Crack-Up (29 page)

“Close the door, Ned,” I said, “and take a seat.”

“You broke my nose,” he said, sounding whiny and congested as he too obeyed me.
 
He sat beside his wife and child on a creamy leather sofa in front of the picture window.

“Be right back,” I said.
 
In the kitchen, wetting a towel for Ned, I noticed a large, blue work shirt draped over the back of a chair.
 
The breast pocket insignia advertised an auto repair shop:
Pro
Tech
Auto
Center
.
 
I found that curious.
 
Who would’ve expected an auto mechanic and a flight attendant to be inhabiting such an upscale condo?

“He broke my nose,” Ned said from the other room.
 
“Broke my fucking nose like fucking Jackie Chan.
 
I need a hospital.”

“Sssh,” said the flight attendant.
 
“Be calm.”

I found her rubbing and patting both of her babies upon my return.
 
At least the little one wasn’t whining anymore.

I handed Ned the wet towel.
 
Ned resented it when his wife tried to help clean him up, swatting her forearm.

“Relax,” I said, “both of you.
 
All I want is answers to a few questions.
 
Straight answers.
 
Understood?”
 
The two adults gave me a nod back in unison.
 
“Good.
 
Now, as I’d indicated in the hallway, Ma’am, we’ve met before.”

“I don’t recall.”

“Wait,” I said, “we haven’t been introduced yet.
 
Before we go any further, my name is Argus Ward.”

“And I’m Elizabeth Hardtack.”
 
That I knew by now, thanks to Keisha.
 
“And this is my husband, Ned.
 
Oh, and this is Daphne.”

Mrs. Hardtack held her infant aloft a good while, as if banking on its cuteness to ward off any further violence.
 
I petted Daphne on the head.
 
She grabbed my finger.

“That’s a Southeast Airlines uniform you’re wearing,” I said to the flight attendant.
 
“You work for them full-time, but you also have your name in a pool, offering to work corporate jets in a pinch.”
 
This I knew from Keisha’s digging inside HT.

“That’s right,” she said.
 
“How did you—”

“Helms Technology has a small, full-time staff of flight attendants, but sometimes they get too busy and have to draw on that pool at Reagan National.
 
That’s how you got work aboard HT’s Gulfstream jet last month on that flight to
Bangkok
.”

“
Bangkok
?” she said.
 
“Yes, I’ve been to
Bangkok
before.
 
Was it last month?
 
With HT?
 
I don’t recall.”

“I remember,” Ned said, lifting the bloody towel from his nose to speak to his wife.
 
“You told me HT pays top dollar.
 
You switched days off with Diane Spencer so you could work it.”

“Oh, yes,” she said to me, “I remember now.”

She studied my face intently.
 
I helped to jog her memory by removing my Redskins cap as well as my cosmetic reading glasses.
 
But there was nothing I could do about my hair’s new color.

“Why,” I asked, “during the final leg of the flight, Mrs. Hardtack, did you remove your uniform—indeed, every stitch of clothing you had on—while serving drinks to your passengers?”

She gasped.
 
“That’s absurd!”

“Isn’t it, though,” I said.
 
“But I was there.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Ned said, rising from his seat.
 
“What’s wrong with you, pal?”
 
I shoved him back down.

“You!” she said to me.
 
“It’s you!”

“Who?” Ned said.
 
He studied me.
 
“Shit, you’re right, Lizzie!
 
It’s him!
 
That crazy guy we saw on TV!
 
Only he’s blond now.
 
The guy everybody’s looking for!
 
The guy who—”

“Stay out of this, Ned,” I said.

Ned’s hairline, receding in a V-shape, pointed at me accusingly, and his eyes glared, but a new quiver in his voice betrayed rising concern.
 
“You’re insane.
 
There’s no talking to you.
 
You murder people.
 
You see naked flight attendants.
 
Go on your way now, you sick bastard, and forget all these nutty ideas about my wife.”

I turned back to the wife.
 
“Is that where you know me from?
 
From the television?
 
Or is it from the plane?”

The flight attendant’s eyes averted mine.
 
They followed the bloody trail running from Ned’s feet to the front door.

“Please, Mrs. Hardtack, I have to know the truth.
 
I think you can imagine how high the stakes are here, and not only for me personally.
 
This whole affair concerns the death of a famous business leader, a multi-billionaire.
 
We could both be involved in a conspiracy of major proportions.”

Slowly, Elizabeth Hardtack raised her eyes to me.
 
“You’re a sick man, Mister Ward.
 
Please do us all a favor and seek help.”

“Are you being straight with me?” I said.

“She is,” Ned said.
 
“Now get out.”

