Aces

by T. E. Cruise

  “Not then…” Gold said faintly.

  “That’s right, not then,” Teddy sourly declared. “And not the next day, or the day after that, but it did, today. Or maybe a chance spark set off some stray gas fumes, in some sort of one-out-of-a-million freak accident.” He glanced at his cigarette, and sighed. “Or maybe some asshole passenger set the cabin upholstery on fire while lighting a smoke…”

  “Maybe this and maybe that,” Gold said contemptuously.

  “Maybes are all we’ve got,” Teddy replied. “And probably all we’ll ever have, Herm.” He flicked away his cigarette. “There have been airplane crashes before, and there’ll be crashes again. That’s a big, mean sky up there, pal. It’s just thrilled when it can dump one of our pretty birds right back into our cocky faces!”

  Gold barely heard Teddy. He couldn’t stop obsessing, worrying about the effect the accident would have on his chances of holding on to his CAM routes. He told himself that it was wrong to be so selfish at a time like this, when ten people had perished in one of his airplanes, but he couldn’t help it, and was ashamed of himself. What if Teddy were wrong, and he really was to blame for pushing to get the modified F-5 as into service?

  The horrid, unanswerable questions whirled in his brain. He wondered if there might ever be a time when the questions would not haunt him…

  “It was an act of God,” Teddy was insisting. “I was here. I saw it. One second she was in the air, and the next she was a fireball. The passengers and crew couldn’t have known what hit them. It had to have been instant, painless…”

  M“For them maybe, but not for me,” Gold said.

  (Two)

  Gold Household

  Pasadena

  Erica was in the living room, listening to the telephone ring. It had been ringing off the hook all afternoon, right into the evening. She’d heard nothing from Herman all day, beyond the call from his secretary informing her of the accident. Very soon after that the deluge of telephone calls from the print reporters and radio newsmen had begun.

  The living room’s walls were white stucco, the high ceiling was latticed with mahogany strips. There were tall, narrow, casement windows; a set of French doors opening onto the garden; and a large, gray slate fireplace which was never used, to spare the white wall-to-wall carpeting. Erica was wearing lounging pajamas of mauve crepe de chine. She was sitting on the fawn-colored, suede upholstered couch, idly flipping through magazines—Time, American Mercury, and that grand, swanky one they’d begun putting out in February, The New Yorker, without really seeing them. She listened as the live-in house girl picked up the telephone extension in the front hall to say that neither Señor nor Señora Gold was available. Then she heard Herman’s car pull into the driveway.

  She waited for her husband to put his car away in the garage and come into the house. She was worried about Herman. She’d been worried about him, and their marriage, for the longest while. Herman’s desire for her seemed to have vanished. They’d been making love less and less frequently; the last time had been weeks ago. It seemed to her that the more successful Herman became, the more their relationship had suffered. He seemed to have neither time nor energy for herself or the children. Lately, she’d begun thinking about taking the kids and going back to Nebraska for a while, to think things through. She’d even begun to contemplate divorce. She was ready to face any obstacle with Herman, but somehow, she’d lost him. She’d taken her marriage vows very seriously; she would not allow them to exist as sham.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried,” Erica asked as Herman came into the room.

  “At the hospital.”

  “But I’d heard on the radio that there were no survivors?—”

  “There weren’t,” Herman said. He loosened his tie and flopped down beside her on the couch. “Les’s wife had sort of a breakdown upon hearing the news, so Hull took her to the hospital.”

  “Wait! Start from the beginning. What’s Les’s wife got to do with anything?”

  She listened, shocked, as Herman explained it to her. “How terrible…” She pressed close against him and stroked his hair. “Why don’t you go upstairs and have a long, hot soak in the bath? I’ll wash your back for you. You’ll feel better.”

  He nodded vaguely. She could tell that he hadn’t really heard her. He did that a lot, and she was finding it increasingly annoying.

  “Anyway, I was late because I sat with Les’s wife for a while at the hospital,” Herman said. “It turns out she’s pregnant…”

  “Oh, God…” Erica was appalled. “Did Les have insurance?”

  “I’m his insurance,” Herman said firmly.

  “How is Hull taking it?”

  “Like a guy who just lost his brother,” Herman said sharply, pulling away from her.

  Erica flinched. “You needn’t take that tone with me,” she began. The telephone began to ring. “There! You hear that? It’s been going on all day!”

  The house girl poked her head into the living room. “It is someone from the radio station, Señor,” she said.

  “Tell them I’m not home,” Herman said.

  “Herman, you can’t hide forever…” Erica said.

  “I can hide for tonight.”

  She nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?” When he shook his head again, she felt exasperated. “Don’t shut me out! I’m your wife. Me! You married me, not Teddy Quinn, or Hull, or Les, or any of the others you prefer to share everything with!”

  Herman glared at her. “Well, you sure as hell don’t have to be jealous of Les, anymore.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say!”

  “What do you expect?” he demanded.

  “I expect us not to be strangers, at each other’s throats—”

  “I don’t need you yelling at me, right now, Erica. Please! Keep your voice down! You’ll disturb the children.”

  “What disturbs the children is that they miss their father!”

