Brett Halliday: Lady, Be Bad

They moved into the terminal in a tight group. A rain coat had been thrown over the cuffs, and the muscular youth in the dark glasses had Shayne by his other arm. Shayne exaggerated the roll. Time was running away.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, seeing an airline official, and something dealt him a paralyzing blow in the kidneys from behind.

They entered a long echoing corridor.

“Stay on your feet,” Gregory said. “You’re doing fine.”

Shayne pulled up short, digging in.

“Jackie better be o.k.,” he said threateningly.

“She’s in good hands. I gave you my promise. As soon as you’re off the ground.”

A plane was waiting when they emerged into the hard sunlight. Its engines muttered. Shayne’s coordination was going. He let them drag him, and fell twice on the steps.

Ramon, ahead, jerked at his wrist while the others heaved from behind.

“I thought this was supposed to be a hard man,” Ramon sneered. “What a creampuff. You could buy him for peanuts, Boots. All this expense you went to, for what?”

“Just watch it,” Gregory told him. “Don’t take any goddamn chances.”

“Watch what? He’s stoned out of his mind. Over a quart of booze in fifteen minutes-”

The cabin was furnished with upholstered chairs, a big desk, a couch. Shayne made a quick half-turn. Ramon yanked him cruelly as he fell on the couch. Shayne felt a thumb at his eyelid, and he batted weakly at an arm. Then he slumped back and down a rapidly revolving funnel.

He heard voices across the cabin. The plane began to move.

Shayne was talking to himself. The words echoed harshly in his numbed brain. It was too late. He was uncommitted. After he’d slept he would see if there was anything he could do. Gregory would be sorry about this sometime, but Shayne wasn’t Superman. He had never learned to fly.

Meanwhile, he was building his strength. Making an immense effort, he opened his eyes.

He and Ramon were alone in the cabin. A small tug showed Shayne that they were still connected by handcuffs. Ramon was sitting on the edge of the couch, his features in rapid motion, the hard little eyes fleeing here and there around his face.

“Maybe we have an accident on the way, eh?” Ramon said caressingly. “You shot Jerry. My friend, my very dear friend, we were together two years. So lovely, so delicate, not like you. I kill you for that, can you understand me. Hell with Boots, who needs him?”

The funnel Shayne was caught in reversed direction. Perhaps the plane was turning. The noise intensified.

He could feel the accumulating pressure. Every muscle was tense. Something happened, and he discovered that he could raise his hand. He waved it gently, feeling the strength flow into his fingers. Then he took Ramon by the throat.

The movement carried them both off the couch. Ramon croaked and tore at Shayne’s fingers. Shayne’s weight held him down.

A JetStar, Shayne thought. Two men at the controls. As soon as they climbed to cruising level, one would come back to make sure the passenger was giving no trouble. A quick series of events leaped into Shayne’s mind. He would find the key to the handcuffs, then Ramon’s gun. He would carry the gun into the cockpit and issue orders for an immediate return to ground. Frightened by the light in his eye, they would obey him at once.

But he knew it was beyond him. He could make only the basic moves, and only one at a time.

He realized that Ramon had stopped struggling. He began feeling through pockets to find the key, his mind wheeling and dipping. He gave up finally and raised his head. A red notice on the window over the wing caught his eye. He lurched to his knees. To his surprise, the plane was still on the ground. It was coming about. He dragged Ramon to the window and peered out.

They were on the furthest runway. An oily haze shimmered above the blacktop. On the other side of the field, a cluster of 707s blocked the view of anyone watching the takeoff from ground level. Another fantasy began to unreel in Shayne’s mind.

Flopping, he resumed his search for the key. The plane completed its turns and began to roll forward in a straight line. To Shayne it was a weaving, rocking motion. He raised his head again, and saw a fence sliding rapidly past the window. Suddenly the jets cut loose.

The scream and the sudden forward surge whirled Shayne across the cabin. With his free hand he slapped upward at the rod holding the emergency window. The rod snapped up, the window fell away.

Dragging the unconscious Ramon, Shayne jumped onto the sloping surface of the wing. The engines screamed insanely. The forward rush of the plane pulled the wing out from under the two men, and Shayne had his first clear thought. Drunks survive falls that would kill or cripple them when sober.

He embraced Ramon loosely. They reversed in the air. He landed, completely relaxed, with Ramon beneath him to break his fall.

They rolled twice.

After the runway stopped heaving around Shayne, he lay still for a long moment. The air was foul with the jet’s exhaust. He raised his head slowly and watched the plane leave the ground and go into its slow climbing turn.

It was only when he went back to looking for the handcuff key that he understood that Ramon was dead.

He wasted a moment scrabbling for a pulse, but gave that up when he saw what had happened to the back of Ramon’s head. He tried to rise, and was reminded again of the handcuffs. A plane whispered past high overhead, perhaps waiting for clearance to land. He fumbled desperately in the dead man’s pockets. Another plane approached, much lower, uttering its terrible scream. Then all at once he was slipping the key into the lock. The handcuffs sprang open.

He dragged Ramon into the tall weeds between the runway and the fence. All this time, he realized, he had been waiting for a siren. He looked across the field at the terminal. The planes and the buildings danced in the hot haze. A baggage truck moved out to a newly arrived plane. Everything seemed peaceful.

He started for a gate. He was almost there when the cognac closed its fist. The wild jet scream rose in intensity and pitch and sucked Shayne with it. The weeds around him swayed violently in the wind.

Shayne woke up in a darkened room.

He was wearing only his shorts. When he raised his head from the pillow there was a blinding explosion and he had the distinct sensation that the ceiling had come down on him.

Later, he was awakened by the sound of a key. A light flashed, and Jackie Wales was standing beside the bed looking down at him.

“Mike, you’re awake.”

He blinked slowly, reached out and touched her.

“Boy!” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be communicating again for days.”

“Timesit?” He cleared his throat raspingly and tried again. “What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty in the evening. Everything under control.” She came down on the bed beside him. “I was scared out of my wits when you opened the door and fell in. Mike, you looked like death-your clothes ripped, oil on your face, your wrist bleeding. I called a doctor and he said not to worry. You’d been drinking.”

“I had a few. Now I need some coffee. Hot, black-lots of it.”

She kissed him lightly. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

As soon as he was alone, Shayne slid his legs out of bed and worked himself into a sitting position. There was an arrow of pain behind his right eye. Gathering himself, he came to his feet and zigzagged to the bathroom, where he turned on the hot water in the shower and sat on the closed toilet while the room filled with steam. Soon he was running with sweat. He switched on the cold water and stepped into the icy stream, which shocked him fully awake for the first time. Then he switched over to hot again and steamed out more cognac.