First Class Killing

Chapter 12

I HAD BEEN UP ONCE ALREADY WHEN THE ALARM went off, so the banging on the door confused me. If I had already gotten up, what was I doing still in bed?

“Alexandra, are you in there?”

It was Tristan. That much I knew. I lay on my back in total darkness, which confused me even more because my eyes were open. The one thing I was completely sure of was how much my head hurt. I reached up to touch it to see how it could be the size of a basketball and found a damp washcloth on my face. It had probably started out cold but was now tepid, cooked by the sick heat radiating from my skin.

More banging from the vicinity of the door, each loud blast registering in my entire body like a seismic event. “Wakeup, girl.”

I peeled the washcloth off and took a couple of daggers to the deep cortex as the light hit my eyes.Make the pounding stop was the only thought that emerged-the pounding on the door and in my head. Everything felt wrong. My heartbeat was too fast. My breathing was too shallow. I was cold, and I was hot.

“Alexandra, do I have to-”

I cleared the rubble from my throat. “I’m coming. Hold on.”

“Thank God. If you’re not completely dressed and ready to walk out this door, you areso in trouble.”

It took all the focus I could gather to sit up and push myself to the edge of the bed, where I had to pause to see if I could stand up without throwing up. Tristan was yammering about being late, and I knew I was, and about people waiting, and I was sure that was true, but all I could think about was whether my legs would support me if I tried to stand up and walk across the room.

They did. I even managed the strength to turn the knob and open the door. The dead bolt was not engaged, and I had a fleeting thought about how stupid that was and how drunk I must have been to forget to lock it. Or not to worry enough to lock it.

The door flew open, and Tristan bolted into the room. He was in uniform, looking marvelously groomed for…

“What time is it?”

“It’s five twenty-fiveA.M., and you’re due to leave on the five-thirty shuttle to the airport. Seven thirty-five departure. Hello? Is any of this ringing any bells?”

He disappeared into the bathroom. When he came back, he had two of those squatty hotel room glasses filled to the brim with water. He balanced them both in one hand and carried my toiletry bag in the other.

“Sit down before you pass out again, and drink both of these. Every drop. Then go into the bathroom and throw some cold water on your face.” He checked his watch. “We have exactly four minutes before the courtesy van leaves. Everyone is downstairs waiting, and they will leave without us and never look back.”

I did what he commanded and watched as he shifted into emergency mode, flying around the room, gathering my things. I was wearing my uniform except for my shoes, which was the good news. The bad news was it looked as if I’d slept in it, and I had a dim recollection of coming in last night, which had actually been this morning, and putting it on so I wouldn’t have to worry about it later.

Tristan plucked my jeans from the floor. “You should have listened to me.” He smoothed them on the bed and did a nice trifold. “I never should have let you come home by yourself.” He fit the jeans into my crew kit and looked around the room. “Once you’re past the point of no return, which you most definitely were, it’s better to stay up all night.” He spotted one of my shoes peeking out from under the bedspread and snatched it out. “We should have gone somewhere for eggs.”

Drinking the water helped. Listening to him talk about eggs did not. I found my way to the bathroom, but when I looked in the mirror, more confusion. It wasn’t me. It was my face with someone else’s hair. No…wait. Itwas my hair. I had changed the color. Gone blond, sort of, in that color-out-of-a-box way, something Sally had been nice enough to point out.

“Fix your face at the airport, dear. We have to go. Chop-chop.”

I took a last look in the mirror, trying to see myself objectively, as, say, a passenger might see me. I looked the way I always did when I’d had too much to drink. Bloodshot eyes floating on puffy dark pillows underneath. In fact, my entire face was puffy except for where it flattened into a network of tiny lines at the corner of each eye. The lines were more pronounced today than I had ever seen them.“Nice outfit. It’s so…young for you.”

“What about this computer?” Tristan called in from the other room. “Is it one of those where I can close the lid and go? Did you leave it on like this all night?”

Computer? My computer was on? Why was it-

“No. Don’t touch it.” I flew out of the bathroom. From across the room, he turned and looked at me, then at the computer on the desk.

“I’m surprised you can move that fast. What have you been doing that you don’t want me to see?”

There was no telling, but if I’d had it out and turned it on, chances were good I’d at least tried to record what-if anything-I had learned at the party. I powered down, folded the laptop, stuck it in my backpack, and then pulled it out again because I remembered something. Something important. I found my A drive, pressed the release, and the disk popped out.

“Well,” Tristan said, “it’s good to finally see a smile.”

It was good to feel a smile again. The disk I had swiped from Bouncer Guy popped right out. I had the list from the party.

“Dear, did you know Angel would be at this shindig last night?”

“No. Why would you think that?”

