Chapter 2: Tonight’s the Night

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

April 18, 1996

Suzie Granderson was behind the controls of the King Air as it turned onto final approach toward General Mitchell International Airport’s Runway 01-L. She was starting to get a little bit nervous as she still could not see the runway she was about to land on, could not see anything at all outside of the windows except a thick gray cloud cover. The autopilot was currently locked onto the ILS localizer for their runway and was dropping them down at a rate of six hundred feet per minute. According to the instruments, which Suzie had long since learned to trust with, quite literally, her very life and the lives of her passengers, she was right on the glideslope, poised to touch down neatly on the centerline of the runway. But she still needed to visualize the runway in order to accomplish that.

“Flaps to approach,” she told Njord, who was supposed have been flying the approach and landing leg, but Suzie had pulled rank when she heard the conditions at the airport on the ATIS.

“Flaps to approach,” Njord replied automatically as he manipulated the lever.

“Airspeed to one-two-five indicated,” she said next.

“Airspeed one-two-five indicated ... set,” Njord said, spinning the dial on the auto throttle.

“Gear down,” she said next.

“Lowering gear,” Njord told her, pulling the handle and watching the indicator lights as the machinery whirred. Finally, he announced: “Three greens on the gear.”

“Three greens on the gear,” Suzie repeated. “Altitude?”

“One-one-two-five,” he told her.

“Okay,” she said, still alternating her eyes between the glideslope display and the gray nothingness outside. “The ceiling is supposed to be at one thousand. We should be coming out of it soon.”

“We should be,” Njord agreed.

The MKE approach controller told them they were clear for landing and that the winds were one-two knots from zero-zero-five. He then asked if they had the runway in sight.

“Not yet,” Njord replied. “We are still in zero visibility conditions.”

“Advise when runway in sight,” they were told.

They passed through eleven hundred feet and still there was nothing but gray fog and rain to be seen. And then a thousand. Suzie was starting to think that maybe they would have to abort the landing and divert somewhere else. They were rapidly approaching the decision altitude of two hundred feet above the ground. If they could not see the runway at that point, it would be unsafe to land. She was just about to verbalize this to Njord when finally, at just a smidge above nine hundred and fifty feet of altitude—only three hundred fifty above the runway elevation—they finally reached the ceiling of the cloud cover and broke into rainy but visible conditions. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw a subdivision of houses and acres and acres of soggy parkland below. And in front of them, just where she was expecting it, was the runway, its approach lights pulsing invitingly.

“There we go,” she said with a smile. “Report runway in sight. Flaps to full. Speed to one-one-zero.”

Njord reported the runway in sight and then repeated her other instructions back as he performed them. They continued to sink toward the runway.

“Check that auto-feather is set,” she said, reading off the final item on her landing checklist.

“Auto-feather is set,” Njord confirmed.

“All right then,” she said. “Let’s bring it down.”

She turned off the autopilot just as they cleared the perimeter fence of the airport. She throttled them back to ten percent and she pushed gently down on the yoke, adjusting their slope a bit. She used her feet on the rudder pedals to keep the nose pointed at the center line of the runway. They passed over the threshold and she pulled up on the yoke, flaring them for landing. A few seconds later, the rear wheels touched down gently on the wet pavement.

“Throttle to idle,” she said aloud as she eased the nose gear down. “No need for reverse thrust on this long of a runway.” They had already discussed this in the landing briefing, but it never hurt to reiterate things.

“Agreed,” Njord said. “Retracting the flaps.”

“Copy that,” Suzie said, steering them and using gentle braking motions to slow them down. The approach controller told them to exit the runway when able. They were able at the next exit. Suzie turned them to the left and they contacted the ground controller for directions to the general aviation terminal.

Ten minutes later, they were parked and going through the shutdown checklist. They powered down the engines and then the exterior lights and then the avionics before declaring that they were secure.

“Good flight,” Suzie told her copilot. “Sorry about taking that last leg from you, but I thought it best under the circumstances.”

“It’s your prerogative,” Njord told her grumpily, letting some of his true emotion show now that they were out of the sterile cockpit condition.

