One Got Away

by S. A. Lelchuk

  He looked up, startled, and used his napkin for what looked like the first time. The yellow mustache disappeared. “Yeah, that’s me. Who’re you?” His voice was a baritone, hoarsened by food.

  “You picked up a friend of mine this morning. From the InterContinental. Tall, good-looking British guy.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure, you’re the one Syd called me about.” He sipped a Pepsi. “Clever-sounding fellow in a blue jacket, looked sharp. So, he forgot something in the cab? What was it? I didn’t see nothing in the back, but maybe I missed it. Been a busy morning.”

  “Actually, I was hoping to talk to you for a minute.”

  He took a tremendous bite of his pastrami sandwich and followed it up with an equal chomp off the pickle. “Me? Why? You think he’s cheating on you or something?”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked, surprised.

  “I dunno, I get the question here and there.” He laughed. “Sometimes a fare means affair, y’know? That’s what we say, anyway. And the two of you… well, y’know. You look like a good pair, that’s all I mean. No offense.”

  His question got less surprising the more I thought about it. Cab drivers must get asked that kind of thing all the time. Did so-and-so get out at this address, was so-and-so with him or her… I couldn’t be the only one looking to learn about someone who had taken a cab ride. Cabs were useful ways to learn about people. Especially in this age of Uber and ride-sharing, everyone’s route permanently traceable for anyone who could access a smartphone. Which spouses and partners often could. Compared to that, cabs were like disappearing ink. Climb into a taxi, pay with cash, and you could still be anonymous. Not so easy, anonymity, anymore.

  Lorenzo had asked the question with a degree of sympathy in his eyes. Maybe being cheated on wasn’t a terrible way to play it. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out what he’s been up to. He’s been acting strange. It’s been a confusing day.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” he said, but volunteered nothing more as another substantial section of the pickle disappeared.

  “I was hoping you could tell me where you dropped him off,” I prompted. Something said not to push too hard. Lorenzo seemed like the kind of man who would help if he wanted to, and would otherwise clam up. He wore a wedding ring and had an old-school, stolid air about him. The kind of guy who could have been driving cabs a half-century back, same style, same manner of speech, same values. The kind of guy who, if pushed too far, would lock up like a shopping cart’s wheels.

  Lorenzo ate some fries. “Not really supposed to do that.”

  I tucked a hundred-dollar bill under his pie plate. “It’s important to me.”

  His eyes moved from the bill to his plate. “It was an airport run. Do a million a day.”

  “An airport run?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Which airport?”

  “Don’t you know that already?”

  “I know what they told the dispatcher.”

  “You mean Syd,” he said.

  “Right,” I agreed. “Syd said SFO.” Another bill joined the first. I was going off guesses and nothing more. Letting the conversation wander like he wanted, yet tighten in like I wanted. “That’s not the only airport around,” I hinted. “Maybe he said one airport and went somewhere else?”

  Lorenzo pushed aside his plate. “Look, you seem like a nice lady. I want to help.”

  “You can help,” I urged.

  “Did he not treat you well? Is that it?”

  “Let’s just say that he owes me an explanation for walking out without a word.”

  Why did so many men need to feel like they were saving someone? Did all men fantasize about problems befalling women, just so they could be the one to fix things?

  I saw his face reach a decision ahead of his words. “It was funny. As soon as we left he said he’d gotten mixed up and given them the wrong airport. He’s British, he said, still getting used to this whole California thing.”

  “Where’d you take him, Oakland?” I guessed.

  “No, that’s what was funny about it. He wanted to go north.”

  “North?” I was puzzled. “What’s up north?”

  “Sonoma.”

  “Sonoma?” I repeated, my mind running through possibilities. There weren’t many. Just one that I could think of. “You mean Charles Schulz Airport? The tiny one?”

  Now that the cab driver had opened up, he seemed more willing to talk. “Seemed strange to me, too. I double-checked, said, ‘Sir, you really want to go up there?’ Not too many flights, more expensive, all that jazz. But he did, so I took him. Not my job to argue myself out of a fare, now, is it?”

