Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales (28 page)

Tilley frowned. “What makes you say that I am a Latin scholar?”

“A few moments ago you trotted out a Latin phrase. I presumed that you knew its meaning.”

“My Latin is almost nonexistent. Mr. Gray was fond of Latin tags and phrases, so I tried to keep up by memorizing some of those he used frequently.”

“I see. So you don’t know what this one means?”

Tilley looked at the printed note. He shook his head. “
Memento
means ‘remember,’ doesn’t it?”

“Have you ever heard the phrase
memento mori
? That would be a more popular version of what is written here.”

Tilley shook his head. “Remember something, I suppose?”

“Why do you think the Latin word for ‘man’ has quotation marks around it?”

“I don’t know what it means. I do not know Latin.”

“What this says roughly is, ‘Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you will return.’ It was obviously written on a computer, a word processor. Do you recognize the type?”

Tilley shook his head. “It could be any one of hundreds of company standards. I hope you are not implying that I wrote Mr. Gray a death threat?”

“How would this have made its way into his attaché case?” Fane said, ignoring the comment.

“I presume someone put it there.”

“Who would have such access to it?”

“I suppose that you are still accusing me? I hated him. But not so that I would cut my own throat. He was a bastard, but he was the goose who laid the golden egg. There was no point in being rid of him.”

“Just so,” muttered Fane thoughtfully. His eye caught sight of a notepad in the case, and he flicked through its pages while Frank Tilley sat looking on in discomfort. Fane found a list of initials with the head, “immediate dismissal” and that day’s date.

“A list of half a dozen people that he was about to sack?” Fane observed.

“I told you that he was going to enjoy a public purge of his executives and mentioned some names to me.”

“The list contains only initials and starts with O. T. E.” He glanced at Tilley with a raised eyebrow. “Oscar Elgee?”

“Hardly,” Tilley replied with a patronizing smile. “It means Otis T. Elliott, the general manager of our U.S. database subsidiary.”

“I see. Let’s see if we can identify the others.”

He ran through the other initials to which Tilley added names. The next four were also executives of Gray’s companies. The last initials were written as Ft.

“F. T. is underscored three times with the words ‘no payoff!’ written against it. Who’s F. T.?”

“You know that F. T. are my initials,” Tilley observed quietly. His features were white and suddenly very grave. “I swear that he never said anything to me about sacking me when we discussed those he had on his list. He never mentioned it.”

“Well, was there anyone else in the company that the initials F. T. could apply to?”

Tilley frowned, trying to recall, but finally shook his head and gave a resigned shrug. “No. It could only be me. The bastard! He never told me what he was planning. Some nice little public humiliation, I suppose.”

Hector Ross emerged from the curtained section and motioned Fane to join him. “I think I can tell you how it was done,” he announced with satisfaction.

Fane grinned at his friend. “So can I. Tell me if I am wrong. Gray went into the toilet to use his inhaler to relieve an attack of asthma. He placed the inhaler in his mouth, depressed it in the normal way, and…” He ended with a shrug.

Ross looked shocked. “How did you—?” He glanced over Fane’s shoulder to where Frank Tilley was still sitting, twitching nervously. “Did he confess that he set it up?”

Fane shook his head. “No. But was I right?”

“It is a good hypothesis but needs a laboratory to confirm it. I found tiny particles of aluminium in the mouth, and some plastic. Something certainly exploded with force, sending a tiny steel projectile into the back roof of the mouth with such force that it entered the brain and death was instantaneous, as you initially surmised. Whatever had triggered the projectile disintegrated with the force. Hence there were only small fragments embedded in his mouth and cheeks. There were some when I searched carefully, around the cubicle. Diabolical.”

“This was arranged by someone who knew that friend Gray had a weakness and banked on it. Gray didn’t like to take his inhaler in public and would find a quiet corner. The plan worked out very well and nearly presented an impossible crime, an almost insolvable crime. Initially it appeared that the victim had been shot in the mouth in a locked toilet.”

Hector Ross smiled indulgently at his colleague. “You imply that you already have the solution?”

