“No. He can’t see and wants a minihorse because we already have Frisky.”
“Oh. Well, what a sweet idea.” Barbie tried to be encouraging. “Then why don’t you start with that? Let’s work on supervising your father’s little Seeing Eye horse.”
“He can take it to the race tomorrow night, and I’ll make sure everybody sees me supervising,” Regina said, her mood a bit lighter. “That will impress everybody, even Andy!”
“What a coincidence,” Barbie marveled as she thought of her magic rainbow and how it was making connections in her otherwise vacant life. “You know, it just so happens I’m going to the race, too. Why don’t I do a makeover of you before you go, and maybe you’ll meet some handsome race-car driver.”
“Oh please, sit with us in Papa’s box!” Regina got excited and even showed a little appreciation. “That would be perfect. But I don’t want to wear a skirt. I refuse to unless you really think it would impress people. Maybe the horse and I could ride in your van. Those Seeing Eye horses aren’t any bigger than Frisky.”
“I don’t know why not,” Barbie considered, assuming Frisky was a cat, and therefore a minihorse could easily fit inside a pet-carrying case in the back of the minivan. “Just make sure you tell me where to meet you.”
“Meet me at the mansion tomorrow at noon,” Regina said, happily. “And I’ll let you do the makeover.”
UNIQUE, too, was considering a makeover as she sat in her dreary apartment, which was paid for by her wealthy, important doctor-father, whom she accepted help from but hated. Unique was nude on her black bedspread, sorting through Polaroid photographs of various people she had savagely murdered over the years. She wasn’t getting the usual excitement and sexual arousal from reliving her crimes, because she was a bit anxious.
When she and Smoke had fled from the 7-Eleven the night before, they had noticed a Mexican kid in a beat-up Grand Prix, and Unique had ordered Smoke to chase him. Unique had not bothered rearranging her molecules when she went inside the convenience store because it was very late and although she had noticed the Grand Prix, she didn’t realize that its driver was nearby because the lights were out inside the pay phone booth. So Unique wasn’t invisible when she blew out the clerk’s brains and ran out of the store at the same moment the Mexican bolted out of the phone booth and sped off in his car.
Smoke had not been able to catch the Grand Prix, and now Unique had to consider the possibility that there was someone out there who could describe her to the police. She stared at the gory photograph of T.T. and fantasized about straddling the body and slashing away with the box cutter while T.T.’s warm flesh and blood were consummated by Unique’s Purpose and became part of her insatiable Darkness. Every one of Unique’s victims became part of her being. The Nazi inside her had directed Unique long ago that this violently sexual transubstantiation, or her Purpose, was essential if the Nazi were to live, and if the Nazi died, then so would Unique.
Unique’s frightening eyes roamed around her bedroom, taking in the cheap black furniture, black candles and incense, and the Nazi memorabilia she had begun acquiring through the Internet when she had pledged herself to destroy and consume people who did not deserve human existence according to her Purpose. She picked up another Polaroid and fantasized about the blond undercover cop whose identity she still did not know. But her Purpose would unite him with her soon enough, and although she had been invisible when she had first seen him inside the convenience store and then followed him home, she couldn’t take a chance that he might somehow recognize her. What if the Mexican boy gave her description to him?
Unique got up from the bed and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Her naked skin shimmered, and she shook her long raven-black hair before she began hacking it off with a box cutter. Hair fell all around her bare feet and the Nazi directed her to dye what was left a pale blond that was almost white and change her plan about refusing to go with Smoke to the race tomorrow night. Unique had intended to consummate her Purpose with the blond cop while the road dogs were pretending to be a pit crew, but now things had changed. If only she could find that Mexican boy and slash him into eternal silence. But maybe it was too late. Maybe he had already given her description to the police.
“Show me,” she softly said to her Darkness. “Show me the Purpose.”
“You will find your Purpose,” she answered herself in a different voice that was deep and unearthly.
“Yes.” She smiled at herself in the mirror as her craving became intense. “Soon. Soon,” she said to the blond cop. “Soon you will have a unique experience.”
