The Sirena Quest (21 page)

Chapter Forty-six

Lou glanced at the clock radio on the nightstand.

3:25 a.m.

After the first hour he thought it might be the coffee. He'd asked for decaffeinated, but with all the people and commotion at the table the waitress could have gotten things confused on the refills. If so, it was a small price to pay for a wonderful evening. Ray and Brandi had been there, as had Billy and Dorothy and little Sandino. Gordie arrived with his date, Professor Sally Jacobs. They seemed to be getting along nicely. Best of all was his end of the table, with his kids and Donna Crawford and her two daughters. Several times during dinner their eyes met, and each time the tumult around them seemed to vanish. It had been instantly comfortable—the two of them surrounded by the four children—and thus instantly unsettling.

Don't overwhelm her
, he'd warned himself after dinner.
And don't overwhelm yourself.

“She's really nice,” Katie told him afterward.

“I like her, Dad,” Kenny had said as Lou tucked him in bed. “She's pretty.”

That's when he'd mentioned the possibility of adding on a few days to the vacation to spend it with Donna and her daughters in the Berkshires. Both kids said that sounded fine.

Not too fast
, he reminded himself.

He glanced again at the clock.

It couldn't be the coffee. The caffeine would have worn off long before three-thirty in the morning.

No, this was about tomorrow. For the last two hours he'd been sorting through the details—so many steps, and so many of them critical ones that could go wrong in so many ways and ruin their plans.

It would be over in less than ten hours, he told himself. Whatever was going to be would be. In less than ten hours, they'd be victors or they'd be spectators.

He turned in bed again and fluffed his pillow.

Spectator.

He lay back on the pillow and stared at the dark ceiling.

He'd been a spectator for too long.

There was a restlessness inside him, a vague unease. It had been building ever since they pulled out of Chicago in the wee hours with Sirena in the back of the van. From the moment he turned onto Lake Shore Drive, his journey east had been seeded with memories of Andi.

Even little things triggered memories—like that telephone booth at the airport.

Or the stirred coffee at the restaurant tonight. He'd been watching Donna stir sugar into her coffee when he suddenly remembered that Andi never took sugar with her coffee. Just milk.

Milk but no sugar—the sort of thing that you knew without realizing you knew it, a fact absorbed as part of the stream of life. Like how Andi used to spread strawberry jam on her toasted English muffin with a spoon. Or the tilt of her head when she put in an earring. All of that—all of those little moments—had come rushing back at the restaurant that night, amid all the voices and the laughter and the clanging of dishes, as he'd watched Donna stir her coffee.

He glanced at the clock.

3:37 a.m.

He sat up. Kenny was asleep next to him in the double bed. Katie was breathing deeply in the other bed.

He got out of bed and walked barefoot across the carpeted floor to the dresser. Slipping on his jeans, he felt around the dresser top until he located the room key.

Stepping into the night air, the first thing he heard was the sound of frogs. Peepers. Hundreds of them. He closed the door gently and stepped over to the metal railing along the second floor landing. Leaning against the railing, he tried to pinpoint the location. They were out there somewhere in the dark, probably ringing a pond, chanting prayers to their frog gods.

“Noisy little fuckers.”

Startled, Lou turned. Seated in his wheelchair three doors down was Ray.

Lou walked over. “Can't sleep?”

“Don't know why. All I do tomorrow is ride shotgun.”

“Not so.” He leaned back against the railing and smiled at Ray. “You're still the captain of this crew.”

“Not anymore,
Captain
.”

Lou shook his head. “I'm just the stand-in.”

“You're in charge here. You've always been, man. I'm just the shit disturber.”

“
Just
? I'd say that's a title to be proud of.”

“Maybe.” Ray stared into the darkness. “I just hope that redneck pilot holds up her end of the bargain.”

“Gordie's pledged—or I guess now we've all pledged—fifty thousand reasons for her to deliver.”

Ray shrugged. “We'll see.”

After a moment, Lou said, “You're a genius.”

Ray frowned. “What's that mean?”

Lou bowed in an exaggerated show of respect. “No matter what happens tomorrow, whether we pull it off or not, this was a wonderful idea.”

