Death Flight

by Melissa Yi

  "You did everything," I told him. More than everything. The College would roast him about going beyond his skill level. He was a first year family medicine resident, not a trauma surgeon. Staci Kelly's lawyers might draw and quarter him as soon as we touched down on the tarmac. Yet I couldn't let him see my doubt. Not when he wavered so close to the precipice. "He couldn't have asked for a better doctor. Let's go take care of Staci Kelly, okay?"

  He shook his head from side to side, meaning no. It was so strange, not having him talk. It was almost like he was another man.

  Ryan had evolved because of my anti-crime activities, too. He used to go to church every Sunday, unlike my pagan self. That was one reason we broke up in medical school, along with long distance. But 14/11 fractured his faith. Now Ryan was more like me: he didn't know what to believe.

  So I'd seen my men change before, in fundamental ways, but Tucker's silence and stillness spooked me.

  If he wouldn't come with me, I didn't know what to do.

  And then I did. The answer was simple. I would stay with him.

  I couldn't abandon him to take care of Staci Kelly while he grieved over Joel's body. I put my hand on his wrist, gently this time. "Never mind. Someone else can help Staci Kelly." Topaz stared at us. Her nostrils pointed at me like an additional set of miniature black eyes, inspiring me. "Topaz can do it. She can quote her guru at her and ... comfort her." Or make Staci Kelly wish she, too, was dead. "We're a team. We'll stick together, okay? I love you."

  My heart thudded against my rib cage as he remained mute. Was Tucker so far gone that he wouldn't remember that he loved me any more?

  Finally, he spoke. "I love you."

  It seemed like I had a few tears after all. He remembered. I watched his face, waiting, because I had no idea what else was going on in his beautiful head. Blood spotted his face, his neck, his hair. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone filming us, but I ignored it. Tucker was all I cared about. His mental and physical survival meant everything to me.

  His eyes flicked up and down, cataloguing my equally zombified look, before he gave me a crooked smile. "We'll always stick together. You were awesome." He shook his head, and my heart clutched, but he said, "We'll help her. You'll have to take your gloves off before you go up there, though."

  I gazed down at my bloody gloves, and I would have laughed if the entire plane hadn't been studying us.

  He grinned, and I mouthed "I love you" before I scanned for a place to dump our gloves. Garbage cans line our resuscitation bays, but where to toss my biohazardous gloves on a plane? Certainly no one would want them in the little brown paper bags hooked on the walls. Only Gideon would have been a fan. "Are we allowed to throw these away, or are they evidence?"

  "I have no idea, detective doctor," he said. I smiled. No one had ever looked so good post-resuscitation.

  "I'll take them," said Magda. Her nostrils flared. She didn't want to do this. But she held out her own gloved hands, ready to accept our used ones.

  I pinched the cuff of the glove on my left wrist. As I peeled it off, I turned it inside out, hiding the bloody surface and all the finger bits on the inside. Then I degloved my right side the same way, turning it into a bag for both gloves, before I placed them in her cupped palms. Tucker did the same.

  "Let's clean up," I said. The most important part was decontaminating Tucker’s bite, but I also yearned to wash my hands and face. Ideally, I'd take a shower and burn my clothes, but in the meantime, washing up seemed like the right thing to do, both in terms of sanitation and making a mental divide between Joel's death and comforting Staci Kelly.

  "Me too," said Tucker, and we hurried to separate bathrooms at the rear of the plane, me on the left, him on the right, while Linda headed in the other direction with what looked like a body bag. She thanked us and passed us each a spare set of gloves, which was perfect, because otherwise, I'd have to scrub my gross face with my bare hands.

  By the time we emerged, Joel's body had been moved out of the aisle.

  I didn't search for where it had gone. Tucker gestured me ahead of him, his newly-washed hair falling over his forehead, and I stepped over the bloodstains on our way to business class.

  24

  When I parted the curtain, braced for more screaming, the first thing I heard was Mrs. Yarborough's voice. "Sit down, for heaven's sake!"

  "I don't want to sit down!" her husband protested. His grey head rose above the seat and hovered for a moment before she got him buckled up again.

