Fearless Read Online Free PDF Page B

it drooped in half. In his white short-sleeved oxford shirt he looked older. Lisa seemed young enough to be his daughter.
    Max learned from Mary that the businessman was okay when she joined him in ministering to Stacy. En route she had paused by 33A and Max asked her right away: “Is he having a heart attack?”
    “Are you a doctor?” she asked eagerly.
    “No,” Max said and he felt a profound regret.
    “Oh…I don’t think so. Just scared.” She focused on Stacy. “How you doing, hon?” Mary greeted her colleague with an informality that touched Max; speaking to one of her own she switched off the harsh public-address voice. “Sorry I couldn’t hold on to the cart.” She lifted the bandanna and winced in sympathy: “Ow!”
    “Doesn’t hurt,” Stacy said and moved to rise.
    Mary touched her shoulder. “Don’t be crazy, honey. Everything’s okay. We got it under control.”
    “I can help,” Max said.
    Mary’s virtual crew cut of graying blond hair seemed to harden into a shell as she stared at Max with a lot of suspicion and a little outrage for his making this offer. He had no sexy feelings toward her and this was a relief. “You can help by returning to your seat and buckling up. We’ll be on the ground shortly.”
    Max laughed a little. A sardonic, doomed chuckle.
    “Go back to your seat, sir,” she insisted, turning her public-address microphone back on. She ignored him by calling out to this section of passengers: “Please remove all sharp objects, pens, eyeglasses, and take off any hard-soled shoes. The flight attendants will collect them.”
    Max crossed over to Jeff and his seat. He listened to the plane. Although they were presumably descending there was no whine of back-thrust, no letup in the engines. The machine was fighting just to stay aloft.
    Jeff had the dungarees on. He was stowing a bulky blanket in their overhead compartment. “I put the pants in there,” Jeff explained with a mixture of feverish pride and shame. His partner’s narrow face often resembled a high-strung pedigree, a wary greyhound. The scare Jeff had been through sharpened his angles. His eyes bulged a bit and moved from side to side as if checking for enemies. His mouth hung open, exposing his biggish teeth and their slight overbite; he was almost panting. “What the fuck do they want our shoes for?”
    “So the heels don’t puncture the emergency slide. It’s inflated. They want the pens and other stuff in the seat pocket so we don’t stab ourselves. Move over,” Max said, indicating he wanted Jeff’s seat. He had intended to say something pleasant instead of his gloomy explanation but every time he looked at Jeff he was reminded of their argument at the airport, of Jeff’s contempt for his fear, and that made him want to punish his friend.
    “Why?” Jeff might be scared, but he was still contentious and paranoid. “Is this side safer?”
    “No,” Max said. “But the middle row is. So it doesn’t make any difference. Just move so I can be on this side.” Max wanted this change in order to sneak up to the boy traveling alone and check on him once Mary had finished collecting all the shoes.
    Jeff shifted seats. Max glanced down to see whether the fabric had been soiled by Jeff’s spasm of fear. It was clean. Max settled in and buckled up.
    This is where you’re going to die, Max, he told himself, merely as a matter of fact, satisfying a lifelong curiosity. There was something comforting in this execution of himself: this certain knowledge of when and how.
    Maybe that’s what had me so scared, he thought. Maybe it was the uncertainty of the appointment, not the fact that it had to be kept.
    The captain lost control again. The plane fell. Jeff grabbed his arm. He heard a child’s scream. Was it that boy traveling alone?
    “Get her up,” Max said into the wheezing noise, struggling to live even if he was ready to die. He thought he felt movement under his feet from the mechanisms that should be