“Just don't fuck it up, Solomon.”

Another voice said, “Don't fuck what up?”

They turned. Gordie was walking down the landing toward them. He was wearing boxer shorts and carrying a boombox.

“You, too?” Lou asked.

Gordie nodded. “Been rolling around for hours.”

“With Sally?” Ray asked.

“Very funny, Gimp. For your information, you nosy bastard,
Professor
Jacobs went home right after dinner.”

“Shows excellent judgment,” Ray said.

Gordie sat down on the landing, back to the railing, and pulled up the radio antenna.

“Couldn't sleep,” he said. “Finally decided to come out here and listen to some tunes.” He turned on the radio and moved the dial until he came to Van Morrison singing “Moondance.”

Lou leaned back and closed his eyes. “Perfect song.”

“Well, well, well,” Ray said, “look who else is here.”

They turned to see Bronco Billy coming down the walkway. He had a red plaid robe over his pajamas. He grinned self-consciously. “Hi, guys.”

Lou was seated next to Gordie. He rested his back against the railing and looked up at Billy. “None of us could sleep.”

Billy smiled as he put his hands in the deep pockets of his robe. “We look like that scene in
Henry V
.”

“What scene?” Ray asked.

“You remember,” Billy said. “We read it in Professor Ryal's class? The night before the battle? The scene in the English camp at Agincourt, everyone waiting for the morning.”

“Don't get carried away with that literary crap,” Ray said. “All the world is definitely not a stage. Just keep your eye on the prize and don't fuck up.”

“Hey, Major Kong,” Gordie said, “we've been doing okay since you took your three-and-a-half gainer off the high board into Sherwood Forest.”

Ray smiled. “Keep it that way tomorrow, Shorty.”

There was a slight breeze. The final notes of “Moondance” faded into the peeping of the frogs and the grinding of the crickets. A moment of radio silence, and then the familiar opening guitar chords to “Sweet Baby James.” In the darkness, James Taylor's plaintive voice:

There is a young cowboy, he lives on the range,
His horse and his cattle are his only companions.

“Ah,” Gordie said. “Great song.”

Lou closed his eyes, caught off guard, snatched back in time to the little coffeehouse in Woodstock, Vermont, back to the table near the rear of the crowded room with its rattle of china and buzz of voices and occasional gurgle and hiss of the espresso machine. They were holding hands. This was the mini-vacation they'd promised themselves, the romantic weekend away from the kids.

Her pregnancy had expedited their plans. They both knew that within a month she wouldn't feel like going up the stairs, much less halfway across the country. Her first two pregnancies had been rough ones, and high risk—so much so that her gynecologist warned against a third. He'd wanted to tie her tubes after the second delivery, but she wasn't yet ready for that final step. Andi had wanted a big family. One of her fantasies, going all the way back to their penniless days in Cambridge, was to cruise around the neighborhood in a golf cart picking up her six children one by one by one to bring them home for dinner.

But the doctor kept pressuring her. Around the time of Kenny's second birthday she finally relented. If she couldn't have them herself, she told Lou, they'd adopt, and she'd still get that golf cart. They agreed that Lou would get a vasectomy. And he intended to go through with it, no question. But there always seemed to be a scheduling conflict—a deposition or a motion or a client meeting. Over a six-month period he'd rescheduled the appointment five times.

And then she got pregnant. It was unplanned, and entirely Lou's fault, though she never said so. Abortion was out of the question for her.

“We'll get through it,” she told him, “because we know what's coming at the end.”

That night in the coffeehouse in Woodstock he'd gazed at his beautiful wife. Her cheeks were red from the Vermont winter air, her dark hair hanging in thick ringlets to her shoulders.

Andi had winced.

“What?” he'd asked, concerned.

She shook her head. “Another cramp. I started spotting again this morning.” She stood up and took a deep breath. “I'll be back.”

It was at that very moment—as he watched her walk to the bathroom—that James Taylor's “Sweet Baby James” came over the sound system:

There is a young cowboy, he lives on the range,

She'd turned at the bathroom door, remembering—remembering that song and that coffeehouse back at Wellesley. She found his eyes across the room and smiled at him before she went inside the bathroom.