  “No,” I agreed. “I guess it’s not.” Why would someone like Coombs want to fly out of an airport so small that tracking flights would be a cakewalk for anyone looking?

  A third bill joined the first two. For the second time that morning, I felt happy to be on an expense account. “Thanks for your time, Lorenzo,” I said. “I appreciate it. I think I’ll hit the road now.”

  He knew where I was going, so he didn’t bother to ask. As I walked out, he called after me, “I hope it’s not what you think. Like I said, you two seem like a good match. I got an eye for those things, always have.”

  * * *

  Sonoma Airport was about sixty miles north of San Francisco, barely north of Santa Rosa. I followed the 101 over the Golden Gate into Marin County. It was a clear day and the last of the city’s fog vanished as I crossed the bridge, the temperature growing noticeably warmer from one end to the other. The water of the Bay was a beautiful turquoise. A cargo ship, stacked high with containers, seemed frozen on the surface as it crawled into the Bay from the open ocean to my left. Tiny flecks of white sailboats cut this way and that, almost indistinguishable from the smaller white pinpoints of wheeling gulls above them. I passed the exit for Sausalito and toed the Aprilia up into fifth gear, the motorcycle thrumming with satisfaction at the increased speed. It was a motorcycle that was happiest going fast.

  Coombs. Who was he?

  I was getting more curious about the man I was chasing. Maybe because I was becoming more impressed with him by the hour. He seemed far smarter than a run-of-the-mill, sweet-talking swindler out to hustle a few bucks. How many moves ahead was he seeing? Had he anticipated this, too? I hadn’t ruled out Sonoma being an intentional dead end, just the way SFO had been. He could have been dropped in Sonoma, waited for the cab to pull away, and then gone anywhere else.

  I remembered his effortless charisma. The way he seemed to light up the hotel lobby. A quality that went far deeper than physical good looks or mere charm. No wonder the Johannessen mother had fallen for him. I was starting to wonder something else: How many others had?

  Coombs.

  His face was in my mind. I wondered where he was. I wondered what he wanted. Who he really was. I could be dealing with someone who was very, very good at what he did. I rode on. Trying to ignore the tingle of excitement brought on by this thought.

  * * *

  Off the freeway, a long, straight, wide road led to Sonoma Airport. It was tiny. The kind of regional place probably struggling to attract carriers and stay in business in this age of long-haul flights connecting to big hubs. This was a small, single terminal, an air traffic control tower rising up in the background. One of the perks of tiny airports was ease of parking. Within a couple of minutes, I was inside, looking around. There couldn’t be that many departing flights each day. Maybe a couple of dozen, compared to a thousand daily at SFO. I looked at the Departures board. Only four airlines were listed, flying direct to about a dozen cities, mostly on the West Coast.

  I walked over to the single TSA security checkpoint, where a bored-looking guy in a blue shirt slouched on a stool. He barely looked up as I approached.

  “I was supposed to meet my friend here,” I said. “Tall British guy in a blue jacket. He would have been through here a few hours ago, if you were working this morni
ng?”

  The guy listened without interest. “Drawing a blank.”

  I had the photograph that Martin Johannessen had given me. “Here’s what he looks like.”

  The TSA guy gave the picture a cursory look. “Haven’t seen him,” he said with even less interest.

  I stepped back, out of line. Coombs could have passed through and been missed. The TSA guy could have been on a coffee break. Or forgetful. Or Coombs hadn’t gone through the security line at all. Meaning he hadn’t gotten on a plane and was somewhere else entirely.

  Putting me back to square one.

  This time I was out of ideas.

  * * *

  I walked back outside. Another dead end and this time no lead. Maybe someone else at the InterContinental had seen something. I could check there once again. The roar of a low plane filled my ears and I looked up, seeing a white body sweeping into the sky, tail unmarked by anything except a number. The airport was probably popular with the private jet crowd—an easy way to avoid the bigger commercial airports down south. There was plenty of wealth in Sonoma and Napa. Plenty of people who could look at flying private as a realistic and even pragmatic expense. I watched the white plane disappear into the blue sky, considering something. Then I went to find a payphone.

