Flying Blind

corrupt Chicago police department; shot himself in the head with my gun, a gun I still carried with me, the closest thing to a conscience I had.

These were not things we shared with just anyone.

Even so, I was keeping two secrets from her. One, of course, was that her husband had hired me to spy on her, to see if she were a faithful wife. The other was that I could feel my friendship for her deepening into something else. Of course, if I did something about the latter, it might clear up the former.

“That’s so good…so good, Nate….”

I could feel her neck and shoulder muscles loosening. Then I began working my fingers into the tousled curls, digging at her scalp. Her moans of painful pleasure sounded almost orgasmic. Or maybe I just wanted them to.

“Why do you work so hard?” I asked, rubbing her scalp.

“For the money.”

“Your expensive obsession.”

“Yes, but also to buy books and clothes, and send my dear mother her monthly allowance to blow on my sister and her no-good husband. And I like to live comfortably…in a nice house with my bills paid and money in the bank.”

“You’re mostly living in hotels.”

“Oh yes…more of that…more of that….”

She had given herself completely over to my touch. I could smell her perfume—Evening in Paris—and her hair whispered the scent of all-American Breck. A raging hard-on was inches from the back of her head and she didn’t even know it. A thief with a pistol in his pocket had entered her shop and she didn’t even realize her valuables were at risk.

I said, “I always figured your husband was rich.”

“That’s what I thought…. But a lot of people aren’t as rich as they used to be.”

She meant the Crash.

“Anyway,” she continued, moving her head in a slow circle as I continued loosening up her muscles, “he still has access to money. He’s got the kind of tongue that attracts it.”

“Don’t you get tired of it?” I asked, referring to her grueling schedule, but she thought I meant something else.

“Of course I do,” she said. “Marriage doesn’t come naturally to me…but this is more a…business partnership. And I’m grateful for what G. P. has done for me…but, still…the endless schemes, his passion for celebrity, not to mention that ugly temper of his….”

“How ugly does it get?”

She peeked over her shoulder at me, for a moment, as I rubbed. “Does he get physical, do you mean? He knows I’d never put up with that. Ooooo, do that…do that…. A man raises his hand to me, he’s out of my life.”

“You sound like maybe you’ve had some experience in that department.”

“Not really…. Well, didn’t I tell you about my father and the bottle of whiskey?”

We had shared certain childhood secrets on our long rides through the Midwestern nights.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so….”

“He was supposed to not be drinking anymore…supposed to’ve taken ‘the cure.’ I guess I was seven or eight… yes, right there, right there, feel that knot there?…I was probably seven and he had to go on a trip all of a sudden. Sometimes he investigated accidents for the railroad and he’d have to drop everything and just go. So I decided to help him pack and I found a bottle of whiskey in his sock drawer. I was pouring it down the bathroom sink when he noticed me.”

“Oh, brother,” I said. I was working my thumbs at the muscles between her shoulder blades.

“He only struck me a few blows, before my mother intervened,” she said, “and spared me from a real beating…but I swore no man would ever hurt me again. Ouch!”

“Was that too hard?”

“Maybe a little. I think that’s enough, Nate.”

“I’m not tired. I can rub you some more.”

“No.” She wiggle-turned around and now was facing me, still seated Indian-style. She was working her head around on her neck again. “Do any more and it’ll just start to hurt….”

That was when I decided not to try to kiss her. And when my erection wilted.

Room service finally brought our cocoa and Coke, and she sat beside me, but not right beside me, and we talked for maybe another hour.

“I don’t know what I’d’ve done without you on this tour,” she said at one point, her cocoa down to the last sip or two. “It’s getting nasty out there.”

“Yeah, I thought maybe those D.A.R. dames were gonna start busting chairs over each other’s heads, for a while there.”

She laughed; it was almost a giggle. “No, ladies like tonight, that’s one thing, but these public appearances… the shoving, shouting…. I mean, my goodness, what kind of way is that to express admiration? They even cut pieces of fabric from the wings of your plane. Someday a souvenir hound will carry off a vital part and there’ll be a crash.”