Her last smile.

He'd listened to the song as he waited for her to return from the bathroom, and as he did his thoughts had drifted back to that night at the coffeehouse at Wellesley, the night they'd come back together.

Won't you let me go down in my dreams?

The waitress had interrupted his reverie, asking whether they wanted anything else. He'd ordered two more cups of hot cider, hoping Andi would return from the bathroom before the song ended.

The cider arrived. He realized the song had ended. He checked his watch. How long had it been? Twenty minutes? A tinge of panic.

He'd walked over to the women's restroom and knocked on the door. Called her name. No answer. He found a waitress and asked her to check inside to see if his wife was okay. She went in and came out a moment later, frantic.

“I'll call an ambulance,” she said.

Andi was on the tile floor inside—her eyes glassy, her mouth slack. He cradled her in his arms as they waited for the ambulance. He hugged her against his chest, rocking her against him, kissing her forehead, telling her that she'd be okay, telling her how much he loved her. Over and over again, hugging and kissing and rocking as he waited and waited and the blood continued to seep out, spreading in a red pool on the tiles. She was cold and her breathing was shallow when the paramedics arrived.

He rode in the ambulance with her, holding her hands under the blanket, rubbing them, trying to make her warm, telling her everything would be okay, telling her he loved her, telling her he was sorry, and praying all the while, praying, praying.

They took her from him at the hospital—rolled her down the hall and around the corner and out of his life. As he waited those long hours, pacing the halls, his mind kept returning to the night she got pregnant, to the Jacksons' poolside party the prior August. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the St. Louis heat, or the way Andi had looked in that clingy white dress, or a combination of them all, but when she went inside to the bathroom Lou had followed her in.

“Louis,” she'd giggled in surprise when he slipped into the bathroom behind her.

He kissed her hard. “Come on,” he whispered, pulling up the back of her dress, grasping her marvelous tush.

“Here?” she whispered between kisses. “Now?”

“Yes.”

“But I don't have my diaphragm.”

He unzipped his pants. “Don't worry.”

She giggled again. “Oh, my goodness. Someone's sure ready.”

It could have been even worse, a nurse told him near dawn.

He'd stared at her in disbelief.

Fortunately
, the nurse continued,
your wife went into shock so quickly that we knew it might be the blood. We were able to stop the other blood—the blood she was supposed to get—before it reached the other patient.

He'd just stared at her, struggling to parse her words.
Could have been even worse?

The nurses lips were moving, but all he heard that morning was Andi's giggle and her whisper,
But I don't have my diaphragm.

“Hey?” Gordie said. “You okay, Lou?”

He was rubbing his eyes, his head down. He tried to say something, but he couldn't. He shook his head, biting his lower lip.

Billy found a handkerchief in the pocket of his robe and pressed it into Lou's hand. After awhile, Lou raised his head. He tried to look at his friends.

“Andi?” Billy asked softly.

Lou nodded, pressing his clenched fist against his lips, struggling for control. He took a deep breath.

“The hardest part,” he finally said, “was telling my kids.”

He squeezed his eyes closed and tilted his head back toward the night sky.

“I took their mother away for a weekend and brought her home in a coffin.”

Billy was kneeling beside Lou. He put a hand on Lou's shoulder and gave him a squeeze.

The eastern sky was edging toward gray. The frog chorus began to fade. Lou sat there, his back against the railing, head down.

He heard the creak of the wheelchair approaching. He looked up.

Ray had a sad smile. “You're a good man, Lou. We got your back, pal.”

Chapter Forty-seven

Lou pulled the cargo van into the stand of pines just to the south of the Hawthorn Airport runway. He turned off the engine and checked his watch. 7:46 a.m.

There were five of them—Lou, Ray, Gordie, Billy, and Floyd Booker, the locksmith. Each had a Styrofoam cup of coffee. There was a sack of fresh doughnuts to hold them over. Ray was belted into a captain's chair with his foot propped up, the wheelchair folded and stashed in back.

Lou opened his door. “I'll check things out.”

