The Devil Wears Wings

by Harry Whittington

  "Well. What you know? Ain't that a lovely thought? All these years the government's been robbing me with compulsory taxes and now I'm hitting back at them."

  I gestured downward, motioning him to shut up. The announcer continued, "All airports in Florida have been alerted to watch for the twoplace sportsman's plane. The make and the color were not learned immediately-"

  "We got one break," I said. "We might still make it to Berry Town."

  "You better hope they know what they're looking for before we get in that Cessna."

  "-Planes from Air Force and Coast Guard bases have joined the air search. Forest service fire towers all over the state have been put on watch for the small plane."

  "We got to junk this thing," I told Sid. "We got to get rid of it and fast."

  The music cut in again. I felt as though I were alone in the plane. Sid sat there, sucking at that bottle. He kept one hand gripping the suitcase full of money.

  "Get those coveralls off," I told him. "Put them in that other suitcase. Put everything in it-dark glasses, stockings, everything."

  I worked out of my coveralls, wriggling them down over my body, stepping out of them. I shoved my glasses and the stocking in the pockets. I put the gun on the seat beside me.

  "Think we might have to use these babies some more?" Sid's voice sounded odd. He patted his gun.

  "Are you crazy? If we get over the bay again, we drop them."

  "I don't buy that," Sid said. "We-might need 'em."

  "That's right. And that's when we'd be fools to use them. It is just like telling everybody in the world that we knocked over that bank."

  "Then what?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "What do we do after we ditch the guns?"

  Sid looked as though I'd asked him to parade naked down Main Street. In fact, he would have preferred that. I wanted to yell some sense into him, curse him for the fool he was. But I kept my voice low. "What's the matter with you? You got a big sexy charge out of what you did, huh? You been playing cowboy and Indians today? You want to shoot some more? Well, we're playing it just the way we planned. We flew down to Verona City. Remember? We flew back to Sunpark. We don't know anything else. That's all we know. We don't need guns to put that over."

  "Man, I feel helpless already."

  He sighed, and mooned over the gun I refused to let him use any more. He held it in his lap, fondled it, thinking. He took another drink. Then he tilted his head and gave me a wild grin. "All right, Buz. Anything you say. You're the boss, Buz."

  We pushed our coveralls into the suitcase, locked it. Ahead was a forest of trees. I saw no sign of habitation. The spot looked good to me because it was cypress, standing brown-dead and moss hung. This meant a swampy, inaccessible area. They might find the stuff in there but it would be a long, wet search.

  I flew in low and dropped the suitcase containing the clothing into the swampy undergrowth. I exhaled heavily and climbed for altitude, not even looking back.

  The music stopped, the radio crackled a moment. "Word here is that a small two-place plane, a bright green Aeronca, has been spotted by a Forest Fire Service tower in the ridge section about fifty miles inland from Sunpark-"

  "Now they know what they're looking for," I said.

  "Yeah. That's us," Sid whispered. It was a sick sound, spewing across his lips.

  "Well, we know what they know."

  "God damn 'em. They're not going to take my money from me. Not now. Not after all this. Not after all we been through."

  "-Three Coast Guard planes and an Air Force pursuit plane have been put into the air to overtake the green Aeronca which authorities believe was used to make a getaway after a bank robbery earlier today in Fort Dale-"

  "Damn them. Damn them." Sid wasn't laughing now. He glared at the speed indicator. "My God, Buz, I could crawl faster than this."

  "Watch for them," I told him. "If they get on our tails, we won't be able to touch down at Berry Town."

  "That's crazy. You nuts? We got to get out of this crate."

  "Sure. But what's the sense of changing planes if they're watching us?"

  "Buz-"

  "Yeah?"

  "Isn't that Berry Town? Up there?"

  I nodded, unable to speak. "Watch for planes, Sid," I said after a moment. The relief flooded through me, as if cooling a high fever. "I'm putting this baby to earth and under those trees."

