Chapter 9 Calm Seas and Clear Skies
Musical Theme; Foolish Games by Jewel
Will went to the office and had a plea bargaining session with Doug. He handed over some cases to Sharon. Some clients went to other lawyers of their choosing. Will refunded some fees. Doug dismissed some pointless misdemeanors. The presiding judge allowed Will to withdraw from a list of appointed cases. Two legal secretaries Sharon had borrowed from other firms pounded out the documents, while a punk rock girl everyone called ‘Pokes’ answered the phone. Pokes didn’t really do the law office image. Her hair was colored blue, orange and green. She wore a loose sheer nylon blouse over a lacy bra that did not hide much. Her black leather skirt was about as short as Mother Teresa’s report from the National Criminal Information Center. She wore fishnet stockings, and a pair of Phillipa over the knee boots in black suede. She was pierced everywhere. She had a thing in her nose, dozens of earrings, and something in her navel. Will glanced at her, thinking that nice little tummy didn’t need a ring in it.
“I’ll call you if he does a press conference.”
She disconnected, and looked up. “I would if you didn’t have a steady girl. I don’t get in some other bird’s nest.”
“You would what?”
He picked up a stack of ‘while you were out’ slips. “William Ames’s office. I’m not sure if he is or not. May I ask who is calling? I will call you back if he does a press conference. Clara Hart has known Mr. Ames since the invention of the coffee cup, and her station supports charity. If you will contribute $1000 to St. Vincent de Paul, I’ll put your message on the top of the stack.”
“Chrissie and Sharon briefed me. Am I cool, Mr. Boss?”
“Your conduct is perfectly outrageous.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not quite as outrageous as you, but I’m working on it.”
Will went through the slips. “This is all the press. Can you separate them from business?”
She took them back. She handed him another stack. “Done that. You didn’t ask me what they were.”
“Tell Paul whatever Don wants is ok.” He handed her a slip.
“Are you going to take notes?”
“I have almost total recall, Will. I won’t need notes.”
“What was the first word I said to you?
“You. Why don’t you ask me a hard one, like the phone number of one of the callers? Or start at the bottom of the stack. You were called by Robert Olson, whose number is 503 555 2132. Your next call was from Valerie Hunt, who is gently griping about discovery in Ellis v. Marks. She was polite. She said you had her number. Next one was Marsha DeVille, who I found obnoxious. She is not going to be the receptionist at the DA office because you are a such and such.”
“William Ames’s office. He is busy. Yes I do. I believe you called at 10:17 this morning. He will. If you wish to complain, my name is Pokes. Thank you, sir.”
“Marsha DeVille walked off the job, and so this girl, Darlene, who has a kind of a baby talk voice is doing the phones. I wish you’d tell Marsha to fuck off, and let me have her job.”
“William Ames’s office. I believe she is. Hold for a moment.”
“William Ames’s office. She is on another line. Would you like to hold or should I ask her to call back? It’s a crazy day. That’s probably the easiest. I will.”
“William Ames’s office. He may hold a press conference later today. If you will leave your name and number, I can call you if he does.”
“So, can I have the reception job?”
“Would you consider regular colored hair and conservative dress?”
“Who figures conservative dress?”
“Something Marcie Della thinks is cool?”
“What Marcie Della thinks is cool is cool.”
“Could you be in tomorrow morning as a demure girl with blonde curly hair, a limited amount of earrings and stuff?”
“Do I get the reception job at the DA office?”
“If you can hack it here for a week.”
“William Ames’s office. Oh, Marcie. How nice to hear from you. Will was just telling me I need to get some business clothes. Uh huh. Alice Claybourne? I will drop your name. And Alice will help me? You’re the greatest. Oh, he is right here. Will, Marcie on line three.”
Will went to his office and picked up. “Honey, I have four photographers, and they can do in a day what you do in twenty seconds. I need you, and your girl. I mean, I don’t need your girl, but you do. Will you guys come?”
“We have commitments. Let me get back to you.”
Will conferenced Doug and Chrissie. “The office is fine, Will. Chrissie can take a few weeks off. Go to the Med.” Chrissie put in. “We should do it, Will.”
“OK, hon. We’re probably going to get married in an old church in Jerusalem if you like that.”
