With a Little Luck: A Novel (17 page)

I’m pretty sure Pilot Dan is unstable. I’m not talking about piloting skills. I’m talking life skills, coping skills, confidence-inspiring skills. Never mind that his green-and-another-shade-of-green striped shirt immediately convinces me that if he’s not full-on blind, he’s at least color-blind. I’m generally not a paranoid person, but Dan’s got a mild facial tic and keeps asking Ryan for relationship
advice. In truth, he’s more shouting than asking, because “so loud it’s deafening” doesn’t even begin to describe the situation. The incessant whir of the propeller sounds like a machine gun with a stuck trigger—not that I want it to stop propelling mid-flight; I’m terrified enough as it is. We’re wearing headphones to block out some of the noise and enable us to communicate with each other.

“Hey, Doc?” Dan says to Ryan.

“I’m not actually a doctor,” Ryan says. “I just play one on the radio.” Then he turns to me. “What are the odds I would ever be able to say that in a real-life situation?”

I shake my head and clutch my seat.

“I’ve heard your show, and you know stuff,” our pilot goes on. “What are the sure signs that your wife is cheating?” he asks.

“What?” Ryan shouts.

“How do you know your wife is cheating on you?” Dan shouts, and from here until we get used to the racket of the blades, we settle on a volume about fifty decibels above bloodcurdling scream.

“Well,” Ryan says, “I’m not sure there are any one hundred percent sure signs—”

“Sure signs,” the pilot says.

“Right, yes, sure signs,” Ryan continues, “but often sudden changes in appearance can be a tip-off. Like if she usually goes around in sweats but suddenly starts caring more about how she looks … going out looking more put together … That can be a sign.”

“Uh-huh,” Pilot Dan says, nodding.

“Starting a new exercise regime. Also, if she’s secretive about her phone,” Ryan adds. “People who have nothing to hide will leave their communication devices lying around the house. But people
who are composing secret text messages or emails will carry their phone everywhere.”

“Even to the bathroom!” Dan says.

“Well,” I chime in, “she could just be expecting a call … or a text.”

I can see he’s agitated, and I don’t want the already scary and possibly color-blind pilot who is flying the already scary helicopter to be agitated. I suddenly remember a recent news story about how the army just abandoned plans for a new attack helicopter because after twelve billion dollars in development costs, it still kept crashing. Twelve billion and they can’t get it to stay in the air? I’m resolved: No agitation for the pilot.

“She’s not always expecting a call,” Dan says.

“Nobody’s always expecting a call,” Ryan agrees.

“Exactly!” Dan says. “But she’s clutching that phone at all times. Especially when she goes to the bathroom.”

“I take my phone with me to the bathroom,” I say. I don’t really, but I don’t want Creepy Pilot getting agitated.

“Not every time,” Ryan says. “I’m positive that every time you go to the bathroom you do not—”

“No agitation for the pilot!” I shout, my panicked thoughts manifesting themselves into sentences spoken loudly.

Ryan looks at me, and I give him a pleading look.

“You know,” Ryan says, “these are just theories. Sometimes a new outfit is just a new outfit.”

And it’s at that moment that Dan makes a sudden turn and takes off in the opposite direction, slamming me up against Ryan as though I’m pressing my face against a plate-glass window. Smoosh.

I know L.A. well enough, and we’re flying low enough to know that this isn’t the lame “Tour of L.A.” route that Bill had booked.

I want to say something to Ryan, but I feel like I could be being paranoid so I just sit. And panic. And look out the window at the residential area we seem to be touring. And … circling?

“Are we going in a circle?” I ask Dan.

“That’s what a tour is … one big circle …” he answers, but his already beady eyes have become shifty. I should have realized he was insane by the way he smiled at us when we boarded. I was too busy touching the fuselage with my right hand to really take into account that no one smiles that big at strangers unless they’re about to crack.

“Seems like a smallish circle,” I press.

