Fangs Out

by David Freed

  “At least you don’t stink anymore,” Dutch said, “though you do smell a tad vinegary.”

  I turned on the car’s radio. An evangelical preacher was discussing why God intended for only men to mow the lawn, and how scrap-booking and cooking were lady-only activities.

  “My wife couldn’t cook to save her life,” Holland said.

  “My ex-wife is a great cook.”

  One more thing to miss about Savannah.

  I changed stations and caught most of Jimmy Buffett’s “Cowboy in the Jungle,” a song about learning to trust your instincts while accepting life’s inevitable ups and downs. Listening to the tune, I decided, was worth more than an hour on any shrink’s couch.

  FAIR VISTA Airport was as deserted as when we’d first arrived. Even without security gates, Dutch’s plane had been left untouched. He asked if he could fly left seat. After all, he said, it was his airplane. I checked my watch: the sun would be down in less than an hour. It would take probably half that to reach the Inyokern Airport at the valley’s southern end, where we’d refuel before continuing on to San Diego.

  “OK,” I said, “you fly us to Inyokern. I’ll get us back to your hangar.”

  He smiled and flew magnificently. We landed, gassed up, switched seats, and lifted off once more, just as the last of the sun slid into the Pacific.

  At altitude, on a clear night, Los Angeles glimmers black and gold like a living thing. Freeways and major streets pulsate like arteries with the flow of red taillights, feeding dozens of city centers—the amorphous creature’s vital organs. Electrified baseball and soccer fields festoon the body, their high-intensity stadium lamps burning holes in the darkness. Here and there, airport beacons rotate green and white. For pilots like Dutch Holland who are born and not made, it is a panorama that never gets tiresome. He gazed serenely to the west, watching jetliners bound for LAX hanging in the night sky like strands of fireflies. I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it, too: that being able to fly an airplane, to enjoy that much beauty and freedom, was a privilege few others will ever know.

  “’Evening, Los Angeles Center,” I said, keying my radio push-to-talk button. “Cherokee 5-4-8-7 Whiskey, with a VFR request.”

  “Cherokee 5-4-8-7 Whiskey, Los Angeles Center, squawk 4-2-5-1 and say request.”

  I dialed in 4251 on the Cherokee’s transponder and informed the controller of our location and altitude. I said we were en route to San Diego’s Montgomery Field, and requested “Flight Following.” That way, we’d be on radar—a good thing when you’d rather not scrape paint with other airplanes.

  “Cherokee 8-7 Whiskey, radar contact, position and altitude as stated. Chino altimeter, 3-0-0-0. Maintain VFR.”

  “Triple zero, 8-7 Whiskey.”

  I glanced over at Holland. He was now slumped forward against his shoulder restraints, his mouth open, dozing contentedly.

  Over the horizon, the lights of San Diego beckoned like an unsolved riddle.

  WE TOUCHED down at Montgomery shortly before ten P.M. Fifteen minutes later, following a pit stop at the port-a-potty, Holland and his Cherokee were safely back inside their hangar home.

  “Thanks for humoring an old man,” he said.

  “Thanks for letting me fly your plane, Dutch. You’ve got yourself a fine ship.”

  He patted the Piper’s propeller spinner like the muzzle of a trusty mount, then offered to let me spend the night on the air mattress normally reserved for Al Demaerschalk.

  “He’s probably over at his son’s house,” Holland said. “We probably should’ve started there to begin with. We can go over first thing tomorrow, if you want.”

  My stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten anything all day except those doughnuts at breakfast.

  “I appreciate the offer, Dutch, but think I might take off and catch something to eat.”

  “No need. I got plenty right here.”

  He led me to a large cardboard box sitting on a folding card table. Inside were food items that, it’s safe to say, few women would ever put willingly in their mouths.

