The Devil Wears Wings

by Harry Whittington

  "Why don't we just step into Mr. Clark's office and talk this over?"

  Nobody had to tell me he was from the police. The size of his feet had nothing to do with it. There are two kinds of lawmen: the loud ones and the overly-polite. This boy belonged to the latter persuasion. He was still a cop. I glanced at Sid. Something was building up in him. I could almost see the shadows smoking and swirling around in his eyes. He kept cracking his knuckles, wrinkling up his face, sniffling. He didn't look at anybody.

  The stout man touched my arm and I shook him off.

  "Why don't you tell me what it's all about?"

  "In the office," he said in that firm but humble way.

  "Who are you?"

  Clark came up with that phony smile again. "Why, I'm sorry I didn't introduce you, Johnson. This is Mr. Fred Baylor. Mr. Baylor is from the sheriff's office."

  I glanced toward Sid. He was making little noises under his breath, writhing as though his suit was tightening up on him.

  I kept my voice casual. "From the sheriff's office? What do you want with me?"

  The man shrugged. "Nothing, maybe. Maybe it's something we can just talk out. Why don't we just go in Mr. Clark's office and try?"

  "Sure," I said. "Why not?" I saw them glance at each other but I went on playing it straight. I was glad Sid had kept quiet. Now all that worried me was that he might be building up to some kind of explosion. All we had to do was keep remembering they had nothing on us. They couldn't prove anything.

  I moved my head toward Sid and then walked ahead of them into the hangar and through the door to Clark's office. I slumped in one of the chairs. Sid sat in a straight chair near the far wall. He was chewing at a hangnail and still emitting those faint noises.

  Clark went around his desk, sat in his swivel chair. He sat there fumbling with a cigarette lighter. Baylor leaned against the doorjamb in a very casual attitude, as if he just didn't care to sit down.

  "Something has come up," Jimmy Clark said. "You see, Johnson, you've put me in a spot, kind of."

  "It's kinda sticky, and that's the truth," the sheriff's man said. "You see, it so happens there are just two silver Cessnas like that one out there in the whole state of Florida. Would you believe that?"

  "So? What's this got to do with Sid and me?"

  "Nothing, I hope," Jimmy Clark said, and that was the phoniest sound he ever made. "You see, this other Cessna belongs to a man on the East Coast. They checked already and got sworn statements that his Cessna wasn't in the air at all today. They had quite a storm on the east coast."

  "And this kind of puts you two fellows in a bad light," Baylor said.

  "You see, a silver Cessna was spotted in a couple places today. And it looks like it was used in a bank robbery."

  "Bank robbery?" I got to my feet. "What kind of thing is this? What are you accusing me of?"

  Baylor looked unhappy. "We're not accusing you, Mr. Johnson. Hell, the whole town knows the war record you got. All we want is for you to tell us where you were all day. That way, we can clear this thing up about Mr. Clark's plane and no embarrassment to nobody."

  "I'm pretty anxious about that," Clark said. "I don't like the idea of anybody even thinking a plane of mine was used in a robbery."

  "What kind of robbery?" I said.

  The stout man scowled. "I told you. A bank. Where you been all day you haven't heard about it?"

  "I told you where I was, too. I flew down to Verona City. Coates wanted to see a friend down there."

  "You know where we could get in touch with this friend down there?"

  I glanced at Coates. He was rubbing his palm against the back of his other hand, wriggling in the chair. He did not lift his head.

  "No. I don't. He wasn't there when we flew in in the morning. Then we flew around, and had engine trouble. It took a long time. We took a second run to Verona City. You can check that. Then we hit a storm coming back. Head winds. It got pretty rugged, slowed us down."

  "You had more engine trouble on the way home?" Clark said.

  "That's right."

  "And you and Coates flew down to Verona City this morning?" the deputy said.

  I amended this to suit them. "Well, no, Sid wanted to get in a little flying time-"

  "Where did you fly?"

  "Out over the Gulf mostly. I don't know exactly. Sid wanted to get in some hours. Then we flew into Verona City and-"

  "You told us that."

