The War Gate (22 page)

“Tell them that replacement pump has a fuel leak. Don’t declare an emergency. Ask them for a priority landing.”

“How’d you know about a new pump?”

“It was part of the investigation. Do what I say.”

The plane made a gentle banking turn to the left. Avy watched the compass to make certain it registered a one hundred-eighty degree turn. The plane leveled out. They were now headed back to the coast. Avy kept silent but continued to watch the pilot’s every move. He might have been sure fire cocky when he boarded the plane, but now he looked to be a nervous wreck, in need of a stiff drink. He watched her from the corner of his eye while he made the radio call. She felt a moment of triumph, knowing that her plan was working.

“This wasn’t my idea,” Buck said under his breath. “I was following orders.”

“Yeah, your orders amounted to murdering three people. You would have never gotten away with it.”

“I would have if you hadn’t shown up.”

“You think so? Any man who could order the death of his own parents could keep you from surfacing again. You think you were supposed to be picked up by prearrangement below? What do you want to bet that nobody showed up with that rescue craft? You were the next thing that was going to disappear, but you were too dumb to realize it. Now you can look forward to a life in prison.”

Buck made a moaning sound. He spoke through tight lips. “I’ve got a wife and kids.”

“You should have thought about that earlier. Listen up; I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll forget this ever happened, but the whole incident rests on one very big condition.”

He put a palm to his head wound, grimacing. “What kind of condition are we talking about?”

“The condition that you stay in Cyberflow’s employee pool and keep your local residence. You’ll agree to testify against Drake Labrador when you’re called upon to do so. You’ll promise me that you will not involve yourself in any other activity that would bring injury or death to another person. When we land, you’ll tell your passengers that this flight has been canceled due to safety reasons. You will also tell those passengers to never use a Cyberflow aircraft again because of those reasons. Finally, you’ll tell the engineer that in your opinion this craft’s maintenance records should be gone over with a fine-tooth-comb until it proves airworthy. Have I left anything out?”

“I guess that about covers it for you. What if I don’t agree with those terms?”

She couldn’t show one ounce of weakness with this thug. She had to keep up the act—dig deep for the Betty Davis attitude. “Then I’ll testify against you for attempted murder. It’ll be my word against yours.” She wiggled her ID clip again. “Who do you think they’ll believe? A flyboy, or a federal officer with a spotless record?”

She could almost see the thoughts in his head bitch-slapping each other. His hands tightened on the control yoke, his forearm muscles bunched up in knots. She gave her seatbelt an extra pull, cinching it tighter.

This time her voice lowered with a dangerous tone. She cocked the hammer on the revolver. “I swear to God I’ll put a bullet through your head if you even blink wrong. Whatever you’re thinking about doing with this plane, don’t try it. We’re all going to get down in one piece. So, do the right thing.”

His chest deflated. He looked whipped, resigned to her demands. “Then I guess I’ll have to agree to those terms. I’ll make myself available when the time comes. Just don’t turn me over to the authorities. I’ll do what you say.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about from me.” Avy looked out the windscreen, the coastline loomed like a big brown welcome mat.

They got priority clearance, landed, and taxied back to the hangar. When Avy walked down the aisle to leave, Emily Chambers demanded to know why they hadn’t been served the pastries, and why this airport looked so much like the one they had left. Still, not a hint of recognition in her eyes for her granddaughter.

“We’ve had some in-flight difficulties,” said Avy. “Your pilot will brief you about the problems.” It was hard to keep the resentment down when looking at her grandmother face-to-face. The grandmother who had abandoned her own daughter, then refused to adopt her child. Good riddance.

Avy disembarked amongst curses of dismay coming from the grandparents, who were now awake. She pressed through a small group of technicians who had been alerted to the cancellation of the flight. One of the technicians asked her to explain what happened. She ignored him, hurrying her pace. Sebastian met her at the Cushman cart. They jumped in the cart and sped off. Sebastian pulled the cart out of the hangar and drove back through the airport. They arrived at the information desk where the clerk tried to engage them in conversation about an administrator needing to talk to them, but they left the premises without explanation.

