“Jesus. What if it kills you?”
“I think G. P. would grieve—after he got a ghostwritten book out of it.” She tossed a wry little smirk my way. “Then he’d find himself a new young wife and get on with his life.”
“What about you? So, do you want to die, Amy? Does dying in the drink sound like a fun adventure?”
“If I should pop off, it’d be doing the thing I always most wanted to do. Don’t you think the Man with the Little Black Book has a date marked down for all of us? And when our work here is finished, we move on?”
“No,” I said, angry to hear such romantic horseshit coming from an intelligent woman. “I don’t believe that at all. If a guy with a scythe comes around to collect me, I’ll grab it from him and slice his damn head off.”
“Nothing wrong with that. I never said I was in favor of going down without a fight.”
“Amy, tell me, please, I’m just an ignorant workaday rube—what exactly would a flight like that do for the cause of aviation?”
Her full lips pursed into a kiss of a smile, which unfolded as she admitted, “Not a darn thing…but for the cause of women, everything…not to mention set me up with a reputation bigger than Slim Lindbergh’s, allow me to retire to a life of respect, an advisor to presidents, writing, lecturing—but at my own pace, perhaps a college teaching position….”
There was no talking to her. I was at least a little in love with her, and maybe somewhere in the back of my self-deluded brain I thought she might come back to me one day, when her final flight was over and she’d divorced that machiavellian bastard. But I wasted no more breath in trying to discourage her from reaching her goal, even if it did involve her staying with G. P. Putnam.
Who, on Thursday afternoon, spoke privately with me, though we were in the mammoth echoing United Air Services hangar.
We were not alone—Ernie, Tod, and Jim, the team of mechanics assigned to the Vega, were at work on Amy’s plane. But they were on the other side of the hangar, the clanking and clinking of their tools, and their occasional chatter, providing a muffled accompaniment to our conversation, just as oil and gas smells provided a pungent bouquet. Putnam and I stood in the shadow of the wing of Mantz’s bread-and-butter ship, the red and white Honeymoon Express.
I was wearing a lime sportshirt and dark green slacks, fitting in nicely with the casual California style; but Putnam was strictly East Coast business executive. His wide-shouldered suit was a gray double-breasted worsted that had not come off the rack; his black and white striped tie was silk and probably cost more than any suit I owned.
“Is she sleeping with that little cocksucker?” Putnam demanded, looking over toward the glassed-in office where Amy and Mantz hunkered over the desk looking at a map or chart, Commander Williams opposite them, pointing something out.
“No,” I said.
“You’re absolutely positive?”
“I was in the bushes looking in the windows, G. P.”
“Did you get pictures?”
“There was nothing to get pictures of. They had separate bedrooms. Then when Mantz’s wife filed divorce papers on him, he had to move out, and your wife went to the Ambassador.”
He gestured with open palms. “If there’s nothing between them, why has Myrtle Mantz named Amelia in this divorce action?”
“Because Paul Mantz can’t keep his dick in his pants and your wife’s been a houseguest. It’s a natural assumption.”
He began to pace, over a small area, two steps forward, two steps back. “But an incorrect one, you’re saying?”
“That’s right. Your wife and Mantz get along pretty well, I mean they work together fine as a team…but she resents his superior attitude.”
“Well, he is a patronizing little son of a bitch,” Putnam snapped.
Funny thing was, I’d overheard Mantz complain to Williams about the same thing where Putnam was concerned: “Where does that prick in a stuffed shirt get off treating me like an employee?”
Williams hadn’t replied, but it occurred to me the answer might be: Because Mantz was on G. P.’s payroll. It also occurred to me that that “stuffed shirt” dressed similarly to Mantz.
On the other hand, Mantz had a point. He probably considered himself Amy’s business partner, because she was going to consign her Vega to the United Air Services fleet, plus they’d been discussing, over lunches at the Sky Room, the possibility of a flying school that bore the Amelia Earhart imprimatur.
“Have you received any more threatening notes?” I asked Putnam.
