Fly Paper (15 page)

14

BY THE TIME
the plane landed at the Quad City Airport, most of the passengers were smashed. Common practice during a skyjacking was for flight attendants to serve free drinks to anyone who wanted one, and that included just about everybody on board; the exceptions were sitting in front of Jon and Nolan: a trio of nuns, who looked like they could use a good, stiff drink, at that.

The booze had had its intended calming effect on the passengers, creating an atmosphere not nearly as tense as it might have been. Other factors had also helped lessen the tension, the main one being that the skyjacker had remained anonymous to his fellow travelers, and had not gone about waving a gun and shouting obscenities and generally reminding everybody they were sitting on a flying powder keg. Of course, the tension was there, underneath it all, and if the atmosphere was strangely like a party, it was a less than jolly affair—a going-away party, perhaps, or a bankrupt company’s last Christmas fling.

Even Jon had fallen prey to the free-flowing liquor; he wasn’t much for hard booze, but the role of skyjacking victim was upsetting enough to his nerves for him to gladly switch from Coke to Bourbon and Coke and its soothing, analgesic powers. Jon had downed only two of them so far, but he was feeling the glow. He and Nolan hadn’t spoken much since the news of the plane’s enforced change of destination, and now he glanced at Nolan and regarded his older friend’s expressionless, tightjawed demeanor. He figured Nolan’s stern countenance meant one of the following: either Nolan was pissed off, or was putting together a scheme of some sort, or both.

Anyway, Jon thought, something was wrong. Nolan hadn’t had anything to drink since that first Scotch, which he’d barely finished. That wasn’t like Nolan, turning down free drinks. Turning down free anything.

For some reason, Nolan was taking this skyjack thing very, very hard, and it puzzled Jon.

“Hey,” Jon said, whispering. “This’ll work out all right. What’s the harm? I mean, it got us home quicker, didn’t it?”

Nolan said nothing.

“I agree with you,” Jon continued, “about the kid in the wig. I don’t think he put a bomb on board, either. Or anyway, if he did, I don’t think he’s the type to set it off.”

Nolan was shaking his head now. He looked disappointed.

“Nolan, what’s wrong?”

They were speaking low anyway, because of the holy trio in the seat ahead, but now they lowered their voices to less than whispers, reading each other’s lips, really, a communication just this side of telepathy.

“Don’t you get it?” Nolan said. “Don’t you see it yet?”

“Get what? See what?”

“We’re screwed.”

“Huh?”

“Your pal in the wig, Jon. He’s screwed us. Shoved it in and broke it off.”

“What d’you mean? How are we worse off than anybody else on the plane?”

Nolan took Jon’s almost-empty glass of Bourbon and Coke away from him, set it on the floor, said, “You better stick to straight Coke in the future, kid. You aren’t thinking too clear.”

“I don’t . . .”

“Okay, Jon. We’re on a skyjacked plane. Now, what’s the best we can hope for? What’s the best thing that can happen in this particular situation?”

“Well, I suppose the best thing that could happen would be for somebody to take that supposedly rewired calculator away from the skyjacker. That would put the plane back in the hands of the good guys, right?”

“Okay. Then what.”

“Everybody rides off into the sunset, I guess. Except for the skyjacker. He goes straight to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred thousand dollars. Right?”

“Half right. The skyjacker isn’t the only one who goes straight to jail and doesn’t collect two hundred thousand dollars.”

“What?” The clouds began to lift inside Jon’s head. “Oh. Oh Jesus.”

“Yeah. Oh Jesus. Even if they could grab this guy before he’s done any damage, the ‘good guys,’ as you call them, would still have to assume there’s a bomb on the plane. Which means the bomb squad’ll be called in and . . .”

“They’ll fluoroscope all the luggage. Shit. Oh shit. And all our money? All our beautiful money? . . .”

“We’ll just have to forget it. Best we can hope for is to leave the airport fast as possible, before people start asking embarrassing questions. Hope to Christ they don’t trace the luggage to us. My phony name’ll lead them nowhere, that’s one good thing. You’re using your right name, but your luggage has nothing suspicious in it. I just hope nobody remembers we were traveling together. I hope Hazel’ll cover for us—a little, anyway. I hope a hell of a lot of things, frankly.”

“Jesus, Nolan. We can’t just let all that money go. . . .”

“We have to. I been trying to figure a way to save it, but I can’t find one. That money isn’t the only thing in that damn suitcase, don’t forget.”

“I haven’t forgotten, Nolan. I wish I could, but I haven’t.”

The guns, Jon thought, the goddamn guns.

The two .38s they’d used at the Comforts’. The two .38s they’d used to
kill
the Comforts. Bad enough to have to try and explain two hundred grand in cash, but two hundred grand in cash and two revolvers, both of which might be traceable to a multiple killing and robbery . . .

Jon didn’t want to think about it.

“And,” Nolan was saying, “that’s what happens in the
best of all possible worlds. The other possibilities are even more depressing. Such as, maybe there is a bomb on board, and the skyjacker gets rattled, and we all get blown to hell, in which case we won’t sweat the money. Or, the guy lets some of us off the plane and keeps some hostages, and then gets rattled, and our money gets blown up. Or the goddamn skyjacking is a success, and the guy gets away, and the bomb squad moves in to work on the plane and . . . well, it goes on like that. No matter how you figure it, Jon . . .”