He walked through the pine trees and across the grass to the edge of the runway. Beyond the runway he could see the two-lane blacktop road that led to the small airport. The road ran parallel to the runway. He turned back to study the pine trees. He could barely pick out their rental van through the trees. It would be invisible from the road or the airport.

He headed back to the van.

“How long will it take you, Floyd?” Gordie asked.

Floyd scratched the back of his neck as he considered the question. He was short and wiry and bald, with a pointy red nose, spiky gray eyebrows, and a neatly trimmed goatee that made him resemble a schnauzer.

“Shouldn't take but a minute,” he said in his high-pitched Maine accent, “'less they got something on there I never seen before, and it's been a heckuva long time since I seen something I never seen before.”

So they sipped their coffee and ate their doughnuts and waited.

At 8:15, a skinny mechanic slid open the large hangar door. Lou raised the binoculars. He could see Rocky inside the hangar in front of a single-engine biplane. She was peering around the bottom of the propeller and fiddling with something in the engine. The mechanic came over, and Rocky pointed at something. The mechanic bent down, peered at where she was pointing, stood, shook his head, and said something to her. She nodded. Then the two of them moved into position on either side of the lower wing and pushed the plane slowly onto the concrete apron outside the hangar.

Rocky had on black leather pants, a black leather jacket, black boots, and a navy Boston Red Sox baseball cap. The mechanic moved around to the propeller with a small toolbox, and Rocky returned to the hangar out of view.

At 8:51, while Gordie was out in front of the van taking a leak between two pine trees, he heard the heavy downshift of truck gears. He peered through the branches. A Brink's armored truck was rumbling along the road toward the airport. Following directly behind was a red Porsche convertible with the top down. Gordie squinted. He could make out Frank behind the wheel and Reggie in the passenger seat. He quickly zipped up and hurried back to the van.

The five of them watched from the van as the Brink's truck swung around the bend and out of view on its approach to the airport. It reappeared a moment later, moving slowly down the paved lane along the outer wall of the hangar, turned onto the concrete apron in front of the hangar, and pulled up to the biplane. The Porsche parked behind it.

Ray checked his watch. “So far so good.”

From their cover in the pine trees, they had a side view of the truck and the Porsche. Reggie and Frank got of the Porsche and walked into the hangar. A moment later a uniformed guard stepped down from the passenger side of the Brink's truck, came around the front of the truck, and walked over to the plane. Inside the hangar, they could see Frank and Reggie greeting Rocky.

“You sure about this pilot?” Ray asked.

Lou shrugged. “I'm not sure about anything. We signed the agreement last night and I gave her the check.”

Frank, Reggie, and Rocky emerged from the hangar, Rocky in the middle. They walked over to the Brink's truck, and the uniformed Brink's guard joined them. Frank and Rocky spoke with the guard while Reggie trotted back to the Porsche. He returned a moment later carrying what looked like a big bolt of shiny gold fabric bound with rope. He stopped at the tail of the plane, and Frank and Rocky joined him back there. Frank helped unwind the rope, which appeared to be connected to the bolt of fabric. Rocky tied the rope to a metal hook on the bottom of the plane's tail.

“What's that?” Billy asked.

“A banner,” Ray said.

The guard moved to the rear of the Brink's truck and rapped on the door. The door opened from the inside and another guard poked his head out. From his angle in the van, Lou couldn't see what else was in the truck.

Rocky walked toward the front of the biplane as the two guards talked with Frank and Reggie at the rear of the truck. On her way to the cockpit, Rocky pulled open the cargo door on the side of the plane. She walked around the front of the plane to the other side, stepped up onto the lower wing, and climbed into the cockpit.

A moment later the engine coughed and the propeller lurched through a half-rotation. It stopped for a moment, jerked through a full rotation, slowed again, and then the engine caught, immediately transforming the blades into a blurred circle. The engine coughed, vented several bursts of dark gray smoke, and then roared.

The two guards had climbed into the rear of the truck and were sliding a large gray strongbox onto the elevator ramp at the edge of the truck. The strongbox was at least six feet high and four feet wide. Once it was on the ramp, the two guards lowered it to the ground.

“That has to be her.” Lou handed the binoculars to the locksmith. “Check it out, Floyd.”