  “How ’bout some Vienna sausages?” Dutch said, holding up a can for my consideration. “Got your pork rinds, your buffalo jerky, ahh, OK, here we go.” He pulled a glass jar out of the box. “Pickled eggs. Wash it all down with a couple of root beers. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

  It certainly got a whole lot better than that, but who was I to contradict a ninety-one-year-old man? My options were simple. Find a Taco Bell and bed down in the Escalade, or go on a junk food bender and camp out with one of the world’s last remaining World War II fighter pilots? Holland waited on my answer like he’d just asked me to the prom. The old man was lonely.

  “Who could resist pickled eggs?” I said.

  He grinned and offered me the jar. I forked out one with my fingers. It had the consistency of rubber. Which is exactly how it tasted.

  DUTCH HOLLAND could’ve set off fire alarms with his snoring that night, and I would have slept through it. Could’ve been because I was exhausted from lack of sleep the night before, or because I was bunking snugly under the wing of an airplane, something I hadn’t done in a long time. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t remember awakening more refreshed than I was that next morning.

  Feeling fine lasted about as long as it took to change into fresh clothes and drive with Holland to the seaside neighborhood of Point Loma, where Al Demaerschalk shared a two-story duplex with Quentin Demaerschalk, Al’s squat, sixty-something son.

  “My father had a stroke,” Quentin said without emotion, standing inside his front door. He wore baggy shorts and an oversized aloha shirt with little pink palm trees in a vain effort to camouflage his basketball-sized breadbasket, along with one of those ridiculous little Vandyke beards to hide his many chins.

  “Al had a stroke?” Holland’s voice caught in his throat. “Where is he? Is he OK?”

  “Up at Scripps. He’s not expected to live.”

  Holland tottered on the front steps like he’d been pushed by a gust of wind. I steadied him.

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Last night,” Quentin said as a dark-haired, wide-bodied woman wearing turquoise medical scrubs appeared behind him in the doorway. “Somebody found him in his car on the side of the road up in Escondido. God only knows where he was going. This is my wife, Blair. I’m sorry, you are . . . ?”

  “My name’s Logan.”

  Blair ignored me and scowled at Holland.

  “Al wasn’t fooling anybody, Dutch. We all know he’s been staying with you out at the airport. We tried calling, but obviously you don’t have a cell phone, which is no surprise. Nobody your age does. It’s just too complicated, isn’t it?”

  Al Demaerschalk’s daughter-in-law reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West, only not nearly so nice.

  Holland was starting to totter on his feet. I was afraid he might have a stroke, too.

  “Can he sit down inside for a minute? He needs to catch his breath.”

  Blair looked over at her husband, pursing her lips, as if to say, “You decide.”

  Quentin shook his head and exhaled like he was none too happy about letting us inside his house, then reluctantly stood aside, holding open the screen door for us.

  The living room was a tribute to tacky. I helped Holland to one of two purple chairs, which matched the couch. Wax blobs floated surreally in a lava lamp on a glass-topped coffee table held up by deer antlers.

  “Would it be too much trouble to get him a glass of water?”

  Blair sighed, put off, and headed into the kitchen.

  “Look,” Quentin said to me, “it’s not that we’re bad people. It’s just that, maybe if my father had been in some kind of assisted care facility, where he belonged in the first place instead of hanging out at the airport all the time, the doctors could’ve done something to save him. But now . . .” He stared down at his sandaled feet, shaking his head.

  Holland’s chin trembled as he fought
back his tears. “Al’s a good joe. Even if he can’t hear worth a hoot.”

  Blair arrived with a glass of ice water and handed it to him.

  “What did you say to him, Dutch?” she demanded.

  Holland looked up at her with a confused look. “Say to him?”

  “He’s been behaving super weird the last few days,” Blair said. “He came over here the night before last, went to his room, shut the door, and wouldn’t come out. Said he was scared but wouldn’t say why.”

  Quentin Demaerschalk rubbed his ear. “Did something happen to my father out at the airport, Dutch?”

  Holland looked up at me as if to say, “Help me out here, will ya?”

  “Your father may have seen somebody tampering with the engine on my airplane,” I said to Quentin. “He apparently was scared that whoever did it might come after him if they knew he’d seen them. He also was afraid it would give you reason to put him out to pasture.”