  Tucker and I ignored them, zeroing in on Staci Kelly, who was still in the window seat, now wearing a black jacket showcasing her cleavage, a tight black skirt, and stiletto black boots. Her face was puffy, and she was wearing sunglasses again, but otherwise, she'd transformed herself from a caterwauling, white hot mess into a hot widow prepared for the funeral.

  En plus, Alessandro had taken Joel's aisle seat. He leaned toward her, murmuring in her ear, although as soon as he noticed us, he straightened away from her. She kept her legs crossed at the thigh, pointing toward Alessandro.

  "We're so sorry for your loss," Tucker told her. "We did everything we could. We—I—" He swallowed. I shook my head, but he wanted to claim full responsibility. "—I took out the extra air that collapsed his lung, and removed blood from around his heart, but he was too far gone. I'm sorry."

  I nodded and echoed, "Sorry." The movement made my vision heave up and down again.

  "Thank you," she said. Her sunglasses slipped down her nose. She handed them to Alessandro, her eyes still locked on me. When I returned her gaze, she stirred in her seat, swaying her breasts forward.

  She moved like a sexy python, but I was more interested in how she was breathing, which seemed relatively calm, even though there was still a dog on the plane and she was freshly bereaved.

  I have a really bad poker face, so I glanced at Tucker. He raised his eyebrows back at me. The plane quivered.

  Meanwhile, Alessandro sat beside her, rubbing her back in a way that didn't seem servant-like. He used the whole flat of his hand, making languorous circles.

  I focused on Staci Kelly and reminded myself not to judge, even though I wouldn't have an employee touch me like that. If nothing else, he'd figure out whether or not I was wearing a bra. But in her case, it was almost guaranteed she needed extra support for her mammoth jugs, and maybe she found his touch comforting in her time of loss. On closer inspection, her face was still swollen, and her voice was hoarse when she spoke.

  "I know you did your best. I could hear you in there, you know, even with him yelling." She flapped an elegant hand at Mr. Yarborough, who was now saying, "Mommy, I want to go home."

  Alessandro nodded. "I told her."

  Since this guy had tried to drag me off Joel, he didn't strike me as the best source of information.

  I tried to smile. "We did everything we could to bring him back. We did our utmost." So please be grateful and don't sue us, even though you live in La-la-lawsuit, California.

  "I know. I heard." She thrust a thumb at Alessandro and then at Tucker. "I'm not stupid, you know." Her full lips twisted, and something flashed in her eyes.

  I opened my mouth, but Tucker was faster. "Of course. No one said you were stupid."

  "Yeah?" She stared at him, a long, slow stare that made me twitch. "Guess you weren't one of the guys on set, then."

  Tucker flushed. He's so pale that when he turns red, he almost looks like he's dipped in salsa.

  I looked from Staci to Tucker and back again.

  Staci Kelly said to me, "You have no idea who I am, do you? But your boyfriend knows."

  I started to lick my lips before I remembered their recent history and the fact that airplane water is not clean.

  Tucker tossed his head and met my eyes, but I could read the discomfort on his face, even though his blush was starting to ebb, so I turned back to her and said calmly, "I assume you're a porn star."

  She bared her teeth at me. "You're a live one, aren't y
ou? I could get all politically correct on your ass, but you just saved my husband's life. Or you tried to, anyway."

  I blinked. So did Tucker. She knew exactly where to prod us.

  "You know who Joel was, too?" she asked Tucker.

  He shook his head, not quite meeting her eyes.

  "You heard of Silicone Valley?" It took me a second to realize that she was saying Silicone, not Silicon, and by then she'd already moved on, her glossy red lips relishing her own words. "Pornucopia. San Pornado Valley. That's us. Pounding Flesh Productions. Joel J. Firestone and Staci Kelly. We got in before the money went south." She threw back her head and laughed. "We got some good years out of it. Joel knows how to follow the money."

  "What's that?" called Mr. Yarborough.

  "Never you mind," his wife answered.

