A man in full, p.40
A Man in Full, page 40
“Yeah, and pursuant to what kinda awda’d you let yourself be talked into picking out a Sunday afternoon when I’m arriving with a dozen guests?”
“We’re just carrying out instructions, Mr. Croker.”
“You just work here, right?” said Charlie.
All the while his sense of humiliation was rising alarmingly. This ignominious farce was being played out before his wife, his son, his employees (Lud, Jimmy, and Gwenette), Herb Richman, and some of the biggest and most widely listened-to mouths in Atlanta, namely, garrulous souls like Howell Hendricks and Lettie Withers. How could he get around these three monkeys in the sheriffs deputy uniforms, this beef trust, and take command of the G-5 and get the hell out of here? If he thought he could have done it, physically, the way he could have done it when he was thirty years old, not sixty, he would have muscled the three men aside and stormed up the stairway and into the G-5’s cabin and ordered Lud and Jimmy to take off. They would have been astonished by how little nevermind he paid their uniforms, the stupid monkeys. But he wasn’t at all sure he could get by them. His right knee was buckling with pain every time he took a step. And these three wouldn’t be pushovers. The one with the belly was probably in his mid-thirties, and he struck Charlie as a younger version of Durwood. He looked like the kind who’d love to roll in the dirt with you or whack you upside the ear with his nightstick so that you could no longer hear and were in the grip of a mortal pain from your mastoid process to your occipital rim.
One of the rules Charlie knew all leaders should follow was: Never engage in a fight in the presence of your followers that you can’t possibly win. And this was a fight he couldn’t possibly win, at least not physically. He sighed and looked about. Over in the doorway of the hangar, all but obscured by the shadows that plunged its immense space into gloom, was a mechanic named Lunnie (for Lunsford), an employee of PDK but one who had been working on Charlie’s planes for six years at least. Charlie looked at Lunnie—and got an idea. Just like that his entire mood changed.
He broke into a sage smile and said to the beefy policeman before him, “Well, Officer, I can see that—by the way, what’s your name?”
The policeman hesitated, not sure whether standing here and dutifully revealing his name would compromise him or not. But Charlie’s evidently sincere smile loosened him up, and he finally said, “Hunnicutt, Officer Arra Hunnicutt.” Or it came out “Arra.” After a couple of seconds Charlie realized the man was a Georgia country boy whose name was Ira, which out in the sticks, including Baker County, would come out “Arra,” just the way “fire” came out “far,” and “He got hired by the Fire Department” came out “He got hard by the Far Department.”
“Well, Officer Hunnicutt, I can see you’re a man who means what he says. But I have to give you fair warning: it’s unwise for anyone but me to attempt to move this airplane from where it is right now.”
“That ain’t for me to say,” said Officer Hunnicutt. “That’s for whoever’s acquarrin’t.”
“Well,” said Charlie, smiling again, “I can only pass along my advice.” With that, he turned toward Lud and Jimmy and beckoned them on down the stairs. “Come on, boys, and you, too, Gwenette. I’ll treat you to a beer.”
He headed toward the waiting room, but suddenly stopped when he came abreast of Peepgass and Zale. Peepgass seemed to shrink, as if trying to pull himself back into a shell, but Zale looked at Charlie down his nose, with his big melon-shaped chin thrust up.
“By the way,” said Charlie cheerily, looking at Zale, “you oughta know that a lien on the starboard engine of this airplane is held by MagTrust. We had to go to MagTrust when PlannersBanc wouldn’t extend us any more credit. Whether you want to be taking off with MagTrust’s collateral is something y’all oughta be thinking about. I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
“We’ll bear that in mind,” said Zale in his high, grating voice. “We’ll keep everybody informed.”
The young pilot who had bandied words with Charlie stepped forward and called out not to Charlie but to Lud Harnsbarger, “’Scuse me, I need to ask you something.”
Now Charlie could see what was on the back of his windbreaker. In fluorescent Day-Glo yellow letters seven inches high it said REPO. Above that, in smaller letters, about the size of the names printed on the backs of the jerseys of professional football players, it said PLANNERSBANC. That was what all his guests in the waiting room got an eyeful of when they looked out the big plate-glass window: PLANNERSBANC REPO.
