INTEMPERANCE V

Circles Collide

 

Alan Steiner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This book, like the one before, is dedicated to all of my patrons over at Patreon, who supported me at a dollar a chapter (and sometimes more) as I composed the third, the fourth, and now the fifth books of this series. You were my beta testers, and your encouragement, feedback, and error reporting were invaluable to me.

 

 

 

Intemperance V, Copyright © 2021 by Alan G. Steiner. All Rights Reserved.

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

 

Cover designed by Alan Steiner

 

 

 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

Alan Steiner

Email me at alsteiner237@gmail.com

 

Printed in the United States of America

 

First Printing: November 2021

 

ISBN-9781708958305

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

Our First Stop

 

 

 

 

Bogota, Colombia

April 15, 1996

 

It was Tax Day in the United States of America and Jake Kingsley had left the country in the company of Jill Yamashito, his accountant, but not for reasons of evasion or exile. His taxes were already filed and paid in full, his return accepted by both the state of California and the US

Internal Revenue Service, and, as far as the two of them knew, they were still in a state of grace with their monetary obligations. Instead, they were in South America for another reason; a reason that Jake was extremely enthusiastic about but that Jill, who was much more practical and niggardly with Jake’s money than Jake could ever hope to be, was quite dreading. It was time to take a look at the Avanti-180 aircraft that a gentleman named Eduardo Gomez wanted to sell.

Traveling with them was a man by the name of Travis Young. He was forty-three years old and was a supervising aircraft mechanic at the Fly Safe Aircraft Maintenance and Repair facility located at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, Colorado, just outside of Denver. Fly Safe was one of only two facilities in the United States authorized by Piaggio Aerospace, the Italian manufacturer that produced Avanti aircraft, to perform B, C, or D level maintenance checks or major repairs on their products. Greenville, South Carolina, home of the North American Piaggio facility, was the other. Travis had been recruited for this mission with the assistance of Austin Grover, the pilot who had first introduced Jake to the Avanti (and had even let him take the controls for a bit). Austin had given Jake Travis’s phone number. Jake called him up and offered him a little all-inclusive paid vacation to Colombia if he would come along and examine the maintenance records of the Avanti-180 Jake was considering purchasing (as well as the actual aircraft itself). He had even offered to include Travis’s wife in the deal if she wished to come.

Travis’ wife did not wish to come, and Travis himself had been more than a little reluctant to travel to a city that was regularly reported as having one of the highest murder rates per capita in the world and was located in a country that was currently immersed in a decades-long civil war with radical communist guerrilla forces.

“We’re not going to be anywhere near any of that shit,” Jake assured him. “We’ll be in a five-star luxury hotel in the best district of the city. You’ll have your own suite, room service, all meals and drinks paid for by me. We’re not going to go trekking around in the mountains or anything like that. The only place you’ll have to go besides the hotel is this muni airport north of the city where the plane is kept.”

“I don’t know,” Travis replied, still clearly uncomfortable.

“I’ll give you five grand for the job,” Jake offered.

“Five grand? You mean… five thousand dollars?”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “Cash money. You don’t even have to tell the IRS about it if you don’t want to. Call it a gratuity for a job well done.”

“That is a lot of money,” Travis had to admit, “but still…”

“Seventy-five hundred,” Jake said.

That did the trick. “All right,” Travis said. “I’m in.”

“Good man,” Jake told him. “Do you have your passport?”

“Uh… no,” Travis said. “Will I need one?”

And so, after going through an expedited passport approval process paid for by Jake, Travis had been flown to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (first-class) and put up in the airport hotel (one of the luxury suites) where Jake and Jill were already waiting for him. It was here that Jake had met the man in person for the first time. He was a friendly enough guy, though he did not seem to possess much of a sense of humor, and he seemed to be a bit of a worry-wart. He was short and stocky, balding, and had a distinct Midwest accent. He told Jake at dinner that night that he spent twelve years in the United States Navy and had served on two separate aircraft carriers (as well as several shore bases) as an aircraft mechanic, working primarily on F-18

Hornets. He, like Celia’s pilot Suzie, had been offered a healthy discharge bonus during the draw-down of forces following the 1991 Gulf War. These days, he was one of only thirty mechanics in the entirety of North America certified to work on Piaggio aircraft above the level of basic maintenance tasks.

The next morning, the three of them flew direct from DFW to El Dorado International in Bogota, Colombia aboard an American Airlines A-320—a five-and-a-half-hour flight. After clearing customs, where Travis got his very first stamp on his new passport and Jill and Jake got their very first South American stamps, they endured a terrifying thirty-minute taxi ride through the crowded, congested city streets of the capital city to the Hotel Charleston, a historic luxury lodging located on the east side of the city, nestled up against the towering Andes mountain peaks that rose another nine thousand feet into the sky.

The trio spent most of that day acclimating themselves to the high elevation of Bogota.

The city sat an average of 8800 feet above sea level on a high plateau of the Andes and its air was very thin by Los Angeles, or even Denver standards. Jill made the adjustment by staying in her bed as much as possible and moving as little as she could. Travis tried this for a bit but then elected to go with Jake’s method: sitting in the bar and drinking while munching on local appetizers. It may not have been a method endorsed by the medical community for dealing with such a situation, but it did take their minds off their hypoxia.

And now, at ten o’clock in the morning of US Tax Day, it was time for them to head to Guaymaral Airport to take a look at the plane. Not wanting to put himself or his companions through the terror of another taxi ride, Jake had arranged with the concierge of the hotel to have a limousine pick them up for the forty-five-minute drive.

“How’s the breathing today?” Jake asked Jill as they settled into the back seat of the white stretch limousine in the valet area.

“It’s better,” she said with a shrug. “The headache is gone, and I only feel winded when I go up a staircase or a hill.”

“Then don’t do those things,” Jake suggested.

She gave him a sour look. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Jake turned to the mechanic, who was dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a blue button-up shirt. “How about you, Travis?” he asked. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Passed out like a light,” he said. “And I still have quite a headache, though I’m pretty sure it’s not the altitude that’s causing it, but all that guaro we had at the bar.”

“Guaro?” Jill asked.

“It’s a very popular local drink, apparently,” Jake said. “And very economical, you’ll be happy to hear. Only five thousand pesos apiece, plus tip, of course. That’s cheaper than buying an American beer or a shot of American whiskey.”

“They did go down pretty smooth,” Travis said.

“That they did,” Jake agreed. “I wonder if I can get some of that guaro shit in the states?”

“If you can, it will undoubtedly be at an extremely inflated cost,” Jill told him.

“I don’t care about that,” Jake said, telling her nothing she did not know. “Think of how cool it would be to have a party and serve some genuine South American hooch as part of the theme.”

“It would go well on taco night,” Travis suggested.

“Hell to the yeah!” Jake said, smiling. “I’ll get the Nerdlys and their internet surfing skills working on this thing as soon as I get home.”

Jill simply shook her head and opened a bottle of water to help sooth her dry throat. You just couldn’t tell Jake anything.

The limo pulled out of the hotel valet area and onto the congested boulevard. The driver, who had introduced himself as Jeronimo, spoke only limited English and Jake spoke even less Spanish, but they had managed to achieve communication on a high enough level to get across their destination and to agree on a price for the trip, the waiting time, and the return trip (ninety thousand pesos, the equivalent of about twenty-five dollars American, which even Jill had to agree was a very reasonable price). He closed the partition as soon as they started out and turned on a local talk radio station, playing it loud enough that the sound filtered through into the back. He drove aggressively, with many rapid starts, stops, changes of lanes, but nowhere near as wild as the taxi driver from the airport.

The weather was chilly and overcast, with a steady misty rain falling and obscuring their visibility to some degree. It reminded Jake of Seattle weather, both in temperature and precipitation. They passed by a plethora of high-rise hotels and office buildings and then, about twenty minutes into the trip, the urban landscape began to thin out to some degree, replaced by more hilly terrain covered in lush green vegetation. Again, the similarity to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest in general was quite apparent.

They arrived at the entrance to Guaymaral Airport. It was a moderate sized muni facility with a fair amount of traffic taxiing about or coming and going from the runways. Jake thought it would be quite challenging to take off from and/or land at the facility as there was high terrain on all sides and the elevation of the runways was just over 8300 feet above sea level. Still, the runways were nice and long, although one of them was grass instead of pavement. And, curiously, the longer of the two runways was the grass one. Interesting.

Jeronimo pulled up in front of the main airport services building— Ificio de Servicios

Aeroportuarios, the sign read—and parked immediately behind a large SUV that was black in color, raised off the ground, and looked a little bit like a tank. He then jumped out and opened the rear door for his clients, allowing them to step out into the misty morning dampness.

