Scare Tactics (22 page)

“I’ll have to check the menu. Right now you’d both better get ready for takeoff.”

The parrot—it was easy to forget this was not a real parrot—turned its head and appeared to look Evelyn over with a single shiny black eye. That was a little unsettling, because at the same time Bronstein seemed oblivious, staring up at the airplane’s ceiling as if in despair at the thought of the wild blue yonder just ahead.

Evelyn looked down at her lap, buckled her seat belt (they had been careful to fasten the seat belt in Zack’s ZX sports car, so that even if he’d come to seconds before the car picked up speed and smashed through the fence at the cliff’s edge, there was no way he could have managed to get out), then stared through the window again as a tug pulled the Airbus away from the gate. The engines were started. Evelyn felt as if she were being scrutinized, at close range. She looked around slowly, and gasped; there was Nussbaum on the seat beside her.

“My game’s pinochle,” Nussbaum said in his high-pitched parroty voice. “Of course, dolling, you vill have to shuffle.”

“And you,” Maureen said as she brought Bronstein his glass of wine, “will have to get back to where you belong, or I’ll put you in an overhead compartment until we’re airborne.”

“Vhat are you saying? A celebrity like I’m? Vould you consider putting Jackie Mason in an overhead compartment?”

Maureen smiled at Evelyn and lifted the parrot from the aisle seat. Nussbaum’s head swiveled; he laid his large beak swooningly on her shoulder, and began to chirp like a canary.

Bronstein gathered Nussbaum in and raised his glass with his other hand. “
L’chayim
,” he said to Evelyn.

She nodded and smiled too. Her glass was almost empty. Maureen looked inquiringly at her and Evelyn handed her the glass for a refill. To Bronstein she said, “That’s just amazing. I don’t see how you do it.”

“Audioanimatronics,” Bronstein explained. He put the now motionless Nussbaum on the floor at his feet and took something that looked like a small computer keyboard from his black nylon bag. “He flies, too. It’s all part of the act.”

“But his voice—even when he was several feet from you, it was just as if Nussbaum were talking. How do you ... ?”

Bronstein smiled and showed her a miniature microphone, the size of a small mole, on his throat next to his vocal cords. “This is part of the secret. But I don’t want to give away all of my stage tricks.”

“No, of course not.”

“I apologize for sending Nussbaum over there. But—how could I not help noticing?—you seem depressed this morning, and Nussbaum does have a way with the ladies.”

Evelyn smiled. Sadly. “I—I lost my husband a few days ago.”

“Dear lady! If I’ve done anything at all to offend—”

“Oh, no, no—it’s all right. I enjoyed, uh, Nussbaum. I wonder why I haven’t seen you on ‘Johnny Carson,’ or—”

“We’re a new act. There are still a few rough edges to be refined in the clubs. Then—from your lips to God’s ear—the ‘Tonight Show.’ Fame and fortune.”

Maureen hustled a fresh glass of Sauvignon Blanc to Evelyn.

“Well—what is it you say?
Mazel tov
?”

“Yes. My mother always said to me, ‘Benny, all you need in life is a little
mazel
and a funny parakeet.’ She was half-right.”

Bronstein brushed the hair back on the left side of his head with the heel of his right hand, a gesture that chilled Evelyn: it was one of Zack’s mannerisms, she’d seen him do it a thousand times. Everything reminded her of Zack. She stared at the closed door to the cockpit, her heart reacting like a toad jabbed with a stick. This was all too familiar: the flight attendants on either side were demonstrating emergency procedures, and she could visualize Zack in the left-hand seat up front, concentrating on his own routine as the copilot taxied the Airbus toward the runway. But when she thought of Zack she saw the wrong face, the one she’d had to look at after they pulled him out of the morgue locker for her to identify.

Evelyn’s hand shook and she spilled a little of the wine on the skirt of her black suit. She was afraid she was going to be sick.

“Excuse me,” she said to Bronstein. “I—I need to rest. I haven’t slept for—”

“Of course, darling. Perfectly understandable. I am just going to sit here and listen to the cowardly beating of my heart.”

