Thin Gray Lines

by Mark Hazard

  “I know, I’m sorry!” A gruff voice from inside the house.

  Corus looked over his shoulder. Arlo Falcone had arrived at the house and had apparently awoken Iris Tanner.

  Something broke inside, but he left them to their discussion and kept jogging out toward the plane. When he was within hailing distance to Chito, he yelled, “What’s going on?”

  Chito couldn’t answer over the engine’s sharp crescendo. The plane launched forward, speeding down the road again.

  “He’s going for it,” Corus said.

  Corus and Chito stood shoulder-to-shoulder, as Jorge gunned the engine straight at the Phillips property, set to crash into the big shop behind the house.

  “Get up!”

  And as if on command, the plane left the ground and sailed over the outbuilding.

  “He did it! I don’t believe it!” Chito said.

  The plane banked to one side and then the other, Jorge testing out the controls. He managed a slow turn.

  “Unbelievable,” Corus said in English. “He’s still gotta land it somewhere but… Unbelievable.”

  Chito laughed and jumped in the air. “Jorge, you crazy fucker! You can fly!”

  Arlo pounded down the back steps of the house and looked in the sky. Even the workers waiting in front of the DC were watching intently as Jorge buzzed over their heads only a hundred feet off the ground.

  Iris appeared out the back of the house, too. Upon seeing the plane, she pulled Arlo’s pistol from his jacket and ran into open ground.

  Bap, bap, bap, bap, bap. She emptied the clip, then cursed at Arlo for not having his gun fully loaded.

  Jorge sailed over their heads, straightened his course to the south and started climbing.

  Chito had tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry I doubted you, you magnificent bastard.”

  “Careful,” Corus said. With the plane moving away from them, it was hard to judge the angle, but it looked like Jorge’s ascent was too sharp. “It’s too steep. Level off, man.”

  Like that, the hum of the engine was lost to his ears.

  “Did the engine just stop?” Corus asked.

  Chito looked over. “Is that bad?”

  Corus watched, ears straining. “Maybe it’s just too far away.”

  They looked on as the plane stopped its climb, as if frozen in the air a thousand feet above ground, then tipped sideways like a stunt pilot entering a dive at an air show.

  “Ah, no!” Chito gripped the sides of his head.

  “He stalled it. Shit.”

  Jorge had mere seconds to restart the engine and regain control.

  A helpful gust of wind lurched it out of a full nose dive, but Jorge was still losing altitude. Corus didn’t hear the engine restart.

  “What do we do?” Chito demanded.

  The plane glided in a downward sloping turn, and Corus imagined Jorge reefing at the stick to try and pull out of the fall.

  “Come on, pull!”

  The plane came in low and quiet, moving north, almost leveled out, but racing straight for the barn whose roof Corus had perched upon to snipe prairie dogs. Jorge flew so close Corus could see him in the cockpit, bottoming out fifteen feet from the ground and beginning to rise. The barn roof sheared off the landing gear and acted like a ramp, launching the plane higher in the air. The legless plane floated silently over the bunkhouse and the tractor barn, one wing tipping up to the sky, and arced back toward the earth at alarming speed.

  The fuselage punched through the metal siding of the DC, leaving one wing behind. A moment later, an orange ball of flame burst through the entry hole and out the side door.

  Workers dove away as smoke and flames erupted from the partially raised bay doors to the front. They passed Arlo and Iris who ran toward the crash, Iris barefoot and stumbling. Over the din and the workers yelling, Corus could hear Iris screaming.

  “My money! My money! He’s crashed into my money!”

  The initial fireball died away, and thick, black smoke pumped out of every opening, even from the seams in the roof.

  After the initial shock, everyone coalesced in a rough semi-circle facing the disaster. Randall appeared to Corus’ right, not minding that Iris and Arlo were fifteen feet away to Corus’ left.

  “We have to save him.” Chito started forward.

  Corus held him back. “He’s gone.”

  “Where’s Olive?” Randall looked about feverishly. “Where is Olive?”

  Two of the workers raised their arms in the direction of the smoking building.