Dan says nothing, but I see tiny beads of sweat forming on his brow and upper lip. I catch Ryan’s eye and raise my eyebrows to say, “Are you not noticing that we are going in a tiny circle?”

Finally Ryan speaks up. “Bro, she’s right. What’s up?”

Dan doesn’t answer, but I notice his nostrils flare.

“Dan?” Ryan says. “Everything okay?”

Dan points down at … something … and the helicopter drops a good twenty feet.

“Whoa!” Ryan and I simultaneously say.

“That’s my house,” Dan says.

The look that Ryan and I exchange is a knowing one. We’re in a bad situation.

“Which one?” Ryan asks, feigning interest so as not to upset our not-so-dutiful pilot.

“The one down there … right … hang on …”

He does another loop and moves in closer.

“The one right there,” he says. “The roof is white. It’s a white roof. Do you know what a white roof is?”

“A roof … that’s white?” I offer.

“Yes,” he says. “It’s white, and it reduces the cost of electricity by
lessening your need to use air-conditioning. White reflects heat instead of absorbing it.”

“That’s interesting,” I say. “Eco-friendly.”

So he’s earth-conscious in addition to being a psycho stalking his wife. From the friendly skies, no less.
How nice
.

“I have a pair of binoculars on the floor,” he says.

“Neat,” I say, and look at Ryan, who shakes his head.

“Could one of you get them for me and hand them over?”

“I get that you’re going through something, man,” Ryan says. “But maybe this isn’t the best time to be … you know … checking up on your wife.”

“It’s absolutely the best time,” he says. “She thinks I’m at work.”

“Yeah, because you are.” Ryan sounds a bit stern when he says this, and I’m glad. “We’re paying customers here. And we’re both radio DJs with a large audience, if you get my drift.”

“The binoculars,” Dan says. Then adds, “Please.” As if that makes the situation any more palatable.

Ryan reluctantly reaches down and hands the man his binoculars.

“I’m so sorry,” Ryan mouths to me, and the previous thirty minutes or so of fighting the noise has made me an excellent lip reader.

“It’s not your fault,” I say, trying to remain somewhat upbeat.

“It’s totally my fault,” he says. And I feel like we’re Stillwater, the band in
Almost Famous
, when they think the plane’s going down so they’re panicking and saying whatever needs to be said.

“Hey,” I say. “If we get out alive, this will make a good story.”

That much is true for sure. Bill and Wendell have already prearranged for me to be in the studio with Ryan tomorrow to discuss our “date,” so this is definitely fodder for that.

“I can’t see anything,” Dan says, and he loops around again.

“Maybe it’s for the best we move along, then,” Ryan says. “And
really, we’re California natives, so we don’t mind cutting the tour short.”

“Sure, no problem,” Dan says, but he’s just yessing Ryan and doesn’t change his flight pattern at all.

“So you wanna bail on this little recon mission and head back to the heliport?” Ryan asks.

“In a few,” Dan says, and makes another loop.

Ryan and I look at each other. I don’t think he’s going to suicide-bomb into his house, because first, he hasn’t actually been able to even see anything, and second, he knows damn well that it would be a waste of a perfectly good white, heat-reflecting roof. A roof he’s proud of. I keep telling myself this over and over as we go in circles over and over.

I change my mind about Ryan’s culpability. “Assuming we make it to the station tomorrow, you are so not going to hear the end of this,” I say to Ryan.

“I’d expect nothing less of you,” Ryan says with a smile. A smile that even in this ridiculous and terrifying situation manages to make me feel a little bit better. Until we swerve.

“I think I see something!” Pilot Psycho shouts.

“I’m sure it’s really hard to see from up here,” I say.

“Seriously, man,” Ryan chimes in.

“No, I saw … something,” he insists. “Movement.”

“Well, your wife is alive, right?” I ask, thinking,
Oh God oh God oh God I hope she’s still alive
. “She’s allowed to move around your home.”
Oh God oh God oh God she’s chained up in the cellar
.