  * * *

  “Charles,” I said.

  “Nikki?”

  “Yup. Got a question.”

  “Don’t you always?”

  He was right. Charles Miller was a former investigative journalist and, as such, the best person I knew for tracking down any information that wasn’t easily accessible. “Flight logs for private planes,” I asked him. “Are they publicly available?”

  “Generally, yes. FAA figures taxpayers pay for airports, aircraft control, all that. That entitles us to a bit of public sphere knowledge. Unless it’s a big-money person using corporations and shells to stay quiet, flight paths are usually gettable.”

  “I need private flights departing from Charles Schulz Airport this morning.”

  “Charles Schulz, the Peanuts guy?”

  “Apparently they named the Sonoma Airport after him.”

  “Great cartoon. Used to read it to my kids.” His voice contained a whiff of regret. I could guess why. After running a hard-hitting investigative piece against a Texas billionaire, my friend had been sued, bankrupted, and subsequently divorced. Texas courts weren’t friendly to broke, disgraced fathers seeking joint custody. His move to California had been a fresh start. It had also meant leaving his children behind.

  “Do you know the destination?” he asked.

  “That’s what I need.”

  “Any guess?”

  “Not really. But it would have to be a plane taking off this morning, possibly with the name Coombs on the log. Is that hard to find?”

  “Shouldn’t be. It’s a small airport. Where are you?”

  “I’m there. At the airport. It’s urgent.”

  “Give me thirty minutes and call me back.”

  * * *

  While I was at the phone I made another call. This one was to the cell phone number my client had given me. I reached a voicemail, one of the anonymous, computerized voices instructing to leave a message. “Martin,” I said, “it’s Nikki. Coombs is running. I’m trying to find out where. I’ll try you later.”

  I bought a coffee, drank it, waited for time to pass. After twenty minutes, I returned to the pay phone. Charles worked fast.

  “Six private flights took off this morning,” he said after he picked up. “According to the logs, the destinations were Los Angeles, Monterey, Palm Springs, Vegas, St. Louis, and Austin.”

  “Okay. And the people on them? Could you find anything?”

  “You’re in luck,” he said. “There was a Coombs on one of the rosters. In a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. Going to Monterey.”

  “Who else was on the plane?”

  “Nobody.”

  “He was the only passenger?”

  “No—he was the only person.”

  I took that in.

  Apparently, I was chasing a man who knew how to fly.

  8

  My Aprilia had a range of about one hundred and fifty miles on the freeway. I filled up at a gas station near the airport. A big, new Chevron station, perfectly positioned for everyone to gas up before returning rental cars. Monterey was 175 miles south of the Sonoma Airport. I could get most of the way down before refueling. Three hours plus change. I got back on the freeway, southbound once again, feeling like a yo-yo, bounced up and down, north and south. Almost as though the person I was following had an impish sense of humor. Like setting up a scavenger hunt for a kid’s birthday party. Wanting anyone following to feel like a kite in a gusty wind.

  South of San Francisco, I followed the 101 through Palo Alto, passing the NASA Moffett airfield hangars, looming, vast, looking like they had been built to house some kind of secretive rocket ship. South of San Jose, the freeway stretched into a comfortable two-lane road, winding through brown hills. I refueled in Gilroy and got back on the freeway, doing a steady seventy-five, leaning into the wall of wind and wishing I could go faster. Never a fun feeling racing an airplane. Especially when the airplane had gotten a head start.

  Just north of Castroville, I cut west to the coast, linking up with Highway 1. Suddenly the views went from plain agriculture, all neat rows and endless fields, to the kind of stuff they put on the covers of guidebooks. The Pacific surged into visibility, bold and blue and sudden, bordered by tawny sand dunes.