  Quentin’s eyes pooled. “Crap,” he said softly, then turned and disappeared down a hallway.

  The duplex’s windows rattled as turbine engines roared overhead. An airliner was climbing out of Lindbergh. Al Demaerschalk’s daughter-in-law kneeled next to Holland. Gone was her scowl.

  “I’m sorry, Dutch. I know how close you and my father-in-law are.” She took his hand. “I know he thinks the world of you.”

  Maybe she wasn’t so witchy after all.

  Quentin returned, fisting tears from his eyes and clutching a scrap of paper. “I found this on the carpet under his bed. He must’ve dropped it right before he left because I vacuumed that afternoon.”

  He handed me the paper. It was torn from an AARP mailer. Scrawled shakily in an old man’s palsied hand were the letters, “CAPCAFLR.”

  “Maybe it has something to do with what he saw at the airport,” Quentin said.

  Maybe. Or maybe it was nothing, the erratic ramblings of an ancient brain verging on implosion.

  I tucked the paper in my pocket.

  Dutch Holland took off his glasses. Tears streaked his cheeks. “Al can’t have a stroke. He’s five years younger than me. It makes no sense.”

  “C’mon, Dutch. Let’s get you home.”

  I helped him up and walked him outside. Quentin came waddling out after us on our way to the car.

  “Wait.”

  Holland turned.

  “I know my father would’ve wanted you to have this,” Quentin said, putting something small in the palm of Dutch Holland’s hand.

  It was a military medal, a Silver Star.

  The old man clutched it tightly, as if holding on to Al Demaerschalk himself.

  AFTER DROPPING Holland back home and making sure he was squared away emotionally, I sat in the airport parking lot and called Buzz. He said he couldn’t talk long. He and other analysts were closing in on a particularly virulent terrorist cell they’d been stalking for months.

  “Screw flying 767’s into skyscrapers. That’s so last week. Now these douche bags are trying to poison the food supply,” Buzz said.

  “One more reason to say no to broccoli.”

  “Well, there is something to be said for that.”

  “I need you to check something out for me.”

  “Did you not hear what I just said, Logan? I’m trying to save the Free World over here.”

  “You can’t do it on your coffee break?”

  “There are no coffee breaks in the global war on terror, Logan, or whatever the President is calling it this month. Maybe you’ve been out of the fight so long you’ve forgotten that.”

  “I’ll buy you another CD. Placido Domingo’s greatest hits.”

  “I’m still waiting on The Three Tenors.”

  I told him about what had happened to my airplane.

  “You still flying that rust bucket? Whadda you call it—the ‘Pregnant Goose’?”

  “The Ruptured Duck. And, yeah, Buzz, I’m still flying it—or was, until somebody tried to kill me in it.”

  “Who’d be stupid enough to try something like that?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping you can help me find out.”

  I read him phonetically what was on the slip of paper that Al Demaerschalk’s son had found in his father’s room.

  “Charlie-Alpha-Papa-Charlie-Alpha-Foxtrot-Lima-Romeo,” Buzz repeated, making sure he had it right. “What is that, some kind of acronym?”

  “I have no idea. But a code breaker might.”

  Buzz sighed resignedly. “I’ll get back to you when I can.”

  “Thanks, Buzz.”

  I went to push the red button on my phone.

  “Hey, Logan?”

  “Yup?”

  “Screw Placido Domingo. If you’re gonna get me another CD, get me Pavarotti’s greatest hits. The guy makes Placido look like a talentless punk.”

  “Pavarotti it is.”

  I was hoping Buzz would reach out to his cryptologist contacts at the National Counterterrorism Center, geeky geniuses whose idea of happy hour was chugging Red Bulls while hashing out unsolved mathematical theorems. If anybody could figure out what “CAPCAFLR” meant, it was them.