His pacing halted and the cold eyes did something they rarely did: blinked. “What? Uh, no. We’ve been fortunate in that regard.”
“You’ll be interested to know there haven’t been any sabotage attempts. No breaking and entering, here at the airport; no suspicious characters hanging about; no lovesick fans carrying a crush too far.”
He smiled tightly, nodded. “That’s a relief to hear.”
“I mean, because you were concerned about your wife’s welfare, right?”
“Of course I was.”
“This wasn’t just about me snooping on her, to see if she was cheating around.”
“Of course not.”
“It’s not like you sent those threatening notes yourself or anything. To make it look good.”
A groove formed between his eyebrows. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing. It’s just that Paul Mantz told me an interesting story about how you promoted a book, a few years back. That Mussolini exposé?”
He sucked air in and huffed, “Are you accusing me of sending those notes myself? That’s patently absurd.”
“It is absurd, and I also don’t give a damn, as long as your checks don’t bounce…but I wouldn’t be surprised, once the dust settles, and this Mexico City flight’s behind you, if that sweet little aviatrix of yours doesn’t sit you down for a spanking.”
His chin lifted and the cold eyes peered down at me with unblinking contempt. “Mister, I don’t like your attitude.”
“You didn’t hire me for my attitude. You hired me for my low moral character. I wormed my way into your wife’s confidence and betrayed her…just like you wanted me to.”
“After Amelia takes off tomorrow,” he said, stalking off, glaring, “I won’t be needing your services any longer.”
“I don’t think you ever needed them, really…but thanks for the work. Times are hard.”
The rest of that day, Putnam said not a word to me, and final preparations went on without a hitch, with the slight exception of a guest appearance by Myrtle Mantz, who dropped by to scream at her husband.
Wearing a dark green dress with jagged streaks that might have been lightning bolts, she cornered Mantz in his office during Amy’s final stint in the Link trainer. The glass of his glassed-in office rattled as she yelled at him, and pounded his desk.
I was lounging in a folding chair, reading the boxing results in the sports section of the Herald-Express, when the brouhaha began. And I would have stayed out of it, but Mantz started yelling back at her and took a swing at her, which she ducked. I had a feeling these two sparring partners had been in the ring before.
Nonetheless, I’m the old-fashioned chivalrous type who doesn’t like to see guys belt gals even when they deserve it, and went in there and got between them with outspread hands like a referee.
“Save it for the lawyers, you two,” I said.
Myrtle curled her pretty mouth into a sneer, and snarled, “Who appointed you sheriff, big boy?”
Normally, a good-looking redhead calling me “big boy” would have perked me up; but I had little interest in even good-looking women who shot target practice in the bedroom.
“Get her the hell outta here!” Mantz was yelling. “Crazy greedy dame!”
I walked her out of his office—she was yelling back at him, but not flailing around or anything; I think she was glad to get out of there before Mantz actually struck her. On her way out, she did hurl a few epithets
at Amy, who Putnam was helping down out of her little red trainer.
“Adultery’s a sin, you snooty bitch!” she shrieked. “I hope you crash! I hope you drown in the ocean!”
Though Putnam was getting an eye-and earful, Amy merely turned her back to Myrtle, as I kept walking the estranged Mrs. Mantz toward the door.
Ushering her outside the hangar to where the flashy Dusenberg was parked, I found she’d calmed down, some. “No-good lousy husband of mine canceled my charge accounts,” she explained.
“Steer clear of that guy,” I said. “You don’t want to lose any of your pretty teeth.”
Myrtle touched my cheek with a cool hand and, laying on the Southwestern accent, said, “You are a sweet one, aren’t you? Wish I’d run into you a long time ago.”
She ran into me in the bedroom at the Mantz bungalow; she just didn’t know it.
And when she’d driven off, I went back into Mantz’s office and said, “Hey, Paul, if you want to come out of that divorce with your shirt and maybe a pair of socks or two, I’d suggest not belting that broad.”
He didn’t say anything, but I had to wonder if the reason Myrtle resorted to a firearm was because he’d been smacking her around.