Twenty-six
“I feel right qualmish,” Fonny Boy told the pilots through his headset as he and Dr. Faux shivered and felt airsick in the back of the Jayhawk. “I’m of a mind when I scudded along on my losipe and went ass-over-tin-cup and fell in my own spew.”
The sad childhood story about Fonny Boy flying along on his tricycle and taking a spill and throwing up on himself was lost on the Coast Guard crew, who had been smart enough to radio NCIC for a record check and had discovered that the dentist they had just rescued was wanted for health-care fraud, money laundering, and racketeering. As for the strange-talking Tangier boy, he was in clear violation of maritime law and also wanted for kidnapping.
Of course, Andy had seen to it that warrants were taken out on Dr. Faux and Fonny Boy after Andy had visited Tangier Island disguised as a journalist and had gone through Fonny Boy’s dental chart and later realized that when Fonny Boy had stated that the dentist was tied up, he had meant it literally. Recognizing that the two people the Coast Guard had just rescued were wanted by the state police, the pilot switched to the emergency frequency and radioed for any state police aircraft that might be up.
Macovich, having dumped Regina an hour earlier, happened to be giving Cat a helicopter lesson when the call came over the radio.
“Helicopter four-three-zero-Sierra-Papa,” Macovich tensely replied as Cat jerked the twin-engine helicopter into a hover. “I didn’t say lift the pedal, I said left pedal,” Macovich admonished him through their headsets, and in Macovich’s confusion, he pressed the transmit button on his cyclic and his instruction was heard by hundreds of area pilots, including the Coast Guard. “If you lift the left pedal, it’s the same thing as pushing the right pedal, and how many times I gotta tell you that? And see what happens? The chopper noses ’round to the right, ’cause what you just did was give it right pedal since you lifted the left pedal. Don’t you remember what I told you about torque?”
Cat was sweating and not at all interested in aerodynamics. He just wanted to learn whatever was necessary to fly the helicopter himself. He didn’t give a damn about getting his license or abiding by any FAA regulations, because he was fairly sure that once he and the road dogs escaped to Tangier Island, they would sell the Bell 430 to pirates in Canada and never have another worry. Six million dollars, he thought as he overcontrolled and caused the helicopter to oscillate precariously over the tarmac.
“Helicopter zero-Sierra-Papa.” A voice came back to Macovich. “You’re on one-twenty-four-point-five,” which was the emergency frequency. “Switch to one-twenty-five-nothing.”
Macovich switched as he struggled with the controls and yelled at Cat while unwittingly pressing the transmit button again. “Set it back down. Easy, easy! Don’t hunt for the ground. Just let it settle. Jesus Christ, don’t jerk the collective up at the last second!”
The helicopter popped back up into the air and then set down again hard, bouncing on its wheels as the tail boom swung around and almost hit a power cart. Macovich yelled for Cat to take his hands and feet off the controls.
“It’s my ship!” Macovich fought to steady the aircraft. “It’s my ship! Let go of the fucking controls, you son of a bitch! That’s it! I ain’t giving you another lesson ever! It ain’t worth it!”
Cat shoved the cyclic forward and pressed down on the right pedal, causing the helicopter to taxi along the tarmac in
a hard right turn, heading straight for the hangar, the rotor blades chopping at full power. Macovich had no choice but to haul off and slug his NASCAR student in the side of the head, knocking him out cold. Macovich pressed down both pedals and stopped the helicopter before it taxied into the back of a Cessna Citation. He cut the throttle back to flight idle and blew out a big, stressful breath of stale tobacco-smelling air.
“Man,” Cat groaned as he slowly came to. “Why’d you fucking hit me, man?”
“You tell your fucking driver when he needs to go somewhere, I’m flying and you can park your dangerous motherfucking ass in back,” Macovich angrily said. The near-disasters of the morning were compounded by his throbbing hangover and bad memories of Hooter’s dissing him in Freckles and then refusing to have sex with him on the couch when she drove him back to his mother’s cluttered single-bedroom house.
