Mistress(14)
I find a table not far from black-suit lady and watch her and everybody else for a long hour. Luckily the music is decent, and, even more important, there’s a waitress walking around (my “significant other”), so I’m four drinks in when I see Diana’s brother part the crowd and sit next to me.
“Please have a seat,” I say after he already did.
He whacks my arm with the back of his hand. “Hey, man, didn’t mean to come on so strong. I was just—Diana didn’t say a lot about what she did, y’know? So I was wondering, if she worked at a PR firm, maybe I could, at least, know the name of it.”
Overhead the song changes from “Groove Is in the Heart” to “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Someone has dimmed the lights without me noticing.
Randy probably wouldn’t be good at this kind of sleight of hand on a good day, but with half a gallon of booze in him, he can hardly keep a straight face.
I lean in and speak directly into his ear. “I don’t feel like being tested, Randy. I don’t know who or what you think I am, but I’m really, truly, a friend of Diana’s. We both know she never worked at a PR firm, and she didn’t attend UVA, either. But that’s what she told everyone around here, and I, for one, am not going to contradict her.”
Randy, his eyes forward while I speak into his ear, remains motionless.
“She loved the hell out of you,” I say. “I can’t imagine why, but she did. And my guess is she would be unhappy to see you drinking yourself down a hole tonight, especially after she spent all that money sending you to New Roads that summer while your parents thought you were living with her and interning on the Hill.”
With that, Randy’s face contorts and he lets out a low moan. He covers his face with a hand and has himself a good cry. I pat his back a couple of times but generally leave him to himself. I hardly know the guy, after all, and I’m not a big hugger.
After ten minutes or so, Randy takes some deep breaths and rights himself in his chair. “I couldn’t be sure of you,” he said.
The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Hey, don’t ask me. Nobody tells the dopey brother anything.” He spits out the words like he’s expelling a pill. He pushes himself off the chair and starts to leave.
“Well, who should I ask?” I try.
Randy turns and looks at me. “Ask the guy she was fucking,” he answers. “Ask Jonathan Liu.”
Chapter 15
I wake up with a nasty hangover in a mediocre hotel room. I need more sleep, but the gong banging in my head won’t allow it, and anyway, I need to get back to DC. I need to learn more about Jonathan Liu.
The two attendants at the desk at Wisconsin Aviation give me a friendly glance and a wave on my way through to the tarmac. They don’t ask for any kind of identification, even though I’ve never flown from here before this trip. The rules for general aviation just aren’t the same as those for commercial flight. No metal detectors here. As long as I have the pilot “look,” nobody asks any questions. And I’m not even wearing my aviators.
I know what you’re thinking—a Leo DiCaprio mind-scroll, right? Sorry, too tired.
I rush through the preflight check, eager to be rid of Madison, of Diana’s family, of the lady in black, of Diana’s diminutive drunk of a little brother, with his furtive reference to the most powerful Chinese lobbyist on the Hill.
Chocks up, preflight checklist complete, tower cleared for takeoff. I never go to the big airports. Nearly all airports are public, and they can’t refuse to let small aircraft land or take off, but they can leave a tiny plane like mine on the tarmac until I’m roasted or rusted through. Dane County Regional gets me off the ground in an hour.
Flaps up and trim set for takeoff, I release the brakes and open the throttle to full. About fifteen hundred feet down the runway, I hit sixty-five miles per hour and the wheels are bouncing before we’re airborne, climbing at full power.
The ground falls away beneath me. Funny how the fire escape at Diana’s makes me shake with fear, but throttling up to eighty knots and hurtling through space, supported by faith in the invisible power of lift, is no problem.
I reach altitude and check the GPS, banking east and settling into the flight plan, which will take me to Mansfield, Ohio, for a quick refueling stop before the last leg home.
The engine suddenly brings my mind back to the moment. It sputters. Coughs. I change the fuel mixture to rich, adding more fuel to the mix of fuel and air, and turn on the carburetor heat. The temperature at the airport was ninety degrees when I took off. There can’t be ice in the carburetor. Can there?