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Darrell Bain Humor. 68062 words long. English Novel text/xml

-----------------------------------Postwar Dinosaur Blues

by Darrell Bain

-----------------------------------Humor

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ISBN: 1-894841-13-1

First Edition eBook Publishing January 1, 2002

Dedication

This one is for Will Stafford, a close and dear friend whom I've only met electronically. Will is an authentic warrior, a loving husband and father and also a very funny fellow. One of these days we're going to have to get together and tell some more war stories and maybe do another book besides Toppers, that book of tall tales we've already published. Acknowledgements

Any mistakes are my own, but I would like to express my deep appreciation to Gary Bain for help with the flying sequences and for inspiring the story; to Herman Regusters for the meticulous notes on his expedition to Lake Tele and to Tom Quinn for supplying pictures and specs of the Albatross seaplane. Tom actually owns an Albatross and will fly you almost anywhere in the world for a price, perhaps even to Lake Tele in the Congo. Don't blame me if Mokele Mbembe gets you, though.

Chapter One

The little brunette stewardess in the green miniskirt eyed the army sergeant sitting in the aisle seat of the 727 bound from Seattle to Dallas. She took in the five stripes he wore and thought he appeared rather young for the rank, but then she saw the overseas bars on the sleeve of his winter class A uniform. A quick glimpse at his chest showed a triple row of ribbons on his left breast. A little older than he looks, she thought, and just back from ‘Nam; probably, with money burning a hole in his pocket. Good looking, too, with that dark hair and those dreamy brown eyes.

“Would you like something to drink, Sergeant?” she asked, leaning forward slightly and smiling more than a little slightly. She had a week's leave coming with nothing on her agenda and the sergeant looked interesting. Besides, she was getting a little tired of the crowd the other stews ran with. They seemed to consist mostly of airline pilots, whom she was tired of, or shallow characters in gold necklaces and leisure suits, with the pockets of their suits usually filled with dope of one variety or another. A military man might be a welcome change of pace, she thought, even if her friends did consider them dour and too restrained for their tastes

Sgt. James Williard scrutinized the legs beneath the green miniskirt and let his gaze travel up over the rest of the stew's body. Her matching green top was well filled out. He had a hard time getting his eyes to travel up to her cap of wavy dark hair and a lightly freckled face with full lips and pert nose. Nice, he thought. “I'm not a sergeant.”

The stew raised her brows. “You couldn't prove it by the way you're dressed.”

Williard smiled, with a hint of regret behind it. “I just got discharged. I'm on my way back home.” What he didn't say was that until six months ago, he had been a lieutenant, courtesy of a combat commission. Then the war wound down and he found the army was overstaffed with medical service officers. Reluctantly, he accepted continued service at his old rank but soon tired of the peacetime army and decided to try civilian life for a while, though at first he had been uncertain of what that would entail. Now he thought he knew; that is, if his brother's plans worked out. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. Jason was the wildest of the three Williard brothers. Compared to him, Williard thought he and Jerry were boy scouts, a contention no one else who knew them would believe.

“You say you're going home. Do you live in Dallas?”

“Yup. You got some rum?”

“Sure. Be right back,” the stew said. She put a little extra wiggle to her behind as she departed. After his years in ‘Nam, Williard appreciated the wiggle. The rum would go down nice, too, he thought. After 36 hours spent tramping around through intermittent rain at the out processing center in Seattle he was more than ready for a drink. One of the last stops had been the clothing and tailoring shop where his well-worn fatigues had been exchanged for dress greens. The army insisted newly discharged personnel leave the base looking like an advertisement for a recruiting poster, ignoring the fact that most of the soldiers would rather have been boiled in oil than wear a uniform out into the world. He glanced at the empty seat beside him where a winter dress coat lay, also bedecked with ribbons and overseas bars and stripes.

Williard was unimpressed. By rights, the coat should have sported lieutenant's bars rather than sergeant's insignia. He was still pissed at the army over that. The only token on either of the garments he was really proud of was the combat medic's badge, earned during the Tet offensive when the Medical Dispensary he was in charge of was almost overrun. That action had also gotten him a purple heart, his combat commission and a brand new appreciation of what it was like to go without booze and women for extended periods of time. Hence, his interest in the stew and her cargo.

“Here you are,” the stew said, bending over to deposit a two-ounce bottle of airline light Bacardi and a plastic glass of ice on his tray. She leaned far enough forward to give him a brief glimpse of what lay beneath her blouse.

“What the fuck—I mean what the hell is this? I ain't going to drink no rum without no Coke.” Whoops!

Have to start watching my language, he thought. Obscenities came out as easily in the field as spit from a baby, mostly at the way the army usually fucked up operations.

“Oh, sorry about that,” the stew said. “Be right back again.” Hearing the ex-sergeant talk added zest to her errand. He had spoken in pure Redneck, her favorite language when it came from the right person. Williard hardly thought about his grammar. He could speak perfectly good English when he chose, but right now, he didn't feel like bothering. All he wanted was to get outside of a few of those little bottles of rum and inside a set of civilian clothes. Or inside the stew, whichever came first.

“Here you are,” she said, setting down two plastic glasses of coke and another of the miniature bottles of Bacardi light.

“Thanks.”

“The extra one is on me,” she prompted.

Williard grinned, accepting the gambit. “Right. My name's Jim.”

“Hi. I'm Terry, as in Very.”

“Interested, it seems. Me, too. Do you have any clothes at your place?”

“Like, to wear?”

“Or unwear. This uniform don't suit me no more.”

More redneck talk, and his grin was infectious. “I think you look handsome in it. Were you in Vietnam?”

“Yeah, but I didn't look so handsome in dirty fatigues. And this f—this uniform is going to be hot in Dallas. I want to get out of it.”

“I think I can safely say I can help you out there. Wait on me after we deplane. I've got to get busy now.”

“Don't get too busy to keep the rum coming.”

“You got it, Sarge.” Terry said. She winked and left. While she was tending to other passengers, she found herself wondering whether or not the sergeant was married. The thought surprised her. Usually she didn't worry about it one way or another, taking her fun where she found it. Suddenly she wondered whether she was getting old, or at least old enough to start at least thinking of settling down. Sarge. Sergeant. Williard mused to himself at the honorifics and reminisced over his years in the army as he methodically began lining up empty little Bacardi bottles. Eight years as a medic, three years in ‘Nam, Service schools where he learned his art, including the last one, advanced medical laboratory training, a demanding year-long course that had earned him his last stripe and a profession that might be useful in civilian life. He had quite a lot of money on his person, but none saved. Marriage and a recent divorce had seen to that. Sooner or later, he knew he would have to go to work somewhere, doing something. It would be a new experience; he had enlisted right after high school and never held a job at anything other than throwing a paper route after school. He wasn't particularly looking forward to job hunting, but then perhaps he wouldn't have to if the expedition his brother Jason was talking about panned out. It sounded wild, but he didn't think it could be much worse than some of the escapades he and his two younger brothers had gotten themselves into during the war. Or before the war, for that matter. Sometimes he thought all three of them must have inherited genes from a pirate ancestor of some sort. They were never really satisfied with the mundane affairs of everyday life like home and school and family. I could always go to college, he mused. The G.I. Bill had been passed, and it paid pretty good. Combine that with a part time job and he could make it easily, especially now that he was single. But school had always bored him. He was much more intrigued with Jason's idea; it sounded like the adventure of a lifetime. Both of his brothers would be coming home very soon, too. He had talked to Jason, his next younger brother, over the phone in Seattle. Jason said he was getting a medical discharge from Bethesda Medical center in a day or two, a result of a shattered knee when he bailed out of his F-4 Phantom after being hit on one of the last bombing runs over Hanoi. Jerry, his youngest brother, was hanging it up after one four-year stint in the Navy. He had run a river patrol boat in the Mekong Delta after tiring of routine destroyer duty. He claimed that captaining a patrol boat in the Meking Delta was more dangerous than ground combat or flying jets in the war, a contention disputed by both his older brothers. Whatever, Jason had told him in his last letter that Jerry had gotten tired of dodging bullets and intended to find an easier way to make a living. The same as me, Williard thought. I'm just not sure what I want to do in life. On the other hand, his idea of what he wanted to do with Terry, as in Very, were as clear as a freshly-polished windowpane. Thinking of that added a pleasant overture to the buzz from the rum he was consuming. After a while he dozed, then woke when his ears popped as the plane descended. Good as her word, Terry joined him after only a few minutes of waiting in the departure lounge. Now she was dressed in hip-hugging jeans and a white blouse tied in front with its tails, exposing a creamy white midriff.

“You forgot your coat.”

“Fuckit. You don't need an overcoat in Dallas in April. Where's the nearest lounge?”

“I thought we were going to my place?”

“We are, but I want to take some rum with me.”

“They don't sell package liquor in the lounges,” Terry said.

“No problem, I'll carry it inside me.”

The stewardess wondered what she was getting into. Was he an alcoholic? Two quick matching doubles later, she decided that if he was, it was catching. He poured the rum down as casually as a ten-year-old drinking lemonade while assuming with a disconcerting simplicity that she wanted to do the same.

“Is rum all you ever drink?” she asked, as he ordered one more double for the road.

“No, I drink beer, scotch, bourbon and wine, but not all at the same time. Ready?”

“You forgot your hat.”

“Fuckit. Civilians don't wear hats.” Williard was feeling his oats. He slid an arm around his companion as they left the lounge. “Which way to the taxis?”

“Don't you have any luggage?”

“Just this,” Williard said, hefting a small satchel. “I left my car and clothes with my sister. They'll still be there if she hasn't given them away at a garage sale. She's prone to that. One time she sold Larry's dental cabinet from when he first started practicing.”

“Who's Larry?”

“My brother-in-law.”

“Did he get mad?”

“No, he got even. He ran off for a week with his dental assistant.”

“Did your sister get mad?”

“No, she was so busy spending her garage sale money she never missed him.”

“What did she buy?”

“More stuff for garage sales, probably. Larry is the brokest dentist in Dallas, I bet. Hey, here's the cabs.”

Williard opened the door of the first one in line and politely handed Terry inside. The action pleased her; she wasn't used to it any more. He paused before getting in himself in order to remove his jacket. He dropped it on the sidewalk.

“You had better slow down or you'll spoil all my fun,” Terry said.

“If I slow down, I'll spoil my own,” Williard said, tossing his belt with the polished brass buckle out the window as the cab pulled away. No more scrubbing tarnish off belt buckles and collar brass.

“At least keep your shirt and pants on. I don't think I have anything to replace them that will fit.”

“I'll keep my pants on,” Williard promised, unbuttoning his shirt. What the hell, he thought, it will save time later. He draped the shirt out of the window, let it billow in the wind for a moment, then let it go. Terry slid over close to him just in case he changed his mind and decided to rid himself of his trousers. Williard grinned and snuggled up. So much for the army. It had been an adventure, as Jason would say, but it was time to move on. Or in. He felt a surge in his groin as Terry brushed against him when she leaned forward to give the cabby her address and he forgot about any other adventure, other than the present one.

Terry was beginning to doubt the wisdom of picking out the former sergeant for a fling. He was acting rather manic. She needn't have worried. Williard did sometimes act a little crazy when he got outside of too much rum, but right now he was simply reacting to the sense of release he felt at being free from the ordered existence of military life, plus a delayed exuberance at having been shot at and lived, unlike others he had known who hadn't been near so lucky. As she leaned back, he put his arm around her. She thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he stared at her chest as if he were just now noticing the difference between male and female.

“Be damned,” he said.

“What's wrong? Don't you like what you see?”

“I just noticed.”

Now what? Had he already forgotten his first scrutiny of her body? And what was the ‘be damned’ for?

Unless he was blind, he certainly had no reason to complain. Just to reassure herself, she glanced down at her chest. They were still there. She looked back up. “They usually get noticed sooner than this.”

“They?”

“These.”

“There's only one of them.”

“What?” This was getting ridiculous.

“Unless there's another one behind that one, but that wouldn't make any sense.”

“You're not making any sense.”

“Neither are you. I still don't see but one name tag.”

“Oh.” For the first time in years, Terry blushed.

“Yeah, I just noticed. You really are Very Terry.”

“It's Terry Very, but sometimes my friends do call me Very Terry when I get interested in something. They say I have a one-track mind.”

Williard grinned. “I can see why. You are Very Terry, Terry Very. I like you.” This time he did kiss her. After that, she decided that she liked him, too. He was nice. Crazy, but nice. Later, in bed, she decided he was even better than nice, especially the way he gently and thoroughly fondled and nuzzled her, even after he was sated. She liked the attention, even though she was already happily dazed. His hands moved over her breasts, caressing them as if he were petting a pair of sleepy kittens.

“Do you like them?” she asked.

“Sure. Especially the other one.”

“Which other one? You've got your hands on both of them.”

“So I do. I meant the one that holds the name tag.”

“You're crazy.”

“Wait til you meet my brothers.”

“You mean there's more than one of you?”

“Yeah. Two more. They're getting discharged, too.”

“What are you all going to do now?”

Williard rolled over onto his back. “You know, that's a problem. There's the G.I. bill. We could go to school, but none of us ever cared much for that.”

“Why not?”

“Too dull. What ever happens in school?”

“You could go back in the army.”

“Naw. The war is over. The army wouldn't be any fun anymore.”

Terry sat up in bed. “You thought Vietnam was fun?”

Williard shrugged. “Sometimes. At any rate, it beat going to work in a grocery store or selling shoes. Don't worry, though. Jumpin’ Jase has something planned for when we all get home. He's the real adventurer.”

“Jumping Jase? You mean Jumping Jack?”

“No, Jumping Jase. That's Jason, my brother.”

“What did he do in the war?”

“He bailed out of airplanes, mostly. That's why they called him Jumpin’ Jase.”

“Oh. He was a paratrooper.”

“No, he flew an F-4 with the Marines.”

“Is that the planes he jumped out of?”

“Yup.”

Terry had seen pictures of the swept wing fighter plane on television. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to parachute from one. “I don't get it,” she said. “Why would he jump out of a jet airplane?”

“Most of the time they were on fire, but sometimes they were just broke.”

“Oh,” Terry said, finally understanding. “He got shot down.”

“Mostly, except one time he was flying along the beach on the way back from a mission.”

“What happened then?”

“There was a bunch of nurses in bikinis. He ran out of fuel he went back so many times to look and had to ditch in the ocean.”

“I bet the marines got mad at him for that one.”

“Yeah, but he was so good at making crispy critters they gave him another plane.”

Terry had heard the term. It referred to burned corpses. She shuddered and changed the subject. “How about your other brother?”

“That's Jerry. He was in the Navy, so mostly he just drove boats and drank rum.”

“What did you do?”

“Treated troops for the clap, mostly.”

“No, really, what did you do.”

“Sometimes I handed out Band-Aids.”

Terry finally caught on, remembering the caduceus on the brass of his uniform. “Nut. You were a medic, weren't you?”

“That's what I said.”

“In a roundabout way. I bet you saw a lot of action, didn't you?”

“How would I know? I was drunk most of the time.”

Terry saw that he didn't want to talk about it. She hadn't recognized the combat medic's badge on his uniform, but suspected that he had been involved in some fighting. “Never mind. What is it your brother is thinking about doing?”

“Chasing dinosaurs in the Congo, so he says.”

Terry sat bolt upright in the bed. “Dinosaurs? You mean like searching for skeletons?”

“Nope. Live ones.”

Terry stared down at him. He appeared to be perfectly serious. “You're not serious, are you?”

Williard yawned before answering. It had been almost two days since he had had any sleep. “I guess it really depends on my brother. When I talked to him a couple of days ago, he sounded convinced that there might still be some live ones left in the Congo. Or one, anyway.”

“Golly, that sounds exciting,” Terry said.

“Anything Jason does is usually exciting. This should be no exception.” He yawned again.

“Sleepy?”

“Yeah. You can put your name tag back on now. G'night.”

“'Night,” Terry murmured. She lay back down, thinking that if today was any indication, then the rest of the week with Williard might be something to behold.

Chapter Two

Terry slowed her car, a little tan Ford Falcon, then parked in front of the house Williard indicated. It was a gray brick two story with a small front lawn in Oak Cliff, the southern suburb of Dallas. “Thanks for the lift,” Williard said. “I'll call you this evening, soon as I get sorted out.”

“I'll be waiting,” Terry said. “What are we going to do?”

“Anything except dance.”

“Don't you like to dance?”

“Only horizontally. Tell you what, let's find someplace that doesn't cater to hippies and we'll go out to eat. Or maybe Larry will take us out if Jeannie hasn't gotten rid of their car at a garage sale.”

“Sounds good to me.” She kissed him quickly, enjoying the tickle of his mustache. Williard got out of the car and stood for a moment on the sidewalk, breathing in the cool morning air. It helped clear the residual rum from his head, but he was willing to bet Jeannie would have something even better on hand. She liked to drink, too. He shivered as he walked to the door. He was clad only in a pair of cast off trousers Terry had found for him and a tee shirt. His army pants had been left behind in her wastebasket. Jeannie Wilson pushed open the door after only one ring.

“Jim! Where have you been? We were expecting you to come in last night.” She grabbed her brother and bussed him almost as thoroughly as Terry had.

“I did come in last night. Very, so to speak.”

Jeannie blinked. Sometimes her brother's humor escaped her.

“Well, get yourself inside before you freeze to death. Where are your clothes?”

“Still here, if you haven't put them out at a garage sale.”

“I meant your other clothes. Never mind, I don't want to know. Anyway, I haven't sold any of your things; I wouldn't do that to you. They're still in the spare closet where you left them.”

“Bless you. How about a drink while I change?”

Jeannie grinned. Other than having black hair rather than dark brown, she had the same facial characteristics as Williard and her other two younger brothers. She was a handsome woman, even though a few strands of gray hair were beginning to creep in amongst the black. She led him into the den, the family gathering place. “Larry stocked up on rum when we heard you were on the way,” she said over her shoulder as Williard departed for one of the spare bedrooms. She hummed to herself, as she set out a bottle and glasses, glad that the war was over and her brothers had returned safely. Williard returned a few minutes later clad in jeans, boots and a soft old blue shirt that had been washed oftener than his brother had bailed out of airplanes. He made a beeline to the counter in the den where Larry kept his bar. Jeannie had the makings ready. He tilted the Bacardi bottle into a tall glass, added ice and coke and stretched his body out in Larry's easy chair.

“Don't get too comfortable,” Jeannie said. “Larry's going to be back pretty quick.”

“Isn't he working today?”

“I called him while you were changing. He's taking the day off.”

“Can he afford it?”

“No, but he's doing it anyway.”

“You must of just had a garage sale,” Williard said. He scanned the den to see what was new since the last time he had been there. Almost everything was except the chair he was sitting in.

“Only a little one. Would you believe I made over three hundred dollars?”

“What did it cost you to restock?”

“Nothing, except a few things I really needed.”

Williard figured she had probably spent a couple of thousand dollars replacing items she had gotten tired of, but decided not to tease her about it just yet. Or not much, anyway. “If I had known, I could have given you a brand new uniform to sell.”

“Why would you sell your uniform?”

“Because I'm not in the army anymore. I was discharged yesterday morning.”

Jeannie looked perplexed. Williard had been in the army since he was eighteen. “I thought you were making a career out of it. What happened?”

Williard shrugged. “The hippies shut down the war. The army don't need me no more, or so they said.”

“Maybe I could join up in your place. I could use the money.” The voice came from around the corner, at the front entrance. Larry Wilson, Williard's brother-in-law, followed his comment into the room. He was carrying three cases of Coors beer.

Williard jumped up from the easy chair. “Hey, Larry! Looks like you're planning on enjoying your day off!”

Larry grinned from beneath witty blue eyes and natural silver-white hair. “Damn right. That's what I told my banker when I got the loan to buy this beer. Good to see you, Jim.”

“I thought you said he wasn't going to loan you any more money?” Jeannie said.

“I fixed him up with Monica for the day and he changed his mind.” Monica was his dental assistant, a buxom girl with a demure, religious disposition when sober but a carnal appetite after a drink or two.

“That's too bad,” Williard said. “I was going to fix her up with Jason. He was planning on showing her some new positions he discovered when he took a nurse up for a spin.”

“No wonder he loses so many planes,” Larry said. “Hey, wait! Is he on the way home, too?”

“He should get in today if he doesn't try to talk the airline pilot into letting him do the flying,” Williard said.

“Otherwise, check the news for plane crashes.”

Larry quickly went to his liquor cabinet behind the bar in the den where they were gathered and looked inside to make sure there was plenty of rum. “Just checking,” he said. “Ever since you guys taught your sister to like rum, it's hard to keep stocked up.”

“I don't drink much except when I'm planning garage sales,” Jeannie said virtuously.

“That's what I said. By the way, do I have any clothes left I can change into?”

“You could use a change,” Williard commented. Larry was dressed in a salmon-colored leisure suit with a purple shirt and white tie.

“Don't knock it. This is the only set of clothes I own that Jeannie can't sell. I've pulled so many price tags off them that my fingernails won't grow any more unless they have glue sticking to them.”

“I wish some money would stick to them,” Jeannie said.

“That's what Monica says. I'm always behind on her salary.”

“What does she say about that?” Williard asked.

“Nothing. I just feed her a couple of drinks and introduce her to the nearest banker.”

“Maybe you should introduce her to the accountant at the country club,” Jeannie said. “We're behind on our dues again.”

“Bankers come first,” Larry said, cracking his first Coors of the day.

“But I wanted to take Jim and Jason out tonight.”

“No problem. Just have another garage sale this weekend. We've still got some furniture left.”

