Bad Penny (11 page)

9
Crosswind

THE CARS AND SEMIS raced along the interstate. The motion of the plane and looking through the binoculars made Frank’s stomach heave. He chewed his gum that had long ago lost its flavor and took in measured breaths to steady his gut and kept searching, but there was no Ed, no Jesus.

There was everything else. A bored male driver. A woman driver with kids in the back watching TV. A woman reading a book and a man spitting something out the window, probably shells from sunflower seeds. There were two adult men in one car singing and rocking out to some tune. There were Fords, Chevys, Toyotas, Hondas. There was some Ferrari-looking thing all black and low like it belonged to Batman. But there was no two-tone Nissan.

Cars and trucks spaced in between semis. Semis spaced in between trucks and cars, all of them barreling down toward Cheyenne.

Pinto kept the plane steady, and they followed the road back to the foot of the mountain range, and then up along the ridge. They left the controlled airspace around Cheyenne. A few minutes later they entered the airspace controlled by Laramie Regional and reported in the same transponder code. They followed the interstate up to the summit and the Lincoln Monument rest stop. Someone had thought it would be a good idea to refresh weary travelers with the sight of Abraham Lincoln’s head—it was bronze, set stylishly atop a thirty-five-foot granite base of stones, and about the size of a FedEx truck. Every day hundreds of weary travelers came chugging up the hill, and there was Lincoln looking down at them like a beacon, reminding them that this was still the blessed U. S. of A., even in the middle of nowhere Wyoming.

But Frank wasn’t thinking about Lincoln. The rest stop had a parking lot and bathrooms. No reason for Ed and Jesus to stop, unless maybe their car was overheating after the steep climb up from Laramie and needed to cool off.

Frank told Sam to keep his eyes on the road while he searched the parking lot. In the last twenty minutes Frank had seen a number of silver cars. A number of gray cars. He’d seen a few two-toned cars of various colors. But not the Nissan.

Except what was that on the third row with dark cola glass?

He looked closer, but it was some Volkswagen outfit.

He cursed under his breath. Pinto asked if they needed to circle, but he told him to go on. The thought began to tickle the back of his mind that maybe his assumptions had been all wrong. Maybe they should have started farther east. They flew past Lincoln and followed the freeway which dropped into a canyon that ran down the other side of the mountain toward Laramie.

Sam trained his glasses on the road ahead; Frank searched the stretch that was alongside the plane. Henry looked out his window as well; at what, Frank had no idea. But then Henry started to whine.

“I believe Henry has got to go,” Pinto said.

“Can he hold it?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

The wind was pretty rough on this side, and the plane bounced around. By the time they reached the bottom, Frank was truly sick. “I should have taken a Dramamine,” he said.

“I wondered about that,” Pinto said.

“He’s not the only one,” Sam said, looking a little green.

“Pantywaists,” Pinto said. Then he fished around up by his seat and produced two more barf bags just in case and handed them out.

“At this low altitude, we’re going to need to stay clear of the airport,” Pinto said. “But I think we’ll be okay following the road.”

“They should be well beyond this point,” Frank said. Well beyond. And then he realized they had another problem. The interstate through Laramie had four exits into the city. Each exit had its collection of motels, gas stations, restaurants, and truck stops. They were going to have to check the parking lots of each one of them.

“Lord,” Frank said. “I think I’m going to go blind.”

But he and Sam split up the work. One of them kept an eye on the interstate while the other checked all the parking lots and on-ramps. Frank figured this is where they’d miss them. And by the time they came to the last exit, he was sure they had slipped past or were already behind them when they’d first turned in Cheyenne. And that was if they’d even come this way at all.

His heart began to sink. If they’d gone west, they could be in Nevada by now. South, deep into Colorado. He couldn’t imagine they’d gone north, unless Jesus had some drug distribution route that took him to Jackson Hole.

Frank began to search the parking lots of the businesses around this last exit. There was a Wendy’s, a couple of gas stations, a Best Western, and some store on one side. He made sure to search in lines so he didn’t skip, but the Nissan wasn’t there. He flipped to the other side. There were two hotels with mostly empty parking lots. More importantly there was no Nissan in either of them. The last spot was a big truck stop with two buildings and what looked liked four acres of parking lot. It was huge. There were more than a dozen semis in the lot out back, and it didn’t even begin to fill the area. There were rows of parking for cars out front.

