by Orca Various
Niner put the Beechcraft down like he was settling a kitten onto a pillow, turned the plane at the end of the runway and taxied back to the fuel pumps.
All of them got out and stretched. It was already 10:00 AM. The day had begun in Charleston, taken them almost to Myrtle Beach and now they were—Webb pulled up a travel app on his iPhone—in the heart of Alabama again, a city called Dothan. He tilted his face to a warm breeze. Felt Lee’s hand on his shoulder.
“Niner says he wants you at the controls once we get up. You okay with that? Flying this?”
“Very,” Webb said.
“Good,” Lee said. “As soon as we’re ready, you take the copilot seat. I’m going to have a good snooze in the back.”
Ten minutes later, Webb was in the headset, communicating with Niner by microphone.
Niner taxied again, taking the plane to the end of the runway, then turning it.
“Take off and land into the wind,” Niner said. “Gives extra lift. We want a wind speed of about one hundred and five to get airborne. Breeze is into us at fifteen miles an hour. Means we only need ninety miles an hour of ground speed.”
Webb nodded. There were pedals at his feet, a yoke in front of him.
Niner gave the engine a surge, and the Beechcraft accelerated, making the edges of the runway seem to converge.
Then the Beechcraft tilted upward, and Webb was staring at clouds. An amazing sensation of freedom.
Niner spent twenty minutes explaining the controls to Webb. When he was satisfied that Webb understood the principles behind flying and the principles behind the controls, he gave Webb a thumbs-up.
“Take us in some gentle banks and turns,” Niner said. “See if you can do it without waking Lee. It’s kind of like driving. Best way to do it is to imagine an egg in a little bowl on the dash. You never want to turn or stop or take off so fast that the egg rolls out.”
The sense of power Webb felt maneuvering the Beechcraft thrilled him. It was better than driving the Camaro.
“Excellent,” Niner said. “Now take it down a little.”
Webb pointed the nose downward. Land filled most of the windshield. He loved it.
“Up.”
Slight acceleration and sky replaced the view of land. The Beechcraft seemed like an extension of Webb’s body. Too cool.
Niner glanced back at Lee. “He’s strapped in,” Niner said. “And you put your bag under the seat like I asked. I want to take over the controls, because now it’s time for a little payback.”
“Payback?”
“Remember how you videoed me on your iPhone when I was screaming at the Camaro because I didn’t know who was inside? Do me a favor and get ready to take more video. But you’re going to have to hang on tight to your phone.”
“Tight?” Webb put the iPhone into video mode.
“Don’t drop it.”
“Tight,” Webb confirmed.
“Start now, and make sure you keep the camera on him.”
Webb turned and picked up Lee on the screen. Lee was already asleep, leaning back, strapped in tight in case of turbulence.
Niner tilted the airplane nose up so that it was riding vertical to the ground instead of horizontal.
Even with the headset covering his ears, Webb could hear Lee’s scream of terror. Webb felt a little puckered in the butt himself, but he kept the video going, capturing Lee’s wide-open eyes.
Lee’s scream rose in pitch as Niner put the airplane completely upside down and flew horizontal to the ground again.
Webb was doing his best not to scream. He glanced over at Niner, whose short hair was hanging straight down. Niner had a huge grin on his face.
Niner put the plane right-side up again, and Webb was able to breathe. Niner jerked a thumb in Lee’s direction.
“Look at him cussing me out,” Niner said. “Make sure you get that on video too.”
TWENTY-THREE
“We’re good?” Niner asked Lee.
“Except I need to empty my shorts,” Lee said. “I should have been wearing diapers when you did that trick flying.”
They all laughed.
The three of them were on the runway beside the Beechcraft, sun baking the asphalt. Hot day for late December, the guy at the fuel tank had said. Niner had first circled downtown New Orleans for Webb, giving him a view of the Mississippi and showing where it branched out south of New Orleans into a massive delta that looked like broccoli. Then he had taken them down over the gray, flat waters of Lake Pontchartrain, the huge estuary fed by freshwater rivers but connected to the Gulf of Mexico.