“Kind of a dumb question.”
Will conferenced in Marcie. “We’re coming.”
“When?”
“When can you have a birdie?”
“At Portland, ready to go. I’ll have a car to you within the hour.”
They met at the house, and packed. Chrissie told Hank what was happening. Carol made them some sandwiches. Marie was at her lot. She had washed cars, towed two, cleaned up the office at the lot, changed the head gasket on one of her cars, and tuned up two others. She had amazed Will the day before by pulling and throwing away all the spark cables.
“I know which one pops first, Uncle Will.”
She didn’t know what a firing order was, but she knew the firing order of every car on the lot. She thought she was measuring spark gaps in “Millies” but she knew the proper gap in mils and the correct spark plug for any engine on the lot. She referred to a wheel as a ‘five bug Toyota 14” but she knew that would go on a Corolla, and the other one was a Chevy wheel; the tire would fit but not the wheel. A wholesaler came to the lot, and she test drove a truckload of cars. She didn’t like any of them. No, she didn’t really want that Dodge. The old Ford van was a lost cause. “But thanks for offering them to me, can I get you a cup of coffee?” Five thousand for all of them, well, no. Alan knew a dealer in Idaho who would probably want them. Four thousand, gosh, he should sell them to someone who needed them. That was awfully cheap. Well, she had $3,700. She wrote the check.
Will didn’t think she would need him to look after her. He went home, and he and Chrissy packed. A Bentley came to the driveway, making about as much noise as a housecat. The driver came to the door. “Mr. Ames, the car and the plane are ready when you are.”
“Thanks. Probably not long. If you would like some coffee, or to use the restroom…” He pointed down the hall at the bathroom door. The driver went there.
“If you bring your piece you should probably leave it on the plane.”
“Will, Do you know where we are going?”
“No. Phillipa could send her anywhere. Her itinerary is probably changing by the minute. Our passports will be good wherever.”
“Yours especially.”
“Yes.”
“What is it they do?”
“Well, if you run it with the State Department, and you have the proper authority, it will come back with a little code that means “We are fond of this fellow, and if he has a gun or gets into some kind of little problem, GUS would appreciate it if you could give him a pass on it.”
“Or it could mean, ‘fuck with this man, and we’ll rip your fucking hearts out.’”
“The State Department never says things like that.”
“Oh, yes, they are ever so polite, aren’t they?”
They took their suitcases down to the car. The driver put them in the trunk. They headed for the airport. When they got there, he drove them out onto a taxiway. The plane was not a Lear. It was the Gulfstream. Their suitcases were loaded, and they got in.
“I am Cherisse. I will be your stewardess, Mr. Ames.”
“Cherisse is a nice name. Mine is Will, and hers is Chrissie. We don’t like formality, we are just a couple of working class people who got lucky. We are lawyers, but don’t hold it against us. It’s 99% of the lawyers that give the rest a bad name.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Ma’am, there about 300 people in the world who know my first name and are permitted to call me ‘Sir’ or ‘Skipper’. You are not one of them. I will address you as Ma’am if I like, because it is never wrong for a gentleman to address a lady with respect. But you are not a Marine, and you may not address me as ‘Sir.’”
Chrissie broke in. “He doesn’t believe in social hierarchies. You can call him ‘Sir’ if you don’t know his name. Since you do know his name, calling him ‘Sir’ is a way of confirming those hierarchies he does not believe in, and expecting him to agree to social mores he despises. If you had served under him in combat, you might be used to addressing him as ‘Sir’ and he would think that was fine. Otherwise, you are asking him to agree to ideas he finds repulsive. The idea that one person is better than another, and so on.”
She went to the sleeping quarters and belted in. She was very tired.
“Well, all right. We are about to take off, so fasten your seat belts. Can I get you anything, Will?”
“Do you have a bottle of Jack?”
“Ms. Della had some put on board.”
“Do you mean Marcie?”
“Yes, Sir, uh, Will.”
“I would like you to get it, and two glasses, and some ice.”
She went and got it all.
“I can’t drink with you. I’m on duty and all.”
“I need to call Pauli Nathan Phillipa and see if you can drink with us?”
“I suppose not.”