Frank searched the rows. It took him so long he made Pinto circle round. But in the end, there was no Nissan.

He sat back and sighed in frustration. It was now 7:01 p.m. Four and a half hours since Tony had been taken. There was no way Ed was going this slow. And he’d seemed smug enough when he’d called last, so Ed wasn’t broken down somewhere on the side of the road. Frank had missed him. Or he was tooling along hundreds of miles from here in another direction.

Frank dialed Kim. No answer. He texted her: “you’re freaking me out! call now.” No reply. He dialed her home phone and went to voicemail.

“What do you want me to do?” Pinto asked. “We’re getting close to the halfway mark. I’m going to have to turn back or set Yolanda down and get some fuel.”

Option A, Frank just let Ed play out his game. But that girl had talked to Tony, which meant Tony knew things he shouldn’t. And even if he didn’t know things, Ed was involved. Option B, Frank called the cops. But with Kim not responding, he didn’t know she was safe. And Ed would want payback. If Frank sent him to jail again, Ed would most assuredly exact payback. And that payback would not be focused on Frank’s person. Ed would go after the kid; he’d go after Kim. So for Frank to pull this off, Ed needed to know that when he screwed with Frank, he was bringing a mountain down on top of himself.

But Frank had nothing. It’s hard to pound a guy like an avalanche when you don’t know where he is. Frank brought up the keypad on his phone to dial 911.

Sam said, “I think I see them.”

The words shot through Frank. He leaned forward. “Where?”

Sam was looking through his glasses and pointed beyond the truck stop. “About two miles west of Laramie coming our way. They’re drafting behind that McDonalds semi.”

Frank followed the interstate west, saw the McDonalds semi, saw it was a Nissan with his naked eye. He found the car in his binoculars. The windows were too dark to see in the back, but sitting in the front were Ed and his personal zombie Jesus.

“Thank you vibrating genie!” Frank said.

“Post hoc,” Pinto said.

“How do you know God didn’t smite that car?” Sam asked.

“I don’t care if it was Buddah or the University of Wyoming Cowboy. We’ve got our target.” Then Frank looked up. “Unless, of course, you
were
involved. Don’t want to give any offense.”

The Nissan sped below.

Frank started to get anxious. “Turn the plane around,” he said.

Pinto executed a banking turn.

Frank kept his eyes on the car. It rolled up to the outskirts of Laramie, exited the freeway, and headed for the huge truck stop. “I need to get on the ground,” Frank said.

“The airport’s right there,” Pinto said.

“No, by the time you call in and get down and then back up to spot for me, we’ll lose them. I need to get down here; while they’re in the truck stop. This is it.” Frank scanned the area for a suitable spot. “Look, there’s a road just a few hundred yards west.”

“Maybe Heber can catch them,” Pinto said. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. A moment later, he said, “Where are you?”

He and Heber exchanged their locations, and then he hung up. “Heber’s just past Elk Mountain. He’s about an hour away.”

“Not good enough,” Frank said.

“Is it even legal to land?” Sam asked.

“There’s no FAA rule against using roads,” Pinto said. “As far as they’re concerned, you can land a plane anywhere. The great State of Wyoming hasn’t banned it either. But I don’t know if the controlling municipality has passed any laws. But legality isn’t the problem. The problem is that road. It’s one thing to land on a country road used mostly by jack rabbits out in the bush. It’s quite another to land on one close to town. You’ve got to watch for cars and power lines. A roadside sign can easily wreck a wing.”

“I don’t see any signs,” Frank said. “And there’s only one car way down by the interstate.”

“You feeling this wind?” Pinto asked. “The road runs north-south. The crosswind will blow us to Hell and back.”

“Pinto,” Frank said. He had to get down. He’d been in enough situations to know that you took your opportunities when they presented themselves. A bird in the hand was always better than two hundred in the bush. “I know you don’t know me. But I’m begging your big old Portuguese heart.”

Pinto sighed heavily.