  I shrugged. "That's all I can tell you. That's what I'll keep telling you."

  "Your friend Coates seems to have hit the bottle," the deputy said.

  I shrugged again. "Well, if that's all. I might as well get on home. I got a lot to do."

  "Yeah," Sid said.

  "Well, that's not quite all. You see, we'd like both of you to wait until we check what you've told us. Like I say we don't want to cause no embarrassment. And if the folks in Verona City substantiate your story-"

  "Why wouldn't they?"

  "Well, I don't know. I hope they will, Mr. Johnson. Like I say, we hate to have things like this happen. A man with a fine record like yours and all. But, well, the fact is, a Cessna answering to the description of Mr. Clark's was seen near Berry Town-"

  "Berry Town? Are you nuts? That's north of here."

  " And you didn't fly north of here?"

  "No. Why should we? Verona City is the other way. I don't like this. You guys act as if you think I robbed somebody-"

  "Yeah," Sid said.

  There was movement outside the office. The deputy stepped aside, dragging off his hat, and Judy walked past him into the office. I had kept my gaze away from her photo on Jim's desk. Now here she was. I didn't want her to hear this, didn't want her to see me handled like this. I felt my face muscles sag. I felt the bleak emptiness spread inside me. She was wearing her stewardess uniform, neat and trim and young and clean. Why did she have to hear this?

  She looked as if she had been crying.

  "Buz," she said. Her voice quavered. I saw her glance at Sid and then look away, visibly trembling. It hit me that the first moment I was suspected, Jimmy must have run to her with the whole mess.

  She stared at me as if trying to see inside me. I felt my face going white and bloodless. All my blood seemed to be congealing in the pit of my stomach.

  "Buz-you-didn't do it?"

  "Hell," I said. "You, too? You believe everything this joker tells you?" I jerked my head toward Clark.

  She cracked up then and cried aloud. I said, "God, it's funny how everybody is willing to believe the worst about a guy."

  She covered her face with her hands. I moved toward her but Clark came around the desk and brushed me aside.

  "It's all right, Johnson," he said. "I'll handle this."

  "Looks like you've already handled it."

  He ignored that, led her to the leather couch. He sat down beside her, kept whispering to her. I turned my head, stared out at the sky ramps and the overcast skies.

  That was when I saw the three police cruisers pull in before the door of the hangar, blocking it. Police piled out of the cars and walked toward the office. They didn't draw guns. Everything was still very friendly. Only that hangar opening was barred.

  Judy stopped crying when two detectives entered the office. She sat there beside Clark, her face starkly white, withdrawn, watching them.

  Baylor said, "Howdy, Captain. I been talking with Mr. Johnson and Coates here about this case. They seem to have a pretty fair alibi."

  "That so?" The captain said. He was a beefy man who smelled of cheap cigars. He didn't seem too impressed. The look he gave Coates and me labeled us something pretty foul.

  I winced, not because I cared about myself but because Judy saw it. I remembered giving myself the romantic smoke that I was Jesse James of the air, Robin Hood in a plane.

  Seeing myself with the captain's eyes, I recognized myself for what I really was. A thief. Renegade. I was a failure and a guy who couldn't make it and had pulled a job he couldn'
t handle.

  I glanced at the smile on Clark's face and I saw something that had escaped me until now. It tied me in knots. I could have gotten away from Baylor and Clark, and that was why they had stalled me. When I contacted the tower, they called the sheriff. Then Baylor and Clark got orders to stall us until he could send a squad to take over. And that's what they had done. I couldn't hate Baylor; this was his job. No matter what guff he gave me about feeling bad about this, it was still his job. But Clark I could hate. It was easy. He wanted me taken in, dragged down as far as possible, even if I were later proved innocent. It made him feel that much better than I was.

  Baylor said, "Only thing, he says Coates was flying. But Coates looks pretty potted. Otherwise they sound clean."

  "We'll get to Coates." The captain said it very quietly, but the room suddenly lighted up the way a pinball machine does when tilted.

  Coates straightened up in his chair, keeping his hand in his jacket pocket.

