Chapter Ten

Irene finally got her tongue working. “You’re joking...”

“Our passengers are mostly guys, with a few ‘ladies’ along for the ride. They appreciate our girls. The bikini-crew were handpicked by the resort for their dynamite looks and they’re all so tall, our girls get mistaken for a basketball team.” Bev kicked off her high heels, slipped a tight little derriere into the right-hand control seat and propped ten pink toes onto the console. She looked about twelve years old and Irene noted that Bev could hardly see out of the forward windscreen. “All us girls wear bikinis on the flight. It’s kinda like our identifying feature, you know? Our theme.”

“And hence the name, Bikini-Bus.”

“Yeah-h”

“Sandro’s idea?”

Bev shrugged. “Don’t know. But it sure sounds like him, doesn’t it?”

The intercom buzzed and Bev lifted the handset and held it to her ear. “The crew is onboard and setting up,” she told Irene, “and the luggage conveyor is being wheeled back. Passengers board in fifteen minutes. Everyone is looking forward to getting home.”

“Okay. Let’s do the flight-check and get ready for takeoff. Is Sandro aboard?”

“He will be. I saw him in Departures.”

“Good. I know he wants lunch on the beach.”

“Who’s he eating?” Bev giggled.

“Bikini-Bus, you are cleared. Runway oh-six.”

Despite everything, Irene had the pilot’s seat, the promise of a new job and a much needed paycheck. “Roger, Control.”

With a hand on the steering yoke, Irene notched the throttles forward and felt the engines respond. The whine of the turbofans increased in pitch and the plane leaned forward on its brakes.

“Release brakes,” Irene instructed and added more power. “Control. Takeoff roll.” The plane rumbled as the speed increased, the blacktop beneath the wheels blurred.

“Roger Bikini-Bus; you’re clear.”

Irene moved the throttles forward and the plane surged, eager to escape the cloying earth. The thrust. The raw power. It was intoxicating.

“Eighty knots,” Bev announced, her voice elevated over the whine of the jets. “V1.”

It was the point of no return. At V1 you either flew or ran out of runway.

“Roger. Rotate twenty degrees.” Irene called back.

Irene pulled back on the yoke and the plane lifted effortlessly. “Gear up.”

“Wheels.” Bev repeated and used her left hand to push the lever that would tuck the landing gear up into the fuselage.

The plane became more solid with the lift. “1-30 knots,” Bev called out.

“1-30,” Irene confirmed. “Retracting flaps.”

“Roger flaps.”

Irene increased thrust and her DC-9 lifted out over the Atlantic Ocean. “Twenty-thousand,” Bev announced, her eye on the altimeter.

“Roger.” Irene leveled off a little for the comfort of her passengers and saw the bulk of Andros Island in the Bahamas moving towards her. “Extinguish seat-belts.” The plane continued to slowly climb.

“Forty-thousand feet,” Bev read off the figures.

“Leveling off and initiating new course.” Irene punched numbers into the nav-computer and the automatic flight controls took over. The plane banked to the south and leveled out. Through her side window, Irene could see the Exuma Cays strung out like a necklace of green emeralds on the sparkling turquoise waters of the Grand Bahama Bank. And further out, the deep inky blue of the Atlantic Ocean rolled. She dwelt for a moment, on the thought of Carlos Sandro. She shuddered, but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind, looking out over that ocean: It had all been worth it.

“We got about an hour-and-a-half to kill,” Bev announced. “Time enough for the men to gulp down six drinks and have a bit to eat. You had coffee yet? Alex brews a great cup. And if you’re hungry, I can recommend the steak sandwich.”

Irene had been so keyed earlier she couldn’t face breakfast. “Coffee, please. I’ll hold off eating until we land.”

Bev picked up the handset. “Alex? We could stand a couple of fresh coffees up forward. Okay. Thanks hon.”

Moments later, Irene heard the cabin door open. “Oh, you’re our new bus-driver. Hi. I’m Alex Macy, your head stew.” The woman handed Irene coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Black, thanks,” Irene took the mug and noted with surprise that it wasn’t plastic. “Irene Ross,” she introduced herself. “I hear you brew a great cup.” She took a sip. Bev hadn’t overstated the quality of Alex’s coffee: It was rich; strong but flavorful. “Mmm. This is good.”

Alex smiled. She was older than the girls– late thirties, Irene guessed. A handsome woman that did justice to the tiny french bikini she wore. She was becoming with her smooth butter-scotch complexion and tall, so she stood stooped against the overhead.

“Golly. It’s so cramped up here. I don’t how you can stand it.”

“It’s perfectly fine,” Bev shot back, accepting her coffee mug. “Isn’t it Irene?”

“You squirt. You come up to my navel,” Alex countered playfully.