Jeannie and Williard both grinned. Larry was the most happy-go-lucky man either had ever met. He never worried about business, finances or much else for that matter—except his supply of Coors.

“O.K., let's plan on it,” Jeannie said.

“Plan on what?” A new voice came from the entrance and Jason Williard limped into the den, favoring his injured knee. He looked remarkably like his brother, right down to the finely shaped nose and neatly trimmed mustache. He was also dressed in boots and jeans, but was wearing a white western shirt rather than blue.

“Jason!” Jeannie yelled and ran to hug her other brother. He braced himself with the cane the medical center had insisted he take with him when he was discharged.

“Easy, sis,” Jason said. “I still can't walk too good on one leg.”

Jeannie held her brother with a hand on each shoulder. “You're hurt!”

“I ain't hurt near as much as those two gomers that was in the MIGS. Them poor bastards are probably up there in Vietnam Heaven right now trying to explain to Ho Chi Minh how come they missed and I didn't.”

* * * *

“So how come you had to bail out?” Larry asked, but it was with a smile.

“A SAM got me while I was tending to them. Never mind, where's the rum? I ain't had a drink since I got off the plane.”

Williard already had one ready for him. He handed it to him and watched it disappear. “Which plane was that?” he asked slyly. In ‘Nam, Jason had been known to fly more often than not with either a hangover or a load on, although neither seemed to affect his prowess.

“The one the candyass airline pilot was driving. One of the stews let me into the cockpit and he wouldn't even take the drink I brought him.”

“Some people got no sense of humor,” Williard said, gazing fondly at his brother. They had managed to see one another several times in Vietnam and even when not in contact, Williard had kept his brother flying on a couple of occasions by trading favors to ensure his blood alcohol tests came back negative. He thought it was going to be hard on all of them to adjust to civilian life unless they came up with something better to do than get a job or go to school.

“Has anyone heard when Jerry is coming in?” Jason asked, easing himself down on the couch beside Williard, who had given up the easy chair to Larry. It was the one piece of furniture in the house which had never been exposed to a garage sale, mainly because Larry always took it to work with him when Jeannie got the urge.

“He's probably losing his separation pay in Vegas right now,” Williard said. Their youngest brother was occasionally a psychically lucky gambler, but he never knew when to quit, especially when he mixed rum and gambling. Jerry was the one who had induced the preference for rum into the family, soon after getting his navy commission. Ever since reading Treasure Island as a child, he thought sailors always drank rum and did his best to live up to expectations.

“I hope he doesn't want another loan,” Larry said. “Monica will do good to even get me some more credit.”

“Who's Monica?” Jason asked. Unlike Williard, he had never met her.

“Larry's dental assistant,” Williard said. “I was going to fix you up with her tonight, but Larry palmed her off on a banker.”

“They will probably be at the club tonight,” Larry said.

“He's fixed up,” Williard said.

“Damn right,” Jason agreed. “The day I can't beat a banker's time, I'll hang it up and get married again.”

All three brothers had gotten divorced during the war. The main cause was that they had each insisted on taking their R & R in places other than Hawaii, where more mortal men usually met their wives and families. It hadn't helped that each had promptly volunteered for further duty in Vietnam after their initial tours. They were all natural adventurers, though Jason tended to go a little further in the direction of natural than anyone else they knew.

“Sorry I don't have another dental assistant, Jim,” Larry said to Williard.

“You don't need another one,” Jeannie said darkly. She suspected Larry and Monica had taken off together the week after she sold his antique dental cabinet for seven hundred dollars, but by the time she was finished restocking the house, he was already back.

“It's all right, I'm taken care of,” Williard said.

“Already?”

“It was a Very quick affair.”

“What's her name?” Jason asked.

“Very,” Williard said.

“Veri? That's a pretty name,” Jeannie said.

“Yeah, she's Very Terry.”

“Terry is her last name?”

“No, Very,” Williard said.

“I thought that was her first name.”

“Terry is her first name.”

“I don't get it,” Jeannie said.

“I do,” Larry smirked.

“So do I,” Jason said. “I hope Monica is Very, too.”

“Just share your rum with her,” Larry said.

“Oh.” Jeannie finally caught on. “Well, I can be Very, too, when I want to.”

“I wish you wanted to more often.”

“Try coming home for lunch more often.”

“I can't; that's when I talk to bankers.”

“I need to talk to a banker,” Jason said.

“What for?” Williard asked. He wondered if his brother was broke already. It was possible. Jason thought the government minted money just so he could spend it.

Jason poured himself another drink and looked serious. “It's that idea I was telling you about, Jim. I'm convinced the story is true, but it's going to take a lot of money to prove it.”

Jeannie's eyes brightened. “I could have a garage sale, if that would help.”

Larry gripped the armrests of his chair in a protective gesture.

“Thanks, Sis. I'll keep it in mind.”

“What mind?” A voice from the entrance bellowed. Jerry Williard, still wearing his Navy uniform and a wide grin, entered and scanned the room, searching for the rum.

“Jerry!” Jeannie cried, running to hug her brother. He plucked the drink she was carrying out of her hand and drained it while accepting her embrace.

“Hey, brother!” Williard cried. He felt his pulse increase now that all three of them were together. He wondered if the country club would be able to handle them all.

Chapter Three

Larry shook one of Jerry's hands while he poured a drink for him with the other. He was grinning hugely. It was a rare occasion when all of Jeannie's brothers were home together and it always called for a celebration. He loved celebrating, especially with the Williard brothers; Jeannie was likely to be more Very than otherwise when they were around and feeding her rum.

Williard eyed Jerry's uniform. “I thought you were getting discharged.”

“I did, but I left my civvies on the ship.”

“How come?”

“I owed the captain some money and he confiscated them.”

“That wasn't very nice of him,” Jeannie said.

“Fuckit if he can't take a joke. Anyone got some civvies I can borrow, or has Jeannie sold them all?”

“I wouldn't do that,” Jeannie said.

“Especially since I kept everyone's things at the office until yesterday,” Larry said. Jeannie shot daggers at him, then was abruptly distracted by a pretty, dark haired face peering around the entrance to the den. There was a hint of sadness in her eyes, but she was smiling.

“Can I come in?”

Jerry looked over his shoulder from where he was pouring another drink to take with him while he changed, fearful that his brothers would wipe out the supply while he was gone. He grinned. “Oh. I almost forgot. Come on in, Donna.”

The young woman entered hesitantly. She was wearing a short, expensive-looking red dress and high heels.

“This is Donna,” he announced. “She followed me home. Can I keep her?”

“Damn straight,” Larry said, admiring her legs.

“Are you Very, Donna?” Williard asked.

“Very?”

“Looks Very to me,” Jason said, producing the shit-eating grin he was famous for.

“Almost as Very as Terry,” Williard said.

“Who's Terry?” Jerry asked.

“Terry belongs to Jim. Monica is my date for tonight,” Jason said.

“You haven't got her yet,” Larry said. In a way, he was hoping he wouldn't. He owed the banker he had fixed her up with quite a lot of money. On the other hand, Bankers in Dallas were as plentiful as touchdowns by the Dallas Cowboys. I can always find another one, he thought.

“Leave it to me,” Jason said confidently.

“I don't understand all this.” Donna gave Jerry a bewildered look.

“I told you I had some crazy brothers. Have a drink and get acquainted while I change. Just don't let Jason talk you into going flying with him.”

“Which one of you is Jason?” Donna asked, looking back and forth between the two remaining brothers. She was amazed at their remarkable resemblance to Jerry.

“I am,” Williard said, handing her a drink.

“Don't listen to him,” Jason said, placing a drink in her other hand. “I'm Jason.”

“How about me?” Larry asked.

“You stay out of this,” Jeannie said. “You're already taken.”

“Tonight?” Larry answered hopefully.

“If you're good,” Jeannie said. The rum was beginning to give her a buzz.

“Who wants to be good?” Jerry asked, coming back into the room. He was wearing jeans and boots and a bright red western shirt.

“I do,” Larry said.

“I don't,” Williard and Jason said in unison.

“You couldn't if you tried,” Jerry said. “Donna, have you met everyone yet?”

“I think, except I have your brothers mixed up. Which one is which?”

“That one's Jim and that one's Jerry,” Jerry said, pointing at his brothers.

“I'm Jim,” Jason said.

“I'm Jason,” Jim said.

Donna burst out laughing. “I give up. You're all crazy. Nice, but crazy.” She tilted one of her drinks to her mouth then moved over close to Jerry before she got him mixed up with the other two Williards.

“They come by it naturally. I married into it,” Larry said, nuzzling Jeannie's neck.

“Later,” Jeannie said. “What time are we going to the club?”

“No time like the present,” Williard said. “Let me call Very Terry and get her on the way here.” He went into the living room to get away from the noise to place his call.

“Is there really a Very Terry?” Donna asked.

“Also a Very Monica. You'll meet her at the club,” Jason said confidently.

“I just thought of something,” Jeannie said. “This is Friday night. The club will require jackets and ties.”

“You sold all my ties,” Larry said.

“You can wear your leisure suit. That's acceptable.”

“I ain't wearing no tie,” Jason said.

“Me neither,” Williard agreed, returning from his call. He had always hated ties.

“Don't sweat it,” Larry said. “I'll tell them you're all war heroes just back from the front.”

“There wasn't no front in ‘Nam,” Williard said.

“No back, either,” Jerry said.

“Are you really war heroes?” Donna asked.

“Damn straight,” Jason told her with a straight face. “If it hadn't been for the hippies we would of won the war all by ourselves.”

“I believe it.”

“You're my kind of people,” Williard said. “Where did you meet Jerry?”

“On the plane here. I was with my husband.”

“Where is he now?” Williard asked, looking admiringly at his youngest brother. Talk about a difficult pickup.

Donna shrugged. “Back with his hippie friends, probably.”

“You were married to a hippie?” Jason asked. His face wrinkled in a frown.

“Yeah. My mistake. I thought he was just a drug dealer until he spit on Jerry's uniform.”

“Is he still alive?” Williard asked.

Jerry rubbed his right hand. “Yeah, but he doesn't have as many teeth as he used to.”

“Send him to me,” Larry broke in. “I need the money.”

“He's not going to have any left after my lawyer finishes with him,” Donna said. “My brother was a POW. You should have seen him when he got back.”

“You poor thing,” Jeannie said. “Do you have a place to stay yet?”

“Jerry said I could stay with him.”

“Where are you staying, Jerry?” Jeannie asked.

“Here, where else?”

“Can Terry stay, too?” Williard asked.

“Is she homeless, too?”

“No, but I am.”

“I'm going to need another loan,” Larry said.

“Ask for a big one and I'll let you invest in my dinosaur expedition,” Jason said.

“Dinosaurs?” Larry looked confounded at the suggestion.

“Dinosaurs!” Jerry exclaimed. He swigged some rum.

“Yeah. It's a way to avoid having to go to work.” Jason flashed the mysterious, anticipatory grin he was famous for, as if guiding a smart bomb into a Viet Cong Bunker.

“I'd go for that,” Larry said. “Not that I have enough patients to bother with anyway.”

“OK, so tell us about this project, brother,” Williard said. “I sure ain't looking forward to joining the rat race.”

Jason appeared to be ready to let the cat out of the bag when the doorbell rang.

“That must be Terry,” Williard said. “I'll get it.”

Terry was dressed in white trousers and blouse with a green belt snugged about her slim waist. Her rich, dark hair curled down to the collar of her blouse. She melted into Williard's arms when he opened the door. He enjoyed the embrace, thinking that someone like her was a good reason for having spent so much time fighting the war. Or anything else, he amended, stepping back to admire her.

“Hi,” Terry said. “You're making me feel Very again.”

“Me, too. Come on in, I've got a surprise for you.” He led her around the corner and into the den. “Hey folks, here she is. Terry, as in Very.”

“Hi, Terry, I'm Donna, also Very,” Donna said. She grinned as she saw Terry blink and try to focus her eyes on Williard's almost identical brothers.

“You didn't tell me you were triplets,” Terry said.

“We're not. That's Jason and that's Jerry,” Williard said.

“I'm Jason,” Jerry said, causing Terry to blink. She thought sure Jim had called him Jerry.

“I'm Jim,” Jason piped up, confusing her further until she got the idea that this was a game the brothers must play.

“You're all crazy.”

“It runs in the family. I'm Larry,” Larry said.

“My brothers like to mix people up,” Jeannie told her. “Don't mind them.”

“I don't mind at all, they all look alike anyway. Hi guys.”

“Have some rum,” Jerry offered. He couldn't bear seeing anyone without a drink in their hand, preferably one from the Bacardi distillery.

“Why not?” Terry agreed, taking the proffered drink while Jerry poured himself another one. Looking at Williard's brothers and the other laughing people in the room, she felt as if she were just taking off on her first flight. It had been too long since she had had a really great leave. This one promised to be something to write home about, properly censored.

“We were just talking about dinosaurs,” Williard said, pulling her down beside him.

“You really were serious, weren't you? I thought you were just kidding me.”

“I was,” Jason said.

“I meant Jim,” Terry said.

“I'm Jim,” Jerry said.

“I'm Jerry,” Jason said.

“I'm Jason,” Williard said, “but never mind. Whoever you are, tell us about this f—this so-called dinosaur.”

Jason stretched his stiff leg out to get it more comfortable and checked to make sure his glass was full. For once, he looked serious. “I got the story a while back from a friend of mine that worked as a mercenary when there was all that fighting in the Congo, after they got their independence and split into two countries, Zaire and the Congo. For years, the Pygmies who inhabit the jungles there have been telling stories of this mysterious creature which is supposed to live in and around Lake Tele. That's a lake, about four or five miles across and God knows how deep, surrounded by swamps and unexplored rain forests in what they call The Republic of the Congo now. They refer to it as Mokele Mbembe, the creature that's bigger than an elephant and swims in the lake. I spent most of my time while I was recuperating at Bethesda putting together information from my friend and his sources in Africa. I'm convinced now that there's enough truth to the stories to make it worthwhile to go looking. All we need is some money to finance the expedition.”

“How much money are we talking about?” Williard asked. The idea sounded intriguing. Trust Jason to come up with something like this.

“Not much. A hundred, hundred fifty ought to do it. That includes weapons, supplies, Pygmy guides and enough to either buy or rent a plane, preferably an amphibian so we could fly directly to the lake. It would be a good idea to hire a copilot, too, just in case I got hurt and couldn't fly us back out.”

Williard smiled to himself. Jason might concede the possibility of getting hurt on an adventure, but never entertained the idea that he could possibly be killed. During the war he had flown his fighter as if he were invulnerable, though he sometimes blamed his aircraft for getting in the way of dense metal or missiles.

“I've got a pilot's license,” Terry remarked, then felt her heart jump around in her chest. Good God, what am I thinking of, she asked herself. Here I spend one night with a guy and the next thing I know I'm volunteering to copilot a plane to Africa so he and his brothers can go looking for a dinosaur. I must be crazy.

“You must be crazy,” Jerry said. He had the romantic idea that women should wait faithfully at home while their men were off on adventures, which was one reason his wife had divorced him. She had waited faithfully for almost four years while he spent his leaves sporting with hookers in Hong Kong, Australia and the Philippines.

“Be sure and bring your parachute,” Williard said, only half kidding. When Jason got in a plane, you never knew what would happen.

“Oh, yeah. You said he was called Jumpin’ Jase.”

“Not without reason,” Williard commented. “Are you really volunteering to come along on this jaunt, supposing we can raise the money to finance it?” He looked at her with new interest. His ex-wife thought anything more adventurous than Christmas shopping at a mall was grounds for divorce and had proved it after he volunteered for the third time for Vietnam.

“It sounds like fun,” Terry temporized, conjuring up a romantic fantasy of making love in the depths of a rain forest. And she did have a pilot's license, though she had never used it much after the airlines all refused to let her into their pilot training programs. That still rankled her.

“Oh, it will be,” Jason assured her.

“Won't it be sort of dangerous, Jason?” Jeannie asked, with a worried look on her face. She had confidence in her brothers’ abilities, but this idea was more bizarre than anything else they had ever gotten into.

“Nah. Besides the dinosaur, all we have to worry about is funguses, foot worms, elephantiasis, crocodiles, elephants, gorillas and wild Pygmies. Of course we will be in unexplored territory, so there might be a few other things I don't know about.”

Mention of Pygmies caught Williard's attention. “Why should we have to worry about Pygmies? We'll be armed, won't we?”

“Didn't I mention that the Pygmies living around Lake Tele have never been contacted? And that they worship Mokele Mbembe like a God or something? They may not appreciate us going after it. Besides, don't take them lightly. Them little fuckers hunt elephants with nothing but machetes.”

“How the hell do they do that?” Williard asked.

Jason grinned. “They run alongside them and grab onto a leg, then use their machete to hamstring them. Sometimes they even live through it.”

Williard grinned back “Fuckit. Ten thousand Viet Cong couldn't kill me. Why should I worry about Pygmies?”

Terry had been taking in the conversation, glancing back and forth from brother to brother. She felt a surge of excitement rising inside, making her dizzy. Or maybe it was the rum doing that, but she still felt a compelling urge to join the expedition if it indeed took place. She didn't know whether it was a result of her attraction to Williard or dissatisfaction at the shallow sort of life she had been living, tangling with self-important airline pilots and other men she felt no respect for. She heard herself say firmly, “I want to go.”

“You got a winner there, brother,” Jason said.

“I knew she was Very, but not this Very,” Williard agreed, trying to conceal his deeper feelings with humor. He examined them silently and found that he was thinking of Terry as a woman he might like to spend a good bit of time with, but he felt a sense of apprehension along with the thought. He felt the same way about his ex-wife originally, and that hadn't worked out. He decided to try to keep the relationship with Terry more sexual than serious. If last night was any indication, it shouldn't be a problem.

“Now that we've got that settled, let's all have another drink and head for the club,” Larry said. “We can talk about dinosaurs there as well as here.”

“Who's going to drive?” Jeannie asked, looking at the seriously depleted bar.

“Let Jason handle it,” Williard said. “If he can fly drunk, he can drive drunk.”

“I can aim better with a couple of drinks.”

“What, the plane or the bombs?” Jerry asked.

“Fuckit, either one. Cars, too, for that matter.”

“Are you sure you can drive?” Jeannie asked. “I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt.”

“Ten thousand North Vietnamese couldn't kill me. I sure ain't going to go down in a stupid car. Come on, brothers, grab your Verys and let's go find Monica. I'm hungry.”

Terry and Donna exchanged tickled glances, wondering how the other woman would take the brothers. Williard's Cougar and Terry's Falcon were both too small to carry them all, leaving Jeannie's big Oldsmobile as the best option. Jeannie did so much shopping that she needed a big car. The back seat was crowded with Williard and Jerry and Terry and Donna, but no one minded except Larry, who would have made it five if Jeannie hadn't yanked him away and placed him in front. Jason drove a car the same way he flew a jet fighter when he was a little under the weather. He simply imagined that he was lining up the yellow landing ball when coming in on an aircraft carrier and aimed down the middle of the street while Jeannie gave him directions to the country club. It was located only a few blocks from their starting point, hardly giving Jason time to get his imaginary yellow ball lined up before they were there. He drove past the tail end of the golf course, swung around the pool area and into the parking lot.

The Oldsmobile looked lonely and out of place amidst ranks of Cadillacs and Lincolns and Stingrays and Thunderbirds. Larry had never gotten far enough in front of Jeannie's garage sales to buy a car more fitting for a Dentist than the Oldsmobile The Williard brothers had always been long on ambition and short on cash, somewhat similar to his own circumstances. He led his coterie from the parking lot to the club entrance, an arch of conservative, gray-speckled brick set over imitation Mexican tile. The doorman took one look at what was following him and held up his hand in horror.

Chapter Four

“Hey, you cowboys can't come in here dressed like that! Where do you think you are, anyway?” The doorman's face held an expression of outrage, as if Larry was leading a gang of welfare recipients inside.

“It's all right, George,” Larry said. “These guys are war heroes.”

“I don't give a damn. They can't come in,” the doorman said.

Jason stepped forward and eyed the man as if he were an object in his gunsights. He turned to Williard.

“Looks like a North Vietnamese to me. I've killed a lot of them.”

“I think he's a Viet Cong. I shot a lot of them little fuckers, but looks like I missed one,” Williard said. He turned to Jerry.

“I think he's a Hippie. I hate Hippies. They made us lose the war. I've been waiting to get my hands on one.”

“I left my submachine gun back at the barracks,” Jason said.

“Never mind, I brought my bayonet,” Williard said, feeling around suggestively in his back pocket.

“Let me at him, I'll use my bare hands,” Jerry growled.

The entranceway was suddenly, miraculously, empty. Larry led the way inside, past the bar and into the spacious dining room, ignoring curious glances from a scattering of onlookers. It was still early and the dining room was only half full, so they had their choice of tables, each already set with shining silverware on crisp white tablecloths.

“Hi Larry. Did you bring the entertainment tonight?” One of Larry's doctor friends called, thinking that he had perhaps been recruited to bring in a country and western band for the evening.

“You got that right,” Larry said. “Just wait til they get going.”

“You behave now,” Jeannie said to the brothers, knowing that they probably wouldn't. She loved going out with them whenever they were home, especially Williard. He was the most intellectual of the bunch, the nearest to her age, and usually managed to hang on to at least a little of his own money rather than asking her or Larry for loans when they were there.

Larry looked around the room. His blue eyes suddenly twinkled like a cat with a mouse in its paws. He touched Jason on the shoulder and directed his gaze in the direction he pointed. “Hey, there's Monica already. See? She's the one with the fat guy over there.”