  Monterey Regional Airport was several miles southeast of Monterey Bay. Like Santa Rosa, it was a tiny airport, scattering smaller planes out to the larger hubs, designed to allow people to move around the West Coast without having to resort to the sprawling big-city airports. I parked illegally on an empty stretch of curb. My chances of ticket avoidance seemed pretty good. There was only one empty police car parked at the airport entrance. The same principle of deterrent presented by a scarecrow, with hopefully the same chance of punishment. I walked into the single terminal, looking around, already knowing I was off course by the time I took in the sparse handful of check-in counters. I was chasing someone who had flown on a private plane. He wouldn’t have come through the public terminal. If Coombs had really been at this airport, he hadn’t stood where I was now standing.

  I walked back outside, eyes lifting to follow a little plane as it lunged upward into the blue sky. There were probably only one or two runways here. There would be a record of arriving flights, carefully recorded landing times, passenger information—somewhere. I felt reasonably optimistic that I could find that. The question was how long it would take, and how far Coombs might get in the meantime.

  I needed someone who had actually been on the ground. A mechanic or maintenance guy—whoever was responsible for handling an airplane after it landed and taxied and got parked wherever airplanes were parked. Someone must have seen Coombs. The question was finding them. I thought again of the scavenger hunt.

  “What are you looking for?”

  I looked over, surprised. The speaker was a chubby boy of about eleven or twelve in a Monterey Bay Aquarium T-shirt. He sat on a curbside bench and had a little green spiral notebook in his lap.

  “How do you know I’m looking for anything?” I asked.

  “Everyone at airports is always in a rush. You’re not.”

  I smiled. “I could say the same about you.” The boy had a yellow #2 pencil to go along with his notebook. Under round, plastic-frame glasses, his brown eyes were intent and sensitive, his skin smooth and clear, too young to be troubled by teenage acne. I saw there was a pair of binoculars next to him on the bench and had a bizarre thought of bird-watching.

  “So, what are you looking for?” he repeated.

  “Just someone I was hoping to meet.” I gestured at the notebook, my mind still on Coombs. “What are you writing in there? Homework?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not writing. I’m taking notes.”

 
I appreciated the distinction. The boy had an almost scholarly manner. Brown hair fluffed around his ears, as though there were more important things to do in life than brush.

  “Notes? On what?”

  He looked up into the sky as another plane came into view. This one bore Alaska Airlines markings. I could see the trademark blue face on the tail and heard the engine roar with increased volume as the plane floated downward. Then it was skimming the air before vanishing from view behind the terminal. The boy wrote a careful line in his notebook, then looked up to me. “That was an Embraer 175. It carries 64 passengers, 4 crew, has an 1,800-mile range, and the biggest windows of any Alaska plane.”

  I was impressed. “How do you know all that?”

  “They’re pretty much the only model Alaska uses here. The airport is too small for 737s.”

  I nodded toward the bench. “Mind if I sit?”

  The boy moved a backpack and a beat-up paperback out of the way for me as I sat.

  “You want to be a pilot when you grow up?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then why do you like planes so much?” I prompted.

  He shrugged. “I just do.”

  His eyes told a different story, but I didn’t press him. Instead I said, “I’m Nikki.”

  “Nice to meet you, Nikki. I’m Mason.” He held out his small hand and we shook.

  “Do you come here a lot?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Almost every day. Besides the library, it’s one of my favorite places.”

  I nodded at his paperback, seeing the title. “Boy—good book.”

  “You read it?” He sounded dubious.

  “I love Roald Dahl.”

  “It’s one of my favorites,” he said, with an affectionate look at the wrinkled cover. His voice was right on the edge of adolescence, deepening but with flashes of unsteadiness, like a foal on new legs. “This is my third time reading it.”

  Another plane surged into view, taking off, nose angling up, engine whining. This one was smaller than the Alaska plane, white with jaunty red stripes and propellers. Mason grabbed his binoculars, tracking the plane as it lifted. Satisfied, he nodded, traded binoculars for pencil, and wrote in his notebook. Then, as I watched with surprise, he lay down in the grass and did ten sit-ups followed by ten modified push-ups.