“Gracias,” Jake told him. And then, in a mixture of pidgin English and poorly pronounced, grammatically incorrect basic Spanish, he told him they would be back in two hours or so hopefully. Jeronimo indicated his understanding and then climbed back into his vehicle to get out of the rain.

Jake led the accountant and the mechanic into the services building. Here, he found himself on the most familiar ground he had been on since leaving Texas. It looked just like any other airport office in a muni airport he had been in during his flying career. There was a desk

where two employees worked. There were air charts on the wall. There were shelves that contained flight plan paperwork and tables where said paperwork could be filled out. There were vending machines lined up against one wall that sold sodas, chips, candy bars, and pre-packaged sandwiches. There was a coffee machine in the corner that smelled of burned coffee.

The familiarity was comforting to Jake.

About half a dozen men of varying ages were scattered about at the charting tables. Most were working on flight plans and did not even look up when the trio entered. One, however, did not have any paperwork before him and he did look up. He was a handsome man, light skinned with light hair and a fit frame, wearing a pair of dress slacks and an expensive looking button up shirt. He appeared to be in his early thirties and his eyes showed clear recognition when he saw them. He immediately stood and approached them.

“Señor Kingsley?” he enquired politely.

“Yes, I’m Jake Kingsley,” Jake told him.

“I am Sebastian Hernandez,” he said. “Señor Gomez’s primary pilot. He asked me to meet you here and then take you to the hangar to examine the aircraft.”

Hernandez’s English was impeccable, with only the slightest hint of a Hispanic accent.

This was not surprising, however, as he was a pilot and English was the international language of aviation. All commercial pilots and air traffic controllers worldwide were pretty much obligated to speak clear and concise English as a prerequisite of their respective professions.

“Nice to meet you, Sebastian,” Jake said, holding out his right hand. “Please, call me Jake.”

Hernandez shook with him, his grip firm and sure. “Very well,” he said. “Jake it is.”

Jake then introduced his small entourage. “This is Jill Yamashito, my accountant,” he said.

“She’s the one who found Señor Gomez’s plane for me.”

“Señorita,” he said with a smile, taking her right hand in a much gentler fashion, holding it from the palm instead of side to side. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Jill smiled and actually blushed a little. “Me as well,” she said. “And please, call me Jill.”

“As you wish, Jill,” he said, still holding her hand. “And I am Sebastian… at your service.”

Jill’s blush increased a little and she only reluctantly pulled her hand from the pilot’s. Jake could not help but notice the little flash of electricity that had seemed to flow between the two of them. Interesting, he thought.

“And this,” Jake said once the moment seemed to have concluded, “is Travis Young. He’s an aircraft mechanic who works at the Colorado Avanti service facility.”

“Ah yes, Señor Young,” Sebastian said. “Señor Gomez arranged to have his primary mechanic available to speak with you in the hangar. He has brought all the service and repair records from the time the aircraft was delivered until the last maintenance cycle last month for your perusal. He will also assist you in your examination of the aircraft.”

“Uh… cool,” Travis said, shaking with him. “I look forward to meeting him. Oh… and you can call me Travis.”

“Very good,” Sebastian said. “Now then, shall we make the walk? It is not far. And Señor Gomez is very much looking forward to meeting you, Jake.”

“Meeting me?” Jake asked, surprised. “You mean, he’s here?”

“He is,” Sebastian confirmed. “That is his SUV parked in front of your limousine. Ever since he heard that Jake Kingsley was considering buying his aircraft, he has been very excited to make your acquaintance.”

“Oh… I see,” Jake said slowly, starting to feel a little nervous now. Though they did not know that Eduardo Gomez was a Colombian drug lord, the possibility was certainly high on the list of probabilities. What would such a man be like? A man who had possibly ordered the deaths of people? Who may very well own politicians, police officials, customs officials?

“Is that a problem, Jake?” Sebastian asked.

“No, not at all,” Jake told him. After all, there was really no alternative at this point, was there?

*****

 

The hangar where Eduardo Gomez kept the Avanti, as well as his brand-new Cessna CitationJet 525, was the largest one at the facility. It was over two thousand square feet, temperature controlled, with room for both aircraft and a few cars as well. As soon as they walked in out of the drizzling rain into the building, Jake’s eyes went immediately to the Avanti, which was parked on the left side, facing outward. It was painted in a simple two-tone scheme, white on the top and the wings, candy-apple red on the bottom of the fuselage, below the windows. It had obviously been cleaned and polished for his particular viewing and it absolutely gleamed under the overhead lights.

He only had a moment to look at it, however, before his attention was pulled to the gathering of men standing around next to it. There were five of them in a cluster. Three were wearing business suits, one a pair of work overalls, and one a pair of jeans and a loose-fitting sweater. Two of the men in the suits were large men, intimidating in appearance, with expressionless faces and watchful eyes. They stood just behind the man in the jeans. The other suit was a smaller man, slight in appearance, clean shaven, including his head, and with a pair of wire glasses perched on his nose. The man in the overalls was thin and wiry and reasonably young; no more than forty by appearance. The man in the jeans was the oldest-appearing of the group. He was moderately overweight and appeared out of shape. He sported a thick, carelessly groomed mustache and at least two days’ worth of beard stubble. He had a jovial, amused expression on his face. When he saw Jake and Jill and Travis enter the building, the expression of amusement kicked up by a factor of two, at least.

The five of them walked across the concrete floor and met Jake and the others halfway across. Sebastian stepped forward and made the introductions.

“Jefe,” he greeted the man in the jeans, “may I present Señor Kingsley to you. Jake, this is Señor Gomez, the current owner of the aircraft you are interested in.”

Gomez held out his hand. And then, in a moderately accented English, he said, “Jake Kingsley! May I call you Jake?”

“Of course, Señor Gomez,” Jake replied, shaking with him.

“Call me Eddie,” Gomez said, “like a parcero! It’s an honor to make your acquaintance. My children are great admirers of your music. And I’m a fan as well, mostly of your newer, solo material.”

“Thank you… uh… Eddie,” Jake said, feeling decidedly strange to be calling the man that.

“And this,” Eddie said, pulling the slight member of the suit brigade forward, “is Nicolas Sanchez. Nick is my primary personal finance account manager. It is he who has been speaking to your accountant about your possible acquisition of the Avanti.”

Jake shook with him—his grip was weak and effeminate—and then introduced Jill to Nick and Eddie both.

“It’s nice to meet you, Señor Gomez,” Jill told the man. “And it’s nice to finally speak to you in person, Nick.”

“You as well,” Nick returned, his eyes looking everywhere but Jill’s face. It reminded Jake of Eric the violinist.

The rest of the introductions were made. The man in the overalls was Samuel Lopez, the primary mechanic who took care of the routine maintenance on the aircraft and who arranged for it to be delivered to Cali—where the Colombian Piaggio maintenance facility was located—

when it needed its B checks or C checks. So far, according to Lopez, the plane had required no repairs that could not be done here in the hangar. Eddie introduced him to first Jake and then to Travis. Fortunately, Samuel spoke pretty good English.

The two large men in the suits were not introduced, not by name anyway. “They’re just my security staff,” Eddie said dismissively. “You know how it is. Just pretend they’re not there.”

“Will do,” Jake said, hiding his nervousness. He was pretty sure that both of the “security staff” were packing guns under their suit jackets. He had seen the bulges when they had turned their bodies to check the entrances on what seemed routine scans. And they definitely both had those little earpiece communication devices in their ears—just like those the Secret Service agents protecting Slick Willie wore. It was going to be very hard to pretend they weren’t there.

“All right then,” Eddie said. “Now that we all know each other, how about we go take a look at the plane? That’s why you’re here, right, Jake?”

“That’s right,” Jake said, his nervousness easing a bit. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“Let us wait no longer then,” Eddie said. He waved toward the aircraft.

Jake took it in once again as they walked over to it, getting a good, long look at it this time.

It was a twin-engine turboprop propellor-driven aircraft, the fastest, most fuel efficient propellor-driven business-class plane in existence. It could climb at up to three thousand feet per minute to an altitude of up to forty-one thousand feet, could cruise at over three hundred knots, and had a range of more than fifteen hundred miles. The engines were mounted on the wings near the back of the aircraft and the propellors faced backwards instead of forward, making it a “pusher” not a “puller” like most prop-driven airplanes. This equaled increased cabin room and a much quieter ride. In order to offset the weight imbalance caused by mounting the primary wings, with their heavy engines and their internal fuel tanks, further aft than on a standard aircraft, the entire fuselage itself was shaped like an airfoil and actually provided a sizable portion of the lift. As a final balancing and control measure, there were two small wings attached just behind the nose, giving the front of the plane an appearance similar to a hammerhead shark. Jake had thought the nose wings looked incredibly cool ever since he had first seen them in Phoenix, but it was not until the flight to Bogota and a discussion about the aircraft with Travis did he come to understand the actual purpose of them.

