Page 38 of Making His Bones

Gray

I had stepped into my nylon wingsuit, but I refrained from sticking my arms into the wings until Tobiah stopped yammering.

“Don’t forget,” he lectured, “exiting from this cliff is different from exiting an aircraft. Your initial airspeed will be nil.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve exited from both before.”

“He knows,” Knoxie said impatiently.

Tobiah persisted. “How many jumps have you done? Wingsuiting is supposed to be the deadliest sport in the world. One out of twenty jumpers die.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” yelled Knoxie. “He doesn’t need to hear this shit standing on the edge of a mile-high cliff!”

I admitted, “He’s right. About one in twenty has died, most recently in Yosemite where it was illegal to jump in the first place.”

Knoxie grinned. “So I guess you did it there.”

“Aw, shucks,” I said.

Galileo held my helmet. “I’m proud of you. You’re risking your life—“

“He is not!” yelled Knoxie.

“—to investigate some heinous crimes committed by twisted white men against defenseless Mexican boys with no other tools at their command. And your love for the delectable Elektra Spinoza has driven you forward—“

Tobiah groused. “You’re not gonna start reciting that Walt Whitman poem, are you?”

I put my arms into the wings. This was an excellent exit point on this flat cliff. From here, my glide ratio might be 3:1, where one meter of falling might get me three meters ahead. Tobiah had evaluated this using maps and laser rangefinders. We had no previous flight data, obviously, but my eyeballs told me this was entirely possible. I didn’t bother wearing a portable GPS receiver. This was done to calculate fall rate, speed, and glide ratio. I’d never do this flight again. Wingsuits flew much slower than skydivers. My camera and brain could record all the cookers we thought might be out there—in addition to any captive Mexican kids.

I’d broken a wrist before by miscalculating a notch I wanted to fly through in Death Valley. I’d been zooming along, air filling my nylon wings, living thoroughly in the present moment—that was the epitome of a wingsuiting high. A brief puff of wind had knocked me a few inches aside, and that was all I needed to bash my wrist against the edges of the rocky keyhole. I made it through okay, but it was my first and, to date, only injury in out of a hundred jumps. I didn’t tell the guys.

Galileo was crying, “Go and fluff out your plumage, Gray Whaley! Make the beautiful bird Elektra want to share your nest!”

And that’s when it got even weirder.

A tricked-out four-wheel drive came barreling up the butte in a trail of embarrassing dust. Vertical exhaust stacks glinted in the sun, huge push bars were mounted on the front bumper, and the mud flaps with naked women were plated in chrome. When I noticed a set of “truck nuts”—silicon balls hanging from the rear frame—I shared a look of total disbelief with Knoxie.

We’d made sure not to make a giant dust cloud when arriving, so who was this asshole? Were we busted already by Upton Pitchfork? For we suspected Bud’s son of running this moonshine business.

Man, were we shocked when Wolf Glaser himself burst from the driver’s seat waving an envelope.

Tobiah made the biggest lip fart I’d ever heard. “I guess you just wanted to say you have the biggest pair of balls, eh, nerdgasm?”

Jesus, did I feel like entering free fall at that moment. What sort of patch holder would bust into an operation like this waving any sort of paper? Wolf Glaser was a good tech, but we didn’t invite him due to the irritating presence of Tobiah. Those two were mortal enemies having both crushed on the same girl, I guess finally having a threesome that didn’t end well when one or the other blew a hole through her without the other one present. It was just best to keep them at least in separate rooms.

Wolf was really packing the accessories today, too. From a plumber’s sort of belt hung a flashlight, binoculars, a wrench, ammo clip, keychain with fifty keys, a pair of leather handcuffs, and what looked like a rubber duckie. He ran the supply shed at The Citadel, I supposed that was it.

“What the fuck is this, poindexter?” shouted Wolf.

“I don’t know,” said Tobiah suavely. “You tell me.”

“I’ll fucking tell you what it is, before I rip out your piss-tube!”

Wolf slapped the envelope into Tobiah’s hand. While we all gathered around, Knoxie said sternly to Wolf,

“You shouldn’t be invading our territory, Wolf. Butting into our run.”

Wolf huffed as Tobiah unfolded the piece of paper. “I’ll shoulder it.”