Dean Ing - Flying To Pieces

  Dean Ing - Flying To Pieces

  PROLOGUE.

  If Elmo Benteen hadn't raised so much hell at his last B.O.F. party, he might have lived to throw another one. Or maybe not; Elmo was loopy as a bedspring, having fought off half the tropical diseases known to medical science and too much of the VD. By now, Elmo's organs had become stony where they should be soft and, he admitted on his deathbed, soft when they ought to be hard. Every surviving member of the Boring Old Farts agreed he was past due; Elmo was a legend, but it had taken him more than eighty years and damned near that many airplane crashes. The only surprise was, it was finally his innards that crashed.

  That's not strictly true. Elmo had a second surprise for his B.O.F. buddies, and at first they thought it was just the stuff running through tubes into his arms that was doing the talking. Some of them figured he hadn't converted all those smuggled Cambodian rubies to money, and maybe that was what he meant by a huge stash. But after a little judicious illegal entry, when the last words of the late Elmo Benteen finally became clear, most of the B.O.F.s emitted variations of, "I don't believe a word of it," or, "This gives a whole new meaning to 'risk capital,' " or, more succinctly, "At my age? No dice."

  But there are a few old pilots like Wade Lovett who, smart enough to survive to retirement age, are still dumb enough to sucker themselves into a box canyon or beneath an anvil cloud, if the reason seems good enough to risk flying to pieces. When the reasons include several millions in cash and a paragraph in aviation history, these few will step forward, betting that experience will bring them through. Amelia Earhart had lost that bet and Fred Noonan with her, two generations before, in the same comer of the world where Elmo Benteen later recorded his great stash. But most of the B.O.F.s remembered Earhart as a pilot of great courage and indifferent skills, and themselves as "good sticks"-superior pilots. They also figured that, if ol' Elmo had got in and out again with a whole skin, the risks would be chiefly financial. So much for the wisdom of Boring Old Farts.

  Actually, the trouble didn't start at Elmo's deathbed; it all began when he declared a National Emergency...

  Even though the city reached out westward toward Rolling Hills, Kansas, the air traffic from Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport kept Wade Lovett's condo affordable because some folks don't like to live under an aerial on-ramp. Still, for each housewife who wakes up fearful whenever a Boeing's low pass shakes dust motes into her moonlit bedroom, some solitary wing nut like Lovett smiles without waking.

  No mystery about that. For many years Wichita has been home to half the aircraft constructors in the country, and the area boasts more aircraft freaks than farmers. When a bug decorates his windshield Re a Jackson Pollock, the driver twangs, "Wow, must've been a twin Piper." That's how many airplanes infest Wichita, and their thunder roars a duet of future money and past adventures to old guys like Lovett. No wonder they smile in their sleep.

  But Lovett hadn't done much smiling when awake lately, though the business of trading used aircraft was going well at his hangar. When he padlocked the big multifold hangar doors, that cloudy afternoon in late April and climbed into his sporty silver Mazda coupe, Lovett tried to avoid replaying the litany of downers that, he felt, would've had the prophet Job dancing with fury.

  He knew he should've kept his Ford pickup with the winch and lift gate, because you can't shoehorn a goddamn crate full of Lycoming engine into the trunk of a goddamn racy foreign coupe. But he'd traded up to surprise his seventeen-year-old grandson, give the beloved elitist twirp more reason to enjoy his summer visit, and three days ago Chip had provided his own surprise, writing to say he wouldn't be coming after all.

  Downers Number One and Two. of Mayday, who had Number Three was the defection checked out, "gone west" in pilot's parlance, augured in, all right then goddamn it, died, with what the vet said was a full cargo of kidney stones. He had raised that fool from a kitten the size of a flea's hood ornament, a fiffiedi birthday present from a woman whose name he'd now forgotten. That made Mayday, what was it, nearly thirteen when he bought the farm. It had taken Wade Lovett longer to get over Mayday, his only housemate, than seemed possible. You wouldn't think a satisfied loner in his sixties would go all mi sly-eyed over something with a brain the general size and usefulness of a mildewed walnut, Lovett told himself, squirting the Mazda north on Tyler Road, ignoring the towers of cloud to his left that were backlit by God's own rosy runway light. And suddenly he felt guilty. it was one thing to verbally abuse the talkative black tom to his whiskers, so to speak; tell him that any cat who would stand meowing before a closed door for an hour when an open one was in plain sight ten feet away, well, such a cat was dumb as a radish and deserved his imprisonment. Mayday's gaze had always said he understood those jibes were just male-bonding bullshit by a man who had nobody else-barring visits by Chip and an occasional pretty lady, needed no one else-to talk to, evenings in the condo.

