“No way.”
Crease marched up to the cockpit and spoke urgently with Montana, who called back to Honeycutt over the intercom headsets. He explained that while Crease’s request might seem unorthodox, in the larger scheme of things it was what headquarters wanted to improve the image of the air base. And it kept Crease out of his cockpit.
Honeycutt went back into the bowels of the plane, opened a panel and retrieved the dropsonde. The thunder of the engines and the storm roared all around. He handed the silver baton to Crease.
Honeycutt got down on the deck and opened the instrumentation hatch, and both men were chilled by the rush of air.
“Now remember,” Honeycutt shouted above the wind, “don’t release the dropsonde until I tell you we’re over the eye.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Crease shouted back. “You just make sure you get all this on tape!”
Honeycutt hoisted the video camera onto his shoulder and prompted Crease: “Readyyyyyyy, readyyyyyyy…three, two, one…now!”
Crease tossed the dropsonde underhand toward the open hatch. Flying up in the air, end over end, the twirling instrument looked like a nice shiny stick, and Toto leaped out of his pouch, took two steps and jumped. Toto caught the dropsonde in his mouth at the top of the baton’s arc.
Crease’s eyes bulged as Toto and the dropsonde hung suspended in the air for a split second, and then both fell through the hatch and disappeared into the hurricane.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Crease yelled in terror. He spun and lunged for the video camera on Honeycutt’s shoulder.
“What are you doing?!” said Honeycutt.
Crease didn’t answer; he pressed the eject button, grabbed the tape and gave it a quick push-throw toward the open “bomb bay” doors like a two-handed shot put. He pulled his hands back fast as if it had been a hot potato.
“Good. Nobody ever needs to see that footage.”
He looked back at his cameraman. “I’ll do my best to get you off the hook, Honeycutt, but it’s going to be difficult explaining how you could have let such a brainless thing happen.”
Honeycutt knocked him cold.
23
C. C. Flag pulled up to Hammerhead Ranch in a snow-white Hummer. He had full, pleated pants, a loose Australian bush shirt and a “ USA ” America ’s Cup baseball cap.
An hour later there was a curt rap on the door of Flag’s motel room.
“Coming,” said Flag.
But Zargoza didn’t wait and opened the door with his own key.
Flag now wore a bloused white-cotton Banana Republic shirt, beige slacks and amber shooter’s glasses. He had a crystal bourbon decanter in his hand and a svelte Asian-American call girl on his lap. Flag pushed the hooker up off his knees and gave her a light spank. “Got some business, baby. Why don’t you wait at the bar? I’ll be done soon and then me love you long time.”
“Whatever,” she said in an accent more American than Flag’s. She lit a Tiparillo and strolled sensually out of the room, leaving Zargoza and Flag in her exhaust cloud of arrogance and contempt that made both of them hate her guts and want to marry her.
“Bourbon straight with ice-water chase?” Flag asked as he poured.
“We’ve got problems,” said Zargoza. “You gotta get back out to the nursing home.”
“But I went yesterday.”
“You have to go again,” said Zargoza. “I just heard a TV crew is starting an investigative series.”
“I thought they only did sex scandals,” said Flag. “Since when are they reporters?”
“I know, I know. You can’t count on anything these days,” said Zargoza. “I got enough on my plate with the stolen beepers and cocaine…”
Flag stuck his fingers in his ears. “I didn’t hear anything. I’m a respectable businessman.”
“Shut the fuck up!” said Zargoza. “You’re worse than any of us. You’re a slimy salamander with gonorrhea, a pustulating sea slug, a mucous-tracking gastropod in a construction site Porta-Johnny! You’re a-”
“I get the picture,” said Flag. “What do you want from me?”
“Glue a smile on your face and go meet the TV crew. Put a sympathetic face on this thing. America trusts you, God help ’em.”
“I speak to their wants and dreams…”
“Bullshit!” said Zargoza. “They’re zoned out! A little old lady is blown to bits and all anyone can think about is this TV dog that wears funny clothes.”
“Aren’t you connected to the people who killed the old lady?” asked Flag.
“That’s not the point,” said Zargoza. “I’m talking about the big picture here. This is a terrible comment on our society.”
A n old but reliable Ford Fairlane chugged across the bridge to the barrier islands of Tampa Bay, hot on the trail.
Paul, the Passive-Aggressive Private Eye, wished it was the forties. He carried everything he needed in a fifty-year-old dark-checkered suitcase. When he checked into a motel, he pretended he was Philip Marlowe getting a room above a greasy spoon where the night manager was a junkie who looked like William Burroughs, and there was a harsh red neon sign flashing through his window all night. He’d shave with a porcelain cup and brush, pack his piece and go down to the greasy spoon for a short-order slice of meat loaf and a cup of joe and imagine he was in an Edward Hopper painting.
It didn’t dispel the illusion a bit that Paul was staying at the Toot-Toot Tugboat Inn on St. Pete Beach and dining at The Happy Clam. Paul took a mug shot of Art Tweed with him everywhere and showed it to everyone.
While good with inanimate objects, Paul was inept and annoying when questioning people about Art. His relentless passive-aggressive inquisition merely bugged some, while others called the police and alerted the media.
On his third day in Tampa Bay, Paul was showing the mug shot to a woman who rented cabanas on the beach. She shook her head no. Two squad cars arrived and the cops asked Paul what he was doing.
Paul told them the whole story until the cops said he was getting on their nerves and they left. As the cruisers pulled away, a silver van that had been waiting on the side of the parking lot pulled up. It had sprigs of antennas and a rotating dish. On the side, in giant letters: “Florida Cable News.” Underneath was a smiling portrait and a script banner: “Featuring Blaine Crease.”
The side panel of the van slid open and Crease climbed out wearing Desert Storm camouflage. He walked purposefully to Paul.
“I’ve been doing some checking up on you,” said Crease. “You’re a private investigator. Your name’s Paul. My sources tell me you’ve been showing a photograph all over the beach-you’re tracking some kind of desperado.”
Crease grabbed Paul’s hand and shook it hard, then looked away. “The cops ain’t giving me shit. But I figured it out. It’s because they don’t have shit.”
“There’s nothing for them to have,” said Paul.
Crease held up a hand for Paul to stop. He leaned closer and whispered, “Between you and me, you’re the man! I can tell by the way you hold yourself. You’re running circles around the cops. You probably have the whole thing figured out already-just tying up loose ends now. I heard a rumor it’s a hit man. That true?”
“That’s the stupidest thing-”
“Don’t try to be modest,” interrupted Crease. “You’ve got a style. Reminds me of…” Crease tapped his head like he was on the edge of recollection. Then he opened his eyes wide. “Philip Marlowe! That’s it! You’ve got this whole Robert Mitchum quality goin’ on.”
Paul blushed and looked at the ground.
“So, tell me, who are you tracking? Who’s the bad guy?” Crease said, rubbing his palms together. “Come on. I’m dying to know.”
“You’ve got it wrong. I’m not after a bad guy,” said Paul.
“Great! Love it! An equivocal story-the amoral universe!” said Crease. He made two Ls with the thumb and forefinger of each hand and put them together in a square to frame an imaginary picture in the air. “The mass murderer with a heart of gold! Finally, a villain we can root for in the new millennium!”