  I was still working it through myself. Joel had been a porn magnate, and Staci Kelly had been in her prime when they got together. I'm not good at guessing ages, but she had to be in her 30s now, if not 40s, which is fine with me, but I'm sure porn treats you like you age in dog years. Staci Kelly must have followed the money into the production side too. Certainly they were flying business class and had hired a manservant, and she had an outfit for every occasion.

  "Looks like you were doing well." I tried to match her tone. She didn't want effusive condolences or detailed medical explanations. She wanted to talk about herself. I could do that.

  She grinned. "We got in a good three years before the amateurs killed everything."

  "Those amateurs," called Mr. Yarborough.

  Staci Kelly issued a full-throated laugh. There was something fascinating about watching her, even though most of her outer flesh seemed surgically "enhanced." It was like watching a beautiful robot. You wanted to analyze what did and didn't quite look human. Topaz's nose made me uncomfortable, but Staci Kelly had retained an edgy, almost savage kind of beauty.

  "Joel and I made plenty of money. And we made plenty of enemies while we were at it. I want you to tell me exactly what happened back there."

  "He had a pneumothorax, which means that he had a hole in his lung—" Tucker began.

  "Not the medical part!" She throttled down her rage, pasting over it with sweetness. "Someone stabbed him, right? Alessandro told me there was blood."

  "He had two cuts on his chest," I said. "We don't know how he got them. We're doctors. We treat the wounds. It's up to the police—"

  The airplane bumped. I clung to Alessandro's seat. Tucker automatically reached out to help me, but I gripped the blue fabric and thought, Don't say it. Don't say it.

  Staci Kelly's scarlet lips formed the words anyway. "Fuck the police. I want to know who did it. You’re the detective doctor, right? Joel looked you up before the Wifi died. So here’s your next case. I’ll hire you. Hell, I’ll hire both of you.”

  I shook my head so hard that my brain started to orbit again. I forced myself to meet her eyes instead. "I understand your frustration. There might be police officers on this flight who could help you." Any officer would have stepped up during our Battle Royale, but maybe she was too upset to realize that. "Then you can file a report as soon as you get home. You need professional investigators, not us."

  She snorted. "God knows when we're getting home. We're on our way to a frozen, godforsaken country. We're trapped on this death flight. You two figure out what happened to him right now. I'll pay you."

  "It's not the money—"

  "For fuck's sake!" She sounded like her husband. "Whoever stabbed him is right here on this plane. If they hated Joel, they're coming after me next. You have to protect me."

  She was right. We were jammed on an airplane with a murderer.

  We would have to work it out, in self defence, if nothing else.

  I shook my head before my brain reminded me not to. All my instincts told me to crawl back into row 33, shake Herc's hand, and sleep on Tucker's lap until we hit Canada.

  "This must be very traumatic for you," Tucker was saying. "As Dr. Sze pointed out, we're not the police, and we can't investigate anything professionally—"

  I smiled.

  "—but we'll contribute however we can."

  I glowered at him over my shoulder. My vision telescoped in and out for a second.

  He patted my shoulder, although he never broke eye contact with Staci Kelly. "Of course we can't guarantee anything. We can only ask questions. Even though you're grieving right now—"

  "Baby, you have no idea how I'm grieving," she said, fitting her oversized sunglasses back on her nose.

  "—we can start with questioning you and Alessandro, whenever you're ready."

  She pulled her sunglasses down so she could stare at him over the rims. "I was born ready." The words were predictable, but she delivered them with conviction. Then she licked her lips, not in a quick, nervous flick like I did on winter-cracked lips, but a slow swipe that displayed the length of her tongue.

  She was so obvious. Even if I played for that team, I would find her displays ridiculous. Still, Tucker's neck flushed, and she smiled before turning triumphant eyes on me. I could have him if I wanted him.

  I shook my head. No, you couldn't. He's mine.

  She glanced Tucker up and down, twice. "I do love a man with good hands," she said. "I'd do anything for him."

  "Is that how you knew Joel?" I asked, pretending not to notice that Alessandro was massaging her forearm.

  "No, sweetie. I got to know him because I was his star pupil," she said, tossing her hair and arching her breasts forward.

