Low Pressure

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“Not what I asked.”

“I’m going to call Olivia. Excuse me.” Bellamy went into the hangar and took out her cell phone.

Dent motioned toward the airplane. “Decent of him to make it available to us. Last night and today.”

“I told you, he wants you to get used to it. He called early this morning, wanting to know how you liked her. Says he hopes you’ll become so enamored with flying it you’ll go to work for him.” He clamped down on his cigar. “ ’Course if he could see you now, he might change his mind.”

“Not now, Gall.”

Dent bypassed him as he made his way into the hangar and went over to his own airplane. “How’re the repairs coming?”

“Replacement parts are ordered. Some were promised by the end of the week. Others will take longer to get.”

> Dent gave the wing of his airplane a pat, then went over to the computer table and sat down. “Have you checked out the airport in Marshall?”

“Its got two runways. One’s five thousand feet. Plenty long enough.”

As he and Bellamy left Haymaker’s house, Dent had placed a call to Gall, asking him if the senator’s airplane was still available and, if so, to get it ready for flight. He’d also asked him to look into the county-owned airport in east Texas, three hundred miles from Austin.

While he methodically went through his preflight routine, Bellamy was pacing the concrete floor of the hangar, her cell phone to her ear. He wondered who she was talking to. Her conversations with Olivia never lasted that long.

After filing his flight plan, he signaled to Bellamy that they were good to go. She ended her call and went into the hangar’s restroom, although the head on the two-million-dollar airplane was much nicer. She’d probably be too modest to use it during flight, though.

Dent, hoping to smooth things over with Gall after being so brusque with him earlier, approached the workbench where the older man was tinkering with a piece of machinery. “Thanks for helping out on such short notice.”

Gall just looked at him, waiting for an explanation for the sudden trip, which Dent felt he deserved.

“From Marshall, we’re driving on to Caddo Lake. It’s near—”

“I know where it’s at.” Gall gave his cigar an agitated workout. “Going fishing?”

“In a manner of speaking. Detective Moody, now retired, lives on the lake. He’s agreed to see us. And I don’t want any flack from you about it.”

Gall stopped chomping his cigar, removed it from his mouth, and pitched it toward a trash can, which he missed by a foot. “Flack,” he said with disgust. “How ’bout me giving you some common sense? Something you seem to have a shortage of these days. In fact, you haven’t acted like you have a lick of it since you got attached to that lady, who belongs to a family that damn near ruined your life. You show up this morning looking like Rocky. You’re on your way to see a man who you once vowed to kill. You’re packing. And I’m not supposed to give you flack?”

“How’d you know I was carrying a piece?”

“I didn’t. Till now. Jesus! You’re taking a pistol to a meeting with Moody?”

“Will you calm down? I’m not going to shoot him. We’re just going to talk to the man. He’s no threat to me anymore. He’s old, in bad health, reportedly on his last leg.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I have my sources.”

“He’s got his sources,” he muttered. He hitched his chin toward the wounds on Dent’s face. “Who beat you up?”

“The redneck I warned you about.” He gave Gall an abbreviated account of the attack.

“Did he cut you bad?”

“It’s okay.”

“You see a doctor?”

“Bellamy took care of it.”