Jason spotted Monica immediately, sitting at a corner table with a corpulent, Italian looking man dressed in an expensive blue suit. She had longish blond hair, a beautiful face and a prominent bosom, half exposed over the bodice of a pale yellow dress. In fact, she looked like a Playboy Bunny with her clothes on.

“I'm in love,” Jason said. “Wait here, folks. I won't be but a moment.”

Larry plucked a drink from a passing waiter's tray, ignoring his protests. He handed it to Jason. “Here, you better take this. That scrooge she's with probably hasn't bought her but one yet.”

“What's his name. I don't like to kill civilians unless I know them.”

“Mario Marciano. He's worth a fortune, but all I've ever been able to borrow from him is beer money.”

Beer money to Larry was anything which added up to five figures or more.

“Marciano. Sounds like a Mafia name.”

“He could be,” Larry said seriously, suddenly remembering rumors he had heard about the banker and wondering again if he should have mentioned Monica to Jason at all. What if Marciano decided to call in his loans?

“Well, the Mafia's not all bad. Hell, if they had put them in charge of the war instead of those wimps in the white house, we would of won it in a walk. They would of just put out a contract on Uncle Ho and it would have all been over with. Save us a couple of seats.” Jason took a look at the drink he was holding. Good. It was rum. He headed toward the blonde apparition. Behind him, Williard watched as he approached the table where Monica and the banker sat, wishing he could overhear the conversation. Jason walked up to the table and stood there a moment until both Monica and Marciano looked up to see who was there. “Hey Sweet Thing. How would you like to go chase dinosaurs with me?” Jason said. That got her attention. She took time to finish the drink in front of her before answering, in the meantime moving her eyes over the handsome stranger in the jeans and white shirt. The first drink had already lowered her inhibitions. She put her glass back down and said, “That, I believe, is the finest pick up line I have ever heard. Who are you? You look just like someone I know.”

“That's probably my brother, but he's not me. I'm Jumpin’ Jason Williard, scourge of North Vietnam and parts of the South. Here, have another drink and let's go join your boss.”

Now she recognized him, or thought she did, except that the last time she had been out with him, his name had been James Williard. But maybe Jim did have a brother. Confused, she took the rum mix Jason was offering, forgetting that she had promised herself she would be good tonight. “This is really against my religion,” she said, swallowing half of the glass of rum and coke. “Dinosaurs, you said?”

“Yeah, just as soon as I get some financing arranged.”

“Sounds like fun,” Monica said, feeling her hormones meld with the alcohol in her system. Besides, the cowboy was a hell of a lot better looking than the banker.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Marciano said belligerently. “Shove off, cowboy. Get back to the band or wherever the hell you belong.”

Jason looked down at the fat man from his solidly muscled 185 pound body. “My CO called me a cowboy once. You know what happened to him?”

“No, and I don't give a fuck. Shove off if you know what's good for you.”

“I dared him to follow me into Hanoi the first time we went in. He spent the next five years eating fish heads and rice.” Jason didn't mention that he had finagled his erstwhile CO into following him into a situation slightly off the designated flight pattern, a cluster of SAM sites, intending to either make a man of him of get them both killed. He hated wimps.

“You're a hero,” Monica said. She had a weakness for heroes, especially after her second drink, which she was just finishing.

“Heroes are a Goddamned dime a dozen,” Marciano said, but a little of the belligerence was going out of his voice. The broad shouldered cowboy didn't look to be backing off at all.

“You shouldn't take God's name in vain,” Monica said.

“Goddamn right he shouldn't,” Jason said. “Especially if he don't know nothing about heroes. He wouldn't last ten minutes in the Congo with the dinosaurs.”

“You're going to the Congo? Oh, how romantic. When do we leave?” Monica was already picturing herself and the stranger ensconced in a tent and making love to the sounds of the rain forest, with native drums beating in the background.

“Just as soon as Larry finds us a decent banker,” Jason said, taking her hand.

“Hey, just a Goddamned minute!” Marciano shouted. He attempted to get to his feet, but suddenly found his head being pushed down into his bowl of soup. He breathed in involuntarily and came up spewing consommé. By the time he finished wiping his face, he saw his erstwhile date already being seated at Larry Wilson's table. He started in that direction, then stopped as his senses suddenly blurred. He was seeing triple, apparently. There was not one, but three cowboys at the table. He shook his massive, leonine head. There were still three of them. Could Wilson, that bankrupt dentist who owed him so much money have hired some protection to avoid repaying his debts? He saw them all laughing as Monica seated herself and felt blood suffusing his jowls. Maybe a broken kneecap would teach the cowboy to mind his manners. And, on further thought, a broken kneecap might do the dentist a little good, too. And in public, right here in the club. He turned the other way, toward an alcove of phones reserved for members. He dialed a number, spoke briefly, then went back to his seat. While he waited, he wondered. Cowboys chasing dinosaurs? What was Texas coming to? Maybe he should move back to New York. Williard smiled as Jason seated Monica, then put an arm around her shoulder and began whispering in her ear. Monica stared befuddled at the look-alike brothers. “That sounds nice,” she said to his whispered suggestion, “but which one of you should I do it with? You all look the same.”

“Do it with me,” Jerry said.

“Do it with me,” Williard echoed. Confusing strangers was one of their favorite games.

“Me, too,” Larry said,

“I'll do you,” Jeannie said, “whatever it is.”

Monica started on her third drink, the killer for her. Her face lit up agreeably. “I'll do it with everyone while we're chasing dinosaurs. When do we leave for the Congo?”

Larry leaned in her direction. “Do we have to go that far?”

“You're already too far,” Jeannie said, dragging him back.

“Are you going to the Congo, too?” Terry asked, wondering what was going on now. Well, Jim had said his brothers were a little crazy and this night seemed to be proving it. They were fun, though.

“Sure. We're going to chase dinosaurs,” Monica said.

“One of my flights got diverted to the Congo once,” Terry mentioned, “but all I saw out the window was a bunch of Africans with guns.”

“Are you a pilot, too? I love flying,” Monica said to Terry, squeezing Jason's knee with one hand and starting her fourth drink with the other.

“You're flying, all right,” Jeannie said, pushing Larry's tongue back in his mouth. Monica really was beautiful.

“We'll all fly,” Jason said. “Just as soon as we get some financing, that is. How about that banker Monica was with, Larry? Do you think he would be interested?”

Larry sneaked a look at Marciano. He was glowering in their direction. “He's interested all right, but I don't think it's Dinosaurs he's thinking of. Maybe I should go to the Congo with you.”

“You may have to,” Williard said. He pointed to Marciano's table, where the banker was talking in a low voice to huge man in a black suit who had just appeared. He had crumpled ears and a scar over one brow. Marciano pointed to their table and gave them a thick lipped, malignant smile. The hulk headed their way.

“Uh oh,” Jason said. “I think I annoyed that banker.”

“You want me to take care of your light work?” Jerry said.

“He's not that light,” Williard said, noticing a suspicious bulge to the hulk's jacket.

“God, he's huge,” Donna said. “Maybe we better call the bouncer.”

“Country clubs don't have bouncers, they have accountants,” Larry said.

“They're worse than bouncers, always wanting money,” Jeannie said, oblivious to the threat. She had switched from rum to wine, which made her even more amorous, and was rubbing Larry's thigh under the table.

“I think we've already found your dinosaur, Jason,” Terry said. “All he needs is scales.”

“Maybe he just wants a drink,” Monica said, getting to her feet as the giant neared their table. He bumped up against her prominent front, which barely cleared his belly. Confused, he looked down and momentarily lost his sense of mission. He reached up a pair of huge paws to remove the obstacle blocking his path.

“Have a drink,” Jerry said, taking Monica's glass and shoving it into the monster's hand. It looked no bigger than a shot glass there.

“Thanks, bub. Now I need Doc Wilson and whichever of youse guys is called Jumping Jack to stand up.” The hulk's accent was pure Bronx.

“I'm Jumpin’ Jase,” Jerry said. The thug turned to him, grinning.

Williard tapped his shoulder. “I'm Jumpin Jase.”

“Huh? How come there's two of youse?” He looked the other way while Jason sneaked up behind him.

“Don't listen to them, I'm Jumpin Jase, and you're not the dinosaur I'm looking for,” Jason said.

“Oh, shucks,” Monica said, and started to sit back down.

“Not so fast, babe,” the brute said. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out an automatic pistol big enough to shoot mammoths with. He pointed it at Monica. “Youse tell me which one of these guys is which before youse sit down.”

“Eek!” Monica said. She jerked her hands high over her head in surrender. Unfortunately, this caused the top of her dress to fail in its primary mission. Her breasts popped free and swayed provocatively in front of Marciano's minion. He promptly forgot his mission for the second time. While he was mesmerized, Jerry plucked his drink back, emptied all but the ice cubes into his mouth so as not to waste good rum, then reached out and pulled the hulk's shirt collar loose with two fingers and emptied the ice inside.

“Yikes!” he yelled, waving his gun in a circle as he clawed at his shirt, where the ice was sliding over his belly.

Larry and Donna and Terry flinched in turn as the pointed weapon traversed the circle, each expecting it to go off in their face. None of the brothers seemed the least concerned. Each was very familiar with firearms and noticed that the safety of the pistol was still on. Monica was scared and befuddled, and Jeannie was still playing with Larry's thigh and didn't notice anything. For once Larry didn't respond. He was scared stiff all over.

The ice trickled down and stopped at the hulk's belt line. He waved his gun with one hand and began trying to unbutton his shirt with the other. His huge fingers fumbled with the little buttons. He looked down to get a better perspective. While he was looking, Williard chopped up with one hand and down with the other, neatly sandwiching the gunman's wrist. The weapon popped free, arcing toward the ceiling. Jason plucked it from the air as easily as an Old West gunslinger giving a twirling demonstration, and shoved the barrel under its owner's nose. “Recognize this?” he said.

“Gug,” the weaponless thug said. “Don't shoot!”

“OK,” Jason said. “Just follow me. Be right back, folks.” He stuck the barrel of the mortar-sized pistol against the man's ear and guided him over to where Marciano was still sitting, looking as if the federal reserve had just dropped interest rates to zero.

“Does this belong to you?” Jason said, twisting the barrel of the pistol around in crushed ear tissue, trying to find the opening.

“I never saw him before in my life!” Marciano cried.

“That's OK, you can get acquainted outside. Come along.” Jason and the two men disappeared through a side door to sounds of weak applause from the other diners. Some thought they had been watching part of the entertainment, but most were uncertain what had happened. A moment later Jason strolled back inside, still carrying the pistol. He sat down and put it in the middle of the table.

“God, that's a big gun,” Donna said. “My ex never carries one that big, even when he's dealing.”

“Maybe we could use it for dinosaurs,” Terry giggled. She could still feel her heart racing, but the laughter bubbled out anyway, like the eruption of a cold mountain stream.

“Good idea,” Jason said. “I doubt that thug ugly will be needing it any more. I made him and that wimpy banker jump in the deep end of the pool.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Larry asked, fearful that he might rearm himself and make another appearance.

“He said he couldn't swim,” Jason said smugly. He looked around and saw every member and their guests staring in their direction. “Hey, what's everyone looking at? The fun's already over.”

“Monica, did you forget something?” Jeannie said, giving up on Larry for the moment. Monica looked down at her bare chest. “Oh. Darn thing, I always have trouble keeping it up.” She tugged the top of the dress back over her breasts.

“You didn't have to say anything,” Larry said to Jeannie.

“Yes I did. Here comes the manager.”

The club manager had thought first of calling the police, then decided that the club didn't need that kind of publicity. He would just oust Wilson and his rowdy party, whoever they were, especially since none of them were wearing ties.

“All right Doctor Wilson, you and your party are going to have to leave. Not only that, I'm going to bar you from the club until you get your dues up to date.”

“We can't leave yet,” Williard said. “We haven't finished talking about the dinosaur expedition. Besides that, we haven't even eaten.”

“You're not—” The club manager was interrupted by George, the doorman, who had come in to see what the ruckus was about. When he saw the angry look on the manager's face, he hurried over as quickly as he could and whispered in his ear. The manager's face suddenly paled and beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.

“Would you folks like steak or lobster?” he asked, in a quavering voice.

“We'll all have Lobster, since it's on the house,” Larry said, sensing an opportunity for a free meal.

“And bring us a few bottles of rum and some coke and ice,” Jerry suggested.

“We don't allow bottles at the—”

“What did you say?” Jason asked, half rising to his feet and feeling around suggestively in the vicinity of the hogleg on the table.

“I said, how many bottles do you want?”

“That's what I thought you said. Hey, Larry, country clubs are great places to go out to. I think I'll find one to join soon as we catch the dinosaur.”

The manager hurried away, hoping the cowboy got gobbled up by a dinosaur before he picked his club to join.

Chapter Five

They were all still at the club, just reaching the teeth-picking stage and polishing off the last bottle of Bacardi. The dining room had filled up with doctors and dentists and bankers and stock brokers and their guests, but the Wilson party sat in lordly splendor, with a circle of empty tables around them. The late arrivals had been discretely warned that Doctor Wilson was consorting with ferocious, unstable combat veterans just back from Vietnam who had already sent the doorman into a gibbering panic and nearly drowned a banker and his companion who annoyed them. They were able to discuss Jason's dinosaurs without being overheard, which was just the way Jason wanted it. He didn't want to have some rich doctor who could afford to finance an expedition to steal his idea. Williard had listened to Jason's exposition through a fine lobster dinner garnished with rum. Now he cracked the last delicious claw, dipped the succulent meat into his rum and coke and popped it into his mouth. He summed up the conversation. “So, we find some financing, buy or rent a plane, and head for the Congo. We form an expedition, go in and get pictures and evidence, then sell it for a zillion dollars. Does that cover it?”

“You got it, brother,” Jason said. He plucked at Monica's's top, which was on the verge of slipping into dangerous territory again. “Hell, we may can even get Hollywood interested, and if they're not, I bet there's scientists who would pay a bundle to see pictures of a real dinosaur. Money is the real problem, though.”

“Maybe I could invest in a poker game,” Jerry said.

“We need money, not debts,” Williard said, reminding his younger brother that the only time he had ever seen him come away winner from a poker game was the time he passed out while he was still winning.

“Sounds like we need a banker to me,” Larry said.

“We already owe every banker in Oak Cliff,” Jeannie reminded him. “Why don't we just have a garage sale?” Her eyes lit up at the thought.

“I think a banker is the better idea,” Williard said. Even supposing Jeannie could raise whatever Jason thought it would cost, an unlikely proposition, she would have it spent on refurnishing the house before they could turn around.

“Me, too,” Larry agreed, though he didn't know any banker right off hand that he didn't already owe money to.

“Are you wanting to go, too?” Williard asked. Hell, he thought, I'm not even sure I want to go yet, although it sounded a hell of a lot better than having to go to work, probably for some draft dodging hippie who had protested the war on the one hand and profiteered from it on the other from the booming war time economy.

“Well, Monica said she was going. Why not me?”

While Williard considered, and Jeannie looked aghast at the idea, Jason spoke up. “Sorry, Larry. I think you better stick with Dentistry. Besides, Jeannie is a hell of a lot better looking than those Pygmy African women.”

“I should hope so,” Jeannie said.

“Pygmies? What do they have to do with it?” Monica asked.

“Didn't I mention? The dinosaur is supposed to be guarded by a tribe of Pygmies.”

“Well, I'm better looking than a Pygmy, too,” Terry remarked, as if that proved something. The faces around the table were beginning to blur from all the rum Williard had been feeding her.

“You sure are,” Larry agreed, talking over Jeannie's shoulder. She was nuzzling his chest and suggesting that they try making love in his easy chair when they got home, thinking that idea would get his eyes off Monica, Donna and Terry and back on her. It didn't; he was afraid she would slap a price tag on it while he wasn't looking. When he thought about it some more, though, he decided doing was better than watching. “I think we ought to leave now.”

“Why? It's only midnight,” Jason said.

“I've got my reasons.” Jeannie's nuzzling was progressing in the direction of his waist and Larry figured in a few more minutes Jeannie might forget where she was and disappear under the table.

“Suits me,” Williard said. “I think Terry is feeling Very again, anyway.”

“Me, too,” Donna said.

“Let's go,” Jerry urged. He wanted to check out Donna's Very.

Jason stood up and waved to the other diners. “'Bye, folks. It's been fun!”

“Don't forget your dinosaur gun,” Williard reminded him.

“Oh yeah. Marciano's little messenger might have managed to climb out of the pool by now.” Jason plucked the pistol off the table and stuck it into his waistband.

That remark gave Williard an idea he was just drunk enough to act on. “Let's go see,” he said. He led the party, somewhat unsteadily, in the direction of the pool, where they found a dripping Marciano just finishing resuscitation on his enforcer. When he saw who was approaching, he wavered unsteadily to his feet. His partner sat up groggily, coughing water.

“Just who we wanted to see, a banker. We want to apply for a loan,” Williard said. He reached out a gentlemanly hand and helped the wet giant to his feet.

“Yeah, just a small one,” Jason said, catching on and following his brother's lead. He twirled the oversized pistol by the trigger guard.

“Only a hundred thousand,” Jerry said, going along with his brothers.

“Don't forget the plane.” Jason gestured with the pistol, causing the banker to cringe.

“Oh, yeah. Better make that a hundred fifty.” Williard patted Marciano on the shoulder. Terry stared at her companion as if he had suddenly turned into a magician. If he pulled this off, she decided that henceforth she would believe in fairies, ghosts and that diamonds really were a girl's best friend.

“You crazy bastards, we almost drowned,” Marciano croaked. “Mugsy here can't swim.”

Williard dismissed the danger. “Water never hurt no one, so long as it's got rum mixed with it. How about that loan?”

“I'll loan you crazy cowboys money when hell freezes over. That goes for you, too, Wilson.”

Jason looked at Williard and shrugged regretfully. “Too bad. Back to the pool with you.” He placed a hand on Marciano's chest and shoved, tipping him backwards.

“Yahhh!” Marciano went off into the deep end of the pool again. His head broke water a moment later. He spewed foam and started to swim away. Jason waved him back with the dinosaur gun. He turned with alacrity and swam back in their direction until he could grab hold of the edge. “You next, big boy.”

Jason pointed his weapon at the goon.

“Fuck that shit,” Mugsy said, coughing up some more water. He reached down to his ankle and pulled his reserve weapon from the holster there. He shook water from inside the barrel, then knelt down in front of Marciano and stuck it between his eyebrows. Marciano stared cross-eyed at the barrel of the weapon. “Don't shoot!” he cried, and flung both hands in the air. Immediately, he sank beneath the surface. A second later he clawed his way back up to the edge of the pool. The pistol was still pointing at him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Marciano screamed. “You work for me, not them!”

“Not any more,” Mugsy said, looking fearfully past Marciano's dripping head at the deep water.

“Damned if I'm going to get drowned just because youse is a cheapskate. Youse loan dese guys some money, you hear?”

“All right, all right. I'll loan them some goddamned money tomorrow. Just let me out of this fucking cold water.”

“Tonight,” Mugsy insisted. “I'm going back to da Big Apple foist thing in da morning. I don't like Texas no more.”

“Tonight, then,” Marciano shivered. Mugsy stretched out one hand to help him out of the pool, and kept the other one, with the pistol, pointing between his eyes.

“Remember, it was all your idea,” Williard said to Marciano, once he was back on dry land. “You're investing in a surefire proposition. It's not every day a banker gets to finance a dinosaur expedition.”

“You fucking guys are crazy!”

“What did you say?” Jason stopped twirling his pistol.

“I said it's a great opportunity.”

“That's what I thought you said. Let's get to the bank. Mugsy, why don't you go along with Mr. Marciano and we'll follow right along behind. If I remember, Larry said the bank was right on the edge of the river. Be careful, we wouldn't want you to fall in, would we?”

Mugsy shivered, shaking droplets of water from his suit. He had almost drowned once as a child and was deathly afraid of water. He grabbed Marciano by the collar and began marching him toward the parking lot. He looked back over his shoulder to be sure the Texans were following. He hoped the river wasn't too close to Marciano's bank. Just the thought of it terrified him. He vowed that if he ever came back to Texas, he would learn to swim first.

“Good idea you had, brother,” Jason said.

“Yeah,” Jerry agreed. “Shit, I haven't had so much fun since we closed down the officer's club that time in Chu Lai.”

“You should have been with us when we stole the Colonel's customized Jeep,” Williard said. Monica had draped herself all over Jason, hoping the loan wouldn't take long, so that she could get him off to herself. Terry and Donna were looking at the brothers with awe. Terry decided right then that she would take a leave of absence if the banker really did give them the loan. She didn't care whether they found a dinosaur or not, she just wanted to see what the wild Williards would pull off next. Donna decided that she was glad she had left her hippie husband. Drug dealing was an exotic profession, but chasing dinosaurs had that beat a mile. Then she thought of something and her smile faded. Larry was fending off Jeannie and trying to count the dollar signs that kept popping up in his mind.

* * * *

“We'll wait here,” Jeannie said, when Jason pulled the Oldsmobile into the parking lot of the bank. She leaned against Larry and put her arms around him.

“OK. Come on Verys,” Williard said, deciding to give Larry a break. The wine and rum Jeannie had mixed together had made her forget all about garage sales.

The night watchman stared at the wet banker, his giant companion and what appeared to be triplet brothers trailed by exotic female accomplices when they came into the lobby.

“Don't mind us,” Williard said. “We're just here for a loan.”

“At this hour?”

“It's an emergency,” Marciano said weakly.

