“Judith Katz.”
“Katz?” He smiled. “A Katz. Not related to Hyman and Myrna are you? No. Of course not. They had no children.” He signed the check as carefully as if he were stitching a wound. He waved it in the air to dry the ink, then handed the check to Katz.
“Things will get better. Trust me.”
She looked at the man kindly, sighed deeply, relieved by the prospect of completing the first step of her mission.
“But first,” she said, “first it is going to get much, much worse.”
She left the building with the check clutched in her hand, afraid that if it went into her bag, some thief’s radar would be alerted and the bag would be snatched.
Across the street, the bank teller looked at the check Judith handed him, then at the driver’s license presented with it, punched keys on a keyboard, looked at a screen and asked, with no hint that anything unusual was taking place, “How would you like this?”
Katz walked two blocks to the American Express travel office next to her dry cleaner. The office was empty except for two bored-looking employees sitting at separate desks.
“I want to book a flight,” Katz said.
The travel agent looked more like a bicycle messenger, both of her earlobes riddled with rings, both nostrils pierced, as was one eyebrow.
When she spoke, a glint of gold showed in the middle of her tongue.
She looked surprised. No one Katz’s age used travel agents. Most customers looked more like the travel agent’s grandparents, and even her grandmother booked her flights back and forth from Florida on Travelocity.
“That’s what I’m here for,” the woman said cheerily. “Vacation? Got some good packages in the islands.”
“Africa,” Katz said, no hint of excitement in her voice at uttering such an exotic destination. “I want to go to Africa, Eastern Africa.”
She saw the surprise on the agent’s face.
“Is there a flight today?”
CHAPTER 68
Goldhersh waited outside while Shapiro went into the small metal building declaring itself to be Office Mid-Maryland Soaring Society. Inside were a counter and a coffee table with three ratty rattan chairs. Dog-eared copies of the Soaring Society of America journal covered the table. A large erasable calendar hung on the wall behind the counter.
A large-boned woman wearing age-faded jeans walked through a door at the side of the counter. A black plastic tag pinned over her left shirt pocket said TAMMY.
“Howdy,” Shapiro said, hoping to hide his relief. “I just drove down from Massachusetts. I thought I’d get in some ridge flying.” He was met with a blank stare. “I called a few days ago,” he added.
“I remember,” she replied. “Looks like a sunny day? Whatcha flyin’?” The woman looked out at the Pathfinder and trailer.
“A Grob 103, two place. I thought I’d fly the ridge today. I’d like to get up this morning, if possible.”
“Said that already.”
“So, how do I make arrangements? Is the tow pilot around? I’d like to speak with him and see about getting a nice high tow, five thousand feet or so. Give me a chance to familiarize myself with the area.”
The woman gave Shapiro a blank stare.
“Is the tow pilot here?”
The woman walked around the counter to stand next to Shapiro.
“You’re looking at him?” she said. “Why don’t you get that fancy plane stuck together and we’ll talk about that tow?”
As Shapiro turned to leave, the woman spoke again.
“One thing. Gotta see your pilot’s license. New reg. FAA says so?”
I never heard of that regulation, Shapiro thought suspiciously. “Sure thing,” he said. “It’s in the car. I’ll show it to you when the plane’s assembled.”
“No prob. Don’t forget. New reg.”
Shapiro said nothing to Goldhersh about any suspicions. He backed the glider trailer onto the grass in front of the club building. The cover slid easily off the trailer, revealing the long white fuselage of the glider, the vertical tail rising at one end, the bulge of the cockpit at the front reminding Shapiro, as usual, of the time a waitress near a glider contest asked him if he flew one of “them flyin’sperm things.” The cockpit was topped with a long Plexiglas cover, hinged at one side. The plane’s wings were stored on edge along both sides of the body.
The two men lifted the wings and laid them on the grass. They slid the airplane backwards from the trailer, rolling on the single rubber wheel protruding from underneath the cockpit.
With Goldhersh holding the end, Shapiro carefully guided a wing into the narrow opening on the side of the fuselage. A long steel bar at the inner end of the wing slipped into a slot behind the rear seat. They did the same with the other wing.
Shapiro opened the clear canopy and leaned into the far rear of the cockpit, where the ends of the wings were visible. He inserted steel safety pins into holes in the wing ends, then spun locking nuts over the pins, finally inserting cotter pins into holes in the pins to ensure the nuts could not loosen.
He counted the threads exposed on the pins above the nuts.
Standard procedure.
All that remained was to carry the horizontal tail section to the rear of the plane and lower it over the flat top of the vertical tail. Locking pins held it in place.
The plane was ready. It had taken only fifteen minutes.
Before returning to the club building, Shapiro conducted his preflight inspection, walking slowly around the airplane, testing the flight controls to ensure that the wing flaps responded to movement of the control stick in the cockpit and that the tail surfaces moved in the correct directions.
Finally, he walked to one wing tip, the wing that jutted into the air while the other wing rested on the grass. He reached up for the wing tip above his head and shook it. Hard. The flexible wing moved in a wave from the tip to the body. He walked to the other wing tip, lifted it and shook it.
Satisfied that the plane was flight ready, he called to Goldhersh, who stood watching this ritual silently. Shapiro glanced at the large man from time to time and noticed his lips continuing to move soundlessly, without stop, as his prayers continued.
Can’t hurt, Shapiro thought.
The familiar routine of attaching the wings and tail surface and conducting the preflight inspection settled Shapiro’s thoughts. Over the years little could distract him from absolute attention to the details of those rituals; the counting of the threads was as close to a sacrament as Shapiro believed in.
The final step in the preflight brought him back to reality. Rather than buckling the rear safety belts around the cockpit cushions, Shapiro was confronted with the steel cylinder, still wrapped in blue vinyl dental blankets.
He called to Goldhersh.
“Abram, let’s put these things in the car.” He lifted one of the heavy blankets and staggered as he carried the armload of blue blankets to the SUV. He dropped them on the grass behind the tailgate, lifted it, and placed each of the blankets in the rear of the car.
Shapiro noticed Tammy standing at the window. Her eyes were on the large man at the rear of the SUV.
The door opened and the woman came out. She glanced at his airplane and nodded.
“You said five thousand feet?” she asked.
“That’s right. Like to have some time to get situated before hitting the ridge,” Shapiro said. That was an exceptionally high tow, twice as high as was necessary to get to the nearby ridgeline. “Can we get started soon?”
“Want me to tell ya ’bout the landin’pattern before ya take off, or ya gonna wait till yer on the way down?” she asked.