  “I really doubt that!” Herman replied. “You’re the one who’s been away at your races and air exhibitions.”

  “How would you know where I’ve been? You’re never here!” she shot back. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so jealous of me if you were still flying an airplane, instead of a desk!”

  Herman was scowling at her. She paused, thinking about what she wanted to say, wanting to get it right so that he might understand. “Competition, and winning, and women’s place in aviation, in general, are all important to me. Aviation is a masculine world, Herman. Women pilots face an uphill battle for acceptance. It seems that women have to do everything twice as well as their male counterparts in order to be considered equal. You know how the business demands most of your time? Well, racing makes demands on me.”

  “But you have other responsibilities,” Herman interrupted.

  “And I meet them, or at least, I’m ready to meet them, given half a chance. But Herman, we both have responsibilities and priorities.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Herman demanded.

  “That you’re putting so much time and energy into your business that there’s nothing left for the children.” She paused, feeling herself blushing. “Or for me,” she added, her voice thick.

  “I’m working so hard for you and the kids—” he argued.

  “No, you’re not!” she said in frustration. “You’re doing it to prove something to yourself! Meanwhile, you don’t want a wife, you want some sort of wife/mother to be there to pat you on the head and tell you what a good, hardworking son you are. Maybe to replace the mother you never had!”

  Herman angrily pushed the magazines she’d been reading off the coffee table to the carpet. “You get that brilliant insight from those?” he asked sarcastically.

  “I don’t need magazines or books to be able to read you.”

  “If you can read me so well, why don’t you read that maybe things between us would be better if you had a little compassion for how hard I’m working,” Herman accused.

/>   “Maybe I would, if you came home early enough to be with me once in a while, instead of working yourself into exhaustion with Teddy Quinn and those others!” Erica said, and then wearily laughed. “I hired a private detective to find out about you, you know.”

  He stared at her, looking shocked. “Why?” he finally managed to sputter in anger.

  “I was worried that you were seeing some other woman,” Erica explained. “But the detective said that when you weren’t home you really were working, either in Santa Monica or at Mines Field. The detective thought I’d be pleased, but I wasn’t.” She smiled thinly. “You see, Herman, I’d have a chance competing for you against some other woman, but not against the business…”

  “Erica, this is foolish. I love you,” Herman pleaded.

  “No,” she said sadly. “I love you, and maybe you used to love me, but I don’t believe you do now, regardless of how you think you feel.”

  “I don’t understand. What you mean?—”

  “Herman, you only know how to love one thing at a time.”

  He was staring at her. He looked stricken. Maybe now, Erica thought.

  “I’m going upstairs to bed,” she said softly. Maybe now he’ll stop me. Take me in his arms and prove to me that I’m wrong, and it’ll be like it used to be.

  He didn’t stop her.

  She really had lost him, she guessed. As she left the room she was grateful that her back was turned and that he could not see her face, see the hurt she was feeling.

  The telephone began to ring.

  The telephone rang as Gold watched his wife walk out of the room, her lithe body fluid beneath the silky pajamas. The two pregnancies had not altered her figure a bit, he thought. She looked exactly as she had on the day they’d met, except for her hair. She’d bobbed her hair some time ago; something about how short hair was a lot more comfortable beneath a flying helmet, she’d explained…

  He thought about going upstairs and making love to her. In a way he wanted to, and in a way it seemed like yet one more chore in an infinite series of arduous, endless days. She’d thought he had a lover; it was almost funny in its irony. If anything could seem funny to him today.

  He wondered what he would feel if she took a lover. Anger? Jealousy? Despair? Relief? Nothing?

  The telephone was still ringing. Where the fuck was the damned house girl?

  He went to the windows to look out at the flood-lit garden. The palms were gently swaying, the fronds rustling in the breeze. He inhaled the fragrant scents of bougainvillea, and roses, and freshly mowed grass. A gardener came twice a week to care for the grounds. Gold had imagined that he would do it when he bought the house, but it had turned out that he didn’t have the time.

  The house was L-shaped, wrapped around the garden. As Gold stood at the downstairs living room window, he could see a light go on in the upstairs, bedroom wing of the house. He stood and watched, his hand pressed against the glass, until the light went out.

  The telephone rang and rang. In the front foyer Gold paused to lift the earpiece off the ringing telephone’s hook, silencing it, and then letting the earpiece dangle. He continued on his way out to the garage. Working on the Stutz helped him to unwind.

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  (One)

  Gold Aviation

  Santa Monica

  25 August 1925

  Gold was chairing a meeting of his design engineers in the second-floor conference room. For the past hour he’d been listening to reports on the possible causes of the Spatz F-5a crash, and what could be done to ensure it didn’t happen again. The bottom line was the same as it had been almost three weeks ago, on the day of the accident. Nobody knew why it had happened, and nobody could say with any certainty that it could be prevented in the future.