“Oh yes. Remember the song that we used to sing at school?

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.”

Hector Ross nodded. “It’s many a day since I last sang that, laddie. Something by Longfellow, wasn’t it?”

Fane grinned. “It was, indeed. Based on some lines from the Book of Genesis—
‘terra es, terram ibis
’—‘dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return.’ Get Captain Evans here, please.” He made the request to the Chief Steward, Jeff Ryder, who had been waiting attendance on Ross. When he had departed, Fane glanced back to his friend. “There is something to be said for Latin scholarship.”

“I don’t follow, laddie.”

“Our murderer was too fond of the Latin in-jokes he shared with his boss.”

“You mean his secretary?” He glanced at Frank Tilley.

“Tilley claims that he couldn’t even translate
memento mori
.”

“Remember death?”

Fane regarded his friend in disapproval. “It actually means ‘remember to die’ and a
memento mori
is usually applied to a human skull or some other object that reminds us of our mortality.”

Captain Evans arrived and looked from Fane to Ross in expectation. “Well, what news?”

“To save any unpleasant scene on the aircraft, Captain, I suggest you radio ahead and have the police waiting to arrest one of your passengers on a charge of murder. No need to make any move until we land. The man can’t go far.”

“Which man?” demanded Evans, his face grim.

“He is listed as Oscar Elgee in the tourist class.”

“How could he—”

“Simple. Elgee was not only Gray’s manservant but I think you’ll find, from the broad hints Mr. Tilley gave me, that he was also his lover. Elgee seems to confirm it by a death note with a Latin phrase in which he emphasized the word
homo
, meaning ‘man,’ but, we also know it was often used as a slang term in my generation for ‘homosexual.’”

“How would you know that Elgee was capable of understanding puns in Latin?” asked Ross.

“The moment he saw Gray’s body, young Elgee muttered the very words.
Terra es, terram ibis—
dust you are, to dust you will return.”

“A quarrel between lovers?” asked Ross. “Love to hatred turned—and all that, as Billy Shakespeare succinctly put it?”

Fane nodded. “Gray was giving Elgee the push, both as lover and employee, and so Elgee decided to end his lover’s career in midflight, so to speak. There is a note in his attaché case that Elgee was to be sacked immediately without compensation.”

Tilley, who had been sitting quietly, shook his head vehemently.

“No there isn’t,” he interrupted. “We went through the list. I told you that the initials O. T. E. referred to Otis Elliott. I had faxed that dismissal through before we boarded the plane.”

Fane smiled softly. “‘You have forgotten F. T.”

“But that’s my—”

“You didn’t share your boss’s passion for Latin tags, did you? It was the F. T. that confused me. I should have trusted that a person with Gray’s reputation would not have written F followed by a lower case t if he meant two initials F. T. I missed the point. It was not your initials at all, Mr. Tilley. It was
Ft
meant as an abbreviation. Specifically,
fac
, from
facere
: ‘to do’; and
tatum
: ‘all things.’
Factotum
. And who was Gray’s factotum?”

There was a silence.

“I think we will find that this murder was planned for a week or two at least. Once I began to realize what the mechanism was that killed Gray, all I had to do was look for the person capable of devising that mechanism as well as having motive and opportunity. Hold out your hands, Mr. Tilley.”

Reluctantly the secretary did so.

“You can’t seriously see those hands constructing a delicate mechanism, can you?” Fane said. “No, Elgee, the model maker and handyman, doctored one of Gray’s inhalers so that when it was depressed it would explode with an impact into the mouth, shooting a needle into the brain. Simple but effective. He knew that Gray did not like to be seen using the inhaler in public. The rest was left to chance, and it was a good chance. It almost turned out to be the ultimate impossible crime. It might have worked, had not our victim and his murderer been too fond of their Latin in-jokes.”

The Turbulence Expert

Stephen King

Stephen King—that’s me—has written at least two stories about airplane frights. One is called “The Langoliers,” and was made into a TV miniseries. The other, “The Night Flier,” is about a vampire who flies a private airplane instead of turning into a bat. That story was turned into a feature film. This one is brand new.

