Max Collins: Fly Paper

He watched as the attractive brunette flight attendant walked out on the runway, per his instructions (the transfer of money was to be made in full sight of the plane, in broad daylight), while a heavyset, sour-faced probable FBI man in a brown suit, carrying an attaché case and two parachutes, walked out from the airport complex and met her. He handed her the case of money so reluctantly, you’d have thought it was his, then gave her the chutes and headed back. She returned to the plane. No apparent attempt at trickery.

He smiled, sat back in the seat.

The flight attendant, Hazel, brought him the attaché case.

“Sit across the aisle,” he told her, “and open the case.”

“You want me to open it?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but it might be sabotaged. I might snap it open and release a gas or something. I have to be careful, you can understand that”

“Of course,” she said.

She sat across from him, opened the case.

There was no gas, no explosion.

There was, however, a lot of money. Rows and rows, stacks and stacks, of green packets, packets of cash still in their Chicago bank wrappers.

“Shall I count it?” she said.

“Please. There should be ten thousand twenty-dollar bills.”

It took a while.

“All there,” she said.

“Thank you. Close the case, please.”

She did, and handed it to him. He laid it on the seat beside him, next to the tape recorder.

She looked at him strangely. She was a very pretty woman; striking eyes, the color of her name. She looked something like Carol, as a matter of fact, only brunette instead of blonde. She said, in a surprisingly kind voice, “What’s a nice kid like you doing in a situation like this?”

When he’d researched other skyjackings, he’d found that his goal was different from most. Funny, too, because his would seem the most likely goal. But it wasn’t. Many skyjackers did it for glory; he wanted none of that. True, the adventure of it had been appealing to him, but the publicity meant nothing. He had no desire to become a folk hero, àla Rafael Minichiello or D. B. Cooper; and he certainly didn’t want to see his name in the papers! Some skyjacked out of death wish, suicidal tendency; if he had any of that, he didn’t know it. Much skyjacking was political protest and/or the seeking of political asylum, the skyjackings to Cuba being the most obvious example of that. But there was no political motivation to his skyjacking, although a disillusionment with the American Dream had had something to do with his transition from straight, conservative citizen to air pirate. But who was not a pirate, after all, when the Establishment reeked corruption, from the White House on down? And he’d seen how the great capitalist system worked, hadn’t he? The protestant work ethic he’d obeyed so religiously, only to be swindled and squeezed and screwed out of his savings and his youth and his ideals by those good capitalists at Dream-Land Realtors. Still, he was no protester; he cared nothing for politics. His was an admittedly selfish goal he shared with few skyjackers; D. B. Cooper and a handful of others, that was all.

So, when the stewardess asked him for his reason, he was almost anxious to clarify himself.

“I need the money,” he said.

And she smiled — couldn’t help herself — and nodded, almost sympathetically. “I know what you mean,” she said.

He wanted to tell her that he didn’t want to hurt her, but he knew it would sound silly, hypocritical to the point of absurdity. But he really didn’t. And he didn’t want to hurt himself, either, but if they forced him to, he knew he’d have to consign this plane and the pretty stewardess and himself and all his hopes and dreams to a fiery hell. The only consolation was, it would be over in an instant. Like turning off a TV. Press the button, and boom. No pain.

He told her, Hazel, to let the hostages off the plane, and she made the announcement over the intercom, as the hostages were scattered all about the plane, having remained in their own seats, at his request. He’d felt it best not to let them huddle together, as people in such situations often do; that type of thing could lead to an uprising or some other sort of half-assed heroism, which he could do without.

He was glad to see the hostages go. Relieved. He’d felt the same earlier, when he watched the other passengers leave. It was as if a great weight on him was gradually being lessened. Now, with just the crew and the single stewardess left aboard, he felt almost at ease. The pilot, copilot, and navigator — and the stewardess, too, for that matter, much as he liked her — were the equivalent of military personnel who had taken on a risk-prone job and were prepared, to some degree, anyway, to die in the line of duty. His conscience was taxed far less by their presence than by that of the passengers. Having the passengers around him had proved much more disturbing than he’d expected. The possibility of pressing some buttons on that specially wired calculator and destroying the plane and people on it had been just that: a possibility, a hopefully unlikely eventuality that Those-in-Authority might force him to, if they were foolish. The responsibility would not be his. But once on the plane, with faces all around him, lives all around him, his emotionless, laboratory theorizing blew up in his face like a misjudged experiment; his rationalizations strained at the seams, as the faceless ciphers of his game plan turned out to be flesh-and-blood human beings, people, not pawns. And this hand had trembled around the plastic case of the calculator.

Now, though, the passengers were gone, the last remainder of them trickling out at the stewardess’ guidance, and the hand around the calculator no longer trembled — even if its palm Was a trifle sweaty.

With the hostages safely off the plane, the stewardess came to him for further instructions. He told her to inform the captain to take off immediately.

And they did. The stewardess remained in the cockpit, and he strapped himself into his seat while the plane taxied down the runway and lifted its nose in the air. Once the plane had leveled out again, he unbuckled and, taking along only the calculator, left his seat and went forward and knocked on the cockpit door.

The stewardess answered, and he told her to tell the captain to come out and talk to him.

He didn’t want to go in there, in the cockpit. He didn’t want to be contained in that small area with those three probably very capable men. And he wanted to show them, the captain especially, that he, the skyjacker, was in command now; when he told the captain to come, the captain damn well better come.

The captain came.

And said, “What’s our destination?”

“I think we’ll be going to Mexico,” he said.

“We’ll need fuel for that.”

“I know. You can refuel at St. Louis.”

The captain nodded.

“I would like all of you,” he said, and he nodded toward the stewardess, “to remain in the cockpit throughout the rest of the flight. Understood?”

They indicated they understood.

“Captain, I want you to fly this plane at low altitude and low speed, from here on out.”

“How low?”

“Five thousand to six thousand feet, speed one hundred and twenty-five nauts. Fly a straight course to St. Louis. I know the terrain. I’ll know where we are. No stunt flying, please.”

“You intend to jump?” the captain asked. “I thought you said Mexico...”

“Maybe. That’s my concern. I think you can understand that it’s to my benefit to keep you, as well as the people you’ll be in constant contact with on the radio, in doubt as to exactly what my intentions are. By the way, you’ll notice very soon that the rear ramp exit is down. I’ll be lowering that ramp as soon as you return to the cockpit.”