“The main reason is for stall protection,” the mechanic had explained. “If you get the aircraft in a stall situation with the weight of the engines and the fuel that far aft, the nose will want to go up. You can’t recover from the stall if the nose goes up. The nose wings, however, change that equation. They’re designed in the weight/balance algorithm to support the weight of the nose and the cockpit just enough to keep it balanced in flight. If you stall, they will stop producing lift before the main wings do. That ensures that your nose will drop down as you approach stall conditions, thus allowing you to recover.”

“That makes sense,” Jake said, impressed by the man’s knowledge of and enthusiasm for the aircraft.

That enthusiasm was showing quite plainly now.

“I work on fifteen or twenty of these a year,” he said, “and I never get tired of looking at them. It’s an engineering marvel.”

“Indeed, it is,” agreed Eddie with a smile and a nod. “I fell in love with the aircraft the first time I looked at one. I knew I had to have it for myself.”

“I know what you’re saying,” Jake said, reaching out and caressing the silver five-bladed propellor on the left-hand side.

Eddie patted Jake on the back—a pat that was hard enough to qualify as a pound. “It’s a good thing to be in a position in life in which we are able to go out and get the toys we desire, isn’t it, Jake?”

Jake looked at the man and nodded meaningfully. “You got that right, Eddie,” he told him.

“It’s a very good thing.”

Eddie chuckled—drug lord or not, he was a very jovial man. “It’s been a good plane,” he said. “I’ve gone on many adventures in her. I am saddened to let her go, but… well… the Citation is a little bigger and a little faster than the Avanti. It was time to make the change.”

He looked sharply at Jake. “If I agree to sell her to you, you’ll take care of her like you would a lady? Make sure she is maintained and that you take her out on a regular basis?”

“Absolutely,” Jake promised, now caressing the empennage as they made their way around it in a circle. “She’ll be flown almost daily when I’m working, making the commute between my home in San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles and then back again at the end of the day.”

“Very nice,” Eddie said approvingly. “How long of a flight is that?”

“In this thing… about twenty-five minutes or so each way, from wheels-up to touchdown.

Of course, that is not all we will be using it for. With the speed and range of this beauty—and the fact that it has a bano—my wife and I can take weekend hops all over the western US just for the hell of it. And when we fly up to Oregon for recording sessions, we can hop up into Canada, over to Glacier Park, or go skiing at Schweitzer.”

“I didn’t know you skied, Jake,” Jill said.

“I don’t,” Jake said. “But this might be a good time to learn.”

“It is a rather expensive hobby, I understand,” said Nicolas, clear disapproval in his tone.

“I was just about to point that out,” Jill said, delighted. “What with all the equipment, travel, lodging, potential medical expenses from injury.”

“Not to mention missed productivity if one should become injured and unable to perform one’s customary duties,” added Nicolas.

“Exactly!” said Jill.

Eddie shook his head and gave a little roll of the eyes. “Accountants,” he said sadly. “It seems they are the same no matter what their nationality.”

Jake smiled. “I was just about to point that out,” he said.

They continued their trip around the plane—Jake pausing to caress the hammerhead wings at the nose—and then finally came to the door on the left side, just behind the cockpit area.

Señor Gomez was not entirely sure how to open the thing, so Sebastian stepped forward and performed the action for him. A small stairway was folded down from the bottom of the door and Jake stepped inside, followed by Eddie. Everyone else stayed outside in the hangar.

It was dark in the interior, the air a little musty, but Jake could plainly see the setup. It was very similar to the aircraft he had ridden in with Austin on the trip from Phoenix to Denver, the standard business-transport arrangement. There were six luxurious seats behind the cockpit, the first two facing forward, the second two facing aft, the third two facing forward. Between the second and third sets, wooden tables could be pulled out from the walls. Behind the third set of seats was a sink and a small bar. Behind that were three more seats, all facing sideways, two on the left side, one on the right. Immediately behind that was a small door that led into the tiny bathroom. There was no cockpit door installed, so it would be easy for the pilot of the aircraft to converse with the passengers, especially those immediately behind the cockpit. The lights were all recessed. The interior color was a soft beige that was pleasant on the eyes. Like the one he had flown on before, the cockpit was equipped with computerized digital instruments with analog backups and had the Garmin integrated navigation package.

“What do you think?” asked Eddie after Jake finished the tour of the interior.

“I like it,” he told the businessman. “In fact, I love it. I want it.”

“Very good,” Eddie said, pleased. “I like a man who goes after what he wants.”

“It’s the only way to live life,” Jake replied, still looking into the cockpit and envisioning himself in that left hand seat.

“Well then,” Eddie said, “I understand that you brought your mechanic with you to examine the maintenance records and the aircraft itself, correct?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “That’s correct.”

“Well then, how about we let he and Samuel get to that? And I’m sure Sebastian will be helpful to their cause as well.”

“Sounds good,” Jake said, heading to the doorway.

“And I’m sure that Nicolas and Señorita Yamashito have their own things to discuss,” Eddie said, following behind. “We have already agreed upon a price for the aircraft, but they must start discussing things like inspections and transfer of funds and escrow accounts and all of those things that accountants like to go on about.”

“Yes,” Jake said, stepping back out into the hangar. “I’m sure they do.”

“That is likely to take a few hours, correct?” Eddie asked, casting his gaze on Jill and Nick, who were already putting their heads together over in the corner.

“At least,” Jake agreed.

“Well then, since you and I seem to be without much to do until that time, how about we pop out for a drink or two?”

“Pop out… for a drink?” Jake asked softly.

“Right!” Eddie said. “There’s a wonderful bar just a few miles from here. I would so love to enjoy a few local brews in the company of one of the world’s most famous musicians.”

“Uh… well…” Jake said hesitantly, not at all comfortable with this idea. This was, after all, Colombia, a country known for political kidnappings and the ransoming of the victims of this crime. And he was being invited to climb into a car alone with a man who may or may not be a Colombian drug lord.

“Is there a problem with this, Jake?” Eddie asked, his eyes probing into Jake’s.

“Uh… well… not really, it’s just that… well… I am an American and this is not America… and I’m not sure how things work and all…”

“I assure you,” Eddie said, “you are perfectly safe in my company.”

“I’m sure I am,” Jake said, “but I don’t really have much of your money on me. Only a couple thousand pesos apart from what I have to pay the limo driver.”

“The drinks will be on me,” Eddie promised. “I insist upon it.”

“Oh… well… in that case…” he tried for a second to come up with another reason to refuse the invite, failed to do so, and then decided: What the hell? How often do you get a chance to have a drink with an alleged Colombian drug lord? And he’s going to buy! “I guess I will accept then.”

“Excellent,” Eddie said. He looked at the one of the members of his ‘security team’ and gave a nod. The nod was returned, and the man began to speak quietly, his hand covering his mouth. “Let’s head to the door. My vehicle will be here momentarily.”

Jake told Jill and Travis where he was going. They gave him a few concerned looks but said nothing. He then accompanied Eddie to the hangar’s man-door, where they had entered. Sure enough, the black SUV was now sitting out there, the driver standing next to the open rear door.

“After you, Jake,” Eddie invited.

“Thank you,” Jake said politely.

Still thinking this was a bad idea, he got into the back of the SUV and settled in. The back seat was huge, equipped with a bar and entertainment center. Jake could not help but notice that in addition to this the window glass seemed considerably thicker than what he was accustomed to. And when the driver closed the door after Eddie and the two security guys found their seats, it seemed he had to use a significant amount of force to do so, and the door slammed with a much louder noise than what was normal. Jake realized that the SUV was not stock, but armored, designed to be resistant to small arms fire.

Jesus, he thought nervously. Is it too late to back out of this side-trip?

It was. The SUV pulled away a moment later and started heading for the airport’s exit. A minute after that, they were on the main highway, heading north through the lush hills.

“Do you enjoy a good smoke, Jake?” Eddie asked him.

“Smoke? Uh… that depends on what you mean by that.”

“Cigars, of course,” Eddie said. “I have some fine Cubans here if you would like to partake.” With that, he opened a compartment next to the bar, revealing it to be a small humidor. Inside were ten or so tightly wrapped stogies.

“I do enjoy a good cigar when the occasion is right,” Jake allowed.

“Does this seem like such an occasion?” Eddie asked.

“You know… it really kind of does.”

“Excellent,” Eddie said, pulling two of the cigars out and then closing the humidor. He handed one to Jake. It was a Don Arturo Especial, which Jake knew sold for about six thousand dollars a box.

