by C.G. Banks
Chapter 8: Plans and Preparation
At the sharp stroke of midnight Frederick was still sitting in the shack at the airstrip. Alone. He'd managed to run St. Martien out several hours earlier, although to do so he'd had to endure a ridiculous mini-lecture on hamming devices which he couldn’t have given two shits about.
There was a mass of maps spread out in front of him along the desk, many of them old and marked up in a network of black and red ink. It was a sort of time line. He remembered every one he'd made on them over the years, every trip he'd flown. They were etched in his memory. Why right there, that long unerring line that trailed out of Thibodaux and angled just east of Panama; that one was hard to forget. He grunted to himself, thinking back in the cheap glow of the forty watt bulb.
He hadn’t carried alcohol with him since. The pick-up had gone fine. That hadn’t been the problem, but looking back he thought maybe the ease had made him sloppy.
He still didn't really remember what the woman looked like. He'd been swimming through shots of tequila at a local dive instead of getting his shit together and high-tailing it out of there. The whore had managed to steal every bit of money he'd had in his wallet (including the fucking wallet), gotten him very nearly arrested by the local goon-squad, and to top things off, had dropped a barrel full of crabs on him that had damn near eaten him alive. From then on the natives had been off limits.
Shit. And then he saw it: the new line. The one he’d penciled in just today.
He'd made another call to William late in the afternoon, getting the assurance that a quarter of his pay would be in hand before leaving the ground. William hadn't mentioned anything about Samuel during the first part of the conversation and Frederick had half-expected the odd request had been swept away, forgotten. William verified the date, asked a few other horseshit questions. Frederick nodded through the phone and said fine and dandy as long as the money was in his hand.
"No problem,” William said. “Samuel will come over to square everything."
"He will? When?" he said, gritting his teeth, clenching his fist. "He still in this?"
"Of course," William replied. "He doesn’t joke around."
Frederick said he'd be at the airstrip around eight tomorrow night, gave William directions. "He's coming alone," William said carefully. "I've got business out of town, so he’ll handle this alone." He paused as if half-expecting some argument. Frederick offered none.
"Fine, tomorrow then."
"Right," he said and hung up.
Hours later he poured over the maps and the checklist on the desk beside him. Several early notations had been scratched out after he'd gone earlier and given the Cherokee the once-over. It was as clean as a scroll from heaven. The only thing he'd have to take care of tomorrow was recharging the magnetos since he'd noticed when he'd taken her up yesterday that the instrument panel displays were a bit dim.
He checked his watch, rubbed his eyes. Almost one o'clock in the morning. Through the crack in the screen door he could hear the grating hum of the cicadas. He reached for his glass and drained the remaining whiskey. Then, grunting, he stood up and switched off the light. Then he turned to leave, pushing the door open to the outside and the countless shadows of flies dive-bombing the halogen bulb over the wind sock.
He locked the screen, pulled the heavier wooden door that usually lay useless against the side of the building closed. Locked it. Suddenly noticed how tired he was as he crossed over to his four-wheel drive. Time to turn in.
He'd need a good head tomorrow, Samuel was coming.
With the light off in the basement, it seemed the vacuum of space glided in with more ease. Samuel had painted the walls black months before. It was the quietest time of the night, tomb-hour, he called it. And in this darkness Samuel raised the glass of ice water to his lips. It had sat undisturbed for the better part of an hour as he bent to his ritual: ultimate silence coupled with the dark, a feeling of death and control.
The only article in the tiled room, save for the thick shutters on the windows both inside and out, was a towel. He sat on it cross-legged, bare-assed in this room for hours. It was his place of choice. Although the walls leaked occasionally and the seeping water was always cold (even in summer), oozing through the cracked and blackened mortar, squeezing through the cracks, he sat and relished the advance of Time.
Its persistence fascinated him.
He'd come for solace after the episode in the warehouse. He'd known that morning, drinking his first cup of coffee, that he'd be in for the running, but he always regretted when things spun out of control. He shook his head and placed the glass back on the concrete floor.
"You're losing it," he whispered into the darkness, the words floating out like a spell until the darkness and moisture sucked them away to the depths of the cracked walls.