  It was something else, though, to debase Mayday's currency when he was no longer current. it wasn't fair, it was mean-spirited.

  "I'm sorry, Mayday," Lovett said aloud, easing from the flow of traffic, then toward parking slot #16.

  What was worse, Wade Lovett was chiefly sorry for himself, and knew it. He turned off the ignition and sat blinking at his windshield for a long moment and someone pulled into slot #15, doubtless the new neighbor he hadn't met. He didn't care to meet him now, either. Was this how you felt when old age crept up on you? Maybe he should get another kitten, and as soon as possible.

  He got out of the car, shaking his head, and muttered, "One Mayday was enough."

  "Isn't that a cry for help?"

  Lovett turned and saw, over the top of the adjacent classic Porthole Thunderbird, big brown eyes regarding him with honest interest. They belonged to a woman who could hardly see over her little T-Bird, perky side of fifty, and he realized he had spoken aloud. "Sometimes it is." He smiled by reflex. "Looks like you could use some help yourself."

  She let him take one of her bulging grocery sacks and, sure enough, she was the new tenant next 'door, and by the time Lovett sat alone in his kitchen to sort his mail he had agreed to a martini later in the evening. He still got invitations like that because his thick graying hair was still unruly and his dimpled killer smile apparently ageless. He still accepted the invitations if the lady seemed mature enough to take little disappointments in stride. All his life, one way or another, Wade Lovett had eventually disappointed women.

  He tossed the junk mail to one side and used the blade of his Swiss Army knife, the one that would fillet a bass, to slit the single personal letter. The return address was Irvine, California, so he figured in advance it would be from old Elmo Benteen.

  It was a single photocopied page declaring a National Emergency at the offices of Bentwing Associates-Elmo went through associates like a dose of salts through a fasting guru--on a Friday evening two weeks hence. Lovett knew there would be maybe forty copies of the B.O.F. letter, because more than half of the hundred-odd Boring Old Farts had already cashed in their short snorters; and of that forty perhaps half of them would be able to make it to the boozy reunion known to them all as a National Emergency.

  The B.O.F.s had no officials and only two requirements: you had flown military missions around the Pacific or Chinaburma-India-Korea and Southeast Asia counted, too-and in the process you'd got your tail feathers caught in a crack by some desk dildo, maybe a general. A court-martial helped you in, but one "no" vote by any member kept you out, so the really bad bastards never qualified. Garden-variety bastards were common, though; and if you didn't consume alcohol, why the hell would you attend a National Emergency anyhow?

  The B.O.F. title had emerged from a Carews booze
-scented blowout in Darwin, Australia, back in '42 when the Japanese Navy was practically in the harbor. Some transport pilot, scheduled for the duration to fly many tons of explosive cargo very slowly and unarmed through a sky full of Mitsubishi Zeroes, said his only remaining ambition was to live long enough that his war stories would qualify him as a boring old fart. That became a toast, and the toast became a rallying cry, and when some smartass dreamed up an unofficial patch the Boring Old Farts got a slogan, too; stolen, naturally, from the First Troop Carrier Command. The patch showed two winged purple shafts crossed over a pipe and slippers, with a legend beneath: vincrr QLTI PRIMUM GERIT; He Conquers Who First Grows Old, or, The Old Fart Wins.

