Thirteen

Trooper Macovich had flown the First Family to the helipad downtown and then returned to the state police hangar where he was now up on a stepladder, cleaning bugs off the 430's bird-proof windshield in the glare of lamps along the tarmac.

Yeah, being a helicopter pilot was glamorous, all right, Macovich sourly thought. Nothing more exciting than hauling around the governor, who was blind as a bat, and that family of his, who acted as if they were royalty. Hell, the Crimms never thanked or praised him, and he hadn't gotten a decent raise in a while, either. It wasn't fair that Andy Brazil could be suspended for an entire year and then dance back to work as if nothing happened.

Macovich hoped Andy got what was coming to him and that everybody else did, too. Macovich wished something magic would happen in his life to help him out of debt and ease his relentless, exhausting sexual cravings. Women and most men didn't have any idea what it was like to have a stallion between your legs that was always kicking, bucking, and snorting to get out of the stall, even when the horsie, as Macovich called it, was asleep. His lustful nature had trotted into his life at a very early age, and his father used to chuckle with pride and call his boy Thorlo Thoroughbred, not realizing that little Thorlo was developing a big problem that would eventually dominate his body and his life. He had to have women, and it was expensive. He had to have women who were sexually insatiable and skilled enough to stay in the saddle no matter how hard the ride, and female company like that was hard to find.

Macovich stopped scrubbing away bugs for a moment when he noticed a Land Cruiser boldly pull up and park right in front of the state police hangar. A tough-looking white kid with dreadlocks climbed out and walked toward the helicopter as if he had every right in the world to do as he pleased.

"Hey!" Macovich said sternly. "This is a restricted area."

"And I'm lost as hell," the kid replied. "Can you tell me how to get to the regular airport? I got a flight to Petersburg in fifteen minutes and I'm gonna miss it for sure if I don't get there fast."

"There ain't no flights to Petersburg," Macovich said as he scrubbed a stubborn splat with the rag. "Petersburg's only thirty-something miles from here, so why you need to fly there? Just drive and you can get there just as quick."

The other road dogs had their windows down, listening and tensely wondering what Smoke was going to do. Man, worried Cat, if Smoke skyjacked that chopper, there wasn't a way in the world the dogs were ready to fly such a thing. Cat could see from the backseat of the Land Cruiser that the cockpit looked like a spaceship, with hundreds of overhead switches and circuit breakers and other components unfamiliar to him. He nudged Cuda.

"What we gonna do he shoot that trooper and take the chopper?" Cat asked.

"Maybe we steal a Peterbilt and haul it in the reefer?"

"Won't fit in any reefer I ever seen."

"Yeah. Have to take the top off the reefer with a blowtorch so the propeller would have some room. That the biggest propeller I ever seen."

"They're called blades," Possum corrected them. "Boats and prop planes got propellers. Not helicopters."

"Well, they still ain't gonna fit!" Cat said, annoyed.

"Just go south on the interstate and you can't miss it," Macovich summed up directions to Petersburg.

"How 'bout I pay you to drop us off in this thing?" Smoke nodded at the huge, beautiful helicopter. "How fast could it get us there?"

"Ten minutes, unless we got a head wind. But I can't give you a ride. The helicopter is used only by the governor and his family."

"Yeah? So how's he gonna know?" Smoke was getting increasingly aggressive, standing close to the stepladder and wondering if he should kick it out from under the trooper.

"There's a little Hobb's Meter in the cockpit and every time you pull up the collective, that meter knows it," Macovich explained. "Tomorrow, when I take the First Family on their next trip, the meter will say I flew the helicopter ten minutes, then sat it down, then took off again, then sat it back here at the hangar again, before I picked them up and after I dropped them off from the steak house. How I 'sposed to explain why I flew the state chopper to Petersburg unless the gov'ner think I took him there after dinner?"

"Maybe he won't remember."

This was a distinct possibility, especially after the amount of vodka the governor had consumed earlier this evening, and Macovich was getting tempted. It had been a bad week and a stressful night, and he was certain he couldn't make this month's Visa payment.

"Maybe you give us a quick joy ride in that thing?" the kid with dreadlocks suggested. "We don't really need to go to Petersburg. It's getting late."

"Nope." Macovich climbed down and shook hundreds of dead bugs out of the rag. "It ain't gonna happen, not right this minute."

Smoke was aware of the hard pistol in the small of his back. He was smart enough to realize that a skyjacking might be a little more involved than hijacking a Peterbilt, so maybe he needed to be patient and put a little more thought into this. If he shot the trooper, chances were he wouldn't be able to figure out how to fly the helicopter before someone saw him and his road dogs out here in front of the state police hangar reading instruction books and looking under the many hoods.

"You give lessons?" Smoke tried another approach.

"Yeah, I'm an instructor." Macovich popped open the luggage compartment and tossed the filthy rag inside.

"Tell you what, you give one of my guys lessons, I'll make it worth your while, as long as nobody, and I mean nobody, knows."

Smoke had already decided that Possum would take the lessons. Then, if Possum got caught, Smoke would just hire somebody else and carry on with business as usual. Possum was Smoke's least favorite road dog, anyway, and Smoke really didn't give a rat's ass what happened to him and sometimes regretted kidnapping him from the ATM machine. Smoke gave the trooper his pager number and said to give him a beep if he was interested, but he had better do it soon because Smoke was a busy man. Furthermore, Smoke said, if the trooper was bored with his low-paying, mindless job, Smoke could probably use him on his pit crew.

"You got a pit crew?" Macovich was so impressed he stopped locking up the helicopter and stared at Smoke in open admiration.

"Fuckin' A."

"Woooooo! NASCAR?"

"A driver," Smoke said, thinking fast and sounding impatient. "That's why I've got to be so secretive. Just one mention of my name and I got more fans coming at me than you got bugs hitting your window. It's like being a prisoner if you're as famous as I am."

"Wooo! What's the number of your car?" Macovich knew of no NASCAR driver with dreadlocks, but he could understand the young man's being in disguise off the track to escape his frantic groupies.

"Can't tell you, asshole," Smoke bullied him. "But you want to be on my pit crew," he added as he stalked off, "you give me a fucking call. Soon."

While Macovich was considering the opportunity that had suddenly presented itself, Andy was drinking beer and sitting listlessly inside his tiny row house on the fringes of the Fan District, where marginal people lived in denial of their surroundings.

No matter what the neighbors reiterated when they rocked on their porches at the end of long, hard days, the only thing of historical value about Andy's neighborhood was that it was old. Beyond that, the area was run down with no place to park, and sometimes people recently released from area halfway houses and clinics decided to come into the neighbors' lives without being invited. Andy's one-bedroom brownstone was neither air-conditioned nor properly heated, and it wasn't unusual for him to get power surges and spikes that were threatening to his computer.