“I believe the cow is in the mud,” Sam said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Pinto said and licked his lips. “And we’re going to sink into the mire with her. Right into a big old friggin’ eight foot deep manure lagoon.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then Pinto said, “Aw, hell. Here goes nothing. You two might just be picking me up in jail. That is if they aren’t picking us all up in pieces off that road.”

He turned the plane in a big circle to get it lined up with the road.

“How much space do you need to land this thing?” Frank asked.

“About 1,400 feet.”

“That’s a quarter of a mile.”

“The man can do math,” Pinto said.

“That road is at least two miles long. You’ve got plenty of room.”

“Oh, do I?” Pinto said dryly. “Good thing I’ve got you navigating.”

Sam was looking back at the interstate with his binoculars. “They’re just pulling into the truck stop.”

Frank looked down at the road. The one car was heading away. “We’re good,” he said. “The road’s clear.”

Pinto finished his turn, dropped altitude. Dropped more. They flew over the fields west of the road.

“That’s a dirt road,” Pinto said. “You know what happens if we hit a rut or pot hole?”

“We bounce a bit?” Frank offered.

“If it catches the tire, we slam our nose into the ground and go tumbling.”

They dropped closer, maybe two hundred feet. Then a hundred. The wind was pushing them east, pushing them closer to the road, buffeting the plane. They passed over a group of black cattle in a green field, dropped lower.

Henry must have seen the cattle. He woofed excitedly.

“Yeah,” Frank said. “Cows.”

They flew over the tops of a line of cottonwood trees. They were close enough to the ground that Frank could make out the barbed-wire fences. They passed over the roof of one of the few houses along this road. A couple of kids were digging in a sandbox. Their little hand shovels glinted in the late afternoon sun.

They dropped lower. Fifty feet. “This is going to be tight.”

A gust of wind slammed into them and blew them to the side of the road.

“That’s got to be twenty knots,” Pinto said. “Which means this method ain’t going to work.” Pinto turned the wheel a bit, moved the foot controls. The tail of the plane suddenly spun around, and they roared down the road sideways, Frank looking out his window like he was in the driver’s seat. They dropped lower, twenty feet now. They were almost there.

“Uh, Pinto,” Sam said, “we’re kind of sideways.”

“You think?”

“Shouldn’t we be turned the other way?”

“Not in this wind,” Pinto said.

That’s when the car pulled out onto the road. It was a beat-up brown Ford, all boxy corners in a 1980s style. It had been parked beneath a tree. Easy to miss in the late afternoon shade. One second the road was clear. The next the car was right there. A teen was driving it, white earbuds in his ears. The car accelerated, kicking up dust.

“Hell’s bells!” Pinto shouted.

The plane roared up behind the car. There were stickers all over the bumper, the trunk, the back windshield. One said “Big Hairy Deal” in block letters. The plane and car were both kicking up a storm of dust.

The kid at the wheel looked into his rearview mirror. He saw the plane. His eyes went round as eggs. Not every day you get rear-ended by a plane.

“Get out of the way!” Frank yelled.

They were going to crash into the car. They’d hit it with the landing gear, which would tip the wing on Frank’s side down, and then they were going to roll, and the propeller was going to cut into the driver’s side. They were all going down in a mess of tin and airplane gas. Maybe a nice ball of fire.

Frank thought about Tony and Kim. And Ed, the evil genie.

Then the car’s brake lights lit up. Frank braced himself, but the landing gear did not hit the back of the car. Instead, the plane roared, what must have been no more than five centimeters, above the roof of the car, leaving the freaked-out driver in a thundercloud of dust.

They flew maybe another fifty feet, about six feet off the ground, and then Pinto spun the plane straight and dropped it onto the road with a solid thump. They jostled about, and then they were bumping and roaring down the road.

“Thank you, Lord,” Sam said.

“Unbelievable,” Frank said.

Pinto shook his head. “Shaw, you’re officially on my dead man’s list.” He idled the engine and put on the brakes, and after another hundred feet the plane came to a stop.

They were all still breathing hard.

They looked at each other, and then Pinto began to laugh. “Now that’s a landing, boys.”

“I’m off your death list then?” Frank asked.

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“That was definitely a new technique,” Frank said.