“Yeah. If we don't get some money right quick, the dinosaur might be gone before we get there.”

“Dinosaur? What dinosaur?”

“The one that lives in the Congo.”

“You're crazy!”

“Just open the goddamned elevator before I have to go swimming again,” Marciano said.

“Yeah. Youse open up right now,” Mugsy said, looking past the lobby toward where the wide, deep Trinity river flowed under the bridge, dividing Oak Cliff from northern Dallas. He shuddered. The bank guard stared up at the sheer height, width and battered face and ears of Mugsy and decided it was no business of his if a wet banker wanted to make a loan to triplet cowboys in the middle of the night. On second thought, he decided it was probably a hallucination from the joint he had just finished smoking. That was a more logical explanation. He inserted his key into the elevator lock.

“One forty nine, one fifty. There. Now sign these papers.” Marciano had gotten over his fright and was barely concealing his ire. He shoved the loan form across the table where he had counted out the money, hoping no one would notice the payment date he had filled in.

Williard was smarter than that, even with a hefty potion of rum inside. “Better change that date. Leave it open, just in case that dinosaur doesn't cooperate. Oh, I almost forgot. You better add another ten or so for Doctor Wilson.”

Marciano started to protest, then saw the look on Mugsy's face. He erased the date, and added another ten thousand dollars, wondering how he was going to explain the loan to the Boss of Bosses in New York when he got wind of it.

“Thanks, you've been swell,” Williard said, when he was finished “I'm going to recommend all my friends to you in the future.”

“Mine, too,” Jason said.

“Next time I get in a poker game I'll come see you,” Jerry said.

Marciano glared impotently at he brothers. “Don't do me any favors. Fucking dinosaurs, my ass.”

Chapter Six

Larry disengaged from Jeannie when he saw his brothers-in-law coming out of the bank. It took some persuasion since Jeannie was less than cooperative. “Down, girl. Wait til we get home.”

“Yeah, Sis, your dress looks like it tried to escape while we were gone,” Williard grinned.

“It's probably scared of her next garage sale.” Larry was hurriedly tucking his shirt back in his trousers.

“Did you get the loan?”

Williard hefted the bulging briefcase he had appropriated from Marciano's desk. “No problem. Maybe we ought to recruit Mugsy. He seems to have a way with bankers.”

“Nope. He would probably go catatonic when he saw the lake, let alone the dinosaur,” Jason said.

“Then let's head for home,” Jerry suggested.

“Yeah, I have to go to work tonight—I mean tomorrow,” Larry said, leering at Jeannie.

“Do I have to go?” Monica asked, trying to crawl into Jason's lap as he got behind the wheel.

“If you want to get paid, you do.”

“You mean you're going to pay me for a change?”

“Absolutely, just as soon as we get another patient.”

“I have something better than that for you,” Williard said. He reached into the briefcase and pulled out a bundle of hundreds. “Marciano decided you probably needed another loan.” He handed Larry the money.

“All right!”

“Let's go home,” Jeannie said, moving in on Larry again.

“On the way.” Jason visualized the yellow carrier landing ball, took off over the curb and began driving erratically down the sidewalk. He laughed wildly. “Whoops! The landing officer must be drunk!” He steered the Olds back onto the street and headed more or less south, back toward Oak Cliff and home.

* * * *

When Williard woke up the next morning, the first thing he saw was the briefcase sitting on the bedside table. He shook his head, then immediately regretted the action. He eased himself into a sitting position. The briefcase was still there. Unless he had dreamed the whole thing, it contained a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, enough to finance Jason's crazy idea of hunting a dinosaur in the Congo. Or was it crazy? Maybe there was a dinosaur hidden away in darkest Africa. And even if there wasn't, it sounded like a better deal than going back to school or going to work in a Hospital somewhere. The only thing which worried him was that the whole proposition was going too fast, seeming to take on a life of its own. He tried remembering all the conversations and events which had taken place the day before, but attempting to sort them out made his head hurt even worse.

Beside him, a Very naked Terry stirred. She rolled over onto her back and covered her eyes with one hand. The motion caused her lovely breasts to move in interesting directions before they found their center of gravity, but Williard's head hurt too much for him to appreciate it. She peered at him with bloodshot eyes from between two fingers. “What happened? Did we have a car wreck?”

“Not that I remember, but then I don't remember everything.”

“Did we find the dinosaur?”

“We haven't started looking yet. At least I don't think we have. Gawd, my head. This reminds me of the morning after a jungle juice party.”

“What's a jungle juice party? Never mind, I don't want to know. Do you have any aspirin?”

“I've got something better than that, if I can make myself move.”

“Tell me where it is and I'll move. I haven't felt this bad since the morning after high school graduation.

“Look in my bag in the closet. There's a bottle of pills there in an unmarked bottle. Bring something to drink with it.”

Williard watched Terry crawl painfully from the bed and creep carefully to the closet, walking as if the carpet were covered with broken glass. Despite his excruciating hangover, he felt his body stir at the sight of her naked figure. He held a dim picture in his mind of some enthusiastic gymnastics after they had gotten back last night, but even more, he remembered how well she had adapted to the whole unlikely episode of the previous night. Most women he knew would have called for the little men in white coats long before the evening was done, but she not only kept pace with him and his brothers, but had actually seemed to enjoy herself.

Terry found the bottle of pills in his bag after some squinting, which made her eyes hurt. She brought the pills and a glass of water from the bathroom.

Williard took the bottle, but eyed the water with distaste. “I was hoping you would find something stronger than water,” he said.

Terry shuddered. “God, don't tell me you want to start drinking again.”

“This here medicine goes better with hair of the dog,” He had brought the pills back from his last duty assignment. They contained Aspirin, Tylenol and caffeine, combined with a strong leavening of codeine and phenobarbital, the best cure he had ever found for a hangover. He opened the bottle and tilted it to his mouth.

“I think you're supposed to take them, not drink them,” Terry giggled through her pain. Didn't he ever let up?

“It's a cinch you never had any of Dum-Dum's jungle juice,” Williard said. Dum-Dum had been his pharmacist when he ran a dispensary during one of his tours in Vietnam. Dum-Dum was constantly experimenting with jungle juice, made from grain alcohol, fruit juice, Phenobarbital syrup, beer and several other ingredients. He claimed he was trying to achieve the potency of the white lightning he was used to drinking in the mountains of West Virginia before he got drafted.

“All right, if you're sure they'll help.” Terry took the bottle from Williard's hand and shook out several pills. She took hers with water.

“Give them a few minutes to work, then we'll go see if anyone else is still alive.”

While they waited for the pills to take effect, Williard considered the girl laying beside him with her eyes closed. Fun aside, he was beginning to really like her, and not just for her looks. She seemed to possess a more thoughtful spontaneity than the two women his brothers had hooked up with, not that she hadn't gone along with the wild exuberance of the previous days’ reunion, but he knew she had joined the fun with concealed reservations, willing to party but thinking in terms of a more solid relationship if she liked what she found. Donna and Monica, on the other hand, were the type, he knew, who couldn't think past the next man or the next party. He doubted that they would consider quitting their jobs and taking off to the Congo once they sobered up and thought it over.

Terry opened her eyes. “I think the pills are starting to work. Did we really do every thing I think we did last night?” Dinosaurs. Mafia bankers. A gigantic thug the Williard brothers had handled as easily as putting a baby back in its playpen. They were awesome.

Williard pointed to the briefcase and grinned. “Sometimes we get carried away, but it usually works out. Or at least it has so far. If you feel like it now, let's go see if there's anything left to drink in the house.”

A few minutes earlier, the thought of another drink would have sent her reeling to the bathroom, but now it didn't seem like such a bad idea. Suddenly she remembered Williard's lovemaking after they had gone to bed the previous night. Or morning, as it was. She sighed, then stretched. “If we keep on like we have the last two days, I'm liable to decide to hang around for a while. If I can stand it, that is, and if Jeannie will let me stay.”

“No problem there, though we may wind up sleeping on the floor if she sells the bed at a garage sale.”

He reached out a hand and helped her upright. “Come on. Let's go get breakfast.”

“I thought you wanted a drink?”

Williard grinned. “That's what I said.”

The others were already up, after a fashion, and congregated in the den. Jerry was sitting on one of the barstools with his head in one hand and the other one occupied with a bottle of rum which he was trying unsuccessfully to open. Jason was sprawled on the couch with Monica. Neither of them looked as if they'd had much sleep. Donna was missing and Larry was ensconced in his easy chair, eyeing a Bloody Mary as if it were a curative potion too awful-tasting to drink. Jeannie was shakily trying to get some coffee going, but kept missing the basket with the scoop. Coffee grounds were scattered around the percolator like piles of misplaced brown sand.

“Good morning, everybody.” Williard said cheerfully. His pills were already working wonders.

“Gawd, my head,” Jerry moaned.

“Gawd, my stomach,” Larry said.

“Gawd, this is worse than getting shot down,” Jason vowed.

“Look, fellows,” Williard said, holding up the pill bottle he had thoughtfully brought along. His brothers rushed him like linebackers after a quarterback. They remembered the times in Vietnam when Williard had rescued them from horrible death with his pills.

“What's that?” Larry asked without much interest. He took a sip of his Bloody Mary as gingerly as if it contained cobra venom.

“Something to make you feel better,” Williard said.

“I'll have a couple of dozen, then.”

Williard rescued the bottle from his brothers and passed out pills to Larry, Monica and Jeannie, then led Terry over to the bar and opened the bottle of rum Jerry had been struggling with. He poured cold tomato juice into two glasses, added generous dollops of liquor and handed one of the drinks to Terry. She drank as enthusiastically as Williard, standing by the bar with his arm around her waist. A pleasant glow began to work its way through her body, then on into her mind as the alcohol supplemented the codeine she had taken. Dinosaurs again began to seem like a fine idea. Presently, the others began to come back to life.

“What was that stuff?” Larry asked.

“Nothing much. Just a little aspirin, Tylenol, caffeine, phenobarbital and codeine.”

“Be damned. I can prescribe that. Why didn't I ever think of it?”

“I just discovered it accidentally, myself but if you can prescribe it, I'll take a thousand or so with us when we go to the Congo.”

“Won't the pharmacist get suspicious?” Jeannie asked. She was sitting in Larry's lap, a satisfied glow on her face despite the residual effects of mixing rum and wine.

“I'll tell him Jim has a hell of a toothache. Say, did we really talk Mario into giving us some money last night?”

“Mugsy was very convincing,” Williard confirmed.

Jason laughed. “He sure was. I never saw anyone so afraid of water.”

“Can I get paid now?” Monica asked.

“Just as soon as I get up the energy to go back to the bedroom,” Larry agreed, finally remembering the bundle of money Williard had handed him last night.

“Good,” Monica said. “I'll go open the office. Maybe we'll have some patients today.”

“I don't think I could look at a patient right now. Why don't you go open the office, Monica? I'll stop by later.”

“All right, Doctor Wilson,” Monica said. She was back to her normal self. She shook hands with Jason and left, leaving him with a bewildered look on his face.

“What's wrong with her? Last night she was bouncier than a shark in a rowboat full of sailors.”

“She's sober this morning,” Larry explained.

“Oh well. I was sober once, too.”

Williard scanned the faces around the room. “Where's Donna?”

“She said she had to go see her lawyer,” Jerry said. He didn't look too unhappy at her absense. Williard figured that after sobering up, she might have decided that drug dealing was safer than hanging around with Williards.

“I'm glad I didn't marry into a normal family,” Larry said.

“My brothers are normal,” Jeannie said.

“So is a hurricane. Never mind, I'm not complaining. Where I came from, the most exciting thing that ever happened was a square dance. Come on Jason, tell us some more about the dinosaur.”

Jason replenished his drink, then brought a thick folder from his room and sat back down. He opened the folder and began passing around maps and sheets of foolscap and vague excerpts from newspapers, some of them decades old. “My friend gathered all this data after he came back from working over there, but part of it comes from conversations with tribesmen and old colonists who are familiar with the story. None of the old folks really believe the tales, but I've checked and rechecked and can't find any inconsistencies. If there's not a dinosaur there, there's sure as hell something the Pygmies are concealing.”

Chapter Seven

With Terry sitting beside him and looking on with real interest, Williard examined the legends on the maps Jason had provided. It was easy, since the author had drawn them according to military specifications. Lake Tele, where the dinosaur purportedly lived, appeared to be bounded by swamps to the south and east, hills to the north and a swampy river, labeled Ndok River to the west. The whole area was labeled Rain Forest. He didn't like what he saw. “Brother, it looks to me like this would be a hell of a place to get lost in. I had enough of jungles in ‘Nam.”

Jason grinned. “At least you knew what to expect there. This place is totally unexplored, but don't worry; we'll fly in to Lake Tele if at all possible.”

“That's what I was afraid of. What if you suddenly decide to dump another airplane?”

Jason shrugged. “I've lived through crashes before.”

“Yeah, but we haven't.”

“I think we ought to take our chances with a plane,” Terry remarked, after Williard explained the topographical marks to her.

“It couldn't be much worse than the Mekong Delta,” Jerry said.

Jason shook his head. “It's worse, believe me. My friend told me that the heat and humidity and parasites are so bad that his troops went without clothes most of the time.”

Larry eyed Terry's trim figure on the couch beside Jason. “Maybe I will go along, after all.”

“I think we'd better stay here,” Jeannie said, seeing where Larry's gaze was resting.

“I think you'd better, too,” Jason said. “The way I hear it, there's still lots of fighting in the area between various tribes. Some of them are backed by the CIA and some by the Russians. Practically every male in the region carries weapons and they don't give much of a shit who they shoot at. We might get caught up in some fighting or get captured by Pygmies, or not be able to land on the lake and have to go overland. I don't really expect this to be as easy as it sounds.”

Williard felt his heart skip a couple of beats. He remembered combat very well. It sounded to him as if they should go well armed and well provisioned and with several contingency plans in case the expedition ran into unexpected trouble. Well, whatever happened, he was bringing it on himself by not going out and looking for an honest job. Terry was another matter, though. She couldn't possibly understand what they might be getting into. He turned to her and said, “Terry, honey, are you sure you want to get involved with this scheme? It could get awfully dangerous.”

“I'm a pilot, I know how to shoot a gun, and I've been backpacking out west. I want to go.” Or at least I think I do, she told herself. Williard had called her ‘honey'. It was the first real endearment she had heard from him. And he seemed genuinely concerned for her safety. Maybe there was more to him than a frenetic combat veteran looking for adventure and easy money. She hoped so, anyway. Maybe he just needed to find a woman who wasn't a shrinking violet like Donna or an airhead like Monica. Williard shrugged and patted her thigh. If she wanted to go, why not? She was fun and seemed to have a little more on the ball than most women.

“What's all the rest of the money for?” Larry asked. He was hoping there might be a little left over to add to his boodle.

“If you think the bureaucrats are slow in this country, wait til we get to Africa. According to my sources, every piece of paper over there has a price tag on it. You either pay or grow a long gray beard waiting for things like airport clearances and so forth. Plus, we'll be needing to avoid customs inspections and the like.”

“Why avoid customs? Are we going to be smuggling?” Terry asked.

“They frown on weapons being brought into most of the countries there, even though they're already all armed to the teeth from the cold war, but I'm damned sure not going to face Mokele Mbembe with my bare hands, not to mention gorillas and crocodiles and them little pygmies and their machetes,” Jason said.

Williard could go along with that, but he had another question. “You said we'd fly into Lake Tele. How do you know there's even a place to land?”

Jason looked smug. “I've already told you I can't guarantee we can land on the lake, though from what the maps show I don't think it will be a problem. We'll buy an amphibian, big enough for four or five passengers and our cargo. It only has to have enough range to get across the Atlantic to Africa, or if not, we can refuel in the Caribbean. After that, we'll hop down to the coast of Africa and pick a spot as close to Lake Tele as we can, probably Brazzaville. That's a city down south of the lake. We'll land there and find an interpreter who can speak the Pygmy language, then make the final hop right to the lake.”

“All that sounds great, brother, but are you sure you can buy us a good enough plane for only twenty thousand?”

For the first time Jason looked less than certain. “I'll admit it won't be anything just off the assembly line, but there's still lots of old World War II planes around you can get cheap and I can do any repairs it might need before we take off.”

“Hmm.” Williard said. He knew his brother had been a jet aircraft mechanic in the marines before going to flight school, but he wasn't certain that carried over to thirty-year-old propeller aircraft. Oh well, he thought, get a hunch, bet a bunch. Lose your ass, sleep in the grass. It's still better than going to work.

“Don't worry, Jim. If a plane flew once, I can get it into the air again,” Jason said.

“For how long, though? That's what I'm worried about.”

“Long enough to get there and back. Let's move on. We need to get our list of supplies drawn up and get them bought. You guys can do that while I look around for a plane.”

“Have we decided who all's going yet?” Williard asked. Terry placed a possessive hand on his knee. He patted it reassuringly.

“I think Donna was having second thoughts this morning,” Jerry said.

“Monica won't go unless you load her up with liquor first,” Larry said.

“So that just leaves us and Terry.” Williard squeezed her hand. This would be a new one for him, taking a woman along on an adventure. He hoped his protective instinct wouldn't get in the way of business. Jason nodded agreement. “OK, that's settled. Now for weapons.”

“I'll get those,” Williard volunteered. “M-16's?”

“Yeah, guess we better. We all know how to handle them. And some automatic pistols and an elephant gun.”

“What in hell do we need an elephant gun for?”

Jason gave one of his famous grins. “Elephants. What else? Or would you rather hunt them the way the Pygmies do?”

“OK, one elephant gun.”

“I thought you guys were so brave. Why don't you do it like the Pygmies do?” Terry asked, straining to keep a straight face.

Jason was wrongfooted. He looked startled for a moment, then grinned. “Fuckit, if we run across a mad elephant, I'll tackle it barehanded.”

Williard thought that he might even do it, considering the way he flew over North Vietnam during the war, as if he were invulnerable, never mind what happened to his planes. What chance would an elephant have? And come to think of it, he sort of felt the same way. Hell, with enough rum, I might tackle an elephant myself!

* * * *

That afternoon, Jason borrowed Jeannie's car and left to check out newspaper ads for airplanes, or failing there, to drive around to some of the smaller airports near Dallas and Ft. Worth to see what he could scare up. Williard took Jerry with him in his Cougar, leaving Terry to follow in her car, then let Jerry have his car when they arrived at Terry's apartment. He was to go around to Army surplus stores and begin buying supplies.

“I can't believe I'm really doing this,” Terry said, as she began packing a suitcase.

“I can't, either,” Williard grinned. “Of all the crazy things we've ever gotten mixed up in, this has to be the weirdest.”

Terry selected some of her older underwear and dropped it into the suitcase. “I just thought: what if we get over there and find out all those stories about dinosaurs were just something made up by the Pygmies to scare people away from their homeland?”

Williard thought a bit before answering. “The worst that can happen if we come up empty is that we're broke again, and we'll have had a good time. Life is too short to worry about the future.”

Terry added jeans and tops. “I sort of felt the same way, after the airlines refused to hire me just because I'm a woman. I thought being a stew would be just a little flying and adventures and lots of parties, but it wasn't quite that way. There's more work than most people know to being a stew and lately even the partying has begun to pall. It was beginning to seem like I was on a merry-go-round.”

Williard grinned. “You couldn't prove it by last night.”

She dimpled. “You guys renewed my faith in men. I thought all that was left were draft dodgers, hippies, stock brokers and preachers, not to mention a bunch of dull military types, and then you and your brothers turn up, like a gang of pirates let loose in Sunday School. I could hardly believe it when that goon made Marciano give you all that money.”

“I think Mugsy might be regretting his actions if he really did go back to New York. The Mafia doesn't like turncoats.”

“Do you really think he belongs to the Mafia?” Terry vaguely remembered some talk about the banker being associated with the underworld, but she had been having so much fun at the time that it hadn't really registered.

“Probably, and Marciano as well.”

Terry began emptying drawers and medicine cabinets in the bathroom. She thought of all the stories she had read about the shadowy underworld organization and abruptly stopped what she was doing. “What about us? Won't they try to get the money back when the big boss hears how we got it?”

Williard had been a little uneasy about that matter himself, but he hadn't mentioned it to anyone. He shrugged nonchalantly. “Don't worry, we'll be gone by then, and when we get back, we'll be too famous for them to bother us.”

Terry turned back to her packing, working a little more rapidly than she had been. If the Mafia did decide to come after them, she didn't want to be the one delaying their getaway!

Chapter Eight

Don Falino, Boss of Bosses, often referred to as “Godfather", ran his underworld empire from New York, but his tentacles extended everywhere, encompassing a network of shady banks and businesses where he hid his money and an even shadier network of hirelings and hangers-on who kept him informed of happenings on the frontiers of his territory. This network extended even into such mundane places as a country club in Oak Cliff and to the airline terminals his drug dealers used. One of his dirty businesses was Marciano's bank and one of his dealers happened to be Donna's now-estranged husband, the one with the wired-up jaw and missing teeth, courtesy of Jerry Williard. Falino was a conscientious executive. He went to work even on Saturday mornings, getting to his Manhattan office while most New Yorkers were still in bed. Now he sat in an oversized, luxuriously padded office chair behind a desk big enough to play tennis on. He had just finished reading his morning summary, prepared for him by Emilio Grazino, his underboss. He was not pleased with what he read. It was even worse than what the phone calls he had received at home suggested. His thick sensuous lips curled downward in distaste and his grizzled eyebrows grew furrows deep enough to plant corn in. He touched a button on the desk.

“Grazino.”

“Yeah, boss.”