Evelyn used a tissue to blot the spill, grateful that the pale gold wine wasn’t going to stain. She had another swallow and set the glass aside for one of the flight attendants to pick up. After those moments of serious queasiness, her stomach settled down. She was, all of a sudden, quite woozy. The sensation was welcome; her mind was unable to focus on anything. The vibration from the Airbus’s engines lulled her, and Evelyn yawned. They would climb to thirty-three thousand feet above cottony clouds, where she would sleep and sleep and not dream....

The captain came on the PA, cheerfully wishing them all a good morning. The weather, he assured them, was fine all the way to Connecticut. They would take a northerly route over Wyoming, Nebraska, the lower Great Lakes. They were number three for takeoff, please relax and enjoy the flight.

Even before the plane had climbed out over the sparkling Pacific, Evelyn was dead to the world.

She woke up because she felt cold. She was shuddering before she opened her eyes. She smelled coffee, but all she wanted was a blanket to tuck around herself before drifting back to sleep. It was so peaceful and quiet in the first-class cabin. No rattle of serving carts. No one was talking. She heard music, but faintly, seepage from a pair of headphones nearby.

Evelyn looked for a flight attendant and discovered that she was alone.

There were no flight attendants. Morning sun streamed across empty seats. They were all gone: Bronstein, the Asian couple, the well-dressed businessmen on their way to the insurance capital of America. The dowager who had brought Her precious kitty along.

Evelyn started to get up and was nearly cut in half by her seat belt. She gasped and sank down, fumbled to unbuckle the belt, looking around as her heart lumbered into a beat that sent waves of pain to her temples. Where were they? Was it some sort of—had they all been moved back to the rear cabin because—my
God,
why didn’t they wake
her
up, how could they forget about—

“Maureen!” That was her name, wasn’t it, the perky Irish stew with the ice green eyes. “Maureen?”

Evelyn edged out into the aisle. One foot was numb, she turned her ankle. Her hands tingled. Her tongue was thick against the roof of her mouth. She looked up and pushed the call button above the seats; it chimed like a doorbell. The plane was level, the engines sounded all right, she could see nothing but sky outside. Bronstein’s wineglass, half-full, was on the armrest next to his seat. The black bag was on the floor. He’d taken Nussbaum with him.

Taken him where?

Evelyn limped to the back of the first-class cabin and yanked the curtain aside. Stared the length of economy class and saw nothing but empty seats: no Scandinavian tourists. No mothers with babies, no flight attendants.

At least a hundred people had boarded the flight to Hartford, Connecticut, and they, along with a cabin crew of twelve, were gone.

They had landed somewhere, Reno, Salt Lake City.

Everybody else had gotten off.
While she slept.

It made no sense at all to Evelyn, even in her befuddled state. Because food was warming in the galleys. Movies were unreeling, she could see the faint image of Sylvester Stallone on a bulkhead screen. He was driving the cab of a sixteen-wheeler through an iron gate.

Evelyn slumped in a vacant seat, holding her head. Hysteria flooding up like water in a hydrant. Her lips trembled, she was going to scream. She had wanted to scream for a week. A luxury for which she would have to pay dearly. Because she didn’t trust herself. After screams would come the eager babble, an outpouring of confession to anyone with earshot. I killed him killed him killed him—

Don’t hurt me. Don’t put me away! I’ll never see Clive again.

She pressed the heel of one hand hard against her lips, mashing them. She squeezed a breast with the other hand, twisting the nipple in the flimsy bra. It was almost too late when she felt pain, tasted the blood from the underlip cut by irregular teeth. She put her hands in her lap and trembled, gulping hard breaths between tremors.

They were eastbound. She could tell that. She moved to the seat next to the window. The morning light brought tears to her eyes. She looked down. The landscape was high-plains desert, with mountains far to the north. Snow on them. Tan, indigo, white. A familiar, forbidding vista. As near as she could tell, they were at a proper altitude for the cross-country flight, six and a half miles high.

