Death Flight

by Melissa Yi

  He shuddered. He definitely wasn't a blood and guts kind of guy. "If you don't do it now, am I going to have a crooked nose for the rest of my life?"

  I laughed. "Of course not. Sometimes we leave it for ten days anyway, to let the swelling go down, and then we move it back into place." That sounded nicer than "break it all over again." "I'm sure there are thousands of doctors in L.A. who'd be happy to do it for you."

  "They'd charge me for it, too," he muttered.

  Money. The root of all evil, or at minimum, a fair amount of heartache. "Well, we're landing in Montreal. You could always come see me at the hospital, and I could do it for you then, with proper anaesthesia."

  "It's a deal," he said, giving me a crooked smile.

  I liked him a lot better now that he was on his own. "How did you end up working for them, anyway?"

  His cheeks reddened, and he looked away. "They recruited me."

  "Okay." I wasn't sure what he meant, but I wouldn't press him.

  He sighed and lowered his voice. Tucker and I leaned forward in tandem as he explained, "I had my own YouTube channel in Italy. I was popular enough, but I wanted more. I wanted to be a big star, go to Hollywood. They said they'd help me. When I arrived, though, I had no credits and no connections, and ... "

  "Yeah." How many young, beautiful people get sucked into that dream?

  "I said I would act in a film for them. Just one! But once they got me in that one ... "

  I shook my head. Tucker's body pressed tight against mine.

  "I'm not from Rome or Milan. Small town Italy is very conservative, because of the Vatican. You may have heard of the gay men who were exiled under Mussolini, or the ban against same sex marriage until 2016."

  I hadn't heard of any of those things, but Tucker nodded as he slid his hand under my hair to touch my neck. I leaned into him and imagined muzzling any hint of affection for fear of beating, exile, or worse.

  Alessandro continued, "After those movies came out, I couldn't go back to Italy. People sent the links to my grandmother! I was a dead man. All I had was my painting, because I didn't own my face or my body any more."

  I understood what he meant. Since I've become notorious as the "detective doctor" who was kidnapped, people construct strange ideas about me. My face was even made into a meme that my own brother told me not to look up. How much worse would it be for a porn star?

  "No one would hire me except them." His voice lifted on the last word, and I knew he loathed them. Anger and sadness bristled out of him.

  But did he kill Joel?

  Although my scrambled brain couldn't piece together all of the fight, I distinctly remembered Alessandro hauling me around the waist, much like he'd grabbed Staci Kelly, come to think of it. "He'll come after you, he'll hurt you, you have no idea ... "

  Now I had some idea of what Joel J and Staci Kelly had done to him.

  "I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it. People are such hypocrites. Sex is smeared over our ads, our music, our shows, and probably even our breakfast cereal, but heaven forfend the gorgeous actors who carried out the acts for our amusement. They were our modern day gladiators in the ring, but as in the days of Rome, they weren't allowed outside the ring.

  Stay on the screen or die. Or disappear.

  We who are about to fuck, salute you.

  I leaned against Tucker the way Roxy the Rottweiler leaned against me, for silent comfort, before she nudged my hand with her cold nose and licked me. I wished Ryan were here, too. And I tried to find the right words. "They're terrible people. They enjoyed ... creating illusions on screen and sowing misery in real life."

  Alessandro's hands fisted. He assessed Tucker and me, pressed against each other, and now that I knew he was an artist, I understood the depth of his gaze. His eyes were his instruments. He used them to weigh the world and reinterpret it. I felt more kinship with him than with Staci Kelly or, frankly, most people on this plane.

  Or on this planet.

  Our world teaches us how to kill or be killed. Cut those trees, snatch those fish out of the ocean. Burn everything left standing.

  Almost no one honours the quiet people, the ones trying to hold everything together, the ones who invite the whole class to birthday parties, the ones silently tending to their gardens, reading their books, or watching the moon glow.

  But I do, when I have time. And I could tell Alessandro was one of those people. Someone who hadn't achieved commercial success, but probably had more talent in his dandruff than Joel had accumulated in the past fifty years.