The plane zipped down the taxiway, ripped across the runway at an acceleration that would have made a dragster look like Granny’s car, and then leapt off the runway and headed up like the Archangel Gabriel with urgent business in Heaven.
Will took a drink. “I didn’t know these planes could do that.”
“The skipper is showing off for you.”
“What for?”
“One ex-military guy to another. You figure it out. They don’t explain these esoterica to civilians.
Will walked up to the cockpit. The copilot got out of his seat and went aft. Will sat down.
“Do you fly?”
“Hardly. I’m totally lost with this instrument panel.”
“What have you flown?”
“Backseats of fighters. Just pilots letting a guy play around a little.”
“At two thousand knots?”
“Something like that.”
“You’ve been down on the deck in an F( I don’t want to know) at two thousand knots?”
“Yeah. The F you don’t want to know is some serious stuff.”
“Ready?”
“Yeah.”
The pilot took the autopilot off. “You have her. Your course is 107. Altitude 35. Nothing much to it. Wiggle a little and feel her.”
He did. “She feels very confident.”
“Bank her a little.”
“She’s so smooth and easy.”
“I’d invert her, but our wives would go nuts.”
“Cherisse is your wife?”
“What she wanted with an old Air Force transport pilot, I don’t know. You’re a little off course.”
Will corrected. “I don’t know what they want with any of us. We’re so nasty, and, well whatever. And these lovely creatures want to cuddle us.”
“Take your stick back just a tiny bit. You’re about 500 feet low. I don’t know either, Will. They’re so smooth and nice and clean, and they get in bed with us, with all the dirt and roughness.
“I don’t understand it either. And I really don’t understand men who mistreat them. How can you have a treasure like that and hit her or something?”
“Is that the fun of being a DA, getting guys like that?”
“For some people. I guess I want to see justice done. If I’m not kidding myself.”
“Is this ocean pretty or what? I try to look at least once on a trip.”
They looked out. The sea was running smoothly with just a few whitecaps, mostly long, smooth slow rollers under a clear blue sky.
“Will, how deep is it here?”
“Probably about a mile. I don’t know.”
“Ladies, this is the captain speaking. Would you like to go to low altitude and get a close look at the Atlantic? Will and I were trying to figure it, but we think you are over about a mile of water.”
Chrissie sent him an Oooh Rah.
“Make your angle of descent 10 degrees.”
“Ladies, it is only fair to let you know that the wheel is in the hands of a jarhead.”
Both of them Oooh Rah’d.
“Your wife is a jarhead, skipper?”
“No. Air Force. She’s a mechanic. Believe it or choke on it, she could take the engines off this bird and take them all the way apart, and put them back together.”
“Well, I’ll be a salamander’s grandfather.”
“Pull up a little. Make your descent slow. We can’t take chances.”
“It’s a pretty expensive bird.”
“Fuck the bird. I’m talking about the precious cargo, jarhead. Let me have her now. The right over the sea thing is not for an FNG.”
“You have the conn, Sir.”
“Attention, passengers. This is the Captain speaking. If you will look out to the right, you will see the Atlantic Ocean. If you look to your left, you will see the Atlantic Ocean. You may come to the cockpit, where we have a view of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Will looked out. “It doesn’t show much from the air. On a boat you might see fish and things.”
They continued at low altitude for a while.
“Attention, passengers. This is the Captain speaking. Does anyone want to see more of the Atlantic ocean, or shall we resume altitude?”
Chrissie said “Go back up.”
The pilot turned the autopilot back on, and checked the radar as the autopilot slowly ascended.
“I might go to sleep.”
“I wish you wouldn’t because I’m supposed to have an observer with me. So if you go to sleep, I have to wake my co-pilot up, and he is pretty worn down. Where are we going? To Egypt to pick up Marcie, and then to Jerusalem for your wedding”
“She has it all planned out.”
“When has she not had everyone’s life planned out? She thinks she is Marissica.”
“You’ve been reading too much Koefoed.”
“That might could be, but I love the goofiness. If you can maintain the suspension of disbelief, it’s pretty fun watching all these crazy things happen. Well, anyway, We’re going to Egypt to get Marcie.”
* * *
An astonishingly beautiful red haired woman in a red sweater dress of cashmere, Marissica, the red fate, stirred her tea. She put her foot up on the stool. She wore knit tights and a pair of high heeled sandals, all matching her dress. She cursed, and threw her silver spoon against the wall.
