by T. E. Cruise
Gold smiled. “You’re all looking too pale, anyhow. That’s the trouble with this organization. We’ve been spending too much time with our noses pressed against our drafting table. When was the last time any of us enjoyed ourselves? Maybe even wasted a little time daydreaming?”
“I didn’t think you were paying us to daydream.” Teddy was grinning.
“I pay you to come up with ideas!” Gold challenged him. “And I don’t mind a little daydreaming. Without it, I couldn’t have gotten this far—”
He stopped short, thinking that maybe this was what Erica had been trying to tell him, in her way. He wondered how he ever could have forgotten it. And when he’d changed from a dreamer into a worrier. Supposedly he was doing what he’d wanted to do. When had it stopped being fun?
“I’ll leave you gentlemen to your work,” Gold said. “Get outside. Feed those gulls. Sketch and photograph them. I expect you all to be sunburned, sonofabitch sea gull experts!”
Grinning, feeling like the world’s weight had dropped from his shoulders, Gold went skipping up the stairs to his office. He wanted to thank Erica for being so clever, to promise her that things were going to be different from now on. Tonight he would leave work early. They would go somewhere nice for dinner and celebrate, maybe at the Coconut Grove, over at the Ambassador Hotel. They would drink champagne, and dance, and get to know each other again.
He wondered what Erica was doing right now. He felt horny as hell.
“Get my wife on the telephone,” he told his secretary.
“I will, but Collins Tisdale called while you were downstairs.”
“Really?…” Gold was startled. The publisher of the Los Angeles Gazette was notorious for avoiding the telephone.
“He said that it was urgent, and asked that you get back to him at the newspaper as soon as possible.”
Gold nodded. “All right, telephone him first.” He went into his office, wondering what this was all about. His secretary signaled that she’d put the call through, and he picked up the telephone. A few seconds later, Tisdale came on the line. “Collins, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Herman,” Tisdale said. “Herman, this is difficult for me, but I felt I should call you personally, before my paper went with the story.”
“What’s going on?”
“Your rivals for your CAM routes have just held a news conference,” Tisdale said. “They’ve announced that they’ve rented a facility at Clover Field and purchased four airplanes.”
“Jumping the gun a bit, aren’t they?” Gold asked sardonically. “If you’re looking for a quote from me, you can say that as far as I’m concerned—”
“SCAT also announced that they’ve made you an offer for your airplanes,” Tisdale cut him off. “An offer that you’re seriously considering…”
“That’s a lie,” Gold said flatly. “I’m going to need my airplanes.”
“SCAT also made some serious personal charges against you.”
“Such as?”
“They brought up your war record,” Tisdale said.
“Well, hell, Collins… Everybody knows that I’m German…”
“You’re not a United States citizen, are you?”
“Well, I guess not… I mean, not technically…”
“They made that point at the press conference,” Tisdale replied. “They asked why a foreigner should be awarded government business while bona fide American citizens go begging. And they said more. That you’re unpatriotic. That you bought German airplanes, risking the public’s safety, because your loyalties still lie with Germany—”
“Now that’s bullshit!” Gold exclaimed in anger. “Those Spatz planes were the best available at the time!”
“It gets worse, Herman.” Tisdale hesitated. “They claimed that your name was Goldstein before you came to this country. That you’re a Jew…”
Erica, Gold thought. He’d never told Erica the truth— “When did this all happen?”
“About an hour ago. It’s already on the radio,” Tisdale replied. “So, what they’ve said is true?… Herman?… Hello?… Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” Gold managed. “I’m here… It’s true.”
“I see,” Tisdale said briskly. “Well, then! I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt before my paper ran the story,” Tisdale said brusquely. “Good-bye, Herman.”
Gold listened to the dial tone’s hum. It figured that Tisdale would cut him dead, Gold thought as he dialed his home. Gold knew all along that he’d been playing a dangerous game concerning his charade. The important Jews in town, like those in the film industry, kept pretty much to themselves. Gold knew a lot of people like Tisdale who would not appreciate the fact that they’d been tricked into unknowingly socializing with a Jew.