With the flight due to begin around ten that night, nobody came in the next day till around one in the afternoon, including the mechanics.
Shortly after I got to the United Air Services hangar, I stuck my head into Mantz’s office and asked if he had a moment, and he waved me in. He was in a tan shirt and black tie, seated behind his desk, going over the pile of charts and maps, looking a little frazzled.
I took the chair opposite him and asked, “Are you aware that Amelia’s talking seriously about makin’ her next flight a little around-the-world number?”
Mantz sighed, tossing a chart onto the stack. “Maybe she ought to survive this flight first…. Yeah, I know. She and Gippy have been after me to help ’em prepare—and work my connections at Lockheed to get ’em a good price on a twin-engine plane.”
“Will you?”
“Probably. I mean, if she’s got it in her head, then she’s going to do it, and if she’s going to do it, I want to see her tackle it as close to the right way as she’s capable of.”
“How capable is she?”
Mantz waggled a finger. “Never forget that Amelia Earhart won her reputation first, then set about earning the right to havin’ it…. She has zero experience in twin-engine piloting technique.”
“Can she learn it?”
“You’ve seen how impatient she can be, where training’s concerned.”
“She’s worked hard in that trainer of yours.”
“Hey, she’s a good pilot, but a woman’s pilot. These dames all jockey the throttles—”
“Paul!” Ernie Tisor, his face pale and long with worry, had stuck his head in the door. The mechanic was wiping some grease off his right palm onto his coveralls. “Something nasty…. You gotta see this….”
I tagged along as Mantz followed Tisor to the Vega, where a small metal ladder up to the cockpit was in place. The other two mechanics, Jim and Tod, were standing around wearing spotless coveralls and dazed expressions.
“Take a look down by the rudder pedals,” Tisor was saying, gesturing to the ladder, which Mantz quickly scaled.
Mantz wasn’t up in the Vega cockpit long before his head popped out and his face was as white as powdered sugar, only his expression was anything but sweet.
“Who’s been around here?” he asked Tisor.
“Nobody,” Tisor said, shrugging. “I unlocked the place just a little before one…. Tod and Jim were waiting outside when I got here.”
Mantz was clambering down the ladder. “Nobody’s been around the Vega?”
“Not that I saw. Boys?”
The other two mechanics shook their heads, no.
“Shit,” Mantz said.
Tisor asked, “What do you make of it, Paul?”
“Drop or two of acid, maybe.” He placed a hand on Tisor’s shoulder. “God bless you, Ernie, for catching it. Can you repair those cables?”
“That shouldn’t be any big problem.”
“Fine. Get that done, then go over every rivet and nut and bolt on this baby. I want this patient to get a complete stem-to-stern physical, boys—look down her throat, and up her ass, understood?”
The three mechanics nodded, and quickly got to work.
Mantz turned to walk back to his office and I fell in step with him. “What’s going on, Paul?”
“Here’s Amelia and G. P.,” Mantz said, nodding to where Amy and her husband had just entered at the front of the hangar. “I’ll fill everybody in at the same time.”
They were walking toward us, Amy smiling, sporty in a plaid shirt and chinos, Putnam wearing his perpetual frown and an impeccably tailored blue twill suit.
Soon we were all seated in Mantz’s office with Mantz standing behind his desk. “I’m going to recommend we postpone,” he said, leaning his hands on the maps and charts before him.
“Why in hell would we do that?” Putnam demanded, seated but almost climbing out of his chair.
Next to him, between us, was Amy, who said quietly, “What’s happened?”
Mantz grimaced. “Your rudder cables—somebody left you a present, angel…a few well-placed drops of acid. The wires are almost eaten through.”
“What in God’s name…?” Putnam exploded.
“Acid?” Amy asked, as if she wasn’t sure of the meaning of the word.
“Probably nitric or sulfuric,” Mantz said. “You’d have flown a while, maybe a few hours, then they’d have given way…snapped like twigs.”
“Sending my plane out of control,” Amy said, hollowly.