“We’re screwed.”

Hazel was coming down the aisle. She stopped beside them and said, “Now that we’ve landed, he’s having me ask among the passengers for volunteers to be hostages. He’s going to keep ten people on the plane and let the rest go.”

“Then what?” Nolan said.

“He says he’ll let the hostages go when the ransom’s delivered. When we take off again, just the pilot and copilot and navigator and yours truly’ll be aboard. And the skyjacker, of course.”

“Has he made any more demands?”

“He wants two parachutes.”

“Why two?” Jon asked.

Nolan grinned. “Because he’s smart. He learned that trick from the best skyjacker of ’em all, of D. B. Cooper. Asking for more than one insures him that the chutes won’t be sabotaged.”

“Why?” Hazel wanted to know.

“Because with two parachutes, he might make somebody else jump along with him.”

Hazel still didn’t understand. “Certainly not the pilot or copilot or navigator,” she said.

Nolan nodded. “Certainly not.”

Hazel swallowed. “Let’s hope the powers that be don’t consider us flight attendants expendable.”

“Any other demands?”

“Just that we aren’t to reveal his identity to the other passengers. As you said, he’s smart. He figures the fewer people that get a good, long look at him, the better. This way, he’ll just blend into the crowd.”

Jon said, “I don’t know, he looks pretty obvious to me, with the wig and sunglasses and everything.”

“Not really,” Nolan said. “Most of the passengers on this plane are businessmen. They just figure him for some hippie kid or something; a fairly likely suspect, maybe, but not much more so than anybody else.”

“D. B. Cooper,” Hazel said, “was dressed like a businessman. Suit and tie, topcoat oxfords. Like most of the people around you.”

Nolan asked, “Has he told you where you’ll be flying yet?”

“No. Mexico, though, don’t you suppose? Parachute out into some flat area, where somebody’ll be waiting to pick him up?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m supposed to be asking for volunteers right now. But I’m not asking you. I don’t want you. Understand? We’ll have plenty of volunteer hostages, and I don’t want you two to be part of them. Especially you, Nolan or Ryan or whoever you are. I get the feeling you’re the hero type, and I don’t want you grandstand-playing me into getting blown to pieces.”

“I’m telling you, Hazel,” Nolan said, “that kid doesn’t have any damn bomb on board. Take it from me, I’m a judge of character if there ever was one. That kid just doesn’t have the balls for it.”

They’d been keeping their voices down anyway, but she leaned over and whispered, so as not to take any chance of ruffling the feathers of the nearby nuns, and said, “It doesn’t take balls to blow up a plane, dummy. Just a little dynamite.” And she headed back up the aisle, skirt flashing over those fine, long legs of hers.

“So what are we going to do, Nolan?”

“I’m glad Hazel gave us an out. A hostage is one thing we don’t want to be. We can’t afford to stay. Or you can’t, anyway. Now, soon as you get off this plane, you get your ass back to Iowa City, got me?”

“You got an idea, Nolan?”

“I might have.”

“What is it?”

“You just let me do the thinking, and do as I say.”

“Yeah, I know, I know, mine is not to reason why. You’re the mastermind and I’m the flunky.”

“Think of yourself as second in command, if it softens the blow.”

Thirty seconds later, the captain’s voice came over the intercom: He instructed all the passengers, except those who had volunteered to stay on board, to come forward and disembark. Everyone but the hostages began to rise from their seats, the businessmen straightening their ties, grabbing their briefcases; women fussing with their hair, tidying themselves in preparation for the photographers who’d be waiting out there; even the three nuns were smoothing out their habits. Everyone but the hostages, and the skyjacker of course, began to move forward.

Except Nolan.

Who slipped into the nearest of the two johns around the corner from their seat and, giving Jon a look that said, “Keep quiet and do as I told you,” sealed himself inside the cubicle.

And now Jon stood alone, at the rear of the aisle, everyone else trailing on up toward the front, excluding the handful staying behind; Jon began up the aisle, hesitantly, wondering what the hell to do.

He could almost identify with the skyjacker; they were about the same age, after all, and had both got in over their heads in daring, potentially violent endeavors in pursuit of riches. And Nolan stowing away like this meant one thing to Jon: the skyjacker was in for it. Nolan was going to do God-knows-what to that poor kid, and Jon didn’t know who to be more worried for, Nolan or that dumb-ass skyjacker.

And then a realization hit Jon, a short, hard jab that almost knocked him down: Nolan was wrong!

Nolan’s assumption that the skyjacker had not planted a bomb on the plane was clearly false. Otherwise, why would the skyjacker take the trouble to let the bulk of the passengers disembark here at the Quad Cities? The kid evidently had a conscience of sorts, and didn’t want to blow any more people to smithereens than he absolutely had to! The stupid fucking hypocrite.

Jon didn’t know what to do. Should he warn Nolan? Go back and tell him, explain the logic of it, pull him out of that damn can and fuck the money, just get the hell out of here? What good was Nolan going to do jumping the kid, anyway?
Nolan!
he screamed in his brain.
There
is
a bomb on this goddamn plane!