They prepped their cigars and lit up, blowing the smoke out into the back of the vehicle, where most of it was sucked up by a ventilation system that was also a few notches above stock. It was perhaps the finest cigar that Jake had ever smoked, smooth, yet with a delicious bite on the exhale. If he was going to his doom, at least he was going in style.

But he was not going to his doom. Instead, they came out of the hills and into a small upscale suburban area that Eddie identified as Chia. There, just south of a college campus and just west of a row of high-class nightclubs and restaurants, they parked in front of an old, colonial style building. The sign out front read Conquistar el Dia. Jake knew enough Spanish to translate this one on his own.

“Conquer the Day?” he asked. “Is that the name of the place?”

“It is,” Eddie answered. “It is one of the oldest bars in Chia, dating back to well before the town became a mere suburb of Bogota.”

“I like the name,” Jake said.

“You will like the place as well,” Eddie assured him. “A simple working-class bar frequented by simple working-class Colombians. Come on. Let us go enjoy some beer.”

“Let’s do it,” Jake said.

The door opened. The two security guys got out first, looked up and down the street and then nodded to Eddie. He and Jake then exited the vehicle, smoldering cigars still in hand. The rain was still coming down, so they quickly moved under the awning that stood over the front door. One of the two security men then entered the establishment. Jake tried to follow but the second security man, who had stayed outside, held up his hand, motioning for him to hold up for now.

“They’re just making sure that… you know… we’ll be able to find a place to sit once we’re in there,” Eddie explained.

“Of course,” Jake said. He took another puff on his cigar and let the smoke drift off into the rain.

A minute went by and the security man, apparently having been given the okay on his earpiece, gave another nod. He opened the door to allow Eddie and Jake to enter. Do these guys ever talk? Jake wondered as he stepped through into the bar.

Conquistar el Dia was like pretty much every other working-class bar Jake had ever been in.

There was music playing from the speakers. There was a long wooden bar that ran the length of one wall, and it had a large mirror behind it, racks and racks of booze bottles stacked in front of the mirror, a half dozen or so blue jeaned and pullover shirted men sitting at the bar with a few modestly dressed women. There were cocktail tables scattered about here and there with a few more men and women sitting at them. There was a tattered old billiards table in one corner and a few electronic dart boards in another. There were a few differences from American bars, however. The thick haze of cigarette smoke was one thing—smoking in bars had been

outlawed in California a few years back. The fact that all of the conversation, all of the signs on the walls, the posters, the advertisements, even the music, were in Spanish was another.

That conversation seemed to fade out to nothingness once Eddie and Jake entered.

Everyone seemed to be staring at them for a moment. And then, slowly, everyone turned their eyes away and went back to their own business, although at a lower volume than before. The security man who had entered first was standing at a corner of the bar, where several empty seats were available. He pointed to them.

“Let’s head over,” Eddie suggested.

“Let’s do it,” Jake said.

He followed Eddie over and they grabbed seats next to each other. Once they were seated, the two security men took up separate positions: one by the restroom door, the other by the main door. Jake looked from one to the other for a moment and then shrugged it off.

“So…” he said, turning to his host. “What’s good here?”

“Have you ever tried Club Colombia Brava?” Eddie asked.

“I never have,” Jake told him.

“It’s one of the better brews made by one of our national breweries,” he explained. “A flavorful pilsner with a healthy kick.”

“Sounds good,” Jake said.

One of the bartenders came over. He was a man in his late forties, his face weathered by time and likely alcoholism. He sported a mustache almost as thick and unruly as Eddie’s. His eyes appeared to be nervous as he looked at his two customers. He said something in rapid-fire Spanish. Jake was able to understand just enough to gleam that he was welcoming them to Conquistar el Dia and that he considered it an honor that they were patronizing the establishment.

“Gracias,” Eddie responded. He then fired back some Spanish of his own. Jake followed along enough to get that Eddie was telling him that his friend here was from America, was a famous musician, and that they would very much enjoy two Bravas from the tap.

“En sequida, Señor, ” the bartender said. He then quickly pulled two glasses down and went to the tap.

He returned less than a minute later, two frosty glasses of an amber colored beer in hand.

He set them down before them on cocktail napkins.

“Gracias,” Eddie told him. He then pulled out a leather wallet. “Cuanto te debo?”

The bartender shook his head sternly and spit out another rapid-fire burst of Spanish; the gist of which Jake understood was that Señor Gomez’s money was no good here.

Eddie smiled and nodded approvingly. “Gracias, Gracias,” he said, his eyes warm. He put his wallet away and then turned to Jake. “I make a lot of donations to local charities here in Chia,”

he explained.

“I see,” Jake said with a nod. He picked up his beer and had a sniff. It smelled like beer.

“A toast,” Eddie said. “To unfettered business dealings.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Jake told him. And he did. The beer was actually quite good. Not as good as Lighthouse Ale, but it blew any mass-produced American beer right out of the water.

And it did indeed pack quite a punch. After only one, Jake felt the definite beginnings of a strong buzz in his head.

“Do you play darts, Jake?” Eddie asked him.

“I have been known to throw a few,” Jake allowed.

Eddie smiled and nodded in the direction of the dart boards. “Perhaps you would accept a challenge from me?”

“Perhaps,” Jake said. “Is it the same game here as it is in the states?”

“Where do you think the dart boards come from?” Eddie asked. “We start at three hundred and one and work down to zero.”

“That’s how we play it all right,” Jake said. “Let’s do it.”

“Of course, the game is a bit more entertaining if a wager is involved,” Eddie said.

“True,” Jake agreed, “but I don’t have much Colombian money on me, as I mentioned.”

“I have enough of that,” Eddie said. “I propose a more lucrative wager.”

“Such as?” Jake asked.

“Three out of five,” Eddie said. “If you win, I take fifty thousand American dollars off the agreed-to price of the Avanti.”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Interesting,” he said slowly. “And if I lose?”

“You add fifty thousand American to the price.”

Jake smiled a little. He was sure he could beat this guy. But then he had a second thought.

Did he really want to be perceived as hustling a Colombian drug lord? “Uh… well… Eddie, before I agree to the wager, I think I should make a disclosure.”

“Yes?”

“I am very good at darts. Not only do I play it when I go out to a bar, I have one of these machines in the entertainment room of my house and practice quite frequently. My wife and I play almost every time we go out to a pub… and we rarely lose.”

“I will consider myself advised,” Eddie said. “Is it a bet?”

Jake held out his hand. “It’s a bet.”

They shook on it. And then they went to play, carrying their beers and their cigars with them. Jake quickly found out that Eddie was quite good at the game as well. But he was not quite good enough. It took all five games to declare a winner, but Jake edged him out in the end, putting the last dart in the double 10 slot to bring his score down from 20 to exactly 0.

“Well then,” Eddie said, a smile still on his face. “I guess that’s it.”

“Yep,” Jake said, eyeing him a little nervously, but the man did not seem the least bit upset that he had just lost fifty thousand American dollars.

“How about we have one more and then hit the road?” Eddie asked.

“Sounds like a plan,” Jake said.

They returned to the bar and Eddie ordered up two more Bravas. As they sipped them, Eddie said, “It’s been quite enjoyable socializing with you, Jake. If you ever come back to Colombia, I hope we can do it again.”

“It’s been fun hanging out with you too, Eddie,” Jake told him, and, to his surprise, he found he was telling the truth. It had been a bit disconcerting, but it had been fun. “And if you’re ever in the states, I’d love to show you a few of my favorite places as well.”

“I will keep the invitation in mind,” he said. He took a large drink of his beer and then looked at Jake meaningfully. “There is one thing I would like to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

“Those stories one hears. The stories about you snorting yeyo out of that zunga’s butt crack?”

“Yeah,” Jake said slowly. “I’ve heard those stories.”

“As have I,” Eddie said. “Are they true?”

Jake looked at the man and smiled a little. “Before I answer that, Eddie, can I ask you something?”

“Anything, parcero,” he said. “Anything at all.”

“I’m told you’re in the import/export business, that that is how you made enough money to buy a business jet.”

“That is correct,” Eddie said with a nod. “I have been very successful.”

“Obviously,” Jake said. “My question is: what exactly do you import and export?”

Eddie stared at him for a moment, his eyes darkening momentarily. Jake began to think maybe he had had one too many Bravas while playing darts. But then the eyes softened, and Eddie chuckled.

“I export coffee,” he said at last. “You have heard we grow world famous coffee here in Colombia.”

“I’ve drank some of it,” Jake said. “It is quite good.”

“That is how I make my living,” Eddie said. “I export coffee and I import American and Asian consumer electronics. The business has been very kind to me.”

“Yes, it has,” Jake agreed.

“And of the yeyo and the zunga?” Eddie asked.