But right now he could care less what Tisdale or anybody thought, except for Erica. Gold listened as the ringing went on at the other end of the line. He willed Erica to answer, but nobody picked up, not even the house girl. But that was typical, he thought.
He hung up, deciding that he would go home; that way he would be there to talk to Erica as soon as she got back from wherever she was. He buzzed his secretary. “I’m going home for the rest of the day—”
“But you’re due to see Lane Barker, Mister Gold,” his secretary said.
“Oh, hell, you’re right!” he groaned. “And I’d better not stand him up, not today…”
(Two)
Pacific Coast Bank
Los Angeles
The Pacific Coast Bank was an imposing, red granite building located downtown, on the corner of Broadway and Temple Streets, near the Hall of Justice. Gold entered through the bronzed revolving doors and into the bustling lobby, with its gray and white marble floor, pale green walls, and high, gilded, cathedral ceiling. He walked past the island of public writing desks and the long row of tellers’ cages. Off to one side, separated from the cages and lobby by a wall of potted ferns and palms, were a dozen or so desks. There men in dark suits sat scribbling in ledgers and talking on the telephone, while young women in high-collared dresses sat clacking away at typewriters and adding machines. Beyond the desks, separated from them by a waist-high, varnished wood railing, was a carpeted area with chairs and smoking stands. A matronly-looking receptionist sitting behind a desk guarded a series of doors which led to the private rooms in which the bank officers conducted important business.
He approached the receptionist and told the woman who he was, and that he had an appointment to see Mister Barker. The receptionist looked uneasy.
“Excuse me—”
Gold turned. A short, stocky guy in his twenties, in a cheaply tailored, blue gabardine, double-breasted suit, was offering him a winning smile. The guy had a round face, with wide-set, dark eyes. His auburn hair was parted in the middle and slicked down.
“My name’s Tim Campbell. I’m a junior loan officer. Mister Barker regrets that something has come up which will keep him from seeing you today.”
“All of a sudden, huh?” Gold asked suspiciously. “When can he see me?”
“I’m afraid his appointment calendar is full for the time being,” Campbell said. “He’s very busy, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Gold’s face began to burn. He felt the receptionist’s eyes upon him. “So what’s next, Campbell?”
“Mister Barker has authorized me to discuss your application. I’ve been looking over your financial statement…” He pursed his lips. “If you’d care to follow me to my desk?—”
Desk? Gold thought. This guy doesn’t even rate an office? As Campbell turned, Gold noticed that the seat of the guy’s pants was shiny, and that the heels of his shoes were worn down. He guessed that Campbell didn’t have the authority to approve the cashing of an out-of-state check, let alone what Gold needed. Lane Barker was clearly giving him the brush-off. Gold knew that he had to take it, but he didn’t need to be a masochist about it.
“Nothing personal,” Gold said, stopping Campbell. “But I don’t
see any point in wasting each other’s time.” He turned to go.
“Wait, Mister Gold!” Campbell called out. “I have some things to discuss with you—”
“Look,” Gold interrupted. “I have only one question to ask you. Is the bank going to give me what I want?”
Campbell hesitated.
“That’s what I thought. You don’t need to cushion the rejection with an explanation, Mister Campbell.” Gold smiled. “But I do appreciate your trying to be tactful. This is an awful job that Barker’s given you; you’ve handled yourself well. I hope that the bank will reward you some day. Maybe even give you a set of walls and a door to go with your desk. Good-bye and good luck. Mister Campbell.”
Good luck to both of us, Gold thought as he left the bank and walked to his car. He was in a daze as he drove home to Pasadena; consumed with money worries, and worries about how he was going to face Erica. She had to have heard the truth about him by now…
As he turned into his driveway he was relieved to see Erica’s green Packard Runabout. Thank God, she was home! He was sure that she would understand why he’d kept the truth about himself from her, and how much he loved her… He would make her understand.