  I clipped treetops coming into that abandoned strip. I was traveling too fast and that asphalt runway was potted, but I could not slow down. I felt as though the devil were riding my tail.

  We touched, jumped, and bumped and skidded off the runway. I wheeled it hard around and rolled through the grass toward the trees with motor roaring.

  Sid's face was white. Jolting across the field made him bounce like a monkey on a string. "Man," he said. "Man. I wish you'd take it easy. This kind of flying makes me nervous."

  I taxied the plane in under the wet trees, cut the engine. I took one quick check. We were leaving nothing in the plane. I didn't worry about fingerprints because I knew they had to be clearly marked on a flat surface to be worth anything to the police. But it didn't matter if we forgot anything or not. When they located the green Aeronca here, they would know it was the robbery plane because the windshield was pocked with bullet holes. All I hoped was that we got away quickly enough so no one ever linked the Cessna with this plane, this field.

  Sid was hugging the suitcase against him. We carried our guns in our fists. I scanned the field. It appeared deserted. There was no sign of the two kids. I warned Sid about using that gun, but by now I no longer trusted him at all. If anybody frightened him, or crossed him, or appeared suddenly from the underbrush, he would shoot at them.

  He opened the door, got ready to leap to theground. "Wait a minute," I said.

  "What's the matter now?"

  I glanced at the Cessna, like safety waiting for us on the runway. I didn't want to spoil it. I wanted just what Sid wanted, to race across these weeds, get in that baby and get out of here. But we had to be more cautious than ever from this moment forward.

  "It might take a couple minutes longer," I said. "But there is something we better do."

  Sid's face was working, mouth slack, now taut. "Yeah?"

  "You walk ahead of me. But slow. I'll hang on to your belt. Every time you lift your foot, I'll put mine in its place. If we leave them just one set of footprints in this mud, that ought to give 'em fits."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I put the Cessna in the air, pushing it hard, gunning it, and we headed south by west.

  I was flying scared, fighting a tightness in my chest. I knew what it would do to our plans if we were caught northeast of Sunpark. Sure, we might get away with the lie that Coates was piling up flying time, but nobody was going to believe he could fly in his condition. On the other hand, once we got southwest of Sunpark, I could make almost any story stick. I kept watching for the pursuit planes. I did not see them, but I didn't have to see them. I knew they were there.

  "Can I relax now?" Sid said.

  "You better," I said. "We can get ourselves snarled up from here on unless we keep it in our minds that we haven't been out of this Cessna-and we haven't been north of Sunpark."

  The music was abruptly tuned out on the radio again. An announcer said, "The descriptions of the two daring daylight robbers in the Fort Dale National Bank holdup have been broadcast-"

  "What?" Sid yelled at the radio, leaning toward it as though he were going to smash it with the gun butt.

  I jerked my head at him, motioning him to keep quiet. He stayed bent forward, listening, his pale brows knotted.

  "Constable William Gill of Fort Dale was taken to the Fort Dale hospital with serious cuts and bruises about the head after severe gunwhipping at the hands of one of the bandits, but he feels that he can give accurate descriptions of the fugitive pair. 'At least one of them,' Gill is reported as saying. 'The tall one. I would know his voice anywhere
if I hear it again.' Gill repeated that he would never forget that voice."

  "Oh, fine," I said. "You really sang them the arias, too."

  Sid did not speak. His face was a mass of ruts and grooves.

  "The taller man is reported to be about six feet tall, very slender with thin, sallow face, sandy brows and hair. His hair appears to have been bleached. 'He looked middle twenties,' Gill said. 'He moves with a gangling gait and has long, thin hands, very white and uncalloused.'"

  "He might as well have given them a photo," I said.

  "I could have autographed it for him. The son of a bitch. I should have hit him harder."

  "-The other robber, according to Constable Gill, is five or six years older than his partner. He has black hair and a dark complexion. He spoke very little and Gill would not be as certain of his voice. Both bandits wore sunglasses until they donned stocking masks for the actual robbery. Gill said these masks were pulled on just outside the National Bank at Fort Dale. He said the second thief is about five feet six or seven inches tall, stocky, with a wide mouth and a straight nose."