“What did she say to you when she whispered in your ear?”

“I can’t remember.”

“I told you once, and I’ll tell you again. Stay away from her. She’s dangerous.”

“Is she a lesbian?”

He laughed as he picked up my case, dropped it to the floor, and telescoped the handle. “No, dear. She’s just always hungry, and she doesn’t care who she eats. Are you ready? We are going to be so late.”

We weren’t late. In fact, for all the pounding and worrying and racing around, we arrived early for the departure. While the rest of our crew went down to the lounge, Tristan insisted that we board the aircraft early. The only other person onboard was the captain, and the second he disappeared into the lav, Tristan grabbed me and pulled me into the empty cockpit.

“Here.” He offered me the captain’s oxygen mask. “Take this. Oxygen is great for a hangover.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” I stared at the mask in his hand, the one they use for emergencies, like…when the plane is on fire. “I can’t do that.”

“You areso management.” He peeked past me to check the cabin-empty-and lowered his voice anyway. “You need to be perfect today, Alexandra, and so far you’re not off to a good start.”

The urgency in his tone seemed to convey far more concern than was warranted by my headache. “Why perfect? What’s going on?”

Again with a quick look over my shoulder. Nothing back there but a long, empty tube. “There’s a ghost rider on this trip.”

“What’s a ghost-is that a check rider?”

“Undercover check rider is what that is. We don’t know if she’s in first or coach or what she looks like, and they might have put her on to watch you, so-” He pushed the mask toward my face. “It’s up to you. Break a rule or lose your job.”

This time, I checked for the captain myself, but he had taken a newspaper in with him. I grabbed the mask. This day was getting worse by the minute. “How do you know about this?”

“Oxygen? It’s an old trick. Everybody knows-”

“How do you know about the check rider?”

“I told you. I still have connections from my management days. Hurry up before he comes back. Put it over your nose and mouth and breathe, just like the PA says.”

I held the mask to my face and filled my lungs with pure oxygen. It made me dizzy.

“Again.” Tristan had moved outside the cockpit door and closer to the lavatory so he could listen for the captain’s progress. “Keep going. Take as much as you can.”

I got in at least six good draws before we heard the toilet whoosh. Tristan shook his hand at me, motioning me to put the mask back. When I dropped it on the floor, he shifted, waited, and timed his move so that he was directly in front of the lav, hips forward. When the captain swung the door open, there was contact.

“Owww.” Tristan grabbed his crotch and doubled over, providing enough of a distraction for me to get organized. “Oh,shit, that hurt.”

“Didn’t see you there, guy. Sorry.” The captain shuffled around in the aisle, trying to get by, trying not to look closely at the injury he had inflicted. “You should put some ice on that, buddy.”

I slipped out of the cockpit and met Tristan in the galley, where he was crumpled over with his hand over his mouth.

“Tristan, oh, my God. Are you all right?” I straightened him up, expecting his face to be purple. But when I saw his eyes, I reached back and closed the curtain behind me. His hand was over his mouth to cover the sound of his laughter.

“You scared me to death.” I took a deep breath and longed for more pure oxygen. He looked at my face and tried to hold back the merriment that was clearly present in his eyes.

“What? What is so funny? Because I have to tell you, I’m not finding much comical about this day so far.”

The dam gave way, and peals of hysterical laughter burst forth. “You should…you should…have seen yourself. You looked like a crack fiend inhaling your first hit of the day. When that toilet flushed, your eyes gothuge.”

I tried to keep from laughing. I didn’t want to encourage him. He was, after all, laughing at me. But then he made his hand into a surrogate mask, clapped it over his nose and mouth, and showed me a look of wide-eyed alarm, all the while snorting ravenously and loudly sucking down the make-believe oxygen. He looked insane, and I felt ridiculous, and then I realized how absurd the whole situation was and felt a smile sneak up, then a laugh bubble over. I made the mistake of making eye contact with him, and pretty soon it was a full-blown, rolling giggle fest-as soon as one wave stopped, we’d look at each other and the next would begin. We leaned over and bumped shoulders and held our sides and tried to calm down and couldn’t. I was out of control, and somewhere in the back of my swollen, hungover, throbbing brain, I thought it wasn’t such a bad place to be.

I found a cocktail napkin, wiped my face, and counted it as a stroke of good luck that I hadn’t had time to apply makeup. I tried to breathe deeply and make sure not to look at Tristan, who was also coming back to earth.

“Feeling better now?” he asked.

My back creaked, and my joints needed oiling, and my head would probably explode once we reached cruising altitude. But I had to get through this day. The oxygen helped a lot. Laughing helped more.

“Thank you,” I said, “for everything.”

Tristan put his arm around me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. “Go comb your hair. You look like shit.”