The Devil Wears Wings

by Harry Whittington

  There was a knock on the door a little after seven. I answered it, knotting my tie. Clark insisted that we look neat on the job; it imparted confidence to the suckers.

  I opened the door. Coates stood there, giving me his loose-lipped version of a grin. He carried three large bundles.

  He stepped inside and slapped the door dosed behind him. He was hopped-up on excitement. It acted upon him like a needle or smoke.

  He threw the packages on the bed and began ripping them open. He tossed me a pair of tan overalls, the type mechanics wear around grease racks, with zipper from crotch to throat.

  "Saleswoman had a fit when I bought a pair your size," he said. "I told her I was buying them for my little boy. Hope they fit, Sonny."

  He held the pair of coveralls he'd bought for himself up against his body. He turned on his heel and toe like a model. His laugh was a fluting sound. "What the well-dressed young fortune hunters will wear."

  "Keep your voice down."

  "Hell, what difference does it make?"

  "I don't know. Did you get the rest of the stuff?"

  "You gave me the list, Mother, and I went shopping. Two cheap suitcases." He unwrapped two cardboard bags. "Even the cheapest ones are expensive," he said.

  I scowled at him because I'd warned him a dozen times about buying anything that could be traced.

  He spoke quickly. "Oh, come on now, Little Mother, you worry too much. I bought these two cases at a drugstore. They had ninety of them, and these were the cheapest they had."

  I grunted. The whole thing might be a laugh to laughing boy, but I wanted nothing that could be easily traced.

  I opened one of the suitcases, folded my coveralls and stored them in it. Coates opened another package and handed me a woman's silk stocking. He kept its mate. He unsnapped the other bag and tossed his coveralls and stocking into it. Then he gave me a pair of dark glasses and kept a pair for himself. I checked my mental list and that was everything, except one item.

  "Cloth bags," I said. "Did you get 'em?"

  He tried to sound offended. "Man, you got to start trusting me."

  "Why?"

  He shrugged as though providing a reason beat him. He shook out half a dozen five-pound cloth bags. The excitement inside him made him shiver suddenly, just looking at those bags. He could already see them stuffed with loot. "You think this will be enough?"

  He had brought a morning newspaper. I unfolded it and checked the weather news. It looked good to me. The barometer was dropping, a thundershower was forecast for early afternoon.

  "Coates," I said, "what you got against pulling the deal today?"

  He stared at me and his hands shook visibly. "Today? Just like that? Man, are you joking?"

  "I never joke about money," I told him. I showed him the weather forecast. "We move with the weather. Right? That's all we've been waiting for. Today looks fine."

  "Boy," he said. "Boy." He walked around the room, bumping a chair, his arms swinging. "I've thought about it for a hell of a time-and all of a sudden you say, right now." He swallowed and thrust his hands into his coat pockets. He brought out two automatics. "Pawnshop stuff," he said. "I had to sign for them. I forget what name I signed."

  I took one of the guns. He pulled ammo clips from another pocket. His face was white. My own insides were beginning to act up.

  We put the guns in the suitcases, checked everything. "We can't carry these suitcases to the hangar. Nosy Jimmy Clark would find some reason to inspect them," I said. "So what we'll do is, you go over to the Island Airport, give me time to get out to International. Then you call Clark and tell him you're at Island and want me to come over and pick you up for a lesson. You can have all this stuff with you and nobody over there will think anything about it."

  He grinned. "What you are, Buz, is a genius."

  ***

  It was almost nine when I arrived at the airport. I rode the bus out there and it didn't bother me at all this morning. I walked through the administration building and headed toward hangar row. I could look at Jimmy Clark's sign this morning without my usual morning sickness.

  I saw that Jimmy was in his office. I didn't want to talk to him so I waved my leather jacket in salute when he glanced up through the glass partitions. Even at that distance the look of smugness around his mouth pained me. I didn't see how Judy and her mother tolerated him in the house.

  I called a mechanic and he and I pushed the Cessna out to the runway. I could have rolled the job out there alone, but it would have struck off-key for Jimmy. Buz Johnson never exerted himself, and I wanted this morning to look like every other morning.