They’d landed at Lakefront Airport, which was on a peninsula at the south end of Lake Pontchartrain, and it had felt to Webb that as they came in over the water, the landing gear should kick up spray.
“We’re good,” Lee said. “We’ve got water and chocolate bars and a couple of empty Coke bottles. Thanks for arranging the loaner.”
At private airports, Niner explained, there was often a vehicle or two for out-of-town pilots to use on an informal basis. This one was a battered blue Ford Taurus, probably ten years old, but if anybody wanted to complain, they were welcome to rent a car instead. Lee said he liked the Taurus, because it was so anonymous and otherwise they’d have had to use a credit card for a rental. They still didn’t have any idea how many of Lee’s Vietnam friends were being tracked by the Bogeyman.
“I’ll wait in Baton Rouge as long as I need to,” Niner said. “You whistle, I’ll be back here in a jiffy.”
An hour outside of New Orleans, Niner had radioed in the change in flight plan, saying he needed to get some fuel before resuming the journey, just in case the Bogeyman had been monitoring and had sent people ahead to Baton Rouge.
“I owe you,” Lee said.
“Nope,” Niner said. “We don’t do things like this to build up debts.”
Niner saluted Web and said, “Get a haircut, hippie.”
Then Niner grinned and hopped into the airplane.
Webb was grinning too as he and Lee walked to the Taurus.
“You drive,” Lee said. “I’ll navigate. No offense to a workhorse like the Taurus, but the handling of it is going to feel soggy compared to the Camaro, and I’ll let you deal with the wet-noodle turns.”
Webb noticed the difference as they drove away from the airport, but he didn’t care. They were closing in on Jesse Lockewood. He hoped.
They had an address on Chartres Street, in the French Quarter. Lee directed Webb past the grounds of the University of New Orleans, palmettos obscuring the square white buildings. Then they turned south down an avenue called St. Bernard, which ran underneath an interstate, past houses built sideways to the street, past an old whitewashed church, beneath another interstate, then through neighborhoods with cars on blocks and finally to mansions with lawns trimmed to perfection.
“Tiny houses,” Webb said, making a joke as they neared the heart of the downtown. He pointed to some small white buildings crowded together in a park.
Lee snorted. “Cities of the dead, you mean. Those are above-ground vaults for burials. This city, the water table is too high. Can’t put coffins in the ground.”
Webb couldn’t help himself. Cities of the dead. Cool phrase, he thought. He’d need to go to iTunes and see if someone had already used it. If not, he could build a song off something like that. Then he realized he was actually thinking about a song again, actually wanting to write. Not a bad feeling.
“We turn left in about a block,” Lee said, cutting into Webb’s thoughts. “You liking these old buildings?”
The buildings were two and three and four stories tall, all of them with ornate iron balconies, some with plants cascading down almost to the streets.
“This is a good time to visit,” Lee said. “Other times in the French Quarter, you can’t walk without having to turn sideways, it’s so crowded. Always liked the vibe in this city. Great music, great food.”
At the steering wheel, Webb turned as directed at the next cor
ner.
“Keep your eyes open for a convent,” Lee said. “The address is across the street. New Orleans is a city of contrasts. Convents on one corner, blues bars on the other.”
As Webb made the final turn, the street opened up ahead, and it looked like a barge was blocking the road until Webb realized the street ended in a T at the banks of the Mississippi, and the barge was on the waters ahead of them.
“Here,” Lee said.
They parked in front of a building that looked like it had been there since the time of pirates. Dull red brick, stone tiles on the roof, gargoyles in the corners.
“Just like this?” Webb said, gesturing at the ancient wooden doors of the separate apartment units at ground level. “We walk up and knock?”
“Just like this,” Lee answered, understanding Webb’s comment. “If he’s home, he’s home. Otherwise, we wait. If he’s who we think he is, the man’s been on the run since the Vietnam War. He’ll be skittish, and phoning won’t do anything but give him a chance to run again.”
Nobody answered the door.
