Dead Ringer (16 page)

Horace pulled the wheel to the left, countering the drag on the right. He checked the altimeter, he was losing altitude. The cumulus in front didn’t seem so innocent now. The sweat under his arms seemed frozen. Icicles stabbed his heart.

He pulled back on the wheel, added power, slowed the descent and grit his teeth as the plane slipped into the soup. He was flying blind, still losing altitude. The stall warning sounded, buzzing loud. He pushed the nose downward to avoid the stall. He had to get the body back in the plane.

With his left hand on the controls he stretched, grabbed onto an arm and tried to pull it back in. No joy, it was stuck in place, and the altimeter said he was dropping at two-hundred and fifty feet a minute. He had to get Virgil gone.

He pulled off his harness and seatbelt. More cold sweat. He took his feet off the rudder pedals and the plane turned more to the right. He spun around in the seat. Using the door on his side as a back brace, he pulled his feet up onto the seat, planted them on Virgil’s ass and pushed.

Nothing. Virge was wedged in. Back solid against the door on his side, Horace tucked his legs to his chest, then lashed out, slamming his feet into his brother’s rear end. Movement. Some. It was gonna work. He pulled his knees back again, slammed them into Virgil’s rear again and Virge moved a little more, but he was still stuffed tight in the doorway.

Breathing hard, head spinning, fighting panic, Horace pulled his knees to his chest, grabbed a great breath, heaved it out, screaming like a kung-fu fighter as he hammered his feet into Virgil’s rump.

Virgil popped out of the plane like a Champagne cork, pulling the bricks after himself as he disappeared into the clouds. “Born in the USA.” And Horace slid after, his feet dangling out of the plane. He spun around, hands flaying for something to grab onto. Frantic fingers found the seatbelt. He grabbed onto it. The plane was in a spiraling descent now, any second it was going to go into a spin.

Horace felt his hands slipping from the strap, but a quick vision of an uncontrolled plunge into to the water below gave him the extra strength he needed to pull himself up toward the seat. He grabbed onto it, pulled more, got his legs out of the sky and into the plane. He grabbed onto the wheel, turned it to the left as he struggled into place. Panting, he got a foot onto the left rudder peddle as he pulled on the seatbelt.

“
Holy shit,” he muttered over and over as he tried to find the right combination of rudder and aileron to take him out of the turn. If he wasn’t careful, he’d pull the wings off the plane. He eased back on the wheel, sweat dripping from his forehead into his eyes. He blinked it away. He was still going down, still in the soup, still blind, but he was out of the rotation.

He reached over, latched the door, checked the level control. He’d done some flight time under the hood, all he had to do was concentrate. He could get out of this. He could.

The altimeter said sixty-five hundred feet. He had the wings level. He eased back a bit on the wheel, stopped the descent. But now he had other problems. Up or down, back the way he’d come, or continue on toward Catalina?

He cursed himself for not getting the morning’s aviation weather. Really dumb. He’d never flown without it before. “One fucking time,” he muttered. He hit the button on the player, popped out the CD. Between the Boss and Virgil, his thinking got so messed up he almost went out the plane, too.

He decided to drop under the cloud cover. Keeping his eye on the gauges, he tried to pretend he was back with a flight instructor doing his instrument training. Halfway through, he’d dropped out. Who wanted to fly in bad weather anyway, he’d reasoned. But he’d learned enough not to panic.

Using the gauges, he kept the wings level as he trimmed up for a controlled descent at a hundred feet per minute. Then he set the auto pilot for Catalina and took his hands off the controls.

The altimeter said he was flying at forty-five hundred feet. He was tense, almost frightened. It was important he calm down, so he snaked an arm back in the pouch on the passenger door and came out with a couple more CDs. Billy Joel, Goodnight Saigon, Virgil loved that one, but it was guaranteed to heighten Horace’s apprehension. The other, Mozart’s Concertos for French Horn. He popped it in, turned up the volume. Now it was just him and the master till he broke through the clouds. His fate was in Mozart’s hands now, Horace wouldn’t be touching the controls till he saw the water below.

