The plane was almost vertical, speeding to the ground. We screamed down the face of the mountain for a couple of seconds, just long enough for Moran to fall forward, losing his equilibrium.
I eased back on the controls, the throttle and yoke, and the Cessna stabilized. We were through the worst of it, flying level now, five hundred feet above the ground.
“What the hell are you doing? You got too close to that goddamn mountain!” He struggled to get back in his seat.
I leaned forward.
“What’s going on? Why are you bending that way?”
I pulled the gun from my belt and put it in my lap. With my other hand, I reached down next to the seat and turned off the gas valve. Any second the engine would quit.
I held the Beretta low in my right hand, where Moran couldn’t see it.
The engine coughed once and quit. The silence was eerie.
“Goddammit! What the fuck!”
I slipped the gun barrel in the gap between the seat backs, turned, and faced Moran. Our eyes locked.
“We are experiencing a little momentary difficulty,” I said.
He swung the gun away from Rita. “Get the engine started, now! Goddammit! I’m going to blow your brains-”
I shot Moran in the head.
CHAPTER 42
“Goddammit, Rita! Quit kicking the seat. I gotta get the engine started.”
Holding the yoke with one hand, I quickly reached down and flipped the gas valve to open with the other. The plane was losing precious altitude, gliding with the propeller windmilling, but almost instantly the engine caught.
The seat back jumped; Rita had kicked it. It jumped again-hard. “Hang on a minute. Let me get this thing under control.” Her muffled cries competed with the howl of the engine. But right then I had other things on my mind-like how to keep us from flying into the ground.
I added backpressure to the elevator control and the little plane, with its nose high, soared into the air. It climbed smooth and serene. It was as if the Cessna sensed that Moran was dead and no longer an infection festering in its belly.
I knew I wouldn’t lose any sleep over his death. The guy was evil, a greedy bastard, sacrificing others for his own gain. I did what I had to do to save Rita and myself from being killed, either during the flight or when we landed in Mexico. The only remorse I felt was that Moran wouldn’t stand trial and be punished for his crimes: kidnapping, torture, and murder, to name just a few. It seemed to me that he got off easy.
The seat thumped firmly against my back. Rita’s legs were like spring-loaded battering rams. I turned. She leaned forward; I hesitated, but only for a moment, then reached back and tore the tape from her mouth.
“Ouch! Damn, that hurt.” She squirmed and turned until her bound wrists were thrust toward me. “Here, untie me quick, Jimmy. I can’t stay back here with… him.” She nodded at Moran’s corpse slumped in the seat next to her, its head lolling to the side. He had died instantly, so only a small amount of blood trickled from the bullet hole that had replaced his left eye.
I trimmed the plane so that it would fly straight and level without too much effort from me. Fishing in the glove box, I found the small emergency kit: matches, beef jerky, and a hunting knife. I cut the cords binding Rita’s wrists.
One leg came over the seat back, exposing a lot of thigh, and then her fanny appeared. I tried not to gawk. Finally the rest of her followed. She plopped down in the passenger seat with a stern look on her face, as if trying to hold her dignity intact.
“What are you looking at?” she demanded. “Concentrate on the flying, buster.” She had a nice figure, but oh my, I’d never seen it from that angle before.
“Hey, were you scared?”
“Scared!” Rita exclaimed, her brown eyes flashing. “No, it’s been a picnic. I love being tied up with a big gun stuck in my ribs. And it’s so much fun flying around with a guy at the controls who’d ask such a stupid question.”
I tried to lighten it up. “Just another day in the life of an O’Brien Law Firm associate. An associate who wants to be a partner someday, I might add.”
“Don’t give me that crap. I had no choice, did what I had to do.”
“Just a minute. I’ve got to fly the plane. Mountains ahead.” I had to think of something to take Rita’s mind off the ordeal she’d just been through, or I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the task at hand. “Look in the glove box. See if there’s an owner’s manual in there, something that will tell me how to fly this thing.”
“Oh, my God! What have I gotten myself into? I had a better chance with Moran.” I glared at her and she started fumbling in the glove box. “Damn you, O’Brien.”
The plane meandered. I turned the control wheel and applied a little rudder and the plane drifted back on course-the imaginary line I had drawn on the map in my mind.
“There’s no manual in here…” She raised her head. “You were kidding, weren’t you? You really don’t need a book. Do you?”
“Don’t worry; I know how to fly the thing. I was kidding. But seriously, I know you’ve just been through hell. We both have, but we survived.”
Rita stared out at the horizon, taking a moment to compose her thoughts. “Jimmy, I was scared, really scared, and when I saw you I almost lost it. I knew you came to save me and I knew we were both going to be killed. Jimmy, you were foolish to…”
“Hey, I couldn’t sit there and do nothing. But anyhow, I’m proud of you, proud of your courage and the way you didn’t fold up when it mattered. Are you going to be okay?”
“I’m fine now, I guess,” Rita said. “But in the future can we just stick to DUI cases, maybe a little petty theft when things get dull?”
“As long as we don’t do any corporate law. I’ve met enough big-time crooks already.”
We flew at five thousand feet over the Calico range. Glancing down, I saw the complex, structures scattered like tiny toy blocks in the valley way off in the distance. I didn’t mention it to Rita, but I was worried about landing the plane on that short strip. I thought about flying to Barstow or someplace where they had a longer runway, but I knew I’d get lost. For now I was doing fine, the Cessna cruising along as smooth as a Coltrane riff.
I took a quick look at Rita. She sat quietly, alone with her thoughts. “So, Rita, it’s just you and me alone up here with a pouch full of diamonds.”
“Yeah, and one dead guy in back.” She turned to me. “He liked diamonds too, Jimmy.”
“I thought diamonds were a girl’s best friend.”
“Right now I’d settle for a friend who knows how to land an airplane. How many lessons did that blonde give you anyway?”
“Ooh, that hurts.” I frowned and thought, is she reading my mind? “Hey, it’s your fault we’re here.” I shook my head. “You and your writ. What in hell were you thinking? Just what kind of writ were you trying to serve anyway?”
“Oh, I wasn’t trying to serve papers or anything. That was just an excuse. I wanted to see what was going on.”
“You wanted to see what was going on?”
“Whoa, Jimmy, it wasn’t idle curiosity. Remember I told you I got a look at Professor Carmichael’s research paper?”
“Yeah, so?”
“The guy was a geologist, an expert in borax. I won’t bore you with the details, but basically he couldn’t figure out how the mines in the Calico area-Moran’s mines-could make a profit. He knew the ore wasn’t rich enough to support an operation as large as his. So he did a little investigating on his own. He came out here secretly and took a look around. And when he saw the kids working, well…”