Lovers and Gamblers

  She poured hot water onto the instant coffee, contemplated squeezing orange juice, but felt too lazy. Then she remembered the papers and opened up the front door, scooping them off the mat.

  ‘AL KING VANISHED PLANE MYSTERY’ the headline screamed.

  * * *

  Jorge shook his wife awake.

  ‘Where is Cristina?’ he demanded.

  She struggled awake. ‘I don’t know… In bed, it’s early isn’t it?’

  ‘She hasn’t been home all night.’ His voice rose dangerously. ‘Maria came running to me hysterically – “Miss Cristina’s bed hasn’t been slept in, has she had an accident, Señor?” I went to her room, it’s true, she hasn’t been home.’

  Evita sat up, reaching for a swansdown bedjacket. ‘Have you telephoned Carlos? Is Louis home?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything. I came straight to wake you.’

  Evita picked up the bedside telephone, dialled quickly.

  ‘Oh – good morning, Chara. So sorry to wake you this early – oh you were.’ She made a gesture of impatience as Chara engaged her in conversation. ‘My God, that’s dreadful. Look, I know you are busy, but I must speak to Louis. Yes, I’ll hang on while you fetch him.’ She covered the mouthpiece and addressed herself to Jorge. ‘The plane flying Al King to São Paulo is missing.’

  ‘Is Louis there?’ exploded Jorge, not at all interested in any other subject.

  ‘I think so. Just a minute.’ She uncovered the mouthpiece. ‘Yes, Chara. Oh, I see. Are you sure? Well, do you have any idea where he might be?’

  Jorge snatched the phone from her. ‘Chara? I’ll break his neck. He has Cristina with him.’ Jorge paused to listen. ‘I don’t particularly care about Carlos’s other problems. I want my daughter back. I know they are engaged, that makes no difference to me. If your son has touched her…’

  He slammed the phone down.

  ‘Chara will tell the whole of Rio,’ Evita stated. ‘I wish you hadn’t told her.’

  ‘What bothers you? The fact that your daughter is somewhere with the Baptista boy? Or that fat Cona gossiping?’

  ‘Both things bother me. Does she know where they are?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t. They’ll have to marry at once you know – at once.’

  ‘But everyone will think she is pregnant.’

  ‘By this time she might be,’ Jorge growled. ‘I never did trust that boy.’

  ‘I thought you trusted Cristina. You are the one who allowed her so much freedom. You are the one who kept on assuring me she was such a good girl.’

  ‘She is, she is. I don’t blame her – I blame the Baptista boy. She warned me about him, warned me he had made advances towards her.’

  ‘I’m sure Cristina can look after herself.’

  Jorge stared at his wife intently. ‘You can be a very hard woman, Evita – very hard.’

  ‘Not hard, Jorge, just realistic. I told you a while ago that Cristina was a woman. She is no baby innocent being taken advantage of.’

  ‘How can you say such things about your own daughter?’

  ‘Making love is not a crime.’

  ‘For children it is.’

  ‘They are not children.’

  ‘You can be an impossible person,’ Jorge spat. ‘Sometimes you are a stranger to me. I will be in my study – fetch me the moment Cristina returns – the instant.’

  He marched from the room.

  * * *

  Edna could hear the doorbell ringing, even though she was right down the end of the garden – an outside extension took care of that. She must remind herself to have it disconnected. It chimed continually, and she ignored it. She was busy picking tomatoes. Home-grown, red, hard tomatoes. How beautiful they were. How satisfying it was to watch something grow.

  She filled a wicker basket and decided to take some with her to the pottery class that evening. She would distribute them amongst her friends there – the first friends she had ever possessed. Oh, being married to Al King had produced many acquaintances, but never one true friend. They had always been nice to her because of Al. Ingratiated themselves in the hope that it would do them some good. It never did, and they dropped away as soon as they realized this.

  Now she had friends. Nice people who had no idea who she was – she had joined the pottery class under her maiden name and so far her secret was safe. Yes – they would enjoy the tomatoes – Carol and Mavis, Roger and John – especially John. She blushed at the thought of his name. She mustn’t keep on thinking of him. It was too early for that sort of thing. He was a nice person, a gentle man.

