Something for Nothing (26 page)

H
E MUST HAVE BEEN
in a daze, because he started walking Slater directly over to the Cessna Skylane he'd flown down to Mexico. Jesus, he thought when they were about two hundred feet away from it. What the hell am I thinking? Do I
want
to get busted by this guy? It was practically a given that Slater was like one of those drug-sniffing dogs, that he could detect the slight traces of heroin that were sure to be in the plane. So he muttered something about a problem with the Skylane, and steered them instead over to the Cessna Cardinal, the plane Martin had used a few weeks ago to fly around with Mr. 240z and his girlfriend. It was nice and roomy inside, and like he'd told the guy, it was good for survey-style work—exactly what Slater now wanted to do.

The second they were in the plane, Ludwig was jabbering like an excited kid on a school field trip. Martin had tried to get him to stay behind, but Ludwig had insisted. “No way,” he said. “I'm coming with you guys.” And with Slater standing right there, Martin hadn't wanted to make an issue of it.

Slater was next to Martin, in the front passenger seat. Ludwig was in back, between the two seats, leaning forward and pointing and explaining. Martin hadn't seen him act like this in a long time. He was giddy, like a kid who has suddenly and unexpectedly gotten permission to do the thing he'd never been allowed to do.

Slater asked question after question about the instrument panel and about what the plane could do, and Ludwig gave him eager responses. They had to shout a little bit to be heard over the drone of the engine, which made their back-and-forth that much more irritating. How low can you fly? How much room do you need to land? What do you need to land at night? What's the load capacity of one of these things? The conversation reminded Martin of his question-and-answer sessions with Val Desmond. Val, of course, had been trying to figure out how to sneak the drugs into the country, whereas Slater was trying to keep them out—or to catch the guys who were smuggling them in. But as far as Martin could tell, there wasn't much difference. They were both trying to figure out how to get a little edge in the game of cat and mouse between the good guys and the bad guys. Now, though, Martin had the distinct feeling that Slater was making a move of some sort. It was a shot across the bow, a warning, one that involved making a fool of Martin (in fact, Martin realized, maybe it was the latter goal that was the real object of this little scavenger hunt after all).

Soon they were flying over the coastal hills separating Hayward and the other bayside towns from the inland suburbs. And then, before he knew it, they were flying over Walnut Station. It was an old habit, something he did on his own but also with the kids every now and then. They loved it. And who could blame them? There was just something fascinating about looking down at your own school or your own house from a couple thousand feet up in the air.

He didn't say anything about it to Slater or Ludwig, but within a minute or two he was looking down at his little postage stamp of property. Or he thought it was his house—it was hard to tell, because for the most part all the houses looked the same. But as they flew directly over his block he was pretty sure that he could make out the gray L of his roof and the kidney-shaped pool of 1186 Miwok Drive. And—unless he was mistaken—he'd gotten a glimpse of Sarah and a couple of her girlfriends lying out next to the pool. He had to smile—talk about
surveillance. He wished he had a camera with one of those powerful telephoto lenses, so that he could snap a few shots of them, see if they were smoking pot. He wouldn't have cared all that much, but he would have liked to catch her in a lie.

“Well,” he'd say. “The problem is, honey, I've got a photo I took of you from one of my planes. And as you can see, it's pretty obvious that you
were
cutting your summer-school classes, and you
were
smoking a joint. Don't you think it's time to cut the bullshit, Sarah?”

He'd love to see her expression after that. Especially given her performance in the diner this morning, and then her performance
outside
the diner. She'd stormed out after he yelled at her, and then started down the street. So he'd followed her in his Caddy, yelling to her from the car, across the passenger seat and through the open window. “Get in the fucking car, Sarah! Right now!” That kind of thing. It was awful, like a bad TV drama. And it was worse because she'd ignored him. She'd walked all the way through town and to school, with him following alongside, yelling. He'd known people were looking at them, and he'd known what they were thinking: That guy's not in control of his family. But he hadn't been able to help himself.