Lud looked at Charlie, silently asking if he should talk to the PlannersBanc pilot, and Charlie boomed out, “Sure, go ahead!”
Lud and Jimmy and Gwenette were by now down on the tarmac, and Charlie walked, gimping badly, over to the three of them and said in a hushed voice, “Tell him anything he wants to know. You, too, Jimmy. Just keep him talking. The longer, the better.”
Whereupon Charlie went gimping on into the waiting room. Serena and Herb Richman were just ahead of him. They had been hanging back, taking it all in.
Serena said, “What are you going to do, Charlie?”
“I’m gonna relax, take it easy,” said Charlie.
“What are they doing?”
A cheery grin. “Nothing. They just enjoy spinning their wheels.”
The painting! It came to him—just like that!
“One other thing,” Charlie said, turning back toward Peepgass and the big-jawed Zale. “I got personal effects on that airplane.”
Zale, in a bored fashion: “Don’t worry, all personal effects will be returned.”
“One uv’ em I want right now,” said Charlie. “It’s a painting by N. C. Wyeth on the bulkhead of the forward cabin.”
“No can do,” said Zale. He had his chest and wrestler’s gut thrust forward and his suit jacket wide open, revealing the skulls and crossbones that ran up and down his suspenders. “That painting is listed as collateral, a hundred and ninety thousand dollars’ worth, and title was held by the Croker Global Corporation.”
Charlie was furious—and anguished. More than anything else he possessed, including Turpmtine itself, the painting symbolized the triumphs of Cap’m Charlie Croker. But he mustn’t let them see how he felt. He would just have to get his hands on it tonight or tomorrow—after the surprise this impudent, melon-jawed monkey had coming.
He forced himself to smile in a knowing way. “Well, I’m putting you on notice. Anything happens to this aircraft or its contents, and especially that painting—you’re in it up to your armpits.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” said Zale, sticking his chest out still farther. Charlie felt the urge to kill. He’d like to throttle Peepgass, too. Now that they were barely six feet apart, Peepgass wasn’t saying a word. He had his head down and his shoulders pressed practically up against his neck, as if he were trying to get ready to drop through a crack in the earth. But Charlie had presence of mind enough to know that anything he tried to do physically would only make things worse. The three cops … his bad knee … his guests’ greedy eyes … which would be treated to the spectacle of Cap’m Charlie Croker rolling around on the asphalt at PDK with three DeKalb County peace officers … at his age … sixty years … The sixty years were what he truly didn’t want to have to think about. So he concentrated on the cops, the knee, and the guests. He was determined to make his guests feel that whatever it was that was going on, it was part of the fun of a rollicking weekend with Cap’m Charlie.
The others—Beauchamp and Lenore Knox, Howell and Francine Hendricks, Lettie Withers, Ted Nashford, Live-in Lydia, Marsha Richman, and Wally—were already in the waiting room. The room featured a great horseshoe arrangement of couches that looked out upon the field through a floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window. None of his guests was seated, however, not even old Governor Knox. They were all standing near the window, so as not to miss a trick. And when Charlie entered the room, their eyes were on him. (How complete had his humiliation been?)
In fact, Charlie was all smiles. “Hey, Serena,” he said, loud enough for everybody to hear, “figure out who oughta go in which car, and get everybody a Coke or sump’m. I’ll be right back.” Rat back.
With that, Charlie, bad knee and all, hurried toward a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY that opened out into the hangar. He looked about in the gloom for the round-shouldered form of Lunnie, the mechanic. And there he was, about twenty feet from the hangar’s enormous mouth. He looked startled when Charlie came gimping up to him, startled and embarrassed.
“Cap’m,” he said, “I’m sorry about what’s going on out there. I wish I could help.”
Charlie smiled. “Maybe you can, Lunnie. Maybe you can. I want you to tell me sump’m. What’s the easiest way a keeping a ship like a G-5 from taking off?”
“Keep’er from taking off? You mean mechanically?”
“Yeah, mechanically. Exactly.”
“Hell”—hale—“the easiest way is, slide a wrench down the intake of an engine.”
“What’ll’at do?”