  "He doesn't pin you down so good," Sid said.

  "Don't feel good about it. Those descriptions are going all over the state right now. They'll go to Sunpark. They're close enough."

  "So what do we do? Keep flying? Out of the state? How about Cuba?"

  "No. We can't outrun that pursuit plane. The first thing to do is ditch these guns and then stick to our story about Verona City. We can make it if you keep your head."

  "Buz, I'm telling you. You're a fool."

  We were out over the Gulf now. I wanted to skirt Sunpark as widely as possible. I pushed back the window and tossed out my gun without thinking twice about it.

  "Let it go, Sid."

  "Buz-"

  "Sid, I know you're a fool. But not that big. They'll have the slug from the bank wall. There may be a slug in one of those cars they chased us in. You let 'em have that gun and they'll pin you down at Fort Dale. With that constable to listen to your voice in a police line-up, you're dead. Now get smart. Toss it."

  He let it go, but it was a difficult thing for him to do. He clung to it until the last second and then watched it strike the water in a silver splash.

  I couldn't say why but I felt better when those guns were gone. Guns weren't going to buy us anything from here on in.

  I wheeled the Cessna south by east and we flew across a chain of uninhabited islands between Sun Bay and the Gulf. The sun shone now, weakly, but we had not yet seen any other planes. This might have been an unexpected break we got because the weather was better than forecast and other sports planes must be aloft today. The pursuit jobs might be wasting time chasing down false leads. I hoped so.

  I found a small, deserted island with a wide, white stretch of beach and put the Cessna down.

  "The tide is coming in," I warned Sid. "So we don't have much time. We don't have any time to waste. We got a lot to do. Let's hit the beach."

  We jumped out with Sid carrying the suitcase. I found a clump of cabbage palmettoes about ten paces through sea oats from the beach. I motioned to Sid and we stashed away the suitcase. Sure as hell, the police were going to find the Aeronca. All these weeks, I had figured maybe Sid and I would not even be suspected. If there had been a storm as the weather reports predicted, the Aeronca might not have been missed all day. But we couldn't count on any of that now. We would just have to let the money cool out here for a few days.

  Sid was gathering loose palm trunks and palm fronds, sea oats, cabbage palmettoes. As soon as I had marked the place where I stashed the loot, I helped him. We piled a small mound of weeds, fronds and tree trunks out on the beach, above the reach of the tide, but far enough in the clearing that we could recognize our mark from the air.

  We worked as swiftly as we could and all the time Sid was complaining about stomach cramps.

  "You drank too much."

  "The hell I did. I'm scared."

  "Why are you scared now?"

  "I been scared. Ever since we threw away those guns."

  "My God, Sid, you been watching too much TV."

  "Can I help it? They have them in every bar I visit."We checked our mound of debris to be sure it was weighted down securely enough so the wind couldn't rip it apart. We ran across the beach then. Far out on the Gulf I could see a small boat. Clouds were banking up on the horizon, but not near enough to mean rain.

  Sea gulls whipped down to stare at us curiously. The tide was coming in fast. It licked at the tires of the Cessna as we got in. We had to take off before that water softened the hard-packed beach; the white sand above it was too treacherous. We had to stay out of it.

  I started the plane, revved it and we sat there a moment making a last check on everything. I tuned in the radio. Then I tested the wind with my hand out the window and headed into it.

  We skidded away and up over the water. The gulls couldn't have done it smoother. Both of us looked back at that mound of weeds we'd piled on the beach.

  The first report we got on the radio was bad. Sunpark County police had located the Aeronca hidden under trees at an abandoned airstrip outside Berry Town. The windshield of the small plane was potted with bullet holes. The robbers had vanished, leaving nothing but footprints leading away from the Aeronca. The deputy sheriff had ordered bloodhounds brought to the airstrip and meantime plaster casts were being made of the footprints. Clear specimens were imprinted in the soggy mud. The prints seemed to have been made by one man which momentarily puzzled the police.