  Randall tore off running for the side door.

  Iris pushed Arlo toward the site, screaming for him to get her money, but he wouldn’t budge.

  Chito bent at the waist and puked. When he stood straight, he looked gaunt. His drug-induced analgesia was wearing thin, and the pain was mounting.

  “Get my money!” Iris punched at Arlo’s arm.

  “I ain’t going in there,” he said.

  She looked at Chito. “Him!” She punched Arlo’s arm again. “He’s the one who stole from me.”

  Arlo reached for his gun before remembering it was empty. He fished a spare clip out of a jacket pocket, fed it in and chambered a round.

  Chito was still staring at the crash site, unaware. Corus already stood between them and turned to face Arlo.

  “Move,” Arlo said.

  “Shoot them both!” Iris screamed. “It’s his fault. He brought that killer here. He’s the reason for all this.”

  Arlo looked back at the row of DC workers, as if wondering how many witnesses to a murder was too many.

  “Don’t look at them,” Iris screeched. “I own them! Just shoot!”

  Arlo gave a menacing glance at the dirt, one Iris couldn’t see.

  Randall emerged from the DC’s side door, carrying Olive, both black with soot and smoke. As he hustled away from the building, smoke continued to waft off her singed clothes and hair.

  Chito finally noticed Arlo staring them down, gun in hand. He cursed in fright. “Diego…”

  “I can help her,” Corus said to Arlo. “But no shooting.”

  “It’s true,” Chito said in English. “He saved Oswaldo’s life.”

  Iris had but a glance for her smoking daughter before yelling again, “Shoot them! Quick. Then save my money!”

  Arlo pivoted at the waist and clubbed Iris across the face with the big fist holding the pistol.

  She folded on the ground like a lawn chair.

  “Jesus Christ!” Arlo erupted. “Shut the fuck up! I ain’t never put my hands on a woman before.” He bent over her unconscious body and yelled, “I-don’t-work-for-you! I work for your boss, bitch.”

  He set his gaze on Corus. “I ain’t never hit a woman before. I swear.” He nodded over toward Olive. “Go. Help.”

  Corus ran and Chito followed, if only to get away from Arlo. Olive lay on the packed earth in the shade of the tractor barn. Her exposed skin was sunburn pink, and her hair was singed away from one side of her head, but she was alive and coughing.

  Randall knelt with her head in his lap. “Dear one, stay with me.”

  “The money,” Olive wheezed between coughs. “I figured out where she hid it.”

  “Forget it.” Randall sobbed and uselessly tried to wipe her face clean. “It’s gone now.”

  “It’s not.” She reached up and grabbed his face and for the first time opened her eyes. The whites stood out starkly against the black of her skin. “There’s two control rooms. Two bunkers.”

  Randall glanced up at Corus who cocked an eyebrow.

  “We can get to it,” she said. “It won’t have burned.”

  “Not right this minute, dearie.”

  When Chito bolted into the tractor barn, Corus looked back to see Arlo approaching. He put his gun away and waved for Corus to come to him.

  Arlo spoke low. “You got a phone number where I can reach you? My superiors will want to hear about this competition.”

  “I don’t know…”


  “Listen, we can ease your financial troubles. You ain’t working here no more. No one is, I’d wager.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “This place is done. And if that Joller psycho comes back…” He shook his head. “I’d find the body bag claustrophobic.”

  If Arlo wanted to maintain a connection, he had to accept. Lacking a better option, Corus gave him his personal phone number, despite how odd that felt.

  Arlo walked off, got back into the black rental car in front of the big house and drove away.

  Chito appeared again at Corus’ side. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “It’s good for all of us he didn’t try.”

  Corus let the crowbar slide down out of his sleeve.

  Sirens blared in the distance.

  “There’s no time,” one of the workers said. “We have to go.”

  Corus prodded Chito. “Time to go.”

  Chito nodded, face pale and grim, and walked into the clutch of workers. An older man put an arm around him and walked him to his truck. Everyone piled into their vehicles and drove off, some turning for town, others turning south for Oregon.