“Soon’s it starts up, the wrench’ll break all the fan blades. Each engine’s got five sets a fan blades. It’ll ruin the whole damn engine.”
“That’ll do it, hunh?”
“Sure will. I seen it happen.”
“Lunnie,” said Charlie, “how long you been working for me?”
“Six or seven years, I reckon.”
“I treated you okay?”
“You the best, Cap’m.”
“Lunnie, I want you to do something for me. This is very important, and only you can do it slick enough. I want you to slide a wrench down the intake of the starboard engine of my G-5, that ship right there. How ’bout it?”
Immediately Lunnie’s placid features began to contort. You could see loyalty and obedience on the one hand at war with loss of job and possible criminal prosecution on the other.
“I’m not asking you for a favor, Lunnie,” said Charlie. “I’m ready to pay for it. It’d be worth a lot to me. Four thousand dollars cash, Lunnie—no, make it five. Five thousand dollars for five seconds of work. Just let it slide down the gullet.”
Lunnie’s head was oscillating like an electric fan in the summertime and he was massaging his knuckles, first one hand and then the other. “I don ’ know, Cap’m, destroying a piece of equipment like that … That engine’s worth about half a million dollars, I reckon.”
“Well, shit, Lunnie, it’s my piece of equipment, and that’s what I want.” Faster oscillation and massaging. “I know, Cap’m, but I’d be the one—I can’t take the chance.”
Charlie put on a furious visage. “Chance, hell, Lunnie! I’m ordering you to do it! This is a direct order! Do it!”
By now Lunnie had begun making imaginary snowballs with his two cupped hands. “I know, Cap’m”—imaginary snowball—“I unnerstan”—imaginary snowball—“what you’re saying”—imaginary snowball—“but it could cost me my job”—imaginary snowball—“the onliest way I got a making a living”—imaginary snowball.
Cap’m Charlie Croker, forgiver of children: “Okay, Lunnie, okay. It’s all right. Can you do this much for me, which ain’t much—can you tell me where I can find a wrench and a pair of coveralls?”
The relieved child, off the hook: “I can give you a wrench.” He produced one from somewhere in his coveralls. “And there’s a whole bunch a coveralls on the hooks ov’air by ’at door you come in.”
“And just remember one thing, Lunnie. Me’n’you never had this conversation. That way nobody can drag you into nothing. We never said a word to each other.”
“Okay, Cap’m.”
Charlie retreated into the gloom of the hangar and found, over by the door, at least a dozen pairs of coveralls hanging on hooks, just as Lunnie had said.
He finally found one big enough to accommodate his 235-pound bulk and pulled it on right over his clothes. In the pocket of another pair was a bandanna. This gave him an idea. He took it out. It had a strange camouflage pattern of white, gray, and black. For what? Hiking over a rocky terrain with melting snow? Didn’t matter. Charlie draped it over his bare skull and tied it in back, the way a pirate might have. He put the wrench in one of the coveralls’ capacious pockets and headed through the greasy twilight of the hangar and out onto the tarmac.
The G-5 was parked so that the left side, which was outfitted with the main passenger door and the door to the luggage bay, faced the waiting room. The right side was visible only from the hangar or the hangar side of the tarmac, and there was nobody on that side; or, rather, no one but Charlie Croker.
Beneath the belly of the G-5 he could see the feet and lower legs of a whole clump of men who were apparently discussing the G-5. Every now and then he could hear the grating, high-pitched voice of the one called Zale. A whole lot of talk. Good boy, Lud!
Charlie walked slowly and casually toward the starboard engine. He kept the wrench concealed in the coveralls. The G-5’s two mighty engines hung down beneath the wings. He began stooping over and looking at the underside of the wing, as if making an inspection. Now he was right next to the engine. He steeled himself, forced himself not to look this way or that—and withdrew the wrench and reached up, and let it slide down the mouth of the engine. Then, stooping as he went, he inspected the underside of the wing from the engine to the fuselage, in the interest of appearing diligent, then sauntered back into the hangar. Once he was safely within its deep penumbra, he removed the coveralls and the bandanna, and put them back where he had got them. Lunnie was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished. Charlie hurried back through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door into the waiting room.