  I heard Clark laugh across the room. It was a savage sound. I didn't look at him. I could not force myself to touch Judy's gaze even for a second. I wanted her to think I was better than I was, not lower, even now when I had lost her.

  "Why don't you take it easy?" My voice sounded hollow. "I told you people where Sid and I were. Check on it."

  "Don't you worry about that," the captain said. "We'll check."

  I heard Judy catch her breath. I was getting the full treatment. And she was witnessing it all, the way they stripped the flesh off me.

  The captain said, "For my money, you and Coates never got to Verona City until this afternoon. We got word you and Coates flew in there and then ran when they tried to question you."

  "I didn't see anyone trying to question us," I said.

  "Oh, Buz." Judy's voice was a stricken whisper.

  "So what if they did?" I said. "I didn't know they wanted us. And that sure as hell proves we were in Verona City."

  The smile left the captain's face. "You were in Verona City well after two this afternoon. We take your word for that. But before that, you were on an abandoned airstrip outside Berry Town. We got a plaster cast of footprints made on that airstrip at Berry Town. We dropped by your apartment, Johnson-and Coates' place. We checked those prints. And I got the word for you-those casts match your shoes, Johnson."

  In a way it was funny as hell. Who would have thought my feet were bigger than Coates?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "If you two men will just come along with us," the captain said, "and don't make any trouble, it's going to be a lot easier for you."

  I stood up. "The hell with you. I'm not the only guy in this country who wears that size shoe."

  The captain sounded tired. "We got a lot more than that, Mr. Johnson. Believe me. But we just don't want any trouble with you two men."

  "Well, you got it." My voice was loud. I was bluffing. Maybe they knew it. None of them moved. I glanced at Judy. She knew I was bluffing; it showed in her face. I jerked my gaze away. "You accuse me of something, try to arrest me-"

  "Buz." Judy stood up, though Clark tried to hold her arm. Her voice was soft, but it stilled everything in that office. "Please, Buz, don't make any more trouble."

  I didn't look at her. I knew my face was bloodless. I didn't know how long my knees were going to support me. "Don't tell me what to do. I haven't done anything and I'm not going with these guys just because your smiling stepfather stalled me around so they could frame me."

  "I'm sorry about that, Buz," Clark said. "Truly sorry. It was my plane. I didn't want any trouble or notoriety. I had to go along with them."

  But Judy was staring at him, her face puzzled. She shook her head, her voice odd. "No, Jim… No. Buz is right. About you. You wanted to go along with them. You told me-over a week ago you told me you were sure Coates was planning something crooked and was pulling Buz in on it. You told me you were sure they wanted to use your plane on some crooked business-yet, today-you let them take it." She shook her head again. "You wanted this to happen."

  "Judy." Clark shook his head, the phony smile gone.

  The captain said, "Stand up, Coates. Let's go."

  Coates stared at him a moment, then stood up slowly. He towered above Judy, even slouched as he was, standing beside her.

  The captain touched my arm. "Let's go, Buz."

  "If you take us in, you better have some charges."

  He looked pained. "Buz, do I tell you how to fly a plane? You're not the first guy ever had to go down to the station. Don't let it bug you. I tell you, we've sent for this Constable Gill from Fort Dale. He takes a look at you and Coates-he says you're not the guys-why, you're free as the air."

  "That won't be good enough."

  The way Coates spoke struck me like an electric charge. I jumped as if I had been burned. Everybody in the room turned to look at him.

  He had caught Judy's left arm in his left hand and had twisted it behind her back. She was bent forward slightly, wincing with the pain. But this wasn't what stopped everybody in their tracks. He had a gun placed against the middle of her spine.

  "Anybody moves," he said, "she gets it, right in the spine. You like to see that, Captain? If you want to see that, you just so much as clear your throat." And then he cursed him with some words he hadn't even used in Fort Dale.

  For a moment I could only stare at that gun. It hit me in an instant, though I'd completely forgotten it until now. Sid had Constable Gill's police positive. I saw now why he had thrown his pawnshop gun away. He had never intended to be without a gun. And when I saw this, I began to see a lot of other things too, none of them pleasant.

