“Shit, that’s not a bad idea,” Leonard said.
Red gave Leonard a firm look, then slowly dropped his eyes. My guess was he feared Leonard might be serious, and that he would be forced to perform. Red picked up a can of Coke, swigged from it, then eased into sullen silence.
That night was not a good one. Herman was supposedly helping us. We didn’t want to alienate him by tying him to a chair, and we felt it might be bad form to tie Red to one. Leonard and I, by unspoken plan, stayed awake with the shotgun. Herman and Red watched TV most of the night, dozing on the floor from time to time.
Brett slept all night on the bed and snored loudly. Who says it’s a man’s world?
23
Next morning Bill called and we made arrangements for him to come over before dark and lead us to our airplane ride. When he came we followed his pickup through town and out.
The town where we had slept, Echo, wasn’t much. There were lots of tractors parked about and all kinds of yellow equipment that might have been designed for most anything. Farming. Tank warfare or prairie dog removal. In fact, Echo seemed little more than a town of old cars, old people, and huge yellow machines.
We drove out where there were no houses, no mobile homes, and no beauty, only long miles of dirt and brushy growth and soaring buzzards.
Miles later, we dipped down into an area between great hills and rocks and the falling shadows of the late afternoon. Beyond the hills, stretched out on a flat expanse of land that went for so many acres the eye could not follow, was a long tin shotgun building in front of which grew an oak that looked as if it might suddenly shed its sad sunburned leaves, keel over, and die. There was a relatively new blue pickup parked by the tree.
A man was sitting in a lawn chair under the oak, and when we pulled up close to the shed we saw he was drinking from a can of beer. There was a Styrofoam chest beside his chair. He looked to be a Kickapoo, or certainly to have a lot of Indian blood. He had on blue jeans, boots, and a leather jacket, which seemed inappropriate for the heat. His hair was oily and combed up high and flies had found it; they circled it, looking for a solid place to land.
Bill got out of his truck toting a pack of gear and four canteens strapped to the outside of it. We got out of the car, holding our guns. The man in the lawn chair didn’t seemed surprised by any of it. He sipped his beer. Bill nodded at him, and the man nodded back.
When we were gathered around the chair, the man crushed the empty can, tossed it on the ground, pulled back the lid on the Styrofoam chest, clawed another beer out of the icy water, closed up the chest and said, “You got the money?”
“We got the money,” I said.
He popped the tab on the can, drank from it, held out his free hand, palm up. I took two hundred and fifty out of my wallet and put it in his palm. He folded his fingers over it and the money disappeared inside his jacket faster than a teenager can stuff a fuck-zine into a sock drawer.
“We leave when it gets dark,” he said.
“Since that might be an hour or so,” Brett said, “why don’t you quit suckin’ them suds. I don’t want a drunk flyin’ me nowhere.”
“You can stay here, lady,” he said.
“Not hardly,” Brett said. “I’m the one financin’ this little shindig.”
“I keep the money, and I drink the beer,” the man said.
Leonard kicked the ice chest over, used his leg to sweep the chair out from under the man, who hit the ground, came up rolling, reaching inside his jacket. By then I was on him. I hit him with a backhand. It wasn’t a hard strike across the jaw, but it wasn’t gentle either. He went down on one knee and said, “Shit. I think you loosed a tooth.”
“What the fuck you doin’?” Bill said to him. “They all got guns.”
“I didn’t mean nothing,” the man said. “What’s everybody so jumpy for?”
“Too much coffee,” I said.
Leonard, who was carrying the shotgun, said, “You must have had one too many beers already, fuckin’ with a bunch of folks got guns.”
“I’ve had one beer,” the man said.
“Must be one too many,” Leonard said. “And it’s rude not to offer us some. Everybody get a beer.”
We did. We popped the tops and sucked on them. I didn’t drink beer much anymore, but I enjoyed this one.
Leonard said, “And keep your hand out of your jacket, asshole, or you’ll wake up with it in your ass.”
The man smiled. “All right. All right. You’re all tough guys. And one tough broad. Where’d you get the midget?”
“There they go again,” Red said.
“We bought him off a souvenir rack,” Leonard said. “But we lost the funny hat came with him.”
“That’s enough,” Herman said.
“And you got a giant to go with him,” the man said. He laughed and brushed the seat of his pants off, uprighted his chair, found a fresh beer on the ground and opened it.
“Where’s the plane?” Brett said.
“In the hangar,” the man said. “I’m not supposed to fly it. I’m not supposed to have it. I had my license taken away. I used to fly puddle jumpers for the U.S. Mail.”
“And why did you have your license taken away?” I asked.
“I crashed one,” he said. “Killed the motherfucker with me, which was no loss. I didn’t like him anyway. I don’t think that bothered them so much, but I lost a lot of mail. Burned up. ’Course, I kept some things and they found out, and I ended up nearly going to jail big-time. They didn’t want the scandal, so I gave back the courier packet.”
“What was in it?” Brett asked.
“Money,” he said. “By the way. They call me Irvin.”
The shotgun building was long and dark and hot. When Irvin hit the lights dust motes swam around like little sponges underwater and dust rose up from our feet in billows, and as our eyes adjusted we saw our ride. It looked like something you’d wind up with a rubber band and toss.
“Them wings glued on?” Leonard asked.
“It’s better than it looks,” Irvin said.
“I sure as hell hope so,” Brett said. “When’s the last time you flew it?”
“Not so long ago that you no longer recall how to fly, I presume?” Red said.
“Month ago,” Irvin said. “But it’s gassed and ready, and safe, long as you don’t make too long a flight or get in too big a hurry.”
“Or want to get airborne,” Leonard said.
“It’ll get up there,” Irvin said. “It just heats up some you fly too long. Unfortunately, it’s the engine heats, not the cabin. Not unless it catches on fire. Which, if we push too hard it could.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Brett said.
“It’s warm now, but come nightfall, up there, you best have some long jammies on under your clothes. It’ll freeze your balls off. And in your case, lady, whatever’s hangin’.”
I turned to Bill. “This is it?”
Bill shrugged, “I didn’t say I could offer you Air Force One.”
“This is Negative One,” Brett said.
When night came it turned cold as Irvin predicted. We helped push the plane out of the hangar, then boarded. It was crowded in there, us with our guns, and Red ended up sitting on the floor.
The plane’s outside lights were dim, the inside control panel lights a sickly green. The motor sounded as if it would really rather not do this. The runway was bumpy. We left out of there with a bang and clatter and a sickening lurch.
We bobbed into the night sky and the engine coughed and sputtered and the propeller on the left wing stopped and started, eventually caught as it cast the remnants of a wasp nest away. Directly below us there was nothing but the dark land, and way to the left were lights, clean and clear and bright, like fallen stars. I assumed they were the lights of sleepy Echo.