  It was understood that the member who called an emergency footed its bills except for breakage and, now and then, bail; those blowouts were not exactly formal affairs and you didn't bring your wife because she might get into a dustup with one of the strippers. It had been nearly a year since the last bash and Lovett smiled to reflect that old Elmo, now in his eighties, was still kicking. Lovett was pleased to see that the emergency was to be held in the Bentwing offices, which meant Elmo's hangar at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, with the planes booted outside and a bunch of tables for the girls to strut on. He'd done that once before.

  started flying in formation, they wouldn't hit anything beyond "Wise move, Elmo," Lovett muttered. When the bottles the hangar. The B.O.F.s had tried hiring American Legion halls, private clubs, and in one case, a country club. The tabs for wear and tear had proven greater than those for food, booze, and entertainment combined. Actually, they had it down to a science by now. You put your keys, along with everybody else's, in the same box with a combination lock when you came in. If you couldn't work the combination a few hours later and then find your way out of a hangar, you had no business operating a vehicle. Some people said, those weren't just awfully exacting standards. The hell with them.

  Lovett toyed with the idea of passing on this one. It would be a long cross-country alone to Southern California in his Varieze, a swept-wing little two-holer he had built from Rutan plans when plastic airplanes were still exotic. He would hear the same stories again, tell some of them himself, like the time over Korea when one of the Mighty Mouse rockets fire. d from his own F-84 started doing slow rolls until he passed it, and his slipstream sucked it toward him like a big explosive bullet with his name on it. The Mighty Mouse wasn't a smart munition, but neither were you if you trusted it. This one was so dumb it sideswiped his wing without taking half of it off.

  Yeah, stories like that, some of them embellished with each retelling. The problem, he realized, was that the B.O.F.s really were boring old farts now to most outsiders. And it would be a long flight back, nursing a hangover. On the other hand, he could spend a night or two with his daughter, Roxanne, and more to the point, Chip would be there. Lovett's hesitation was more bullshit, and it didn't take him in. scraw "Hold a tiedown space for my Varieze," on the Xerox/and, sought an envelope for it. With all the oddball aircraft Elmo rented out to the more adventurous of the Hollywood crowd, surely there would be room.

  And this time, with most of his fellow Farts pushing seventy or more, maybe it would end without major trouble for somebody. Yeah; right.

  Lovett inverted his schedule at the last minute after calling Roxanne, and flew first to Santa Cruz. It seemed that Chip had a piano recital on Wednesday night and Roxy hinted that, first, the kid would appreciate his granddad's putting in an appearance, and second, a little culture wouldn't hurt her father any. Lovett sighed and complied. Sure, it might cost him a sale in Wichita, but you couldn't expect Roxy to think along those lines. Unlike her father, Roxanne needed more money like Manuel Noriega needed more zits.

  Moving to Santa Cruz with Tess after the divorce, Roxanne Lovett had grown tall and comely like her mo on Tess's schedule Roxy had married Tom Mason, a regular guy, the only son in a "good," meaning flush with real estate, Santa Cruz family. Tom had lived long enough to influence his son Childress-Chip-and, thank God, Tom had hit it off right away with Wade Lovett in spite of Mason family reservations about a clapped-out old test pilot who traded noisy little airplanes for a living.

  Tom Mason had reared Chip to the age of ten, cheered him at Little League and steered him toward respect for Lovett, before a zonked trucker hunted Tom off the Coast Highway one night. Along that cliff side stretch, a man who leaves the macadam doesn't need an airbag; he needs an ejection seat with chute attached.

  After that, Roxanne Lovett-Mason raised Chip. With Mason money and a full-time maid in her yuppie Santa Cruz chalet, Roxy had plenty of time to redirect her son in genteel ways. She remained her mother's kid but she still loved Wade, wrote him faithfully three times a year, and had no objection to letting Chip spend a few weeks in Wichita every summer as a birthday present.

  "He thinks you're from the Planet Gosh," she once told Lovett, then gave her other reason with'an ominous murmur;

  and there is very little surfing in Kansas." The surfing off Santa Cruz was, she felt, an altogether too-seductive competitor to Chip's piano lessons.

  So when Wade Lovett greased his Varieze onto the runway at Watsonville Municipal, ten miles from Roxy's Santa Cruz place, Chip was waiting with his mom's mud-brown Mercedes.