  Immediately after the accident Gold had pulled the remaining two Spatz F-5as out of service. The loss of three planes, one third of his fleet, was causing havoc to his financial situation. His passenger revenues had already disappeared, thanks to the crash. His reduced fleet capacity was forcing him to turn away private freight business. Federal mail deliveries had priority, but even they were being delayed due to his lack of airplanes. The post office was complaining, and levying hefty penalties. His bank accounts were shrinking, and he had fuel and spare parts to buy and a payroll to meet. He was afraid to lay off any people. The last thing he needed was a disgruntled ex-employee spilling his guts to the newspapers about the dismal state of affairs at Gold Aviation.

  As worried as Gold was about his cash flow, he was determined to keep the F-5as grounded until he could be as certain as possible that the modified airplanes were safe. He would not risk more lives, no matter what the consequences to his business. Meanwhile, he had an appointment later this afternoon to see Lane Barker at Pacific Coast Bank. Gold wanted to suspend the interest payments on his present loans and borrow another twenty-five thousand to cover his fuel bills and operating costs until he could get back on his feet.

  South California Air Transport, the outfit bidding against him for his CAM routes, was not hesitating to kick him heartily while he was down. Their attorney had been pestering him with telephone calls for the past week, trying to get him to sell SCAT what remained of Gold Aviation’s fleet—at a rock bottom price, of course. They’d also hired themselves a press agent, a real Hollywood flack with years of experience at playing dirty. The press agent had already orchestrated a news conference during which the clean-cut, All-American ex–postal service fliers who were fronting for SCAT had called for Gold Aviation to do “the decent thing” and withdraw from the competition, “to honor the memory of the ten who had died.”

  The meeting Gold was chairing was stalled on an argument concerning the F-5as’ electrical systems. “Let’s move on,” Gold interrupted. “But remember that it’s imperative that we get those airplanes back into service as soon as possible. We need the revenues.” He looked around the table. “Now, then, tell me about progress to date on the G-1.”

  “We’re ready to build a prototype,” Teddy said. “Rogers and Simpson is ready to build us an engine. I’ve got cost estimates, right here.” He pulled some sheets out of a manila folder on the table.

  “What about the performance specs?” Gold asked. “I’d wanted some improvements in the G-1’s projected capability to make short landings.”

  “We’ve still got a ways to go on that,” Teddy admitted.

  “That won’t do!” Gold pounded the table. “Listen to me, all of you. I know the way things are usually done in this business: you build a prototype, find out what’s wrong with it, then build another, and so on. We can’t do that. The G-1’s got to be right the first time, because we don’t have the financial resources for a second chance.”

  He paused, thinking to himself that right now he didn’t know where the resources were going to come from for a first chance. He’d have to talk to Lane Barker about that.

  “The G-1 had got to be fast, able to haul a heavy load, and land on a dime if we’re going to sell them to the post office,” Gold continued. “And we’ve got competition. There’s Douglas Aircraft, right here in Santa Monica. And Curtiss, and I hear Ford is getting into it, and there’s plenty of others, all after the same plum. What the post office buys, every outfit flying feeder routes will want to buy. And maybe even the military. This is it, gentlemen,” Gold warned. “We either grab the brass ring this time around, or the merry-go-round ride will be over.”

  Back in his office, Gold settled down behind his desk and began to scan the supply purchase orders from the Mines Field facility. Normally he let his secretary handle this sort of thing, but with money so tight, he’d decided to personally approve all expenditures for the time being.

  He was at it only a few minutes when he gave up. He couldn’t concentrate. He found himself brooding about his marital problems.

  He leaned back in his chair and stared out at the bay. Since their argument on the night of the plane crash he and Erica had
become even more like strangers to each other, if such a thing were possible. She’d begun talking about taking the children on a trip to see their grandparents for a while; a long while… Gold could read between the lines; he knew what she was hinting at. The thought of losing his family—of being alone, again—horrified him. But in reality, wasn’t he alone now?

  His attention was distracted by a squawking flurry of sea gulls, hovering and darting above the fishing boats that were coming into port. The fishermen were tossing overboard the trash fish. The gulls were conducting aerial combat over the free lunch…

  Gold’s thoughts lingered on the gulls. He stood and went to the window, leaning out to get a better look at the birds as they wheeled and dived.

  He kept a pair of binoculars in his desk drawer for airplane watching. He went to get them and then returned to the window to focus in on the gulls, watching as they pivoted in the air, swooping down in abrupt, accurate dives, often to pluck the trash fish right out of the fishermen’s hands. He noticed that the gulls’ trailing wing feathers curved down when the birds came in for a landing on the scow’s rolling deck…

  Smiling to himself, Gold hurried to his drafting table. He made several rough sketches of an oversized wing flap that could be lowered into the airflow to act as an aerodynamic brake for short landings. When he was done drawing, he pulled the paper off the table and ran downstairs with it to the design lab Teddy shared with his staff.

  Teddy, seated behind his desk, looked up in surprise as Gold dashed in.

  “Everybody gather around,” Gold called out as he slammed the drawing on Teddy’s desk. As the designers formed a huddle Gold explained his concept. When he was finished, he said, “I want you to get outside and start feeding those damned gulls. While you’re doing that, watch those trailing wing feathers in operation.”

  One of the engineers was looking at Gold like he’d gone crazy. “Let me get this straight. You want us to feed birds?…”