1

Craig Dixon was sitting in the living room of a Four Seasons junior suite, eating expensive room service chow and watching a movie on pay-per-view, when the phone rang. His previously calm heartbeat lost its mojo and sped up. Dixon was unattached, the perfect definition of a rolling stone, and only one person knew he was here in this fancy hotel across from Boston Common. He considered not answering, but the man he thought of as the facilitator would only call back, and keep calling until he answered. If he refused to answer, there would be consequences.

This isn’t hell, he thought, the accommodations are too nice, but it’s purgatory. And no prospect of retirement for a long time.

He muted the TV and picked up the phone. He didn’t say hello. What he said was, “This isn’t fair. I just got in from Seattle two days ago. I’m still in recovery mode.”

“Understood and terribly sorry, but this has come up and you’re the only one available.”
Sorry
came out
thorry
.

The facilitator had the soothing, put-you-to-sleep voice of an FM disc jockey, spoiled only by an occasional light lisp. Dixon had never seen him, but imagined him as tall and slim, with blue eyes and an ageless, unlined face. In reality he was probably fat, bald, and swarthy, but Dixon felt confident his mental picture would never change, because he never expected to see the facilitator. He had known a number of turbulence experts over his years with the firm—if it
was
a firm—and none of them had ever seen the man. Certainly none of the experts who worked for him were unlined; even the ones in their twenties and thirties looked middle-aged. It wasn’t the job, where there were sometimes late hours but no heavy lifting. It was what made them capable of
doing
the job.

“Tell me,” Dixon said.

“Allied Airlines Flight 19. Nonstop Boston to Sarasota. Leaves at 8:10 tonight. You’ve just got time to make it.”

“There’s
nobody
else?” Dixon realized he was nearly bleating. “I’m tired, man.
Tired
. That run from Seattle was a bitch.”

“Your usual seat,” the facilitator said, pronouncing the last word
theat
. Then he hung up.

Dixon looked at swordfish he no longer wanted. He looked at the Kate Winslet movie he would never finish, at least not in Boston. He thought—and not for the first time!—of just packing up and renting a car and driving north, first to New Hampshire, then to Maine, then across the border to Canada. But they would catch him. This he knew. And the rumors of what happened to experts who ran included electrocution, evisceration, even being boiled alive. Dixon did not believe these rumors…except he sort of did.

He began to pack. There wasn’t much. Turbulence experts traveled light.

2

His ticket was waiting for him at the counter. As always, his assignment placed him in coach, just aft of the starboard wing, in the middle seat. How that particular one could always be available was another mystery, like who the facilitator was, where he was calling from, or what sort of an organization he worked for. Like the ticket, the seat was just always waiting for him.

Dixon placed his bag in the overhead bin and looked at tonight’s fellow travelers: a businessman with red eyes and gin breath on the aisle, a middle-aged lady who looked like a librarian next to the window. The businessman grunted something unintelligible when Dixon sidled past him with a murmured apology. The guy was reading a paperback charmingly titled
Don’t Let the Boss F**k With You.
The elderly librarian type was looking out the window at the various pieces of equipment that were trundling back and forth, as if they were the most fascinating things she had ever seen. There was knitting in her lap. Looked to Dixon like a sweater.

She turned, gave him a smile, and held out her hand. “Hello, I’m Mary Worth. Just like the comic strip chick.”

Dixon didn’t know any comic strip chick named Mary Worth, but he shook her hand. “Craig Dixon. Nice to meet you.”

The businessman grunted and turned a page in his book.

“I’m so looking forward to this,” Mary Worth said. “I haven’t had a real vacation in twelve years. I’m sharing the rent of a little place on Siesta Key with a couple of chums.”

“Chums,” the businessman grunted. The grunt seemed to be his default position.

“Yes!” Mary Worth twinkled. “We have it for three weeks. We’ve never actually met, but they are true chums. We’re all widows. We met in a chat room on the Internet. It’s so wonderful, the Internet. There was nothing like it when I was young.”