At three thousand feet, he closed his eyes as a horn solo soared through the cockpit. This was what made him exceptional, the ability to remove himself, to take himself away till the crisis passed. If there wasn’t anything he could do, then there was no reason to stress himself out. He pictured Sadie in his mind. Sexy Sadie. Would she remember him if he called? No woman had ever affected him like that and he’d only spent a couple of dances with her, knew nothing about her.

He felt the light and opened his eyes to a bright sun. The cloud mass was behind, the altimeter said seventeen hundred feet. Catalina was dead ahead. He set the autopilot for straight and level flight. He’d always been lucky. He hummed along with the horn.

Then he thought about the old woman he was coming in to do. It was typical Striker. Getting someone to behave the way he wanted by attacking his family. Horace bit his lip, chewed on his tongue. It didn’t seem right, the poor woman probably never hurt a fly and she was gonna get killed just for being some asshole’s mother. It was as if someone was gonna kill Ma because they were pissed at Horace.

It wasn’t fair. But that Kenyon bitch killing Virgil wasn’t fair either. Also it wasn’t fair Ma sitting blind in her rocker, a tumor swelling in her brain, while cancer ate up her body. No, life wasn’t fair. It sucked.

He heard some chatter on the radio and it jerked his mind back to the controls. He took the plane off auto and flew it himself. The small airport on Catalina Island was atop a mountain. The wind sock told him he had a slight headwind. Piece of cake landing.

On the ground, he took a cab down to Avalon. It was after 10:00. He was hungry enough to eat raw fish. Fortunately, he was able to get a quick burger and fries at one of the many seaside restaurants. He would have liked to linger, to watch the girls stroll by, but he had a job to do, distasteful as it was, and he wanted to get back to the mainland before dark.

He found the house without trouble. Striker always gave precise directions. He pulled a pair of surgical gloves out of the inside pocket of his bomber jacket, put them on. A light knock on the door. Calm, not even a foot tap to the music in his head. Bruce Springsteen again.

No answer to the knock. Maybe she was hard of hearing. He tried the bell. The door opened. She was old, like Striker said.

“
Can I help you?” She had a thin lipped smile, happy grey eyes. She probably never had a bad day in her life. Well, she was about to have one now.

“
Yeah.” Horace stepped into her, pushed her back into the house, closed the door. He had the Beretta in her face before she had a chance to think. “Where’s the children?”

“
They’re not home.” She had panic in her eyes now.

“
Here’s the deal, lady. You swallow these pills and if you’re dead before they come back from wherever they are, they get to live.”

“
Why?”

“
My boss needs to distract your son.”

“
How do I know you won’t harm them?” she said. Horace had to admire her. She was worried about her grandkids, not a care for her own safety. She was a plucky lady. She wouldn’t whine.

“
There’s no reason to do the kids. Besides, alive they’re a bigger distraction, but I’ll do them if we don’t get on with it.” He held up the bottle.

“
How long will it take?”

“
It’ll be quick.” Horace didn’t know what the pills were. But Striker had said she’d be out of it fast.

She stared at the bottle. For a second he thought she was going to resist. “Don’t scream.”

“
I wasn’t going to.” She held out her hand, took the bottle, opened it. She swallowed the pills.

“
If it means anything, I don’t feel good about this,” he said.

“
How could you?” She backed up, sat on a wing chair that was covered with a quilt. Kind of like something Ma might have made.

Horace took a seat on a sofa that looked like it had been around forever, curly wooden legs, some kind of Frenchy design, he didn’t know about that kind of stuff. He looked around the room. It was a grandma’s house, no denying that.

“
What’s your name?” she said.

“
Why you want to know?”

“
In case someone asks.”

“
Who would?”

“
God.”

“
No such thing.” Horace shook his head. She was as nuts as Ma, trying to lay a guilt trip on him like that.