I paced back and forth in front of the Hardtacks, inwardly seething.
 
I didn’t know what to believe.
 
I didn’t know how to verify the woman’s story or blow holes in it.
 
And I didn’t trust myself to say another calm word, one that wouldn’t send the real infant screaming.
 
I donned my disguise and headed for the door.

Half-way there, the flight attendant’s nude form popped into my mind again, and an idea struck me.
 
I turned back to face the Hardtacks, whose bodies seemed glued to the sofa.

“Ned,” I said, “you’re a lucky man, really you are, making love to a woman with such a fine figure.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ned said.

“But she’s modest, isn’t she, Ned?
 
Modest enough to wear one-piece bathing suits, even with a body like that.”
 
Ned swallowed his latest curse-filled sentiment.
 
“How would I know that?
 
The same way I know she delivered Daphne, here, via Caesarean section.
 
The same way I know your wife’s nipples are pinkish and small—each about the size of a dime—and that she’s a natural blonde.”

Ned jumped to his feet.
 
“What the . . .”

“And your wife has a tiny white scar, doesn’t she, Ned?
 
It’s about the size and circumference of a cigarette burn, and it’s located on her left buttock, down low, and so close to the crack in her ass it could almost crawl inside.”

Ned looked down at his wife, and so did I.
 
She was bouncing Daphne on her knee.
 
Meanwhile, tears streamed down her cheeks, moving thick gobs of mascara.

Chapter 30

Hideo’s kitchen table was laden with hot Japanese dishes I didn’t recognize, save for a porcelain bowl of white sticky rice.
 
But I wasn’t hungry anyway.
 
Between polite pecks at the food with my chopsticks, and sips of bitter
Bali
tea, I described my visit with the naked flight attendant and her family.

“Her name is Elizabeth Hardtack,” I said.
 
“Her husband is an auto mechanic, named Ned.
 
Complete strangers to me, until—”

“Try octopus sashimi,” Hideo said, pointing to it.
 
“Use soy sauce.
 
Very, very good.”

The octopus was raw, I found, and I nearly gagged forcing it down.
 
“Delicious, Hideo.
 
Where was I?
 
Anyway, this whole thing started when Elizabeth, the flight attendant, was contacted through her Southeast Airlines email account, by a person named Harlan Grazer, who claimed to be a big-shot administrator with Reagan National airport.”

“You know him?” Hideo said.

“Never heard of him before.
 
Anyway, Harlan told
Elizabeth
he got her name from the list of local flight attendants who’d made themselves available for work on corporate jets, and that he wanted her help in playing a practical joke on an old friend from the Army.
 
Me, supposedly.
 
But he didn’t mention my name.
 
He told her only that he could get her the work assignment on the day his old Army buddy would be flying aboard HT’s corporate jet, and that he’d arranged for all the other passengers who would be aboard that day—it turned out there were only three others—to be in on the joke.”

“What joke?” Hideo said into his noodle bowl.

“This Harlan Grazer paid
Elizabeth
to take off all her clothes in mid-flight.
 
Meanwhile, everyone else in the cabin pretended she still had her uniform on, and told me I was crazy.”

Hideo grunted.
 
“Good joke.”

“Terrific, yeah.
 
The reason
Elizabeth
went along with the gag was because she got paid.
 
Handsomely.”

“How much?”

“His initial offer was five thousand dollars, but
Elizabeth
negotiated.
 
She got him all the way up to eighteen thousand dollars.
 
This Harlan Grazer—whoever he is—has deep pockets.”

“Eighteen thousand?” Hideo said.
 
“For stripper?”

“Yeah.
 
The moment she disclosed the amount, I saw Ned, her husband, jerk his head toward a baby grand piano in the living room, a Steinway.
 
That’s where a good chunk of the money went, I soon learned, after Ned called her a whore, and the two of them started bickering.
 
The rest of the money went to paying off her quite sizable credit card debt.”

“Eighteen thousand,” Hideo said again.

“Elizabeth Hardtack likes the finer things in life, that’s all too clear from seeing her condominium.
 
But it can’t be easy living large when you, yourself, are a flight attendant, and your husband fixes cars for a living.
 
I think Harlan Grazer knew that, somehow.
 
He knew her weakness.
 
Capitalized on it.
 
Kind of like with the furniture man.
 
Like with Bernard Alan Simpson.”

Another grunt from Hideo.
 
“She know Mister Bernard?”

“Never heard of him.”

“What about passengers on plane?”

“They were all HT executives.
 
One I spoke with, and he was based in
Texas
, which is where they all came aboard.
 
Elizabeth
says she didn’t know any of the other passengers, and from what I can recall, they didn’t seem to know her.
 
Or each other.”