His eyes twinkled and he grinned the shy, lopsided grin of old, but he was different. There was a wary presence in his manner, and he repeatedly looked over his shoulder, as if he were being followed—or hunted.
"Wiley Post isn't coming. He sends his regrets."
Lindbergh checked the terminal and the parking lot, scanning for reporters or just fans.
"His backers heard you were against selling airplanes for record flights, and that's what he wants it for, a trip around the world. Is he right?"
"Yeah, Slim. After the fiasco in Oakland, when all the airplanes were lost, I made up my mind we wouldn't sell airplanes just for setting records. We want to sell airplanes that make money doing a job, carrying passengers or freight, not just jumping from A to B. That doesn't prove anything, and it costs too many lives."
Lindbergh's eyes were serious. "You may be right, Bandy, but you're premature. I don't know any airplane, including yours, that can make money flying people around. Southern Airlines is going bust, even though your Rockets are doing a good job. I think it will be a few years before it can happen."
Bandfield's heart sank. "Maybe not on airlines, but they pay their way hauling executives and troubleshooters around. I was hoping Post wanted the airplane for the oil company he works for."
"Yeah, but what's the market for that? In the United States, maybe twenty or thirty airplanes, worldwide another ten or so. If that's all there is, if that's all there's going to be, you and I are in the wrong business."
Bandfield shrugged. He was beginning to think that himself.
"Could we go out to your airplane to talk? I don't want anybody to see us, or I'll spend the rest of the day shaking hands and signing autographs."
Walking quickly to the Rocket, Bandfield asked, "How's the old married man, Slim?"
"Great, Bandy, I want you to meet Mrs. Lindbergh first chance we get. How about yourself?"
The words "Mrs. Lindbergh" puzzled Bandy for a moment; he thought Slim was talking about his mother. Lindbergh interpreted his expression incorrectly, and thought he'd made a gaffe. He remembered when Bandfield had met Millie Duncan, and had heard that he was still carrying a torch for her.
"No, I guess I'm a born bachelor, Slim. Or should I call you Colonel now?"
"Slim's just fine. I sure never thought I'd make colonel, though. Neither did anybody else."
Lindbergh walked around the Rocket, then climbed inside.
"Just like old times at Roosevelt Field, eh?"
Bandfield let Lindbergh get his long legs sorted out behind the control column and settled himself in the left seat.
"Sure, but we've improved the airplane a lot—a four-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower Wasp, wheel brakes, radios, the works."
Lindbergh pulled a map torn from a Rand McNally atlas out of his pocket and spread it on the throttle quadrant between them. "Bandy, I want a special kind of airplane, one in which Mrs. Lindbergh and I can fly some long-distance survey flights. It's got to be able to use wheels and floats interchangeably, and be simple enough to fly for her to feel comfortable in it. Should have a cruise speed of about one-fifty and a range close to a thousand miles."
"We could put floats on the Rocket easy enough, Slim."
"I'm sure you could, but that's not what I want. I need a new airplane, something that breaks new ground. A low-wing monoplane, if possible, one that looks modern." He paused. "One thing I've learned from these darn reporters is that looks are important. I've got to have an airplane that looks new and fast. Of course, it has to be fast too, but a fast new airplane is even better than a faster old one. Get me?"
Bandfield nodded his head in understanding.
"And I want it soon. I'm talking to Lockheed, and they've shown me some preliminary drawings of a low-wing Vega. It looks pretty good, but I wanted to talk to you, too."
"Let me think about it, Slim. I'll be honest with you—we're strapped for money. We couldn't do anything on spec. We'd have to have cash in advance, and I'm not sure how you feel about that."
Lindbergh bobbed his head in an authoritative manner. It was a new gesture, reflecting his new status in life.
"Believe it or not, Bandy, for the first time in my life, money is no problem. But time is. I need to know in the next two weeks what you can do, earlier if possible."
"I'll let you know in a week."
They walked back to the car. "Great news about Byrd and the South Pole, isn't it?"
