her mind. The woman was as warm and friendly as homemade bread - and - she believed in her future with her Joe.
What was her Joe like? What crime had he committed? Did she believe in her life with Gil in the same way? More importantly, did he?
She shifted in her seat, opened her eyes, and looked at her watch. Another few hours and she'd be with him.
Gil. She closed her eyes again and drifted into a light sleep all the time laughing with him, enjoying his little-boy enthusiasm, playing endlessly with him in bed. He made life crackle with excitement.
Why did he have to be in the rackets? She'd seen his mind at work. Once the organization asked him to plan an attack on a bill in Congress. A congressman from Illinois had a plan to put the screws to the underground economy.His bill tightened the existing laws about dummy corporations and even arranged a reporting mechanism with the Swiss banks. She'd watched Gil develop a counter strategy that appealed to investors."Congress is attacking your freedom to invest where you want," his flyer said.
The bill was defeated.
A good mind, an eagerness to learn, the ability to get things done - what if he were to do something else? Latisha wondered.
She drifted closer to sleep. Gil.Gil. The man was so creative. She remembered how in bed he teased her by doing simple math problems on her body. He would add up a column of numbers down her front, going back several times to erase the amount on her breasts. On her stomach he would figure out a sub-total, then multiply by two, and put his hand between her legs to come up with a bottom line - and all the time his hand drove her wild.
The pilot's voice woke her. "We're not far now," he said. "The weather ahead's kicking up a storm so keep your seat belts buckled. Oh, and the Feds wanted me to inform you that they're gonna conduct a more thorough search of everyone before y'all get off. They decided the scanners at the airport weren't enough. All carry-on luggage, too. It's for your own protection."
"Shit!" Latisha heard from a few seats back. A woman stepped forward, bent down, and whispered to her that she had orders from Boss Gilmore to smuggle a kilo of coke.
"What should I do with it?" the woman asked.
"That's your problem," Latisha said. This was too much. "No more criminal activities," he'd told her in prison. "When I get to Adak I'm going to open a club. The men need recreation."
She believed him and so far she'd heard about women working for him and drugs being imported.
"Hey, listen," the woman said, "you're the boss's wife. What the hell should I do with this coke?"
Latisha stared straight ahead, saying nothing. The woman stood there. Latisha pulled a piece of paper from the pocket on the seat in front of her. "WARNING," it said, "Dangerous Wind." She pretended to read it. Finally the woman said, "I'm flushing it," and walked away.
Damn him, she thought. But it was partly her own fault. Early in their marriage she asked questions about what he was doing and they fought.Then for the sake of peace they both stopped talking about his activities. It was a lie between them.
She glanced back at the paper. It was a note from Frank Villa warning parents about a dangerous wind on Adak called a williwaw. "Sometimes the wind on Adak can dam itself up on one side of the mountain and then, suddenly flood over to the other side of the mountain and create a dangerous wind. It's like a tidal wave of wind. It can rip the roof off buildings, suck the warmth from a child's body, even blow a small child away. In a storm, protect your children!"
There was that strange, excited tingle in her stomach again. What was happening to her?
Suddenly a foot pushed her seat forward and a child began to cry. She turned to see the four children of the sleeping woman struggling for a battery operated robot, all of them in the seat behind her.