by T. E. Cruise
“So do I.” Petersiel nodded. “I think the chamber of commerce will also endorse it. It’s just the thing to level the playing field with Frisco.”
Gold smiled, relieved. “Secondly, the post office would have to cooperate with me on this…”
“Don’t worry about that,” Petersiel said. “I’ve got some influence over there.”
“As for a loan,” Gold turned to Lane Barker. “I have the personal expertise, and the seasoned pilots, to make the operation a success. I also have the financial capital to commit to prove that I intend to do just that.”
Lane Barker smiled indulgently. “Come see me at the bank tomorrow morning. We’ll talk about it.”
(Six)
Schuler farm
Doreen, Nebraska
28 October 1921
It was after lunch when Erica tiptoed upstairs to her bedroom. She locked her door, pulled down the window shades, and then got undressed.
She stood sideways, scrutinizing her silhouette in the mirror. She ran her palm over her belly. Her skirts had begun to feel a little tight, and her breasts were feeling funny, but she hadn’t yet begun to show. She still had time, and thank God the fall weather had turned brisk. She could buy herself a little more time by wearing bulky sweaters… She needed all the help she could get in keeping her secret, she thought to herself as she got dressed. It was getting harder every day to keep the truth from mama.
All her life she’d been polishing off massive breakfasts, so it was understandable that mama would become alarmed now that even the smell of food in the morning was making Erica ill. She’d panicked when mama had suggested going to see the doctor; wouldn’t that have been just dandy! She’d managed to talk her way out of that, claiming that all she had was some sort of cold in her stomach, but now mama was keeping an eye on her.
Erica was surprised that mama hadn’t yet guessed the truth, but upon thinking it through, she supposed it was because the truth was so disgracefully unimaginable. Erica knew that she would have to go away very soon now. For the sake of her parents and their position in this stuffy little town that they so dearly loved, she would have to go…
The buzzing coming from the window was faint. Erica cocked her head and listened. It sounded like the persistent buzz of a hornet that had survived first frost and was now trapped in the room, perhaps between the window and the shade. She went to the window and pulled up the shade, intending to release the bug. Lately, all life had become very sacred to her.
She found no hornet, but then she realized that what she was hearing was some kind of far-off motor. She opened the window. The noise was louder now. It was coming from the sky.
An airplane? She stuck her head out the window and looked up, but the house blocked her view—
She ran across the bedroom to the door, and unlocked it. Downstairs, the storm door slammed as mama stepped out onto the front porch.
“Erica!” mama called. “Come out and see. I think it’s—”
“I know who it is.” Erica laughed. She realized she was crying, but she didn’t care. She skipped down the stairs, out into the front yard to see the biplane, glinting turquoise and scarlet, looping and soaring like some enormous butterfly against the crisp, clear, blue October sky.
Papa had come out of his office in the main nursery building, followed by some of his employees. The plane was coming down. It landed gracefully in the field fronting the house.
Erica ran to Herman as he hopped out of the cockpit. He saw her coming. She watched him toss aside his helmet and goggles and reach out for her. She was in his arms almost before his airplane’s prop could stop turning.
“I knew you’d come!” She laughed triumphantly, kissing and hugging him.
“Of course I was coming,” he said as he held her tight. “You’re crying?” he asked, looking alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong!” Erica murmured. She pressed against him, closing her eyes, her cheek against the cold leather of his flying coat. He smelled like varnish, and sweat and engine exhaust. He smelled wonderful. “Everything’s perfect…I knew you’d come…”
She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see her parents approaching. She realized that mama would disapprove of her lewd behavior—especially in front of papa’s employees!—and tried to step out of Herman’s embrace, but he wouldn’t let her. He gently kept her at his side by keeping his arm around her waist. She felt weak with love.
“Sir, it’s good to see you and Frau Schuler again,” Herman said. “As you can see, I’m here in my own airplane.”
