Appearances, copyright 2006, by Etienne. All rights reserved.

-6-

Joining the Mile High Club

In the car, traveling West toward the Interstate, with Lance curled up in the back seat, I watched as Charles pulled one of the tiny new cellular telephones out of his pocket, and punched some numbers after plugging in a small headphone. He glanced at me and winked.

"I know, you like your toys," I said.

"I dialed the main office number first," he explained. "There is a good possibility that my secretary will be at work by now, as she prefers coming in early to staying late." He said, into the phone, "Hi, Roger. You're an early bird. Has Rosemary come in yet? Great, I'll hold."

He turned to me, "We're in luck, she is already at her desk." He paused, obviously interrupted by something being said to him.

"Hi there. Glad to see you on the job so early. Yes, I know, the early bird and all that. Have you played back the overnight memoranda? Good, then I won't have to explain much to you. I'm on the way to the plane now, with my client, and I have some notes to dictate for Richard when you are ready."

To me, he said "I'm going to go over all of the particulars, as we discussed them last night. Feel free to interrupt with any changes or additions. Ok?"

"Sure."

"Ok Rosemary, here we go. To Richard Greene, etc etc, re: the d'Autremont case, blah blah blah. You know what blanks to fill in."

He continued at a rapid rate, repeating as best I could tell, virtually everything I had told him the night before, continuing with some more detailed facts.

"Mr. and Mrs. d'Autremont resided on West Paces Ferry Road, the number is..." He looked a question at me, and I told him. "Got that? Good, Mrs. d'Autremont maintained an apartment at..." This time, he handed me the phone, and I gave the address. Taking the phone back, he continued "Mr. d'Autremont also maintained an apartment, but you already have that address. Whatever you do, do not go anywhere near any of those addresses until next week after the arraignment. There will be plenty of time for you to gain legal access to both the residence and her apartment. For now, your main objective, as I see it, is to locate Mrs. d'Autremont's lover. Without a name or description, I realize that there isn't much to go on, but it appears that we are looking for a dominating, jealous type, probably very butch, maybe even the quintessential bull-dyke. You will, no doubt, be pub-crawling tonight, so you can combine business with pleasure. Call me at the beach house if you have any questions, we should be there by lunchtime. One more thing that I have failed to mention last night or this morning. Under no circumstances are you or any of your grunts to even attempt to trace Philip's movements for that weekend. This is nonnegotiable, and if you want to know why, talk to Andrew. He will brief you."

He looked at me. "Anything you want to add to that?"

"Not that I can think of."

"Good." "Rosemary, got all that? Okay, then run with it, and I'll talk to you later. Bye." He folded the little telephone, and replaced it in his pocket.

"Was she recording all that, or using shorthand?"

"Shorthand, why?"

"I've never seen anyone dictate quite that rapidly."

"Well, Rosemary is special. Did you ever see Auntie Mame?"

"A long time ago, and more recently on cable."

"Well then, you must remember Agnes Gooch, Auntie Mame’s “sponge,” to whom she dictated her memoirs. Rosemary is Agnes personified, only she comes complete with personality and looks, and while Agnes could only take dictation at 120 words per minute where Rosemary can handle 140."

We were now on I-75 North, had just crossed under the I-285 beltway around Atlanta, and were approaching Marietta. He took us down a number of side roads in an area with which I was totally unfamiliar, finally bringing the car to a stop in a parking lot at a small air strip.

The plane turned out to be a small twin-engine Cessna capable of seating six, plus pilot and copilot. Currently, Charles explained, the passenger seats were missing as they were being re-upholstered. Lance, without waiting to be told, hopped into the rear passenger compartment and allowed himself to be shut up in a traveling cage, which I later learned was called a “crate” by those “in the know.” Not knowing what else to do, I simply did what I was told and sat in the copilot’s seat when instructed to do so. As we taxied down the runway, I listened to him chat with the local tower, and after we were in the air, an air traffic controller located at some distant point, probably Hartsfield Airport for all I knew. Most of the talk was in a technical jargon that made little sense to me. Charles was obviously expert at it, and was totally concentrating upon the task of flying, so I distracted myself by watching the ground below. When flying, I am endlessly fascinated by the view of earth from high in the air. Unfortunately, commercial airliners fly at such high altitudes that small details of the ground are obscured by distance. At the lower altitudes used by small craft, the ground was close enough to view in infinite detail.

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

I snapped back from the window, not quite certain what I had heard. "What?"

"The ground. It is almost hypnotic, watching it."

"For sure, especially from this height as opposed to a commercial flight," I said, echoing my earlier musings.

"Is this your first time in a small plane?"

"Yes."

"Sorry to ignore you earlier. In about fifteen minutes, I can turn the flying over to Homer, and we can talk."

"Homer?"

"The autopilot, I call it Homer."

"Because it always takes you home?"

“Good looking and smart, too,” he said with a smile.

I turned to the window again, lost in thought for some time. After a while, the radio began to crackle, and he was again talking to some controller. I finally heard him say "Thank you, Atlanta, over and out."

I asked him "How long have you been flying?"