  FORTY-TWO

  The second responder to the scene was Sergeant Nelka himself. As fire trucks pulled in, he stood in a huddle with two other deputies, conferring about the still burning wreckage. One of them caught something out of the corner of an eye, then ran over to where Iris Tanner lay on the ground.

  Her stirring had drawn the deputies’ attention, and she was on her feet by her own power and will before they got there. As they came close, she swung looping punches at them like a drunken master.

  “Ma’am.” A deputy batted her fists away. “Ma’am, you’re injured. We’re here to help.”

  “You no good rat. Come here.”

  “Calm down!”

  She squinted without her glasses at them and snarled. Then she ran at them, bouncing off them like a pin ball, trying to get to the DC. She lost her balance and fell on her hands and knees. “Put it out! Put it out!”

  Nelka had to bearhug her to prevent her running toward the flames.

  “Start the extinguishers,” she cried.

  “How?” Nelka asked.

  But Iris didn’t know. “Lemme in there,” she growled. “I’ll find it.”

  “I cannot let you do that, Mrs. Tanner.”

  Corus watched the scene from inside the tractor barn where they were cleaning Olive up. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground, covered up.

  An explosion rocked the complex of outbuildings, much larger than the first.

  When he didn’t feel another, he crawled out of the barn to get a better look.

  A shower of sparks rained from high in the air. Steel roof panels tumbled like murderous pinwheeling blades. The front bay doors bent outward like petals on a newly blossomed flower.

  Deputies and firemen ducked for cover behind their vehicles. Clang and clatter like little bouts of thunder erupted each time a steel panel hit the ground. More smoke billowed out from the wreckage of the DC, clouding the air in every direction, and sparks continued to stream into the air above.

  Nelka pulled Iris behind the farm truck which Jorge had parked near the tractor barn. Corus got to his feet, unhurt and scanned the area, smoke swirling in the air. One large, bent panel of corrugated roofing stuck out of the ground fifty-feet-away like some frightening art installation.

  “My money,” Iris sobbed. “My money is gone.”

  Nelka stood and tried to pull her up with him, but she was beside herself with emotion.

  He did a double take into the back of the truck then picked up a blue brick of cocaine. He turned it before his eyes then peered into the bed again.

  Iris stood and wiped her eyes, growing calmer.

  A gust of wind swept through, stoking the flames in the roofless DC into tall tongues that licked at the smoke-darkened sky.

  Corus couldn’t hear what passed between Iris and Nelka until the gust died down.

  The deputy reached for his belt “Ma’am, put your hands against the truck.”

  “Do you know who I am?” She swept a hand. “I own all this.”

  A younger deputy jogged up to assist. Despite everything going on around them, he’d shown remarkable awareness.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Nelka said. “You own all this. That’s why you need to put your hands on the truck.”

  “Those drugs aren’t mine,” she said.

  Nelka looked at the deputy. “I didn’t say they were drugs.” To Iris, he said more firmly, “Hands on the truck. I won’t tell you again.”

  The younger deputy removed his cuffs from their holster and reached for one of her arms. She ducked away. “Unhand me! Tell this creep to get back.”

  Nelka looked again into the back of the truck where hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of narcotics sat like perfectly wrapped Christmas presents. He looked up at the growing blaze either very confused or making a tough call, perhaps weighing a pending tri-state and FBI investigation with making the bust of his career.

  “They aren’t my drugs,” Iris said. “They must have fallen from that plane.”

  Nelka laid a hand on the truck and hung his head.

  “They fell from that plane,” Iris said. “You can’t prove they’re mine.”

  Nelka’s shoulders bounced. Corus wondered if he was crying, but when he raised his head, he had a grin stretching across his square face.

  “Is that right? The drugs fell out of a plane?” Nelka laughed out loud. “Benton, in all your years on the job, you may never hear an excuse like that.”

  “Fuck you,” Iris said. “I won’t take this disrespect.”

  “Fuck me?” Nelka asked, still smiling. “Benton, put this woman in restraints for her own protection. She’s clearly had a morning.”

  “No.” Iris skittered back.

  “She killed a man!”

