The Coffin Dancer

“In case you didn’t guess, I’m not a huge fan of your business.”
    “You don’t like pilots?”
    “Oh, no, don’t mean that. It’s flying I don’t like.”
    “You’d rather be shot at than go flying?”
    Without consideration, he nodded emphatically, then asked, “You see combat?”
    “Sure did. Las Vegas.”
    He frowned.
    “Nineteen ninety-one. The Hilton Hotel. Third floor.”
    “Combat? I don’t get it.”
    Percey asked, “You ever hear about Tailhook?”
    “Oh, wasn’t that the navy convention or something? Where a bunch of male pilots got all drunk and attacked some women? You were there?”
    “Got groped and pinched with the best of ’em. Decked one lieutenant and broke the finger of another, though I’m sorry to say he was too drunk tofeel the pain till the next day.” She sipped some more bourbon.
    “Was it as bad as they said?”
    After a moment she said, “You’re used to expecting some North Korean or some Iranian in a MiG to drop out of the sun and lock on. But when the people supposed to be on your side do it, well, it really throws you. Makes you feel dirty, betrayed.”
    “What happened?”
    “Aw, kind of a mess,” she muttered. “I wouldn’t roll over. I named names and put some folks out of business. Some pilots, but some high-up folks too. That didn’t sit well in the briefing room. As you can imagine.”
    Monkey skills or no monkey skills, you don’t fly with wingmen you don’t trust. “So I left. It was all right. I’d had fun with the ’Cats, fun flying sorties. But it was time to leave. I’d met Ed and we’d decided to open up this charter. I kissed and made up with Daddy—sort of—and he lent me most of the money for the Company.” She shrugged. “Which I paid back at prime plus three, never late a day on a payment. The son of a gun . . . ”
    This brought back a dozen memories of Ed. Helping her negotiate the loan. Shopping together for aircraft at the skeptical leasing companies. Renting hangar space. Arguing as they struggled to fix a nav-com panel at three in the morning, trying to get ready for a 6 A.M. flight. The images hurt as bad as her ferocious migraines. Trying to deflect her thoughts, she asked, “So what brings you to parts north?”
    “Wife’s family’s up here. On Long Island.”
    “You gave up North Carolina for in-laws?” Percey nearly made a comment about how’d his wife lasso him into that but was glad she hadn’t. Bell’s hazel eyes easily held hers as he said, “Beth was pretty sick. Passed away nineteen months ago.”
    “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
    “Thank you. They had Sloan-Kettering up here and her folks and sister too. The fact is I needed some help with the kids. I’m fine pitching the football and making chili but they need other stuff than that. Like, I shrunk most of their sweaters first time I dried ’em. That sort of thing. I wasn’t averse to a move anyway. Wanted to show the kids there’s more to life than silos and harvesters.”
    “You got pictures?” Percey asked, tipping back the flask. The hot liquor burned for a brief exquisite moment. She decided she’d quit drinking. Then decided not to.
    “’Deed I do.” He fished a wallet from his baggy slacks and displayed the children. Two blond boys, around five and seven. “Benjamin and Kevin,” Bell announced.
    Percey also caught a glimpse of another photo—a pretty, blond woman, short hair in bangs.
    “They’re adorable.”
    “You have any kids?”
    “No,” she answered, thinking, I always had my reasons. There was always next year or the next. When the Company was doing better. When we’d leased that 737. After I got my DC-9 rating . . . She gave him a stoic smile. “Yours? They want to be cops when they grow up?”
    “Soccer players’s what they want to be. Not much of a market for that in New York. Unless the Mets keep playing the way they’ve been.”
    Before the silence grew too thick, Percey asked, “Is it okay if I call the Company? I’ve got to see how my aircraft’s coming.”
    “You bet. I’ll leave you be. Just make sure you don’t give our number or address to a soul. It’s the one thing I’m gonna be real muley about.”

 . . . Chapter Fifteen
    Hour 8 of 45
    “R on. It’s Percey. How is everyone?”
    “Shook up,” he answered. “I sent Sally home. She couldn’t—”
    “How is she?”
    “Just couldn’t deal with it. Carol too. And Lauren. Lauren was out of control. I’ve never seen anybody