Jay Lake - Rocket Science

“Where are you now?”

“Stupid question, Ollie. I need to speak with Colonel Pinkhoffer.”

“He’s not here. I’ve got one of his officers here, a Lieutenant Morgan from CID.”

Morgan? It couldn’t be the same Morgan who called me about Dad. Could it?

“Ollie, this is real important. Trust me, scout’s honor. Only answer yes or no to what I ask you. Is Morgan’s hair blond?”

“Uh, Vern…”

“Yes or no Ollie! Please .”

“Yes,” he said slowly.

“Is his arm in a cast, or maybe a sling?”

“Yes, he’s got a broken arm.”

Oh ho , I thought. The false Captain Markowicz appears. Then I realized what Ollie had said. “I told you to say yes or no!” I hissed.

Ollie sounded exasperated. “Look, Vernon, what are you getting at?”

“Ollie, he’s the guy that tried to kill Dad, dumped him in the trunk of my car, and probably burned down Mrs. Swenson’s boarding house. I think he’s a Nazi agent.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Ollie said. “And you’re out of my jurisdiction. I’m not going to talk with you any more. Here’s Lieutenant Morgan. You can deal with him now.”

“Morgan here,” said a new voice. A familiar voice.

“Morgan? Deputy Bobby Ray Morgan?”

“No,” said Morgan shortly. “I am Lieutenant Christopher Morgan.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “And you wouldn’t have called me yesterday morning at the library about my dad, would you? I know who you are, and you’re not going to get away with it.” It was a stupid line from a dozen different movies, but I didn’t know what else to say.

“Yes,” said the voice carefully, “that may be the case. But I think you’re confused about the outcome of the situation.” He was being cautious. Ollie was obviously still in the room with him. “Why don’t you land the airplane and we’ll discuss it?”

Morgan’s sheer arrogance was bugging the heck out of me. “Why don’t you jump in the lake, you Nazi scum,” I screamed. I hoped like heck Susie Mae heard that. At least there’d be gossip after they killed me. “Pegasus, cut the connection.”

“Yes,” said Pegasus.

We continued to fly tight, fast circles that wove through the refinery. I seemed to have run out of both energy and good judgment. At least Dad was safe. “Who’s a Nazi scum?” asked Floyd, interrupting my pointless train of thought.

“Don’t you all know each other?”

Floyd looked offended. “Hey, I’m no Nazi.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you took their money, didn’t you? What’s the difference?” I asked. I was honestly curious, and this was the first he’d said about it directly. Pegasus’ urgings not to judge echoed in my mind.

Floyd looked uncomfortable. “I was just a guy making a buck. They wanted the airplane shipped out of Europe, I knew how to work the system to do that. I didn’t really think they would come all the way over here to claim it, what with the war over and all.”

“So you sold it to the Mafia?”

“Well, when Daddy told me he’d gotten word to watch out for a large shipment from Europe from Mr. Neville and those people, I knew it was valuable. The Reds wouldn’t activate their contacts here without a damned good reason. But they wouldn’t have given us much for it, and they’re hard to deal with.” He hung his chin onto his chest. “Those Reds are crazy bastards.”

There was the pot calling the kettle black , I thought. “You mean it was just a coincidence that your father was the Russian contact here while you were working for the Germans?”

“Actually, yes.” Floyd looked embarrassed. “When you look at it that way, it’s almost funny.”

“Then you called the Kansas City mob.”

“I told you, we didn’t expect anyone to show up for it,” he said defensively. “From either side. Then Mr. Neville turned up anyway. If Mama hadn’t written to the Sheriff, there never would have been a problem. She wasn’t supposed to know about Daddy’s Red connections — he’d always passed them off as part of his shine business, when it was the other way around. But Mr. Neville made me take care of the problem.”

His face fell, pleading, almost desperate. “It was her or me, Vernon. Neville put his gun to my head after he and Daddy tied Mama up. It was all I could do to keep them from killing her. Neville, he’s NKVD. They’re maniacs, make the Nazi Gestapo look like a Boy Scout troop.”

“Oh God, Floyd,” I said. He’d been pretty rattled by his experiences in Europe, I was sure of it, whatever he’d actually done in the war. Then to go through this, in his own home, and have to pretend to like it. No wonder he swung back and forth between being a tough guy and being a victim. Pegasus was right. I hated what he’d become, but I couldn’t hate him.

Floyd went on. “Then when Ollie came out, because of all the trouble you got into with the boarding house fire, and wrecking Doc Milliken’s car, I had to hide Mama. That’s why you found her. If you hadn’t, no one else would have needed to get hurt.”

That made me angry all over again. No one needed to get hurt in the first place. Or get hurt ever, as far as I was concerned. Polio had done for me, a rabbit had done worse for my mother with a little help from Dad’s drinking. Now Floyd’s cozy little scam with the Nazis wound up killing his mother in that house fire that I’d set, and almost killing my dad. Or maybe it was the Russian’s fault. I couldn’t tell anymore.

We were all bughouse crazy.

“Who was your contact here?” I said as we snaked around the refinery at low altitude and high speed. Surely there was angle here I could use, some idea or piece of information. “On the airplane deal, I mean. Not Sheriff Hauptmann and Doc Milliken, surely.” They hadn’t know enough about what was going on to be in on the deal in detail.

“I’ve never seen him,” said Floyd. “On the phone and by letter mail, he always called himself Bobby Ray.”

As in Deputy Sheriff Bobby Ray Morgan , I thought. Also known as Lieutenant Christopher Morgan of CID, or on some days, Captain Markowicz of the same CID I was sick at the thought that the real Markowicz was either dead, thanks to me, or in a military hospital somewhere.

I had to talk to Pinkhoffer. And the phone was a bust.

“Pegasus,” I said. “I know we tried the telephone. Now I really need you to find the radio frequency those pilots are using.”

“I am already monitoring it,” said Pegasus.

“Well, patch me in.”

“Excuse me?”

“Open a connection. I want to talk directly with those pilots.” I looked over at Floyd. “And put it all on the cabin loudspeaker. Floyd deserves to know what’s going on.”

“I am glad of that,” whispered Pegasus in my ear.

“Tower, the bandit’s still in a holding pattern,” crackled a crisp Midwestern voice. “Over.”

I wondered who he was talking to. Augusta’s tiny airstrip didn’t have a control tower. “Roger that, Blue Leader,” replied the tower, wherever they were. Within radio range, obviously. Had the Army already brought in a forward air controller? “The Pink says continue to hold your fire. We’ve had ground contact from the bandit. Over.”

“Blue Leader out.”

“Tower out.”

The Pink must be Pinkhoffer. He was obviously coordinating things. That was what colonels did — I’d seen plenty of them at Boeing during the war. I might be on the right track. I spoke up. “Blue Leader, do you copy? Over.”

“Who the hell is that?” asked the tower. “Get off this frequency immediately. Over.”

“Blue Leader, this is bandit,” I said. “We need to talk. Over.”