“It never happened,” Jake told him, shaking his head. “Nothing but media lies.”

“Oh… I see,” Eddie said, visibly disappointed.

“Sometimes the truth is not nearly as interesting as the story, huh?”

“You speak correctly, Jake.”

 

 

*****

 

 

When they returned to the hangar, they found that the two mechanics were the only people still physically working on something. They had the cowling off the number one engine and Travis was standing on a step ladder, peering inside with a flashlight while Samuel read numbers to him from a logbook. Nick, the accountant, was sitting by himself, reading through some notes and running some figures with a pocket calculator. Jill and Sebastian the pilot were sitting at one of the tables drinking coffee and having what appeared to be an animated conversation. Jake was surprised to see that Jill was smiling and giggling at whatever they were discussing. He had never known Jill to giggle before, would not have thought she was even capable of it had he not seen it with his own eyes.

As the two men came inside, Jill quickly excused herself from Sebastian and Nick quickly folded up the notes he was working on. They both came over to where Jake and Eddie stood and put their business faces back on.

“Well?” Eddie asked them. “What have you accomplished?”

“We’re sure we have a preliminary agreement worked out,” Nick said. “At least we do until the lawyers get their hands on it.”

“Yes, the vampiros,” Eddie spat, contempt clear in his voice. “They have to have their greasy little hands in everything.”

“Some things truly are universal,” Jake put in.

“Indeed,” Eddie said with a sigh. “That is for another day, however. Tell me what you came up with.”

“Well,” said Nick, “the sale will be conducted in United States dollars to be deposited by Jake’s lender into a Colombian escrow account in Bogota. The official inspection of the aircraft will be performed by American inspectors. Señor Gomez, you will pay for the inspection itself, Jake, you will pay for the travel expenses, lodging, and transportation of the inspection team from the United States to Bogota. Assuming the inspection is satisfactory, we will enter a forty-five-day escrow, during which either party may withdraw from the deal without penalty.

Señor Gomez will continue to pay for maintenance and storage of the asset until the close of escrow and will continue to pay for storage after closing until one of Jake’s agents takes possession of the aircraft, as long as that does not take longer than sixty days from closing.”

Eddie nodded thoughtfully as he heard this. “Sounds reasonable enough to me,” he said.

“Me too,” Jake agreed.

“Of course,” said Jill, “this is just the very basics of the agreement. There are some other details involved—things like funding transfer procedures, use of the aircraft during the escrow period, unanticipated delays caused by weather or political upheaval. Should we discuss those things now?”

“Uh… no,” Eddie said. “Not unless Jake wants to.”

Everyone looked at Jake. He looked at Jill. “Jill, is there anything in this agreement you and Nick have come up with that should concern me?”

“Other than the fact that you are spending a huge amount of money on a depreciating asset, no,” she said.

“Well, all right then,” Jake said. “I guess I’m happy.”

“We have a deal then?” Eddie asked.

“Assuming I get a good report from Travis, and assuming that the vampiros and the loan sharks and the international trade people keep their noses reasonably out of it, yes. We have a deal.”

They shook hands on it. Eddie then turned to Nick. “Oh, and by the way, I’ll need you to take fifty thousand dollars off of the agreed upon price.”

Nick looked at him sharply. “Fifty thousand dollars, jefe? For what reason?”

Eddie shrugged. “Jake and I made a wager playing darts. He won.”

Nick’s eyes widened almost comically. “You lost fifty thousand dollars playing darts, jefe?

Darts?!”

“It’s only money,” Eddie said. “And he won fair and square.”

 

*****

 

“You gambled fifty thousand dollars on a game of darts?” Jill asked Jake angrily as soon as their limousine pulled away from the airport services office.

“I won,” Jake said defensively.

“That’s not the point!” she said. “You might have lost!”

“I didn’t think so at the time I made the bet,” he replied. “I did get a little nervous when we got to game five though. It turned out he was a much better thrower than I gave him credit for.

But I pulled it out at the end. Sank the final shot right in the double ten for the win.” He smiled a little, miming the act of throwing a dart. And then something occurred to him. “Hey, that rhymes.”

“Jake!” Jill said, quite exasperated now.

“All right, all right,” Jake said. “I promise I will not gamble with Colombian drug lords anymore. Are you happy?”

“Not really,” she said.

“Good,” he said, then turned to Travis. “Now then. What did you discover in your examination?”

“The maintenance records are perfect,” the mechanic said. “Every scheduled maintenance has been done on time and in the correct manner using the correct parts. There is, of course, the possibility that the records were faked—I have heard that such fraud happens in second and third world countries from time to time—but I did randomly check several of the replacement parts that were logged and had Samuel read off the part numbers from the logs.

They matched in every case, which suggests that the records are accurate.”

“So… the plane looks good then?”

“It looks very good,” he said. “Lovingly cared for, in fact. Of course, the official inspection that will be required by the bank before approval of your loan will be much more thorough than my preliminary look, but I’ve been working on these planes for three years now. I am confident it will check out.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jake said happily.

“Yes, just wonderful,” Jill said sourly.

“Come on, Jill,” Jake said, giving her a little shoulder shove. “Quit being such a downer.

This is a happy moment for me. I’m buying a dream here and it looks like the deal is going to go down.”

“That’s why it’s such a downer. You still have to come up with the nine hundred thousand dollar down payment. Have you forgotten about that?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten about it,” he said. “I told you this already. I agreed to play at the Tsunami Sound Festival in September. They’re paying me a million-two for that gig. After taxes and Paulie’s cut are taken out, that will go a long way toward covering the down.”

“But the down payment will be due at the start of escrow,” Jill said. “That could potentially be in as little as thirty days from now. You won’t be getting the money from Music Alive until after you complete your performance obligations.”

“Uh… well… yeah,” Jake said. “I didn’t really think that part all the way through. I kind of assumed that Stillson would advance me the payment.”

“Pauline told me that he laughed when that was suggested to him,” Jill said.

“Yeah… my bad on that one,” Jake offered.

Jill shook her head. “If you go through with this purchase, I am still going to have to cash out a number of your certificates of deposit to cover the down payment. You are still going to endure some significant early withdrawal penalties, not to mention the loss of interest earnings.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Like I said: my bad.”

 

*****

 

After dinner that night, Jake decided to take a shot at getting hold of Laura. He had last spoken to her the day before leaving for Dallas. She was aware that he was going to Bogota to look at an Avanti. She still did not know how much the Avanti was actually going to cost. At some point he was going to have to tell her—he did realize that—but he was kind of hoping that point would come after the deal was already in progress. After all, it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?

He consulted a pocket calendar he habitually carried with him to see where she was on this day. On the page for April, he looked at the 15th and saw that the Celia Valdez tour was currently in Bismarck, North Dakota, but there was no actual show tonight because it was an extended travel day. He then checked his time zone map. Bogota was three hours ahead of California.

North Dakota was one hour ahead of California, which mean it was two hours behind Bogota.

He checked his watch. It was 7:45 PM local time, which meant it was 5:45 PM in Bismarck.

Which meant that Laura may or may not be at dinner, may or may not be in her room, where she may or may not have a lesbian groupie’s face between her legs. Well… if he could not get hold of her, at least he could say he tried.

He picked up the hotel phone and went to work. First, he called the hotel operator, who transferred him to the international operator, who demanded credit card information from him before continuing any further. He read off the number to her, wondering dubiously if the

number was going to be spread far and wide across Colombia by this time tomorrow, and then listened to a series of beeps and boops as she attempted to make the connection. Finally, in the earpiece, a phone began to ring.

There was a click and a faint female voice said: “Marriott Hotel, Bismarck. How can I direct your call?” The connection was scratchy and echoing, but he was able to understand her.

“Hi,” Jake said. “Can you ring Lynn Dolan’s room for me, please?”

“I’m sorry, who?” she said. “I couldn’t quite hear you. We have a bad connection.”

“Yeah, I’m calling from Colombia,” Jake said, speaking louder.

“South Carolina?” she asked.

“No, not South Carolina,” he said. “Lynn Dolan’s room, please.”

“Lynn Dolan?”

“That’s right,” he nearly shouted. “Lynn Dolan.”

Lynn Dolan was the name that Laura registered under when traveling on the tour. Using a fake name for hotel bookings was common practice among famous musicians, actors, and other high-profile people. It kept fans and haters and just plain weirdos from easily learning what room the celebrity was staying in and from calling them as Jake was now doing. The traditional way to come up with such a name—although not everyone held to the tradition—

was to use your middle name for your first name and the name of the street you grew up on for your last name. Thus, Laura Lynn Best (now Kingsley) who had lived the first twelve years of her life on Dolan Street in the town of Pocatello, Idaho before her family (minus her oldest brother) had moved to Los Angeles, became Lynn Dolan. Jake’s name out on the road had been Glenn Sutter. Celia’s was Marie Vasquez.