Erica looked at the airplane. It was a big two-seater. Its fuselage was painted turquoise, with scarlet for the wings, tail, and wheels. On the side of the biplane, just below the front cockpit, was a large yellow oval on which, in black silhouette, a centaur reared. In curving black letters, above and below the oval, read the words GOLD EXPRESS.
“I have two other airplanes like this one. They’re part of my new business, an aviation transport company, back in Los Angeles, California,” Herman proudly announced. “I believe that I’m now in a position to support your daughter, Herr Schuler. I’ve come to marry her.”
(Seven)
That night Gold was the guest of honor at a celebratory supper for the entire Schuler clan. While the grandchildren played, and the women washed the dishes, Carl Schuler poured drinks for his sons, and future son-in-law, from a jug of sour mash. Gold was entranced by the warm embrace of this magnificent family; to be made so welcome in this big farmhouse glowing with love, like a brick and clapboard jewel nestled against the dark velvet of the Nebraskan plain.
Later, Gold and Erica bundled up against the brisk October night and went for a walk. That was when she told him that she was pregnant.
He listened to her confess to him haltingly, almost fearfully, as if she’d expected him to be angry… Gold guessed that he would never truly understand women. He was, of course, ecstatic. A family of his own was what he’d always wanted, and the sooner the better. He only hoped that the child would be a son. The business could always use another pilot.
They walked back to the house arm in arm, hips awkwardly touching, giggling like children and very in love. It was torture for Gold to part from her, to go to bed alone in the guest room. All night he was plagued with tantalizing dreams. He seemed to hear her voice in the wind rattling the rafters.
The next morning, while Erica and her mother fussed with the details of the upcoming wedding, Gold borrowed the roadster and drove into town to see Teddy Quinn.
Thinking about it, Gold realized that Erica’s pregnancy was, in a way, convenient. Now they both had their reasons for wanting to get the marriage ceremony over with quickly as possible, and get on their way to Los Angeles. Gold could almost hear his new business crying out for his presence.
He’d put up $5,000 cash against a $15,000 business loan from Lane Barker’s bank. When the money came through he’d paid a thousand each for the three military surplus, De Havilland D.H. 4 airplanes, along with an inventory of spare parts. He’d put down seven hundred and fifty dollars on a lease for a hangar at Mines Field, and had arranged to pay a monthly fee for the use of a turnaround facility in Frisco. For the past month, Gold, along with his two new employees, Hull and Les Stiles, had worked around the clock to get the airplanes into serviceable condition. It hadn’t been easy. The Stiles brothers were great pilots, but only passable mechanics. Finally, though, the planes were ready.
True to his word, Petersiel had smoothed things for Gold with the post office, and Barker had used his influence in the financial community to get a lot of business thrown Gold’s way. The banks were now using Gold Express instead of trains to transport financial instruments between the two cities. Hull and Les were now making twice-daily hops, carrying full loads of mail back and forth at the rate of two dollars a pound.
Gold drove slowly through Doreen. He’d been away a long time, and it took him a while to find the alley where Quinn’s garage was tucked a
way. He parked around the corner from the garage, and walked the rest of the way, wanting to surprise Teddy. He peeked in through the doorway and saw Teddy lying on his back, working underneath a tractor.
“I hear you’ve got a motorcycle for sale,” Gold said, stepping inside.
“Huh?” Teddy scuttled out from beneath the tractor. “Well, I’ll be goddamned.” He grinned, getting to his feet and extending his hand. “It’s about time. I was going to marry her myself!”
“Speaking of which,” Gold laughed, “I hope you’ve got something nicer to wear than those grimy mechanic’s overalls, because you’re going to be my best man at the wedding.”
“I can handle that.” Teddy grinned. “When?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Really?” Teddy said, sounding startled. “What’s the rush, friend?”
“I’ve got to get back to California. I’ve just begun my own business, and I need to be there to watch over things.”
“Come sit down,” Teddy said, and fetched two bottles of orange pop while Gold filled him in on the details of what he’d been up to in Los Angeles.
“These D.H. 4 airplanes you bought,” Teddy began when Gold was finished. “Are they anything like the machine we worked on?”