“Man, we gotta go to the race tomorrow night,” Cat said as he rubbed his head.
“Yeah, well, the guv’ner got to get there, too,” Macovich said as he flipped switches to the off position. “So I’m gonna have to fly you dudes in shifts, ’cause I got no choice about it. I can’t just tell the guv that he’s gonna have to go by car.”
“What’chu talking about?” Cat hotly replied. “Look at all them helicopters.”
He stared at the fleet of shiny new helicopters inside the hangar.
“We don’t care which one you fly us in, as long as it cost as much as this one,” Cat said.
Macovich figured the NASCAR pit crew had an important, powerful image to maintain, and puzzled what to do. He supposed he could recruit Andy to fly the First Family in a smaller but equally luxurious 407, which would leave Macovich free to transport the thus-far anonymous NASCAR driver and his pit crew in appropriate style for a handsome price that would enable Macovich to get his own apartment so the women he picked up would feel more comfortable about having sex with him. He would just lie to the governor and say the 430 was in for maintenance, assuming the governor even noticed.
“Uh, helicopter Sierra-Papa? You got company?” the Coast Guard pilot tried again as he choppered at a hundred and seventy knots toward the Richmond skyline.
“Sierra-Papa. Who’s trying to contact?” The breathless voice came back, and the Coast Guard pilots glanced at each other and nodded, which was their way of signaling that it was no bloody wonder state police pilots were always quitting.
Stories had made the aviation rounds, and the accepted version was that no one wanted to fly for the state police because the First Lady was always trying to matchmake her ugly daughters with the pilots who flew the First Family to dinner and shopping. Well, maybe not. Most likely it was because the entire state police department had gone whacko ever since it had been taken over by the woman superintendent the Coast Guard needed to contact about the two fugitives.
“We’re a Coast Guard HH-sixty,” the pilot radioed back. “Have two subjects on board and need a state police contact. Uh, the situation’s sensitive. You got a freq for the superintendent?”
IT’S just like a movie!” Windy Brees exclaimed as she blew through Hammer’s door a minute later and excitedly informed her and Andy that a Coast Guard helicopter had just picked up the kidnapped dentist and his harmonica-playing abductor. “They’re in a helicopter and had to lift them up in this huge basket with waves crashing everywhere and the wind storming, just like in The Perfect Howl! Did you see that with Keanu Clooney? Oh, if only he were older!”
“All right, all right,” Hammer said. “See if you can get the Coast Guard back on the air so we can talk to them.”
Hammer swivelled her chair around to the radio on the table behind her desk as Andy switched to 125.0, a rather generic frequency shared by small airports and often not very busy.
“Tell them we’re on one-twenty-five-nothing,” Andy told the secretary.
Soon enough, they had the Coast Guard pilots on the air.
“This is the state police,” Andy said into the microphone. “Are you on crew only?”
“Roger,” was the comeback.
“Roger,” Andy said. “Can you relay the circumstances?”
“Roger. We spotted two subjects in a boat and brought them on board. Appears they were fishing in the crab sanctuary and ran out of gas. They fired flares at our aircraft, and a post SAR boarding showed they were not in compliance. No fire extinguishers or life jackets.”
“We need them here.” Superintendent Hammer got on the radio. “What’s your present location?”
“Eleven-point-three miles east of the Richmond airport.”
Hammer asked the Coast Guard if they could transport the prisoners to state police headquarters for questioning at the very moment Dr. Faux was saying into his headset that it would be most helpful if the pilots would drop him and Fonny Boy in Reedville, not realizing that the radio was turned to crew only and no one in the cockpit could hear him.
“I don’t need to return to Tangier at this time,” Dr. Faux said into his microphone as the helicopter thundered across what a pilot would call severe-clear skies. “And I want to make sure that you understand that Fonny Boy was simply being kind enough to play his harmonica for me while he showed me around the bay when the bateau experienced engine problems. As for the crab pot, we have no idea where that came from.”