“It depends a lot on who you share the space with,” Irene added.

Alex started laughing. Bev’s mouth had earned her a reputation. Alex turned back to Irene. “Where were you posted?”

“United. For the last eleven years.”

Alex’s eyes lifted. “Ross… You’re the Captain Ross who brought the plane in at Sioux Falls?

There was no use denying the fact. “Crash-landed after the rear engine exploded, yes.”

“God. I read about that. It was the hydraulics, wasn’t it? The turbofan blew apart and took out all the hydraulic lines. You had no flight controls and steered the plane onto the runway by jockeying back and forth between the engines.”

Bev had gone silent, suddenly in awe of her new boss.

“You seem to know a bit about flying?” Irene took new interest in her head flight-attendant.

“My husband’s a pilot.”

The half-naked woman was married. Irene was surprised, but held a neutral expression. “Really? Who’s he with?”

“The US Air Force” Alex replied, her tone dry. “He’s stationed on the carrier USS Kennedy, presently in the Indian Ocean. It’s the only reason I can come to work dressed like a beach-bunny.” She stuck her thumbs into the ties below each hip bone and cocked her leg. “He’d have a stroke if he ever caught me.”

“But he must come home sometimes?”

Alex giggled. “I used to fly with Western and I keep a couple of old uniforms hanging in the closet. It seems to work, though if he were at all observant, he would notice they haven’t moved in over four years.”

The sound of Alex’s laugh was delightful and Irene found herself liking the woman. Alex seemed strong, capable, and very attractive with her hair pulled back from angular features.

“It’s just the Casino pays so much more that the regular airlines. And we’re saving every penny right now. Rob, my husband, gets pensioned off in four years and we plan to head back to Colorado. His parents have a mountain cabin we are dying to renovate. Finally he’ll get a job flying something that doesn’t resemble a target for a ground-to-air missile.”

“Sounds perfect,” Irene said, a touch of envy in her voice.

“Look, I gotta get back. The men will be on their third drink and looking for something to eat. It was a pleasure. We’ll talk more. I want to hear about Sioux Falls.”

“So do I,” Bev piped in.

“We’ll get together for a drink,” Irene promised as Alex ducked down to squeeze out the cabin door.

“You crashed an airliner?” Bev’s eyes were circled wide.

“Crashed and burned,” Irene confirmed. “I don’t recommend the experience. Now, where the hell are we. You know?”

“Directly over the Windward Channel. That’s Haiti to the east. And Cuba is on the west.” Bev checked the computer. “We are right on schedule. In thirty minutes we make our turn and it’s all downhill from there. You’ll see.”

“Île-à-Vashe.”

“What?” Bev’s head came around.

“It’s the real name of the island: Île-à-Vashe. You won’t see Cracker-Jax Key listed on any of our aviation charts. You hadn’t noticed?”

The heat rose up in Bev’s chest. “I guess I never really looked.”

“You ever land this pink passion pit, by yourself?”

“A couple of times,” Bev conceded.

“Good. Because today we make it three. You’re in charge the rest of the way in. I’m going back and get acquainted with the rest of the crew. Don’t screw up. Hear me?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Irene chuckled, pulled off her head set and lifted herself outta her seat.

Alex, the head stew, closed the cockpit door behind her and stepped into the forward service area. It was a relief to stand up straight. She checked the passenger compartment. The men were partying it up with her girls and because the passengers’ welfare and amusement was her chief responsibility, Alex was satisfied.

She had liked Captain Ross right off. She was older for one thing. The last pilot, a woman called Peterson was barely in her thirties and though she appeared to handle the plane well enough, Alex had concluded early on that she was a flake.

Peterson had a different boyfriend every few weeks and took delight in gathering the girls around to describe her latest man’s physical attributes and how he liked to use them. Alex thought it was tasteless behavior for a senior officer, but ultimately, Peterson was her superior and Alex had resigned herself to attending the clutch get-togethers around the bar and pretending to be interested.

And Peterson was into recreational drugs. She had arrived onboard more than once, all glassy eyed and bouncy. It was a situation that was confirmed when Carlos Sandro had taken Alex aside one afternoon and asked her to keep an eye on Peterson; that they suspected she was smuggling dope into Miami International. So on a flight north, when Alex had noticed that Peterson’s flight-bag looked a little heavier than usual, she had made a call.

“Alex?” her friend had acknowledged her over the phone.

“Today,” she had said and immediately disconnected.

When Peterson stepped into the flight lounge, she was met by two DEA agents and escorted into the corridor. That was the last anyone saw of Captain Peterson. The Bikini-Bus was rolled into a maintenance hangar and Carlos Sandro put the word out: He was looking for a new pilot.