“I think the De Havillands are better, but it’s really a matter of personal opinion. They were built as bombers during the war, so they’re sturdy. They’ve got 400-horsepower Liberty engines, and eventually will be able to haul about five hundred pounds of mail…”
“What do you mean by ‘eventually’?” Teddy asked.
“They need some work.” Gold told Teddy about the modified Standard he’d flown while bootlegging. “I think that plane’s plywood skin, and turning the front cockpit area into a cargo bin, were good ideas. I’ve got some others: bigger wheels, engine modifications, and so on.”
Teddy nodded. “Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“I do, and I could use somebody to help me do that work.”
Teddy smiled. “You proposing to me, as well?”
Gold laughed. “I love Erica, but I need you, Teddy. Why don’t you come in with me as chief engineer? That’s a grandiose title for doing exactly what you’re doing now, except with airplanes instead of tractors.”
“Why me?” Teddy asked. “Must be plenty of good grease monkeys out there in California.”
“There are,” Gold agreed. “And as the business expands, you can hire as many as you need to work for you. But you’re not just a grease monkey, Teddy. I know that, because we’ve worked together. We came up with some great gimmicks for that Jenny, and a lot of those modifications were your ideas. I know that you’ve got all kinds of interesting notions in your head. What I want to do is free up those ideas, turn them into reality. The air transport company is just a beginning, Teddy. What I really want to do is build new kinds of airplanes.”
Teddy thought about it. “No offense, but I don’t know if I could work for anyone. Not even you, Herm. I’ve been my own boss all my life.”
“You’d still be your own boss in a lot of ways,” Gold said, but then he shrugged. “Look, you’d be working for me, there’s no getting around that, but the work would be a hell of a lot more exciting than changing spark plugs. We’ll negotiate an arrangement for splitting the profits on any new patents we come up with.”
“Patents!” Teddy chuckled. “Hell, I don’t know… Sure I can tinker around, but inventing things?…” He shook his head. “I don’t think I can do it…”
“Yeah, you can,” Gold said. “I know what you’re capable of. Just wait until you read the books I’ve got back in Los Angeles. Aeronautics, aerodynamics, engineering. You’ll see, Teddy. It’ll be like a light will go on in your head.”
“But what happens if it doesn’t work out?” Teddy asked.
Gold shrugged impatiently. “We can work something out… Like a lump-sum payment for you if you decide you made the wrong choice. Hell, you could always open a garage just like this one in California. There’s just as many cars, and no Nebraska blizzards.”
“Speaking of the garage, it’d take me a while to liquidate this business,” Teddy said.
“You own the property?”
“No, I lease the garage, but I own all the equipment.”
“Then don’t liquidate anything but your lease,” Gold said. “We can use all these tools, and any vehicles you own.” Gold winked at him. “You do still have the Harley?”
“Yep.”
“Bring it!” he said heartily. “Motorcycles were invented for California!”
Teddy’s green eyes got very serious behind his thick spectacles. “You’ve got that much faith in me?” he asked quietly.
“I’ve got that much faith in myself,” Gold said. “I’m brimming over with it. Come with me, Teddy. Catch the overflow.”
“You promise no tractors?”
“Not unless you can figure out a way to build ‘em with wings.”
In consideration of Carl Schuler, who had left the Lutheran faith, the minister conducted the wedding ceremony—attended only by family and a few close friends—at the farmhouse. Gold considered the location to be a lucky break. He felt duplicitous enough toward his bride by masquerading as a lapsed gentile. He didn’t want to further compound the sham by entering a church.
He knew that he should have told Erica about himself right at the beginning of their relationship, but he hadn’t, and as she came to mean more to him, it had gotten harder and harder to take the risk of losing her by confessing the truth. Then they’d made love. To tell her then had seemed impossible. Today they were getting married. Now it was too late; he could never tell her.
He didn’t feel at all guilty toward his own race, or the religion that his people practiced. A man couldn’t forsake what he’d never known.