  Sixteen

  I tried calling Mrs. Schmulowitz yet again to see how she was faring after her tummy tuck. A computerized voice said the memory on her answering machine was full and not accepting any more messages. My concern for her welfare was quickly escalating from worry to dread. Had there been surgical complications? Had she returned home and suffered an accident? What if she was lying on her kitchen floor with a fractured hip, unable to move? Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! My mind raced with the ominous possibilities. In my haste to jump in my airplane and fly down from Rancho Bonita to San Diego, I hadn’t thought to ask for the name and telephone number of Mrs. Schmulowitz’s physician.

  Dumb.

  Neither hospital in Rancho Bonita could find any record of her having been admitted. I sat in my rented Escalade, in the parking lot outside the Montgomery Airport terminal, and fretted. Somebody needed to check on her as soon as possible. Problem was, I was more than 200 miles away. Fighting my way through the log-jammed freeways of Orange County and Los Angeles would take six hours at least.

  Larry’s repair shop at the Rancho Bonita Municipal Airport was a ten-minute drive from Mrs. Schmulowitz’s house. I called him, but there was no answer.

  The only other person I could think of was my ex-wife. She could be in Rancho Bonita, depending on traffic, in less than two hours. She picked up on the third ring.

  “It’s me.”

  “Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine. Still down in San Diego. You got home all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Strained silence. She was clearly still irked at me.

  “I need a favor, Savannah.”

  The health of any friendship or romance can be gauged in the response to that one simple request. If the answer is an automatic, “Absolutely,” you can bet you’ve got a good thing going. If the answer is, “What is it?” it might be time to punch out.

  “Sure.”

  My heart danced, even if I don’t.

  I explained that Mrs. Schmulowitz had undergone cosmetic surgery, that she wasn’t answering her phone, and that I was worried. Would Savannah mind driving up to Rancho Bonita to make sure she was OK—and checking on the welfare of my cat while she was at it?

  “You can be there in an hour and a half, Savannah. I’ll pay you back.”

  “Pay me back how?”

  “We never did make it to SeaWorld.”

  “C’mon, Logan, you can do better than that.”

  “OK, I’ll throw in the Wild Animal Park, too.”

  “What if you just started being more sensitive to the feelings of others?”

  “I suppose I could do that.”

  “Good.”

  “So you’ll go?”

  Savannah said she was just finishing her notes following a counseling session with a client, and could be on her way within the hour.
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  “I’ll let you know what I find when I get there,” she said. “I just hope she’s OK.”

  I could’ve said, “That makes two of us.” What I said instead was, “You’re a good woman, Savannah.”

  She seemed pleased.

  As I hung up, a black, unmarked police car rolled into the lot and pulled up beside my rented Escalade so that the driver’s side windows were facing each other. Behind the wheel was Detective Alicia Rosario. She was alone.

  “I was just over at Hub Walker’s house,” she said. “Wanted to ask him a few questions on the Bollinger homicide. He said if you were still in town, this is where I’d find you.”

  “What was so important, you couldn’t just call me?”

  She shut off the engine, got out of her cruiser, and got in on the passenger’s side of my Escalade.

  “Hub Walker won the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

  “It’s not Congressional Medal of Honor, Detective. It’s just ‘Medal of Honor.’ And you don’t ‘win’ it. You receive it.”

  Rosario gave me a hard sideways look. She didn’t like being lectured.

  “Something doesn’t smell right about your Medal of Honor recipient,” she said.

  I said nothing.

  “Hub Walker and Janet Bollinger were involved in a car accident the day after Dorian Munz was executed. Are you aware of that?”

  “I heard something along those lines. Doesn’t make Walker a murderer.”

  “Agreed,” Rosario said. “But when I was talking to him about what happened to Bollinger, he seemed a little, I don’t know . . .” Her words trailed off.

  “Like he knew something you didn’t?”

  She nodded as she gazed out at the runway, trying to piece the puzzle together. “Janet Bollinger starts dating Dorian Munz after her good friend, Ruth Walker, breaks up with him. Munz goes on trial for murdering Walker, Bollinger testifies against him, Munz is executed, then Bollinger gets stabbed to death—stabbed, not shot. Pulling a trigger, that’s easy. But stabbing somebody to death? Feeling that blade cutting through flesh? Man, you gotta want that person dead pretty bad.”