Where Echoes Live (28 page)

“Uh-huh. The name's ‘airbatic' spelled backwards.”

“I'm impressed.”

He ducked under the wing, opened the door, and tossed my weekend bag into the rear compartment. “Well, don't get too excited—we're not going to do any loops and rolls tonight. Plane's got a hundred and eighty horsepower—top of the line—but the altitude we need to fly at—twelve, thirteen thousand feet—is about the max it can safely handle.”

I swallowed.

Hy turned, stripping off his gloves and peering intently at my face. “Oh, for Christ's sake, McCone,” he said, “there'll still be plenty of power in reserve to handle the downdrafts. Just get in, will you?”

I stepped forward and he helped me up. The seats were in tandem, the cabin not much wider than my desk chair at All Souls. I said, “It's like a matchbox with wings.”

“More streamlined, though.” He fiddled with the seat belt, strapped it around me. The joystick protruded from behind the pilot's seat, directly between my bent knees. “Don't touch that,” Hy told me.

“I know.”

He unhooked a headset from the wall and fitted it over my ears. “You want to talk with me, you've got to put your lips right up against the mouthpiece.”

“Hy—”

“Take it easy; I've made this trip more times than I can count.” He drew back through the door and grinned at me. “Listen, McCone, this plane is such a class act that Bellanca, the manufacturer, wouldn't sell one to Lindbergh for his transatlantic flight. They were afraid it would detract from their prestige, since he was only an inexperienced mail pilot on the Saint Louis-Chicago run.”

“What does Lindbergh have to do with—”

“Like I said, the Decathlon is top of the Citabria line. Besides the increased power, there's more of a camber on the bottom of the wings—allows it to fly inverted better.”

“Inverted,” I said miserably.

“I promise—not tonight.” He winked and turned away.

I watched his long, lean figure as he bent to release the chain from the right-hand wing, made routine checks of the gas and oil, and passed in front of the plane, running practiced hands over the propeller. Ripinsky might not be on to what I'd discovered about him in San Francisco, but he had tipped to a basic fact about me personally—I like to pretend I'm braver than I really am. If I hadn't been hamstrung by the seat belt and earphone wires, I'd have climbed out of there and given him a good kick to get even for his obvious glee at needling me.

When he'd gotten into the pilot's seat and settled himself, he glanced at me while reaching for an instrument panel to my left. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I said coolly, trying to look nonchalant as I stared up at the sky through the clear roof above him.

He flipped a couple of switches.

I jerked.

He grinned wickedly and turned his attention to the controls.

On the premise that sometimes it's best to ignore what's making you nervous, I concentrated harder on the black sky. Hy started the engine. It died. He tried again. It died again. A third try. Same result.

I gripped the back of his seat, staring straight ahead now.

“Relax, McCone,” his voice said through the headset. “At this altitude the air's thin; it takes a bit to get her going.”

I let go of the seat and clasped my hands between my knees, avoiding the joystick.

The engine caught and roared to life; the propeller spun, whirled faster—a silver blur against the night.

I looked up, trying to find something to concentrate on, something other than the mechanics of departure. George? Oh, God, George …

I'd tried to reach him from home but hadn't succeeded until minutes before I boarded my flight at SFO. Although he was disappointed at the sudden change of plans, he reacted with characteristic fair-mindedness.

“It's not as if you haven't warned me about how unpredictable the demands of your job can be,” he had said.

Quite unreasonably I felt a prickle of irritation at his calm understanding. “I'd be furious if you did this to me.”

“That's because you're an Unconventional.” It was the little circle into which he—lately—felt I best fit.
(Damn
my mother for so dubbing George's personality classifications! I'd never be able to think of them otherwise now.) Among my group's more unfortunate traits were extreme emotional sensitivity, a disregard for social mores, and a tendency to depression.

“No,” I had said, trying to maintain a light tone, “you're being nice because you've got a touch of the Helpmate about you.” The Helpmates were the wimps of his schema.

Normally George would have laughed, but he was adept at picking up on my vocal undertones. “Sharon, what's wrong?”