“Get in here. Now.”

Grazino had known he would be summoned. He had been waiting. He was thin and sinewy, with a face pinched into a permanent pruney frown. He hurried from the alcove outside the office, where he had been waiting, and into the Don's presence. When he saw the Don's face, he expected immediate orders to let contracts out on numerous unfortunates mentioned in the report. The Don surprised him.

“This is unbelievable,” Falino said.

“Yeah, Boss.”

“I would never have believed anyone could get the best of Mugsy.” Mugsy was the Don's chief enforcer. Just the sight of him was usually sufficient to sway recalcitrants. He had sent him to Dallas to help Marciano intimidate his “customers” while his bank was being taken over.

“Yeah, Boss. You want a contract on him?”

“No, I want him picked up at the airport and brought here. He's on the 10:07 Pan Am flight coming in this morning.”

“OK, Boss.” Grazino didn't question how Don Falino had gathered that piece of information. He knew he had many other sources besides himself.

Falino looked down at his notes, then back up. “Now this other problem. According to the report here, one of those rednecks who doused Mugsy in the pool was also responsible for breaking Franko's jaw when his screwy wife came on to him at the airport terminal in Dallas.”

“You want him brought in, too?”

“No, you fool! I want a contract on him, but first I want to know what happened to the money he was carrying. It's gone. Have a couple of the boys cover the hospital where he's laid up and pick him up when he's discharged. In the meantime, track down his wife. Find out if she took the stash and whether or not those cowboys got their hands on it.”

“OK, Boss. What about Marciano?”

“We'll let him stew a bit until I send Mugsy back.”

“You're letting Mugsy off, Boss?” Grazino couldn't believe what he was hearing. Not only had Mugsy been bested, he had left Dallas with his work unfinished, apparently intending to desert the organization. The most liberal punishment for such a crime was dismemberment and a cement collar. Falino sighed. Grazino was good at carrying out orders, but he wasn't capable of seeing the big picture.

“I'm not letting him off. I'm sending him back to do the job properly. Don't you understand? We've been humiliated. If word gets out that three cowboys and a bankrupt dentist can take down Mugsy and rob one of our banks of a hundred fifty G's, we'll not only lose Dallas to the Southern Mob but the other families will laugh us out of the city.”

“Oh, I get it. Don't worry, Boss, I'll have Mugsy here in no time. Uh, can I ask you a question, Boss?”

“Make it quick. I got other matters to tend to.”

“What happens if Mugsy don't want to go back to Dallas?”

“I'll reason with him.”

Grazino shivered. He knew how the Don reasoned. He hurried off on his errands, hoping he would never be put in a position to be “reasoned” with!

* * * *

When Donna left Larry and Jeannie's home early Saturday morning, it wasn't to go see her attorney, despite what she had told Jerry. She had suddenly remembered that they had never picked up their luggage. Franko had only checked one item, but that happened to be a suitcase containing more money than she had ever seen in her life, part of the proceeds from his biggest drug deal ever, which he was supposed to have delivered to a contact in Dallas. She had gotten so swept up with the charismatic naval officer and his brothers that she had forgotten it until the next morning; picking up the baggage was something Franko normally did, but of course he had been carried off to the hospital with a broken jaw, and Jerry had hustled her away before the airport security police arrived. She knew if the money didn't get to whatever bank had been designated to receive it, some Italian personage of Mugsy's ilk would be around asking why, and if Franko couldn't produce it, they would come looking for her, since she was the one who normally carried the baggage tags.

On the way to the airport, she worried herself into a state of near paralysis by wondering if the suitcase would still be there. What did the airport authorities do with unclaimed luggage? If they didn't hold it, she knew she would be in more trouble than she could possibly handle. That is, if she slowed down long enough to let Franko's superiors catch her. The thought of having to run for her life suddenly made an idea pop into her head, an idea so daring she had to pull off the freeway to stop and gather her wits. What if the money was there, and what if she didn't carry it to Franko, but simply kept it for herself and disappeared? She hated to think what would happen to Franko, but that would be his problem. Over the last year, she had become thoroughly disillusioned with him. A few little small deals, made, as he said, to simply keep their own supply of pot and cocaine at reasonable levels, had turned into larger and larger ones. And as the deals got bigger, he had grown increasingly flaky, mainly because he couldn't keep his nose and mouth out of his own product. Donna didn't mind a little hit or snort every now and then, but that was all Franko seemed to care about any more. When she threatened to leave him, he told her she couldn't; she knew too much. The situation had become a quandary, an increasingly worrisome one, but now, if the money were still at the terminal, she had a way out. She could fly off somewhere and live in luxury for a long, long time. Maybe Jerry would like to go with her. He was fun. She wondered if he would, rather than going off on some wild expedition looking for a dinosaur that almost certainly didn't exist. After a while, she got herself under control and pulled back onto the freeway, still undecided.

* * * *

At the airport, the unclaimed suitcase had finally been removed from the carousel and set aside until someone found time to take it to the baggage master. It was still sitting there when Jerry stopped by the airport to pick up his own unclaimed bag. After punching Donna's husband, he had decided that discretion was the better part of valor and it would be best to return later and claim it. He checked first with the baggage master, who could find no record of it.

“We've been swamped,” the baggage master told him. “Check down by the carousel. Maybe it's still there.”

“OK,” Jerry agreed, wondering whether it was worth the trouble. All his bag contained was some shaving gear and uniforms, and he certainly wasn't going to be wearing them any more. He almost decided to just forget it, but thought that since he was already there, it wouldn't hurt to look. Jeannie could always use the uniforms for one of her garage sales. He went down the escalator to the baggage section. Most flights for the day had already come and gone; the big room was nearly empty. He wandered around, looking here and there, and finally spotted the generic-looking little suitcase, leaning against a wall. He picked it up and looked around for someone to take his baggage tag. When he couldn't spot any uniforms, he shrugged and walked out of the baggage room, onto the up escalator and out to the parking lot. He tossed the bag into the trunk of Williard's Cougar and drove away. Meanwhile, another bag, almost exactly identical to his, was making a misdirected trip to Boston.

* * * *

“But it must be here somewhere!” Donna wailed.

“I'm sorry, ma'am. So far as I can tell, your bag never arrived here. The best I can do is put a tracer on it for you and see if we can track it down. In the meantime, there's some forms there if you want to file a claim.” He pointed to a little table visible through the open door of his office, with two straight-backed chairs next to it. The table contained a stack of claim forms and pencils. “Just be sure to list everything you can remember that was in the bag.”

That'll be the day, Donna thought to herself. I can just see me filling out that form. Contents: Five hundred thousand dollars in used hundred dollar bills. Her hands trembled as she returned the baggage stub to her purse. She tried to smile. “I'll wait and see if it turns up somewhere. No use filling out a claim until we're sure it's lost.”

“Sure thing, Lady. Just leave your phone number so we can get in touch with you.”

“I'll have to call you back. I'm not sure where I'll be yet.” What an understatement. She knew where she would be if the money didn't turn up: sleeping with the fishes. In the meantime, she wasn't about to go back to their apartment. Franko might be out of the hospital and back there by now. Just as she reached her car and was unlocking the door, she spotted two dark, swarthy men in checkered suits getting out of a car two lanes over. She gasped and ducked inside the car, hoping they hadn't seen her. One of the men she knew very well: he was Franko's bag man. They were already onto her! She ducked down below the steering wheel. She stayed hidden until she thought they would have had time to get well away from her, then drove off, with her hands trembling on the steering wheel and sweat popping out on her forehead like a neophyte toastmaster who had forgotten his speech. She knew for sure now that she couldn't return to her apartment. Even if Franko was still in the hospital, someone would be watching it.

As she drove, she thought momentarily of going to the police and asking for protection, then discarded the idea almost immediately. All that would accomplish would be to get her arrested. After getting onto the freeway, she drove back to north Dallas and stopped at the first bar she found. It was well into the evening before she came back outside. She found a motel along the north freeway and checked in under a fictitious name. By that time she had decided what to do. She would go back to Oak Cliff in the morning and ask the Williard brothers if she could go along on their expedition. If the Congo wasn't far enough away for safety, nowhere would be.

Chapter Nine

Mugsy was escorted into Don Falino's office by the two button men who had collared him at the airport. He was already resigned to the thought that he would probably be sleeping with the fishes before nightfall. He just wondered why he was being brought in to see the Don before the execution. This was such an unusual occurrence that he decided he would take the opportunity to plead for mercy, not from the death he knew was imminent but from a watery grave. Just the thought of his recent near-drowning by those crazy cowboys sent a wave of horror racing up and down his spine. Anything but water. He would ask to be buried in the New Jersey wilderness among the remains of former friends and enemies. Surely the Don would allow him that small request. He avoided the Don's eyes and glanced at Grazino, the underboss. Could he appeal to him, maybe?

“Well, Mugsy, I understand you had a little trouble in Dallas,” Don Falino began. “Is that right?”

Mugsy was startled by the gentle, bantering tone of the Don's voice, but he wasn't fooled into thinking he was going to get off. He answered simply, “I'm sorry, Godfather.”

“In fact, you had more than a little trouble, the way I hear it.”

“Yes, Godfather.”

The Don stood up behind his desk and leaned forward, with his palms spread out flat on its surface. The bantering tone of his voice changed into an ominous rumbling. “In fact, you let a redneck ignorant cowboy take your piece away from you.”

“They wuz three of them, Godfather. Dey confused me and grabbed it while I wasn't looking.”

“And then they marched you out to the swimming pool and tossed you and Marciano into it like a daddy playing with his kids. And then—” Now the voice was a roar, “—and then, you stuck your spare piece in Marciano's nose and forced him to give away a hundred and fifty G's!! Do you know what that will do to my reputation if it ever gets out? Do you, you oversized, sorry excuse for a hit man! My five year old son could have done better with a cap pistol!”

“I couldn't help it, Godfather,” Mugsy wailed. “They was going to drown me!”

Falino remained standing, staring holes through Mugsy until he got his breath back. “So, they were going to drown you, huh? Come with me. I'll show you what drowning is.” He turned away, opened a door behind his desk and walked into another room. Mugsy followed tentatively, urged on by the two button men poking him behind each ear with the barrels of their pistols.

Falino allowed Mugsy to enter, then shut the door in the face of the two other men. He was going to show Mugsy something very few others had seen and lived to tell about. Falino loved tropical fish. The secretive door opened up into suite of rooms containing numerous small, and several medium-sized, aquariums. They were bright with a splendid array of exotic many-colored fishes, ranging from tiny minnow-like creatures up to ones a foot or more in length, swimming contentedly among the bubbles from the oxygenators.

“How do you like them Mugsy? Aren't they pretty?” The Godfather's voice softened, like a little girl telling someone about her dolls.

“Sure, Godfather.” Mugsy's voice was already beginning to tremble in the presence of so much water.

“Then you'll love my real pet,” Falino said happily, like a school boy getting ready to display his prize animal at the state fair. “You'll love Snow White.” He opened the door to the last room in the suite. Inside was a huge aquarium, completely enclosed on top except for one man-sized hatch. He took Mugsy by the elbow and pulled him close to the glass walls. A six-foot long great white shark moved languidly from the far side of the aquarium and began circling under the hatch.

“Isn't he a beauty?” Falino said lovingly. “See how he swims around under the hatch there? He thinks I have his dinner ready.” He paused, then reflected, “I like to watch him feed. It's always interesting to see if his dinner will drown first or die from blood loss while he's still trying to breathe water.” He turned away from the circling shark to check Mugsy's reaction.

Mugsy's eyes turned up in his head and he collapsed in a dead faint. He came back to his senses sputtering, from a pitcher of water emptied over his upturned face. He sat up and stared through the glass wall of the aquarium at the shark swimming around and around under the hatch.. He stuck his hands out and made pushing motions, as if he thought the shark was about to slide through the glass and swim through the air to him. “No, No! Please, Godfather, not that! Anything but that!” He began skittering backwards, away from the shark aquarium.

“Get up,” Falino ordered.

Mugsy got to his knees, but that was all he could manage. There was no strength left in his body. His mind gibbered to itself like a berserk hyena.

“Have I got your attention now?” Falino said.

“Please Godfather, don't put me in that tank,” Mugsy pleaded. The thought was a horror beyond his worst nightmare.

Falino seemed to consider. He rubbed his massive chin, hitched at his trousers and tapped on the wall of the aquarium to attract his pet's attention. It swam slowly by, jagged teeth gleaming whitely from its gaping maw. Finally he spoke. “Well, perhaps I can find something else for Snow White here to eat today. However—” He glared sternly at Mugsy, “—you have been made a fool of. I have been made a fool of. This must be corrected.”

Grateful tears dripped from Mugsy's eyes. “Anything, Godfather. I'll do anything!”

“Good. I knew you would. Now let's go back and see Mr. Grazino.” Mugsy nearly knocked the Godfather over clawing his way through the door.

“Now then,” Falino sat back down behind his massive desk. “Here is the plan: you will go back to Dallas with Mr. Grazino and several soldiers of his choice. There, you, and that Marciano banker guy, with Mr. Grazino's help, will collect those three cowboys and their girlfriends, especially Franko's widow, and bring them back here. You and Mr. Marciano will bring back all of the money you were so eager to see him loan them. You will also bring back the money Franko was carrying. His widow will be happy to tell you where it is, I'm sure.”

“Yes, Godfather, I'll make sure of that.”

Grazino's wrinkled face got a puzzled look on it. He hadn't even let the contract out on Franko yet and here he was talking about his woman being a widow. “When did Franko get it?” he asked. Don Falino checked his watch then his lips parted in a rubbery grin. “Two hours from now.” He turned back to Mugsy, thought for a moment, then said, “On second thought, once you recover Franko's money, there is no need to return his woman. Make her be missing.”

“Yes, Godfather.”

“Do whatever it takes. If they have left Dallas, follow them wherever they go. Make sure Marciano accompanies you. If word of your first failure ever gets out, it must appear that both of you have redeemed yourselves.”

“Yes, Godfather, thank you, I understand.”

“Be sure you do. And Mugsy?”

“Yes, Godfather?”

Falino reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a replica of the huge pistol Mugsy had been carrying before he had been relieved of it at the country club. He handed it to Mugsy.

“Don't let them get the drop on you again. That would make me very unhappy.”

Mugsy grimaced but accepted the weapon. “I won't, Godfather.”

“Good. Now be gone. I'll be watching.”

“Yes Godfather.” Mugsy knew he would be watching, if not personally, then by keeping very close tabs on his mission. He felt his huge muscles come back to life. This time he would sap the cowboys first and ask questions later. He didn't dare even think about what failure would mean.

* * * *

Williard dropped Terry off at Jeannie's doorstep and took her car. He drove south on US 69 a few miles, to a sporting goods store he knew of, and drove around until he found a parking spot near the entrance. He went inside, got behind a large shopping cart and strolled back to the firearms section. A tall clerk wearing a straggly beard and long hair was behind the counter. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yup. I need three civilian versions of the M-16, three .45 automatic pistols, one .32 automatic pistol and an elephant gun.”

“An elephant gun?”

“Yup.” Williard produced his Texas driver's license.

“Sir, we don't carry elephant guns.” The clerk glanced around nervously, obviously thinking he had a nut case on his hands. A couple of other customers had overheard the request and were staring curiously at Williard.

“Well, give me the largest caliber rifle you have then. I'll also want four clips for each weapon and 500

rounds of ammo for each. Plus holsters for the pistols and slings for the rifles.”

The clerk refused to look at Williard's identification. “Sir, I think I need to call my supervisor.”

Williard took in the beard and long hair. “Bud, the last fucking draft-dodging hippie what didn't take care of me when I asked him politely had to have a new asshole grafted on.” He pulled out a thick wad of bills and placed them on the counter with his driver's license on top. “Now start filling this here cart before I kick your ass all the way up to Canada where you belong.” He bared his teeth in a hideous smile resembling nothing so much as a mad hyena.

One of the customers, an obvious veteran, laughed. “Hey man, why chase him to Canada? Why don't we just turn him inside out and see what his liver looks like?”

“No point to it,” Williard said. “I already know it's yellow.”

“Why don't we just shave his face and stick a weenie in it so folks will know what he does in his spare time?” another customer suggested.

That portion of the clerk's face not covered by hair turned red. He suddenly remembered that his supervisor was a Korean vet who was just looking for an excuse to fire him. “Never mind, Sir. I'll have to get some of the stuff from the stockroom. Please wait here.”

“Don't be too long, bud. I got a date with a dinosaur.”

The clerk was back very shortly, but he had to return several times to the stockroom. By the time he was finished, the shopping cart was loaded top and bottom. He added up the tickets. “That will be two thousand, two hundred dollars and seventy six cents, plus tax.”

Before paying, Williard examined the heavy-duty rifle the clerk had produced. It held a .56 caliber slug in each of two barrels. Jason would have to be satisfied with that. He checked the rifles to make sure they would be able to convert them from semiautomatic to automatic fire, and the boxes of ammunition to be certain it was all the proper caliber. Satisfied, he let the clerk sort through his wad of cash and deduct the total. He started to push the overloaded cart. It would barely move, even after putting his shoulder into the effort.

“Here, let me help,” the friendly veteran said. He moved in beside Williard and between the two of them, they got the cart moving.

“Appreciate the help,” Williard said.

“Glad I was handy. I hate hippies. Say, what was that about a dinosaur?”

“Me and my brothers are going looking for one in Africa.”

The veteran eyed Williard speculatively as they pushed the cart through the exit and out to Terry's car. He assisted Williard in loading his armory into Terry's little Falcon, no mean feat, then shook hands with him. He smiled. “I wish you could take that clerk along and feed him to it.”

Williard grinned. “Now why didn't I think of that?”

Chapter Ten

Williard was back home at Jeannie's, and had the weapons unpacked and scattered over the carpet of the den. He sipped at a rum and coke while he examined each in turn, then filled a clip and inserted it in each and checked the action to be sure he had done the conversion right, before setting them aside. Jeannie stared cautiously at the pile of weapons as if they constituted the ingredients of a smoking volcano about to explode. Williard glanced up at her occasionally and grinned happily, like a child opening Christmas packages. Terry sat in Larry's easy chair, getting the feel of the .38 automatic pistol Williard had bought for her. She felt a wellspring of growing admiration for him. He had not even questioned her ability to shoot, but had simply handed the pistol to her as if it were nothing more dangerous than a mood ring. Williard looked over at her, caught her eye and winked, as she oiled the belt and holster that went with it. Suddenly it dawned on him that she was in Larry's favorite chair.

“Where did Larry get off to?”

“Monica called. She told him he had a cash patient for a change,” Jeannie said.

“Wow. Business must be picking up,” Williard said.

“It sure is,” Jerry agreed, stepping down into the den and heading for the bar. He mixed up a huge potion of rum and coke to compensate for what he had missed while out shopping. “I've got your Cougar loaded to the gunwales with all them supplies. Where do we put them?”

“Hell, just leave them there for now,” Williard said. “If I know Jason, he's already found us a plane. If he has, we can haul them to it tomorrow and save loading and unloading the car.”

“Speak of the devil,” Jeannie said.

Jason stepped into the den. His face was split in a huge grin and flushed with the rum he had consumed during the day. He mixed a drink only slightly smaller than Jerry's and leaned back against the bar.

“We've got us a plane,” he announced.

Terry's eyes lit up. “Already? What kind?”

“I found an old Albatross in good shape.”

“What in hell is an Albatross?” Williard asked.

“It's a seaplane, but it comes with retractible wheels so it can land anywhere. I should have it ready to go in a week or two.”

“What's wrong with it?”

“Not much, just an engine with loose valves and an oil leak, a bent propeller which causes a vibration in the left wing, a broken latch on the cargo door which caused it to fly open when I took it for a spin and a short wave radio with a faulty antenna. The navigation system is fine except the compass points west instead of north, the sextant has a cracked lens and only half the gauges on the instrument panel work. The barometer and air speed indicators are off a little, but I can compensate for them so long as I can see outside and don't mistake the cracks in the canopy for a road or a river. It's a good old bird.”

Williard and Jerry eyed each other from across the room. They could see that Jason had already fallen in love with the old warbird and it would do no good to complain.

“You said a couple of weeks to get it in shape, then you said the cargo door flew open while you were flying it. What's the deal?” Williard asked.

“I didn't say I took it up; I said I took it for a spin. I just taxied around the runways to make sure it would run. Don't worry, though. It will fly, so long as you know how to compensate for those few little gripes. In fact, we can start loading our gear into it any time. I can work around it while I'm making the repairs.”

“So, if we really wanted to, we could leave Dallas now?” Williard was still thinking of Marciano's Mafia connections and wondering whether they would send a replacement for Mugsy.

“Sure. We'd just have to stop occasionally to patch it up. Why?”

“Just in case,” Williard said. No use speaking up and borrowing trouble. “Where do you have it parked?”

“Hangered,” Jason corrected. “Not very far from here, actually. It's at that little field in Lancaster, south of here.”

Williard knew where Lancaster was. “Great. Why don't you and Jerry help me finish inspecting these weapons and we'll load them up and run them over in the morning. Jerry already has the other gear in my car.”

“Sounds good to me.” Jason picked up the heavy rifle and worked the action. Williard saw his eyes light up. He loved weapons, from thousand pound bombs to machine guns, and on down to more personal armaments like pistols and rifles and grenades. He smoothed his hands over the stock of the double-barreled monster gun as if he were touching the smooth skin of a woman's thigh. “Man,” he sighed, “this beauty ought to take care of Mokele Mbembe if it turns out to be unfriendly.”

