Night Over Water - Ken Follett [147]
Eddie tried to foster doubt. “Are you sure, Luther?”
It was not enough. Luther shook his head decisively. “You ain’t that crazy.”
Eddie knew he had to convince Luther right now. This was the moment of crisis. The word crazy gave him the inspiration he needed. “I’ll show you how crazy I am,” he said. He pushed Luther up against the wall next to the big square window. For a moment the man was too surprised to resist. “I’ll show you just how goddamn crazy I am.” He kicked Luther’s legs away with a sudden movement, and the man fell heavily to the floor. At that moment Eddie felt crazy. “You see this window, shitheel?” Eddie took hold of the venetian blind and ripped it from its fastenings. “I’m crazy enough to throw you out this fucking window—that’s how crazy I am.” He jumped up onto the washstand and kicked at the windowpane. He was wearing stout boots, but the window was made of strong Plexiglas, three-sixteenths of an inch thick. He kicked again, harder, and this time it cracked. One more kick broke it. Shattered glass flew into the room. The plane was traveling at 125 miles per hour, and the icy wind and freezing rain blew in like a hurricane.
Luther was scrambling to his feet, terrified. Eddie jumped back onto the floor and stopped him getting away. Catching the man off balance, he pushed him up against the wall. Rage gave him the strength to overpower Luther, although they were much the same weight. He took Luther by the lapels and shoved the man’s head out the window.
Luther screamed.
The noise of the wind was so loud that the scream was almost inaudible.
Eddie pulled him back in and shouted in his ear: “I’ll throw you out, I swear to God!” He pushed Luther’s head out again and lifted him off the floor.
If Luther had not panicked, he might have broken free, but he had lost control and was helpless. He screamed again, and Eddie could just make out the words: “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, let me go, let me go!”
Eddie felt a powerful urge to push him all the way out; then he realized he was in danger of losing control too. He did not want to kill Luther, he reminded himself, just scare him half to death. He had achieved that already. It was enough.
He lowered Luther to the floor and relaxed his grip.
Luther ran for the door.
Eddie let him go.
I do a pretty good crazy act, Eddie thought; but he knew he had not really been acting.
He leaned against the washstand, catching his breath. The mad rage left him as quickly as it had come. He felt calm, but shocked by his own violence, almost as if someone else had done it.
A moment later a passenger came in.
It was the man who had joined the flight at Foynes, Mervyn Lovesey, a tall guy in a striped nightshirt that looked pretty funny. He was a down-to-earth Englishman of about forty. He looked at the damage and said: “By heck, what happened here?”
Eddie swallowed. “A broken window,” he said.
Lovesey gave him a satiric look. “That much I worked out for myself.”
“It sometimes happens in a storm,” Eddie said. “These violent winds carry lumps of ice or even stones.”
Lovesey was skeptical. “Well! I’ve been flying my own plane for ten years and I never heard that.”
Eddie was right, of course. Windows did sometimes break on trips, but it usually happened when the plane was in harbor, not in mid-Atlantic. For such eventualities they carried aluminum window covers called deadlights, which happened to be stowed right here in the men’s room. Eddie opened the locker and pulled one out. “That’s why we carry these,” he said.
Lovesey was convinced at last. “Fancy that,” he said. He went into the cubicle.
Stowed with the deadlights was the screwdriver that was the only tool required to install them. Eddie decided that it would minimize the fuss if he did the job himself. In a few seconds he took off the windowframe, unscrewed the remainder of the broken pane, screwed the deadlight in its place, and replaced the frame.
“Very impressive,” said Mervyn Lovesey, coming out of the toilet. Eddie had a feeling