  She headed back towards the house. The house, she had decided, must be sold. She didn’t want it. It was far too big and fancy. All she wanted was a small cottage with a little garden. A private place where she could live in peace. A place where she could invite her friends without feeling embarrassed.

  Humming softly to herself, deep in thought, she didn’t notice the two photographers come bounding round the side of the house. She didn’t notice them until their cameras flashed, and then she shouted in anger. ‘What are you doing? How dare you. This is private property. Go away or I’ll call the police!’

  ‘Just one more shot,’ pleaded one of the photographers, ‘we’ve been waiting for hours.’

  ‘GO AWAY!’

  ‘How about a quote then?’

  She marched towards them, shielding her face, outraged at this invasion on her privacy. ‘I’m phoning the police!’ she warned. But then she realized it was an idle threat. She had had the telephone cut off, she had not required its services any more. At the same time she had cancelled all the newspapers and disconnected the four television sets.

  A couple of reporters had joined the photographers. They were trespassers. Edna ran towards the house.

  ‘Do you think Al is dead?’ one of them called. ‘Who was the girl he was with? Did you know her? Is your son with them?’

  Edna stopped short in her tracks. ‘What are you talking about? What are you saying?’

  The reporter who had yelled the questions ventured nearer. He sensed a story. ‘Didn’t you hear yet, Mrs. King? Al’s plane has disappeared somewhere in South America – he’s missing –presumed dead.’

  * * *

  Carlos Baptista had enough problems. He certainly did not need Chara yelling at him about Louis.

  He took no notice of her complaints. It was perfectly normal for a young man to stay out all night. And if he had a pretty girlfriend – well, so much the better. He should have made up some sort of excuse though. They both should. Silly children. Now he would have Jorge Maraco breathing down his neck, insisting on an early marriage.

  But he couldn’t worry about that now. He had other problems. Major problems. A disaster in fact. And it seemed no one could help him.

  Fact. Al King’s jet had left Rio with the famous man aboard.

  Fact. Shortly after take-off it had terminated radio contact and apparently vanished off the face of the earth.

  But how could a large jet just vanish? It was impossible. It had to turn up somewhere. This wasn’t the Bermuda triangle.

  Spotter planes had been sent out to see if it had force-landed or crashed anywhere. They had no idea where to start looking. The flight path between Rio and São Paulo was clear. So where to begin the search?

  The big plane had carried enough fuel to travel a long way. Who knew which direction it had taken?

  Airline officials were doing everything in their power to track it down. But they had nothing to go on. Investigations were only just beginning.

  Who exactly was on the plane?

  Nobody seemed to know.

  Airport staff on duty the previous evening were being rounded up. What had they seen? Anything suspicious? Anything unusual?

  An assistant of Carlos’s came rushing into the temporary office set up for him at the airport.

  ‘The boarding officer has been located,’ he huffed, somewhat out of breath. ‘He has a passenger boarding list.’
>
  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It seems, Señor Baptista, that your son was aboard with Miss Maraco.’

  ‘Whaaat? That is impossible.’

  ‘Not impossible, Señor. Unfortunately confirmed. They boarded the plane at the last minute saying that you had sent them.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ raged Carlos. ‘Impostors.’ But then he remembered Chara’s phone call. Remembered the fact that Louis had not returned home. Remembered that Cristina Maraco was also missing.

  Carlos buried his head in his hands.

  ‘Oh dear God!’ he mumbled, ‘Oh Christ above. Filho da puta. What can I do? What can I do?’

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  As the plane hurtled to its death Harry Booker lapsed into unconsciousness. On the initial impact the trees smashed through the cockpit pulping Harry to pieces. He died fairly quickly.

  The flight engineer was not so lucky. Half his face was gouged away, he was trapped in his seat, and death did not come until the plane finally stopped and he was slowly burned to death.

  Wendy also died in the fire. Wounded and trapped beneath Van’s body, she could not move. She died screaming for help.