“If it doesn't, it will damn sure let him know we ain't Pygmies,” Williard said. Jason reluctantly set the huge rifle aside. “I got something else while I was buying the plane.” He pulled a worn book with black binding from his hip pocket.

“What's that?”

“It's a log book what states that I've spent enough hours flying the plane under instruction to qualify as pilot. The logbook cost an extra thousand, but it will save a lot of time otherwise spent complying with them fucking FAA regulations. As if I couldn't fly anything with wings on it already.”

“So how much did all this cost?”

“Twenty two for the plane, a thousand for the log book and I kicked in another thousand for a few buckets of spare parts and some tools.”

“I have a feeling we're going to need them.” Williard said.

* * * *

Later that evening, the brothers had the weapons stowed, partly in Terry's Falcon and partly in Jeannie's Oldsmobile. The Olds was also loaded with the luggage they intended to take, while Jason's Cougar still held all the paraphernalia Jerry had picked up. The weapons were left uncrated; Jason had suggested that they be wrapped in oilskins and hidden in the Albatross’ pontoons as a precaution against customs inspectors not amenable to increasing their wealth. That suited Williard. It was the one facet of the trip to Africa and on to the Congo that he was worried about.

When Larry arrived, exuberant from treating a patient who actually paid in cash, the party began. Or more accurately, it continued. Jeannie, Terry and her brothers had all been spicing their work with rum concoctions Jerry kept inventing. Larry had thoughtfully brought Monica along, which raised Jason's spirits and lowered Jeannie's, especially after Monica finished consuming her second drink. Whenever Jason wasn't watching her, she eyed Larry with a liquid, predatory gaze. She was exuberant too, having been paid all of her back salary.

“Too bad Donna isn't here,” Williard said to Jerry. “We'd have our three Verys together. Terry was feeling very Very again, warmed by rum and anticipation of another night with Williard. In a way, she hoped it would take several weeks for Jason to get his plane ready. There wouldn't be much room for privacy after they started. If she had known about one of their escapades at Chu Lai with some handy nurses when all three of them had managed to get together there, she wouldn't have worried about it. The brothers had caused a riot at the officer's club, absconded with the nurses in a borrowed jeep, outwitted the MP's chasing them, and wound up back at Jason's hooch where all three of them and their companions spent the night together in a single room.

“Yeah, she must of run off with her lawyer,” Jerry complained. “Oh well, I'll look around tomorrow and see what comes along.”

“I don't like to come alone,” Monica piped up. Her eyes were beginning to glaze and the top of her blouse was threatening to overflow. She ran the tip of her tongue over her flushed lips in a suggestive motion.

“Better alone than with someone else I know,” Jeannie said, wondering to herself if she could somehow manage to feed Monica a couple of strong drinks right before takeoff and entice her into departing with her brothers.

Terry couldn't help herself. Whatever Jerry was feeding them, it did nothing to stifle inhibitions. She laughed. Jeannie glared at her and kept a tight grip on Larry's arm.

“Sorry, Jeannie,” Terry apologized.

“Why were you laughing?”

“I was just thinking: if some of my feminist friends spent some time around here it would set the movement back a hundred years.”

Jason guffawed and pulled Monica into his lap to prevent her from heading across the room to Larry. “I knew a feminist once.”

“What happened to her?”

He laughed again. “I talked her into joining the marines and she wound up marrying a colonel.”

“What happened to the colonel?”

“He volunteered for permanent duty in ‘Nam and got his ass shot off.”

“Is there a moral there?”

“Yeah. Femmies are bad for your health.” He swigged from his glass and whispered in Monica's ear. Monica listened attentively, then opened her mouth in surprise. “Really? I better have another drink.”

“What did you say to her?” Jeannie asked.

“I said dentists practice oral hygiene so much it carries over.”

Jeannie blushed. “I think I need another drink. She let loose of Larry long enough to snatch at her wine bottle and top off her rum with it.

“Jason is dead right,” Larry said.

“Hush,” Jeannie said.

Monica started to get up from Jason's lap. “But most dentists don't have mustaches,” Jason countered.

“So they don't,” Monica said. She sat back down.

Williard was feeling the effects of Jerry's drinks. He felt around to make sure Terry was still beside him.

“I think it's bedtime,” he said.

“Candy ass,” Jason jeered.

“Nope, I just think we're going to continue the party elsewhere.” Williard stood up, wobbled over to the bar and deftly plucked a new pitcher of the frothy brew Jerry had just completed mixing from his hand.

“Come along, Terry. Let's get Very.”

Terry followed him into their room and began undressing. She laughed and said, “You guys are crazier than vampires at a blood bank convention. How come you haven't all gotten locked away somewhere?”

Williard laughed as he fell into bed. “Who would dare? We'd make all the other patients look normal.”

Chapter Eleven

Donna left her motel room Sunday morning to find some breakfast. There was a pancake house right next to the motel, near enough to walk rather than drive. As she got to the entrance, she suddenly lost her appetite. The Dallas morning news was displayed in a rack with the headlines facing up. Near the top, a side column announced:

HOSPITAL PATIENT SHOT TO DEATH AFTER DISCHARGE

Yesterday evening, Franko Labruzza, admitted to Good Shepherd

Hospital the previous day for a broken jaw, was found dead only three hours after leaving the hospital. A police spokesman said that Labruzza had refused to comment on how his injury had occurred.

The spokesman said Labruzza died of multiple gunshot wounds. There

were no witnesses and the investigation is said to be continuing. Police disclosed that Labruzza had one arrest on his record for drug possession and speculation is that...

Donna felt a wave of fright sweep over her. She had ceased feeling anything for Franko long ago, but she knew his death would affect her directly. They would come looking for her next, trying to trace the missing money. She stood indecisively by the entrance to the pancake house for a moment then ran back to the motel. Inside her room, she began hastily throwing what few possessions she had into the bag she had picked up at an Eckard's on the way to the motel the previous day. A change of underwear and some toilet articles was about all it amounted to. She left a few minutes later and headed south, toward Oak Cliff and the Williard brothers.

On the way, she tried to decide whether asking to go with them to the Congo might endanger Jerry or any of the others. She reviewed in her mind all the events she could remember since encountering Jerry at the airline terminal. She didn't think there was any way Franko could have fingered Jerry. He had knocked him cold then hustled them both out of the terminal. So far as Franko knew, he was just another hated serviceman. Then she remembered Marciano and his enforcer, the giant thug named Mugsy. He could certainly identify her and associate her with the Williards. Oh shit, she thought. No, wait. Mugsy had left town and Marciano had been too far away at the club to recognize her again, and at the bank, he had hardly taken his eyes off the gun Mugsy was pointing at him. And, she thought, even if the Williards think differently, at least I can warn them. None of them would associate the headline with her ex-husband. She had never even told Jerry his name! She looked into her rearview mirror to make sure she wasn't being followed, then sped up, pushing the little Thunderbird she drove past the speed limit and beyond. She was on US 69 South, nearing the exit she remembered Jerry had taken to get to his sister's house, when she passed a large black Chevrolet sedan containing four men in dark suits. Odd, she thought, they're all wearing hats.

* * * *

“Hey!” Mugsy yelled. “Follow dat little Thunderboid. That's da broad dat was at the country club wit the sailor!”

“What sailor?” Marciano asked. He had never expected to see Mugsy again, much less be driving with him, two other enforcers, and Don Falino's Underboss himself. They were on their way to Doctor Wilson's home, where he fully expected to see Wilson and his three crazy cowboys cough up his money first then their lives later.

“Da cowboy sailor. Da one dat smushed Franko's jaw den made off wit da loot!” The more excited Mugsy became, the heavier became his Bronx accent.

“Are you sure?” Grazino asked.

Mugsy remembered his confusion at the country club, but he had gotten a good look at her later at the bank. “Dat's da one all right!”

“Catch up with that car, then block it off,” Grazino said to the driver. “We'll take care of her first.”

Marciano blanched. He would rather have stayed home and let the professionals take care of the job, but the Godfather's orders had been explicit: he had to redeem himself or else. He didn't even want to think about what the ‘or else’ might entail.

The sedan swerved into the same lane as the Thunderbird and sped up. Donna pulled off at the Loop 12 bypass, slowed and began looking for street signs. She spotted the one she wanted and turned right, into the residential neighborhood where Doctor Wilson lived. She had gone no more than two blocks when a black sedan zoomed past her, then pulled in front and put on the brakes. Donna swerved to avoid the sedan before she realized it was after her. Her car jumped the curb, glanced off a light post and turned end-for-end. Dazed, she looked past the shards of the windshield and saw the giant form of Mugsy getting out of the sedan. I'm dead! she thought, but an adrenaline surge grabbed at her vitals and impelled her from the car. She started to run. Her high heels caught in the grass between the sidewalk and the curb and she fell headlong to the ground, banging her head on the sidewalk. She got back to her knees, but was too disoriented to go any further.

* * * *

Williard was seated beside Terry in her Falcon, leading the three car convoy to the little airport near Lancaster. Jason was following with Jeannie's Oldsmobile and Jerry brought up the rear in Williard's Cougar. They were nearing Loop twelve, driving on a long, straight sparsely populated street when he saw a large black sedan, coming from the opposite direction, scream around a smaller car then brake suddenly, blocking the narrow street. The littler car tried to pass but didn't make it. It veered into a light pole then skidded and stalled. Terry stamped hard on the brakes, pulling to a halt thirty yards from the sedan. Williard was thrown forward, banging his head on the dash.

Terry saw a woman jump from the little vehicle and try to run. She glanced at the sedan, then screamed,

“Jim, look! That's Mugsy getting out of that car!”

Williard tried to focus his blurred vision. Even though he couldn't see very well through the spots in front of his eyes, there was little problem recognizing Mugsy's profile. No one else could be that huge and still be walking the streets instead of performing in a circus sideshow. He saw another man getting out of the opposite door and thought it was Marciano, though he couldn't be sure. He shook the spots away, leaving no doubt. It was Mugsy and Marciano. Both held handguns and were pointing them off to the side toward what looked like a vintage Thunderbird with a crumpled fender and a broken windshield. Terry, unhurt by the sudden stop, had already taken in the scene ahead. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. She screamed again. “Jim, that's Donna up there! Do something, they're going to kill her!”

Williard's combat reflexes hadn't deserted him. He didn't know if Mugsy and Marciano were planning to kill Donna or not, but his reaction was immediate. He twisted in his seat and reached back for one of the loose rifles. He quickly chambered a round from the clip and flung himself from the car. “Stay down!” he shouted at Terry.

Grazino was watching Mugsy and Marciano moving toward Donna, gauging their performance for a later report to Don Falino, when he saw a row of cars braking ahead of him. He saw a mustached man in jeans and boots jump from the car immediately in front of them. He moved so fast it was hard to tell whether he was carrying a rifle or a broomstick in his hands, but Grazino wasn't about to take any chances. He drew his weapon from beneath his jacket and warned his henchmen in the back seat.

“Ahead of us. Take that cowboy out.” As his soldiers drew their weapons and piled outside, a car behind that one suddenly accelerated, jumped the curb, and swept toward them. Jason's finely-honed fighter pilot's reflexes had taken in the situation immediately. He saw his brother jump from the Falcon with a rifle in his hand at the same time he spotted Mugsy and Marciano off to the side, pointing pistols at the woman from the wrecked Thunderbird. He was almost certain it was Donna. He stomped on the accelerator and swerved violently to the right in order to miss the Falcon, then jerked the steering wheel hard the other way, just as Grazino's soldiers cleared the sedan. The hood of the heavy Oldsmobile plowed into the sedan door and tore it off, then caught Grazino's man squarely in the chest, knocking him backward. He felt the wheels bump, then bump again as they passed over the body. The other soldier made the fatal mistake of glancing to the side as Jason passed, giving Williard time to level his rifle. He had converted it to automatic fire the night before. He squeezed the trigger and emptied half a clip across the middle of the dark suited man, from his left hip to his right shoulder, before the goon was fully turned back to face him. The bullets flung the man backwards as if he had been smashed with a giant fly swatter.

Mugsy heard the rattle of Williard's rifle, like a string of giant firecrackers going off. He whirled from where he had been stalking the Thunderbird and was just in time to see one of Grazino's men taken out by a screeching, swerving car, driven as adeptly as a race car at the Daytona Five Hundred, then saw the other soldier falling backwards, stitched with enough bullets to kill an elephant. “It's them goddamned cowboys again!” he wailed to Marciano, wondering in a split-second of fear whether he would rather face them or the Godfather's shark-infested aquarium. The cowboys won, just barely. He fired his massive pistol twice, the shots booming and echoing like thunder. He missed both times, never having practiced on a range. All his work had always been close up, usually a shot to the back of the head. He saw the cowboy swing the rifle toward him and ducked reflexively, just in time for the speeding Oldsmobile to clip him in the side and fling him into some hedges bordering the sidewalk. Marciano never got off a shot. As soon as he heard Mugsy yell that the cowboys were back, he ducked behind the wrecked Thunderbird, then crawled underneath it like a bear going into hibernation. Grazino saw what was happening and ducked beneath the steering wheel of the sedan. Goddamn, he cursed to himself, who would have expected a bunch of dumb fucking cowboys to be packing that kind of heat? Or to react so quickly? He held his pistol in one sweaty hand and fumbled for his radio phone with the other, hoping they wouldn't come in after him before his backup car arrived. Jason stood the Oldsmobile on its nose, then backed up fast enough to leave smoking tread marks on the pavement. He screeched to a halt by Donna. He opened the door of the Olds and yanked her inside, across his lap, then made a U-turn using the sidewalks on both sides of the street and raced back the other way.

Jerry was unarmed and helpless, but he didn't hesitate. He pulled forward to the rear of Terry's falcon and jumped out, ducking low, then ran to one of the rear doors and yanked it open. He grabbed the first weapon he saw, one of the .45 automatics. He spotted Marciano's feet sticking from beneath the Thunderbird and began sniping at them. A terrified yell came from beneath the wrecked car and the feet disappeared.

Williard watched Jason rescue Donna while he kept his eyes open for more opponents. As the Olds barreled back and stopped beside him he saw that Jason was unhurt, though still weaponless. He heard a shot from the Falcon and jerked his head in that direction. Terry hadn't stayed down. She had found the pistol he had bought for her and was aiming shots at the cluster of hedges where Mugsy had gone to ground. The branches shook with movement as her target burrowed among the trunks, trying to get something denser than leaves between himself and the whining bullets.

“Let's get out of here before the cops come!” Williard yelled at his brothers.

“Follow me!” Jason yelled back. He went to the sidewalks again to reverse directions and blasted off like a Cape Canaveral rocket. Donna, now in the passenger's seat, stared at him in total shock. He took time to reach over and pat her leg. “Relax, babe. All in a day's work.”

Donna didn't answer. She gave a huge sigh and slipped into blessed unconsciousness.

Chapter Twelve

Williard had no idea where Jason was heading now, but he trusted his brother. He flung his rifle into the back seat and followed, checking the rearview mirror to made sure Jerry was behind them. Once they hit the loop, he thought they were safe, at least for the time being. He doubted that would last, though, not with Mugsy and Marciano still on the loose. “Damn! I thought we had seen the last of them,” he muttered to himself.

Beside him, Terry began reloading her pistol. She fumbled with the bullets and dropped several to the floorboard because her hands were shaking so badly. What am I doing here? she thought. “What am I doing here?” she asked aloud. “Jim, we almost got killed!”

Williard took his eyes away from the road long enough to grin at her. “Not a chance,” he said lightly.

“Them guys were amateurs. If we hadn't had you girls along, we would of took time to stuff their little popguns up their asses and make them squeeze the triggers.” Inside, he wasn't nearly as unconcerned as he pretended to be. There was a fine tremor to his hands and his voice was louder and harsher than it usually was, a post combat reaction he was entirely familiar with, but what really bothered him was the memory of Terry aiming and firing her .38 like a female cop at the target range. She hadn't listened when he told her to take cover like a woman should have.

“Why didn't you get down when I told you to? You could have got your pretty ass shot off.”

Terry resented his question and the tone of his voice. “I was trying to help,” she said shakily, though that hadn't been in her thoughts at the time. She had been scared that Williard was going to die and the pistol had popped into her hands like magic. She wondered why that thought terrified her so much. She and the others had been in as great a danger.

“Well, remember next time. We must have pissed off Mugsy and Marciano worse than Landry losing the Superbowl.” Enough to almost get us killed, he thought.

“Don't tell me this is going to happen again,” Terry said. “I couldn't stand—” Her voice broke and she turned pale, as a vivid vision of bullets chewing into the midsection of one of the men flashed through her mind. “Oh, God, Jim, I just thought. We killed some men. We'll be arrested!” Abruptly, she began to cry.

Williard turned off the loop onto US 69, still following Jason. He reached over and curled his arm around Terry. “Relax, doll. I think being arrested is the least of our problems, so long as we do something about Donna before the cops trace her car. What I'm really worried about is Mugsy's gang coming after us again. Damn, I wonder what induced him to tackle us after we ate his lunch the other night? I really thought we had him buffaloed.”

“Evidently you were wrong.”

“Well, fuckit. We'll be watching from now on.” Ahead, Jason exited US 69 and turned east on a farm to market road. He was close enough to see that he and Donna were involved in an animated conversation. He hoped they were figuring out a plan, because he sure didn't have one. Terry started to calm down and began remembering how they had become involved in the gunfight. “Jim, why on earth were those thugs chasing Donna? I would have thought it was us they would be after.”

Williard shrugged. “Why wonder? I think Jason is heading for the airport at Lancaster. When we get there we'll just damn well ask her!”

* * * *

Grazino considered himself fortunate that the street where the disastrous encounter with the cowboys had taken place was sparsely populated and that the inhabitants of the few homes along the street were gone, probably to church. His back-up car arrived a few minutes later, but by the time Mugsy and Marciano had crawled from cover, their opponents were long gone and he had no idea where. He would have to call Don Falino and get his help in tracking them down, but there was one thing he could do in the meantime, to make sure that the next time they met he would be holding all the aces. He, Mugsy and Marciano crawled into the back seat of the backup car, leaving the sedan stranded in the middle of the street. Two of its tires were flat from errant bullets. He gave the driver and his companion directions and instructions. A few minutes later they pulled into driveway of Jeannie's home. Larry was just preparing to take Monica back home when the doorbell rang. He picked up his Coors, to make sure it didn't run off somewhere while he was occupied, and went to answer the door. He pulled it open and found himself staring at the chest of the oversized thug his brothers-in-law had disposed of so neatly at the country club. Marciano was right behind him, and he in turn was backed up by two more men wearing dark suits and dark hats with the brims pulled low.

“Uh Oh,” Larry said.

Mugsy didn't bother with a gun. He plucked the beer from Larry's hand and crushed it into a little wad of dripping foil, using only his fingers. Then he picked Larry up by the elbows, turned him around and grabbed him by the collar and seat of his pants. He lifted him off the ground and carried him inside. The others followed along behind.

Jeannie's first sight of Larry made her think that he had suddenly learned the art of levitation. He floated through the air two feet off the ground, apparently leading the way for the giant behind him, his banker and two other men she didn't recognize.

Mugsy dropped Larry to the floor.

“Uh, Jeannie, I think we have visitors,” Larry said, as inadequate a statement as he had ever uttered.

“Would you gentlemen like something to drink?” Jeannie said. Then it dawned on her who she was looking at: Marciano and his strongman, with help.

Marciano circled around Mugsy and looked down at Larry. “All right, Wilson, where's the money?”

“I gave it to Monica,” Larry said quickly. “I hadn't paid her for a while.”

“What? You owed that dingbat broad a hundred and fifty thousand dollars? No wonder you're always in debt, paying her that kind of salary. Where is she?”

“Here I am,” Monica said, coming out of the bathroom when she heard her name mentioned. “Are we ready to go?”

“Not yet,” Grazino said, coming into the room. “I need to use your phone. Where is it?”

“In the den, if Jeannie hasn't sold it,” Larry said, getting to his feet while keeping a wary eye on Mugsy.

“Why would she sell your phone?” Grazino couldn't keep from asking.

“It's just her nature.”

“Never mind. Marciano, you and Mugsy collect the money that daffy dentist owes us, then find out where the cowboys are heading. Watch the broads. I gotta call the Godfather.” Grazino went into the den and called a special number in New York. Don Falino answered almost immediately.

“Boss?”

“Yeah? What's your problem?”

Grazino gulped at the ominous overtone in Falino's voice, but he had no choice. “Godfather, I need some more help. Them cowboys and the other two broads got away while we was tied up with Franko's widow.”

“Well, at least you got her. Did she tell you where that 500 G's was?”

“Uh, the cowboys sort of intervened. She's with them now.”

Grazino heard a splash over the phone and shuddered. The Don must be playing with Snow White, he thought. The splashing sounds ceased and he heard the Don again, his voice sounding like a hangman telling his victim to hold still while he got the noose adjusted. “Are you telling me you let that whole redneck gang get away from you, even with Succi and Paulo to help?”

“Succi and Paulo are dead. Godfather, we couldn't help it. Those cowboys are meaner than a stiffed whore and they're packing more heat than a gang of Mexican bandits. They shot Succi and ran over Paulo with an Oldsmobile.”

“So they all got away, huh? Snow White is going to love this.”

“Oh no, Boss, no! We've got the dentist and his wife and one of the broads right here.”

There was a pause, then Falino said, “Bring them near the phone so I can listen.”

Grazino yelled for Mugsy and Marciano to hustle their captives into the den. While he waited, Falino told him the questions to ask. As soon as the three of them were near the phone, being held with their arms behind their backs, he began, starting with Larry.