  All the police were standing in front of Sid. None of them would have moved anyway because we could all see his hand trembling on the police positive. The slightest sudden move and he'd press that trigger. Only one man in the room was in any position to strike at Coates with any hope of surprising him. This was Jim Clark. But he sat as if petrified on the leather couch. Jim did not even look up.

  The cops stepped back when Sid thrust Judy before him. He jerked his head at me, motioning me through the door. I walked out. He ordered the other police away from the doorway and then he came through it, sweating, his eyes distended and wild, the gun thrust against Judy's spine.

  The police kept their guns in their holsters. None of them was about to endanger Judy's life by trying to jump Coates.

  "Go ahead, Buz." Coates' voice was something new now; there was power in it, and I saw by what a thin line Judy's life hung.

  I backed away watching him and the police, going toward the Cessna. Something had happened in my chest. I felt as though a stone had obstructed my breathing.

  "A fool thing, Buz." The captain spoke after me, his voice very low. "What a hell of a way to waste yourself-a man like you."

  "Shut up!" Coates cursed him some more.

  We moved out under Jim Clark's sign; past the police cars. When we reached the Cessna, Sid turned, raging with laughter, watching the cops. They had moved forward and taken positions against the cruiser. But he knew they were not going to fire. If they didn't hit Judy, his bullet would snap her spine.

  "Get in, Buz."

  "You damn fool. They can shoot us out of the air."

  "Get in, Buz." He cursed me now, the way he had cursed the tellers in the bank. The partnership had been dissolved for some hours, only he had neglected to tell me.

  "Now, God damn you, I've listened to you. I've tried it your way. Now we're going to do it my way. Or your doll gets it in the gut."

  "Sure," I said. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Your day won't be complete until you've killed somebody. It was going to be me, wasn't it, Sid? Only now, Judy will do as well."

  "Get in the plane." He screamed it at me. He was shaking. I got in under the controls. He thrust Judy in ahead of him, on her knees on the floor. Laughing, he got in and sat, holding her arm twisted against the small of her back, the gun fixed on her.

  "Put it in the air, Buz."

 
; I switched on the engine, listened to it come to life. I taxied it away from the hangar. The police had drawn their guns. They ran out on the cement, but none fired.

  Coates sat watching them, laughing.

  "What you think you're going to do, Coates?"

  "What I was planning to do all along, sucker. Only now I'm doing it sooner. Get this bucket in the air and fly south. The faster you fly, the more you do like I tell you, the longer your doll stays alive."

  I glanced over my shoulder as I jerked the tail of the Cessna around. The prop wash made the police grab their hats. I gunned it, feeling it lift its tail and race along the sky chute. Two of the cruisers reversed from the hangar and sped along the runway after us. I felt the wheels come free and then I was climbing.

  I was less than a hundred feet in the air when I let it sideslip. Coates yelled at me. He caught Judy's hair in his hands, shaking her head as though she were a doll. "You want her dead now? You want her dead now?"

  I brought the plane up straight and kept it there climbing.

  "God damn you," Sid yelled. "You make it stall, you son of a bitch, and I do kill her."

  I glanced at Judy, huddled on the floor. She had not spoken, had not lifted her head to look at me. That was fine. Nobody had to tell me I had lost her forever. I had lost her a long time ago, only now the official score was in.

  "Go ahead," I yelled at Sid. I laughed at him and his plastic face tightened, and he watched me narrowly. "Kill her. It might as well be now. You were planning to kill her from the minute you walked us out of that office. I was already slated to die, wasn't I, Sid? How long? From the first?"

  "What difference it make? You fly this thing. I tell you this. I can fly this plane. I don't need you."

  "No. You're bluffing again. You can fly it. But just barely. They're coming after us-and you think I'm going to lose 'em for you."

  "If you're smart you will."

  "Yeah. But I'm not smart. If I was smart I'd have known you never intended splitting a hundred grand when you could take it all."

  "Just shut up."

  "Sure. And there's something else I'd have known if I had been smart. This whole job was for kicks. Your kicks. And that takes a killing doesn't it? Somebody at that bank. The constable-or me."