“Erica!” he called out as he entered the house. “Where are you? We’ve got to talk!” It seemed strangely quiet to him as he stood in the front hallway. Where were the children? He wondered. Where was Erica if her car was parked outside?
The house girl came into the hallway from the living room. She looked anxious.
“Ramona, where is everyone?” Gold asked.
“Señor, the Señora, she has gone away with the children. She ask me to give you this…”
Gold took the sheet of paper folded in half and opened it. It was a sheet of their personal stationery. HERMAN AND ERICA was engraved across the top in script.
“We’ve gone east, to visit my parents,” Erica had written. “Please don’t try to follow or contact.”
That was all, except for seven words slashed across the bottom of the sheet, written so forcibly that the pen point had made dagger marks in the paper: “HOW COULD YOU HAVE LIED TO ME???”
“The Señora had me help her pack,” Ramona was fretting. “Then she called the taxi cab to come take her and the children to the train station. Please believe me, Señor, she told me not to call you, not to even answer the telephone. Please don’t be angry with me…”
“I’m not,” Gold murmured, staring at the note as if he expected something more to appear on the paper. “You did as you were told. I understand that.”
“Señor, the Señora and the little ones, they will be gone a long time?”
“I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “I hope not…”
“Señor, please! I am a good Catholic girl,” Ramona shyly insisted. “My parents, they do not wish me to remain alone in a house with a man. Until the Señora returns, my parents wish me to sleep at their home. My father will come to pick me up each afternoon,” she added quickly. “He will bring me back first thing in the morning. Each day before I go I will leave you your dinner in the oven—”
Gold was hardly listening. “I’ll give you a key so that you can come and go as you wish.”
“Gracias, Señor,” Ramona said, hurrying away into the kitchen.
Around six, a rumpled, dusty pickup truck rattled its way up the driveway. Ramona left for the evening, promising to be back by six-thirty in the morning. Gold watched the truck drive away. He felt like crying, seeing her go; now he was all alone in the big house.
God, he was in bad shape if he was missing the maid…
A few minutes later the telephone rang. Gold answered it and was subjected to a vicious, anti-Semitic crank call. He hung up. It rang again. He listened to the beginning of another hissed stream of bigoted invective, and then cut the connection.
What did he expect, calls from well-wishers? He’d been denying his origins for so long that he himself had begun to believe his own fabrications. It had been easy to forget that America was a closed society, where Jews and communists were synonymous, just as they’d been in Germany. Henry Ford’s newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, had for years been publishing anti-Semitic garbage about the supposed international Jewish conspiracy. Meanwhile, respected college professors and government scientists were issuing well-received warnings that American I.Q. scores were declining due to the influx of immigrants diluting the Anglo-Saxon stock. Politicians were winning campaigns based on calls for racial purity. Just last year Congress had passed an immigration bill that placed restrictive quotas on Eastern Europeans coming to America…
The telephone began ringing again. This time Gold let it, until it stopped. Then he decided to take the phone off its hook for a while.
He wasn’t hungry, but he ate the casserole that Ramona had prepared for him anyway, just to give himself something to do. He ate in the green and white tiled kitchen, listening to the rumbling of the electric icebox, reading the newspaper—Collins Tisdale’s Los Angeles Gazette—propped up on the kitchen table. The metropolitan section of the paper was full of stories about him, and SCAT’s accusations that he had intentionally bought unsafe German airplanes because of some German/Jewish international conspiracy. How absurd, Gold thought. A boxed editorial carrying Collins Tisdale’s byline was in the center of one page. The headline read, “WHAT ELSE HAS GOLD(Stein) LIED ABOUT?”
That killed his appetite once and for all. So both Collins Tisdale and Lane Barker had turned against him. So much for friends in high places, he decided as he put the newspaper and his half-eaten meal into the garbage.