The phone rang twice and then there was a click. “Hello?” said a female voice. One did not answer a hotel phone with one’s name—fake or real—while on tour. Though the connection was, if anything, even more scratchy now, Jake recognized his wife’s voice.

“Hey, hon,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Me who?” she asked, a little teasing in her tone. “I get lots of guys calling me out on the road. You need to be more specific.”

Jake chuckled. “The guy who is buying you an airplane with a bathroom in it,” he offered.

“Hmmm,” she said. “That narrows it down to five or six.”

He laughed again. “You’re funny,” he told her. “How are things in Bismarck?”

“Cold,” she said. “We flew in this afternoon and Suzie had to use the anti-ice boots on the wings. There is still snow on the ground and the high temperature was like forty-two degrees today.”

“You gotta love spring in North Dakota, huh?”

“Why would anyone build a city here? That’s what I’m wondering. The hotel is nice though.”

“That’s good. I never did a show there myself. It wasn’t economical back in my day.”

“Hey, their money is as good as anyone’s, right?”

“That’s the theory,” he agreed.

“Are you in Bogota?” she asked.

“Yeah, in the hotel right now. Just finished dinner a little bit ago.”

“How’s the weather there?”

“Cool and rainy,” he said. “Reminds me of Seattle.”

“That’s how it was when I was there too,” she said. “And it was hard to breathe. It was a chore getting through the show at that altitude.”

“I can imagine,” Jake said.

“You saw the plane?” she asked.

“I did,” he confirmed. “Travis—he’s the mechanic I told you about—checked it out and says it looks good. Jill has been talking to the accountant for the owner. It looks like maybe we’ll be able to make this deal happen.”

“That’s great!” she said. “You’ve settled on a price then?”

“Uh… well… we’re still talking about that,” he said. “Nothing is set in stone.”

“Oh… I see,” she said. “But you think you’ll be able to close on it?”

“As long as the official inspection doesn’t find anything amiss,” he said. “Hopefully in the next month or so we’ll be able to start the escrow process.”

“I can’t wait to see it,” she said. “And to ride in it.”

“You’re going to love it,” he promised.

“I’m sure I will,” she said.

“How’s the tour going?” he asked to change the subject away from the price of the airplane.

“We’re doing good. Everyone is fully in the groove and the pap has pretty much stopped hounding Celia about the whole Mindy Snow thing.”

“That’s good,” he said. “And how about you? Made any new friends lately?”

She giggled a naughty giggle, knowing exactly what he was referring to. “Not yet on this leg,” she said. “Although the pressure is building. I was thinking of maybe putting in a request at tomorrow night’s show.”

“Are you sure they have lesbians in Bismarck?” he asked.

She giggled again. “I guess I’ll find out,” she said.

They spoke for a few more minutes, until the scratchiness and the echoes of the connection became bad enough they could hardly understand each other. They then bid each other a good night and told each other “I love you”. They did not promise to call tomorrow. They never did.

Jake hung up the phone and then went to the window and looked out into the rainy night. It was still early, and their flight did not leave until just before noon the next day. He picked up the phone again, this time dialing direct to room 1812.

“This is Travis,” a voice said.

“T, it’s Jake,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Travis said. “There is nothing to do. I can’t even watch TV. It’s all in Spanish.”

“There is something to do,” Jake said. “Let’s go down to the bar and drink.”

“Well… I guess I could do that if you want.”

“Way to show enthusiasm,” Jake told him. “I’ll meet you down there.”

He hung up the phone, picked up his wallet (which he had refilled with sixty thousand pesos on the way back from the airport) and his room key and headed out the door. Five minutes later, he was down in the bar on the second floor of the hotel. He grabbed two seats near the end.

The bartender did not speak English, but she did not have to. Jake had learned the proper phrasing the night before. “Dos guaro en las rocas,” he told her, holding up two fingers in case she did not know what Dos meant.

“Si,” she said with a brazen smile. “En seguida, Señor. ” It was obvious that she knew who he was. And Jake instinctively knew that if he were to suggest a little study session on international relations up in his hotel room, she would jump at the chance. And if this had happened five years ago, before he became involved with Laura, he might very well have suggested such a thing. She was quite attractive, with dark hair, a curvy body, full lips, and a healthy set of chichis. But alas, his international relations days were behind him now. A pity.

Travis arrived just as she was putting the drinks down. Jake gave her a wad of pesos from his wallet and let her figure out how much to take. It was possible that she could be ripping him off, but he did not really care. To him the Colombian money did not even seem real. It was like he was paying for his drinks with Monopoly money.

“Thanks for coming on this trip with me, T,” Jake told the mechanic as they hefted their first drinks.

“I’m glad I did,” he said, looking around the room at the crowd. “This has been a very remarkable experience.”

“For me too,” Jake said. “For one, I discovered a new kind of booze. For two, I’ll probably be getting a new airplane soon. Life is good.”

“You do seem to have an interesting life,” Travis allowed. “That man, Eddie… the one you’re buying the plane from… is he really… you know… a cocaine dealer?”

Jake shrugged. “He says he makes his money from exporting coffee and importing consumer electronics.”

“Enough money to buy a Cessna Citation?”

“Lots of people drink coffee,” Jake said.

“His security guards were packing guns,” Travis said. “And they had those earpiece thingies.”

“Yeah… I noticed that.”

“Does that seem like the sort of thing a coffee exporter would require?”

“Well… maybe not in the states, but here in Colombia? Who knows?”

“I suppose,” Travis said. “Anyway, it’s a beautiful country. Did you see all the mountains and the rivers and the lakes when we were flying in?”

“I saw them,” Jake said.

“Nice place to visit, but I don’t think I’d want to live here.”

“True,” Jake agreed. “But the drinks are cheap.” He turned to the bartender and got her attention. “Señorita! Dos mas, por favor! ”

They drank and munched on spicy peanuts from little bowls on the bar. They did not talk all that much. Once he was done talking about engines and compression ratios and torque, Travis did not have all the much to say. And he did not seem all that interested in hearing any of Jake’s anecdotes from his life as a traveling musician. Jake was just about ready to call it a night—he had a pretty respectable drunk going on by this point—when a familiar looking man entered the bar from the direction of the lobby elevator. It was Sebastian, Eddie Gomez’s pilot.

He walked right up to the bar next to where Jake and Travis were seated, not noticing their presence.

“Sebastian?” Jake said, startling him a bit. He looked over and then his face relaxed when he saw who was addressing him.

“Jake,” he said. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Jake confirmed. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s okay,” the pilot said. “I thought it might be los tombos again.”

“Who?” Jake asked. He was unfamiliar with that expression.

“Never mind,” Sebastian said dismissively. “It’s nice to see you again, Jake.”

“Yeah… it’s been hours, right? What are you doing here?”

“Uh… well… I was… you know… visiting someone here in the hotel. Thought I would stop in for a quick one before I headed back home.”

Jake suddenly understood what this was all about. “Holy shit,” he said in wonder. “Did you bone Jill?”

Sebastian’s face gave all the answer he needed. “Uh… well… the fact of the matter is…”

“You did,” Jake said, laughing. “Jesus fucking Christ. I didn’t know she did that sort of thing.”

“Ohhh… well… wow. This is kind of awkward.”

“It is?” Jake asked. “How come?”

“Well… she is with you.”

“She’s my accountant,” Jake said. “I’ve never boned her. We don’t have that kind of a relationship.”

“You don’t?”

“No,” he said. “I mean, I used to have a crush on her back in fifth grade. Did she tell you we went to school together all the way from kindergarten to high school graduation?”

“Uh… no, that never came up in conversation,” he said.

“Hmm,” Jake said, pondering. “What made you think that Jill and I were bumping uglies?

You know I’m married, right?”

“Well, yes,” he said. “But in our culture, when a man travels with an attractive woman like Jill, it is generally just assumed that the two of them are… you know?”

“I see,” Jake said, nodding. “You think she’s attractive then?”

“She is very exotic,” he said. “I have never had a Japanese woman before. She intrigued me.”

“She’s third generation American,” Jake pointed out.

“Oh… I didn’t know that.”

“She doesn’t even speak Japanese.”

“I didn’t know that either.”

“Oh well… to each their own.” He then gave a glare to the pilot. “But hold on a second. You thought that she and I were getting it on, but you came here and did her anyway?”

“Uh… well… again, in our culture, when a woman is not the official partner of a man, she is considered fair game for other men to pursue.”

“Really?” Jake asked.

“Si,” Sebastian said.

“You’re making this shit up as you go along, aren’t you?” Jake asked.

Reluctantly, Sebastian nodded. “Si,” he said.

