Max Collins: Fly Paper

“Yes,” Nolan said, and he ran through the same chain of logic, proving the bomb’s existence, as had Jon. Which would have given Jon a certain sense of satisfaction, if he hadn’t been so confused about so much else.

“But I don’t get it, Nolan. Why’d you even bother staying on the plane? Certainly not just to take the calculator away from the guy, to save the airlines their plane. You’re not the knight-in-white-armor type.”

“I had my reasons.” And he grinned again, chomping cereal. “I got a surprise for you, kid.”

“Surprise? What do you mean, surprise?”

“Well, just before the plane got to St. Louis, I knocked on the cockpit door and told Hazel and the pilot and everybody what I’d done. That I’d taken that thing away from the skyjacker, before he jumped. And I was a hero. They were so grateful they could shit. When we landed and were getting off the plane, I asked Hazel if she would go get that briefcase of funny-books out of that closet across from the john, because if I left that behind, my young nephew — that’s you — would never forgive me. She obliged, and before the FBI or anybody could ask me a thing, the hero of the hour, briefcase tucked under his arm, excused himself to go to the can and instead went out and caught a cab and went straight to the bus station. After all the time I’d spent boxed up in that crapper in the plane, you’d think it would occur to those jokers I’d already had ample opportunity to relieve myself. But it didn’t.”

“Now let me get this straight,” Jon said, not understanding at all. “You mean you went to the trouble of asking for that briefcase, just to be nice to me? That doesn’t sound like you, Nolan. No offense, but you’re not the most thoughtful man I ever met. I mean, it’s a nice surprise, but...”

“That’s not the surprise,” Nolan said. He reached down and brought the briefcase up from the floor beside him; he put it on the table.

“Hey,” Jon said, “that’s not my briefcase.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It looks something like it, but that’s not it”

“Open it. Go ahead.”

Jon snapped the case open.

“Jesus,” he said.

The case was full of money.

Crammed with packets of money; packets of $20 bills, in bank wrappers. Thousands and thousands of green dollars.

“The skyjacker’s money,” Jon said. Awe struck. “You switched on him!”

“Yeah,” Nolan said. “Easy as pie. He went forward to boss the pilot around, and I just sneaked out of the can, switched his briefcase with yours, and sneaked back again.”

“Damn, you switched on him! You switched on him. Nolan, you’re a genius. And an even trade, at that. We hardly lost a cent on the deal.”

“I wouldn’t say that, kid. Every serial number on every bill in that briefcase was recorded by the feds before they let it go, you can bet on it. We’ll have to peddle it to a fence, at a loss.”

“But we’ll still come out okay, won’t we?”

“We’ll come out okay.”

“What about our money? The money in your suitcase? Who gets that?”

“I’m not really sure. It’s confiscated, of course, so I suppose the government ends up with it. Don’t they always?”

“Nolan... how in hell could you know the money would come in a briefcase so similar to mine?”

“I didn’t. That was dumb luck. The way I had it figured was I’d have to switch the contents of the two briefcases, and that would’ve been tougher. But possible. Maybe I would’ve had to tangle with the skyjacker sooner that way, and that could’ve been risky.”

“What happened to the skyjacker, then? Did he make his jump or what?”

“Well, we had a little scuffle. I hit him pretty hard and he fell out of the plane. His chute opened, late, but it opened. I told the pilot later that the kid waited till we were almost to St. Louis before jumping, which I said to throw them off, since it’s to our benefit if he gets away, with everybody assuming he has the money. I suppose he’s alive.”

“I kind of hope so.”

“Yeah, me too, but only because it helps us if he is. Otherwise, after what he put us through, he could break his goddamn neck and be okay with me.”

“He’s just another kind of thief, Nolan. Like you. And me.”

“No. There’s a difference. He’s an amateur. I... we... are professionals.”

Jon smiled. “I don’t think I’m much of a pro, but thanks anyway, Nolan. There’s only one thing I regret...”

“What’s that? You still brooding about killing old Sam Comfort? Don’t. You couldn’t have shot a more deserving soul.”

“Oh, not that. That does bother me, don’t think it doesn’t. But that wasn’t what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

Jon leaned forward and spread his hands. “Well, it’s great you got the money, and I don’t want you to take this wrong, but if you’d have just told me what you had in mind, I could’ve emptied the briefcase and taken my comic books with me. Do you have any idea what those things are worth? How hard they are to find? Do you know that...”

Nolan put some more sugar on his cereal

Carol found him in the high grass off to the side of the highway, behind a billboard advertising a bank savings plan. She was relieved she’d had so little trouble finding him; he’d told her, over the C.B., that he’d overshot their target area just a little, but that he could still make it to Highway 67, and when he had, he’d told her of the billboard and she’d found it — and him — with ease.

He was a mess. He was as pale as a cadaver, the black pullover and jeans streaked with the mud from the farmer’s field he’d landed in, and probably from stumbling and falling in the miles of other fields he’d trudged through to get to the highway. His discomfort was obvious: he was curled up in a crumpled ball, like a wad of paper littered along the road; he was clinging to the brown attaché case like a drowning man clutching something buoyant.

Still, he was in one piece, and it could have been worse. She’d expected it to be worse. If he’d been bloody and twisted, she wouldn’t have been surprised; she knew his jump had been a bad one, that he’d hit hard and wrong, even if he hadn’t said so, because even over the C.B., the pain was evident in his voice, no matter how he tried not to show it.

“Baby,” she said, “how bad is it?”

“Not so bad,” he said. “Collar bone’s broken, I think.”

“Oh baby...”

“It can wait till we get home.”

“Can’t we?...”

“No. We can go to the hospital at Canker, soon as we get back. We’ll say I fell down the stairs or something. Here. Take the money back to the car. Do that first, then come help me. It’ll look less suspicious. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She returned to the car and opened the trunk. Cars were whizzing by, but no one was paying any attention to her. She put the attaché case in and started to close the trunk lid, then stopped. She was curious. She wanted to see what $200,000 looked like. She wanted to see what they’d gone through hell for. So she snapped open the case, for a quick peek...

Bright four-color covers in plastic wrappers flashed up at her: pirates in outer space, ray guns, and rocket ships.

She shut it again, quickly, as if maybe she hadn’t really seen what she’d seen.

She didn’t know why, or how, but the elaborate plan, the “project,” had gone wrong. Dreadfully, disastrously, absurdly wrong. A practical joke turned back on the joker. And, like all good jokes, it was funny, or would be: in their old age, perhaps, they could reflect on this foolish episode and its ironic result with some amusement. Yes, she thought, Ken and I might laugh about this someday.