  I opened the cabin doorway and was climbing in when Jimmy came bounding through his office door.

  "What gives?" he yelled. He loved to chew people out before an audience. "Where you think you're going?"

  "Nowhere. Just wanted to warm it." I waited, sure now that Coates hadn't put through the call yet from Island Airport.

  "You buying the gas now, Ace? Why don't you wait for a student? You can't warm it up while you explain the controls to them any more?"

  I looked at him standing with his hair red and his face red. I shrugged. "No. I don't explain anything to them. Your pupils just want to fly, Clark. They don't care why, or how they do it."

  "Don't be wasting my money, Ace. Get out of that plane."

  I felt chilled with the knot of anger that iced up my belly but I swung out of the plane. I wanted to hear that engine fire. I wanted to listen to it before Coates and I took off in it. If there were any bugs, the greasemonkeys could pinch them out now.

  I walked into his office with him. He went behind his desk, glanced at a new photo of Judy on it and then sat down. I didn't look at the picture. He wanted me to look at it and bleed. I could bleed without looking at it.

  He went to work on some papers and I leaned back, trying to keep my eyes off that telephone. The minutes dragged. What was the matter with Coates? It was nearer to the Island Airport from my place than to International. I had ridden a city bus out here and Coates had driven his own car.

  I could hear Clark's pen scratching as he worked. I could hear the rapid, irregular thudding of my own heart. It got so I could not keep my gaze off that telephone. It seemed as dead as though the electric current had been taken from it.

  I felt the slow bulge of sweat globules on my forehead; my shirt got damp at my armpits. The partition walls seemed to crowd in on me. I began to need a drink, and I had not thought about a drink all morning. I wiped my palm downward across my mouth.

  Finally, when it was almost ten o'clock, Clark glanced up cross his desk. There was something in his face I could not understand. He seemed to be laughing, and yet the brand of contempt in his eyes was new even to him.

  "Oh, by the way," he said. "About ten minutes before you got here, your student-pal Sid Coates telephoned. Wanted a flying lesson this morning."

  "Hell, why didn't you tell me?"

  Clark went on smiling. "Why should I? He wanted a lesson, he could come out here."

  "Where was he?"

  "Out at Island Airport for Christ's sake."

  "What's wrong with that? His money is as good as anybody else's, isn't it?"

  Clark shrugged. "Yeah. But no better. Sounded to me like he was drunk."

  "So?" I had a mental picture of Coates, hopped-up with excitement, trying to keep his voice level as he talked with Clark. "You riding herd on student morals now?"

  "No. But it sounded to me like he was out there, got drunk, and wanted taxi service."

  "What the hell? As long as he pays you."

  "Man, what's got you cobbed off? What do you care? I told Coates we didn't run a taxi service. If he wants lessons, he can make arrangements in advance, like the rest of my students do. I told him that, too."

  I didn't move. My shirt felt soggy wet. I didn't like what I saw in Clark's phony-smiling face. I told myself it was just my conscience. But my hands were shaking. I needed a drink. I walked out of th
ere, went over to the Rudder and got one.

  ***

  "There's just one thing I want you to keep in your mind," Coates said.

  He was prancing back and forth in my room that same night. It had started to rain at noon, steadily and yet not enough to make flying impractical. It had rained all afternoon, the perfect kind of rough weather we wanted for our little mission. Only it hadn't gotten off the ground. Coates was sick about it. I didn't blame him. I felt ill, too, but illness with Coates was a ridiculous thing. He couldn't stand being indisposed without ascertaining that everybody in earshot knew about it.

  "Your friend Jimmy Clark is suspicious," he said. "I could sense that on the telephone. I could tell the way he talked to me. It was almost as if he knew what we were planning and he was laughing at us because we were helpless without that stinking plane of his. Oh, you can say what you want to, but that boy suspects something."

  "He's no friend of mine," I said.

  He stopped pacing. "What kind of funny crack is that supposed to be?"