"Yeah. And how is my old buddy Hafner doing?"
Lindbergh laughed. "He's doing all right, Bandy. You know he made a lot of money in the stock market. I hear he's going to Europe pretty soon to try to sell airplanes over there. And his stepdaughter's getting married to a French war ace. I met her once. She looks just like her mother:"
"Well, if she does, that's pretty good. So long, Slim."
Bandfield watched the Franklin depart, its air-cooled engine rumbling as smoothly as Lindbergh's own life. What a difference that thirty-three hours to Paris had made for him—from buck-ass mail pilot to international hero in a little over a day.
He knew that wasn't fair, that the flight had been the easiest part. Getting the backing, building the airplane, having the brains to take off at the right time—that's what had made Lindbergh. But to the public, the thirty-three hours was what counted.
It had taken less than twenty minutes for the sun to burn away the frost on the tiled roof, and for two possible sales to dwindle into nothing. There was no way he and Hadley could come up with an airplane with the performance Lindbergh wanted and test it adequately in the time frame Slim was talking about.
He could see the headline that would finish them off once and for all—"Lucky Lindbergh Crashes in Roget Airplane." Shrugging, he walked toward the Rocket for the trip back to Salinas.
*
Enroute to Orleans, France/December 15, 1930
Patty edged her way back out of her mother's first-class compartment, a smile fixed on her face. She steadied her hand on the well-worn brass rail in the corridor and tried to calm her stomach. She must be pregnant! Her period was a month overdue, and for the last three mornings she had been nauseated.
She managed to get back to her compartment and sat down, closing her eyes to the beautiful French countryside flashing past, a confection of villages, canals, fields, and herds.
On the other hand, a week in Paris with her mother and Bruno was surely enough to make anyone ill. She shuddered at the thought of the week to come. She knew that the two were hot-blooded, but wasn't prepared for the aphrodisiac effect that Paris had on them. She'd scarcely been able to get her mother out to go shopping. The woman was over forty years old and apparently had the instincts of a feral rabbit. And she wasn't at all sure that there wasn't something going on with her stepfather's colleague, Dusty Rhoades, as well. Just what a girl needs for her wedding, she thought, a nymphomaniacal mother.
Still, she smiled to herself as she closed her eyes. Perhaps it explained her own hot blood. Stephan's ardor was already waning compared to hers; he joked about it, but it wasn't really funny to him. She was sure that was why they were here at all, why there was going to be a marriage at Stephan's benign insistence. He wanted to pin her down, secure her in marriage before someone else came along.
The train curved around a bend and went dark as it flashed through a tunnel. The rhythm of the rails changed as they passed over a trestle, and the new meter caused her stomach to leap in time. She put her handkerchief to her mouth and looked around for some sort of receptacle. The moment passed and she sank back.
She loved Stephan, and loved making love to him, but didn't feel that marriage was essential, not yet. At least not until she thought she was pregnant. Now it might be necessary after all. If there was some strange little lump inside her, cells multiplying like a machine gun, it was time to get married.
The ordeal of Paris was behind her. At least she hadn't gone with them when Bruno insisted on driving up to Douai, where he'd fought a good portion of his w
ar with the Richthofen circus. From what Charlotte had said, the Frenchman whose chateau they'd occupied had been anything but pleased when Hafner bounded up the steps and knocked on the door to "present his compliments."
The ordeal of Orleans was ahead. Stephan had been there a week already, trying to smooth his mother's feathers, ruffled at the suddenness of the wedding. The Dompniers had always hoped that Stephan's "infatuation"—as they inevitably termed it—would pass, and he'd marry someone sensible whom they had selected for him. They were appalled that he was marrying an American, and scarcely mollified because she had taken religious instruction. Madame Dompnier had insisted on a wedding at home, in their own chapel. On the surface it sounded tender and familial; Stephan's halting explanations inadvertently revealed that it was instead intended to limit the number of people attending and thus the shame. Ordinarily a Dompnier wedding took place in the Cathedral of Sainte-Croix.