Jake chuckled and patted the pilot on the shoulder. “How about I buy you that drink?”

“Uh… sure,” Sebastian said. He ordered a vodka and tonic.

“Tell me something,” Jake said as the bartender prepared his drink for him.

“What’s that?”

“How was she?”

Sebastian smiled. “She was very passionate. It was almost like she had never been thoroughly possessed by a man before.”

“That may very well be the case,” Jake said. “As far as I know, she’s only dated accountants before.”

Sebastian’s eyes widened. “Madres de Dios,” he exclaimed. “That explains a lot.”

 

*****

 

American Airlines Flight 791 from Bogota to Dallas-Fort Worth took off on time into the misty rain the next morning. Travis, who had drunk almost eleven guaros on the rocks the night before, was asleep and snoring before they even reached cruising altitude. Jill was sitting next to Jake, in the window seat. She sat, staring out the window at the passing mountains and clouds, a pensive expression on her face.

“Are you doing okay, Jill?” Jake asked her. He was nursing a bit of a headache of his own, and not from the altitude of Bogota.

“Me?” she said softly.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re the only woman named Jill who is currently sitting next to me.”

“Oh… right,” she said and then gave a little giggle again. “Yes, I’m fine. Perfectly fine.”

“I can see that,” he said. “Did you… uh… have a good time in Colombia?”

“You know,” she said, “I really did. A much better time than I was anticipating.”

“That’s… uh… good to hear,” he said. “So… do you think you will be up for a return trip when the time comes to sign all the papers and make everything official.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Of course,” she said. “Whenever you need me to travel to Bogota, you just say the word and I’m there.”

Jake smiled. “Cool,” he said. “It really is an interesting place, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” she said with a smile. “Very interesting.”

 

 

 

Chapter 2

Tonight’s the Night

 

 

 

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

April 18, 1996

 

 

Suzie Granderson was behind the controls of the King Air as it turned onto final approach toward General Mitchell International Airport’s Runway 01-L. She was starting to get a little bit nervous as she still could not see the runway she was about to land on, could not see anything at all outside of the windows except a thick gray cloud cover. The autopilot was currently locked onto the ILS localizer for their runway and was dropping them down at a rate of six hundred feet per minute. According to the instruments, which Suzie had long since learned to trust with, quite literally, her very life and the lives of her passengers, she was right on the glideslope, poised to touch down neatly on the centerline of the runway. But she still needed to visualize the runway in order to accomplish that.

“Flaps to approach,” she told Njord, who was supposed have been flying the approach and landing leg, but Suzie had pulled rank when she heard the conditions at the airport on the ATIS.

“Flaps to approach,” Njord replied automatically as he manipulated the lever.

“Airspeed to one-two-five indicated,” she said next.

“Airspeed one-two-five indicated… set,” Njord said, spinning the dial on the auto throttle.

“Gear down,” she said next.

“Lowering gear,” Njord told her, pulling the handle and watching the indicator lights as the machinery whirred. Finally, he announced: “Three greens on the gear.”

“Three greens on the gear,” Suzie repeated. “Altitude?”

“One-one-two-five,” he told her.

“Okay,” she said, still alternating her eyes between the glideslope display and the gray nothingness outside. “The ceiling is supposed to be at one thousand. We should be coming out of it soon.”

“We should be,” Njord agreed.

The MKE approach controller told them they were clear for landing and that the winds were one-two knots from zero-zero-five. He then asked if they had the runway in sight.

“Not yet,” Njord replied. “We are still in zero visibility conditions.”

“Advise when runway in sight,” they were told.

They passed through eleven hundred feet and still there was nothing but gray fog and rain to be seen. And then a thousand. Suzie was starting to think that maybe they would have to abort the landing and divert somewhere else. They were rapidly approaching the decision altitude of two hundred feet above the ground. If they could not see the runway at that point, it would be unsafe to land. She was just about to verbalize this to Njord when finally, at just a smidge above nine hundred and fifty feet of altitude—only three hundred fifty above the runway elevation—they finally reached the ceiling of the cloud cover and broke into rainy but visible conditions. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw a subdivision of houses and acres and acres of soggy parkland below. And in front of them, just where she was expecting it, was the runway, its approach lights pulsing invitingly.

“There we go,” she said with a smile. “Report runway in sight. Flaps to full. Speed to one-one-zero.”

Njord reported the runway in sight and then repeated her other instructions back as he performed them. They continued to sink toward the runway.

“Check that auto-feather is set,” she said, reading off the final item on her landing checklist.

“Auto-feather is set,” Njord confirmed.

“All right then,” she said. “Let’s bring it down.”

She turned off the autopilot just as they cleared the perimeter fence of the airport. She throttled them back to ten percent and she pushed gently down on the yoke, adjusting their slope a bit. She used her feet on the rudder pedals to keep the nose pointed at the center line of the runway. They passed over the threshold and she pulled up on the yoke, flaring them for landing. A few seconds later, the rear wheels touched down gently on the wet pavement.

“Throttle to idle,” she said aloud as she eased the nose gear down. “No need for reverse thrust on this long of a runway.” They had already discussed this in the landing briefing, but it never hurt to reiterate things.

“Agreed,” Njord said. “Retracting the flaps.”

“Copy that,” Suzie said, steering them and using gentle braking motions to slow them down. The approach controller told them to exit the runway when able. They were able at the next exit. Suzie turned them to the left and they contacted the ground controller for directions to the general aviation terminal.

Ten minutes later, they were parked and going through the shutdown checklist. They powered down the engines and then the exterior lights and then the avionics before declaring that they were secure.

“Good flight,” Suzie told her copilot. “Sorry about taking that last leg from you, but I thought it best under the circumstances.”

“It’s your prerogative,” Njord told her grumpily, letting some of his true emotion show now that they were out of the sterile cockpit condition.

“Yes, it is,” she said simply. She did not like Njord one little bit—and the feeling was mutual, she had no doubt about that—but still, she had to work with him every day.

Njord looked like he wanted to say something else, but he did not. Instead, he turned and opened the cockpit door. On the other side were their seven passengers, all standing near the exit door, their bags in hand. All knew that they were forbidden from opening the door themselves unless the aircraft was actually on fire—"and even then,” they had all been told,

“if at all feasible, you’d still better fucking ask one of us first.”

“Welcome to Milwaukee, everyone,” Suzie told them. “As you no doubt noticed by now, the snow we had in Minneapolis has converted to rain here. It’s a perfectly dreary spring day here on Lake Michigan, with a temperature of forty-two degrees and a north wind—

presumably one of those icy-ass winds the Midwest is famous for—is blowing at twelve knots.”

“Wonderful,” Celia said. “Nothing like nice spring weather.” At their last two stops—

Duluth and Minneapolis—it had been snowing, heavily in the former, lightly in the latter, and very cold for late April. Unseasonably cold, the locals all told them, usually in an apologetic manner, as if they had been responsible for not setting up nicer weather for their visitors.

“How is the weather in Chicago?” asked Little Stevie. They would be flying there tomorrow to do three shows over four nights.

“More of the same for tomorrow,” Suzie told them. “It is, after all, on the same lake and is being hit with the same storm system. But the forecast says that Thursday and Friday it will clear up and return to more seasonable conditions.”

“Which means wind off the lake in Chicago,” said Celia.

“Most likely,” agreed Suzie with a shrug. “But at least we won’t have to fly above the clouds to see the sun.”

“At least there’s that,” she said. “Good landing, by the way. I was starting to get a little nervous when I couldn’t see the ground yet after the gear went down.”

“That’s why they make ILS systems,” Suzie said with a smile. “It was nothing. Routine.”

“Yeah,” Njord said bitterly. “It was so routine she took the leg from me.”

Suzie cast an irritated look at her copilot. He had a habit of blurting out crap like that—

disagreements between the two of them, his thoughts on Suzie’s abilities as a team leader, the fact that she would not give him any supervised PIC time to help build up his hours for his logbook—and it needed to stop. It undermined the confidence her passengers were supposed to have in their flight crew and it undermined morale.

“Anyway,” she said, “I saw when we parked that your limo is here. You are free to deplane and if we don’t see you at the hotel, we’ll see you here tomorrow for the Chicago flight.”

Everyone began to filter out the door and down the steps to the tarmac before making the rush through the rain to the waiting limo. Celia was the last to go. Before she stepped out, she turned to Suzie.

“Think you can scrounge us up a few cigars for tonight?” she asked.

This question served to alleviate a little bit of Suzie’s irritation with Njord. She was definitely up for a little balcony therapy in Celia’s room tonight, even if it was raining and windy. It had been more than a week since they had last done this. “I think I can probably come up with something,” she said.

Celia smiled. “I’ll be looking forward to it,” she said.

