Flying Too Close to the Sun, George Jehn [freda ebook reader txt] 📗

The Montgomery front doorbell rang at five-thirty sharp. Ingrid’s strapping brother, Billy was a walking timepiece. After hugging and kissing him, she took his hand and led him into the living room. He and Woody shook hands and embraced. “It’s great to see you,” Woody clucked as he took a step back and looked at Billy Rhodes who was dressed in designer slacks and an open collar, short-sleeved shirt that exposed his hairy chest and meaty forearms. “But I just can’t picture you with a beard.”

“My whole fucking face was itchy so I couldn’t wait to shave it off.”

“I’m glad it’s gone.” Woody said, “We sent Stephanie to a friend’s for a sleepover, so it’s just the three of us for a leisurely dinner.

The word dinner sent Rhodes scurrying into the kitchen with the gleaming checked ceramic black and white tiled floor and glistening granite countertops. Opening the stainless steel Viking oven, he exclaimed, “Rib roast, my favorite!”

“I remembered,” a beaming Ingrid cooed as she gave it a final basting.

“But I feel bad that I won’t see Stef.”

“You can see her next time.”

As they sat down for dinner, Billy admired the fine red wine, holding it up. He gingerly scrutinized the bottle in the muted light of the gaudy crystal chandelier hanging over the table. “1976 Chateau Lefils! This must have cost a fortune. You shouldn’t have.”

“When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping,” Ingrid clucked.

They made small talk and as dinner was ending Woody finally asked, “How is our investment doing?”

“I printed these out just for you,” Billy smiled with a wink and removed some spreadsheets from his pants pocket.

“One thing I always admire about you,” a jovial Woody added pointing to the papers. “Everything is planned well ahead of time, down to the smallest detail.”

Billy arranged the crumpled papers on the black glass coffee table, pressing them down with his beefy hands. “These show your half of our investment was worth a bit over a million, one million, one hundred and sixteen thousand bucks, to be exact.” He chuckled, adding, “The cash is safe and sound, still in those gorgeous green sacks, minus the locks. From what I’ve lined up, it looks like our small enterprise should have initial annual sales of a bit below three million and over two-hundred grand in earnings. I’m estimating the really big bucks and profits will begin rolling in next year when sales should reach almost twenty million, even in a sluggish economy. The profits should be just under a million after tax breaks and start-up costs. Since everyone wants to feel green today, recycled paper is an up and coming enterprise. The big boys, including the mob people, are no doubt watching closely, so once things get up and running I’m pretty sure they’ll make an offer to buy us out, if for no other reason than to eliminate the competition. Then, we just sit back and count our money. The bottom line is right now I’m projecting your original investment to be worth just under three million by next year. If someone buys us, well that would be off the chart.”

Woody interjected, “That’s great. Since 9/11 there’s no more fun in airline flying. Plus, all I ever hear from management is negative bullshit, with constant intimidation along with it. So, I resigned and probably can’t return, which is fine by me. Unfortunately, I can’t collect my retirement money ‘til age sixty, if there’s any left by then.”

Rhodes didn’t hesitate. “That’s okay, ‘cause I can offer you an executive position, Director of Marketing at a starting base salary of two hundred grand a year, plus expenses and profit sharing.” Billy paused to savor the bouquet of the fine wine.

“That’s fantastic!”

“Wait. There’s more. You’ll also have a direct fifty-percent partnership and I’ll issue you privately held stock.”

“I’ve said many times that your business savvy borders on brilliance.”

Billy waved away the compliment and took another sip of the velvety vino. “Speaking of brilliance, weren’t you the one who first discovered what those two shit-for-brains pilots and that pudgy guinea were up to?”

“Yeah, but give Shepard some of the credit. I couldn’t believe she thought up the whole thing down to the tiniest details; a brilliant fucking scheme. But she was also dumb. Can you imagine discussing everything in the cockpit? She must have actually believed their entire conversation would be wiped out in forty-five short minutes...”

“But didn’t you say that would have happened if—”

Woody held up his hand. “The voice recorder does have a constant forty-five minute erase feature. Except, when I suspected they were up to no good, during the preflight inspection I did as a favor for Preis, I secretly removed its power source by pulling a circuit breaker in the jet’s aft airstair area. That preserved its contents, even if they believed they deleted it by pressing the erase button in the cockpit.” A smiling Woody nodded his head. “I got to hear their entire conversation, intact.”

“How’d you do that?”

“Oh, that was easy. Back at LaGuardia I simply hung around the maintenance shack for a while like I often did. The first time it took me almost twenty minutes to open the recorder’s metal cover and remove the eight track tape cassette. You probably remember those babies from the good old rock ‘n roll days.”

Rhodes smiled and shook his head. “In this modern age they still use ancient shit like that?”

“They do on the older 727’s. The newer jets have more advanced digital systems. Fortunately, the same was true for the flight data recorder. If it had been the new digital type, then the door opening on the ground would have shown, but Shepard probably checked that out ahead of time and knew it didn’t. I don’t know for sure, but we were still covered either way. Once I got my hands on that tape, I listened right here on my stereo. They were speaking on the ground and their conversation was crystal clear. I realized there was