Cockpit

  “Is the girl friend in on this?”

  “No. Jessica doesn’t know anything about it. Tony was adamant that she be kept out of it. If he hadn’t been paranoid about his new book, he never would have devised this crazy scheme.”

  “How is he going to explain his disappearance?”

  Lasker fidgeted in his chair. “He’ll claim that on the train to Germany he changed his mind and took off for the north of Denmark to do some other research. A lot of his book is set in Denmark; that’s why he and Jessica were living in Copenhagen.”

  “And the next chapter?”

  “He’ll say he tried to reach Jessica in Copenhagen after the first week but no one answered the phone so he figured she’d gotten bored and gone off to see some friends of theirs in Paris.”

  “His phoney name?”

  “Simple. He wanted to be left completely alone to work.”

  “Why did you go along with this?” I asked him.

  He hesitated. “At first, I thought his disappearance was genuine. Then, one morning, I found a telephone message on my desk that somebody had scribbled late the night before. All it said was that Arthur Duffy called from Europe and would call back that night at twelve-thirty. I’d never heard of Arthur Duffy but I had a feeling this had to do with Tony, so I waited for the call. You appeared about fifteen minutes before it was due and almost scared me to death. When the call actually came, I damned near had a heart attack. I told him to get his ass back here on the double but he refused.”

  “When do you think he’ll resurface?”

  Lasker’s eyes shot to the wall calendar. “He’s supposed to get in touch with me within the week.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “He will,” he said with a weary smile. “And anyway, I know where to reach him.”

  “No, you don’t. Not anymore,” I told him. “Now I’m in charge of the plot. It’s my novel.”

  He began to grow agitated, raising his hand to his forehead as though testing for fever. “What do you mean? Has something happened to Tony?”

  “Don’t concern yourself with fact. Stick to fiction. Remember, your cut-out cam is broken.”

  All of a sudden, he seemed to give up. “What do you want me to do?”

  “As soon as I leave, telephone Jessica and tell her you’ve heard from Duncan and that he’s fine. Next, call a press conference and tell the truth.”

  He thought it over. “No,” he said at last. “I can’t make that decision for him I edit his books, not his life.”

  I rose, preparing to go. “Duncan might never surface again. Remember the cut-out cam!” I said. Lasker got up, went over to the window and stared at the skyline. I opened the door and left the office.

  The next day at noon, I turned on the TV and saw Jessica Whitehead and Richard Lasker being interviewed by reporters. They both beamed as they announced that Duncan had called Lasker from a village in Denmark and was shocked to hear the disappearance story. He was still in the village finishing up his work but would be flying back to New York in a week or two.

  Around eleven-thirty that night, as I was preparing to leave for Lasker’s office, a special bulletin flashed on the news. Anthony Duncan had been found dead on the Danish side of the Danish-German border.

  The writer’s body had been discovered behind the wheel of a rented car and the local coroner had established that death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning. The car had been parked at the edge of some woods a quarter of a mile off a highway near the township of Krusaa, and the Danish police theorized that Duncan had pulled off the road to sleep but had kept the engine running for warmth. A leak had infused the sealed car with lethal fumes. Although Duncan was alone in the vehicle when his body was discovered, the ashtray was filled with lipstick-smeared cigarette butts, from which the police concluded that Duncan had been traveling with an unidentified woman.

  Often I invite the unpredictable simply by being in the right place at the right time. When I am restless at night, I take a taxi to a deserted section of the city. Once the taxi drives off, I wander through the dark, unfamiliar streets alone, armed only with a small leather case. Inside is a tape recorder designed to look exactly like the walkie-talkies used by police and other enforcement agencies. I can activate prerecorded messages inconspicuously by pressing one of the bolts on the bag’s handle.

  As I walked a short path between the piers one night, I noticed a limousine with its lights off, parked close to the wall of an abandoned warehouse. I moved closer to it, expecting to hear the sound of an engine, but the car seemed empty.