* * *
A cruel looking man came down the highway with a .45 and a picture of Marcie Della on the seat of the car. He started around a farm truck, and hit black ice. The farmer never saw him as his sports car went off the road. He was ‘thrown clear’ and like almost everyone too stupid to wear a seat belt, he was splattered on a rock, and then fell into the sea where the crabs ate him.
At about the same time, a nasty looking man with white hair came out on his deck, and slipped on the black ice there. He fell 30 floors.
* * *
The plane set down in Egypt, and Marcie came in her limo. She hugged Will. Marcie waved for her stuff to be put in the plane. She walked aboard. “Jerusalem, James.”
“His name is really Lester Linderman, but what fun is that?”
“I’m observing, so I need to be in the cockpit. Chrissie is asleep, I think.”
“Do you go by Les?”
“Usually.”
“Can I go back and see about my wife?”
“Marcie is here. Anyone can be observer. Marcie is smart. She will be a good one.”
Will went back, and Chrissie was sleeping. He came back up. “She’s asleep.”
“She has been under a lot of stress.”
“Why?”
“Something about a ring, is my understanding. She thought she might get turned down.”
“Why would she worry about… nothing.”
“Your willingness to make those vows is everything, Will. You are for sure the best photographer I’ve ever met. You shoot beautiful pix out of a chaotic world where nobody else can see anything nice. I know you’re a hell of a fine trial lawyer, and I have every reason to believe that you are a no shit about it first class combat infantry leader. But you don’t know anything about women.”
She looked to see that her massive collection of suitcases had been stowed, and then trotted up the stairway, in the way one would if she was being filmed. Marcie had the touch. She was always posing.
Les leaned over to Will. You may be tired, and I know you had a drink a couple of hours ago, but I think you’re OK. If you have no doubts about that, you can put the bird in the air.”
“I’m kind of tired, Les. Maybe it’s better if you do it.”
“You’re tired, your wife was upset. Will, the only reason I am here today is a guy who came in with a fighter and strafed, drove the bad guys away. He had taken a 20mm in the knee. Cowboy up. I know you want to be a pilot, even though you don’t. Can you or not. Are you man enough to put this bird in the air?”
You can bang a Marine’s wife in front of him, or steal his car, take his daughter to a porn movie or ask his son to smoke some crack, and you can’t be sure. Someone might get away with those things. But ‘Are you man enough?’
Will threw the throttles forward, and ripped down the taxiway faster than anyone had run it. He got to the runway, and slapped the throttles all the way up. The plane jumped into the air. He pulled back the stick and ripped up the clouds. He made the turn to his course.
“Gulfstream flight 304, you are within your flight plan but we are wondering if everything is all right.”
“Thank you, tower, we’re fine, we’re just in a hurry.”
“Very well, 304. We strongly request that you take it a little easier in this airport. A 25,000 pound aircraft sliding sideways makes us look a bit careless.”
“I understand, tower, and this is something that you need not think will happen again.”
“All right, 304. We will not send a report. But again, we need to be safe.”
“I understand, tower.”
“Take her up at 10 degrees, Will. Altitude 24, course 78 degrees.”
“Les, if anything comes back on this It’s on me, not you.”
“Will, you just did some stupid shit with a multimillion dollar aircraft, and you did it in Egypt, with a flight plan to Israel. Make your turn. Point it at waypoint 77, that’s the airport by Jerusalem.”
Marcie was on the phone to the Egyptian ministry of the interior. They were not mad. They knew some pilot had driven around an airport too fast. Oh, nothing was hurt. Everything was fine. Marcie gave a great gush about the pyramids, and beautiful Egypt, the land of Cleopatra, who of course was not as pretty as Marcie, but perhaps close. Egypt was one of the prettiest places Marcie had seen. Oh, the sights. Well, she didn’t know much about ancient history. She loved ‘the big cat thing’ and was amazed at the progress Egypt had made and how it was a modern country now, wasn’t that wonderful?
Egypt even got piles of posters and such. Marcie gave away 7,000 catalogs. If you were in Egypt, and you were anybody, you had a Marcie Della poster, and if it wasn’t an autographed one, you were not anybody special.