Before elbowing my way out again, I looked for a minute at the Lucella. She was an appalling sight. Bow and stern both stuck up from the lock at jagged angles. A number of cables had snapped from the self-unloader and swung meaninglessly above the remains of the deck. Wet barley oozed from the open cargo holds into a yellow smear across the visible parts of the gaping decks. I strained my eyes at the figures on board and decided that Bledsoe must finally have gone inside. A helicopter had landed near the bow, deploying men with stretchers.
The crowd was enjoying the show. Live disasters are wonderful attractions when you’re safe on the other side of them. As we watched, the Coast Guard fished the dead bodies out of the water and a delighted shudder fluttered throughout the observation deck. I turned and shouldered my way down the stairs and across the street to a little coffee shop.
I ordered a cup of hot chocolate. Like Bledsoe and the crew, I’d had a shock and I needed hot liquid and sugar. The chocolate was pretty dismal, made from a powdered mix and water, but it was sweet and the warmth gradually made itself felt inside my numbed fingers and frozen toes.
I ordered another and a hamburger and french fries. Some instinct told me that calories under these circumstances would do me nothing but good. I pressed the plastic mug against my tired forehead. So Mattingly had left already. On his way back to Chicago by car, unless he’d had a private plane waiting for him at Sault Ste. Marie’s little airport.
I ate the hamburger, a greasy, hardened black slab, greedily in a few bites. The best thing for me to do was call Bobby and tell him to look out for Mattingly when he got back to Chicago. After all, I couldn’t chase him.
As soon as I finished the french fries, I went in search of a pay phone. There was one outside the observation booth, but eight people were lined up waiting to use it. I finally found another three blocks down, in front of a burnt-out motel. I called the Sault Ste. Marie airport. The one daily flight for Chicago left in two hours. I booked a seat and found a Sault Ste. Marie taxi company which sent a cab over to take me to the airport.
Sault Ste. Marie is even smaller than Thunder Bay. The airport was a hangar and a hut, both very weather-beaten. A few private planes, Cessnas and the like, stood at the edge of the field. I didn’t see anything that looked like a commercial plane. I didn’t even see any people. Finally, after ten minutes of walking around, peering in corners, I found a man lying on his back under a tiny plane.
He slid out reluctantly in response to my shouts.
“I’m looking for the plane to Chicago.”
He wiped a greasy hand across an already grimy face. “No planes to Chicago here. Just a few private planes use this place.”
“I just called. I just made a reservation.”
He shook his head. “Commercial airport’s twenty miles down the interstate. You’d better get down there.”
My shoulders sagged. I didn’t know where to find the energy to go another twenty miles. I sighed. “You have a phone I could use to call a cab?”
He gestured toward the far end of the dusty building and turned to crawl back under the plane.
A thought occurred to me. “Martin Bledsoe keep his plane here or down at the other place?”
The man glanced back up at me. “It was here. Cappy flew it out about twenty minutes ago.”
“Cappy?”
“His pilot. Some guy came along, said Bledsoe wanted Cappy to fly him to Chicago.”
I was too tired to feel anything—surprise, shock, anger—my emotions were pushed somewhere far away. “Guy have bright red hair? Scar on the left side of his face?”
The mechanic shrugged. “Don’t know about the scar. He had red hair all right.” Cappy was expecting the guy—Bledsoe had phoned and told him the night before. All the mechanic knew was he’d given Cappy a course to Chicago. Weather still looked clear across Lake Michigan. They should make it in by six or so. He crawled back under the plane.
I staggered across the floor and found a phone, an old black clunker in the style GTE is ashamed to sell nowadays. The cab company agreed to send someone out to meet me.
I crouched on the sidewalk in front of the hanger while I waited, too weary to stand, fighting sleep. I wondered dreamily what I’d do if the taxi couldn’t get me to the other airport on time.