The guards slid the strongbox onto a large dolly. As they started to tilt it back, Reggie came over and had them stop. He knelt by the container and inserted a key into the large steel lock that hung from the latch on the hinged front panel. He opened the lock, slipped it off, and swung open the door of the strongbox. Although Lou couldn't make out what was inside the container from that distance, it was clear that Reggie was satisfied with what he saw. He closed the front of the strongbox, slipped the lock through the latch, and clicked it shut.

“Well?” Ray asked Floyd Booker.

The locksmith lowered the binoculars and nodded solemnly. “Don't think that one should be a problem, boys.”

The guards rolled the strongbox over to the side of the plane and then, with Frank's help, slowly lifted it into the cargo hold. Frank closed the cargo door and checked to make sure it was firmly shut. Then he backed away from the plane and gave Rocky the thumbs-up signal. The engine revved higher, and the plane started to move forward.

Frank scanned the airport road as Reggie watched the biplane taxi slowly past the hangar toward the runway, its wings vibrating. The plane turned into position at that end of the runway. The engine whined louder. The plane was shuddering now, straining against the brakes. Rocky pushed the engine speed one notch higher and then released the brakes.

The plane started rolling down the runway, picking up speed. The bolt of gold cloth attached to the tail bounced along and unrolled until it trailed flat behind, skimming along the concrete.

Halfway down the runway the plane's wheels lifted off the ground.

After the plane cleared the trees across the highway, Rocky banked it back toward Frank and Reggie in a big, easy turn. They waved as the plane passed over the runway, climbing into the sky. The banner had fully unfurled. It was gold, with bold red letters spelling out the message:

WELCOME HOME, SIRENA!

Rocky dipped the wings in a salute and then banked the plane south. Down below, Reggie and Frank slapped each other high fives.

Ray said, “Enjoy the moment, you preppie motherfuckers.”

They watched Reggie and Frank shake hands with the Brink's guards and get back in the Porsche. A moment later, there was a squeal of rubber as the Porsche pulled away. The guards got back in the Brink's truck, turned it around in front of the hangar, and drove off.

As soon as the truck disappeared around the bend in the road, Ray said, “Hit it.”

Lou started the engine and backed the van out of the stand of pines and onto the road. Shifting to Drive, he accelerated down the road and turned into the airport entrance, scattering gravel under the wheels. Pulling the van around the hangar and onto the concrete apron, he stopped in almost the same spot the Brink's truck had parked.

Gordie was the first one out. Shading his eyes, he scanned the sky. Billy got out next, went around to the back of the van, and opened the rear doors to work on the final preparations. Ray waited in the van.

Lou and the locksmith joined Gordie on the runway.

“Where the hell is she?” Gordie asked.

Lou scanned the sky, straining his ears for the sound of the plane.

“How's the time?” Gordie asked.

Lou checked his watch.

10:05 a.m.

Rocky was supposed to fly over Remington Field at Barrett College at exactly eleven o'clock. While the plane could get there in less than twenty minutes, it would take them thirty-five minutes to drive there.

Over the field by 11:00. Touch down at 11:05. Out of there by 11:15. That was the schedule. That was the deal.

“We've got fifteen minutes,” Lou said.

“Come on, Rocky,” Gordie grumbled.

“Gordie,” Billy called from back of the van. “I need some help with this thing.”

“Hold your horses,” Gordie said. He shaded his eyes as he surveyed the sky. “First we need the damn plane. If that skanky bitch double-crossed us, I swear—”

“Quiet,” Lou said.

Lou pointed at a small dot near the horizon. “There?”

Gordie squinted in the direction of the faint buzzing. As the dot grew larger, they could make out the two wings and then the banner.

Gordie sighed. “Thank fucking God.”

He turned toward Billy. “Coming, Bronco.”

Lou watched the biplane bank into position and descend toward the runway, the wings tilting side to side, the banner fluttering at the slower speed. The plane landed, slowed to taxi speed, and puttered over to where Lou stood.

He turned to the locksmith. “You ready, Floyd?”

“Yep.”

Lou walked with him toward the plane and yanked open the cargo door.

He turned to the locksmith and checked his watch. “Let's do it. We're cutting this close.”