“Pedophiles think it’s wonderful, too,” said the businessman, and turned another page.

Ms. Worth’s smile faltered, then came on strong. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Dixon. Are you traveling for business or pleasure?”

“Business,” he said.

The speakers went ding-dong. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Stuart speaking. You’ll see that we are pulling away from the gate and beginning our taxi to Runway 3, where we’re third in line for take-off. We estimate a two hour and forty-minute flight down to SRQ, which should put you in the land of palms and sandy beaches just before eleven o’clock. Skies are clear, and we’re anticipating a smooth ride all the way. Now I’d like you to fasten your seatbelts, put away any tray tables you may have lowered—”

“Like we had anything to put
on
them,” the businessman grunted.

“—and secure any personal possessions you may have been using. Thank you for flying Allied tonight. We know you have many choices.”

“My ass,” the businessman grunted.

“Read your book,” Dixon said. The businessman shot him a startled look.

Dixon’s heart was already beating hard, his stomach was clenched, his throat dry with anticipation. He could tell himself it was going to be all right, it was
always
all right, but that didn’t help. He dreaded the depths that would soon open beneath him.

Allied 19 took off at 8:13 PM, just three minutes behind schedule.

3

Somewhere over Maryland, a flight attendant pushed a drinks-and-snacks cart down the aisle. The businessman put his book aside, waiting impatiently for her to reach him. When she did, he took a can of Schweppes tonic, two little bottles of gin, and a bag of Fritos. His MasterCard didn’t work when she ran it and he gave her his American Express card, glaring at her as if the failure of his first offering were her fault. Dixon wondered if the MasterCard was maxed out and Mr. Businessman saved the Amex for break-glass-in-case-of-emergency situations. It could be, his haircut was bad and he looked frayed around the edges. It didn’t matter one way or the other to Dixon, but it was something to think about besides the constant low terror. The anticipation. They were cruising at 34,000 feet, and that was a long way down.

Mary Worth asked for some wine, and poured it neatly into her little plastic glass.

“You’re not having anything, Mr. Dixon?”

“No. I don’t eat or drink on airplanes.”

Mr. Businessman grunted. He was already through his first gin and tonic, and starting on the second.

“You’re a white-knuckle flier, aren’t you?” Mary Worth asked sympathetically.

“Yes.” There was no reason not to admit it. “I’m afraid I am.”

“Needless,” Mr. Businessman said. Refreshed by his drink, he was speaking actual words instead of grunting them out. “Safest form of travel ever invented. Hasn’t been a commercial aircraft crash in donkey’s years. At least not in this country.”

“I don’t mind,” Mary Worth said. She had gotten outside half of her small bottle, and there were now roses in her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled. “I haven’t been on a plane since my husband died five years ago, but the two of us used to fly together three or four times a year. I feel close to God up here.”

As if on cue, a baby began to cry.

“If heaven is this crowded and noisy,” Mr. Businessman observed, surveying the 737’s coach cabin, “I don’t want to go.”

“They say it’s fifty times safer than automobile travel,” Mary Worth said. “Perhaps even more. It might have been a hundred.”

“Try five hundred times safer.” Mr. Businessman leaned past Dixon and held out a hand to Mary Worth. Gin had worked its temporary miracle, turning him from surly to affable. “Frank Freeman.”

She shook with him, smiling. Craig Dixon sat between them, upright and miserable, but when Freeman offered his hand, he shook it.

“Wow,” Freeman said, and actually laughed. “You
are
scared. But you know what they say, cold hands, warm heart.” He tossed off the rest of his drink.

Dixon’s own credit cards always worked. He stayed in first class hotels and ate first class meals. Sometimes he spent the night with a good-looking woman, paying extra to indulge in quirks that were not, at least judging by certain Internet sites Mary Worth probably did not visit, very quirky. He had friends among the other turbulence experts. They were a close-knit crew, bound together not only by their occupation but by their fears. The pay was far better than good, there were all those fringe benefits…but at times like this, none of that seemed to matter. At times like this there was only the fear.

It would be all right. It was
always
all right.