  Yet Joel was the one who'd scored the money and the glory while Alessandro died inside.

  So I had to say, "Someone stabbed Joel."

  "It wasn't me," Alessandro returned. "I'm their body guard."

  I hadn't known that was his official role. Tucker twitched, eager to cut in, but I pressed a hand on his thigh to shut him up. "Great. You must have been watching him. Did you see anyone with a knife?"

  "No. How would anyone bring a knife on a plane?"

  Compton carried a plastic knife. Pascale whipped out stork scissors. Even post-9/11, there were ways of getting sharp objects on a plane. "It didn't have to be a knife. Some sort of blade near his chest. Did you see that?"

  "No," he said. "The flight attendants were in the way. I had to pull them aside to get at you." His cheeks reddened. It embarrassed him, to talk about this, but we had to do it.

  "What did you see? How did you move the flight attendants out of the way?"

  "I don't remember. It's kind of a blur. I don't think I hurt them. I probably tunnelled right through them—" His face screwed up for a second. "Wait. I did see something. That crazy guy with a plastic knife."

  Compton. But how could he have gotten past Herc? And it was only a plastic knife. You probably could stab someone if you used enough force, but you'd have to be out of your gourd to shank them, clean the knife off, and then offer it up again to the doctor trying to rescue the victim.

  Although it would be a clever way to explain, afterward, why it was covered in the victim's blood. And it would be easy to carry multiple plastic knives.

  I rolled the idea around in my addled brain one more time.

  No, I still didn't think Compton had the time, the motive, or really, the correct weapon to kill Joel. But if the real weapon was the stork scissors, the forensic team would be hard-pressed to prove it after Tucker had sunk them into the guy's chest.

  "Anything else?" I knew I shouldn't lead him, but I couldn't resist saying, "There were scissors too."

  "I didn't see the scissors. I didn't see anything. Everyone pushed me out of there, even though I was only trying to do my job."

  "He was trying to throw a dog off a plane," I pointed out. "He hit you. And—"

  Alessandro shrugged.

  "It wasn't the first time, was it?" Tucker said.

  He shrugged again. After a minute, he said, "I could take it. It wasn't the worst thing he could do to me."

  Eesh. Did he mean something sexual? I nodded sympathetically and left that one alone. "Do you think he hurt Staci Kelly—"

  He almost laughed. "That one can take care of herself."

  "Do you think she killed him?" The words leaped out of my mouth. No filter.

  But he didn't seem offended. He sat in silence. At long last, he shrugged. "How could she? She was in a different part of the plane."

  There it was again. How could she?

  30

  Alessandro lapsed into silence. I asked Pascale to bring him some ice for his nose and whispered to Tucker, "We should interview everyone who held down Mr. Money. That's how we'll figure out what happened."

  "You mean Joel, right?"

  "Right." My cheeks burned. I was so in my own head that I'd forgotten to call him by his real name.

  Tucker didn't seem to care. "Good timing. She seems to have stopped screaming."

  I attuned my ears. I'd blocked out Staci Kelly's yowls, but they did seem to have died down. So to speak.

>   When Pascale offered us water, I gulped down mine, plus a refill, with profuse thanks. I'd face Staci Kelly better with some rehydration.

  The curtain twitched aside. I turned, expecting Linda with a request to talk to the flight doctor, but Compton shambled toward us, his pants still at risk of falling off his bony hips. He didn't make eye contact. "Hi."

  Tucker glanced at me and spoke for both of us. "Hi there. What's your name?"

  "Cody."

  Well, that was a C name, which made it easier for me to remember.

  He pointed to the shirt. "Cody Compton."

  Ah. So the shirt wasn't only a retro cool thing for him. His name was technically Compton. That made it even easier for me to remember.

  "Thanks for helping us out back there," said Tucker.

  "Yeah. I'm a giver."

  I choked back an inappropriate laugh.

  "Yeah, that's awesome," said Tucker. He sounded like he meant it. I'll never be as good an actor as him.

