American Detective: An Amos Walker Novel (22 page)

If, for any reason, the cabin should lose pressure
…

What
reason?

Should?

It was dark, darker than before the birth of the universe.
There was no source of light, not one, and the air was colder than Michigan in April. Pitch blackness is not a modern concept. It breeds superstition of the kind that had forced Cro-Magnon man to look up from the mouth of his hollow in the rock and search for meaning in the black slab of cloud that erased the constellations and cry out for a Higher Power to guide him toward the light.

Where in the sprawl of modern civilization, under the million eyes of light pollution, even in the hold of an airplane, is it possible to find oneself in complete darkness? And why was it so cold?

Not the cold of depressurization at high altitude; I had a flash of panic before I came to that conclusion. People froze to death under those conditions long before the crash. It was unpleasantly cold, but not severe enough for frostbite. It had a man-made feel. There was a constant hum under the whine of the engines, regular enough to escape notice if you weren’t alone in the dark with nothing to distract you from your sense of hearing: compressors. I was trussed up in a flying refrigerator.

I sat up, propping my back against icy fiberglass insulation, and patted my pockets. They’d taken away the Chief’s Special, but they’d left me in my suit with my wallet and keys and change where I’d put them. I came to a cardboard fold, took it out, tore loose a match, and tried to strike it, but I was shivering and my hands shook and all I managed to do was demolish it. I let it drop and tore out another. This time I concentrated on steadying my hands. The flame flared white, receding to yellow as the sulphur burned off and the paper caught fire.

I held it up. The light only reached to the near wall, but I saw rows of odd-shaped boxes held in place on shelves by
wire mesh. They had handles and looked like small picnic baskets.

The flame nipped at my fingers. I shook it out. If I was going to find something I could use to free myself, I would need more than a few seconds of light, but I didn’t want to burn up the matchbook in case it came in handy later. You never know when you might take it in your head to commit arson at thirty thousand feet. I groped out my notebook, fanned it open, struck another match, and held it to a corner of a page. I figured I’d remember this case even if I burned up all my notes on it.

I passed my makeshift torch along the rows of boxes. They were nothing more exotic than portable ice coolers made of heavy-duty plastic. I figured I could use one to pound loose the screw on the turnbuckle that fastened the cable to my ankle, and as a weapon in case nothing better presented itself.

The mesh was open on top; it was only there to keep the cargo from shifting in flight. I transferred the burning notebook to my other hand and reached up to grasp the handle of the cooler nearest me. The light shifted and fell on a human face in the darkness.

It was less than two feet from where I was sitting. Startled, I dropped the torch, burning my hand when I snatched it back up to keep from going out on the floor. I changed hands again, sucked my fingers, and extended the flame toward the spot where I’d seen the face. A pair of eyes glistened through lowered lashes, but the light was only a reflection of the fire. Fred Loudermilk wasn’t looking through them anymore.

T
he flame burned down while I was looking for a wound. I shook it out before it could burn my fingers. There would be a wound. He wouldn’t do Madame Sing the favor of dying of natural causes, and if he had there wouldn’t have been a reason to remove him from the hospital.

Why she had wasn’t much of a mystery. Security can be gotten around or they wouldn’t make so much of it, but pumping Loudermilk to find out who he might have told about her connection to the Esmerelda murder would take more time than kidnapping him; after that there would be all the time in the world, for everyone but him.

Putting the body in with me didn’t guarantee me much more.

I went to work in the dark. It took me a minute to find the cooler by feel, but I got hold of the handle and lifted it clear of the mesh that held it on its shelf next to the others. It was heavy, and whatever had been put inside to stabilize the temperature—ice, dry or the regular kind—shifted with a sliding sound, displacing the gravity as I was lowering it. Just then the lights came on, dazzling me; someone had
opened a door or a hatch, letting in light from outside. I lost my grip. The cooler hit the floor end first, the lid tipped open, and something slithered out and across the floor, leaving a smoking trail of dry ice that seared my throat, choking me. The thing was red and quivering, the size of my hand, and when it came to rest against my thigh I felt the icy gelatinous surface through my pants. I recoiled reflexively.

A human liver.