With that, she walked down the steps and out into the rain. She did not say anything to Njord or even look at him. He said nothing to her (though he did take a good long look at her ass as she walked away). This was pretty much the status quo between Njord and all of the female passengers and most of the male ones. They disliked the man and spoke to him as little as possible. The only one who seemed to enjoy his company in any way was Coop. The two of them liked to go to the hotel bars together and tell pussy stories to each other while trying to pick up women. The difference was that most of Coop’s pussy stories were true and most of Njord’s were embellishments at the least, out and out fabrications at worst.

“All right,” Njord said as soon as Celia’s derriere disappeared from his view. “How about we fuel this thing now, so we don’t have to worry about it tomorrow?”

Suzie thought this over for perhaps two seconds and then shook her head. “No,” she said.

“Let’s just get it secured for now and we’ll fuel in the morning. The weather might be better then.”

“Or it might be worse,” Njord said.

Suzie shook her head again. “If it’s much worse than this, we won’t be flying. We’ll do it tomorrow.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re the boss,” he said, though with far from the amount of respect such a statement should contain.

She looked at him pointedly. “Yes,” she said. “I am the boss. And that means you support my decisions, whether you agree with them or not. And it also means that you do not make snide little comments about my decisions, or about your personal opinions on my leadership skills, in front of the passengers.”

“I was just joking,” he said defensively.

“You were not just joking,” she said sternly. “You were undermining my authority and making the passengers aware that there is strife and disagreement between us. That erodes their faith in us. It makes them nervous about stepping onto the aircraft with us.”

This did not impress Njord. “So?” he asked. “It’s not like they have anyone else to fly them around to their little music shows.”

“At this moment in time, no they don’t. But what about for the next tour? What about when Jake Kingsley or Brainwash needs someone to fly them around for their shows? Those acts are also on the KVA label and KVA Records is an extremely valuable contract for our employers, Njord. Do you really think the big bosses would be happy if KVA decided to contract with another carrier for their future needs because you are making an ass out of yourself and making their musicians uncomfortable?”

“I think you’re reading too much into all this,” he said. “Is it that time of the month or something?”

She started to see red. Her fists clenched. She really wanted to strike the asshole with them, was pretty sure she could take him in a fair fight, but, only by invoking the years of training and discipline that her profession demanded, she held back—at least from using her fists. She stepped forward toward him and glared directly into his eyes.

“Listen to me, you fuckin’ weasel,” she told him, “if you ever say anything like that to me again, I go official and start filing reports with HR.”

“You’ve already done that,” he said, unimpressed. “Didn’t think I knew about your requests to have me reassigned to another aircraft? You’ve put in three of them since we started flying together.”

“Those were requests,” Suzie said. “Not official complaints. I called the bosses up and said that you and I have a personality conflict—which we do. I gave no details about the issue, just asked that you be sent somewhere else away from me. They turned down those requests because I would not answer their questions about my issues with you. You see, I’m not a narc. I would not report you to HR lightly. I have put up with a lot of shit from you in the name of the code we follow that what happens on the mission stays on the mission, but that shit ends today. If you ever utter a discouraging word about me in front of the passengers again, if you ever make a snide comment about my leadership abilities, and if you ever make some misogynistic fucking remark like you just made again, it is fucking on. Do you understand me?

I go to HR and tell everything, and you’ll be lucky to get a job de-icing wings on DC-fucking-9s flying out of Asshole Fissure, North Dakota. You get what I’m saying, Njord?”

Njord, suddenly looking nervous, held up his hands in appeasement. “Whoa, whoa, hold up a second here,” he said. “I think that maybe you’re misunderstanding things a little.”

“No, I’m not,” she said. “You’re a male chauvinist piece of shit who doesn’t like working with a female PIC and thinks you’re better than me even though I have ten times the flight hours you do. Even though I used to fly C5s all around the world, but this King Air is the biggest thing you’ve ever sat in the copilot’s seat for. You want to believe that you’re a better pilot than me just because you’re a man, fine. I don’t give a shit. But you will obey my fucking commands, you will do what I say, when I say it, and you will do it with a smile, especially in front of the passengers. One more fucking remark, Njord, just one more, no matter how slight, and it is on.

HR gets involved and I go for your fucking throat. Do I make myself clear?”

His face was red and his fists were now clenched, but he nodded. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said stiffly. “You make yourself clear.”

“Good,” she said lightly. “I’m glad we were able to clear that up. Now then, let’s get this aircraft secured so we can get to the hotel and check in.”

They got the aircraft secured. They then went to the hotel and got checked in. They did this with no unnecessary conversation.

 

*****

 

They were staying in the Hotel Pfister in downtown Milwaukee, just five minutes away from Bradley Center, home of the Milwaukee Bucks (who were not in the NBA playoffs yet again) and the site of tonight’s Celia Valdez concert. Suzie and Njord were given standard rooms on the third floor, Suzie in 307, Njord in 309. Suzie’s room featured a queen-sized bed, a small couch, a refrigerator, and a bathroom. The window looked out onto the back parking lot of the hotel, the lot where the valets parked guest vehicles.

Suzie had lunch in the hotel’s café shortly after checking in. She then went back to her room and spent about an hour making arrangements for the King Air to undergo an A-level maintenance check at Midway Airport while they were in Chicago. After that, she took a little nap. After awakening, she made her way back downstairs and had a little chat with the concierge.

“I’d like to get my hands on some Cuban cigars and have them delivered to my room before ten o’clock tonight,” she told him.

“But, Ms. Granderson,” the mid-forties, fussy little man told her, “surely you are aware that Cuban cigars are illegal for importation into the United States and are therefore rather hard to come by.”

She pulled out a wad of twenty dollar bills that Celia kept her supplied with just for such occasions. She peeled off five of them and slapped them down on his desk. “This would be the finder’s fee,” she told him. “Assuming you are able to scrounge up a box for me.”

His eyes widened as he saw the money. “Well… perhaps I might be able to get my hands on some.”

“I thought you might,” she said with a smile. “How much for a box of Montecristos?”

“That would run… oh… around four hundred dollars, I suppose, including the markup.”

She nodded and then peeled of another twenty of the twenties, putting them in a separate pile. “Now don’t even think of trying to fuck me and get me counterfeits,” she warned. “I know the difference; and I would take such an insult very personally, you know what I mean?”

“I would never do such a thing,” he said, clearly insulted by her suggestion. “I take my job very seriously.”

“Forgive me,” she said appeasingly. “I have every confidence in you.”

He picked up the money and made it disappear. “I will make sure that the item is delivered before ten o’clock,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Is there… uh… anything else I can arrange for you? Some marijuana perhaps? Or some cocaine? Or even… you know… some companionship?”

“No,” Suzie said. “The cigars will do me for now.”

“As you wish,” he said.

She went back to her room and watched TV for a little bit. When she got bored with this, she opened the book she had been reading and worked her way through a few dozen pages. This

made her feel sleepy, so she took another nap. She awoke just past 6:00 PM and headed downstairs again, where she ate dinner at a table by herself in the hotel restaurant. That brought her to 7:00 PM. At the arena, Celia and the band would now be dressed in their stage clothes and heading backstage to meet the locals. She had attended the show five times during the tour and was familiar with the routine.

She went back to her room and flipped on the television and channel surfed for a bit before finding that one of the cable stations was showing older episodes of Seinfeld one after the other. She smiled and settled in to watch. It was just as Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George were making their bet to see who could go the longest without masturbation, there was a knock at the door.

It was the concierge. He had a box in his hands. Suzie smiled, thanked him, and tipped him another twenty dollars for bringing them to her. Once the door was closed, she opened the box and inhaled the aroma. They were Montecristos all right. She set the box down on the writing desk and then sat back down to watch the rest of The Contest.

Seinfeld gave way to Cheers at 10:00 PM, right about the time that Celia and the band would be finishing their final encores. Next would come the showers and the food and the groupies, if there were going to be any. Charlie and Coop usually imbibed in this particular activity every night. Every once in a while, Laura would as well; always a female—a thought that Suzie found quite arousing. And last night, even Celia had made a request—her first one since her separation from Greg as far as Suzie knew—though she had yet to share any details about it.

Suzie knew it had been a man, younger than Celia by a considerable margin, and that he had been good looking (if you were into that sort of thing, which she was not), but that was all she knew. She felt a little bit of dark jealousy at the thought of Celia sharing her body with such a creature, but that was Celia’s business, not hers.

It was just past 11:15 when the phone next to her bed started to ring. She smiled, feeling a little jolt of exhilaration surge through her. She quickly snatched it up. “This is Suzie,” she said.

That was a preview of INTEMPERANCE V - Circles Collide. To read the rest purchase the book.

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