Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,111

things. Need ’em to see.”

I fetched his reading glasses from a table that held flowers in a vase, a few get well cards, and Tomlinson’s note, still folded. Maybe the message had done the trick, but I doubted it. Angel Sampedro, even near death, was determined to find out what we’d found—the man’s last chance for an update from his old training squadron. Candice, the granddaughter, was the reluctant one, but 1st Lieutenant Sampedro, U.S. Navy, would not be bullied. So here we were, the old man’s hands shaking while Tomlinson helped get him situated, then Sampedro tugged the laptop closer, his way of demanding privacy while he leafed through the images we’d shot. One by one, the photos were mirrored by his thick bifocals.

Tomlinson, Dan, Diemer, and I also, one by one, pretended not to notice when the aviator’s eyes flooded and a tear traced a glycerin path to his jaw. I studied a painting on the wall from the 1930s I recognized—South Moon Under by Eugene Savage. Tomlinson chewed at his hair while throats were cleared.

Peeved by our transparency or irritated with himself, the man sniffed and found the breath to tell us, “Dumb . . . punks. Allergies. Stinkin’ . . . flowers,” then glared at the vase on the table.

A joke, Dan was the first to realize, and we all laughed too hard, but a barrier had been broken. A slow dialogue then began, only the three pilots involved, so Tomlinson and I melted into the background and listened to Dan, a Southern gentleman in the presence of his superior, and Vargas Diemer, the military historian, make the best of what remained of our twenty minutes.

“Is this the tail section from your ship, sir? We saw an old photo, and Candice told us you’d had a training accident.”

Bifocals mirroring photos that were bringing it all back, Sampedro shook his head. “One thirteen. My wingman’s ship. Unlucky . . . we told him.”

“His wingman’s plane, that’s what we found,” Dan translated. He was getting excited but waited for the aviator to finish:

“His name . . . Coach . . . Coachie . . . Oxendine and . . . his gunner. Coachie flew 113. Just him and . . . one crewman.”

I wasn’t following. Tomlinson stiffened, equally confused but alerted by something, yet the Brazilian understood. “Fighter pilots all went by nicknames,” he explained to us, then asked, “Lieutenant Sampedro”—Diemer rolled his r but without the aristocratic bullshit—“what caused Avenger 113’s crash? We found it listed in Army Air Corps records but absolutely no details. Another ship went down that day, too, neither ever found—”

“Night!” the old man interrupted, the word barked like a cough. “Storm . . . viz-a-bility zero! Hundred feet . . . shit . . shit soup. Out of . . . out of . . .” He tried to sit up but then lay back, his breathing labored. “Out of nowhere, that storm. Lost . . . we were all . . . lost.”

Concerned, Dan knelt by the bed and said, “Five planes in your group and two went down. Definitely one hell of a storm, sir. But, listen, we don’t need to hear all the details now. We’d love to come back. Tomorrow, anytime. Name the day and we’ll—”

Sampedro cut him off with a shake of the head. “Two ships . . . two—not five. Special . . . training mission. Just me and Dakota—my radioman, gunner. Coachie flying wing with . . . his guy, Harley.” Frustrated, out of air, the man’s eyes closed, then flickered open. He lay there for several seconds, alone in his head, then sighed and chose Tomlinson to demand, “Hand me that damn thing!”

A plastic keyboard, oversized letters, that worked the voice synthesizer, an unseen speaker close enough to create the illusion that Angel Sampedro was a ventriloquist when he straightened his glasses and began drumming two index fingers on the keys:

Hate this gaddamn thing cant spell or type worth shit awful to get old jest you wait You two boys really pilots what you fly?

A digital voice tweaked to the pitch of a healthy male robot, so exactingly phonetic that misspellings became idiomatic—a clever program designed to make the terminally ill sound damn-near human.

The Brazilian looked at Dan, both men surprised less by the question than this unexpected chance to communicate without sapping the life from the aviator’s lungs.

“Fifteen minutes,” I reminded Dan, who got right to it, telling Sampedro, “Civilian pilots, sir. This