Desperate Measures

7

Stone sat in the right seat and watched closely as Faith ran through her checklist, then got a clearance from ATC, and taxied to the runway. She began her takeoff run, then rotated; Stone handled the gear lever and the flaps for her, and the airplane climbed to its preset altitude of 1,500 feet. They had a departure procedure to fly, and Stone was surprised that Faith hand-flew it instead of just switching on the autopilot, as he would have done in her place. Stone regarded the autopilot as a better operator than he, as many pilots did.

“Do you hand-fly a lot?” he asked Faith as she got an altitude change and a vector to the west from ATC.

“No, I just wanted you to know I could do it. I don’t want you to be wondering if I can handle the airplane.”

“I’m impressed,” Stone said. They were cleared to flight level 045, or 45,000 feet, and when they had leveled off, Stone unbuckled. “I’m going to sit with Dino,” he said. “There’s nothing here you can’t handle, but let me know if you need somebody in the right seat.”

He grabbed the New York Times from the cabinet top behind him and walked aft, standing almost erect in the six-foot headroom of the cabin. He settled into the seat opposite Dino and put on a headset, in case Faith needed anything. She came on almost immediately.

“Dino has had a text message to call his office,” she said.

Stone passed the message on to Dino and pointed out where the satphone was. “Call home base,” he said.

Dino picked up the phone, dialed the number, and spoke to someone for a couple of minutes, then returned the phone to its snap-in cradle.

“Anything urgent?” Stone asked, taking off his headset.

“Urgent, but everything is being done,” he said. “A garbage truck from the East Side took its cargo back to the dump, and found a dead girl among the trash. They missed it when loading. According to the ME, she was killed while you and I were dining on roast chicken last night.”

“I didn’t need to know that,” Stone said.

“Listen, you always want to know everything, so I’m not going to edit the news for you.”

“Was everything in line with the previous killings?”

“Everything,” Dino said. “She even had a purse, with the strap over her arm. The killers thoughtfully supplied her wallet and driver’s license, so we didn’t have to go to the trouble of identifying her.”

“They’re getting pretty confident, aren’t they?”

“Smug, I’d say. In every other respect, this killing matches the others. Everything is being done that has to be done, and my office is making the announcement over my signature, so I’m not needed back there.”

“There are times, aren’t there, when it’s great not to be needed?”

Dino snorted. “I think my chief of staff enjoys rubbing it in.”

Stone handed Dino the first section of the Times. “Here, distract yourself.”

Dino took the paper but folded it in his lap and stared out the window.

Since the anti-airport fanatics on the Santa Monica city council had made a deal with the FAA to shorten SMO’s single runway to 3,500 feet, in order to keep out jet traffic, they landed at Burbank, where a Bentley from the Arrington met them and transported them to the hotel. It was a longer drive than from SMO.

The butler situated Stone and Dino in their respective rooms and took Faith to the guesthouse. Stone had given Faith an invitation to join them for dinner.

Stone and Dino got into bathing suits and robes and headed for the pool, where the thoughtful butler brought drinks and snacks on floating trays. Viv arrived shortly after and joined them in the pool.

“Dino told me about Faith’s three-fuck policy,” she said to Stone, amused. “Are you finding that hard to live with?”

“No, that’s a choice she gets to make for herself, and I’m not going to try to hustle her into changing it.”

“Good policy. That will keep your name out of the papers.”

“Sex is fun only when it’s freely given,” Stone said.

“Good point,” Viv said, “though I’ve known men who preferred to try to take it more roughly.”

“How’d that work out for them?” Stone asked.

“On one occasion, a broken wrist,” Viv replied, “on another, a fat ear; and on yet another, a rearranged nose, requiring bandaging for several days and steak on both eyes.”

“Did they know you were a cop?” Stone asked.

“Not at first, but later. One of them swore he’d bring charges against me, but fortunately for him, he thought it over.”

The boys and their wives arrived in time for cocktails, and Stone had a moment to sit down alone with Peter and Ben.

“There’s something on the board meeting agenda I should warn you about,” Ben said. “There’s a move afoot among some of the shareholders — the more recent ones — to sell off our back lot and turn it into condo heaven.”

“Do they have anything like the support they need?” Stone asked.

“It’s closer than we would like,” Peter said. “I think Ben is going to have to make a do-or-die speech to the shareholders to hang on to it. God, I love the back lot; we can do so much with the standing sets to make them into anything at all, from ancient Rome to 1920s New York.”

“Not to mention the money we save by not needing to go on location so much,” Ben said. “I’ve come up with a number on our costs over the past five years that should impress the board.”

“Who are these stockholders who want to develop the land?” Stone asked.

“Newer directors and production companies who somehow think that, if we sell it off, they’ll get a chunk of cash.”

“Will they?” Stone asked.

“My plan is to fix things so they won’t, and when that incentive disappears, they’ll come around, and then they’ll go to dinner parties and tell their friends how they saved the back lot.”

“What is it,” Stone asked, “forty acres?”

“Closer to sixty,” Ben replied. “Of course, there are parts we don’t use much anymore, like the Mississippi riverboat. I’ve arranged for the board to have lunch aboard the boat, which is in beautiful condition, and I think they’ll want to keep it.”

“Good idea,” Stone said. “We’ll have our shares to vote, and Ed Eagle will be on our side with his shares. Have you heard if he’s coming?”

“He’s already here,” Ben said. “He’s bought an apartment that overlooks the back lot, and I don’t think he’ll want to spoil his view.”