Стюарт Вудс - Contraband

“Yes, but it could be anywhere. It could land, taxi in to some little cove or up a creek. Anywhere, really.”

“Well, report your suspicions to the Coast Guard.”

“And the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office?” Monroe County contained the Keys.

“Sure, if you like.”

CPO Church made the two calls. The Coast Guard listened attentively, thanked her, and hung up. And she was barely able to keep the deputy at the sheriff’s department awake.

So much for that.

After sundown that evening, a small fuel truck from a nearby airport drove out to the grass airstrip where Dix had landed, refueled the Stationair, and departed. The driver already had two brand-new hundred-dollar bills in his pocket and the fuel was paid for.

Al Dix had had it with his little apartment and with being an invalid. He put on a clean sling for his arm, opened his safe, took out a few hundreds, and headed into town to the Lame Duck.

“Hey, Dixie,” the bartender said. “Long time. You been on the wagon?”

“Sorta,” Dix replied. “Gimme a tequila shooter and a beer.”

The bartender served him, then found a moment to make a phone call.

Max walked into Tommy and Rosie Scully’s new house and looked around approvingly. “Much nicer than it used to be,” she said. “Love the pictures.”

“I learned a long time ago,” Rosie said, “that when you move into a new house, you’ve got to get the pictures up right away. Otherwise, the days go by, and you get used to bare walls, and it never gets done.”

“Drink, Max?”

“No, thanks, Tommy. We’ve got some business to do. Do you mind, Rosie?”

“Take him off my hands,” Rosie replied. “He’s already been fed.”

Tommy got his gun out of a locked desk drawer, stuck it into his holster, and followed Max outside. “What’s up?”

“Al Dix has surfaced,” she replied.

“Don’t tell me — at the Lame Duck?”

“You got it right.”

Dix was on his third shooter when he looked up to find a hot blonde on the next stool.

“Hi, Dixie,” Max said. “You been on a Caribbean cruise or something?”

“Hey, Max,” Dix said. “Nah, I been recuperating at home.”

“You got a new home, Dixie?”

“Yeah. I needed the peace to get better.”

“Why the sling?”

“My ribs aren’t entirely well, yet. My arm was taped to my body until today; couldn’t take it anymore.”

Max poked a finger at the slung arm and didn’t get a reaction. “I’ll bet you could fly an airplane,” she said.

“No work, yet. Not up to it.”

Max tapped the Franklin on the bar in front of Dix. “And yet?”

“I’ve been injured, not broke,” Dix said, as the bartender snatched away the hundred and replaced it with smaller bills.

“I hope your memory has improved,” Max said. She hoped that since Dix was already a little drunk, he might become more forthcoming.

“Memory about what?” Dix asked. “I don’t recall.”

“That’s the thing about memory, Dixie, you don’t recall. Until you remember.”

“That don’t make no sense,” Dix replied.

“Cast your mind back, Dixie. You’re about to fly an airplane, a Cessna 206, with floats.”

“That don’t ring a bell,” Dix replied, grinning.

“But you remember me putting you on the chopper.”

“Vaguely, something like that. I’m not crazy about helicopters.”

“Maybe you’d remember something if you had a few hours in a cell to sober up,” Max said.

“You got no charge,” Dix replied, tossing down another shooter.

Max looked at the bartender, who held up four fingers.

“Public drunkenness,” she said, tugging at his good arm. “Let’s go, Dixie.”

“Aw shit,” Dix grumbled, then raked up the cash and stuffed it into a pocket.

“Nothing for the bartender?”

Dix picked a ten out of his pocket and threw it on the bar.

“Well,” he said, “I never thought my first evening out of bed would end this way.”

Max allowed a sullen Dix to make a phone call, then put him in an interrogation room and sat him down. She didn’t know if Dix had called a lawyer, but if he had, she didn’t have much time.

“Okay, Dixie,” she said, while Tommy watched through the two-way mirror. “Let’s start with your last flight. When was that?”

Dix blinked a few times. “It’s all kind of hazy,” he said. “Oh yeah, I worked on crosswind landings with a student.”

“Which student?”

“Hazel... I can’t think of her last name. She was scared of crosswind landings, y’see, because we’ve got an east-west runway, and we often get northerly or southerly winds — brisk ones, too.”

“Got it,” Max said. “And after that flight?”

“Next thing I remember I was in the hospital, and somebody was trying to kill me.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember you telling me that,” he replied.

“Tell me about the flight that ended in the drink at Fort Jeff.”

“What flight?” Dix answered craftily.

“The one when you broke your ribs and got choppered out.”

“I remember something about a helicopter. I don’t like them.”

“You know, Dixie, I think it might improve your memory, if we just put you in a nice cell for, say, thirty days, then resume this conversation.”

“What conversation?” Dix asked, looking puzzled.

There was a sharp rap on the door, and a man in a bad suit carrying a bulging briefcase entered the room and slapped his card on the table. “Ray Cochran,” he said, “attorney. This conversation is over. Come on, Dixie, let’s get out of here.”

“Mr. Cochran,” Max said, “Mr. Dix is under arrest on a charge of public drunkenness. You’ll need a judge’s order to get him released.”

“What? Four drinks in a bar? That’s what people do in bars. Was he annoying other customers? Was he loud and abusive to the staff? Did he stagger or fall down? Of course not,” he said, having answered his own questions. “Come on, Dixie.”

“We’re not finished,” Max said.

“Oh, yes you are,” Cochran said. “You don’t even have any witnesses.”

“We have the bartender.”

“The bartender never spoke a word. There was no complaint to answer, thus no conduct to arrest him for. Dixie, get your ass out of that chair!”

Dixie got his ass out of the chair and made to follow his lawyer.

“This isn’t over, Dixie,” Max said. “You’d better start remembering and call me.”

The two men left, slamming the door behind them.

Tommy came into the room. “Well, that had to go that way,” he said. “We didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“Tell me about it,” Max replied.

“You’re getting desperate,” Tommy said. “Oh, there was a call for you from the Coast Guard.”

Max went to her desk, found the note, and returned the call.

“This is Commander Bob George,” said the man who picked up the extension. “Detective Crowley?”

“Call me Max.”

“All right, Max. We got a call this afternoon about some suspicious activity offshore. The call was from an air traffic controller at Boca Chica.”

“Tell me more,” Max said.

“On her radar, at around four this afternoon, she observed a primary target — no transponder transmitting — coming from the direction of a point ten or so miles from Fort Jefferson, descend from three thousand feet and disappear under five hundred feet. Not seen again.”

“A crash?”

“There was no Mayday call and no report of a crash. She reckons the airplane unloaded something into a boat, then took off and flew somewhere at a very low altitude and landed, between Key West and Key Largo. She suspects something illegal.”