William had called sometime earlier in the evening; the message had been on his answering machine when he checked it, but he had felt no urge to return the call. Talking to anyone, especially William, now, was not a wise choice. He needed to get his shit together first; he could not go around pounding rats into bloody pulps and expect William would miss the signs. Getting caught now would only bring about more questions, ultimatums, and eventually unwanted sojourns locked in manacled silence. He could not go that route again.
He pulled himself to his feet with his eyes closed, feeling the primordial slicked sheet of sweat rolling down his back. The night was again in full control, beckoning from the murky distance, and this brought a smile to his previously stone-cast face. Eventually, as he concentrated, the tension drained away, dissipating like heat melting off the face of a steaming lake. He instinctively turned toward the door, near the ancient washer and drier (seldom used and rusting in the corner), and stood up. Made his way over. He grabbed the knob and closed his eyes so the light wouldn't blind him.
He opened it by degrees, standing naked in the doorway. Wiped the sweat from his face and tossed the towel into a hamper by the stairs. Then he slowly opened his eyes. There.
He walked across the cold floor, a few scant steps to the stairway. His clothes were in a neat pile at the foot of the riser, folded and resting on the surface of a grocery sack. The whole floor was dimpled with sweat, and he left a trial of shining footprints behind as he slowly dressed there in the dim light coming down from the top of the stairs.
When he finished dressing he took several deep breaths and prepared himself for upstairs: a place where symbols and vestiges of propriety and correctness mocked him from every corner, adorning the bookshelves, sprinkling every room with a normality that in no way inhabited the close confines of the basement. Mere window-dressing really.
Even now he wished the session was not over. The tenuous peace he found at times like these touched him only within the confines of that dripping room. He wondered if the nightmares would return with all their horrible freight. Creatures bearing his face, or at the least, his features. Things that lurched and stumbled along blind, damned to walk his nightly landscape.
His face grew more rigid as he climbed the stairwell, and he tried to ignore the fact his hands were shaking as he grasped the railing. Finally the cold doorknob at the top of the stairs. He turned it with a single, sharp click.
He passed through the kitchen and saw it was almost five in the morning. The night had raced by and he had to make an appearance at the warehouse today to keep William cooled. His heart beat faster as he imagined himself closing his hands around his brother’s throat. The rush to stare him in the eyes as he died. But of course that would not do.
Standing at the sink, he contemplated sleep, but vetoed the idea when he felt the clamminess descend like thick fat on his body. So he passed into the living room and channel-surfed the cable channels until his mind ran into a blur, and it became fashionably early enough in the morning to give William a call.
The sky transformed itself into an angry red ocean as Frederick sat in the lawn chair beside the open screen door, training his e
yes on the tree line at the far end of the airstrip. The day had been unseasonably hot, the sun slashing the cloudbanks to shreds, leaving the coming night as the only hope for relief. He took a sip of whiskey and grimaced. Checked his watch: 7:24 p.m. Shifted in the chair, running the legs back slightly in the dust so he could get a clearer view up the road. He thought he heard a car approaching and he was right.
Pulling in amid the dust and pot-holes that made the driveway near the highway a fool’s errand was a long, black Lincoln Town Car, and even though it wasn’t a newer model it was surprisingly well maintained. Frederick tossed back the rest of the whiskey and coaxed a smile to his face as the car got closer. He made out Samuel's face through the windshield, as usual, granite, uninflected. Frederick motioned for him to pull into a spot next to the four-wheel drive.
As he got up and walked past the shack, Frederick set the glass on the windowsill. Samuel killed the engine and opened the Lincoln's door. A nicely-polished set of high-dollar shoes emerged and set themselves down in the dirt. And as he got out Frederick could see he was dressed to the nines, all except for an old and battered suitcase that he carried carelessly in his left hand as he slammed the car door shut.
Surprisingly, he spoke first. "William told you I'd be on time, didn't he?" A small, strange smile played across his face then slid away with the same, slow momentum with which it had come. Frederick nodded and ran his tongue along his teeth.
"That's what he said," he admitted. "No problems finding it?"
Samuel shook his head and patted the briefcase. "Got a little something here I’m sure you're interested in..."