I’d attended a couple of autopsies, and knew one when I saw it, although I hadn’t much time to absorb the information, because Elron charged in, his weight actually tipping the airplane a couple of inches, knocked me flat with one huge palm against my chest, and scooped the organ bare-handed back into the cooler. Dry ice sizzled against bare flesh. He howled and grabbed at his hand. I braced my elbows against the floor and kicked out with my free leg. For a musclebound he had quick reflexes; he turned in time to protect his groin, but my heel caught him hard on the hip and he lost balance. He fell directly onto the smoking white pile that had spilled from the container, sending cooler and liver sliding and grinding particles of frozen carbon dioxide through his clothes. He whimpered and slapped at himself as if he were on fire, and as he twisted to get his feet under him the butt of the Takarov semiautomatic in the holster snapped to the back of his belt came inside my reach. I jerked it loose, found the safety catch with my thumb, and followed him up with the muzzle, yanking back on the action with my other hand and wasting a cartridge when it popped out of the ejector and hit the floor rattling.

“One in the barrel,” I said. “Whoever taught you firearms safety?”

“This is a pressurized cabin. You want to kill yourself too?” He stood in mid crouch, breathing hard, his scorched hand tucked under his arm. Smoke drifted off his shirt and pants.

“Not if you stop the bullet. You’re impossible to miss.”

“And then what?” asked Charlotte Sing.

She stood eight feet beyond Elron, framed inside the arch of the open hatch. The light was coming in from the passenger cabin behind her and I couldn’t see her features, but the small slender figure in the tailored business suit and low, lightly accented voice identified her like a thumbprint. I glanced at her only a tenth of a second and kept the pistol on the big man. I remembered his reflexes.

“Elron’s right,” she said. “There are five of us with the pilot, whom I pay. The only way to get us all is to shoot a hole in the fuselage. You don’t strike me as the suicidal sort of hero.”

“Maybe that crack on the head crossed some wires.”

“I doubt you’re that delicate.”

I said, “You missed one.”

She hesitated. She wasn’t the type of person who liked to ask questions. “One what?”

“Watson, Cho, and Elron were with me in the Hummer. If they all made the plane, you and the pilot make five. You forgot to count Loudermilk.”

“He’s cargo.”

“How’d you get him out of the hospital?”

“He had an incident. He had to be moved to another floor and there wasn’t room in the elevator for a police escort. It’s so easy to lose track of one patient in a facility that large.”

That explained his dress, or lack of it. He lay naked in a soiled paper hospital gown.

“Who furnished the incident, Violet Pershing?”

“Mrs. Pershing was busy with you,” Charlotte Sing said. “I have an acquaintance on the staff.”

“Asian or occidental? No, that was unfair. Judging by Elron, your tolerance is spreading.”

Elron said, “He was pretty far under when he got to me. I squeezed a little hard, but he squealed before he croaked. You’re the only one knew Freddie-boy was working both sides of the street.”

“He wasn’t alone,” I said. “Did anyone bother to tell Esmerelda you and Watson and Madame Sing were so cozy?”

“Nesto made an end run,” Elron said. “Thought he’d lock down Bairn and deal himself in for more than just his day rate. But you can ask him how’s that working out when you see him. You and Freddie are going for an ocean cruise.”

“Which ocean?”

“Seriously, Mr. Walker, does it matter?”

I looked at the woman. “I’m hoping for the Pacific. I’m always on the wrong side when we fly over the Grand Canyon. Also I have a gun.”

“Which as Elron and I pointed out is useless.”

There was a control panel on the wall inside the hatch, mounted flush with an LED reading forty degrees. I figured it belonged to the refrigeration unit. I took aim at it.

Elron advanced a step. I shifted the pistol back toward him. “You first,” I said. “Then I throw a log on the fire. I’m getting a chill.”

“You won’t shoot.”

I moved the gun again and fired. The bullet passed through the end of a cooler on a shelf and traveled through two others lined up next to it before coming to a stop.

“Jesus!” Elron shrieked.

Madame Sing said, “That was an expensive point. You have no idea how much human organs bring on the international market.”

“None,” I said. “But I can always ask you for the latest quote. Let’s hike it up a little. What’s the expiration date when you turn on the heat?” I took aim again at the control panel.