  I was just about to take out a flashlight and examine the license plate when the interior lit up. Both of the car’s left-hand doors opened simultaneously and I faced two men, one in the driver’s seat, the other directly behind him. They remained in the car, pointing their guns at me. Two other men peered at me from inside the car. I pressed a button under the bag’s handle and a long antenna sprang out. “Hey, you, come here,” commanded the man behind the driver. The click of his gun signaled that it was ready to fire. The light from inside the car shone on his dark hair and on the short barrel of the gun. I hoped he would notice the antenna before he pressed the trigger. As I moved toward him, very slowly, my steps echoing in the silence, I kept my finger on the bolt of the bag’s handle.

  The man beside the driver handed him a flashlight, which he shone on me. At that moment, I realized I had not checked the recorder’s batteries or the tape before going out. If my gimmick failed, he would kill me.

  The man motioned to me with his gun. “Hey, man, come over here. What’s that you’re carrying? Drop it!”

  I pressed the bolt. The device in my bag beeped twice, and a loud message blasted into the night as if it were being transmitted from somewhere nearby. “Three-zero-four, three-zero-four. We have your position. Moving from both sides. Over.”

  The gunman at the wheel slammed the front door and instantly turned the ignition. The man behind him sat back in his seat with his gun still pointing at me. Only as the car screeched forward did the gunman slam the other door shut. In a second, the car was gone. My eyes, which had been blinded by the glare of the flashlight, began to readjust to the darkness. I lowered the antenna and rewound the tape, feeling as satisfied as if I had physically beaten each of my assailants.

  When I was eighteen, I took my final exams early and moved to the ski resort in mid-December. Having accepted the fact that I would never be good enough for slalom or downhill racing, I decided to perfect a ski stunt in which I could exhibit an equal amount of skill and courage. At the height of the season, the lines of skiers waiting to go up in the cable cars were so long that they extended around the corner of the cable car station to an area at the base of the main run. So as they waited, the crowds that lined up around the terminal could watch other skiers speeding down the last leg of the run. The best skiers, aware of their captive audience, would take the steep last section at full speed, then make an abrupt, well-executed stop.

  There was a flight of twelve steep steps on the side wall of the station. Around the corner from the top stair, and at a level slightly higher, there was a balcony about the size of a station wagon attached to the front of the terminal, almost two floors above the ground. Because it lacked a railing and was encrusted with ice and snow, this balcony was never used in winter.

  My stunt would consist of skiing straight down the slope, approaching the station at great speed, jumping over the entire staircase and stopping dead center on the balcony. As I began the run toward the steps, the people waiting below would think I had lost control and was about to fall down onto them. I could imagine the crowd scattering with fear, but I would land on the balcony, side-slip, stop in an upright position and calm them with a nod.

  To do the stunt without crashing into the staircase or sliding off the balcony would require painstaking practice, for if I failed, I could be crippled or killed. I designed a very strict regimen. I stopped skiing early in the afternoon, ate dinn
er long before dusk and was in bed by six.

  After midnight, when the slopes were deserted and the other skiers were either carousing or asleep, I would get up, dress, pack up my ski gear and call a taxi. The drivers would always explain that the lift was closed, and I would answer that night-skiing was my passion and that I enjoyed climbing up the slope in the dark. Once at the station, I would walk only the few hundred yards to the last leg of the run. The cab drivers never waited for me and I would have to walk back to the lodge after practice.

  I taped one flashlight to the balcony, another to the stairs and a third to my chest. During the first week, I practiced skiing downhill and jumping parallel to the staircase until I could gauge the thrust needed to lift my body over the steep steps to the balcony. The second week, I took off the skis and practiced leaping from the top step onto the balcony itself to develop the speed and balance necessary for turning and stopping.

  After weeks of intensive practice, I could successfully jump onto the balcony, but I still had to take care that my lateral momentum created enough friction to stop me from crashing into the wall or flipping off the balcony. To prevent injury, I rigged a net from the balcony’s outer edge to the roof overhanging it. If I misjudged, I ended up with my skis entangled in the net, irritated by my failure but unharmed.