They were well on the road when Avy told of the incident onboard the plane. She explained the conditions she had arranged with the pilot. After a moment, Sebastian spoke his mind.

“Jesus. You got lucky, Avy.” He blew a nervous sigh. “Drake is the author of misery, that’s for sure. He’s got to bump off his own relatives to get his company back in solvency. If that isn’t bad enough, he’s the one who murdered his brother, then set your mother up to take the fall. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to either of us if he finds out how deep we are into this. If this pilot tips him off instead of keeping his mouth shut, it’s sure to go bad on us. I don’t think we’re safe in this city anymore. I’m not talking about me, either. We need to get you out of here.”

“I’m not leaving. I don’t care if he has an army behind him. We can always get Chubby. He’s not such a bad sort. He’s had a lot of experience around rough types.”

“They’re going to come looking for us. We’re not invisible. You’re the exception to that rule, but even that’s temporary.”

He gave her a comforting thigh pat. She knew he wasn’t thinking of himself. They were trying to stop one man’s insane need to devastate the lives of others. Drake was a person who had no compunction about killing anyone who got in his way or hampered his business plans. He had an entire corporation behind him. He also had the support of the community leaders, since he employed hundreds of local residents. Even though the lines of battle had been drawn against Drake, it seemed they would have to go through an empire to get at him.

It wasn’t long ago that Avy had nothing to worry about other than keeping her grades up, practicing her acting talent in front of a full-length mirror, or helping her mother around the house. She'd discovered that she was not normal, in any sense of the word. She was a teenage girl who had gone through an emotional and physical change—a complete overhaul of life. She'd never asked for it. In fact, she resented it. She was on someone else’s path with no way to stop it. If she couldn’t understand herself now, would she hate herself even more after becoming some kind of perverse monster? The inner voice screamed at her, nagging, harassing. She wanted to scream at it to shut up.

Sebastian turned the wheel to pull into the back theater lot. He glanced at her. “You don’t look so good. You okay?”

Her previous thoughts had nothing to do with what ailed her now. She gaped in astonishment, pointing a finger at the theater building when they pulled up to it and parked. Sebastian got out, his face taut, full of horror.

The back wall of the theater had been splattered with paint from the ground up. Obscene words, gang logos, and graffiti marred its surface. The gruesome artwork ran in a swath along the beige cinderblock wall, seeming to disappear around the corner.

When they walked up closer to inspect it, Avy could smell the paint fumes lingering heavy in the air. Transfixed, they walked down one of the alleys to find that the side wall had not escaped the macabre renderings. But it was the window glass and admission booth on front of the building facing the street that held the most shock for them. It had been a wild, swift attack. The artists had been more graphic on the theater front, painting outlines of copulating couples, oversized genitals, mixed with other unsavory depictions. It was the worst case of artistic thuggery Avy had ever seen attached to a place of business. The word “ungodly” came to mind while she gazed upon it. Evidence of the vandals came in the form of dozens of paint smudged footprints that led off down the sidewalk. The second thing that assaulted Avy was Sebastian’s reaction to the scene.

He looked ready to hurl.

Chapter 15

They spent Wednesday renting the professional spray unit, buying supplies, mixing paint, and masking off the building. Sebastian had received a quote from a contractor who wanted no less than fourteen thousand dollars to paint the old theater. That was the lowest estimate. Sebastian decided to save the expense by doing it himself. They took paint chips to the hardware store to have the original color matched. They bought a twelve-foot aluminum ladder—it was just high enough to paint the damaged areas from the ground up. The hardest task was the time spent on the front of the theater, masking the trim, then shaving the paint from the display windows with razor scrapers. Turpentine had to be used to remove the prints from the sidewalk.

A few police officers had stopped by to ask about the damage. Sebastian downplayed the incident, attributing it to typical juvenile behavior. Avy knew they had no real proof that Drake was behind the vandalism, and felt sure he would deny any involvement.

