Skeletons (8 page)

I nod, giving him the response he wants, and he moves past me toward the back of the plane. As Copilot Pete passes me he says, very efficient, "Better get ready to move, sir," and I try not to laugh and say, "Aye, aye."

They move past me to the back of the plane. As the curtains are pulled aside I see organized chaos, people in the aisles, and then a faint whoosh as a door or window pops and one of the escape chutes begins to roll out and inflate.

I look out my window, seeing the skeleton people now parked close by, out on the tarmac, formed into shooting ranks.

Jeez," I say, moving toward the cabin of the plane, stopping to check the bar in its curtained panel and scooping five or six little vodka bottles out, putting them in my leather jacket pocket.

I enter the cabin.

Oooo
, boy, just like a big toy. I close the door behind me, put my briefcase down, sit in the captain's big chair.

"Cap'n Bob, up
up
and away!" I yell, wondering briefly where the intercom switch is so I can let them all hear it as they leave. Yawning, I look out the right side of the plane and see the skeletons in firing position, waiting patiently.

"Time for snoot," I say.

I pull my briefcase up on my lap, get out my bag, cut a line of coke with my best credit card. As the Alaskans say, don't leave Nome without it. As the Pope says, don't leave Rome without it. As the faggots say, don't be homo without it.

Then out with Mr. Straw, up into Mr. Nose.

I jump a little, hearing gunshots, but my curse at spilling some of the coke is tempered by one of the neatest special effects I've ever seen.

Another jet has tried Cap'n Bob's same trick, but this
cap'n
of the skyways doesn't quite make it. My eyes track just as a ground-to-air missile scoots up to hit a jumbo jet as it's making its crooked approach. The damn thing is bent in half with the explosion like a broken aluminum-foil tube. It seems to hang there in the night with the explosion for a second, then spins lazily down, fire boiling up and down the fuselage until the whole thing hits the runway about a mile away and goes up into a big ball of orange. Our own little jet is shaken.

Now, the skeleton boys outside begin to fire.

I hear the pops, hear the screams. Languidly, I swivel out of Cap'n Bob's chair and over to Copilot Pete's. On the far side of the plane the cattle crowd is running for their lives. The race is over nearly before it begins. I see one village idiot with his carry-on bag clutched in his hand go down. Amazingly, when the
shadrool
gets up, having only been winged, he still has the carry-on clutched in his hand. The second shot gets him almost immediately, though, and he lets go of the bag now because he doesn't need it anymore.

He's not alone in meeting the tarmac. It's definitely Custer's Last Stand. There's Carol the cow, and she's made it almost fifty yards before one hit spins her around and the second hits her below the neck. She can't decide where to clutch, but the third shot puts her out of the vodka-and-lime-making business forever. She falls in a heap.

Plenty of heaps. I decide it's time for one of those vodkas and pull it out of my pocket. I'm twisting off the little cap when who but Cap'n Bob reappears.

"Out of the way!" he screams at me. I think maybe he's lost his professional cool.

"I'll have to tell your boss," I say, offering the little bottle out to him. "I thought it was bad policy to yell at passengers. Have a drink! You might as well fly loaded. Enough of your pilot brethren do."

He looks at me as if I've landed from Pluto, pushes my hand away. "I'm going to try to lift off," he says, throwing himself into his chair, starting to flip switches.

"Why?"

"It's a massacre out there! Did you see what they did to those passengers? I've kept some on board, I might be able to get away, fly to an island or something."

I shrug and move out of his way, taking my briefcase with me. As I saunter out of the flight cabin there's all kinds of craziness going on in the rest of the plane: people running up and down aisles, a lot of shouting and weeping. Someone's trying to come back up the emergency ramp, someone else doesn't think it's a good idea. "We're taking off!" the one on the inside says, as if that explains it. A rifle shot hits the one trying to get in, a suit type with crooked glasses, and that seems to decide things because he reaches for the back of his neck where a big gout of blood has popped out. He lets go of the top of the ramp and slides down out of sight.

I finish my vodka, put the empty on the nearest seat, and reach in for another one. A casual look back at Cap'n Bob tells me he's trying, but not getting too far.

I tilt the bottle up, emptying it in one long swallow, put the empty next to its brother on the seat, and dust my hands.

Looks like it's time to save ol' Roger's skin, I say to myself, because the ol' Roger danger radar, accurate without fail, has begun to go off in my head.

Saw this in a movie, once. I walk into the curtained partition in first class where they keep the bar and the food dolly, a little elevator set into the bottom of the compartment that brings all that hot, good, nutritious first-class airline food up from the galley. There's a little button on it that at first does nothing. I'm thinking maybe the power's gone out, but then it bumps to a stop and I pull the little door open. Not too big inside, but when I pull all the aluminum trays and shelves out, it's just right for me and my briefcase.

Which is just in time, because some of those skeleton dudes have made their way up the ramp and are shooting into the cabin. And now I notice a curious fact, that when one of my air
compadres
goes down, he soon makes a reappearance as one of the bone men, everything flaking away to leave just that cartoon skeleton. And there's something else from
weirdland
: up close, these bone boys aren't all bones, but part ghost, too, since I can see the faint outline of something human when the light hits them the right way.

But enough idle thoughts: it's into the elevator, pull the little door closed, and wait for whatever.

I've got a plan, of course; always do. They didn't call me "The Shark" at Roundabout Records for nothing. They also called me "The Shit" and "The Weasel" and "The
Whackhead
," but none of that bothered me. "Pustule" bothered me a little, but what the fu, I was getting paid for it.