“Who are those fucking cowboys you've been hanging out with?”

“They're his wife's brothers,” Marciano volunteered. Grazino glared at him and he shrank into his five hundred dollar suit as if it had suddenly grown three sizes too large.

“Is that right?”

“Of course it's right,” Larry said. “Do you think I'd hang around with them if they weren't relatives?”

“Don't talk about my brothers like that,” Jeannie said harshly. “They're just as nice as they can be.”

“Shut up, broad,” Grazino said, but he thought the dentist's remark proved that he was smarter than his wife. “Never mind how nice they are. I only wish I had some soldiers as nice as them. Where were they headed when they left here?”

“To the Congo. They're going to hunt for a Dinosaur,” Larry said.

Grazino heard the Don's exclamation of disbelief. “Don't give me that shit. Tell me where they are right now while you still got both kneecaps.”

“That's really what they said they wanted the money for,” Marciano dared to speak out. “As crazy as they are, they might even be serious.”

“They are,” Larry said. “In fact, they bought a plane yesterday to go in.” He hadn't wanted to say that, but he was fearful of Jeannie's safety.

“I was going to go, but I changed my mind,” Monica said. “I don't think there's any churches to go to in the Congo.”

“Churches?” Grazino was becoming as confused as a New York cab driver riding the subway.

“Yes. That's where the money Larry paid me is. I mailed it to some churches.”

“Why the fuck would you do that, Lady?”

Monica blushed. “After what I did with Jason when we left the country club the other night, I felt the need for contrition.”

“You dingbat, I should never have gone out with you in the first place,” Marciano complained.

“Shut up,” Grazino ordered. “Lady, tell me you didn't send that whole half-million dollars to a church.”

“Half-million? Larry didn't owe me that much. I only gave them the ten thousand he paid me.”

Grazino turned to Larry. “All right, you daffy dentist, what did you do with the rest of it?”

“I gave it to Jeannie's brothers, but it was only a hundred and fifty thousand, not a half million. Honest.”

Larry was wishing there had been a half million.

Grazino stared at him. He was good at reading expressions, especially when the person he was looking at had the barrel of a gun poking him in the kidney. He put the phone back to his ear.

“Boss?”

“I'm listening.”

Grazino could hear splashing sounds again. “I think Franko's broad must still have the money, her and the cowboys. What do we do now?” He hoped the Godfather didn't suggest they all come to his aquarium for dinner.

Falino had listened to the conversation with growing agitation. If Grazino hadn't been serving as his underboss for so many years he would have just hung up and let contracts on the whole bunch. As it was, he believed everything, except the story about the Congo and the dinosaur. He figured the cowboys had probably infiltrated Franko's operation, turned his wife and were probably headed for Mexico or Columbia to parlay their money into more with a big buy of narcotics. Else why the airplane? Well, they wouldn't get away with it. He gave his orders slowly so that there would be no misunderstanding.

“Grazino, I'm going to contact Dallas and get you a few more soldiers, but that's all, understand? You do the job with those and Mugsy and Marciano. I'll find out where the cowboys have their plane and send word with the additional help. If they have left the country, I want them followed, no matter where they go, to the ends of the earth if that's where they're headed. Then I want them taken care of. You hear? If they ever show up on the streets again Snow White is going to be one very happy shark. Understand?”

“Yes, Godfather. What do you want me to do with this dentist and the two broads?”

More splashing sounds came over the phone. Grazino avoided his captive's eyes, expecting the worst, but Falino was smarter than that.

“Take them with you. Those rednecks might not play so rough once they know you're holding their family.”

“Yes, Godfather.” Grazino heard the click of the receiver being hung up.

* * * *

Don Falino put the special phone away and gazed at Snow White, swimming hungrily just below the hatch. Too bad. If it weren't necessary for those cowboys to be eliminated in order to save face, he could grow to like them. They had style.

Chapter Thirteen

Williard's hunch that Jason had been heading for the Lancaster Airport was right on the money. He followed behind and pulled up beside him, next to the single large hanger the airfield sported. Jerry parked next to him a few seconds later. Williard knew something was wrong when Jason didn't stop to speak, but ran through the wide entrance of the hanger and disappeared into its cavernous interior.

“Something's sure got a bug up his ass,” Jerry said to Williard as he pointed to his retreating brother's back, but he didn't try to follow. Instead, he headed for Jason's vehicle where Donna still sat inside, huddled into a small mass with her arms curled around her chest.

Williard remembered seeing Jason and Donna engaged in spirited conversation while he was following them, and suspected Donna had the answer to why Jason had run inside so fast, as if he had just been shot down and was going through escape and evasion protocol. He joined Jerry as he opened the door to the car. Donna piled out and fell into Jerry's arms.

“Easy, babe, you're safe now,” he said.

“No I'm not and neither are the rest of you!” Donna cried.

“You're OK, now. We took care of the bad guys,” Williard assured her. “But why were they chasing you? It's us they should have been after.” He still didn't understand that part of the puzzle.

“Oh, God! They think I have the money Franko was carrying from his last drug deal.”

“Franko? Who's he?”

“My ex husband. He was shot to death last night. They couldn't find the money so now they must think I have it!”

“You mean Mugsy and Marciano? Hell, we can handle them. In fact, I doubt if they'll ever come within a hundred miles of us again, especially since they're sort of short of help now,” Jerry said.

“You don't understand! Franko was in with the Mafia. Now they will think you're involved. They'll send more men and track us down and kill every one of us!” She buried her head against Jerry's breast and began to sob uncontrollably.

Williard met Jerry's eyes over the top of Donna's disordered black hair. No wonder Jason was in such a hurry. From inside the hanger came the roar of an airplane engine being revved up. A few seconds later another joined it, sounding different, as if it were struggling to stay up. Williard watched as the massive hanger doors slowly trundled up and out of the way. The engine noises grew louder and Jason's plane slowly emerged.

Williard was appalled. The massive old Albatross, designed during WWII as a sub hunter and to ferry supplies around Pacific islands too small to have landing strips, looked as if it had been through a battle, then stored away for thirty years in an attic. He thought it might have once been painted blue, but the color had faded to a pallid shade of gray, and the paint was peeling and hanging in tatterdemalion rags. Rust spots and carelessly applied patches were showing through what paint remained. The canopy was cracked and splintered, though it was hard to tell how badly through the thick layer of imbedded dirt. One engine was vibrating and spewing fine droplets of oil into the prop wash where they mingled with clouds of smoke. In fact, the whole wing on that side of the plane was shaking and rattling as if it were trying to take off in a different direction. One of the tires visible beneath the wings was almost flat and he could see threads showing through bald spots on the other. The forward points of both of the pontoons were crumpled from hitting coral reefs. One of the wing flaps dropped suddenly into a vertical position as something from inside made a popping sound. The plane came to a halt beside their cars. When it stopped, the cargo door was jarred open and hung askew, like an old barn door which had been kicked open by a horse.

Jason fed a beat-up aluminum ladder through the cabin door and climbed down, leaving the plane idling erratically. He ran over to where his brothers and the girls were staring at the Albatross as if they were standing around a pileup on the Interstate.

“Ain't she a beauty?”

No one answered him.

“Haw! I can see you're speechless with admiration, but we ain't got no time to waste. Them gomers after Donna are gonna be looking for us as soon as they get some reinforcements. We need to be gone from here.”

“You really want us to take off with you in that antique junkheap?” Williard said.

“Don't knock it. I took it out yesterday, didn't I?”

“Yeah, but you said it needed some repairs.” Williard didn't mind his brother crashing airplanes; he always managed to live through it, but this was ridiculous.

“I can take care of what few little problems its got wrong with it after we get airborne and what I can't fix now can be done when we land again.”

“Or crash again,” Williard said.

“Whatever. Come on, let's get loaded before the bad guys catch up with us. I don't like to kill more than one man a day; it gets me irritated and makes it hard to concentrate on flying.”

“We wouldn't want that,” Williard said. “Come on Jerry, lets get the cars unloaded. You girls can help with the lighter stuff.”

The loading went slower than Williard would have liked. He and Jerry had to do the bulk of the work while Jason made hasty repairs on the cargo door and tinkered with the faulty engine. Their effort was compounded by having to climb the old carpenter's ladder up to the bay with their burdens; the regular ramp was missing.

Williard finished cleaning out the back seat of his Cougar and opened the trunk. He carried several loads up the ladder before uncovering the suitcase Jerry had tossed into the trunk.

“What's this?” He asked his brother.

“Nothing important, just some old uniforms. You can leave it there for Jeannie when she and Larry pick up the cars. They might go good with one of her garage sales,” Jerry said. Williard dropped the suitcase back in the trunk.

“No, on second thought, bring it along. If this jaunt winds up like it's starting out, I might have to use the uniforms to impersonate an officer and steal a boat for us to get back home in.”

Williard picked the suitcase back up, took it into the plane and shoved it into a compartment out of sight. That was the last item. He wiggled his way through the cargo bay to the cockpit hatch. The door to it was sprung so he didn't have to worry about pulling it open. Terry was already seated beside Jason in the copilot's seat. She was wiggling uncomfortably from a broken seat spring poking her in the buttocks.

“We're all loaded!” he called up to them.

“Great. Looks like we made it in time. Y'all find a seat back there and we'll get our asses out of here.”

“Where are we headed?”

“Fucked if I know, I haven't had time to figure it out. If I remember right, though, Africa is east of here. We'll head thataway then south.”

“What are we going to do with Donna? She doesn't have a passport!” Williard thought of that item at the last minute. Terry always carried hers as an international stewardess, and he and his brothers still had theirs from a European vacation with their parents shortly before the war, but Donna had never traveled outside the country.

“Shit, Jim, we ain't got the range to go all the way to Africa without refueling. We'll drop her off when we stop to refuel and finish fixing this old bird up.”

Donna had been listening. She grabbed onto Jerry as if he represented the only life jacket on a sinking ship. “Please don't leave me! I'm scared.”

“We'll give you some money to buy a new identity and get lost,” Williard said, a sudden decision. It was the least they could do for her.

“You don't know those guys like I do,’ Donna warned. “They can find anyone, anywhere, once they make up their mind to do it. I want to stay with you.”

“Fuckit, let her come,” Jason said. “We can always hide her in the pontoon with the weapons. Speaking of which, did you leave a couple of rifles loose?”

“Yeah, they're handy,” Williard said. “Why?”

Jason was squinting through the cracked and dirty glass of the canopy. “Because I see a couple of more black sedans coming down the road.”

Chapter Fourteen

Grazino knew Don Falino's connections extended into areas he wasn't even aware of, but even he was surprised when he stopped at Marciano's bank and picked up the extra soldiers assigned to him. The first thing one of them said was, “We just got the word. Our contracts are at the Lancaster airport right now.”

“Good. We better hurry, though, before they take off.”

“No need to hurry. New York said their plane wasn't in shape to fly yet. In fact, the word is, it might never get off the ground.”

The fact that the Don had funneled his information through the new hit men rather than to him via his car radio said volumes. Don Falino no longer wished to speak with him personally, and wouldn't unless and until he succeeded in his mission. The Don never liked to maintain amiable relations with anyone who was a potential candidate for Snow White's menu.

“You guys ain't met them cowboys we're after. Get your ass in gear right now. One of you come with me to drive.” While the driver headed south, Grazino made Larry and Jeannie and Monica curl up in the back seat where they couldn't be seen. As soon as they were under way, he checked out one of the submachine guns the new men had brought along. Even if the Don hadn't wanted to speak to him, he had evidently taken him at his word when he mentioned that the cowboys were meaner than junkyard dogs and armed to the teeth. At least they could confront them on an equal basis now, and he had them outnumbered besides.

* * * *

“Hold tight, we're hauling ass,” Jason announced over the intercom, one of the few working instruments inside the plane. He gauged the distance to the approaching sedan and chose a runway going in the opposite direction.

The tower controller's voice came to Jason through his headphone, barely audible over the roar of the engines as he revved them up and taxied away from the hanger. “Albatross, you're going the wrong way. I have a crop duster coming in on runway two. Besides, you haven't given me your flight plan yet. Steer back to runway one and hold.”

“Sorry, tower, the steering gear just went out and we're flying VFR so we don't need no flight plan. If you really want one, though, we're headed southeast to somewhere at some kind of altitude.”

“That's the craziest flight plan I ever heard of.”

“You should of seen my last one. I had two MIGS and a shit can full of SAMS on my ass. Now clear that crop duster out of my way before he gets fragged.”

“Fragged? Are you armed?”

“No, but my wife is. She's in that first sedan behind us.” The more danger Jason was in, the wilder his explanations. He hoped the tower operator stayed put and didn't try to check out his story.

“Oh shit! She's driving onto the runway. What's wrong with her?”

“She's just pissed because I'm behind on my alimony.”

Grazino saw the old plane taxiing away from the hanger and guessed it must belong to his quarry. “Speed up!” He shouted to his driver. “Catch them before they get away!”

“We're driving on a fucking runway! What if we meet a plane trying to land?”

“I'd rather crash head on into a plane than face Snow White if we lose them fuckers. Speed up, I said!”

The driver didn't understand the reference to Snow White, but he pushed down hard on the accelerator. Grazino chambered a round into the submachine gun and punched Mugsy and Marciano. “Load up. We're going to shoot them bastards down!”

The old albatross lumbered down the runway, tilted to one side by its flat tire. Its engines roared like a wounded lion and it gained speed like a lazy turtle on a long trip. Jason took a quick glance in the side mirror and saw that the first sedan had pulled onto the runway and was chasing them. The distance began to narrow swiftly. He thumbed the intercom switch. “Hey brothers! I need some action back there or we're going to get caught! Give Mugsy something to remember us by!”

Williard tore his seat belt loose from the lopsided web seat he was sitting in. He grabbed a rifle and tossed it to Jerry, then plucked one from its alcove for himself.

“How the fuck can we see to shoot?” Jerry asked, chambering a round.

“Break a window,” Williard said, the only solution he could think of. He followed up on his suggestion by smashing a window on his side of the aisle with his rifle butt and worming his head and shoulders through it, using contortions he didn't know he was capable of to bring the rifle through the window with him. Wind from the whirling props nearly pulled him on through. He reached back and held on by one hand and braced the butt plate of the rifle against his elbow with the other. Before he could get positioned to aim, a series of slugs stitched a path through the horizontal stabilizer. He emptied a full clip in the direction of the sedan at the same time he heard Jerry's weapon go into action, firing spaced rounds, three at a time. The bouncing plane, nearing takeoff speed, spoiled Williard's aim. He saw a line of dusty puffs appear to the left of the sedan and cursed himself for shooting off the whole clip at once. As he was pulling himself back far enough to reload without being sucked out the window he saw one of the tires on the sedan suddenly collapse. It swerved and skidded sideways just as the Albatross finally shook itself free of the earth, flying as easily as a crippled bumblebee overloaded with pollen. Williard pulled himself the rest of the way inside. “Nice shooting, brother,” he said to Jerry.

“Nice, hell. I couldn't see a fucking thing through all the smoke from that screwed up engine. I just shot and said shit.” He reached up and wiped oil from his hair.

Williard grinned at him. “Like I always said, if you're lucky, you don't need to be good. Why don't you take care of your girl while I check on Jason and Terry?”

Jerry looked around. Donna had fainted. Her torso lolled this way and that while her lower body was still restrained by the seat belt.

Williard left him to administer first aid while he gripped any handy stanchion he could find in order to walk uphill. The plane was still ascending, albeit slowly and laboriously. When he got to the cockpit, he looked up inside and saw Terry with both hands on the yoke and her feet frantically working the rudder pedals like a flamingo dancer with a hotfoot. Jason had stripped his shirt off and was wrapping a handkerchief around his upper arm.

Terry glanced at Jason and caught Williard in her peripheral vision. “Jim, help me! I don't know how to fly this crazy plane!”

“Well, I sure as hell don't,” Williard said, more concerned with his brother than Terry's piloting. After all, they were in the air and flying, which was more than he had expected after catching his first sight of the plane. “Jason, what's wrong? Did you get hit?”

“Just a scratch. I had worse mosquito bites in ‘Nam. Hold on a minute longer, Terry, and I'll take over.”

He knotted the handkerchief and pulled it tight with his teeth and one hand. A spot of blood soaked through the cloth but didn't seem to be expanding.

Terry screamed and jerked violently at the yoke, stamping her foot on one of the floor pedals at the same time. The plane twisted sideways and went into a left roll, diving downward. Williard was flung sideways, and careened off the cockpit paneling and into Jason's lap, preventing him from getting to his set of controls.

“Left rudder! Pull the yoke!” Jason shouted at Terry.

Williard saw a terrified grimace on her face as she complied. The plane completed the roll, upside down then back upright. Williard was jounced from Jason's lap, bounced against the cockpit ceiling, then dropped back down, this time landing in Terry's lap. Shit! he thought, Jumpin’ Jase is going to lose another one! He began preparing himself mentally for the crash.

Jason grabbed control of the still diving plane just in time to pull forward on the yoke and bring them out of the dive. The plane skimmed a herd of cattle being worked by a rancher in a jeep. The cows scattered in all directions and the rancher shook his fist at the retreating plane. Williard looked out of the cockpit window and saw they were gaining altitude again. He removed himself from Terry's lap and breathed a sigh of relief. “What happened? Did the plane get shot up while we were taking off.?”

Jason looked at him and grinned like a quarterback who had just faked a pass and run the ball in for a touchdown. “Nah, I don't think we caught any damage to speak of. I bet there's a crop duster behind us that just shit his pants, though.”

Chapter Fifteen

While the Albatross staggered on southeastward, Grazino took Mugsy to the tower with him and left the others to change the tire on the sedan. He left Mugsy waiting in reserve while he went in to talk to the operator alone. “Where was that beatup old wreck that just took off headed?” he asked.

“He said he was going southeast somewhere. Who are you?”

“I'm a friend of the man flying it. Don't you know where he's planning to land?”

“If I have my way, he's going to land at the nearest military field and be taken into custody. And if you were the person driving that car on the runway, I'm going to have you arrested,” the operator said. He was a big man, from West Texas, who not only operated the tower, but owned the field as well.

“No you're not,” Grazino said. “And you're not going to call the military, either.”

The big Texan eyed the thin, prune faced man. He was not impressed. “Oh yeah? Says who?”

Mugsy heard the challenge to his underboss and lumbered into the room.

“Says him,” Grazino said.

“You know, I think he's right,” the airport owner said.

“I thought you would agree. Now find out where he's headed.”

The operator looked apprehensively at Mugsy's hulking frame. “Sir, I'm sorry, he just didn't say, except that he was going southeast. All I can do is send a general wire and have all the landing fields in that direction be on the lookout for them. What should I say?”

“Just tell them to notify you, that's all, unless he files a flight plan for his next takeoff. If he does, get that information.”

“Yes, sir. It might be several hours before I know anything.”

“We'll wait,” Grazino said. He left Mugsy with the owner/operator to keep him honest, while he returned to the sedan and used his radio phone in order to divert one of the drug-carrying planes the family owned to the Lancaster field. The Godfather had ordered him to follow the cowboys ‘to the ends of the earth’ if necessary, and he was beginning to suspect that might be where they were headed.

* * * *

Williard gritted his teeth as the ancient Albatross gyrated through the air. Jason had told him he had decided where their next stop should be and he was trying to get turned south instead of east . The Albatross gradually changed its bearing, making strange noises and dipping up and down and rolling from side to side as if they were on one of the scary rides at the Texas State Fair. Actually, being in the plane was even scarier. He could look out one of the broken windows and see the engine on that side loosing a huge stream of black, oily smoke, and the vibration he had noticed when they first got airborne was steadily getting worse. When he could stand it no longer, he crawled forward and peered into the cockpit. Jason was shouting instructions and observations to Terry in order to teach her quickly how to fly the Albatross. Terry was holding the yoke in a death grip, because if she didn't, it kept shaking loose from her hands. He saw that part of the wavering flight was being caused by Jason telling Terry to turn or push or pull the yoke or rudder pedals to raise and lower wing and ailerons. Jason seemed totally unconcerned, apparently confident that the plane would get them to wherever he was heading. He hoped that confidence was justified. They had already been in the air several hours longer than he thought was possible at first sight of the plane.

Just as Williard was deciding that he should relax and trust Jason's acumen, the smoking engine quit. He grabbed a handhold, as the plane tilted then stood back upright when Jason grabbed the controls and corrected the tilt with the tail flaps. Williard shouted, “Hey Jase!”

Jason looked over his shoulder. Williard saw that he was still maintaining his usual grin, but he had seen it larger before. “Better get back and strap in, Jim. Tell the others, too.”

Williard hesitated. “Are we going down?”

“Hell, yes, but don't worry. We're almost where I wanted us to be. If I can keep us in the air just a little bit longer, we can glide in.”

“Do you think you can?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods? Go strap in.”

Williard decided that this was no time to bother his brother and there was nothing he could do to help, anyway. He went back to the cargo bay and woke up Jerry and Donna, who had been dozing with their heads together.

“What's up?” Jerry said.

“Everything but this here airplane. I think it's going down.”

“All of a sudden I don't think the delta was so dangerous after all. Shit, if my boat sank, at least I could swim to shore.”

“Yeah. You think we ought to break out the parachutes?”

“Might not be a bad idea,” Jerry said. “Where did you pack them?”

“Me? I thought you loaded them.”

“I never saw them after I parked the Olds,” He looked puzzled. “Funny, they were right on top.”

“Was Jeannie around when you parked?”

“Come to think of it, yes. Want to bet what she has as the prize item at her next garage sale?”