Dan squints his eyes and does that tic thing he does when he’s plotting or thinking or existing. He jerks his head slightly to the right. Really quickly.

“You’re right,” he says, and I think reason is finding its way into his less-than-reasonable brain. “We should get closer.”

My stomach drops as the whirlybird does the same. I grab onto Ryan’s arm, and he places his hand over mine.

“That’s not what I was saying,” I tell him.

“Buddy,” Ryan says, “chances are really strong that even if there is anything going on with your wife—and I’m not saying there is—she wouldn’t do anything under your roof.”

“He’s right,” I say, picking up his rationale, hoping we can convince him using the tag-team approach. “I can speak from a woman’s perspective. You don’t cheat in your own home.”

“That would be an outward act of aggression,” Ryan adds. “Not starter-cheating.”

“Starter-cheating?” I parrot, concerned that this is even a thing.
Is this a thing?
Ryan just bulges his eyes out at me, and I get his point: Now is not the time.

“Your wife doesn’t hate you, does she?” I ask.

“Not that I know of.”

“Oh, you’d know,” I say. “It takes a very angry woman to behave like that.” Of course, I’m thinking, if she happens to notice a helicopter hovering overhead every single night, she’s bound to be getting at least a little bit perturbed.

“It’s true. She’s not cheating in your home,” Ryan says.

“How do you know?” Dan asks.

“I know,” Ryan says.

“But how?” he presses.

Ryan looks at me, then back at our pilot. “Because I have ways of knowing. It’s what I do. I’m a psychologist. And if you turn around and land this chopper right now, I will tell you everything you want to know. Just because she’s not cheating in your house tonight doesn’t mean she isn’t cheating. Take us back right now and I’ll give you five surefire ways to find out.”

Dan turns the machine around so fast, I practically get whiplash.
Ryan winks at me as we head back to base. My heart rate starts getting back to normal, but it’s not at my resting tempo until we are on the ground and out of the helicopter.

Ryan offers his hand and helps me climb down safely before turning back to Dan.

“You’re lucky there was a lady on that plane,” he says, putting his arm around me and turning us to walk away.

“But wait—” Pilot Unstable shouts. “What about the five things?”

Ryan doesn’t even stop walking, he just swivels his head around enough to say, “Number one, get close enough to smell her. Preferably not from the cockpit of a hovering helicopter. But smell her. And if that stink on her isn’t her or you, figure out who or what it is. Number two, if you do something incredibly stupid—and be imaginative on this—and she doesn’t get really pissed off, it’s usually not just a highly evolved capacity for forgiveness. It can be, but it’s usually not. She’s unwittingly giving you one back, throwing you a bone, trying to restore the cosmic balance. Number three is simple. If she says she’s doing something somewhere or with someone, call there, or call that person. This will at least exhaust her alibis over time, or piss them off enough to push her to find someone else to cover until she finally runs out of people. Number four, ask yourself,
Am I a big enough dick that I deserve to be cheated on?
Number five, if the answer to number four is no, try asking again. You’re probably not being honest with yourself.”

While I don’t consider it exactly profound, and I’m sure he was making almost all of it up on the fly, I’m impressed. Especially because I’m almost positive we’re back on the freeway and halfway home before Dan gets it. Casualty of a life spent not being able to hear a damn thing anyone is saying.

Since the contest took place on KKRL and Bill and Wendell have already completed what I can only imagine were some very juvenile negotiation rituals, Ryan and I are broadcasting the follow-up to our date during my show. Once we were safely on the ground and away from that maniac, I barely even said a single word to Ryan. I was literally shaking during the whole ride home, and when he dropped me off I coughed up a “thank you” for at least the dinner part of the evening and headed into my building without looking back. I can’t wait to skewer him for endangering my life with not just a helicopter but an unstable pilot.