I had hesitated, one ear tuned to my flight's first boarding call. My annoyance was both illogical and ill defined; certainly it would fade before I next saw him. “I'm just upset about having to cancel,” I finally told him.

But I must have sounded unconvincing. “We'll have to talk when you get back,” he said.

“Yes, we'll talk,” I agreed.

Now I found the memory of the conversation unsettling enough that I didn't care to dwell on it. While Hy spoke into the Citabria's radio, I turned my thoughts to my investigation.

Start with Mick Erickson. He found out about the gold-mining potential in Stone Valley from his old co-worker, Ned Sanderman. Since he had a degree from Colorado School of Mines, he might have been aware of the patenting process as a way to purchase federal land. Wait a minute here— wouldn't Erickson have already known about Stone Valley, since his father-in-law owned the defunct Promiseville Mine?

“Reno Ground, this is Citabria seven-seven-two-eight-niner….”

All right, maybe Erickson's talk with Sanderman jogged his memory, got him to thinking about the land to be had in Stone Valley. Sanderman might even have unwittingly supplied Alvin Knight's name by telling Mick how the Coalition had filed a complaint against the geologist for allegedly falsifying a mineral survey.

“Two-eight-niner, squawk is oh-one-three-five….”

Erickson probably knew that Ong was looking to buy large parcels of land in attractive locations for Transpacific resorts. So he went to Ong with the idea of developing Stone Valley, demanding a finder's fee, of course. He persuaded his father-in-law—or perhaps Margot did—to sell his property to Transpacific, and arranged with Alvin Knight to obtain the adjoining 700 acres.

“Clearance Delivery, this is two-eight-niner. I'm VFR southbound for Tufa Lake with Delta …”

Everything had gone as planned. Title to the BLM land passed to the fictitious Tarbeaux; Transpacific in turn bought it from him. Knight played his role as supervising geologist and made a pretense of taking core samples, then shut the site down. My guess was that Transpacific intended to wait through the winter before making the public announcement that they had been duped by the conveniently missing Tarbeaux. With their public relations people smoothing the way, they would then unveil plans for the Golden Hills project, no doubt making much of the new prosperity that the construction and, later, the service jobs would bring to Mono County.

“Ground Control, this is two-eight-niner. Request permission to taxi for takeoff.”

“Two-eight-niner, taxi to runway thirty-four right.”

The little plane eased into motion. I watched the other small aircraft slip by and, after we turned, saw a jet taxiing on the parallel runway. Even at this distance, its size made me feel vulnerable. I clasped my hands tighter, turned my attention back to the case.

Okay, I thought, everything went as planned. But then Erickson made a secret trip to Tufa Lake—so secret he went to great lengths to keep it from everyone, including his wife … estranged wife. A few days later he was shot and dumped in the lake. Hopwood had already more or less vanished, and now so had Lionel Ong. And yesterday someone had roughed up Margot Erickson; she'd also taken off for Tufa Lake.

Quite a gathering might occur there, should Ong turn up in the area, as Knight and Ripinsky seemed to believe he would.

If Hopwood surfaced and Knight decided to make the trip, it would be a reunion of co-conspirators.

“Reno Tower, this is two-eight-niner. Ready on thirty-four right.”

“Okay, two-eight-niner. Clear for takeoff. Right downwind departure.”

Hy increased the engine power; the little plane strained and trembled. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. The plane jerked forward, began rushing down the runway, wheels bumping and jarring my spine. I closed my eyes, felt the thump as the tires left the ground. The plane canted even more sharply; I was thrust back into the seat, planted my feet more securely on the floor. We climbed at a steep angle, kept climbing for what must have been a couple of miles, and then leveled out some. I opened my eyes.

Hy banked the plane, and I saw the neon glitter dusting the hills and flatlands to my right. “Hey, McCone,” his voice said in my ear, “you still with me?”

I twisted sideways and pressed my nose to the window. “I'm here.”

“Pretty, isn't it?”

“Sure is.” Turbulence caught the plane, rocked it. My stomach lurched, but I kept my nose to the plastic, watching Reno grow smaller. The next updraft didn't bother me; instead I felt an excited flutter. It was the old half-remembered thrill of being cut loose from the earth. More than that: of having been cut loose from the bonds of the present, the past, even the future….

