving her a warm smile. “Winds are onshore right now. We’ll land on two-nine.”
Oceano County Airport had no control tower. Jake used the radio to announce on the facility’s approach frequency that he was entering the pattern with intent to land on Runway 29. No one answered him, which meant, in theory, that there was no other traffic in potential conflict with him. He flew out over the ocean and then turned right, directly into the downwind leg of the approach, dropping down to eighteen hundred feet as he did so. This brought him feet-dry over an extensive and impressive expanse of sand dunes and then over the small town itself. He turned left into the base leg and then left again for final approach, calling out his actions on the approach frequency each time. The radio remained silent and he saw no other aircraft in the sky or moving about on the ground at the airport. He touched down neatly at 1:35 PM and taxied over to the aircraft parking area.
“Engine shutdown at 1:38,” he told Laura.
“That gives you sixty-three minutes from engine start to engine shutdown,” she told him. “That’s from the fueling area, of course.”
“Of course,” he said. “An hour each way, add in a little more if I need to fuel up. The flight time is in my parameters.”
“Agreed,” said Laura.
“How much are they going to charge you to land here?” asked Jill.
“Let’s go find out,” Jake said. “I also want to scope out what hangar space goes for here. Since this is where I’d be living if the land checks out, I’d house the plane here and then just pay landing fees in LA.”
“Do they do maintenance here?” asked Laura.
“Another excellent question,” Jake said, opening the aircraft door. “That’s why we’re checking all this shit out.”
Jake was happy to find that they were close enough to the ocean that they could hear the waves breaking in the distance, could smell the salt air. The sky was blue above them, without so much as a hint of smog. So far, so good. Although his original plan had been to have his own airstrip on the land he bought, that was simply not feasible in this particular location. The land in question was not zoned for that and, even if it had been, the expense of building, operating, and maintaining one’s own airstrip was enough to trigger even Jake’s almost non-existent financial sensibilities. Still, this was a nice looking airport, conveniently located and seemingly easy to fly into and out of.
They went into the airport operations building and met with the manager of the facility, a man in his early sixties who had no idea who Jake Kingsley was and who looked at his longish hair with distaste. He collected the ten-dollar landing fee and then quoted Jake the price for hangar space. Jake thought he misheard him at first.
“Forty-eight dollars... a month?” he asked the man.
“That’s the goin’ rate, my friend,” the man told him. “And we’re the only airport in town, so I guess you’re kinda stuck with it if you want to house your plane here.”
Jake realized that the man thought he was in disbelief because that price was high. “I would be happy to pay forty-eight a month,” he said. “I’m paying four times that for a hangar in Santa Monica right now.”
“Ahhh,” the man said with a nod. “You’re from the city then?”
“Not any longer than I have to be,” Jake said. “How about maintenance services? Are they offered here?”
“No maintenance here,” the man told him. “But just up north at San Luis Obispo airport they have full services. Take you maybe ten minutes to fly there. Old Zeke and his boy Jimmy run Anderson Aircraft Services there. They’re good honest folk, give you a fair shake.”
“That’s good to know,” Jake said. He looked at Jill and Laura. “Are you guys writing all this down?”
“Zeke and his boy Jimmy,” Laura confirmed.
“Forty-eight dollars a month,” Jill said. “That is a pretty good price.”
“You lookin’ to set up shop here, boy?” the man asked Jake.
“It’s possible,” Jake told him. “We’re here to check out some land for sale just north of town. If I like it, I might very well put an offer down and build myself a little house there.”
“You’re kinda young, ain’t ya?”
“Thirty-four years old,” Jake said. “Old enough to go after what I want.”
The man scowled a little. “Just what kinda business are you in, if you don’t mind my askin’?”
“Drug running out of South America,” Jake told him with a straight face. “It’s a pretty good gig.”
The man’s eyes widened comically.
Jake chuckled. “Sorry, couldn’t resist that one. Actually, I’m a musician.”
“A musician?” the man asked, as if he’d never heard of such a thing.
“Yeah. You know, guitars and singing and shit? I do okay.”
The man looked very doubtful at this, as if he was more inclined to believe Jake’s first answer.
“Anyway, I appreciate your time,” Jake told him. “We have a real estate agent who is going to meet us here at two-thirty. Do you mind if we stroll around a bit while we’re waiting, check the place out?”
“Uh ... sure,” the man said. “As long as you stay off the runway and the taxiway.”
“I think we can manage that,” Jake promised.
The real estate agent was a man named Dan Brook. He was in his late forties, bald, more than a little chubby, and drove a 1993 Mercedes 500sel. It seemed he was doing well for himself. Unlike the airport manager, Brook knew who Jake was, although he apologetically admitted that he wasn’t really into hard rock music.
“To each their own,” Jake said with a shrug. “I believe you talked to Jill a few times on the phone?”
“Yes, of course,” Brook said. “It’s nice to meet you in person, Jill. I hope the land lives up to your expectations.”
“Yeah, that would be wonderful,” Jill said sourly.
“Jill is a bit of a mother hen to me,” Jake explained. “She thinks I’m being wasteful for wanting to buy land outside of LA.” He lowered his voice into the conspiratorial range. “She’s an accountant.”
“Ahhh,” Brook said with a chuckle. “I understand.”
“You promised there would be no more accountant jokes,” Jill told him.
“I don’t think that falls into the category of a joke, per se,” Jake said.
“He chuckled,” she insisted. “If you make someone chuckle, it’s a joke.”