Джеймс Чейз - So What Happens To Me?

I shoved back my dirty sleeves and showed him the lumps made by insect bites.

‘I need medical attention,’ I said. ‘Questions must wait.’

An intern took charge of me. He wanted to put me on a stretcher, but I refused. I went with him to his car while Wes Jackson stood in the hot sunshine, staring after me like a shark who has snapped at a juicy leg and missed.

I was taken to the Essex Foundation Clinic. A pretty nurse administered to me. She spoke to me in a hushed voice. I could feel the power of Mrs. Essex hovering over her. If I had been the President of the U.S. of A. I couldn’t have been treated with more deference.

But of course it couldn’t last. Once my bites were treated — some of them had turned septic — once I had been fed and rested, Wes Jackson arrived. He didn’t bring hot house grapes nor flowers, instead, he brought a lean hatchet-faced man who he introduced as Henry Lucas, the Aero expert for the insurance company covering the Condor.

I had had time to prepare my story and I was ready for them.

I was sitting in a lounging chair by the open window that overlooked Paradise City’s yacht basin. Jackson and Lucas pulled up chairs and Jackson asked me how I was.

I said I was mending.

‘Mr. Crane, we need as much information about the crash as you can give us,’ Jackson went on. ‘What happened? Take your time: just tell us from the beginning.’

‘I wish I knew.’ I said, my face dead pan ‘It all happened so suddenly...’

Lucas said in a voice like a fall of gravel. ‘You’re the flight engineer. Is that correct?’

I nodded.

‘And you don’t know what happened!’

‘Sounds goofy, doesn’t it? But that’s a fact I was in the kitchen preparing a meal when we went into a nose dive. Up to then everything was working fine. I was thrown across the kitchen and my head slammed against the open door of the refrigerator and I blacked out.’

There was a long pause while both of them stared at me and I stared right back at them.

‘You were preparing a meal?’ Jackson leaned his bulk forward. ‘But, Mr. Crane, I understand you three had steak dinners before the flight.’

Be tricky, you sonofabitch, I thought, then said, ‘That’s correct, but Olson seemed keyed up. He didn’t eat his steak.’ That could be proved. ‘Then he got hungry and asked me to fix him a sandwich. It was while I was in the kitchen, doing just that, that the crash came.’

‘You mean until the plane went into a dive, you had no idea there was trouble?’ Lucas said. ‘Erskine radioed the port engines were on fire. Didn’t you know?’

I gave him my stupid, puzzled expression.

‘First I’ve heard of that. All I know was being flung across the kitchen and blacking out.’ Then as neither of them said anything, I went on, ‘The next thing I knew was the sea coming in. Somehow I found Mrs. Essex and got her out through the port emergency. The kite had broken up. There were bits and pieces floating around. I clung to something and kept Mrs. Essex afloat. I saw the kite sink.’ I tried not to look brave. ‘It was tricky, but we got ashore.’

There was a deadly pause. Neither of them even pretended they believed me.

Jackson said as if his mouth was full of lemon juice, ‘That is what Mrs. Essex said happened.’

I smiled at him!

‘If Mrs. Essex said that’s what happened and I say that’s what happened, then that’s what happened.’

Again a long pause, then Lucas said. ‘I have a map here, Mr. Crane. Would you pinpoint where the crash occurred?’

‘I’m sorry. You don’t seem to have been listening to what I’ve been saying,’ I said ‘I told you when the crash occurred I was fixing a sandwich. Didn’t Olson give Air Control a fix?’

‘So you can’t help locate the wreck?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You can’t suggest what went wrong? Erskine said the port engines were on fire and the extinguishers weren’t working. Can you say why this should happen?’

I was sure they would ask this question and I was ready for it. I went into the technical mumbo-jumbo while Lucas, with a stone face, listened. I didn’t convince him nor did I convince myself but Jackson listened and he was all I cared about.

‘If I had been in the flight cabin when the engines caught fire, if I had been able to read the instruments, I could be a lot more helpful,’ I concluded, ‘but I was in the kitchen, fixing a sandwich.’

Lucas gave me a map of the Gulf of Mexico.

‘Couldn’t you indicate about where the crash happened?’

I looked at the map, then shrugged.

‘Maybe fifty miles of Progreso. I wouldn’t know. Mrs. Essex and I were in the sea for about twelve hours and the current took us in. Could be sixty miles... your guess is as good as mine. I just don’t know.’

He folded the map and put it in his pocket.

‘We have helicopters looking for signs of the wreck. So far there is a negative report.’

‘If they search long enough, they’ll find it then if you get to the Black Box, you’ll know how it happened.’

They got to their feet, stared at me then Jackson said. ‘Mr. Crane. Mr. Essex wants to meet you. I will pick you up here tomorrow morning at ten.’

‘Fine.’

Neither of them offered to shake hands. Lucas gave me a long, slow stare which I returned, but Jackson screwed his face into a smile. If Lane Essex wanted to meet me I was still, to him the boy with the golden halo.

Wes Jackson opened a polished mahogany door, motioned me forward, then said, ‘Mr. Crane, sir.’

I walked into a vast room with a picture window overlooking Paradise City. Before me was a vast desk, equipped with a battery of telephones and the usual gimmicks that go to make the top executive.

Behind the desk sat Lane Essex.

I had never seen a photo of him and I had been trying to imagine what he looked like. The small, balding man of around fifty-six years of age, with heavy horn glasses, a sparrow beak of a nose and thin, hard lips told me as nothing else could why Mrs. Victoria Essex shopped around for a bed companion.

‘Come in Crane.’ There was a snap in his voice. ‘Sit down.’

I took the chair opposite his desk. Then looking directly at him, I realised why he had made his billions. His steel grey eyes behind the glasses went through me like a welder’s torch.

‘Mrs. Essex has told me about you. Apparently, you saved her life. Now it’s my turn to do a quid pro quo . I have had your qualifications investigated. You have a good record with Lockheed. Will you take charge of my airfield?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I want another Condor built. Will you handle that?’

‘Glad to sir.’

A telephone buzzed and he waved to Jackson who picked up the receiver, listened and began to talk softly.

‘You could be making an important career for yourself here Crane,’ Essex went on. ‘I want you to remember that here the word impossible doesn’t exist. You will have all the financial backing you may need, but never come to me and tell me what I want you to do can’t be done. If you do you’re out.’

‘I understand, sir.’

Jackson hung up.

Essex looked at him.

‘Crane takes charge of the airfield and the new Condor,’ he said ‘Pay him fifty.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you married?’

‘No, sir.’ He turned back to Jackson.

‘Get him one of our good bachelor apartments. Get him a good car and someone to look after his place.’ He looked at me.

‘Have you a banking account?’

‘Not here, sir.’

He turned to Jackson.

‘Open an account for him at the National Florida: credit the account right away with twenty thousand dollars: that’s a bonus. Pay him monthly and pick up his tax tab.’ He stared at me. ‘Is that satisfactory?’