  Compton rubbed under his left nostril with the top of his index finger. He repeated the action slowly. I was afraid he was going to start picking it, but after a long moment, he wiped his finger on his pants and said to Alessandro, "Hey, man, you got something there."

  Alessandro paused. None of us had expected that one. I suspected that his handsome Italian pride smarted. "Thank you."

  Compton nodded. "Just helping a brother out. That's what I do. I'm a giver." This time, he gave an odd emphasis to the last word.

  "What are you giving?" I asked, interrupting their bro-man-dude moment.

  "Help," he said, as if I were particularly dense. "Whenever and wherever there's a need. You'll find me."

  Was he quoting Batman?

  "Daddy!" called a little kid's voice from behind the curtain.

  "I felt bad about holding his leg, though," said Compton, ignoring the child's voice. "That was too much. I came here to tell you, you shouldn't have cut him open."

  I tensed, but Tucker simply asked, "Why?"

  "There was too much blood."

  Was it okay to cut someone open, as long as there wasn't much blood? I expected Tucker to pursue that. Instead, he watched Compton's body language. Compton had shoved his hands into his front pockets. His hands twitched under the fabric, almost like he was snapping his fingers.

  Did he have tardive dyskinesia? It isn't common, but it's a side effect from antipsychotic medication. I stared at him, trying to match his activity to YouTube videos I'd seen. No, it didn't look like the same rhythmic movement.

  I couldn't pin down a diagnosis. Tucker, the would-be psychiatrist, would know better.

  "You don't like blood, huh?" Tucker said finally.

  "Sometimes it does have to be spilled, though."

  My body jolted against my seat back before I could control myself. Tucker placed a hand on my arm. I struggled to slow my breathing, my heart rate, and my brain.

  Compton’s vague eyes locked directly on mine. "You know that 'without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.'" It sounded like a quote.

  "I've heard that," said Tucker calmly. "Could you remind me where?"

  "Hebrew 9:22."

  The Bible. I gave Compton another once over. Quotes the Bible, carries around a plastic knife ... this did not auger well for me, the infidel. I was running straight up into a lot of different belief systems today, and I didn't trust any of them.

  Compton scratched his head. "'And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.' That's the King James 2000 version."

  My heart thumped. I tried to console it with logic. He was behind Herc. He couldn't have reached around to stab Mr. Money.

  My heart didn't care. Goose bumps prickled my arms.

  I am a knife.

  Topaz had said that, not Compton—I recognized it as a snippet from Roxane Gay, because our friend Tori had me read her book, Difficult Women, which may not have been a compliment—but it made me think of something else. The killer could have been someone's knife, someone's instrument. Not killing for him or herself, but for a higher power, or a mission of some kind.

  That was the only thing that made sense to me. Otherwise, why would you take the risk of stabbing someone on an airplane, in front of over a hundred potential witnesses?

  It didn't narrow down the suspects, but it did give me an idea of the killer's determination.

  "Blood has been shed," said Tucker.

  Compton nodded.

  "Is there forgiveness?"

  Compton shrugged. "It's not for me to say." He glanced up at the ceiling as if a higher power might be visible through it. Then he stared at Alessandro who, true enough, seemed like the one who'd have to forgive both Joel J and Staci Kelly.

  Alessandro stared back at him like Compton was a fly on its back, buzzing itself around in a circle before it died.

  Tucker leaned into the aisle, breaking contact with me. I tried not to reach for him again as he spoke, keeping his voice casual. "Did you make sure that blood was shed?"

  "Huh?" Compton turned his large, brown eyes on him.

  "He had cuts in his side. Do know where that came from?"

  "Do I know where that came from," said Compton, not like he was offended, but more like he was testing the shape of the words in his mouth.

  "Hoooooooooo!" Mr. Yarborough yelled.

  My hands fisted.

  "Quiet, Harold!" his wife shushed him, none too gently.

  "Yes," said Tucker, keeping his eyes on Compton. "Did you cut him in his side?"

  "Like Jesus?" said Compton.

  "Excuse me?" The words burst out of my throat. I was so taken aback.