They painted the building on Thursday. Avy trailed behind Sebastian, mixing the paint, handling the hose, and positioning the trough bucket every time they had to paint another section. It was an arduous task. Avy had to change out her mask a dozen times when it became clogged by the persistent mist of paint that seemed to get into every pore of her body. They hadn’t shared more than a few sentences during the work detail. There had been nothing to say—no salve to the open wounds, just a determined resolve to clean up the mess, to restore the theater back to its original glory.

After strapping the commercial sprayer into the back of Avy’s Samurai, they took a sit-down break on the pavement, pulling the masks from their faces. Avy looked at her hands, knowing that it would take a quart of turpentine to remove the dried paint from them.

“You know damn well they hired some street kids to do this,” said Sebastian.

“It’s not a new low for Drake,” Avy said under her breath. “Hit men, hired assassins, gangsters, it all fits into his personality. All he had to do was offer a hundred dollars between a half dozen kids to get the job done. The end result was thousands of dollars in damage. He wanted to ruin the act by stopping our income. I doubt that anyone would have come to the performance in a building that looked like this one. They hit us right in the pocketbook again.”

“Not just that, but they took the time to organize it after we interrupted their plans with that flight. It sure is peculiar how they knew we were not on the property again.”

“They’ve been following us—a full-time tail, watching our every move.”

“I don’t think they had one following us to the airport. I did some fancy driving. If we had a tail, I shook it. Otherwise they might have known what we were up to and stopped us there.”

“I didn’t say they were perfect or the brightest bulbs on the string. We have to be ready for more of the same. We can’t leave the theater unless we have someone to babysit for us. I have a good idea who could do it, at least part time.”

“I agree,” said Sebastian with a sigh. “Get that Chubby fellow. I have some of my own ideas on how to set up some traps around here. For now, I’d better get this equipment back. You can come with me if you want.”

“I’ll lock myself in. I have a call to make.”

Avy watched him drive off. She entered the theater, then went to the bathroom to clean up. After showering, she got on the phone and called her friend. She had a long chat with Chubby, telling him about the recent vandalism. He listened with rapt attention, asking numerous questions. At the end of the conversation, he promised that he would be right over.

Chubby arrived thirty minutes later, wearing an oversized Alpine pack. He had a sleeping bag tucked under his arm. His first impressions of the theater backroom came after stepping through the door.

“Gosh o’ mighty. What a magical place. I’ll bet you never get tired of looking at things. Oh, I knew this was urgent so I cashed in on three weeks’ vacation. I’ve never used my off-time, so I figured this was a perfect opportunity. I hope you don’t mind—I had to bring Gretchen. She throws a hissy fit if she doesn’t get to ride along. Well, half a hissy fit, she’s pretty old. She’s taking a wee wee outside right now.”

There was that look again—the whole universe could have collapsed back in on itself but it wouldn’t have mattered to Chubby. He stared at her with a mixture of wonder and shy endearment.

The small dog appeared at the door. It made arthritic steps across the floor. Gretchen looked up at her, wagging her tail in a crooked circle. Avy said, “I remember her. She’s more than welcome. She can have the run of the theater. We have a few bunnies on the bound around here from time to time, so she’ll be in good company.”

“How neat,” he said. “I wonder if I could look around. This place brings back memories. My mom used to bring me here to watch old Vincent Price movies. It was fifty cents for a double feature back then. I’ve never been in the backroom before.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Chubby walked the length of the room, stopping every so often to eye some piece of machinery or prop. He disappeared around the corner into the wing. A moment later, she could hear exclamations of wonder—lots of “oohs.” He’d found the large stage props. She made some coffee while waiting for him to return, which he did minus his pack. She thought that odd, until he cleared up the mystery a moment later.

“I found the perfect bed,” he said, looking like a small boy in wonderland. “It’s a little narrow but it will do just fine.”

“Where would that be?”

“The guillotine pad.”

Avy cocked her head in surprise, and then offered him a chair. They began to chat. He told her that his parents had both passed on, revealing that he had been especially close to them. He said he’d felt lost when they both suffered strokes three years apart. He touched upon his interest in law enforcement, explaining how he never seemed to be able to pass the government or state police exams, but did well enough to qualify for the correctional facility.