Evelyn looked at her watch. Nine fifty-two Pacific time.

Maybe they had returned to SFX, shortly after takeoff. So the rest of the passengers could debark. There had to be a reasonable explanation. The flight crew would be able to tell her why she was the only—

She got up. The foot that had been asleep prickled. She slipped off both black pumps, started back to the first-class cabin. Then, impulsively and fearfully, Evelyn opened a lavatory door to look inside. No one was there. What had she expected, a planeload of people hiding in a lavatory, waiting to jump out and yell “surprise”?

The panic was coming on again, she felt its drag, like wading in coastal water with the tide running out, a big, bad, dark one building on the horizon. She could hear herself breathing, loud as a pressure cooker.

The cockpit door was locked, which was only proper procedure.

Evelyn knocked.

“Captain? My name is Evelyn Hammons. You may have known my husband, Zachary, he was with Windsor for twenty—could I have a word with you, please, I want to know what happened.
Did
something happen?” She laughed but sounded wounded, in dire straits. “I don’t know why I’m all alone here.” The crew names were posted beside the cockpit door. Her vision was a little blurry, she had trouble reading them. “Captain Mercer? Could you come out?” She was knocking harder, then battering the door. “I said Homebody,
somebody
come out of the goddamned cockpit, I have to talk to you and I mean right now!”

She heard a familiar voice.

“Unlock the door, lady.”

“What? Mr. Bronstein? What are you doing in the—”

“Bronstein, Schmonstein, it’s Nussbaum to whom you are talking! So unlock the door. If it didn’t occur to you already, I’m here to tell you, ve have got
such
a problem.” Evelyn bit her ring finger, hard, on the knuckle, and shouted, “Mr. Bronstein, I’m not in the mood for jokes! Where is the captain? Where is—”

“
Vos
iz mit der?
I’m telling you, it is only Nussbaum here.”

Evelyn had had enough. The cockpit door, by federal law, was locked from the inside to make life more difficult for would-be hijackers. But there was a way to spring the lock with a little tool, and the late Zack Hammons had told her where the lock pick was hidden aboard the aircraft.

She searched the galley and came up with it, hurried back to the cockpit door, and uncovered the tiny access hole. The lock pick worked like an alien wrench, and the door clicked open. She went in ready to give them a tongue-lashing and found all three seats empty. The Airbus was heading east into the winter sun on automatic pilot.

Nussbaum, perched on the back of the copilot’s chair, opened and closed his large beak. His feathers were ruffled. He said disconsolately, “Vas I wrong? Is this a problem, or isn’t it?”

Evelyn started screaming.

Nussbaum, startled, flew or jumped straight up and spread his mechanical wings for balance. Evelyn turned, screaming again, and fled from the cockpit, collapsed into her seat by the window in the first-class compartment.

“No—oh—no! Oh, my God, I’m dreaming—I’m sick—I’m having a breakdown! Please—somebody—I know this isn’t happening,
where am
/?”

Nussbaum waddled out of the empty cockpit and hopped op onto the seat next to Evelyn.

“Oh, God,” he said, solemnly rabbinical, “forsake us not in the days of our desolation ...”

Then his voice failed him before he completed the kaddish; he squawked forlornly.

Evelyn tore into her handbag for Prince Valium.

The container was empty.

Empty? She’d had at least two dozen five-milligram tablets with her when she boarded a couple of hours ago.

Angrily, she flung the plastic container across the cabin.

“Oy,
gevalt
!” Nussbaum lamented.

“Shut up, you! I don’t know what’s happening, but nobody’s going to make a fool out of me! They’re all hiding, aren’t they? And I know where! They’re down in the hold.
Why?"

“You’re asking me? Vhat do I know? I’m a parrot.”

Evelyn’s face was deathly white, but there was a rising fever in her eyes.

“It’s a joke—
Zack’s
idea of a joke. He was always doing these stupid things to me, expecting me to laugh. Ha
ha,
well, I’m not
laughing,
and I swear I’m going to get even if it’s the last—”