“Stop!” she shouted.

It wasn’t meant for me. Wilson Watson had come running to the hatch in response to the shot. He was back in ghetto mode, with a Chicago Bulls warm-up jacket, baggy carpenter’s jeans, and a helmet liner on his head. He stopped his momentum with a hand on the arch. Victor Cho’s face appeared over his left shoulder.

“Release him,” Madame Sing told Elron. “We’ll finish this in the cabin.”

“Better make it quick,” I said. “Didn’t your old man ever tell you what happens when you leave the door open to the ice box?”

“He left when I was three, after setting my mother on fire.” But he knelt at my feet.

The cable attached to my leg was fastened to a steel staple in the floor, part of a system built in to secure cargo. Elron took hold of the turnbuckle key in both hands. He had blisters on his right. He tightened his grip and took in his breath. His neck bulged, a vein in his acre of forehead stood out. The key turned a quarter inch. He exerted himself a few more times and it came loose. I pulled my foot out of the collar. I gestured with the Takarov and he rose and stepped back. A shudder racked my shoulders when I got up. It was warmer in the compartment with the hatch open, but my circulation was just getting started. My head hurt all over, not
just where Elron had hit me with the Russian ordnance. Dr. Cho mixed a mean cocktail.

“Seat belt light’s on,” I said. “Everyone return to your seat.”

Cho was the first to move. His hand gripped Watson’s shoulder and the labor lug turned away from the hatch. Charlotte Sing touched a button on the control panel, lowering the temperature to thirty-six, and followed him into the cabin.

Elron started to back out, facing me. I made a twirling motion with the gun. He filled his chest, emptied it, and turned around to walk out forward, his shoulders up around his ears. He knew what was coming. I snapped on the safety catch, took the pistol all the way back, and swung it at an oblique angle to avoid hitting the low ceiling. The barrel caught him on the occipital bulge. He hit the floor hard enough to jiggle the plane.

W
as that necessary?” Charlotte Sing watched me change hands on the gun and shake circulation back into my hand. It had been like hitting a steel post with a lead pipe.

“Apart from the pleasure involved, it helped even the odds. I kind of liked him when I met him. Then he turned into a company man.” I shut the hatch behind me, found the lock mechanism by touch, a spoked wheel six inches in diameter, and turned it tight.

“I lowered the temperature. He could die of hypothermia.”

“Doubtful,” I said. “It takes a couple of days to freeze a side of beef.”

“I underestimated you. You looked too real to be authentic. But the odds are far from even.”

“I’m not through chipping.” I raised my voice. “Weapons on the floor, everyone. Kick them my way down the aisle.”

Cho said, “I’m not armed.”

Watson said, “Same here. I let Elron do my carrying.”

“I’ve never owned a firearm,” said the woman. “You can search me if you like.”

“Maybe later, when we know each other better.”

I decided not to search any of them. Patting people down requires time and close contact, and a gun is hard enough to hold on to without someone wrestling you for it. Anyway, if any of them were packing, another gun would have made an appearance when my shot had brought them running. It was a theory I had little faith in, but I was understaffed and out of my element.

Something crackled and a tinny voice came on over a PA system. “Everybody okay back there? I thought I heard a noise.”

“What about the pilot?” Charlotte Sing asked.

I said, “A pilot with a gun is redundant. Give him the high sign.”

She hesitated, looking uncertain for the first time in our acquaintance.

“Tell him what you like,” I said. “What’s he going to do, radio for help?”

“That would be awkward. This flight doesn’t exist.”

Heavy blue curtains separated the cabin from the cockpit. She went that way, touching seats for balance, slid one aside, and leaned through the gap. A minute later she was back with me.

The plane was a twelve-seater turboprop. The passenger cabin was no larger than the cargo hold. That made it a courier vessel. That reminded me of something, but I didn’t bring it up until we were all seated. Watson and Cho raised the arms on seats opposite each other and sat sideways on the cushions. I directed the woman into a window seat and perched on the arm of the one next to it so I could keep all three covered. We weren’t as high up as I’d thought. Through the window showed the same checkerboard pattern
of fields and forests you saw everywhere in the country. At least we weren’t over water yet. I was becoming a full-blown hydrophobe.