“Yes, it is,” she said simply. She did not like Njord one little bit—and the feeling was mutual, she had no doubt about that—but still, she had to work with him every day.

Njord looked like he wanted to say something else, but he did not. Instead, he turned and opened the cockpit door. On the other side were their seven passengers, all standing near the exit door, their bags in hand. All knew that they were forbidden from opening the door themselves unless the aircraft was actually on fire—”and even then,” they had all been told, “if at all feasible, you’d still better fucking ask one of us first.”

“Welcome to Milwaukee, everyone,” Suzie told them. “As you no doubt noticed by now, the snow we had in Minneapolis has converted to rain here. It’s a perfectly dreary spring day here on Lake Michigan, with a temperature of forty-two degrees and a north wind—presumably one of those icy-ass winds the Midwest is famous for—is blowing at twelve knots.”

“Wonderful,” Celia said. “Nothing like nice spring weather.” At their last two stops—Duluth and Minneapolis—it had been snowing, heavily in the former, lightly in the latter, and very cold for late April. Unseasonably cold, the locals all told them, usually in an apologetic manner, as if they had been responsible for not setting up nicer weather for their visitors.

“How is the weather in Chicago?” asked Little Stevie. They would be flying there tomorrow to do three shows over four nights.

“More of the same for tomorrow,” Suzie told them. “It is, after all, on the same lake and is being hit with the same storm system. But the forecast says that Thursday and Friday it will clear up and return to more seasonable conditions.”

“Which means wind off the lake in Chicago,” said Celia.

“Most likely,” agreed Suzie with a shrug. “But at least we won’t have to fly above the clouds to see the sun.”

“At least there’s that,” she said. “Good landing, by the way. I was starting to get a little nervous when I couldn’t see the ground yet after the gear went down.”

“That’s why they make ILS systems,” Suzie said with a smile. “It was nothing. Routine.”

“Yeah,” Njord said bitterly. “It was so routine she took the leg from me.”

Suzie cast an irritated look at her copilot. He had a habit of blurting out crap like that—disagreements between the two of them, his thoughts on Suzie’s abilities as a team leader, the fact that she would not give him any supervised PIC time to help build up his hours for his logbook—and it needed to stop. It undermined the confidence her passengers were supposed to have in their flight crew and it undermined morale.

“Anyway,” she said, “I saw when we parked that your limo is here. You are free to deplane and if we don’t see you at the hotel, we’ll see you here tomorrow for the Chicago flight.”

Everyone began to filter out the door and down the steps to the tarmac before making the rush through the rain to the waiting limo. Celia was the last to go. Before she stepped out, she turned to Suzie.

“Think you can scrounge us up a few cigars for tonight?” she asked.

This question served to alleviate a little bit of Suzie’s irritation with Njord. She was definitely up for a little balcony therapy in Celia’s room tonight, even if it was raining and windy. It had been more than a week since they had last done this. “I think I can probably come up with something,” she said.

Celia smiled. “I’ll be looking forward to it,” she said.

With that, she walked down the steps and out into the rain. She did not say anything to Njord or even look at him. He said nothing to her (though he did take a good long look at her ass as she walked away). This was pretty much the status quo between Njord and all of the female passengers and most of the male ones. They disliked the man and spoke to him as little as possible. The only one who seemed to enjoy his company in any way was Coop. The two of them liked to go to the hotel bars together and tell pussy stories to each other while trying to pick up women. The difference was that most of Coop’s pussy stories were true and most of Njord’s were embellishments at the least, out and out fabrications at worst.

“All right,” Njord said as soon as Celia’s derriere disappeared from his view. “How about we fuel this thing now, so we don’t have to worry about it tomorrow?”

Suzie thought this over for perhaps two seconds and then shook her head. “No,” she said. “Let’s just get it secured for now and we’ll fuel in the morning. The weather might be better then.”

“Or it might be worse,” Njord said.

Suzie shook her head again. “If it’s much worse than this, we won’t be flying. We’ll do it tomorrow.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re the boss,” he said, though with far from the amount of respect such a statement should contain.