It was now around eight, and beginning to get dark. He wandered around the big, still house, clicking on lamps, listening to the floorboards settle and the ticking of clocks. He stayed out of the children’s rooms, and the bedroom he shared with Erica. He thought about Erica and the kids on the train, wondering how far they’d gotten, feeling like he was all alone in the world. Erica had warned him that this would happen, but he’d refused to listen. He wondered if there was any way he might be lucky enough to get a second chance…
The house was so fucking quiet! The silence was making him nervous, but he wasn’t in the mood to listen to the phonograph, or the radio.
He thought about calling Teddy Quinn, or Hull Stiles, to see what they were up to, but he decided against it. Teddy was likely with his fiancée, and Hull, who’d gotten married a couple of years ago, had a fine set of twin boys, toddlers now, who deserved some time with their father.
He tried to crack that new book Erica had brought home and had been after him to read, The Great Gatsby. As he settled down in the living room with the novel he realized that it had been a long time since he’d read anything that didn’t have to do with aeronautics. It was funny, he used to read a lot.
He had a hard time concentrating and found himself reading the first few pages several times. Around nine-thirty he was ready to give up, and maybe try to go to bed, when the telephone in his study began to ring. He’d had the separate, unlisted extension installed a few weeks ago, after the plane crash, when his home’s existing telephone line was being tied up with calls from reporters.
Gold happily tossed the book aside. Only a few close friends had the unlisted number; he was more than eager to talk with any of them. He hurried from the living room into the adjoining study. It had yellow walls above dark, chest-high wainscoting, and colorful Navajo rugs on the polished wood floor. Four brightly polished brass lamps with green glass shades hung suspended from the ceiling by lengths of chain. They cast golden pools of light on the rectangular dining table of red oak that Gold used as his desk.
Gold shoved aside the piles of technical journals and grabbed the candlestick telephone off the table. “Hello?”
“Mister Gold, this is Tim Campbell. From the bank?”
“Campbell? How’d you get this number?” Gold demanded.
“Sir, your personal file was supplied to me by Mister Barker…”
“Oh, yeah, right…�
� Gold came around the side of the desk and pulled out his beechwood armchair. The chair creaked comfortingly as he settled into the woven leather.
“I tried to get you at your other number,” Campbell offered. “But it’s been busy for the last hour or so. I guess your wife’s on it?”
“What’s this about, Campbell?” Gold asked gruffly. He was in no mood to chat with this guy.
“It’s about your financial situation, Mister Gold. For the past few hours I’ve been going over your statements. If you’ll pardon me for saying so, your business is in big trouble.”
“I didn’t need you to tell me that, pal…” Gold replied. “But since you called, I will tell you that I was surprised and disappointed by the bank’s refusing my loan request after all the business we’ve done together—”
“What did you expect, Mister Gold?” Campbell asked. “Think about it. Today’s embarrassing revelations about you aside, if you could be objective, would you consider yourself to be a good credit risk? Like I said, I’ve got all your numbers spread out on my desk. I have no idea what amateur has been keeping your books, but believe me, they are a mess. I mean total chaos! Anyway, as far as I can tell, you’ve left yourself absolutely no cash reserves. Nothing at all. The money’s been flowing through your fingers like water.”
“Tomorrow I’m going to apply for the loan at another bank—” Gold began.
“I respectfully suggest that you’re going to receive the same treatment no matter what bank you go to,” Campbell said. “Again, try to see the situation objectively. You’re in a neck-and-neck horse race against South California Air Transport for those CAM routes, the heart and soul of your business. Actually, I’d say that right now, SCAT is out in front, due to that airplane crash, and today’s revelations about your past.”
“That’s just a smear campaign against me,” Gold angrily protested.
“Of course it is,” Campbell agreed. “But it’s turning out to be a very effective one. Let me be totally blunt: you’re a foreigner, a Jew. You’re the very sort of person the United States Congress was targeting when it passed last year’s Immigration Act—”
