Point of Entry - a Catalina Island Serial by Deb Jensen (1)

 

“Man, I don’t know why you bother to wash that van. Them people smell like shit,” said Chava. He leaned against the hangar tending his teeth with his trademark silver toothpick. Tonight’s cargo transfer job would be his second and he enjoyed giving Robert details about what to expect. Robert scrubbed red Island mud off a borrowed van, the circular rhythm calmed his clanging nerves, helped put him in a groove. He would need every fiber of focus he could muster for the task ahead.

A distant DC3 rumbled toward the island. If anyone noticed the plane, he might have thought it conveyed a late mail delivery. By day Catalina’s busy Airport-in-the-Sky receives freight planes and private jets, weather permitting, but it closes at dusk and ten minutes later it is deserted, lax security its hallmark. Situated due East-West and 1608’ above the surrounding sea, the breathtaking approach belies a treacherously short runway; there’s no time to marvel at the view. Gruesome accidents have pocked the steep surrounding slopes despite radio communication from the cigarette smoke filled tower. Night landings are prohibited.

The big plane touched down lightly as a dragonfly. Chava trotted over to help lower the cargo ramp. The engines rumbled in idle and created an unnatural ground-level wind current that threw the grime and pebbles of the deteriorating airstrip into a blinding dust devil. Fuel exhaust fouled the air.  Robert rolled the gleaming van toward the plane. He counted twenty-six people stumbling out. The men carried bulging paper sacks wrapped with leather belts, and three women, each clutching two children and one with a tiny bundled baby, tried vainly to manage skirts and wraps whipping in the wind current. Chava shoved them in the direction of the van.

These folks don’t carry luggage and they don’t tip but they are pure gold, Robert thought to himself. He placed his hand over the envelope in his breast pocket, it held a down payment for the work he had promised the Congressman. With any luck, he’d soon cash in. He’d paid his dues on Catalina, the Island of Romance.