She looked at him pointedly. “Yes,” she said. “I am the boss. And that means you support my decisions, whether you agree with them or not. And it also means that you do not make snide little comments about my decisions, or about your personal opinions on my leadership skills, in front of the passengers.”

“I was just joking,” he said defensively.

“You were not just joking,” she said sternly. “You were undermining my authority and making the passengers aware that there is strife and disagreement between us. That erodes their faith in us. It makes them nervous about stepping onto the aircraft with us.”

This did not impress Njord. “So?” he asked. “It’s not like they have anyone else to fly them around to their little music shows.”

“At this moment in time, no they don’t. But what about for the next tour? What about when Jake Kingsley or Brainwash needs someone to fly them around for their shows? Those acts are also on the KVA label and KVA Records is an extremely valuable contract for our employers, Njord. Do you really think the big bosses would be happy if KVA decided to contract with another carrier for their future needs because you are making an ass out of yourself and making their musicians uncomfortable?”

“I think you’re reading too much into all this,” he said. “Is it that time of the month or something?”

She started to see red. Her fists clenched. She really wanted to strike the asshole with them, was pretty sure she could take him in a fair fight, but, only by invoking the years of training and discipline that her profession demanded, she held back—at least from using her fists. She stepped forward toward him and glared directly into his eyes.

“Listen to me, you fuckin’ weasel,” she told him, “if you ever say anything like that to me again, I go official and start filing reports with HR.”

“You’ve already done that,” he said, unimpressed. “Didn’t think I knew about your requests to have me reassigned to another aircraft? You’ve put in three of them since we started flying together.”

“Those were requests,” Suzie said. “Not official complaints. I called the bosses up and said that you and I have a personality conflict—which we do. I gave no details about the issue, just asked that you be sent somewhere else away from me. They turned down those requests because I would not answer their questions about my issues with you. You see, I’m not a narc. I would not report you to HR lightly. I have put up with a lot of shit from you in the name of the code we follow that what happens on the mission stays on the mission, but that shit ends today. If you ever utter a discouraging word about me in front of the passengers again, if you ever make a snide comment about my leadership abilities, and if you ever make some misogynistic fucking remark like you just made again, it is fucking on. Do you understand me? I go to HR and tell everything, and you’ll be lucky to get a job de-icing wings on DC-fucking-9s flying out of Asshole Fissure, North Dakota. You get what I’m saying, Njord?”

Njord, suddenly looking nervous, held up his hands in appeasement. “Whoa, whoa, hold up a second here,” he said. “I think that maybe you’re misunderstanding things a little.”

“No, I’m not,” she said. “You’re a male chauvinist piece of shit who doesn’t like working with a female PIC and thinks you’re better than me even though I have ten times the flight hours you do. Even though I used to fly C5s all around the world, but this King Air is the biggest thing you’ve ever sat in the copilot’s seat for. You want to believe that you’re a better pilot than me just because you’re a man, fine. I don’t give a shit. But you will obey my fucking commands, you will do what I say, when I say it, and you will do it with a smile, especially in front of the passengers. One more fucking remark, Njord, just one more, no matter how slight, and it is on. HR gets involved and I go for your fucking throat. Do I make myself clear?”

His face was red and his fists were now clenched, but he nodded. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said stiffly. “You make yourself clear.”

“Good,” she said lightly. “I’m glad we were able to clear that up. Now then, let’s get this aircraft secured so we can get to the hotel and check in.”

They got the aircraft secured. They then went to the hotel and got checked in. They did this with no unnecessary conversation.

They were staying in the Hotel Pfister in downtown Milwaukee, just five minutes away from Bradley Center, home of the Milwaukee Bucks (who were not in the NBA playoffs yet again) and the site of tonight’s Celia Valdez concert. Suzie and Njord were given standard rooms on the third floor, Suzie in 307, Njord in 309. Suzie’s room featured a queen-sized bed, a small couch, a refrigerator, and a bathroom. The window looked out onto the back parking lot of the hotel, the lot where the valets parked guest vehicles.

Suzie had lunch in the hotel’s café shortly after checking in. She then went back to her room and spent about an hour making arrangements for the King Air to undergo an A-level maintenance check at Midway Airport while they were in Chicago. After that, she took a little nap. After awakening, she made her way back downstairs and had a little chat with the concierge.