Lee shrugged. “Plan B then. Back to the car. Empty Coke bottles.”
Plan B was to wait and watch for as long as it took. Without leaving even for a moment. The Coke bottles they’d plucked out of a recycling bin up at the airport were for bathroom breaks. Gross, Lee had said, but necessary. Webb was glad the empties had screw-on caps.
They sat in the Taurus. Windows down, radio tuned to a jazz station, breeze keeping them cool as they watched the sidewalks.
“Hard to imagine a city like this flooded so high that bodies floated down the streets,” Lee said. “Not when you see it now on a pretty day like today. You know who bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina, don’t you? Wasn’t the people who could drive away from the flood warnings in their big SUVs. No sir.”
Webb remembered all the news stories about that hurricane.
“Folks put the blame in lots of places for the levees that broke and the dikes that collapsed,” Lee said. “Media liked sending out images of people gathered in the Superdome and all that went wrong there. But what really gets me is how the poor—and by poor, I mean mainly black—weren’t able to rebuild after. And you know why?”
“Yup,” Webb said.
“Huh?” Lee had obviously expected to go on with his little lecture.
“Insurance,” Webb said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? Get the poor to set aside just a little of their money for insurance and that’ll take care of them better than government.”
Lee’s face had the crinkled look of a puzzled basset hound. Then he broke into a grin of admiration. “Dang. You do listen.”
“I am but your humble servant,” Webb said.
Lee began to laugh, but then froze. “Look!”
And there he was. Grocery bag in his arm, walking up the sidewalk, maybe thirty paces away.
Jesse Lockewood. Four decades older than the photo on the military identification card. But still him, beyond mistake. A man who was supposed to have been killed in battle, placed in a body bag and flown home for burial.
TWENTY-FOUR
Lee stepped out of the car, stretching. Just like someone who’d been napping for a while, not someone in predator mode.
Now only a couple of paces away, Eric McAuley—Webb still thought of him as Jesse Lockewood—barely glanced at Lee.
McAuley had taken good care of himself over the decades. His hair was silvered at the edges, and his jaw was square and the skin tight. He was tanned, and his khaki pants and light green golf shirt made him look like he golfed.
He could be a successful businessman or maybe someone who ran a restaurant in the French Quarter. Or he could just as easily be a popular university professor teaching English literature based on a hard-earned PhD.
Thanks to information from his cousin Adam’s geek friend, Webb knew, of course, that Eric McAuley actually did teach at the University of New Orleans and that the online staff photo showed an icon of Shakespeare instead of McAuley himself.
Lee made no threatening moves as McAuley neared the old Taurus. Lee simply remained leaning against the door and said two words. “Jesse Lockewood.”
McAuley didn’t flinch. Didn’t break his stride. Didn’t even look at Lee.
“Bad acting,” Lee said to McAuley’s back. “Anyone else would have looked over, wondering why I got their name wrong. You want a quiet talk with me and my friend over coffee and beignets? Or you want to leave behind this nice life as Eric McAuley and start running again as Jesse Lockewood?”
McAuley kept walking.
Webb stepped out of the car too.
“You’re closing in on sixty,” Lee said, raising his voice slightly because of the distance McAuley kept adding. “Think it’s going to be easy to rebuild?”
McAuley stopped, as if considering Lee’s words, then turned. “I’m putting my groceries inside. I’ll be back. That okay with you?”
“Okay with us,” Lee said. “I’m not here to force you to do anything. No weapons, no threats. Just want to talk, and then my friend and I will be out of your life. What you’ll get out of it is knowing how we found you, and the steps you can take to make sure that Vietnam doesn’t catch up to you again.”
The answer must have satisfied McAuley, because after he opened the door and stepped inside his apartment, he was back out in less than two minutes.
“Let’s walk,” he said. Nothing about his body language suggested he was afraid. “Nice café around the corner. I don’t want my wife involved.”
He glanced at Webb, who could see McAuley’s eyes taking in the long hair.
“I know, I know,” Webb said. “Hippie. That’s the first thing you Vietnam vets think.”