  Chip offered a hand. as Lovett clambered down, and they traded boisterous hugs. "Jeez, when are you gonna quit growing." Lovett grinned up at his grandson who now towered several inches over Lovett's five-eight.

  "Don't blame me for my genes, Pop. Sure you haven't Shrunk in the rain? Here, let me roust your duds," Chip said, scrambling up to retrieve Lovett's soft luggage. The two had agreed, back when the boy had begun his summer visits and Lovett was still shaving ten years off his age to women who asked, that Chip would call him "Pop." Now the kid was man-sized, and if the term no longer fitted as well it was still an agreement. In the Mason family, agreements could be hard-won.

  Lovett watched the youth's lithe motions with critical approval; surfing kept his slender body fit. Chip's hands and feet remained smallish, too small for a pianist really, his blond hair long and straight, his eyes the deep turquoise of Tess above a straight patrician nose-. Though his voice had changed, it kept a light timbre, equally adept at quick-paced surfer patter and foreign music terms. Lovett hoped Roxy still bought the boy's clothes because they were elitist as hell. The shoes were Air Jordans, his black jeans had a designer label, and his blue silk shirt said the rest.

  When they had the Varieze properly kneeling on its nose-wheel and secured, Chip helped with the postflight inspection. Lots of guys didn't bother but, as Lovett had told him years ago, lots of guys found loose fittings or surface cracks later during preflights just when they were anxious to launch on time. Or they didn't find them, and paid the price in midair. A good habit, Lovett said, was easy to break. And so was your neck.

  "Yo I u test any experimentals. lately?" Chip asked as they finished the job.

  "Not for a while now," Lovett said, a vast understatement. It was Chip's proudest boast that his granddad had been a test pilot, though he hadn't done it for many years. It suited Lovett just fine that Chip knew so little about his time as Cessna's man in Southeast Asia back in the sixties. He' )een a civilian then, illegally flying ground support missions in an 0-2A, a very special type of twin-engined Cessna. The 0-2A was the Rambo of light aircraft, and it wouldn't get arrested for loitering with its retractable gear and rocket rails. If Chip ever met any of the other B.O.F.s and heard some of those stories about him, the kid wouldn't trust him on a tandem bicycle.

  During the drive into Santa Cruz when Chip asked what else his pop was up to on the Coast, Lovett confessed. The kid knew better than to tell his mom too much about Lovett's present life. He hadn't told her when they spent a week in Wisconsin at the Oshkosh Fly-in, or about his discovery that two Heinekens had been one too many for a fifteen-year-old. "Some kind of fly-in this weekend," Chip guessed.

  "Just a geezer patrol reunion at John Wayne Airpor
t on Saturday," Lovett said. "Bunch of old farts telling lies, mostly."

  Chip's grin and quick glance were too knowing. "The B.O.F.s, right?"

  "Who's the satchel mouth told you about that?"

  "You are. Bad company, you said, but some of their names? Bitchin', Pop. Who'll be there?"

  Shrug. "At the rate they're corking off, maybe nobody but me and Benteen. It's his bash."

  "Elmo Benteen? Jesus Christ and Rachmaninoff! Or did he have a son?" Chip's enthusiasm waned as fast as it had peaked..

  "I believe he does-Del, or Mel, something like that. Elmo probably has fifty sons schlumping around the South Pacific. They aren't his primary topics." Chip: "What is?" Lovett: "He is. Elmo's your basic autistic adult."

  "So he's still alive. Jeez, that's rad. You really know him?"

  Lovett chuckled at this. "Maybe I should ask what you know about him."

  "More than you think, Pop. I had this teacher that kept on about how spies changed history, so I started a term paper to get him cranked and ran across this unbelievable dude around World War Two who flew his black Catalina flying -boat for Naval Intelligence."

  "Elmo and his Black Cat. You did your homework, kid."

  "Hey, I was stoked. And over twenty years later, Benteen disappeared in the Pacific, and turned up alive in, I think it was sixty-nine. The headlines called him, um, I forget," Chip said, and laughed. "Something gnarly."