Эд Горман - Blood Moon

“We all have those doubts sometimes, Eve. It’s a part of our faith, dealing with doubt.”

Another long silence. “If he calls you, will you call me and tell me?”

“Sure.”

“Tell him — tell him, I’m sorry I got so mad.”

“Eve, you had a right to be mad. Something he did got your daughter kidnapped. I’d be pretty mad about that.”

“He says he can get her back. Soon as he—”

“Soon as he what, Eve?”

“Soon as he—”

But then, of course, silence. Utter silence.

“Eve?”

“Yes.”

“You can trust me.”

Silence.

“You really can.”

“I want to, but—”

“But the only way I can help you is if you’re honest with me.”

“I know.” She sounded like a contrite child. “Will you have him call me?”

“Yes. I will.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“All right, Eve. Good night.”

Twenty minutes later, all shirted and jacketed and trousered up, I tried Jane’s place again. The machine again.

I was antsy, the way I’d been in my college days before a date, pacing and eager for the night to begin.

Then I decided to call Herb Carson, a wealthy cattle rancher who’d given it all up to devote himself to a small airplane museum about twenty minutes from here.

Herb was in and happy to hear from me.

“You haven’t been here since we got our parasol monoplane.”

I laughed. “Still after the most exotic birds, aren’t you, Herb?”

“Damn right. I want to make this the most unique museum in the country.”

“Sounds like you’re doing it. I’m an airplane buff, Herb, but even I don’t know what a parasol monoplane is.”

He laughed. “I was waiting for you to ask.”

So he told me.

Back in 1929, when aviation was still the most romantic of callings, an eighteen-year-old garage mechanic with a sixth-grade education came into a very small inheritance with which he bought a Heath Airplane kit. Talk about a hardy breed. In those days, some Americans built their own airplanes. Which is what the kid did. He welded all the parts by himself, shaped all the wooden pieces by himself, stretched the oiled silk over the plane by himself, and, as the final touch, installed a Henderson motorcycle engine by himself. Most folks bet that the plane would never “fly” in any real sense. Back then, you saw a lot of would-be planes reach thirty or forty feet and then crash. Folks were scared for the kid. But on a warm October day in 1929, the kid took the plane up and it flew beautifully. The name Bobby Solbrig may not mean much to you but to old-time aviators it was legendary, Solbrig probably being the greatest stunt pilot who ever lived after getting his start in an Iowa cornfield just about the time President Hoover, another Iowa boy himself, was telling us that the economy was in great shape if we just left it alone, and that those people who worried about a Depression were just nervous nellies. Bobby Solbrig had a little more success than poor President Hoover.

“And guess what I bought last week?” Herb said after finishing his story.

“What?”

“A biplane just about like yours.”

“You’re kidding. Where’d you find it?”

“Louisiana, of all places. Bayou country, actually. It’s in beautiful shape.”

“I’ll have to see it.”

“You bet you will. Why don’t you stop out tomorrow and I’ll let you take it up?”

“I’m not sure what time I can come out.”

“Just call the house before you come. Make sure I’m here.”

“Thanks. It’ll be good to see you.”

The laugh again. “Yeah, and it’ll be even nicer to see my biplane.”

After we hung up, I tried Jane’s place.

“Hello?”

“You’re home,” I said.

“I sure wish you’d tell me what’s going on in this town of mine,” she said, sounding tired. “Two murders yesterday and now another one tonight.”

“You probably won’t believe me, but I’m not sure myself. Not yet.”

“Will you give me a little time to take a shower?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s make it an hour then.”

“That’s perfect. That’s about how long it takes for Domino’s to prepare a gourmet pizza.”

“Double cheese.”

“Double cheese it is.”

“It’s kind of a pit, actually,” Jane Avery said after I got the pizza box open and handed out bottles and white paper napkins and grease-stained coupons entitling us to $1.00 off our very next Domino’s pizzas.

I had complimented her in the usual casual way one always compliments a person on her apartment. The trouble was, she was right, about it being a pit, I mean.

What you had here was the standard modern middle-class apartment. You had your four rooms and a bath, you had your wall-to-wall carpeting, you had your stove and refrigerator and garbage disposal, and you had large sliding windows that overlooked just about the two cutest little Dumpsters I’d ever seen.

And then, imposed on the sterile right-angled order of the apartment itself, you had Jane’s delirious messiness.

I’d used the bathroom right after getting here and had found one high-heeled black shoe in the sink. I’d gone out to the kitchen to get glasses and ice for us while she visited the bathroom, and hanging off the knob of the door leading to the back yard, I found a pair of panties, bright yellow and quite clean. But hanging from the doorknob? In the living room, an array of magazines ranging from People to Police Science Quarterly squatted everywhere in short stacks, like kittens waiting to be patted upon the head. A glass half-filled with what appeared to be milk sat atop the TV set; I imagined it tasted just dandy. A red skirt — which I knew she would look nice in, her shortie white bathrobe having just given me my first peek at her legs — was draped over the back of an armchair while next to the small, dark fireplace was an ancient Hoover upright, either waiting to be employed, or having been sitting there ever since it had been employed.

“I don’t know why you say your apartment is a pit,” I said.

“Gee, I don’t either,” she said, giving me a sarcastic smile as she was about to push her third piece of pizza in her mouth. After swallowing, she said, “That really used to get him.”

“Get who?”

“My husband.”

“Oh.”

“He’s one of those guys who believes that God genetically programmed women to like doing housework. And I’m serious. He once said that maybe I should see a counselor because I never liked to do any of the housework.”

“I think you should see a counselor, too, but not for that reason.”

“Funny.”

“I think you should see a counselor because you hang your underwear off doorknobs.”

“You saw that, huh?”

“Is that a religious practice or something?”

She shrugged, looking cute as hell with her short blonde hair still wet from the shower, and her freckles evoking sunny afternoons on the fish-filled creeks of my youth. “I always drop stuff when I bring the laundry up from downstairs. Yesterday I dropped a pair of panties. That’s how they got there.”

“Ah.”

“This is really good pizza,” she said.

“You look great.”

“I thought we were talking about pizza.”

“You were talking about pizza. I was talking about how great you look in that white terry-cloth robe with your hair all wet.”

There was one piece of pizza left.

“God, we sure pigged out,” I said. “That was an extra-large pizza.”

“I’ll arm-wrestle you for the last piece.”

“God, are you serious?”

“Sure I’m serious. I had three older brothers. They made me arm-wrestle them for everything. I don’t blame you, though. I’d hate to be beaten by a girl, too.”