  Olive’s voice rang out from behind Corus. She stood proudly a few steps from the tractor barn, what remained of her hair wafting in the breeze. “There’s a man in the DC. She killed him.”

  The smiled drained off Nelka’s face.

  “Shut your mouth,” Iris snapped. “Shut your little whore mouth.”

  Benton angled around, cutting off her escape. “Wait, you did what?”

  “That was an accident,” Iris said. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Nelka boxed her in as well. “Which is it? It was an accident? Or you don’t know about it?”

  As she fumed, he glanced at Corus, Olive and Randall approaching, first aghast at Olive’s condition, then at Corus.

  “I thought I told you to vacate my county.”

  “I had a job to do.”

  Nelka looked at Iris, still coiled like a snake ready to strike, then again at the burning building. He coughed just looking at the smoke, though a steadier breeze now carried it off to the east.

  “You have anything to do with this?” he asked Corus.

  Corus didn’t answer.

  “Doubt turning my county into a Kuwaiti oil fire was part of your mandate. Gonna have a few select words for your boss.”

  “You’re a cop?” Iris spat on the ground. “Of course, you are. Just like your overseer. All of you…” She spat at Nelka. “You’re all in it, aren’t you?”

  Olive gasped a pitiful, “No.” Her legs went out from under her. Randall kept her standing and shot an angry and confused look at Corus.

  Nelka ignored Iris’ spitting, eyes on Corus. “Your overseer here too?”

  “No. This place was a powder keg. Not sure I was the one who put a match to it.”

  Corus was certain he’d done at least that much, but he couldn’t explain the Joller situation to Nelka.

  “What the hell happened, then?”

  “I didn’t fly the plane into a building.”

  “Who did?”

  “Guy named Jorge. A worker here.”

  “And did those drugs magically fall
out of that plane into the bed of that truck?”

  “Yes,” Iris said. “Jorge. Jorge drives that truck. He was stealing from me.”

  “Stealing drugs?” Benton asked.

  Iris’s inebriated mouth wasn’t doing her any favors.

  “Mrs. Tanner, I’d advise you to calm down and let Deputy Benton cuff you.”

  Randall edged closer to Corus and whispered, “You’re a cop?” He sounded hurt. The fear in his and Olive’s eyes struck Corus.

  “That’s right,” he announced, stepping closer to Iris. “I’m a cop. It’s over. You’re done.”

  She stiffened as his meaning dawned on her and protested still, then cast her gaze to the ground, shoulders slumping in defeat.

  Benton reached for her arm again, but, with surprising speed, she bolted.

  “She’s running,” Benton said unhelpfully.

  “Ah, hell.” Nelka took off after her. “Do not go into that house!”

  Benton loped after them, covering more ground with fewer strides, hand on his weapon.

  Another fire truck rolled into the complex, and an airbrake cut through the wind. Firemen pulled out hoses and readied to pump their water tanks at the flames.

  Randall stepped closer. “You’ve been a cop this whole time?”

  Corus nodded.

  “Ag, man. Ja, so…” He paled, lips quivering. “We’re blerrie well fucked. Kak. Shit.”

  Olive grabbed at his sleeve, but he threw his arms up in surrender. “That’s it! We’ve done it. Wages of sin!”

  “Randall, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She pleaded to Corus, sobbing, “It was all me. I used him. I made him do it. It was all my fault.”

  Corus held up a hand to stop her entreaty and Randall’s mix of profanity and religious condemnation. “Stop!”

  When they calmed down, he spoke calmly. “Shouldn’t you two be going?”

  “What?” Randall’s hands dropped from the top of his hat to his waist. He tried to form words, but no sound came out.

  “Go,” Corus said. “Now.”

  “What about you?” Olive asked.

  “What about me?”

  “Isn’t there a man coming to kill you?” Randall rolled his eyes. “Never mind. Of course there’s not. Stupid me.”

  “It wasn’t a lie. None of it was, really.” Corus gathered his words before speaking again. “No matter what happens to me, this place will be safe. That’s if it goes back to being a regular old onion farm.”