Serena had succeeded in shepherding Howell and Francine Hendricks and Beauchamp and Lenore Knox into one of the BMWs, but the rest, including Herb Richman and his wife, seemed to want to stay on and follow the little drama on the tarmac. When Charlie came back into the room, all eyes turned toward him. They were wondering how he would take this shaming turn of events.
Gesturing toward the aircraft, Ted Nashford said, “That bunch—they’re boarding your aircraft, Charlie.”
Sure enough, there were Zale and Peepgass making their way up the stairs to the G-5’s cabin.
“Where are”—whirr—“the pilots?” asked Charlie. Big smile.
The smile was so genuine, Ted Nashford was taken aback at first. “They’re both on board, them and the other one, the—the—the—”
“The mechanic,” said Charlie, who seemed terribly merry about it all. “Well, I advised them against it, but they were in no mood to listen.”
“Why?”
“Why wouldn’t they listen or why’d I advise them not to?”
“Why’d you advise them not to.”
“The G-5’s a temperamental airplane, Ted. A wonderful airplane, but you gotta know each one by heart. They don’t know that ship from their left elbow. I wonder if they’ll make it as far as the runway.”
So now they all watched, Ted, Live-in Lydia, Herb and Marsha Richman, Lettie Withers, Wally, Serena, and Charlie himself, as the stairway folded up into the fuselage of the G-5. If you looked closely enough, you could see Zale sitting in Charlie’s seat—at the great tupelo desk facing N. C. Wyeth’s Jim Bowie on His Deathbed—and sitting opposite him was Peepgass. Both had grand smiles. Then Zale must have said something terribly funny, because you could see Peepgass laughing to beat the band.
“They look happy!” volunteered Live-in Lydia.
Ordinarily Charlie would have wanted to throttle her skinny live-in neck. Instead, he chuckled and said, “Just remember, I told every one of them”—tol’ evver one uv’em—“they didn’t know what they’re doing.”
Then the engines started up. One moment you could see a puff of smoke rise from the left engine, the one visible in the waiting room, and in the next you could hear a sound like gunfire, fast stuttering gunfire, as if from an exceptionally loud automatic weapon. Pang! Pang! Pang! Pang! The sound penetrated the half-inch-thick glass of the waiting-room window as if it weren’t there.
The engines shut down, and now a plume of black smoke rose from the other side of the G-5. The faces at the windows, Zale’s and Peepgass’s, were etched with the consternation of two men who thought they had just settled in for a swell little ride somewhere with their $38 million booty. Pretty soon the ship’s stairway was unfurled again, and here came Zale clomping down, with Peepgass right behind him. They stood on the tarmac at the bottom of the stairs, staring helplessly at the ship. Then down the stairs came the two pilots in their PLANNERSBANC REPO jackets, both of them barking at the mechanic, who was behind them on the stairs, tossing one hand up in the air and then the other. Then all five of them, Zale, Peepgass, the two pilots, and the mechanic, headed around the nose of the ship toward the starboard side.
Charlie chuckled. “Well, you can give people fair warning, but you can’t nail ’em to the ground and say, ‘Don’t move.’”
Hugely pleased, he gave all his retinue a come-on gesture and headed toward the glass door that led to the building’s parking lot. “Got cars out here waiting for y’all.”
Ted Nashford, who was close behind him, said, “What do you suppose happened to the airplane?”
“I can only guess,” said Charlie, “but it sounded like the pilot?—he tried to feed too much power to the engines before they were warmed up?—and it did something to the fan blades in the compressors?—that’s what it sounded like to me, but what do I know about jet engines.”
By the time they got outside, where Croker Global drivers were waiting with two BMWs, Charlie was laughing as if the havoc wreaked upon the G-5 was one of the funniest things that had happened in years.
chapter XIV
God’s Cosmic Joke
“SO IT’S YOUR TESTIMONY, MR. PEEPGASS, THAT YOU INVITED SIRJA to have dinner with you at the Hotel Grand Tatar out of a sudden interest in Finnish art?”
“I didn’t know anything about Finnish art at that time,” said Peepgass, who was dying to wipe his forehead, “but we had an art program at PlannersBanc and I was interested in exploring the possibilities. She seemed very knowledgeable about Finnish art.”