  Van, unconscious, died with her.

  Nino, Cristina, and the navigator were all hurled from the plane when it split in two. The fact that they were not strapped into seats probably saved them from being burned to death.

  Nino broke both legs and suffered a lethal-looking gash to the head. Unable to move, he lay groaning on the wet ground.

  Cristina was miraculously unhurt. She was thrown out of the plane like a rag doll, and a bump on the head rendered her unconscious.

  The navigator landed in a tree and hung there limply. His neck was broken. Nobody found him, and he died after an agonizing three hours.

  Louis Baptista was also unlucky – caught midway down the plane as it broke in half – he was crushed to death. His last scream of ‘Cristina!’ went unheard.

  At the rear of the plane things were only slightly better.

  The two journalists, destined never to write their story, were hurled the length of the plane strapped side by side into adjoining seats, which had cut loose on impact. They were hurled straight into nothingness, and were dead by the time they hit the ground.

  Bernie Suntan had been saved by his bulk. A deadly strip of jagged-edged fuselage had bayoneted him in the chest. If he had been a thinner man it would have reached his heart, but it was embedded in fatty tissue, and although blood poured from the wound, it did not seem to be lethal.

  Paul was trapped by his legs under a concertina of seats. He was extremely white and had lost consciousness.

  Cathy was covered in blood. She too was trapped next to Paul, but her face had impacted with something, and blood streamed from a broken nose, and a gaping cut on her mouth.

  Evan was still strapped into his seat at a crazy angle. He had been bruised and shaken, and his arm was somehow crushed beneath him. But he was alive.

  Luke, however, was dead, his massive body slumped on the floor – one of his legs nearly severed by a long shard of glass. Blood had pumped from the wound forming a huge puddle. He had been smashed on the head and his skull was crushed.

  The door to Al’s bedroom remained closed. Twisted and crushed where the roof of the plane had given way, it would not have opened even if Al had unlocked it. It was firmly jammed.

  The couch where Al and Dallas had been strapped in had been yanked from the wall. Together they had been buffeted crazily around the padded room.

  The soft walls had saved them from any serious injury, and although they were covered in bruises they had both survived. The worst injury Al had was a cut on his leg. Dallas thought she might have broken a couple of ribs – the pain was intense.

  But the relief of being alive was unbelievable. When the plane had started its uncontrollable, dizzying, roller-coaster drop, she had known she was going to die. Known it. And she hadn’t screamed or cried out, but just clung tightly to Al’s hand and wished that they could have had more time together, wished that she could have trusted him sooner. Now it was all over, and at least she was going to die with him. He had made her happy in the short time they had been together, and she was thankful for that.

  ‘I love you,’ she had whispered as the plane fell. ‘Love you – love you – love you.’ And she had meant it.

  At that moment in time Al had been trying to keep up with his thoughts. Goddamn it. His plane was crashing. His plane. He had paid for the best – paid a fucking fortune. How dare they do this to him? How dare they?

  Where was Paul? Luke, Bernie? Why weren’t they doing something. That’s what he paid them for, wasn’t it?

  Christ! Who would believe it?

  He could feel Dallas’s nails digging into his hand. ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, everything’s fine,’ he managed to mumble.

  Seconds later they hit the trees, and the goddamn couch came hurtling away from the wall, and he thought, Sweet Jesus, don’t let me die like this. I don’t want to die. I’ve got too many things left to do.

  And they were all over the place, bumping around, smashing from one side of the cabin to the other. And he could hear himself repeating, ‘Don’t worry – don’t worry.’ And he thought how inane that must sound, how stupid, because even he realized that death must be only moments away. And he thought, what about Evan? And he thought of the first girl he had ever screwed. And he remembered Edna on their wedding day. And he flashed onto a memory of his first stage appearance.

  And all the time he was aware of Dallas close beside him.

  And he wondered why it had taken him thirty-eight years to find her. And he wondered why now that he had found her she was to be taken away from him. He wanted to scream, and shout, but he just kept mumbling, ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry.’ And – when the plane finally shuddered to a stop he was still saying it.