He was about to say this to Ludwig—tell him the silly little fantasy about busting her with the dope—but then he remembered that Slater was in the plane, and so he just kept it to himself. It was a little bit odd, anyway, he realized after thinking about it. Maybe Ludwig wouldn't get it.

“Okay,” Martin said, after they'd been in the air about half an hour. “We're coming up on Livermore. Help me figure out what we're looking for. Tell me again how far this place is from the highway, and where that water tower is that you were talking about.”

They spent the next half hour making passes over the big empty-looking stretch of land this guy David Little owned—or was supposed to own. Slater was right. It was rough terrain, rougher than Martin expected. Lots of hills, creeks, and ravines. He was a little surprised.
He'd assumed that Livermore was a bunch of flat pasture land. They still had rodeos out in Livermore, for Christ's sake. But from the air everything is different. That was one of Martin's maxims. He used it on potential buyers, but he also believed it. Because from two thousand or maybe four thousand feet in the air and looking down, what you had was perspective—the very thing that you didn't have when you were on the ground and surrounded by all the things that were out there every day, trying to confuse you and make you feel lost and overwhelmed.

And that's why he wasn't surprised when they spotted a stretch of ground that looked like a makeshift airstrip. Or when Ludwig spotted it.

“Breaker, breaker,” Ludwig said in a mock aviator's voice, one he followed with fake static sound, as if he were talking into the microphone of the plane's two-way radio. He was looking out the right window of the back seat. “I've got an airstrip sighting at two o'clock. Repeat: I'm looking at an illegal airstrip at two o'clock. Request advice on how to proceed.”

Martin thought he was just joking—and making an idiot of himself—but when he glanced back he saw that Ludwig was actually serious. And then when he tilted the plane slightly for a better view, he saw that Ludwig was right—airstrip at two o'clock. Or
maybe
it was an airstrip. It was hard to tell. There was a small open field, and in the middle of it was a long rutted-out stretch where sets of wheels had obviously made a deep impression in the ground. Even from where they were up in the air, you could see where the earth was bare and pale next to what was otherwise undisturbed green grass. This went on for about two hundred yards or so—about the length of ground that it would take for a small plane to take off, or to land. But, Martin realized, it could also just be a stretch where someone—this David Little guy or someone else—had run a truck or maybe a tractor back and forth.

“Holy shit,” Slater said as he looked out the side window of the Cardinal. “What do you know. That does look like an airstrip, doesn't it? Or does it? What do you think, Martin?”

He looked over at Martin, and then back out the window.

“I don't know,” Martin said. “I mean, it could be for a plane, but it could also just be a stretch of road. You know, where a truck or something has driven a lot. A tractor, maybe.”

“No,” Ludwig said, shaking his head. “That's an airstrip. Look how isolated it is down there. There's nothing out here. Why would you drive around out here? Plus, Martin, if it were a road, wouldn't it look like that for a longer stretch? Check it out: there's just this one spot that's worn away. That's the kind of wear and tear you get with a plane taking off and landing.”

“That's a good point,” Slater said. He was looking now through the binoculars that Ludwig had given him when they first climbed into the plane.

And it
was
a good point. The two parallel tracks were out in the middle of nowhere, in a flat open area tucked behind some hills and a big stretch of old oak trees that ran along a creek bed. Maybe it really was an airstrip for some local drug guys. On the other hand, Martin thought, maybe it was actually like one of those things from that stupid book Sarah had been reading, the one about UFOs and ancient landing strips and the rest of that crap. He could picture the big red letters on the cover:
Chariots of the Gods?
It had sat in the bathroom for months, and he'd flipped though it at least a dozen times. There were lots of aerial photos of spots from all over the world where aliens had supposedly landed their spacecraft, or moved huge rocks or left signals for their buddies in other space ships. And some of the photos looked pretty much exactly like what they were looking at right now. So yeah, maybe they needed to look at this from a different angle—maybe an advanced people had left these marks a thousand years ago, and he and Ludwig and Slater were the first humans to really notice it. Compared to that, what did it matter if they tracked down a couple of guys flying pot in from Humboldt County?