He paid little attention to the minister’s ceremony; religion in general was unimportant to him. God was another story… If there was a God, Gold couldn’t imagine Him thinking that what Gold was perpetrating was a sin. Gold deeply and truly loved Erica, and she loved him. She was going to have his child. They would be happy together; a family. That was the real truth, not the dimly remembered origins of his birth.
That night, Gold made love to his new wife in her canopied bed. He told her how much he loved her, and that when they got to Los Angeles he would take some of the money he’d borrowed from the bank in order to buy her an engagement diamond.
Erica wouldn’t hear of it. “I already know what I want for a wedding gift. I want you to teach me how to fly.”
BOOK III:
1922–1927
* * *
GUNMEN FELLED IN BOOTLEGGING FRACAS—
Feds Say River of Hooch Flows across U.S. Borders—
Philadelphia Tattler
OUT OF THE ASHES: POSTWAR GERMANY’S
AIRLINES SERVE EUROPE—
Germans at Forefront of Efficient Commercial Aviation—
Fares to Rome, Paris, Moscow,
Cheaper Than French and British Competition—
New York Herald
UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION ACT PASSES—
Congressional Advocates Cite Need for Racial Purity—
Washington Gazette
NATIONALISTS GAIN IN CHINA—
Chiang Kai-shek unifies Kuomintang—
Boston Times
20,000 NATIONAL SOCIALISTS RALLY IN
NUREMBERG—
Vociferous Germans Hail Party Leaders—
Adolph Hitler, Herman Goering, Heiner Froehlig
Speak—
Los Angeles Tribune
LINDY DOES IT!
Charles Lindbergh Spans the Ocean—
The Spirit of St. Louis Completes the First Transatlantic
Solo Flight—
Baltimore Globe
Chapter 9
* * *
(One)
Santa Monica, California
2 August 1925
Gold was in his o
ffice when he heard about the plane crash. The telephone call came from his flight operations supervisor at Mines Field, telling him that his Spatz F-5a passenger transport, incoming from Las Vegas, had turned itself into a fireball while attempting to land in L.A. The plane had been loaded to capacity. All eight passengers and the two-man crew had been killed.
Gold told the panicked supervisor that he was on his way to the airfield, broke the connection, then punched the intercom button to buzz his secretary, a no-nonsense, middle-aged woman who pretty much ran the administrative and bookkeeping sides of Gold’s operations. “Put me through to Teddy.”
“Yes, sir.” A moment later she came back on the line. “I’ve rung his office, and paged the shop, but Mister Quinn isn’t answering.”
Gold thought that his secretary was sounding pretty frazzled. Well, why not? He was feeling pretty goddamned frazzled himself. “Find him,” Gold ordered. “Then tell him to meet me out at the airport. And call my wife. Tell her what’s happened, and not to say anything to the reporters if they should call the house.”
“Yes, sir. And sir? We all feel terrible about what’s happened—”
Gold thanked her, and hung up. He sat in his chair for a moment, letting it sink in. In a way he’d been lucky: he’d not lost an airplane up until now. Ten people dead, and a brand new twenty-thousand-dollar airplane utterly destroyed. His luck had certainly changed with a vengeance.
Gold’s stomach was doing flip-flops; his heartbeat seemed to echo, as if he’d become hollow. He wondered, calmly, if he were suffering from some sort of emotional shock… He guessed that if he were thinking clearly enough to ask himself that, he probably wasn’t.
His office was on the top floor. Skylights let in lots of natural light. The office had white painted walls, a bare wooden floor, and a metal desk. Against one wall was a massive drafting table on which Gold did most of his work. The table was flanked by a pair of glass-fronted bookcases crammed with technical volumes. Above the bookcases was a framed commendation for speedy delivery of the mail from the postal service, newspaper clippings about his air transport business, and photographs of Gold with Adolphe Menjou, Bebe Daniels, Ronald Colman, Will Rogers, and other Hollywood stars, all the photos taken in front of his airplanes, just before the celebrity passengers boarded.