"Well, I learned to fly as a teenager, and then didn't use my skills again until about five years ago. After Robert died, I was able to buy this plane - before that I had to rent them by the hour." He paused, and looked at me thoughtfully before he continued "Having said that, perhaps I should explain. When we bought the townhouse, we were both just starting out, and the mortgage company required term life insurance on both of us with them as beneficiary. Later, we also took out fairly substantial policies with each other as the beneficiary. So, when he died, the townhouse was paid for, and I was left with sufficient funds to indulge this hobby. Understand this, I'd much rather have had him alive than have the ability to purchase this plane, but it simply didn't turn out that way. In actuality, my income is more than sufficient for me to have bought this plane, with financing of course, a long time ago. It is just that I have this thing about debt, however, and always resisted the urge."

"Well, I'm no judge, but you are obviously in your element."

"I take her up, every chance I get. Which is fairly often, as I also use the plane for business. It’s nice to be able to take a partial tax write-off for flying clients here and there on short hops. Come to think of it, I can technically charge most of this trip as a business expense. It is also, now that I think of it, a perfect opportunity to try something that I have always wanted to do."

"What's that?"

"You'll see, just as soon as I am able to turn the flying over to Homer."

He did not elaborate, so I turned to the window, still fascinated by the world below. After a while, the radio began to crackle again, and I heard more jargon.

"Great, now I can leave the driving to Homer," he said. I looked over at him just in time to see him fiddling with some controls. He looked at me and grinned "Ain't technology wonderful? Homer can fly this plane on a straighter course that I ever could."

I couldn't think of a reply. Then, he unstrapped himself from the pilot's seat, got up, and went back to the passenger area. This made me more than a little nervous, but I sat quietly and watched as he opened a compartment at the rear and produced a large quilted blanket. This he proceeded to fold over and spread out on the floor. For the first time, I noticed that the floor was carpeted, but there were gaps where the missing seats obviously had been bolted down. Without saying anything, he sat down on the blanket and started taking his clothes off.

"What ARE you doing?" This was getting bizarre.

"Something I've always wanted to do," he said, with an infectious grin, "Sex in an airplane. It's time I joined the mile-high club." By this time he was totally naked, lying back propped up on his elbows and looking at me.

"You're crazy," I said. "Even with Homer, shouldn't you be in your seat?"

"No need," he replied. "We are outside commercial traffic lanes, thousands of feet below where those boys fly, anyway. And, we are being watched over by controllers. The radio will let me know if they spot anything. Besides, this plane has a radar system which will alert me if anything bigger than an eagle comes within ten miles of us." As he spoke, he lay back and used his hands to give himself an erection.

"I'm not sure about this," I said.

"Come on. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"On the ground, where yours ought to be."

"This won't take long. We have about an hour before I have to report to the controllers in the Pensacola area. Come on, indulge me."

Needless to say, I indulged. It was hard to resist an attractive, well-muscled, naked body which was already primed for my attention. Especially in light of how I realized I was beginning to feel for this man. In my defense, I will add that I didn't allow the 'adventure' to be dragged out too long. We were dressed and back in our respective seats twenty minutes later. We both sat quietly for a while.

"Wasn't that great?" he said, finally.

"Well, it was certainly different." I wasn't going to encourage him.

"Come on, you can do better than that."

"Fishing for compliments, are we?"

"Shamelessly."

"Well, as a one-time experience it was interesting, but I was too nervous to fully appreciate it."

Any further comment he might have had was cut off by the radio, and for the next few minutes he was busy receiving instructions, and shortly thereafter, permission to land. We landed at a small airport which served the city of Fort Walton Beach, and was actually part of Eglin Air Force Base, which was also, he explained, the area's largest employer. We picked up a rental car which he had reserved - actually a Beamer. Evidently, Lance was familiar with the drill, because he followed Charles obediently to the rental counter and when Charles opened the door of the rental car, the dog took over the back seat as his own.

The city of Fort Walton Beach appeared to consist of, as far as I could see, one continuous strip of businesses and motels. We finally turned off the strip, crossed the intra coastal waterway, and headed East on a road that paralleled the beach. At first we passed a seemingly endless strip of beach side motels. Finally, the motels gave way to an area of beach homes and cottages of all shapes and sizes. Eventually, we turned off the highway, up a short asphalt drive, and stopped at a fair-sized three story structure. The first floor consisted of a two-car garage, storage, and utility area, he explained. I could see that the second floor had decks cantilevered from three sides, and the house was covered with cedar siding that had been allowed to weather naturally.

He led me up to the first floor, which was revealed to be one large living area separated by a counter lined with bar stools from the combination kitchen and dining area. Sliding glass doors opened to the deck on three sides of the living area, and the kitchen was at the back of the house. An exposed flight of stairs led to the bedrooms, of which, I learned, there were four, the two largest ones having private baths, the other two sharing a common bath. In addition, off the kitchen, was a small shower room which opened onto stairs which led down to the beach.

The house had a musty smell, for which he apologized. Lance appeared to regard this house as his territory, and bounded off on his own pursuits - but not before Charles had located, rinsed out, and filled a water bowl for him.

"I forgot to call the caretaker and tell him to come over and open the house." He seemed annoyed with himself at this omission.

"That's all right," I said, "it will air out in a hurry."

He looked at me. "Right you are. Make yourself at home."