  "When was that?" I ignored the boobs. She was obviously programmed to a) Say something sexy, b) Do something sexy, c) Watch men react, d) Laugh, e) Repeat.

  "In 2002. But then, I was underage. All men like that sort of thing. That's why they're into Asians, right?"

  I paused. Her husband had called me prepubescent, too. Should I ignore her barb or lob something back at her? Unprofessional, but so tempting.

  Tucker cut in. "I try to treat people like individuals. So you met him in 2002. How long had he been in the business?"

  She pouted, nestled against Alessandro for a moment to reactivate him—he kissed her cheek—before she fluttered her eyelashes at Tucker. "Don't you want to know how old I was?"

  "Sure, but it sounds like Joel was more established in the business already. Were you in the San Fernando Valley?”

  She issued a low, throaty laugh. "Yes. I was deep down in the Valley. And so was he."

  He'd probably been ten years older than her. If she'd been 17, he would have been 27 like me and Tucker, which is not old, except in Hollywood. "I bet he'd been there about five years, and he was scrambling, but he wasn't making much headway. Am I right?"

  I'd managed to startle her more than her husband's death. "Yeah, that sounds about right. How did you know?"

  Alessandro spoke. "She must have looked him up on the Internet."

  "I'd never heard of him before now, and I've kind of had my hands full, trying to save his life—"

  Tucker rubbed my shoulder, silently asking me to simmer down, but I was calm compared to Alessandro.

  The Italian man climbed to his feet. "Everybody’s heard of Joel J. Firestone. He's famous. He worked with all the biggest people. People who wouldn't want to be named!"

  That reminded me of evil wizards. I nearly smiled.

  "Shhh." Staci Kelly patted his knee absently, like he was a cat, and Alessandro dropped back in his seat, resentful, as she said, "Sex is natural and beautiful and powerful. All we do is harness that energy, but most people don't understand that, even if they consume our products every day and night."

  Strange. She was preaching, much like Topaz had done, but while Topaz worshipped some self-proclaimed guru, Staci Kelly worshipped money and power, which was the USA's god of choice, so she fit right in. Sex was the Occam's Razor delivering Staci that power through money. She might like sex, or put on a good show about it, but her real love was power. Now that Joel was dead, she was probably f
our times as rich, and she didn't have to put up with him any more. No wonder she wasn't in mourning.

  But she couldn't have killed him. She'd stayed behind the business class curtain the entire time. She had an alibi.

  "Are there people here who would have resented Joel?" Tucker said.

  She laughed. Two types of female laughs are classically sexy: the high pitched, childish cheerleader giggle, or the low and throaty, Mississippi Delta down and dirty. Guess which one she offered Tucker. "Probably one hundred percent of the people on this plane hated his guts."

  Including you? I wondered, but I held back. I wanted to see what else she'd reveal.

  Even Alessandro settled back into his seat, distancing himself from her, but she tossed her hair again and blew her nose. "Just telling the truth, like I always do." She had trouble maintaining her magnetism behind a tissue.

  "What exactly did he do? How did he make his money?" I said. Officer Visser once told me, Always follow the money.

  "He's—he was a director and a producer."

  I was fuzzy on what directors and producers actually did, but Tucker nodded.

  "He was very professional. He wouldn't do amateur work. Everyone got paid according to industry standards. That's more and more rare these days. All the amateurs are taking over the industry."

  Even the porn star producers felt broke. And clearly, in her mind, the guy had been a hero instead of an arrogant prick. Yet if I forgot all that and followed the money, from the way she talked, his expenses were too high. He should have lost money. How could I ask her tactfully?

  She sniffed and tossed her used tissue on the floor. Alessandro scooped it up as she said, "It's not what you think. Everyone comes here with the same dream, and we let them live it out. We film them. We pay them, and pay them well. The directing, the staging, the script, the makeup, the lighting, it's all professional. It may not be what they thought they'd be doing, but they're still acting. Film is film."

  And yet my family would implode if Hollywood live-streamed my sex life with strangers. Even if Joel provided better lighting.