It bothered Patty only to the degree that it bothered Stephan. Anyway, by Friday night it would be over, and they would be off on a legitimate honeymoon. And if there was a baby nestled in her belly, he or she would be legitimate too.
Stephan had been ecstatic when she dropped the hint about the baby, much to her relief. Apparently he regarded it as his hole card for his family; once a grandchild was on the way, all the reservations would tumble. She wondered if Stephan was sincere about his desire for a child, how confirmation of the news would affect him. She would tell him as soon as she arrived, so that there would be time to call the whole thing off if he felt differently. If he did, she'd go to Sweden and get an abortion.
Out of the question, she thought. She'd just hole up with Charlotte and Bruno on Long Island, have the baby, and raise it. There'd be no finger-pointing from Charlotte.
She fell asleep, her stomach somewhat settled, her emotions not at all.
*
Orleans, France/December 15, 1930
Stephan lay in the enormous bed in the room of his childhood, the windows open to the courtyard below. How quickly everyone cast off his adult life and resumed his place in the family hierarchy! He had been home for no more than twenty minutes when his sister Monique had started the usual argument, and, as she always had done, flown to her room in tears.
Poor Monique. No matter how she blamed him for her unmarried state, he knew different. Monique was now, this very month, thirty-two. She had been sixteen in 1914, in a fervor of blooming adolescence and patriotism, when she had given herself to an endless series of soldier lovers. By the time the war was over, she was a legend of the camps, a true angel of mercy, and her chances of marrying anyone but a foreigner were gone forever. He knew that she had not changed her ways materially, that she was always going away to "visit friends." He felt sorry for her, not for reasons of morality, but because she was so desperately unhappy with herself. She was still beautiful, but what would she do when she was not?
On this visit, as always, she had upbraided him for leaving home, deserting her, running off to enjoy himself flying while she had to care for their parents.
Monique was as slender as Stephan but slightly taller, an unfair distribution of family traits that had once disturbed him. He had looked at her closely. She seemed destined to fade into the same worn veil of the past as had their mother. He noted with a brotherly tenderness that her breasts, once so pert, now drooped in resignation, as if they sensed they had more than fulfilled one part of their function, enticement, but were condemned never to fulfill the more important task of providing nourishment.
Her voice was indeed their mother's, sharp as a flint. "We need a man to run this place. Look at your father—he is dying on his feet. And Maman has simply given up. And because of you, I can never marry, never leave this filthy hole."
Nothing she said made sense to Stephan, but it never did. The place was no longer maintained as it had been when he was a child, when there was still money flowing in from the vineyards and the rents, but it was more than presentable for a wedding. And his father was as placid as he had always been, dourly argumentative about religion and politics, but otherwise seemingly willing to live and let live. In many ways, he was easier to get along with now than he had ever been.
Poor Monique, and poor Maman. She was more religious than ever, praying every day in the chapel for her live children as well as her dead. He wished he could tell her about the baby—it would give her a happy heart attack. She had not yet accepted that he was marrying a non-Catholic, and all but ignored the fact that Patty had taken instructions, been baptized, and genuinely intended to raise their children as Catholics. Perhaps his mother sensed that the whole process was done not for Stephan, nor for principle, but simply as a means of getting along, of being accepted.
But his mother was strong-willed and capable. He knew that when the wedding had been announced, she had managed a frenzy of activity, keeping Pierre and Monique hopping with the arrangements.
Stephan rose and stood by the window. Was it all the war? Would their lives have been so turbulent if his brothers were still alive, still working the estate? He saw his father enter the courtyard, then go to the arched doorway that led down to his cellar, walking with the rolling gait his war wounds had imparted. He had gone into the war with the face and chest of a bulldog; he had emerged with a walk to match. What a drinker he was! Never drunk, never sober, he maintained an alcoholic equilibrium so exact that he might have had some sort of brandy thermostat inside him. He made no secret of his drinking, and brooked no criticism of it either.