  Even when I jumped as many as twenty times a night, the risks did not seem to decrease. The physical strain began to show. My friends complained that they hadn’t seen me at the nightclubs for a month and commented on how thin I had become. Some of them suspected a secret vice was sapping my strength. One claimed I had lost my mind because, driving home from a midnight poker game, he had seen me walking alone in full skiing gear with skis and poles slung over my shoulder. I denied both vice and night wandering but offered no other explanation.

  Despite my practice, the net was still saving me at least twice a night. My body was bruised from the punishment it had taken, and I had twisted my ankle when my skis caught between two steps. Still I persevered until, at the end of the second month, I was satisfied with my performance.

  My debut would be made on Sunday, when hundreds of skiers were lined up below the balcony to wait for the cable car. Both exhilarated and apprehensive, I took the car up early Sunday morning and at the highest station ordered a breakfast I couldn’t eat. My hands shook, my mouth was dry and I could not stop my nervous cough. For a moment, I felt that the adulation I anticipated would not compensate for the danger, but that moment passed. If the largest possible crowd was to witness my performance, I had to begin immediately. I put on my skis with shaking hands and started carefully down the slope.

  In forty minutes, I sighted the cable car terminal below me. Slightly out of breath, I paused before the final stretch and checked my skis and bindings. My breathing grew more regular and my heartbeat steadier. Letting go, I took off straight at the staircase. It looked steeper and shorter in the daylight, and, as I sped toward it, I could envision it spattered with my blood.

  People crowding the run screamed when, with one motion, I brought my skis together, leaped, cleared the stairs and reached the balcony with a loud thud. Even before I touched down, I had known that my angle was correct and my body ready for the landing. I came to a perfect halt an inch or so from the edge of the balcony.

  I unfastened my skis, entered the station through the balcony door, walked down the inside steps and out to the cable car line. As I emerged, the crowd applauded. I took my place in line and accepted the admiration modestly. I made five jumps the first day.

  After my debut, when I walked down the main street, I noticed people pointing me out to their friends and waving to me as I passed. Several of them came over to ask my opinion on the best skiing equipment and training programs.

  I lived from jump to jump. At the cable car station, I talked with skiers who had seen the stunt before and now treated me as an old friend, wishing me well on the next attempt. Their awe elated me but did not dissipate the terror I felt at the top of the run. After a few weeks, I became aware of the animosity of the local ski instructors. By now all of them had seen or heard of my jumps, but they knew I was merely an average skier who excelled only at a single ingenious stunt. Whenever they could, they embarrassed me in front of tourists by challenging me to compete on the slopes, not on the balcony.

  Late one afternoon, I was sitting with a few friends in the summit restaurant. Several local skiers came toward me. One of them, a tall, strong garage mechanic, made certain that everyone heard him bet me a week’s salary that he could beat me on the resort’s toughest run.

  I agreed that he could win because I was just not as good a skier as he was. In response, he charged I was a coward whose successful balcony jumps were sheer luck. His friends added their taunts to his, calling me a big city show-off interested only in tricks. I admitted that I enjoyed showing off but denied being a coward, implying that jumping the staircase was far more dangerous than the resort’s toughest run.

  Among the other diners, I noticed a girl probably in her early twenties, quietly watching me take on the locals. She sat alone, in a stiff, formal pose, unsmiling and silent. When I saw her staring, I announced that I was willing to bet the equivalent of the mechanic’s weekly salary that none of the local skiers could successfully perform my stunt, adding that I would jump as many times as challenged.

