Stone Barrington 27 - Doing Hard Time

left another envelope with three months’ hangar rental and a note under a windshield wiper.
    He stripped off the plastic, stick-on tail numbers on the airplane and replaced them with the new number. Finally, using the tow bar, he moved the airplane out of the hangar and closed the hangar door. He stripped off the surgical gloves and ran quickly through his checklist, then started the airplane and turned off the master switch, darkening the instrument panel and the interior lights. With only a quarter of a moon and the runway lights to show him the way, he taxied to runway 34 and, without slowing, started his takeoff roll. He thought it likely that, at this time of night, the controller on duty in the tower was probably occupied with some task or reading a magazine and would not notice the small, unlit airplane leaving the airport.
    Teddy kept the airplane as low as was safely possible until he was a good twenty miles from the airport, then he turned west and began his climb. Not until he had reached 8,500 feet did he turn on the master switch, the exterior lights, the instrument panel switch, and, finally, the autopilot. He had no specific destination in mind; he would think about that after daylight.
    He set his traffic avoidance equipment to a range of twenty miles; an alarm would alert him to other aircraft at or near his altitude. He inclined his seat a few notches, pulled a light blanket over himself, and sought sleep.
    •   •   •
    Teddy woke with the dawn and looked around him. The American mid-South lay before him, and so did the Mississippi River. He checked his fuel supply and figured he could make Fort Smith, Arkansas, in an hour or so. He landed there, refueled, paid in cash, and had breakfast from a vending machine, washing it down with the free coffee. In half an hour he was back in the air.
    Then a wonderful thing happened: the light headwind he had been bucking all night changed, first, to a stiff breeze off his beam, then to a fifty-knot tailwind. He began to put real distance behind him.
    He was west of Albuquerque near Gallup when he saw it ahead of him. He started a descent until the object revealed itself in the clear, desert air: a Stearman biplane, parked at one end of a dirt strip nestled against a collection of buildings—a motel, a store or two, and a gas station backed up against the landing strip. He circled the little town once and saw what he was looking for: a fuel tank sitting on a wooden cradle near the Stearman. He checked the windsock and put the Cessna down on the dirt.
    A man came strolling out the rear door of what appeared to be a garage adjoining the gas station, and he stood by until Teddy had turned everything off and shut down the engine. “Good day to you,” the man said, as Teddy got out of the airplane and stretched. “My name’s Tom Fields. What can I do you for?”
    “You can top me off,” Teddy said, offering his hand. “I’m Billy Burnett. Is there someplace where I can get a hamburger?”
    “Sure thing,” Fields said. “Right across Main Street at the motel.” A teenaged boy came out of the garage wiping his hands on a rag. “This is my grandson, Bobby.”
    “What’s this place called?” Billy asked. “I didn’t see it on the chart.”
    “No, you wouldn’t. This is Mesa Grande, New Mexico. The world pretty much passed us by when they opened up I-40.”
    Billy followed Tom Fields into his auto shop and looked around: clean, everything in good order, well equipped—all he required in a workshop. “Nice place you’ve got here,” he said.
    “Thanks. Right through that door there is my equipment-rental business. I’ve got a forklift and a backhoe and some pneumatic drills, plus a lot of smaller stuff. I’ll pass both businesses on to Bobby, if I can live until he grows some more. Right now, he’s just changing oil and fixing flats. I’m going to send him to mechanic’s school when he graduates from high school.” He pointed out the front door. “There’s your hamburger,” he said.
    “Thanks, Tom,” Billy replied. “Will you join me?”
    Tom looked at his watch: “I reckon I will.”
    Billy was introduced to Sally, a handsome woman of fifty who owned the motel and kept the lunch counter, and the two men had a leisurely lunch, while Teddy shot an occasional appraising glance at Sally, who frankly returned his interest.
    •   •   •
    “What brings you out our way?” Tom asked over coffee.
    “Oh, I just sold my