Frederick took it from him and motioned with his hand for Samuel to follow back inside the shack. As he walked he felt the man close behind and mentally stifled a chill that coursed up his spine. He pointed to one of the two chairs in the small office and sat down in the other. Samuel did likewise. "Everything good?" Frederick said.
"The money's there if that's what you mean," Samuel replied. He leaned forward and Frederick opened the suitcase and looked inside. Smiled at the neat rows of wrapped hundreds from the bottom up. Then he closed the suitcase and pushed it off to the side, hidden from anyone coming in through the doorway. "You want to take a look at the Piper?" he said.
Samuel nodded. "You going to count that?" he asked.
"Later."
"A trusting man," Samuel said in a sing-song voice, so that Frederick turned around to look at him. Samuel smiled and kept on going, "What the world needs now..." but to no obvious effect as Frederick walked ahead of him to the hangar.
"But I will check it later," he tossed over his shoulder as he unlocked the bay door. Shortly afterward, the inspection finished, both men sat outside the shack, diligently hammering away at a fifth of Jack Daniel's. Amazingly, the whiskey did a bang-up job of defusing the tension between them. Strangely enough, Samuel had become oddly amiable. It was just what Frederick had been hoping for. Because he was nowhere near as drunk as he let on.
They both stared out into the darkness, down the hollow runway. The moon was bright enough to cast shadows a good distance. Somewhere out there something howled. Frederick poured what was left in the bottle and slung it with surprising accuracy at the fifty-five gallon drum out near the ham-radio tower. The tip of the neck caught on the rim, shattering the bottle and spraying tiny shards of glass around the area. "Ahh, what the shit," he said slowly, raising his arms above his head in a massive stretch. Samuel wiped his hand across his sweating face and nodded.
"So how many of these runs you made?" the man said suddenly, causing Frederick to look over at him. Samuel shifted in the flimsy chair, struggling momentarily to keep the spindly thing from going over. It was clear he was trying to hide how drunk he was.
"A good many," he replied looking back at the rusting drum. There was a hunched shadow sniffing around the corner of the hangar, you could just see it in the light. Frederick leaned over, sifting through the dirt until he had several rocks in hand.
"Ever been busted?" Samuel said.
"Not yet," Frederick replied and lofted the handful of rocks in the rat's general direction. There came a clanging of rock against metal and a form shambled around the corner and out of sight.
"What the fuck!?" Samuel exclaimed. Frederick dusted off his hands on his pants leg.
"Fucking rat looked like. Maybe a 'coon. Fuckers are all over the place.”
"Ohh, okay..." Samuel said, although he still looked with wide-eyes toward the hangar's darkened corner. He pressed his fingers firmly into his lips, all the while nodding to himself. "A rat," he repeated in a hushed whisper, seemingly unable to take his eyes away. For the first time, Frederick saw an impression of fear crawling into the usually tightened mask of skin and bone. It was pleasing to watch.
He kicked at a rock near his foot as the silence persisted, processing his thoughts, and the sound finally brought Samuel around. His eyes cleared visibly, even in the shallow light, but Frederick couldn’t be sure why or how. The alcohol or something else?
Samuel stood up abruptly and handed his empty glass to Frederick. He checked his luminous Rolex, strangely now, hardly swaying at all. "I better get out of here. I've got a lot to do tomorrow."
"Okay."
"So we on for Wednesday?"
"Yeah. You still in?"
"You're goddamn right," William answered.
"Alright, then. I'll get in touch with you early in the week at the warehouse."
"Do that. Anything else you're going to need?"
Frederick paused, shook his head. "Can't think of anything. If I do, I'll let you know."
"I'm sure you will," Samuel said, his voice riding a line now. Turning away toward the car. "Watch the sky..." he muttered, almost offhand, as if he were saying it to himself. Then nothing but a wagging of his head as he made his way deeper into the gloom. Frederick watched him make his way to the car. Maybe the motherfucker would drive off the road and kill himself tonight. There was always that.
"Yeah," he said, as the big man opened the door and slipped inside the car. "Watch the sky." He watched the big sedan swing around and bounce its way up to the highway. When it was gone he stood up and retrieved the money from inside the building. Locked it up and walked over to his own vehicle. It was only when he got there that he noticed he still had Samuel’s glass in hand and flung it over his shoulder.