“I’d like to get my hands on some Cuban cigars and have them delivered to my room before ten o’clock tonight,” she told him.

“But, Ms. Granderson,” the mid-forties, fussy little man told her, “surely you are aware that Cuban cigars are illegal for importation into the United States and are therefore rather hard to come by.”

She pulled out a wad of twenty dollar bills that Celia kept her supplied with just for such occasions. She peeled off five of them and slapped them down on his desk. “This would be the finder’s fee,” she told him. “Assuming you are able to scrounge up a box for me.”

His eyes widened as he saw the money. “Well ... perhaps I might be able to get my hands on some.”

“I thought you might,” she said with a smile. “How much for a box of Montecristos?”

“That would run ... oh ... around four hundred dollars, I suppose, including the markup.”

She nodded and then peeled of another twenty of the twenties, putting them in a separate pile. “Now don’t even think of trying to fuck me and get me counterfeits,” she warned. “I know the difference; and I would take such an insult very personally, you know what I mean?”

“I would never do such a thing,” he said, clearly insulted by her suggestion. “I take my job very seriously.”

“Forgive me,” she said appeasingly. “I have every confidence in you.”

He picked up the money and made it disappear. “I will make sure that the item is delivered before ten o’clock,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Is there ... uh ... anything else I can arrange for you? Some marijuana perhaps? Or some cocaine? Or even ... you know ... some companionship?”

“No,” Suzie said. “The cigars will do me for now.”

“As you wish,” he said.

She went back to her room and watched TV for a little bit. When she got bored with this, she opened the book she had been reading and worked her way through a few dozen pages. This made her feel sleepy, so she took another nap. She awoke just past 6:00 PM and headed downstairs again, where she ate dinner at a table by herself in the hotel restaurant. That brought her to 7:00 PM. At the arena, Celia and the band would now be dressed in their stage clothes and heading backstage to meet the locals. She had attended the show five times during the tour and was familiar with the routine.

She went back to her room and flipped on the television and channel surfed for a bit before finding that one of the cable stations was showing older episodes of Seinfeld one after the other. She smiled and settled in to watch. It was just as Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George were making their bet to see who could go the longest without masturbation, there was a knock at the door.

It was the concierge. He had a box in his hands. Suzie smiled, thanked him, and tipped him another twenty dollars for bringing them to her. Once the door was closed, she opened the box and inhaled the aroma. They were Montecristos all right. She set the box down on the writing desk and then sat back down to watch the rest of The Contest.

Seinfeld gave way to Cheers at 10:00 PM, right about the time that Celia and the band would be finishing their final encores. Next would come the showers and the food and the groupies, if there were going to be any. Charlie and Coop usually imbibed in this particular activity every night. Every once in a while, Laura would as well; always a female—a thought that Suzie found quite arousing. And last night, even Celia had made a request—her first one since her separation from Greg as far as Suzie knew—though she had yet to share any details about it. Suzie knew it had been a man, younger than Celia by a considerable margin, and that he had been good looking (if you were into that sort of thing, which she was not), but that was all she knew. She felt a little bit of dark jealousy at the thought of Celia sharing her body with such a creature, but that was Celia’s business, not hers.

It was just past 11:15 when the phone next to her bed started to ring. She smiled, feeling a little jolt of exhilaration surge through her. She quickly snatched it up. “This is Suzie,” she said.

“Hey, Fly Girl,” Celia’s voice said in her ear. “Still awake?”

“You know it,” she replied.

“Were you able to score?”

“Was there ever any doubt?” she returned.

Celia chuckled a little. “It’s still raining outside, but a good part of my balcony is covered. You up for a little smoke in the rain?”

“Sounds like fun,” Suzie said. “What room are you in?”

“Fourteen-oh-two,” she said. “Bring a sweater.”

“I’ll be there in a few. Should I bring a cigar for Teach?”

“No,” Celia said. “She has ... you know ... something else to occupy her time tonight.”

“Ohhhh, I see,” Suzie said with a smile. It was one of those nights for Jake Kingsley’s wife. It seemed like they were getting a little more frequent of late.