  "You said I could say what I wanted. I just wanted you to know Clark is no friend of mine."

  "Very funny. A guy like that can get us in one hell of a lot if trouble."

  "Not if you keep your head." I walked to the window. The rain had stopped but the street was still wet, with night lights reflected in it. "It's not as though we plan to use his plane on the job. Like I said, we'll steal another two-place and then exchange it for another. Even the time it takes won't matter as long as we're not more than half an hour in Fort Dale. It'll cover our tracks, and it'll take any heat off Jimmy Clark."

  "Sounds fine. But he's still suspicious."

  "I admit that this morning I was afraid something had happened and Clark had stumbled on what we wanted. But I thought it over. First I worried, like you are worrying. Then I started thinking-the way you're not. How in hell, I asked myself, could he suspect anything? You know what was the matter with him this morning?"

  "He knew we each wanted that plane."

  "No. He knew you wanted it. You see, you never signed on with him. You let me take you up for lessons and then you go pay him for one lesson. This doesn't make Clark feel like a big man. If he doesn't feel like a big man, he gets ill. So then he has to prove to you what a big man he is. That's what he was doing this morning."

  "Oh, that boy is sick."

  "Just the same, we have to consider him now, along with the weather."

  "My God. Something else."

  "There'll be plenty of other things before we're through. If we just keep ahead of them, we're all right. Look, you might as well get one thing straight. I hate Clark's guts, but I'll grovel for him until I get my hands on that money."

  "Okay, Buz. I'll buy that."

  "Good. We'll get our turn. We'll rub his face in it. But not right now. Tomorrow I want you to show up at his place and sign on for regular lessons."

  He paced a moment, chewing this over. I saw what was wrong with it before he did, but after a moment, Coates said, "That allays the old boy's suspicions, but how does it help us? We can't choose weather like today, the kind we want, Buz, and work it into a schedule that will please that louse."

  "I'm pleased to see you've started thinking and stopped worrying."

  "Don't fool yourself. I haven't stopped worrying. So how do we get the kind of day we want and the lesson-time we want?"

  "We'll have to wait until they match."

  "My God, Buz. We can't do that. I can't wait. Not now when we almost pulled the thing off today. We don't know when another right day will come along."

  "We'll take the best we can. That's all we can do."

  He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "I don't like it, Buz. It's like something is going wrong already before we get in the sky."

  Somebody knocked on the door. We went tense and stared at each other as though we were thieves, or two kids caught smoking in the bathroom.

  "You're leaving," I said. "You were just leaving no matter who it is." I said it under my breath. I waited only to see that Coates understood. He nodded. I pushed the two suitcases under my bed. Then I got up, batted the wrinkles out of my trouser knees and went to the door.

  I opened it. There stood Judy.

  Coates was at my elbow, hat in hand. He tried to grin. He looked ill.

  "Hi," he said to her and went out into the hall. He didn't wait to be introduced.

  I heard Judy's sharp intake of breath. It was like spoken disapproval, but she nodded at Coates and entered the room. I closed the door.

  For a moment neither of us spoke. I saw her shoulders quiver slightly. "Every time I see you, Buz, he's around somewhere. It gives me the creeps."

  "I'm studying him for the interplanetary committee."

  She frowned. "You're mighty cool about all this."

  I felt my face growing warm. "About what? I'm a big boy. I can have some friends. You act as though something was wrong."

  "Isn't something wrong, Buz?"

  I went close to her, put my arms around her. I pulled her hard against me and felt her warm tears against my cheek. I don't know why the heat of her tears chilled me all the way through.

  "How could anything be wrong?" I said. "You're here. With me."

  "Yes. I'm here."

  My hands moved on her. She pulled away from me. "Don't touch me, Buz."

  "Why not?"

  "Please, Buz. This doesn't get us anywhere."

  "Is this the way you treat your pilot up in New York?" All right, so I hated myself for saying it, but that didn't change anything. I couldn't help saying it.

  She looked as if I had hit her across the face. "What about Johnny?"

  "Johnny? Is that his name?"

  "I thought you knew."

  "What makes him so different?"