  The mechanic accepted at once, followed by four of his companions. We went to a corner table to arrange the terms of the competition. I took a seat against the wall to keep my eye on the girl. A local ski instructor had offered to serve as referee. It was decided that the challengers and I would jump one after the other, and that I would pay each of them as he succeeded. We agreed that, regardless of the weather, we would jump the next day, after the last cable car had descended and the area was clear of other skiers. As their judge, the locals proposed the owner of a hardware shop, who was well known as the inventor of a new ski binding. While the girl watched, I solemnly nodded and shook my challengers’ hands. I proposed my own judge: the girl.

  When my challengers turned to stare at her, I walked over to explain what I was asking her to do. She introduced herself, mechanically reciting her name and address in the resort as if anticipating I would ask. After the challengers left, I thanked her and invited her to dine with me, but she said she had made other arrangements, and walked away.

  That night, I sat in my room, staring at a tiny icicle hanging from the window frame. I had now made over two hundred jumps, but success had not increased my confidence. I was well aware that I could be tipped over by the smallest incident—a sneeze, a sudden hesitation, a momentary swirl of snow, the accidental release of a binding. I checked and rechecked my boots, skis, bindings, even my clothes and goggles. Then I locked the door, pulled down the shade, undressed and closed my eyes.

  I thought about the girl who was my judge. I knew which chalet she stayed in; by cutting across the fields I could reach it in twenty minutes. I dressed and walked out. The frosty air speeded my movement and, as I walked, the powdery snow went over the tops of my boots, melting down into my socks.

  The downstairs window was lit in the chalet. I pulled on a skiing mask that left my eyes and mouth uncovered, then I looked in and saw the girl. She sat alone at the large table reading an illustrated magazine. Four breakfast places were already set on the table. I felt an impulse to knock on the window, to startle her with my mask. The girl would ask what I wanted and I would admit I was frightened of my jump. I would also tell her that I had proposed the bet to the local skiers merely because I wanted to attract her attention.

  I tapped the window gently. The girl raised her head and, uncertain, glanced in my direction. I ducked down. When I looked in again, she was absorbed in her reading. I thought of knocking at the window once more but I did not. Suddenly the drama of my jump seemed more immediate than the possibility of a relationship with the girl. I walked away.

  Back in my room, I decided to forget about the contest; having acc
epted the challenge, it was out of my control. I went to sleep. I awoke later than I had planned, though still in time for the competition. The taxi driver recognized me as the night-skier, but seemed indifferent when I told him I was no longer skiing alone in the dark.

  My opponents and our two judges had already gathered at the station. As I shook hands with the girl, I saw that her eyes were as unresponsive as ever. The challengers and I drew matches to determine the order of our jumps. One of the skiers drew first jump and was driven up the slope in a snowmobile. At the starting point he got off, positioned his goggles and waited for the signal. When the judges raised their hands, he started down the run with a confidence that initially misled me, but as soon as he had gained speed, I realized that by unfolding his body too soon, he was aiming too high. He landed near the outer edge of the balcony and slid off as smoothly as if he had planned to.

  We heard his skis splinter as he fell. When he tried to get up but failed, two of his fellow challengers ran to him and carried him to a friend’s car, which immediately took off for town. In an unemotional tone, I asked the remaining challengers if they wanted to yield. They exchanged glances, and took a vote. Their decision was to continue, but it was not unanimous, and the one skier who disagreed was pale and uneasy.

  I was second jumper; I put on my skis but left off my parka, so that I’d have as much freedom as possible. Instead of riding the snowmobile, I asked to be towed behind it up the run, hoping to loosen up and generate some warmth before making the leap. From the top, the staircase and the balcony looked absurdly small.

  At the judges’ signal, I took off, my skis vibrating on the well-packed snow. Just before I aimed at the staircase, I glanced at the girl. She was looking at the balcony, not at me, as if only the moment of impact mattered. Countering a sudden tension, I pitched myself over the staircase, my feet underneath my hips, my hands dropping down, my body automatically flexing to the side. With my chest bent over my knees, my skis touched down on the balcony, then rasped along its icy surface. In a moment, I stopped. I took the skis off and calmly returned to my place. The girl’s eyes were still fixed on the balcony.