“No,” McAuley said. “Your face. Something familiar about it. It’ll come to me.” McAuley turned to Lee. “Beignets? You’ve been to New Orleans before.”
Lee grinned. “Love those things. Great on your lips. Stay on your hips.”
All three remained silent the remainder of the short walk around the corner. A waiter greeted McAuley by name and showed them to a sunny spot on the patio. McAuley ordered beignets and coffee for all of them. It was very civilized, considering that someone had burned down Lee’s house because of the man across from them.
“I’m Lee Knox,” Lee said. “Former second lieutenant. Thirty-eighth Infantry.”
“The Cyclones,” McAuley said. “Amazing how that stuff never leaves your brain, remembering names for divisions.”
McAuley gave Webb another questioning glance.
“Jim Webb,” Webb said.
McAuley studied them some more. “I’ve always had an escape plan. Reason I didn’t run when you called out my name was because of sheer curiosity. Not only about how you found me, but this whole odd-couple thing between the two of you. That curiosity is only growing. One of you talks like a Minnesotan. The other like the south.”
“Black and white,” Webb said. “Something Lee keeps pointing out.”
“Webb’s Canada,” Lee said. “I’m Tennessee. And he’s the one who started it. A friend of a friend kind of thing. Webb had questions about two names and one photo. Jesse Lockewood and Benjamin Moody.”
McAuley looked at Webb. “That’s where I’ve seen you before. Sean Alexander. Same features.”
Sean Alexander. Hearing the name from someone else was like a zap of electricity to Webb.
“My grandfather,” Webb said.
“I hope he died a horrible death,” McAuley said. His face tightened. “And please, do take offense. I thought this was going to be a friendly chat, and I hoped we could work things out, but after what that man did to me, I’d gladly dump your body in a swamp.”
Their waiter brought the beignets and coffee in a pot on a tray and set it down.
McAuley’s expression stayed tight, as if he was clenching his jaw. He ignored the beignets and didn’t move his gaze away from Webb.
“Wow, these are great,” Lee said, his mo
uth full. “Deep fried and sugared. We can order some to go, right?”
Webb’s gut was churning. He kept hearing McAuley’s words about Webb’s grandfather. After what that man did to me…
“Hey, Lockewood,” Lee said to McAuley when neither Webb nor McAuley broke off the stare-down. “Ease off. Webb’s not responsible for his grandfather’s actions.”
McAuley turned a slow gaze toward Lee. Then he gave a puzzled frown as Lee pulled out his wallet and put a hundred-dollar bill on the table, right beside the coffee pot.
“Here’s what I have—straight-up odds—that says you’re wrong about the kid’s grandfather,” Lee said. “Someone else did you wrong, and that’s why I’m here. For payback against the same person. Want to take the bet?”
McAuley relaxed, but only slightly. “What do you know?”
“The kid’s grandfather has passed on,” Lee said. “Yet someone burned my house down a few days ago. I like the odds that a dead man wasn’t the one to either burn down my house or send someone to do it. So whatever happened, you should assume someone else was responsible and is trying to bury the past. Webb and I think of him as the Bogeyman, and we’re trying to find him for some payback.”
Lee said to Webb, “You’ve never been to New Orleans before, right? Try a beignet. Don’t let Lockewood spoil your appetite with an unfounded accusation. There’s still a lot of digging to do before we find out what really happened, and in America we’re supposed to believe in the innocent-until-proven-guilty thing.”
Webb took Lee’s advice and set his iPhone on top of the hundred-dollar bill. He grabbed a beignet and took a bite. It tasted better than he expected.
“Someone wanted your military ID cards destroyed,” Lee said to McAuley. “That’s why they torched my house. It worked.” He pointed at the iPhone on the bill. “Except the kid here was smart enough to take photos of the cards. Want to see them?”
“No,” McAuley said. “I know what they look like. Last man who had them was this kid’s grandfather. Sean Alexander. I traded them to him so that my wife and I could escape Saigon. We didn’t get too far.”
