Judith Krantz by Till We Meet Again

Author:Till We Meet Again
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307803511
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-31T05:00:00+00:00

14

FREDDY checked to make sure that her helmet was firmly fastened. The dark curls of the Brenda Marshall wig blew about her face, tickled her nose and got into her eyes, as she sat at the controls in the modified open cockpit of the little old Gee Bee. She knew better, after almost two years as a stunt pilot, than to try to convince the wardrobe department that no woman pilot would fly with her hair spilling fetchingly out of her helmet onto her shoulders. Anyway, in Freddy’s opinion, the female jewel thief with a heart of gold and nerves of steel, who always escaped the scene of the crime by air, that she was supposed to be in Lady in Jeopardy, was capable of almost anything, including flying a plane in an evening gown, as she had done only last week.

She checked her altitude. She was exactly at four thousand feet, as she had planned. Freddy took her hands off the controls. She had trimmed the plane carefully; there was no turbulence aloft on this early August day of 1938, and the ship flew straight and level by itself, and could continue on in this way for a long time. There was a mirror sewn into the inside flap on the sleeve of her jacket, which Freddy now used to inspect her lipstick. It was as bright as when makeup had finished with her, an hour ago. Ready to start, she looked around for the four camera ships, one close to her left, and three below, each at a different altitude, flying in a tight formation that would guarantee complete coverage of her bail-out. She waggled her wings, in her signal that she was ready to start, and watched each of the four planes. This was not the sort of stunt for which you could afford a retake.

The big, sturdy camera ships all responded with the signal that meant the cameras were turning. O.K., Brenda, time to get a move on, Freddy told herself, and assumed an expression of alarm that changed quickly into one of decision. She grabbed the velvet prop bag full of jewels, jammed it into her jacket, quickly pulled up the zipper and hauled herself, parachute and all, to the side of the plane.

“So long, boys and girls, here goes nothing,” Freddy shouted, dialogue she thought was as implausible as the plot. She could see the camera in the plane directly alongside, catching her mouth shaping the words that would later be revoiced by Brenda Marshall. She pressed a bright red button positioned on the side of the cockpit that would activate the dynamite in fifteen seconds, after she was well past it, so far away that none of the debris of the explosion could stray in her direction. The instant she pressed the button, she dove out of the plane, expertly clearing the side of the ship, careful not to let the wind catch her, and fell free. At the count of ten she would open her chute.

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