So what's the plan, Jan? When in doubt, wait it out. I really don't think the boneheads are gonna blow the plane while they're on it. Hell, they might even need it later. What they're gonna do, from observation, is off everybody in sight. And, to continue the scenario, once they off everybody, then everybody is gonna be just like them and they'll all go away. Is that Cap'n Bob I hear yodeling a scream close by? Could be. There's just enough room in here to reach in and uncap another of these fine baby
Gilbey's
—

Damn! Spilled it on myself! I'm as bad as the cow! Jeez, I'd like to scream a little. These leather pants are taking a beating, I hope the
bonies
didn't get Rita yet; she's got to reconnect me to that tailor friend of hers and get me another pair of these beauties.

Jesus, is that an engine?

Oh, Christ, they haven't gotten Cap'n Bob yet after all. I hear him hooting in glee in his little cockpit, the dumb little shit, and one of the engines is fired up! He's gonna kill us all now, for sure!

Then, the blat of an automatic weapon sounds close by. Cap'n Bob screeches like a woman and then, mercifully, the plane is shut down.

Wish I could cut a line in here.

One more little bottle of vodka—careful this time, ol' Roger—and, ah, it's time to take a little nap, to the sounds of rat-tat-tat and the mopping-up going on outside, and the words of that Vomits lullaby singing playfully in my head:

Go to sleep,

Go to sleep,

Go to sleep, little bitch,

You got what you wanted

You took what you wanted

You got what you wanted

 
So now go to sleep. . . .

And they really thought these suckers could make it without a guy like me?

Awake to blessed silence. I'm no dumb shit, so I give a long listen before opening the door. They may have left somebody on the plane, but I doubt it. They probably searched all the way through it, and if they haven't found me by now, I'm one free dude. So slowly I open the door, uncramp the legs—damn that spilled vodka smell—and roll out into the aisle like a baby, pulling my briefcase after me—

Nothing.

Darkness, the
ambering
down of the plane's batteries giving the aisles that night-light look, and outside: still nighttime!

All right, I didn't sleep the night away. With this brush-head look of mine, maybe I can blend in with the boneheads.

So up and down the aisles. Nothing but luggage here, I doubt there's anything worth taking in any of them. A couple of piles of dust, but my boot does away with those.

A look out the windows: nothing. The airport seems quiet from here; in the near distance the terminal is lit up, but there doesn't seem to be much going on. Then in the sky I see the line of a plane, lights blinking, dropping for a landing. There's no antiaircraft fire at it, it three-points down, rolls across my own runway in front of me, toward the terminal. Nothing weird about that. Is it over? Did I dream the whole thing?

Nah, I don't think so.

If I had to guess, I'd say that plane was full of boneheads.

So back to the galley, my former prison cell. No food worth eating here; all the trays I pulled out to get into the box are spoiled, that fine au jus gravy turned to so much brown tar. But up above, on the bar, a big basket of those chips I asked the
skycow
Carol for. So fill up the pockets, take a few gin bottles since the little vodkas are gone

What's that sitting behind the little snorts—a bottle of
Stoli
?

My God, this must be my lucky night. And not a little one, either, the real thing, the full liter, and unopened. Was this Cap'n Bob's secret vice? Did ol' Carol keep it for her best passengers? I wonder how ol' Carol looks dressed in bones.

Ah,
Stoli
,
Stoli
.

I dump out the little
little
gins; it's me and my big vodka bottle and I'm ready to roll.

Standing out of the open doorway by one of the slides, I take a peek out into LAX night. Doesn't look too bad. A few stars through the overhead muck; must be a good night in L.A. Were there any parties I was supposed to go to? There's always the nightclubs, if nothing else is going on. Though the
bonies
have probably been there by now. It's up into the Hollywood Hills for me, I guess. But I can't resist a look at downtown, before I go.

I think I've even got a good, safe way to do it.

Ol' Roger, ol' Shark, always thinking.

Okay, out we go.

The slide isn't as firm as it should be; in fact, it must have been popped with a few bullets 'cause it's pretty much flat and gives me a drop straight down. But luckily there's a little air in the bottom and it saves my fanny.

And I don't drop the
Stoli
, thank God.

Now I saunter through the airport. It's not as clear as I thought overhead; in fact, it's started to drizzle. Those stars I thought I saw were airplanes, and now one of them is landing and it's time to lay low. The sucker drops in and taxis on past me. Sure enough, in the lit cockpit I see a couple of boneheads manning the controls. Headphones and everything.

As my father used to say, the world is changing, son. Right, Dad.

It's a longer walk than I thought to get where I'm going. Why don't they put these Rent-A-Car counters out by the far runways, in case you need them? If there's a suggestion box by the Hertz desk, I just might drop a note.

Finally, though, once having to hit the tarmac to avoid one of those luggage mobiles manned by a boner, I reach the place I'm aiming to get at.

It's dark and deserted, just the way we like it. The parking lots are full. What I want is a new '
vette
with the top down. What I need is something different.

It takes me almost a half hour to find it: a Lincoln Town Car with darkened glass on the windows. A real godfather-mobile. It takes me another twenty minutes to find the keys in the office.

And then, as I'm walking out to my new purchase, someone's coming into the lot.

Easy enough to hide, just pick a car and squat. The figure passes not five feet in front of me.

To my wonder, it's not a bonehead, it's a California girl, and not too ugly.

"Hey, sis," I say.

She jumps nearly out of her tank top, turns at me, and goes into some Ninja-turtle-type stance. All I do is grin. She moves in closer and I let her see how harmless I am: just a geek in leather pants and leather jacket, open-neck shirt, earrings,
buzzhead
. Normal California businessman.

"Who are you?" she hisses.

"What you see is what you get." I shrug. "And if I were you, sis, I'd crouch a little lower. Somebody else is clacking this way."