“I’m actually a little bit jealous of her,” Celia said. “She was pretty cute. Has braces.”

“Braces, huh?”

“Yeah,” Celia said dreamily. “Braces. Is it bad that I find that kind of hot?”

“Uh ... no,” Suzie said. “Not at all.”

“That’s good,” Celia’s voice said. “Now hurry up here and let’s get this thing started.”

“Right,” she said slowly. “Get it started.” Had there been perhaps of hint of something in Celia’s tone? Or was it wishful thinking?

She hung up the phone, thinking it was probably the latter. Though the two of them shared a flirtatious relationship, Celia had never made any attempt to advance that relationship any further. Well ... except for that one time, after the last flight of the last tour, when Celia had kissed her, and in more than a friendly manner.

“I just wanted to see what it could be like,” had been her explanation.

Suzie had hoped that maybe the beautiful singer would decide to try a little experimentation after her breakup with Greg, had been highly anticipating such a thing, in fact, but so far ... nothing. Just the normal flirtation and innuendo.

She pulled a sweater out of her travel bag and put it on. She then pulled two of the Montecristos out of the cigar box. She picked up her room key and walked out the door. The elevator was only a few steps away, just past the door to Njord’s room. She pushed the button. When the door opened, she stepped inside and pushed the number 14. Ninety seconds later, she was knocking on the door to Room 1402.

The door opened and there stood Celia. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a button-up burgundy sweater. Her hair was down and she had no makeup on. And she was absolutely beautiful, Suzie thought. It was apparent by the way her breasts jiggled when she moved that she was not wearing her bra currently. Interesting. And unusual for their get-togethers.

“Come in,” Celia said brightly, standing aside to let her enter.

Suzie came in. Celia’s suite was quite opulent. It had a large sitting room and a bar. The window looked out to the east, to the high rises of downtown and Lake Michigan beyond them, though they could not see the lake currently because of the darkness and the rain.

“What can I get you to drink?” Celia asked.

“Just a bottle of water,” she replied.

“I have some of that fancy French water with the bubbles in it.”

“That will work,” Suzie said.

Celia grabbed one of the green bottles and then pulled down a highball glass for herself. She quickly mixed herself a gin and tonic, squeezing a little lime juice into it.

“How was the show tonight?” Suzie asked.

“We nailed it, like always,” she said. “Left them wanting more.”

“And that’s the rule, right?”

“Right,” Celia said, carrying the drinks over. “Shall we retire to the smoking area?”

“We shall,” Suzie said, noticing that Celia was wearing some kind of perfume. It smelled like vanilla.

They walked out on the balcony and closed the sliding door behind them. As she had mentioned, the portion closest to the door had an awning over it, keeping out the rain. There was a table and a few chairs here and they sat down. The temperature was in the forties still, so it was a bit brisk, but the wind was still coming from the north and was not able to reach them. Suzie prepped the two cigars with her cutting tool and then handed one of them to Celia. She then flicked her Bic lighter and held the flame to Celia’s smoke.

“Mmm,” Celia said after the primary ignition sequence was complete. She blew out a stream of fragrant smoke into the night air. “Best thing I’ve had in my mouth in a while.”

“Is that a fact?” Suzie asked, lighting her own smoke.

“A cold, hard fact,” she said, taking another puff.

“Just so I’m clear,” Suzie said. “Are you making allusions to your companion from last night?”

“You could say that,” she said sourly.

“You did not enjoy the experience?”

She laughed, a strong tone of bitterness in it. “No,” she said. “I did not.”

“What happened?”

She leaned back in her chair a little and took a large sip from her drink. “Well ... we went up to my room after we got back to the hotel. We sat down on the couch. I asked him if he wanted to see my tits. He told me that he did. So ... I took my shirt off. And then I took off my bra. And he just stared at them like they were exhibits in an art museum or something. He couldn’t form a coherent sentence.”

“Wow,” she said. “You struck him dumb.”