  "Bastards," Sid said. "They don't waste much time."

  I was thinking of something else and it made me as ill as Sid claimed to be. I was remembering those kids that Sid had chased away from the Berry Town landing strip. When they came forward to tell the county police about the plane that had put down there and the one that had followed, they would have a description of the Cessna. They could not fail. What kid doesn't instantly recognize every make of plane?

  We flew along the coast, keeping it in sight. The wind rose and we hit airpockets that shook us badly.

  I put down at the Verona City airport.

  "What if they question us?" Sid said.

  "About what?"

  "I don't know. They might have the description of the Cessna by now."

  I glanced at him. His face was drawn and his eyes were fixed on nothingness. Not even the whisky could lift him up any more. He had gotten clued in, too. Those Berry Town kids would remember the two planes.

  "It can't be helped," I said. "We got to find your friend as an alibi that we were here in Verona City."

  "Hell, we were supposed to be here this morning."

  "Engine trouble. We can make that stick. There are two of us."

  I taxied up close to the Verona City hangar and we got out. This airstrip was a one-hangar and control tower deal with inadequate runways and a few sports planes parked in a line. A couple of men in the hangar doorway spoke to us but they didn't seem excited about anything. Sid asked if they had a public telephone and one of the men pointed to a booth inside the hangar.

  I watched Sid lope across the cement to the booth.

  "Not much of a day for flying," one of the men said to me.

  I decided to nail our alibi down hard. "We hit some rough pockets, all right. But we've had trouble all day. Engine trouble. Took us all morning to get down here from Sunpark."

  "Oh? You fellows from Sunpark?"

  My stomach muscles tightened up. But then I saw he was not suspicious, merely being polite, making conversation. I glanced toward Sid. He was inside the booth.

  I felt sweat. Still, it would be good to have these men witness that we were in Verona City and had had engine trouble to delay us.

  The phone rang inside the hangar office. One of the men said something and went to answer it. There was a roaring in my ears and I heard nothing clearly. The other man stood there watching the Cessna, the sky, nothing.

  The man inside the office lifted the p
hone, pressed the receiver against his ear. For some moments he listened without speaking. I knew something was wrong, something that concerned Coates and me. I don't know how I was so certain. I tried to tell myself it was conscience. If this man hadn't received any word on us in all this time, what would he be hearing at this moment? He didn't glance toward me. Then I saw he had straightened and was staring through the doorway at the field control tower.

  Feeling sick, I turned and looked at it. It was nothing more than a tinted-windowed booth on steel supports out across the runways. A man inside the shadowed windows was standing up, talking on a telephone and pointing at something down on the field. This was too much coincidence for me.

  I heeled around and looked at Sid. He was still in the phone booth. The man inside the office was nodding.

  I walked as casually as I could make it on rubbery legs toward the phone booth. I wanted to yell at Sid. He did not notice. I got all the way inside to the booth. I wanted to look over my shoulder. I needed to know what the two men at the office were doing. But I knew I'd better keep it cool.

  "Sid."

  I kept my voice level. He turned, and when he saw my face he read the danger signals loud and clear. He replaced the receiver without even saying goodbye. He stepped out of the booth, frowning at me, puzzled.

  "Let's get out of here," I said.

  He nodded. We walked out of the hangar and across the runway at an angle going to the plane and yet not returning near the office. I glanced toward it. The man at the phone had called his buddy inside and he was standing just within the office door. The man at the phone was poking around in his desk drawer, searching for something.

  "Faster," Sid said.

  I nodded. In order to keep abreast of him, I looked as if I were running. I felt the sweat cold along my ribs.

  "One thing sure," I said. "Somewhere the law has gotten a description of the Cessna."

  The two men came out of the office, walked toward us from the shadows of the hangar.

  "Don't look at them," I told Sid. "No matter what happens. Keep walking. Don't look at them."