way.”
“How could I sleep with you at the controls?” Dino asked. “I’ll take my chances up front, where I can do something, if I have to.”
“I’ll teach you to fly the airplane, Dino,” Stone said.
“Hey, that’s a good idea. That way when you turn blue and clutch your chest, I can save myself.”
“I wish I could be alive to see that,” Stone replied.
2
Stone rose the following morning, showered, shaved, packed and took his luggage down to the garage in the elevator. He put his bags in the trunk of his car and went to his office.
His secretary, Joan Robertson, put some papers on his desk. “Sign these,” she said.
Stone signed them.
She picked them up. “Thank you.”
“What were those?” Stone asked.
“Just a complete power of attorney and assignment of all your assets to me, personally, with immediate effect.”
“Oh, okay,” he said absently. “I’m going to L.A. for a few days,” he said.
“Another vacation?” she asked.
“You know I never take vacations, unless there’s work involved.”
“What’s the work?”
“Voting some shares at a stockholders’ meeting for Arrington Calder.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“No, I have to persuade others to vote with me.”
“If there are any women in the group, you’ll succeed,” she said.
Stone brightened. “That’s a thought,” he said.
“When will you be back?”
“I don’t know-give me a week.”
“It’s not as though you’re needed here,” she said. “I can handle whatever comes along.”
Stone knew that was close to the truth. “Try not to practice any law,” he said. “You’ll get arrested.”
“Don’t worry, there won’t be any of my fingerprints on anything.” She flounced back to her office.
At Teterboro Airport, Stone did his walk-around preflight inspection of the airplane while Dino stowed their luggage in the forward compartment. When he finished, Dino was standing, staring at the airplane. It was the first time he’d seen it, Stone reflected.
“Well, I like the paint job,” Dino said.
“Is that it?”
“The airplane is kind of pretty; it looks like it could fly, if it had to.”
Stone pushed him aboard and settled him in the copilot’s seat, then pulled up the stairs and closed the door. He got into the pilot’s seat, ran through the checklist, and started the engines.
Then he called Teterboro Clearance and got his IFR clearance for his first leg.
“How many times do we have to stop?” Dino asked.
“Twice, if we’re lucky. There’ll be very little in the way of headwinds today, maybe even a little tailwind. That’s unusual.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” Dino said.
Stone radioed Ground Control and got permission to taxi. Shortly, they were ready for takeoff.
Stone looked at Dino and saw a film of sweat on his forehead. “I turned on the air-conditioning,” he said. “Are you still hot?”
“I’ll be okay,” Dino said, mopping his brow.
It occurred to Stone that Dino might really be nervous about flying in the jet. “I’ll give you something to look at,” he said, pointing to the copilot’s Primary Flight Display. He pressed a button on the throttle and a wide, magenta V popped up on the screen. “When we take off, all I have to do is to keep the yellow V, which represents the airplane, nestled up against the magenta V, which represents our climb angle and course. As long as the two are together, we’re fine.”
“Okay,” Dino said, tightening his seat belt.
The tower called and cleared them for takeoff. Stone taxied onto Runway One, stopped the airplane, centered the heading control, and, with the brakes on, shoved the throttles all the way forward. The engines ran up, and he released the brakes. The little jet shot down the runway, and, at ninety knots, Stone rotated, pulling the yellow V up into the magenta V. He raised the landing gear and flaps, then, at 700 feet, he pressed the autopilot button and turned the heading bug to 040. At 1,500 feet, following the departure procedure, he turned to 280 and climbed to 2,000 feet, then the controller gave him 10,000 feet, and they were on their way.
Dino was staring at the PFD.
“It’s okay to look out the window now,” Stone said. “The autopilot is flying the airplane, and it is a better pilot than I.”
Dino looked around. “This isn’t bad,” he said. “It’s quieter than your old airplane, and smoother, too.”
“That’s the idea,” Stone said. The controller handed them off to New York Center, and they climbed to their final altitude of Flight Level 340, or 34,000 feet. Stone reduced power to the cruise detente on the throttles. “That’s it,” he said. “Now the airplane flies us to Wichita.”
Dino looked at the chart on the big panel display. “That looks like a long way.”
“See these two rings?” Stone said, pointing. “The dotted one is the distance we can fly and still have a forty- five-minute fuel reserve, and it falls beyond Wichita. The solid ring is the distance we can fly before dry tanks.”
“Let’s not fly that far,” Dino said.
“And we even have a little tailwind,” Stone said, pointing at the indicator.
They refueled at Wichita and took off again.
Dino handed Stone a sandwich and a Diet Coke from the ice drawer. “Where’s our next stop?”
“Santa Fe.”
“Why that far south?”
“We could refuel in Denver, but look,” he said, pointing at the display. “The Nexrad shows some thunderstorms over the Rockies, so we’ll go south of them to Santa Fe, then on to Santa Monica. The weather along that route is clear all the way.”
“Got it.”
They picked up three hours with the time change, and as they made their final turn on approach to Santa Monica, the sun was setting before them like a big red ball into the Pacific.
Stone left a refueling order. Then their rental car was brought out to the airplane, and they drove to Vance Calder’s home in Bel-Air.
“This is possibly the ritziest neighborhood in Greater Los Angeles,” Stone said, “and Vance owned eight acres of it.” They drove through the open gates and pulled up in front of the house.
Manolo awaited them with a luggage cart. His greeting was warm, and he led them through the house to the back garden, where the sumptuous guesthouse awaited them by the pool.
Stone and Dino had both stayed here before, and they settled in quickly.
“What time would you like dinner?” Manolo asked.
“Well, it’s three hours earlier here than in New York. How about nine?”
“Of course,” Manolo said, then left them to unpack.
They dined by the pool. The evening was cool and pleasant and the food delicious.
Stone’s cell phone went off. “Hello?”
“It’s Arrington,” she said. “There’s been a change of plans.”