“That true?” asked the engineer, who was in back with them and could hear the dentist’s transmission but not what was being said in the cockpit.
“Nah!” Fonny Boy made the mistake of talking backward as the helicopter choppered west, toward state police headquarters.
“Oh, it’s not true?” the engineer said harshly. “I thought as much. So you were crabbing!”
“I’ll call my wife and she’ll come get us,” Dr. Faux nervously rattled on. “And I sure am sorry for all the trouble, but you certainly saved our lives. If you ever need any free dental work, please call me. Here’s my card.”
He held out a business card, which was caught by air rushing past the helicopter’s open door. The card sailed out into the bright afternoon and was shredded by the tail rotor.
“Oh dear. That was my last one. And this doesn’t look like Reedville,” Dr. Faux said in alarm as the Jayhawk made its approach to a helipad in what looked like Richmond.
YOU’VE got a lot of explaining to do,” Andy said to Fonny Boy and the dentist after they were handcuffed and led into an interrogation room.
“It’s all a mistake,” Dr. Faux said, deciding he would deny being kidnapped and anything else that might stir up a bigger mess. “I had simply extended my stay on the island, and Fonny Boy was taking me home when his bateau ran out of gas.”
Fonny Boy’s attention wandered down to the rusting piece of iron in his pocket. No matter what, he had to get back to the crab pot and follow the rope down to the sunken ship, which by now he was convinced was filled with treasure. He wasn’t entirely sure why the buoy had remained only two feet from the bateau’s stern as they drifted with the current, but assumed he had gotten disoriented and the bateau had not moved at all. He couldn’t face the possibility that he had lost the location of his destiny, and all that awaited him in life was returning to Tangier Island or maybe finding himself behind bars.
“Have they taken anybody else hostage on the island?” Hammer asked the dentist as Windy took notes.
“I know nothing about any hostages,” Dr. Faux said. “And it’s outrageous that you are detaining me here in handcuffs like a common criminal. I’m a dentist who helps the poor!”
“Yes, you help them all right,” Andy aggressively said, playing bad cop. “By ruining their teeth with unnecessary, lousy, and nonexistent dental work—such as substituting cheap materials for expensive crowns and fillings, and billing for bogus behavior management of pediatric patients, who end up with more steel crowns than they have baby teeth. Last year alone, thirty-two patients of yours endured some one hundred and ninety-two tooth removals, and in at least a hundred instances you billed for bring
ing in anesthetists when in fact, you were sedating the patients yourself.
“I could go on,” Andy sternly said as he stared hard at Dr. Faux, who was feeling faint. “Just so you know, I’ve mounted a joint investigation that includes the Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the attorney general’s office, plus the FBI and IRS. There’s been an outstanding warrant out against you for two days because the sheriff couldn’t find you to serve you, and guess why that is?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Faux’s voice squeaked as Fonny Boy ran his tongue over his poor-fitting braces and a rubber band shot across the conference table.
“Your only address is a post office box, and your home and office phones are answered by a machine,” Andy berated him. “And you’ve never allowed friends and family to take photographs of you, so the sheriff has no idea what you look like, and you were being held hostage on Tangier Island anyway, and no sheriff is going to try to find you on the Island, because the Islanders aren’t likely to cooperate with anyone in uniform, especially if he’s trying to serve a warrant.”
“That’s your opinion,” Dr. Faux said, and his real nature began to show itself. “You’ll have to prove everything you’re saying and what the reasons are. A lot of people use post office boxes and are shy about having their picture taken. I was not a hostage and there are no hostages.”
“Listen, Doctor Faux, we need your help,” Hammer said, playing the good cop. “The last thing anybody wants is another civil war. The Islanders are citizens of this Commonwealth just the same as you and I, and to fight us is to fight themselves. It’s like getting angry and shooting yourself in the leg. Any civil uproar on the Islanders’ part will only prove self-destructive, and it is the contention of the Coast Guard that when you fired the flare gun three times out in the bateau, you weren’t signaling distress but were making a blatant attempt to shoot down the helicopter.”