Slater had Martin do another pass over the airstrip (or supposed airstrip), but there wasn't anything new to see: no plane hidden in the trees, covered with camouflage netting, no secret bunkers, no other
signs of illicit activity. Martin watched Slater as he looked through the binoculars and mumbled to himself. He knew that it was time to head back to Hayward.

“I'm gonna nail that motherfucker,” Slater said as they headed back westward. “Just you watch.”

“Hey,” Ludwig said. “Why wait? Why don't we just land right now? Why not have a look around? You never know—you might be able to surprise someone down there.”

For a long, worried second Martin thought Slater might think this was a good idea, and that he was going to have to land his plane down there on what might actually be some sort of low-level drug set-up—probably only a step or two up from a hillbilly moonshine operation. He could just picture it. They'd land, and then someone would start blasting away at them from the bushes with shotguns and rifles. Slater would get picked off, and then he and Ludwig would be tortured and eventually killed by drug dealers out in Livermore, California—out in the boonies, in other words. And all because Michael Ludwig had thought it would be cool to fly around with fucking Jim Slater in a plane and look for bad guys. Or rather . . . all because Martin Anderson was involved in his
own
drug-smuggling scheme, and thus too scared and too freaked out to say no to this crazy jaunt out over some godforsaken property on the far edges of the East Bay.

Fortunately, though, Slater wasn't interested in some sort of macho parachute raid on this guy's shitty property.

“Listen,” Slater said, looking at Ludwig. “I'd love to do it—believe me. But I don't think it's a good idea. We could crash, for one thing. But we might also run into trouble out there. You never know—drugs and guns tend to go together. And like I've told Martin, I'm done being a fucking cowboy. I do things the safe way now. And that means heading home and getting a bunch of backup before I go out there. Plus, what if one of you guys got hurt? I'd lose my badge in a goddamn heartbeat. And for what? Some guys flying pot down from Humboldt County? It's not worth it. So listen, even if they had all the money
down there from their last deal—had it right now, a quarter of a million dollars or whatever—and we were going to fly in there and steal it, it still wouldn't be worth it.”

Martin saw out of the corner of his eye that Ludwig looked a little startled at Slater's mention of guns and getting hurt. In fact, he had the feeling that Ludwig was remembering, suddenly, that Slater was the guy who'd been popped two different times in drug raids out in Oakland. Whatever the case, he wasn't surprised when Ludwig didn't have much to say on the short flight back to Hayward. He just sat back, looking out the window, and thinking whatever it was that guys like Ludwig thought about at moments like this.

But Martin didn't say much, either. Instead, he was thinking about the makeshift airstrip he'd been on recently with his own crew of drug dealers, down in Mexico. They definitely had guns, and Martin had the feeling they wouldn't hesitate to use them, not even for a second, if they ran into a problem. What would Slater have to say about that? Would he think it was worth it to confront them? Martin wasn't sure, but he hoped he wouldn't have to find out.

I
t was Linda who came up with the idea.

“I think we need to get away,” she'd said. “Escape. You, me, all of us.”

Martin was in the kitchen, making a sandwich, and for a quick second he thought she was referring to Slater—the whole drug thing—and he froze up. He stood there, not moving, knife and mayonnaise poised over his stack of bread, salami, American cheese, and onion slice. But then he realized that she was referring to a family trip, and he relaxed. A quick run up to Tahoe, she said. She'd take half a day off from work on Friday, and Martin could do the same.

“You can have Michael take care of things,” she'd said. “Isn't that what he's for?”

Martin explained that Ludwig had his own plans. He was taking off with Jenny somewhere. Carmel, or something like that. Or maybe it was Mendocino. Martin couldn't remember.

“Just close up for the day,” she said. “It's not that big a deal, is it? If someone really wants to buy a plane they'll come back, right? Give yourself a break.”