  Compton smiled and crouched over me. I could see orange crumbs clinging to the fine hairs around his lips, as if he'd forgotten to wipe his mouth after scarfing down the Cheetos. "That's what happened to Jesus. It was one of His five holy wounds. The first two were in His hands or wrists. The second two were in His feet. For the crucifixion, you know." He stared at Tucker, then me, as if he could transmit his thoughts through his eyes. His breath smelled like sweet tea. "The fifth wound was in His side. A soldier stuck Him with a spear, to see if he was dead. Blood and water poured out of His wound, according to the Gospel of John."

  Was he trying to educate us, or confess?

  I realized I'd unconsciously pressed myself against the wall before I caught myself. I had to be ready in case he attacked Tucker.

  I peeled myself off the cool plastic, confused. In my head, Joel was a bad guy. No one, not even his own wife, seemed to like him. But here was Compton, comparing him to Jesus and smiling like he'd laid some serious wisdom on us.

  Tucker brought us back on point. "Cody," he said softly, as the guy turned his trusting orbs on him, "did you give this man a holy wound?"

  Compton nodded solemnly.

  Even Mr. Yarborough fell quiet for a moment.

  "Really?" I said.

  "Oh, yes," Compton answered.

  Tucker and I exchanged glances. "Do you know what you're saying?" I said.

  Compton nodded. "For sure. I gave him a holy wound in his left side. I had to, you know."

  "You stabbed him?" said a man's deep voice on our left.

  I looked up. It was "the whale," the man who'd taken up two seats, now blocking the aisle. He had a red face and a beard, but what drew my eyes were his massive hands. If he ever decided to strangle someone ...

  "He confessed," I said. I highly doubted Compton had done it. And even if he had done it, had he known what he was doing? He hadn't even tied his own shoes. The laces trailed on the ground. How did he get the wherewithal to kill a grown man?

  "Let's put him somewhere safe, then."

  It seemed natural to fall in line with the vast man with the basso profundo voice.

  I resisted. "Hang on. Let me ask a few more questions."

  "You can ask questions when we have him squared away. There are women and children on this plane, including yourself, miss."<
br />
  The "miss" disarmed me a little, even though it shouldn't have. "Where are you going to put him?"

  "I'm not going to hurt him. I'm just going to sit with him. I've got a seat next to me that he might be able to squeeze into. You want a bump into business class, buddy?"

  "Oh, yeah!"

  "Cody," I said, but it was too late. Basso Profundo was leading Compton to his row.

  Compton said, "I've never sat here before. This should be cool. I heard you get free drinks and everything. And in Montreal, they have an exhibit on Miles Davis. Did you know that he revolutionized jazz five times?"

  "No," said Basso Profundo kindly, gesturing at Pascale to bring him yet more zip ties. "I had no idea."

  Tucker and I looked at each other. This was the first time I'd felt terrible about someone's confession. Every other killer had been—well, one or two of them had been viciously intelligent. All of them had something upstairs. Compton almost seemed like a child, or schizophrenic.

  I wanted justice, and this didn't feel right. "We can't let him take the blame without evidence that he did anything wrong. I probably hurt Joel worse than he did by sitting on his chest."

  Tucker twisted in his seat to grasp my upper arm. "What are you talking about?"

  "He kicked you. He was getting away, so I jumped on his chest, and it turned out he'd been stabbed. He wouldn't have been able to breathe with me compressing his chest. I—"

  "Don't say it, Hope." His fingers clenched so hard that each fingertip would probably bruise my arm, and I didn't care. I deserved it.

  Tucker bounded out of his seat, towing me to the curtain before he finally released my arm. "Now." Tucker turned on me. "What are you doing, Hope?"

  "Oh, Tucker." Exhaustion slammed me. I sagged where we stood. "You know what I'm talking about. I sat on top of Mr. Money. That's how I got blood on my pants. He already had a pneumo and tamponade, plus I gave him compressive hypoventilation. If you're going to zip tie Compton, you'd have to put me away, too."

  "Don't be ridiculous. You got off him the second that we saw blood."