God, I'd forgotten how much I loved to fly!

Hy said, “The way we're heading, you'll be able to make out Lake Tahoe if you look hard. That's Carson City dead ahead, and from there we'll just follow the road home.”

“You mean three ninety-five?”

“Uh-huh. Not much between Carson City and Bridgeport except a few small towns. The highway's a good landmark, so why not use it?”

I settled back, enjoying the motion.

“So,” Hy said, “you want to brief me on what you found out in San Francisco? Anne-Marie seems to think we've got the problem knocked.”

“…I'd just as soon go over it with both of you at the same time.”

“Suit yourself.”

We flew in silence for a while. I left off thinking about the case, watched the lights of Carson City appear and recede behind us. Then there was only blackness below, relieved occasionally by a few dim beacons. Now and then an updraft buffeted us. The first made me suck in my breath, and Hy said, “Hey, that's nothing.” After that, as he would have said, they were a piece of cake. When a particularly strong one hit us just as the lights of Bridgeport appeared, I laughed. Hy's answering chuckle contained a note of pleased surprise.

“Getting into flying again, are you?”

“I'd better not be—it's expensive. That was why I stopped before.”

“Hell, I got an instructor buddy owes me favors; I could get your lessons for free.”

“But then what would I owe
you?”

He laughed.

Wistfulness stole over me. The idle chatter was amusing, but I knew there would be no flying lessons. No future light conversations between Ripinsky and me, either. Once I'd finished with this investigation—

He said, “By the way, you like that rose I sent you?”

“…
You
sent me?” I was stunned.

“Uh-huh. Bet you thought it was from your boyfriend.”

It was lucky I'd kept forgetting to thank George for it, especially in light of his present disappointment with me. “I did. How'd you know about him?”

“Anne-Marie told me. Sounds like a smart fellow.”

“He is. Why'd you send me the flower?”

“Hell, McCone, why does any man send a woman a rose?”

I didn't respond, but after Bridgeport had vanished into the darkness I asked, “Why a yellow one?”

“You're not traditional enough for red, not sentimental enough for pink, and definitely not virginal, so white was out.”

“Well, thank you for sending it. Yellow's my favorite.”

“I think I kind of guessed that.”

For a while after that we didn't speak. I stared at the back of his head, my thoughts and emotions in turmoil. Then he reached back and touched my knee, motioned at the left side of the aircraft.

Tufa Lake spread to the south, lights of the town strung along its near shore. Among them I could identify Zelda's sign at the tip of the point, its crimson bleeding into the water. The runway of the airstrip was outlined in a string of yellow lights to the west. And in the distance the alkali plain gleamed white in the moonlight, the black cones of the fire mountains looming over it.

The plane dipped and began its steep descent. Hy said, “Tufa Tower, this is double-luck-two-eight-niner, coming home.”

When we got to Hy's ranch house, he pulled my bag from the carrying space of his Morgan and set it next to the Land Rover. “You sure you won't come in and get warm?” he asked. I shook my head.

“It's late; Anne-Marie will worry.”

“Suit yourself.” He fiddled with his key chain, then held one out to me. “There's a spare in one of those magnetic cases under the left rear bumper. Registration and insurance card in the glove compartment. Baby it a little when you start up in the morning—it's no more of an early riser than I am.”

“Thanks. And thanks for the lift down here.”

“Glad to be of help. Tomorrow we'll talk about what you found out.”

Not replying, I tossed the bag onto the seat of the Land Rover and climbed in after it. The engine caught right away, and I eased the vehicle into gear and turned around. As I drove off, I glanced into the rearview mirror; Hy was standing where I'd left him, looking melancholy.

At the road I turned right toward Vernon, but after I rounded the first bend I made a U-turn and parked on the verge near the sheep pen. The moon was a luminous disk suspended above the peaks; its chill glow frosted the barren countryside. The sheep huddled together, their wool resembling drifts of snow. The stick-and-barbed-wire fences stood out against the pale meadow as if etched on ice.