Appearances were deceiving. Stephan's father for once was definitely not taking everything with equanimity, nor tempering his usual carefully monitored intake. Now he ran his hands along the top shelf, searching not for a bottle but for a book. He did not find it at once, and he panicked, afraid that his wife had somehow located it.
The book was his own shorthand accounting of their finances. The wedding was going to be the last straw. When it was over, he would have to sell everything, and move into a smaller place in town. Monique would have to find quarters of her own.
He opened the book. It had its formal counterpart in Paris, where Henri Troyse-Rozier, the senior partner of the bank the family once had had an interest in, tried his best to help them. Everything that could be sold had been sold. Henri had gone past both the bounds of friendship and the rules of his firm to provide the bulk of the money to prepare the house for the wedding. Now the villa was mortgaged beyond redemption, as was the country house at Saint-Jean-le-Thomas. The only unencumbered property was the warehouse and wharf tucked away in the corner of the harbor at Marseilles. Vacant now, it had once been the heart of his father's business, bringing in dirt-cheap wine from Italy and Spain to blend with the worst pressings of his own vineyard. He sold the resulting mixture at cut-rate prices to the bureaucrats of the French army around the world. It had been a totally secret process, for the idea of French soldiers drinking pinard of foreign origin would have been intolerable to the press and to Frenchmen alike.
The Hafners' generosity in providing such a bounty of funds for the wedding had only underlined how far the estate had fallen into disrepair. In the six weeks since Stephan had said he was going to be married, all the mortgage money had gone for roof repairs and plumbing and for gardeners to cut back the overgrown grounds. He had opened rooms long closed, the ballroom, the library, the large dining room, and the money had poured away in an endless stream to make them usable. The chapel had been the most expensive. He looked in the book and winced: more than 14,000 francs, just to make it suitable for a wedding that would take no more than an hour, be celebrated for a day, and last perhaps what—five years? These American girls put husbands on and off as a French girl did hats.
Except poor Monique. She did with lovers what French girls did with hats—or perhaps, more appropriately, with loaves of bread, consuming them.
He put the book back, and drew down a bottle so old that the encrusted dust was as hard as the handblown glass itself. It was an Armagnac fr
om 1813. There was no label. It came from their own family distillery, and to him and the fortunate few he had shared a few scarce bottles with, it was the best in the world. There were five bottles left. Three of them had been intended for his sons, one for his daughter, one for the first grandchild. Now he had two spares.
He sat down and poured a splash of the golden, syrupy brandy into the thin-walled bulbous glass he had carefully washed and brought with him. He sat, warming the amber liquor with his hands, thinking that in the end it didn't matter. One had to keep everything relative to the events of the war. He had been a reservist in 1914, one of the thousands who had actually ridden to the battle of the Marne in taxis, a distinction millions now seemed to claim. He'd ridden back in a creaking hospital cart, unsprung and horse-drawn, with shrapnel in his back and legs.
There was no Edith Cavell or Florence Nightingale in the miserable little hovel where he was operated on, nor any anesthetic either. When the butchers they'd recruited for doctors were finished, his legs were permanently damaged, great collops of flesh cut away with the metal shards of shrapnel. He had recovered to serve the rest of the war in the gigantic Schneider munitions plant in Paris, a reserve major pushing papers. He reached up and touched the scar concealed beneath his still-dark mat of hair. A German trenching tool had put it there, a slash with a spade that had almost scalped him. Somehow the doctors had left that wound alone, and it had healed very well.
After the war there had still been very little money, and the land had gone, properties and acreage, year by year. Now they were down to the house and the land immediately around it. The family distillery, which had been only a diversion for his grandfather when the family owned thousands of hectares of rich farmland, was now the principal source of income, selling sound workingman's marc, and running a few bottles of Special Reserve which he kept for trading. He had only one acknowledged hobby, collecting fine cognac, Armagnac, calvados, and marc. He was widely recognized as a connoisseur, but in recent years could only trade to get the particular bottles he wanted.
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