“
Then tell me your name.” She was starting to nod off. Those pills were fast.

“
No.”

“
It doesn’t matter. He’ll know you when it’s your time.” She closed her eyes. Her head slumped to the side.

In a hurry now, Horace found the bathroom, put the plug in the bath, ran the tap. He adjusted the water to warm. It had to be done right, it was the details that would keep it a suicide and not murder. No one about to kill herself would climb into a cold bath.

Back in the living room, the woman was breathing like she was in a deep sleep. He glanced around the room. The old lady was a neat freak. He walked around the house, checking it out. Everything had a place, even the shoes were lined up in a row in the closet. In the hallway he found a hamper. Now he knew how to do it.

“
Gonna handle you with care,” he said, and he meant it. She deserved that much. He undid the buttons on the woman’s blouse and pulled it off. She was wearing a camisole under it and he pulled it over her head. Her bra was next. Old lady tits, Horace tried not to look. Then he pulled off her shoes, jeans and panties.

“
Gotta make it look real,” he muttered. He put the shoes in the closet, lining them up like the others there. Then he dropped the clothes in the hamper before he picked her up and carried her into the bath.

He laid her out in the tub. She looked so peaceful. He ran his eyes over her old lady body, tits all but gone now, waist he could wrap his hands around, legs no more than sticks. But she was made up nice, hair cut short, styled neat, professional. A lady with money, class.

He fished the blades out of his shirt pocket, took the cellophane off. He picked up a wet hand, used her thumb to slide out a blade. Squeezing the blade between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, he drew the blade down the inside of her right arm, from wrist to elbow. Then he repeated the procedure with the other hand, letting the blade fall into the tub when he was finished.

She was breathing peacefully as she bled out.

It looked real.

He opened the medicine cabinet above the sink and put the blade dispenser on the top shelf, next to a bottle of aspirin. A neat lady like this wouldn’t leave them lying around for the kids to get hurt with.

An hour later, he took off. The sky had cleared and he could see Long Beach Harbor from over Catalina. He popped Mozart back into the player. The French horn he loved so much filled the cockpit, but it brought him no peace. He took it out, shoved in the Springsteen.

“
Born in the USA!” He’d be hearing that damned song for the rest of his life.

Chapter Eleven

“
Wake up!”

Maggie opened her eyes, met Gaylen Geer’s stare. “What time is it?”

“
I didn’t think you knew who I was.” Gaylen put her hands to her hips. “How come you never said anything?”

Maggie rubbed sleep out of her eyes. From her position on the couch, Gaylen looked formidable. She pushed herself up. “How long have I been asleep?”

“
Three or four hours. We kept checking on you. You must have had a hard night, because thunder wouldn’t have wakened you.”

“
You wanna sit?” Maggie said.

“
Sure.” Gaylen took one of the chairs opposite the sofa. Maggie had admired Gaylen Geer since high school and now she was sitting right across from her. And Gaylen thought Maggie was Margo Kenyon. What further proof did she need? Margo had been her twin, no matter what that driver’s license said.

“
Are you going to keep staring at me?” Gaylen said.

Maggie didn’t know what to say. She was still in kind of a sleep fog. Should she tell her? Could she not? Just a short time ago, she’d been thinking about stepping into her dead twin’s life. Was her own life so bad she’d leap at the chance to get out of it? No, but it was a chance to keep her baby. She’d been weak, about to get rid of it. As Margo she could keep it, would be able to support it. But she couldn’t do it alone. If Gaylen could help.

“
Come on, say something.”

“
Margo’s dead.”

“
What?” Gaylen threw her hands to her breasts as if she’d been struck with a mallet.

“
I’m her sister. Her twin.” Maggie clasped her hands in her lap and her thumbs went to war with themselves. She was powerless to do anything about it.

“
I didn’t know she had a twin sister.” Gaylen barely got the words out.

“
She didn’t either.”