But at times like this, waiting for the shitstorm to happen, that thought had no power. Which was, of course, what made him good at the job.

34,000 feet. A long way down.

4

CAT, for clear air turbulence.

Dixon knew it well, but was never prepared for it. Allied 19 was somewhere above South Carolina when it hit this time. A woman was making her way to the toilet at the back of the plane. A young man wearing jeans and a fashionable scruff of beard was bending to talk to a woman in an aisle seat on the port side, the two of them laughing about something. Mary Worth was dozing with her head resting against the window. Frank Freeman was halfway through his third drink and his second bag of Fritos.

The jetliner suddenly canted to port and took a gigantic upward leap, thudding and creaking. The woman on her way to the can was flung across the last row of portside seats. The beard-scruffy young man flew into the overhead bulkhead, getting one hand up just in time to cushion the blow. Several people who had unfastened their seatbelts rose above their seatbacks as if levitated. There were screams.

The plane dropped like a stone down a well, thudded, then rose again, now tilting the other way. Freeman had been caught raising his drink, and he was now wearing it.

“Fuck!” he cried.

Dixon shut his eyes and waited to die. He knew he would not if he did his job, it was what he was there for, but it was always the same. He always waited to die.

The ding-dong went. “This is the captain speaking.” Stuart’s voice was—as some sportscaster had popularized the phrase—as cool as the other side of the pillow. “We seem to have run into some unexpected turbulence, folks. I have—”

The plane took another horrifying lift, sixty tons of metal thrown upward like a piece of charred paper in a chimney, then dropped with another of those creaking thuds. There were more screams. The bathroom-bound lady, who had picked herself up, staggered backward, flailed her arms, and fell into the seats on the starboard side. Mr. Beard Scruff was crouched in the aisle, holding onto the armrests on either side. Two or three of the overhead compartments popped open and luggage tumbled out.

“Fuck!” Freeman said again.

“So I have turned on the seatbelt sign,” the pilot resumed. “Sorry about this, folks, we’ll be back to smooth air—”

The plane began to rise and fall in a series of stuttering jerks, like a stone skipping across a pond.

“—in just a few, so hang in there.”

The plane dropped, then booted upward again. The carry-on bags in the aisle rose and fell and tumbled. Dixon’s eyes were crammed shut. His heart was now running so fast that there seemed to be no individual beats. His mouth was sour with adrenaline. He felt a hand creep into his and opened his eyes. Mary Worth was staring at him, her face parchment pale. Her eyes were huge.

“Are we going to die, Mr. Dixon?”

Yes, he thought. This time we are going to die.

“No,” he said. “We’re perfectly all r—”

The plane seemed to run into a brick wall, throwing them forward against their belts, and then heeled over to port: thirty degrees, forty, fifty. Just when Dixon was sure it was going to roll over completely, it righted itself. Dixon heard people yelling. The baby was wailing. A man was shouting, “It’s okay, Julie, it’s normal, it’s okay!”

Dixon shut his eyes again and let the terror fully take him. It was horrible; it was the only way.

He saw them rolling back, this time not stopping but going all the way over. He saw the big jet losing its place in the thermodynamic mystery that had formerly held it up. He saw the nose rising fast, then slowing, then heeling downward like a rollercoaster car starting its first plunge. He saw the plane starting its ultimate dive, the passengers who had been unbelted now plastered to the ceiling, the yellow oxygen masks doing a final frantic tarantella in the air. He saw the baby flying forward and disappearing into business class, still wailing. He saw the plane hit, the nose and the first-class compartment nothing but a crumpled steel bouquet blooming its way into coach, sprouting wires and plastic and severed limbs even as fire exploded and Dixon drew a final breath that ignited his lungs like paper bags.

All of this in mere seconds—perhaps thirty, no more than forty—and so real it might actually have been happening. Then, after taking one more antic bounce, the plane steadied and Dixon opened his eyes. Mary Worth was staring at him, her eyes welling with tears.

“I thought we were going to die,” she said. “I
knew
we were going to die. I
saw
it.”