  It took him moments to realize that they had stopped. He was stunned.

  He wanted to shake his head and wake up – because Jesus Christ – this had to be a nightmare – this couldn’t be happening to him. Then he realized with a leaden feeling that this was no nightmare, this was real, it was happening to him. And his next immediate thought was fire – and wouldn’t it be ridiculous to have made it to the ground and then to get burned to death.

  Dallas was moaning softly. They were still strapped firmly into the leopard-skin couch – cleverly designed by some faggot designer whose balls Al would have for breakfast – the fucking thing hadn’t even stayed fixed to the wall, it had come to rest against the side of the bed – and now he couldn’t get the fucking straps undone. They were trapped.

  He couldn’t hear a thing. Shouldn’t there be sirens and bells, for Chrissake?

  Shouldn’t they be surrounded by rescue squads?

  Why weren’t they being saved?

  What the fuck was happening out there?

  * * *

  The pain in her legs was excruciating. Cathy tried to struggle up, but it was impossible. A whole section of seats seemed to have concertinaed back into a tangled mass of wreckage, and her legs were trapped beneath it.

  She struggled in vain. Had to get up. Had to get everyone out of there.

  It was freezing cold, pitch dark. She reached out and touched Paul, unconscious beside her. She wondered if he was dead.

  Bernie was screaming with pain. ‘I’ve been stabbed! I’ve been stabbed!’ he kept on repeating, ‘help me – help me!’

  She felt for Paul’s pulse. He was alive. She bent forward, and by feeling around, realized that he was also trapped.

  ‘Can anyone help us?’ she called out – but her words sounded so funny – and she realized half her teeth were missing, and the thick sticky stuff pouring down her face was blood. It was about then that she fainted.

  Evan was paralysed with fear. He didn’t dare to move. Yet he couldn’t remain hanging nearly upside down in his seat like an inanimate puppet forever.

  Feebly he struggled to
free his arm twisted beneath him, and upon doing that he fiddled with the seat belt, getting it open, and falling out of the seat with a thud. He fell near Bernie, and as his eyes adjusted themselves to the dark he could make out something terrible protruding from the fat man’s chest.

  ‘Pull it out,’ Bernie screamed in panic and terror, ‘pull the fuckin’ motherfucker out!’

  Evan backed away, stumbling along the littered aisle.

  He wished he had a torch. Wished he could see something. He heard the stewardess ask for help – then silence. He edged towards the door of his father’s section, and tripped over the body of Luke sprawled outside. Suddenly his hands were covered in something hot and sticky, and with horror he realized it was blood. ‘Luke?’ he questioned desperately, ‘LUKE?’ He pulled himself away from the body, tried to open the door to his father’s room. It wouldn’t budge. He threw his scrawny body against it, and started to scream hysterically. It was to no avail. Eventually he slumped to the floor, leaning his head against the door, and sobbing quietly. They were all dead. Even Bernie had stopped screaming. He was the only one left alive. He was all alone. What was he going to do ? Who would save him?

  * * *

  ‘I’m all right,’ said Dallas, ‘I can’t believe it, but I am.’

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Al replied tersely, ‘can you hear anything?’

  ‘Nothing. Just the rain. Where are we?’

  ‘Well, we’re sure as hell not in São Paulo. Probably on the outskirts somewhere – I’m worried about the others. We’re OK – but what about them?’

  ‘They’re probably down the emergency chutes by now.’

  ‘Look – when I count to three, push as hard as you can against the friggin’ seat belt. We can’t just lie here waiting to get rescued – this whole thing could go up in flames any minute. Come on now – one – two – three.’

  She strained with him, and a wave of sickening nausea engulfed her. ‘Oh God, Al, I can’t. I – I think I’ve broken something… It’s my ribs… It hurts… It really hurts…’

  He knew that every second must count. Planes always blew up. Always burst into flame. Why wasn’t someone breaking in to get them out? Why wasn’t anyone giving a fuck? Christ –some heads would roll for putting him through this… A lot of people would be out looking for new jobs…