  "Security, hope for a future. He's very good. You'd like him."

  "Oh, I'm sure of it." I moved away from her. "It doesn't matter. I've had it, as far as you're concerned."

  "I'll always love you, Buz."

  I shook my head. "When a woman worries about security while you've got her in your arms, run don't walk." My laugh had a bitter sound, even more bitter than I intended. "Once upon a time you didn't talk security when I loved you."

  "I didn't talk about it-as long as there was any hope for it."

  "Oh, for God's sake. What did you come around here for? What did you want?"

  "I don't know. I truly don't know. I'm on a flight to New York tonight. I thought-I thought you might ride out to the airport with me."

  "Sure," I said. "Why not? We can chat all the way out there about Johnny."

  Her chin tilted and something happened in her eyes. She did not speak for a moment. Then she said, softly, "You're so wrong, Buz. About everything. That's what hurts so badly."

  She glanced toward the door. She didn't say anything but we both knew she was thinking about Sid Coates. I did not speak either. Whatever she had come here to say, she had changed her mind and she wasn't going to say it. I found a tie, draped it around my neck, shrugged into a sport jacket and we got out of there. She had her taxi waiting at the curb downstairs.

  She was crying softly when we got out of the cab at Eastern's terminal building entrance. She acted as if this were her last flight, as if she were never going to see me again, or as though I'd said something that hurt too deeply to discuss. I could not think what either of us had said on the ride out to make her cry. Maybe the way things were with us, neither of us had to say anything any more to make the other cry. The tears were brimming right there behind our eyes, waiting. When things get hopeless enough, you don't have anything left but tears. And then sometimes to keep from shedding them, you strike out and hurt your love so that she will shed your tears for you.

  Jimmy Clark was standing just outside the glass doors as if he had been standing there a long time. He looked very dapper, with shoes shined, suit pressed, hair newly trimmed. He looked very successful. It was hard to believe we toiled in the same
operation. The only thing that pleased me was that Jimmy could not even force a smile. That phony grin had come unglued and fallen off his pan.

  He came forward, noticed instantly that Judy had been crying. His fists knotted and he glared at me. "Why don't you stay away from my daughter?"

  "Why don't you?"

  Judy touched his arm. "It's all right, Jimmy."

  "He's nothing but trouble to you, baby. He always has been." He ignored me then, as though I'd ceased to exist. "I thought I was going to drive you out here, Judy."

  I'm sorry, Jim. I came in a cab." She sighed. "I was afraid you might be tied up."

  "I got home early, Judy. Very early." His voice was cold.

  I laughed. "I work for him. That's what makes him think he can talk to me like this," I said. "What's your excuse, Judy?"

  She glanced at me, shook her head. "I'm sorry, Jim. I wanted to talk with Buz. Something I-wanted to tell him."

  Jimmy's phony smile showed again, and for some reason that escaped me, he seemed relieved.

  "I'm sorry," Judy said. "I must go. I'll be late."

  She brushed his cheek with a daughterly kiss. Then she turned and looked at me. Everybody in the terminal building knew she kissed me-long and lingeringly-though she did not come near me at all. She walked away quickly and didn't look my way again.

  ***

  I sat down at the bar in the Rudder Room. The saloon was crowded at this hour. Waitresses glided through the vaguely lighted areas as if on skates, bartenders were fluid behind the bar. For me the whole world was a drab and empty void. I ordered a drink but before I could get it, someone touched my shoulder. I glanced around. It was Jimmy Clark.

  "Get lost," I said.

  "Buz, I want to talk to you." He jerked his head toward a small table for two, hard against the floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the runways.

  "Get lost."

  "Please, Buz."

  The tone of his voice, and the word which was so new to him that he stumbled over it got me; this and the sense of wrong that would not leave me now. I spoke to the bartender and moved with Clark to the table. Below us on the field, men were loading the underbellies of planes, a gasoline truck was gassing up a DC-6. Men were running around down there and you could see the way they bent forward that the wind was high. The wind was high up here, too. It was about to hurtle me off the face of the earth.