Dortmunder looked at him. "Don't do anything stupid," he said. "Just take off."
"Yes," Firgus said. Luckily he was an old hand with this plane and could fly it while his mind was doing flip-flops. He set the Vela going, they skeetered away down the runway, the black men came to a panting stop way back there, and the Vela climbed abruptly into the air.
"Good," Dortmunder said.
Firgus looked at him. "If you shoot me," he said, "we'll crash and you'll die too."
"I won't shoot anybody," Dortmunder said.
"But we can't make it to Cuba," Firgus said. "With the gas I've got, we wouldn't make it much past Washington."
"I don't want to go to Cuba," Dortmunder said. "I don't want to go to Washington either."
"Then where do you want to go? Not over the ocean, that's even longer."
"Where were you going?"
Firgus couldn't figure any of this out. "Well," he said, "Pittsburgh, actually."
"Head that way," Dortmunder said.
"You want to go to Pittsburgh?"
"Just do what you were going to do," Dortmunder said. "Don't mind me."
"Well," Firgus said. "All right."
Dortmunder looked at the sleeping man in back, then out the window at the lights going by in the darkness below. They were away from the airport already. The Balabomo Emerald was in Dortmunder's jacket pocket. Things were more or less under control.
It took fifteen minutes to fly over New York and reach New Jersey, and Firgus was silent all that time. But he seemed to relax a little more when they were over the darker, quieter New Jersey swamp, and he said, "Boy, I don't know what your problem is, but you sure scared the dickens out of me."
"Sorry," Dortmunder said. "I was in a hurry."
"I guess you must have been." Firgus glanced around at Bullock, who was still asleep. "Does he have a surprise coining," he said.
But Bullock kept on sleeping, and another quarter hour went by, and then Dortmunder said, "What's that down there?"
"What's what?"
"That sort of pale strip."
Firgus looked down and said, "Oh, that's Route Eighty. You know, one of the new superhighways they're building. That part isn't done yet. And they're obsolete, you know. This is the coming thing, the small private plane. Why, do you know-"
"It looks done," Dortmunder said.
"What?"
"That road down there. It looks done."
"Well, it isn't open yet." Firgus was irritated. He wanted to tell Dortmunder the wonderful statistics of private plane ownership in the United States.
"Land there," Dortmunder said.
Firgus stared at him. "Do what?"
"It's wide enough for a plane like this," Dortmunder said. "Land there."
"Why?"
"So I can get out. Don't worry, I'm still not going to shoot you."
Firgus banked the plane and circled back over the pale strip on the dark ground below. "I don't know," he said dubiously. "There's no lights or anything."
"You can do it," Dortmunder told him. "You're a good pilot, I can tell you are." He didn't know anything about flying at all.
Firgus preened. "Well, I suppose I could bring her in down there," he said. "Be a little tricky, but not impossible."
"Good."
Firgus circled twice more before making the attempt. He was clearly nervous, and his nervousness communicated itself to Dortmunder, who almost told him to fly on, they'd find someplace better farther on. But there wouldn't be anyplace better. Dortmunder couldn't have Firgus land at a regular airport anywhere, so it had to be something irregular, and at least that was a straight ribbon of concrete down there, and wide enough to land the plane on.
Which Firgus did, very well, once he'd built his nerve up to it. He landed as light as a feather, brought the Vela to a stop in seven hundred feet, and turned a huge smile at Dortmunder. "That's what I call flying," he said.
"Me too," Dortmunder said.
Firgus looked at Bullock again and said testily, "I wish to hell he'd wake up." He poked Bullock's shoulder. "Wake up!"
"Let him alone," Dortmunder said.
"If he doesn't see you," Firgus said, "he won't believe any of this. Hey, Bullock! God damn it, man, you're missing an adventure!" He punched Bullock's shoulder again, a little harder than before.
"Thanks for the lift," Dortmunder said and got out of the plane.
"Bullock!" shouted Firgus, pummeling and punching his friend. "Will you for Christ's sake wake up!"
Dortmunder walked away into the darkness.
Bullock came up to consciousness amid a rain of blows, sat up, yawned, rubbed his face, looked around, blinked, frowned, and said, "Where the hell are we?"
"Route Eighty in Jersey," Firgus told him. "Look, do you see that guy? Look quick, will you, before he's out of sight!"
"Route Eighty? We're in an airplane, Firgus!"
"Will you look!"
"What the hell you doin' on the ground? You want to cause an accident? What are you doin' on Route Eighty?"
"He's out of sight," Firgus said, throwing up his hands in disgust. "I asked you to look, but no."
"You must be drunk, or somethin'," Bullock said. "You're driving an airplane down Route Eighty!"
"I'm not driving an airplane down Route Eighty!"
"Well, what the hell do you call it then?"
"We were hijacked, God damn it! A guy jumped on the plane with a gun and-"
"You should of been in the air, it wouldn't of happened."
"Back at Kennedy! Just before we took off, he jumped in with a gun and hijacked us."
"Oh, sure he did," Bullock said. "And here we are in lovely Havana."
"He didn't want to go to Havana."
"No. He wanted to go to New Jersey. He hijacked an airplane to take him to New Jersey."
"Can I help it?" yelled Firgus. "It's what happened!"
"One of us is having a bad dream," Bullock said, "and since you're at the wheel I hope it's me."
"If you'd woke up in time-"
"Yeah, well, wake me when we get to the Delaware Water Gap. I don't want to miss the expression on their faces when an airplane drives up to the tollbooth." Bullock shook his head and lay down again.
Firgus stayed half turned in the seat, glowering at him. "A guy hijacked us," he said, voice dangerously soft. "It did happen."
"If you're gonna fly this low," Bullock said, with his eyes closed, "why not stop at a diner and get us a couple coffees and Danish to go."
"When we get to Pittsburgh," Firgus said, "I am going to punch you in the mouth." And he faced front, turned the Vela around, took off, and flew in a bright fury all the way to Pittsburgh.
6
The Akinzi Ambassador to the United Nations was a large stout man named Nkolimi. One rainy October afternoon, Ambassador Nkolimi was sitting in his private dining room in the Akinzi embassy, a narrow townhouse on East 63rd Street in Manhattan, when a member of the staff came in and said, "Ambassador, there is a man outside who wants to see you."
The Ambassador was eating a Sara Lee Cinnamon Nut Coffee Cake at the moment. The whole thing, all by himself, which was one of the reasons he was such a very stout man. It was his midafternoon snack for today. He was drinking with it coffee with cream and sugar. He was enjoying himself hugely, in more than one meaning of the term, and he disliked being interrupted. He said, "What does he want to see me about?"
"He says it concerns the Balabomo Emerald."
The Ambassador frowned. "He's a policeman?"
"I don't think so, Ambassador."
"What do you think he is?"
"A gangster, Ambassador."
The Ambassador lifted an eyebrow. "Really," he said. "Bring him here, this gangster."
"Yes, Ambassador."
The staff member went away, and the Ambassador filled the waiting time and his mouth with Sara Lee Cinnamon Nut Coffee Cake. He was just adding coffee when the staff member returned and said, "I have him here, sir."
The Ambassador waved a hand to have the gangster brought in, and Dortmunder was ushered into his presence. The Ambassador motioned for Dortmunder to sit down across the table, and Dortmunder did so. The Ambassador, still chewing and swallowing, made hand motions suggestive of offering some coffee cake to Dortmunder, but Dortmunder said, "No, thank you." The Ambassador drank some more coffee, swallowed hugely, patted his lips with his napkin, and said, "Ahh. Now. I understand you want to talk about the Balabomo Emerald."