“No, I can guess,” Williard said. “You should have gone ahead and given her those uniforms of yours to sell. They would have made her happy.” He cinched his seat belt tighter.

“Are we in trouble?” Donna asked sleepily.

“Do we look worried?” Williard said.

“Yes.”

“Then we're in trouble.”

The Albatross began a precipitous decline, causing them to brace their feet on packing crates in front of the seats. Williard looked out through his broken window. Below, he could see nothing but water. Jason hadn't told them exactly where they were bound, other than that it was an island he knew of. He hoped they were somewhere close to it and if not, then he prayed that neither of the pontoons had any bullet holes in them. He doubted that the two life rafts stowed in the plane were still seaworthy. The plane kept dropping lower, until it looked as if the ocean were only a few hundred feet below them. So much for the Congo, he thought. Just then, a line of breakers washing over reefs came into view. In the distance, he could make out the sprawl of a scrubby jungle fronted by a narrow beach. He thought Jason was going to try to make it to there, where there would surely be room to land in the lagoon. Instead, he tilted the still descending plane, then leveled out on a course that headed over the jungle canopy.

Williard held his breath as the plane lost more altitude. So far as he could see, there was nothing in sight but trees, not even a lake where the seaplane might safely land. What was Jason thinking of? Abruptly, the other engine began to cough. Williard checked his watch, not that he thought that would help any, but he saw that they had now been flying so long that they must surely be low on fuel. The remaining engine coughed once more and quit completely. A forest of trees blurred past, seemingly only scant feet beneath the plane, then with the abruptness of a movie suddenly changing scenery, the trees were whizzing past at eye level. He braced himself for the inevitable crash.

With both engines dead, the silence inside the plane was eerie, like the deadness inside a haunted house just before the ghost jumps into sight. Jason's sudden shout was all the more startling for that. “Yahoo!

Goddamn, we made it! Fuck Mugsy and all his fucking sisters!”

The plane hit the ground with a solid bump and a loud banging noise as one of the tires blew out, the one which wasn't already flat. That was probably a good thing, since it kept the plane on an even keel. A torrent of sparks flew past the window amidst a horrible screeching sound, like a thousand fingernails scraping across a blackboard, then a moment later the sparks disappeared and clods of dirt and coral dust began flying by. A minute later the plane came to a jarring, bone rattling halt, stopped by something Williard couldn't see from his vantage point. He let out his pent up breath. Jason popped out of the cockpit, followed by Terry. Her face was drained of color and her knees were wobbly. She grinned weakly at Williard.

“We're here,” Jason said brightly.

“Where's here?” Williard said.

“The Cayman Islands, I hope.”

“You hope? Don't you know?

“Give me a break, Jim. With half the instruments out and the radio only working part of the time, I had to fudge a bunch of figures to get us anywhere.”

“Sorry,” Williard said. “The Cayman Islands. Don't think I've heard of them.”

“Not many people have, yet. I just knew about them from a friend that got kicked out of the Marines and came down here. He opened up a little business.”

“What kind of business?”

“Oh, just a little smuggling from his airfield—that's where I think we are—and maybe a little money laundering here and there.”

“Is that all?”

“No, last I heard, he's dealing a little in drugs, too. That's why he built a landing field here.”

Williard heard a thump behind him and looked around. Donna had fainted again.

Chapter Sixteen

“What's wrong with her?” Jason said, as Jerry bent to fan Donna's face.

“I think she's about had enough of drug dealers,” Williard said.

“Good, then let her sleep. C'mon, let's get out and see if we're on Little Cayman Island or not.”

“Little Cayman?”

“Yeah. There's three islands in the group; Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. I landed on Grand Cayman once, back when our squadron was on a training mission out of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.”

“Are we near Cuba?”

“Yeah, south of it. Why do you think your girl friend was so white-faced when we landed? We were having so many problems with that engine and getting so low on fuel that I had to skirt Cuba pretty close to make it here.”

“What does that have to do with her being white?”

Jason gave his brother one of his famous grins. “There were a couple of MIGS hanging around just daring me to violate their territory. Shit, I wish I had been flying an F-4, then I would have, just for kicks.”

While they were talking, Jason had unscrewed the jerry-rigged cargo door latch. The door swung open to a moonlit darkness. A scruffy looking man in shorts and sandals stood in the shadows near the open bay, cradling an UZI submachine guns in his arms.

Jason peered into the darkness. “Fred, put that popgun up before you hurt someone with it.”

A tall, cadaverous looking man with shaggy hair stepped closer. His teeth flashed white in the moonlight.

“Be goddamn, if it ain't Jumpin’ Jase himself. Hey man, how come you landed instead of bailing out?” He lowered his weapon.

“My sister sold our parachutes, or we might have. How you making it Fred?”

“Can't complain up til now.”

“What's going on?”

“Jump down and I'll tell you, if you brought some rum, that is.” He grinned.

“We got more rum on board than we do water.”

“That figures.”

Williard took the hint. He opened one of the tied-down crates and produced a bottle. He and Terry followed Jason down the ladder where Jason introduced them to his friend. Jerry decided to stay inside and take care of Donna, who was just regaining consciousness, just in case someone wanted to see her passport, though from the conversation, he thought it rather unlikely at this point. They were led to a small ramshackle shed lit by a rusty hurricane lamp and furnished with a battered desk and several palm cane chairs. Once drinks were mixed from a case of warm cokes, Jason expounded on their problems without waiting to hear what Fred's were.

“We need to stay here long enough for me to make some repairs,” he said.

“From the looks of that crate you're flying, you need more than repairs; you need a whole new plane.”

“Nah, there's just a few little problems. It won't take more than a week or so to get it ready to go on. Can you put us up that long?”

Fred rubbed several days growth of whiskers on his chin, then took a hefty swig of his drink. “Ordinarily, it would be no problem, Jase. In fact it still isn't but I don't know if I can give you a week.”

“Why not?” He couldn't believe his old friend, whom he had once taken a SAM up the ass for, would turn him down.

“I don't own this strip any more. The big boys just bought me out. Or gave me orders to sell, to put it more accurately. The Caymans are where they're starting to transship drugs from South America and hide their money now, and they want this airfield because it's on Little Cayman instead of Grand Cayman where customs is.”

“Shit,” Jason said. “Well, how long do we have?”

“There's a seaplane with a load supposed to be here in three or four days with the money for the field and my planes. They suggested I take the money and retire somewhere far away. I'll have some of my boys give you a hand til then, but you better be ready to go when I give the word, whether you're finished or not. They might think you're going to try to compete with them.”

“Where are these guys from?” Williard asked.

“The financing is coming from one of the families in New York, I think, but they're going to be operating out of Dallas. Why?”

“Just wondering,” Williard said. He didn't think it politic to mention that they were being chased by operatives from New York, and hoped the new owners of Fred's airfield weren't from the same family, but he suspected they would be if the way the expedition had turned out so far was any indication. Fred eyed the three of them speculatively. “Jase, if I'm not prying, just how in hell did you wind up here?

Last I heard you were still seeing how fast the marines could replace F-4's for you.”

“The bean counters took over after the war. They said I was costing the government too much money. Anyway, I'm glad we got here now rather than next week like I planned. We might of flown right into some deep shit.”

“Deeper shit, you mean,” Williard said.

“Yeah. Fred, we don't really want to cause any problems. All we're doing is going hunting for a dinosaur.”

Fred swigged more rum. “Haw. Now I've heard it all. Never mind, I don't want to know. Well, not much we can do until daylight. Let's have some more rum.”

“Is there anyplace here to get a bath?” Terry asked. She wiped her brow, feeling the greasy residue of sweat which had dried on her skin.

“We don't have much fresh water, but there's a lagoon and a little beach forward of where your plane stopped.” He produced a flashlight. “Look for the trail just to the side of the left wing. It's about a hundred yards.”

“Go on with her, Jim,” Jason said. “You may as well have a little fun before we get to work tomorrow. Fred and I will stay here and I'll fill him in on what we need for the plane.”

“OK, see you in the morning.”

An hour later, Williard and Terry were drying off in the sea breeze on a tarpaulin they had brought from the plane. The sand had provided a soft enough place to make love after a swim in the lagoon and now Williard was leaning on one elbow and admiring Terry's naked body. With her wavy brown hair slicked straight with water, she looked to him like a shadowed sea sprite contemplating whether to stay on land with her lover or return to the sea.

“It's beautiful here,” Terry said. “I've always wanted to make love on a beach.”

“Glad I could help,” Williard said. He reached out and ran his hand over her softly resilient breasts. Finding Terry is the best part of being out of the army, he thought. If it wasn't for the constant worry of her getting hurt, he would have been completely satisfied, regardless of the danger they had been through and what they still faced, especially if the Mafia hadn't given up on them.

“Mmm. Do that some more. After flying that banged-up old plane with Jason, I need all the relaxation I can get. I thought we would never make it down in one piece.”

“That's what you get for trying to do a man's work.”

“Are you complaining?” Terry said sharply. Damn his dreamy eyes, he still must be thinking of me as some little southern shrinking violet. It irritated her.

“No, not really,” Williard said hastily. “In fact, you did great. You must have or Jason would have kicked you out of the cockpit. He can't stand incompetent pilots.”

Terry relented. “I was scared, I'll have to admit. I don't know how your brother has managed to stay alive all these years if I can believe all the stories.”

“You haven't heard half of them yet. He was a legend in Vietnam, but don't you try to fly like he does. I don't know of anyone else who could get away with it.”

“I can believe that. Nevertheless, it's nice to have a little responsibility in a plane instead of handing out drinks and serving meals. If we get back alive, I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to stewardess work.”

Williard felt his heart jump inside his chest. He gathered her in his arms. “Don't worry about getting back alive.” he laughed, as he hugged her. “Hell, the way it's going, we better worry about just getting there.”

Instantly, he was sorry he had uttered that statement. Women shouldn't have to worry about things like that.

“I'm not worried. We've managed so far, haven't we?” The warmth of his body was chasing away thoughts of danger again. She felt a swell of emotion sweep over her, a desire to get as close to him as possible. She tugged him over her, wishing he felt the same way and hoping that he would, sooner or later.

* * * *

“They left the mainland and headed for Cuba, that's all I know,” the tower operator said to Grazino.

“They couldn't be headed for Cuba. That's where them damn Commies live. Those red bastards are the ones that took over all our gambling operations back in the sixties when that fucking Castro came to power.”

“I'm sorry, that's the best I could do.” The operator yawned. It had been a long, long vigilance, talking to other operators, asking about sightings or radio transmissions from the shaky old Albatross which had surprised him by even getting into the air.

“Cuba isn't possible. What's near there?”

“If they went north of Cuba, the Bahamas. If they went south, there's the Cayman Islands.”

“All right, check them both out. We'll wait.”

Wearily, the operator turned back to his short wave radio and began making more inquiries, pausing just long enough to give landing instructions to a huge amphibian he had never seen before. It was the plane Grazino had requested, landing after dumping its load. He knew the Godfather wouldn't be happy about that, but he would be far less happy if he failed to catch up with the cowboys. Thinking of catching up to them brought up another problem. Regardless of whether they had gone north or south of Cuba, they were going to wind up someplace where passports were necessary. The Godfather would probably feed them all piecemeal to Snow White if they got arrested for failing to anticipate a minor matter like that. He left Mugsy to watch while he went back to the cars, the one with the flat tire having been dragged hastily off the runway earlier. There, he led his men, and Larry, Jeannie and Monica out to the plane and inside.

“Are we going flying?” Jeannie asked. “I always wanted to fly somewhere, but Larry could never afford it.”

“Shut up, Broad,” Grazino said. He was getting tired of her acting as if they were on a vacation trip.

“See if I ever invite you to a garage sale,” Jeannie said.

“Shut up. No, don't shut up. Just give me your driver's licenses so I can get some passports forged for you.”

“Where are we going?” Larry asked.

“You shut up, too. We're going wherever your crazy brothers-in-law are going.”

“Oh good, I always wanted to go to Africa,” Jeannie said.

Grazino turned away in disgust. “Crazy broad. Snow White is going to love you.”

“Snow White? Are we going to Disneyland first?”

Grazino wondered if a fat lip would shut her up. He thought about it, then dropped the idea while he gave instructions to two of his men. One he sent to have passports forged, the other to load up on food and water and other supplies. Africa! If he didn't catch the cowboys soon, he might have to search a whole continent for them! He headed back to the tower and saw Mugsy coming toward him in a lumbering run.

“I found them! They're in the Cayman Islands!”

“How the hell did you do that?”

“When that cowboy in the tower said they wuz headed for Cuba, I called a hit man I know there what's still connected to the mainland. He had just heard about some Cuban fighters chasing a old airplane away from the shoreline. They went south and the radar followed them in.”

Grazino was amazed. He hadn't expected that much initiative from Mugsy. Snow White must really have him working his brain. “Good. Soon as we get our passports and supplies, we'll catch them. That old plane they're flying can't keep up with this baby.” He pointed to the sleek amphibian waiting to take off. It was Mugsy's first close up look at the plane. He saw the pontoons and suddenly realized that they would be flying over water. “Do I have to go?”

Grazino stared at him like a recalcitrant child. “Unless you would rather be escorted back to Snow White, you do.”

Mugsy looked resigned. “Mudder told me I ought to loin to swim, but I wouldn't listen; I wanted to play wit guns. Does that plane have life rafts?”

“It has everything, including a machine gun in the nose.”

Mugsy brightened up a little, but not much. He would never admit it to the underboss but he was scared of the three cowboys. He wondered if even a machine gun would be enough to stop them.

Chapter Seventeen

Williard spent the next day and night on the beach, returning only occasionally for food or drink, after Jason assured him that Fred would provide all the help needed for repairs. Jerry and Donna left the plane and joined them. Donna refused to leave the beach after she got there. The UZI-toting mechanics and pilots scared her. Jerry stayed with her, trying to cheer her up.

“Relax, babe, these guys are friends. Besides, how would anyone else know we're here?”

“They'll find us,” Donna warned.

“One look at you girls and they'll forget all about us,” Jerry said. The little beach was so isolated that they had all stripped down to briefs.

“That's what I'm afraid of,” Donna said. She rolled over on her stomach, in the same position that Terry was laying. Going topless had given them both sunburns in sensitive places. Williard sat up on the tarpaulin and sipped at his warm drink, wishing there was an ice machine somewhere, but this end of Little Cayman didn't even have electricity or phone lines, which, he supposed, was why Fred had located his field here. The distance from Grand Cayman allowed planes to come in under the radar blanket of the commercial field there. Fred had also told them that custom inspectors made themselves scarce for only nominal sums of money and almost certainly wouldn't be around to bother them before they left. If they ever got out of the shadow of the Mafia, Williard thought this might be a good place to return to. They could maybe run a diving boat with Jerry's experience and if the old Albatross made it to Africa and back, it would do for charters until they could afford something better. He had gotten so used to free and easy dealings in war time Vietnam that he doubted he would ever be satisfied with a regular job. And Terry was nice. Maybe she would stay with him for a while, even if he didn't intend to ever join the rat race. She would probably expect him to eventually, though. Most women did, sooner or later. Oh well, maybe the expedition would pay off and make them so much money she would be content to just retire to a beach such as this one for a while. Williard's idyllic thoughts were interrupted by Jason's shout. “Jim! Jerry! Get your asses back! We got trouble!”

Oh shit, Williard thought. “Here we go again.”

He climbed into his pants and shirt and waited impatiently while the girls got their clothes back on. Once Jason had gotten their attention, he had begun running back toward the little airfield, not waiting to tell them what the trouble was.

When they emerged from the cover of the palm trees, he saw that the Albatross was pulled up to the tanker Fred used for refueling. Jason was running around the plane, checking it out for takeoff. Williard told the girls to get aboard while he and Jerry stopped Jason for a moment. “What's happened now?”

“We got lucky, that's what happened. See that little plane over there, the one that just came in?”

“Yeah.” Williard remembered it buzzing the beach, the pilot evidently enchanted at the sight of the two topless beauties cavorting in the surf.

“Well, it just came in from Dallas. The pilot said the operator told him there was a big seaplane there waiting to take off for the Caymans. I wouldn't have thought much about it except that he had this story about seeing the biggest man outside of a circus get on the plane. That has to be Mugsy. Goddamnit, they found us again. Sooner or later they're going to piss me off.”

Williard wasn't worried about that. He was concerned with the state of repairs to the Albatross. “Are we ready to fly?”

“No, but we're going to anyway. I got that engine wired up so it works, that's the main thing. You guys get inside and hang some safety belts from those broke windows. You might have to use them again.”

“I thought you had got them fixed.”

“I've got the glass, we just ain't had time to put it in yet. That might be a good thing if we don't get off the ground before they get here.”

Williard climbed the ladder into the cargo bay. Jason had promised to get a stairwell built, but obviously that had been wishful thinking. He began attaching webbing to stanchions by the broken window while Jerry got out their rifles. Once he thought he had enough straps to hold them in place in case Jason flew the way he usually did, he hung his rifle near the window and went back to get the heavy express rifle and a handful of shells from stowage. He pulled it out and inserted a shell into both barrels. If it came to shooting at a plane chasing them, he wanted something that would do more damage than an M-16. As he turned away, a sound came from behind the crate. “Meow,” it said.

“Who said meow?”

“I didn't,” Jerry said.

“I didn't either,” Donna said.

“Then who did?” Williard asked. He knew it wasn't Terry. She was already up in the cockpit, doing what she knew how of the preflight check.

“Meow,” the sound came again. A black cat jumped from behind a crate onto the top of it. It sat down and began licking a paw and rubbing it across its face.

“Goddamn,” Williard cursed. “That's all we need, a black cat. Where in hell did it come from?”

“Never mind where it came from, let's get it the hell out of here,” Jerry said.

“Shoo, cat,” Williard said.

“Meow,” the cat said, then began purring.

“Get out of here,” Jerry said.

“I can't, I'm the pilot,” Jason said, eyeing his new passenger while coming into the bay and pulling the ladder up behind him. He pulled the cargo door closed.

“Wait, we got a black cat in here!” Williard shouted.

“No time,” Jason said. “It can just take its chances with the rest of us.” He ran for the cockpit. A moment later, first one engine then the other fired up and began revving.

Williard stared at the cat, which seemed totally unconcerned. It jumped down from the crate and walked regally over to where Donna had already strapped herself in. It paused, looked up at her, then jumped into her lap. It turned around twice, then curled up and purred even louder than before.

“This expedition just keeps on getting crazier and crazier,” Williard complained. “What in hell are we going to do if it gets scared and starts bouncing around in here?”

“I'll hold onto it,” Donna said. She scratched behind its ears and made little motherly sounds at it. Williard shrugged and sat down, since there was nothing else he could think of to do. Jason had already begun taxiing away from the tanker before he remembered that he could have stuffed the cat out through one of the broken windows, but it was too late now. The engines roared as Jason applied all the power he could in order to get the old war bird off the ground before he ran out of runway. It lifted off and Williard heard a swishing sound from beneath him as the landing gear brushed the tops of the palm trees at the end of the runway. He wondered if Jason ever did anything simple when he was at the controls of a plane.

* * * *

Grazino was looking out the window as the seaplane made its approach to the drug dealer's field on Little Cayman. It had taken so long to get the passports and supplies that he wasn't really expecting to catch up with the cowboys here, and he was thinking that maybe he could get a little rest while they refueled and found out which direction they had gone. He was utterly surprised to see the battered old Albatross just lumbering into the air. For a moment he thought it wouldn't make it, but then it gained just enough altitude to clear the trees at the edge of the runway. Or almost. Palm leaves and branches fluttered from its landing gear as it dipped a wing and began turning east. He thumbed the intercom switch by his seat.

“Pilot! That plane that just took off! It's the one we're after. Get it!”

“Roger, I'll try,” the pilot said, “but we're almost out of fuel.” The seaplane roared as he fed power to the engines and passed over the field, climbing for altitude.

* * * *

“Hey brothers! Look alive back there. We got company!” Jason called over the intercom. Williard groaned and poked the barrel of the express rifle out the window. He hoped his aim would be better this time than when he had shot at the sedan back in Lancaster, but he didn't hold out much hope. Firing from a plane at a moving target wasn't something he was familiar with. He peered past the barrel of the rifle, trying to spot the other plane. There was nothing visible except blue sky and fluffy white clouds in front of them. He swept his vision backwards, just in time to see a neat set of holes stitch a pattern across the tip of the wing. He flinched. Those holes looked bigger than anything made by the submachine gun which had hit them last time!

“Goddamn, they got a machine gun on us!” Jason shouted. “Hold on, I'm going to get on their tail!”

The Albatross suddenly stood on its tail, shaking and shuddering. Williard felt his senses spin as Jason applied full power and continued up and up and over into a barrel roll the old plane had never been designed for. From somewhere far away he heard the squall of a cat with its dignity affronted. That's all we need, he thought dizzily, a cat loose inside while we're being machine gunned. If the bullets don't get us, it will probably claw us to death. He looked out over the vibrating wing, seemingly trying to shake itself loose from the rest of the plane, then below it at the pursuing seaplane trying to duplicate Jason's maneuver. It was a poor match; that pilot had never been in a dogfight before. From the other side of the bay, he heard the stutter of Jerry's rifle emptying a clip. It had no visible effect. He took careful aim with his heavy rifle and began to squeeze the trigger. A bundle of squalling black fur landed on his shoulder and dug its claws in. He cursed as it threw his aim off just as he squeezed both triggers. The double recoil knocked him backwards and stunned his upper body. He yanked at he cat's tail, trying to get it loose while he reloaded, but he knew that he had already missed his best chance.

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