Putnam thrust an accusatory finger in my direction. “This is just the kind of sabotage you were hired to prevent!”
“I wasn’t hired to sleep overnight in Paul’s hangar,” I said. “There’s nighttime security here at the airport, right, Paul?”
It was a question I knew the answer to, that having been one of the first things I asked Mantz about.
“Certainly,” Mantz said, “a full detail of highly competent night watchmen…but of course the airport is open well into the wee hours…and if someone who had a key to my hangar…”
“Like your wife Myrtle,” I said.
“Yes!” Putnam yelled. “We all saw her yesterday, yelling and screaming, and out of control!”
Mantz sighed and nodded. “Yeah. I’m afraid this may be Myrtle’s doing. She’d love to get back at me…and you, too, angel.”
I asked, “Is this something Myrtle would know how to do? I mean, I wouldn’t know a rubber cable from a bagpipe.”
“Myrtle was a student pilot of mine,” Mantz said. “She knows how to fly. She knows planes.”
I frowned. “You told me she hated flying.”
“She doesn’t like to fly unless she or I are at the controls…at least, that’s how it used to be. Kind of doubt I’m her favorite co-pilot, these days.”
“Paul,” Putnam said, suddenly calm and reasonable, “you may not be aware of this, but one of the main reasons Mr. Heller was hired was because Amelia had received threatening notes in the mail. They were postmarked California.”
Putnam had never mentioned the California postmarks before. Of course, I’d never actually seen any of the notes.
Putnam continued, asking Mantz, “Do you think your wife might have been capable of sending them?”
Mantz, who was after all the first to peg Putnam for sending those notes himself, said only, “Well, Myrtle’s been jealous of Amelia for a long, long time…and she knew this flight was coming up….”
“We should call the cops,” I said.
“No police,” Putnam said.
“I agree,” Mantz said.
Now I exploded, half out of my chair: “You guys are nuttier than Myrtle! You got somebody trying to sabotage Amelia Earhart’s airplane, and you look the other way? Jesus, G. P., I’d
think you’d want the publicity…”
“Not this kind,” Putnam said. “It’s tainted by this divorce scandal.”
Appearing not at all upset, Amy asked, “Are there any other signs of sabotage?”
“No,” Mantz said. “We’re giving the Vega a complete inspection. Still, I’d feel more comfortable if—”
“If your people don’t find anything else,” Putnam said, “we go ahead with the flight…. That is, of course, if that’s my wife’s desire…”
“It is,” she said.
“You have no business,” I said to Amy, rather crossly, “getting on a plane, on a flight that’s dangerous under ideal conditions, when you’ve discovered sabotage like this.”
She didn’t answer; she wouldn’t even look at me.
Putnam said, “If you’d done your goddamn job, Mr. Heller, we wouldn’t have this problem, would we?”
“I did my job for you,” I said, “remember?”
Putnam blanched at that, knowing it was my way of reminding him of what he’d really hired me to do, but he bellowed on: “No police, and no postponement. If we postpone, we lose our coverage in the Sunday papers. We’ve got maximum press attention out of Amelia’s previous three long-distance flights, with these Friday takeoffs, and I see no reason to miss another golden opportunity…unless, of course, Paul, your people come up with some other act of sabotage.”
But they didn’t.
I despised G. P. Putnam. He was a reprehensible son of a bitch whose wife was a property for him to exploit and if her life were endangered along the way, he didn’t give a flying shit. Of course, I’d been taking fifty dollars a day from this reprehensible son of a bitch, to find out if his wife was cheating on him, and then slept with the woman myself. So maybe when it came to reprehensible sons of bitches, it took one to know one.
Around nine-thirty that night, the hangar cluttered with reporters from both the L.A. papers and the international wire services, I managed to get Amy alone for a moment, over by the Honeymoon Express.
I said to her, “You know I’m against this.”
She looked jaunty and unconcerned in the leather flying jacket with red-and-brown plaid shirt, a red scarf knotted at her neck; her tan flying helmet was held in one hand.
Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 10 Page 12