“Yeah, apparently so. So, then I took his hands and placed them on my tits. He proceeded to squeeze and palpate them in a most unsatisfying manner. I did notice that the interaction was pleasurable to him, as he developed a prominent bulge in his pants. Since that bulge was what I was really after, I reached down and touched it. This struck him even dumber. I unbuttoned his pants and reached inside to see what he had.” She paused, taking another drink of her drink, another puff of her cigar.

“And then what happened?” Suzie asked.

Celia sighed. “As soon as I touched him, he came all over my fingers.”

“He didn’t!”

She nodded. “He did. After that, he became all apologetic, started telling me that nothing like that had ever happened to him before but that I was just so beautiful, and I was Celia Valdez and he just couldn’t help it. He told me to give him a few minutes and he would be ready to go again.”

“Did you give him a few minutes?” she asked.

“I gave him a few minutes to go clean himself up in the bathroom,” she said. “While he was doing that, I washed my hands and then put my shirt back on. When he came out, I showed him the door and told him the limo would take him back to the arena.”

“Wow,” she said again. “And he just went?”

“He seemed rather embarrassed about the whole thing. In truth, I’m kind of glad that nothing beyond that happened.”

“Why is that?”

“Because that’s not me,” she said. “It’s not who I am. I am not the kind of person who has meaningless sex with someone I just met.”

“Why did you put in the request then?” Suzie asked.

Celia sighed. “Because I was horny,” she said. “Why else? I haven’t had sex since the night Greg told me he knocked up Mindy Snow. That was back in February. It’s almost May now. That’s a long time to go without it when you’re used to getting it regularly. Paddling the pink canoe wasn’t doing it for me anymore, so I thought if I got some good-looking guy to dick me it would make everything better. But as soon as I felt him spurting on my fingers, I realized I was traveling down the wrong road.”

“I guess you had a bit of an epiphany,” Suzie suggested, inwardly ecstatic that Celia’s groupie date had fallen through.

“Maybe,” she said. “I just know that grabbing some random guy is not the answer to my problem.”

“What is then?” Suzie asked. “Teach’s solution?”

“Lesbian groupies?” Celia said. “I’ve thought about it.”

“It seems to work for Teach,” Suzie offered, feeling a little thrill at the idea of Celia letting a young female fan go to work on her.

“Her situation is kind of unique,” Celia said. “She has a husband and has found an interesting way to take care of her horniness out on the road—a way that her husband knows about and approves of. I no longer have a husband so I’m looking at a long stretch with no dick because I have the need to have some sort of relationship with a person I’m giving my body to. I think if I did the lesbian groupie thing it would be just as unsatisfying as my friend from last night, though probably not as messy.”

“An interesting point of view,” Suzie said.

“Not the word I would use,” she said. “However ... well ... I would like to make an experiment.”

“What do you mean?” Suzie asked.

“You and I have a meaningful relationship with each other, don’t we?”

Suzie stared at her, feeling that little jolt of excitement going through her again. “Uh ... yes, we do,” she said. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m going to open my sweater,” Celia said softly. “I’m not wearing anything under it, as I’m sure you’ve already picked up on.”

“Uh ... well ... yeah,” she said, licking her lips a little.

“I want you to put your hands on my tits,” she said. “I want you to touch them, caress them, like a lover would.”

“Uh ... okay,” Suzie stammered, feeling wetness starting to surge below. Celia wanted her to touch her tits! Right here and right now!

“The experiment is to see if I feel pleasure and sexual excitement from your touch. I am attracted to you. I think I always have been. More important though, you are meaningful to me. I was attracted to my little boy toy last night, but I felt nothing when he touched me. If I feel something when you touch me, well ... my theory is validated, right?”

“Right!” Suzie agreed. “Totally validated!”

“Empirical evidence is what I’m after here. That’s what Nerdly would say.”

“He sounds like a very wise man,” Suzie said.

Celia giggled a little. “He is,” she said. “Are you ready to try this?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “I’m ready.”

Celia put her cigar in the ashtray on the table. She then took one more large drink of her gin and tonic. She set the glass down and then reached for the top button on her sweater. She unbuttoned it. She then did the button below that one; and then the one below that. She unbuttoned all the way down to the bottom but kept the sweater closed for the moment. “Come over here,” she told Suzie. “Stand in front of me.”