"What do you think about it?"
"I hate it. I want to support the cause, just like she does, but not at the expense of my own family. But we've had such rough times since I got back that the worst thing I could do would be to try to interfere."
"Look, if it's any comfort, you're not the only one having problems. Patty and Bandy are fighting all the time over the kids, and Lyra's driving poor old Bear Riley nuts."
"What's the problem?"
"She swears her husband is going to try to do something, hurt her or kidnap the children. Bear half-believes her, but it's making their life tough."
Sensing Marshall's unease, Roget abruptly changed the subject. "Back of the Bus Airline, eh? That's pretty good. Where'd you meet this guy Frost?"
"He's an old desert rat, got a face like a bulldog, been around the airport for years, and funny as hell."
"What'd he invest to get to be a partner?"
"His name and his white skin. I let him be pilot-in-command for any trips down South; that way I don't have to worry about them dumping water in the fuel tank of an uppity nigger's plane."
"What's he think about Fred's friends, and all that civil rights business?"
"He could care less—he's so happy to be working a regular job he'd haul rattlesnakes if he had to."
The two men walked out to the converted Lodestar that Peterson had purchased for the new firm. "How come you didn't want to take a TBM, Hadley?"
"Tact, my boy, tact. My specialty. They're going to be running another test of their little Stearman today, and I thought it would be poor taste to bring a TBM in."
"What the hell's the matter with them, anyway? They're not going to be able to prove anything with a Stearman that we didn't prove last year."
"It's the government—they got their way of doing things and that's it. They'll run the tests on the Stearman, and then maybe they'll buy something from us next year."
"Will you be there to buy from next year? How's your business?"
"No problem. I've sold almost a dozen of these fancy Rockets, and it looks like I've got orders for maybe another dozen more coming. Oilmen love them, and even Mike Todd down in Hollywood is buying one. And I haven't advertised, got no salesmen, this is all drop-in business. I'm sitting pretty, John, but I'd like to sell the TBMs and that old Catalina I got sitting on the line. That old Cat would make the TBMs look sick, but I can't get anybody to listen."
"Bandy says that you're always ten years ahead of your time." Roget interrupted, "Twenty, but who's counting?" "Well, I sure hope he's wrong about that with water-bombing." "No, I think what we're going to have to do is put in one season for free, just follow the fires around, volunteering our services. It'll be expensive as hell, but not as expensive as never getting started." Marshall whistled. "I don't know, Hadley, that'll be tough. I'm not sure if even Peterson could afford to subsidize an operation that size."
"Lemme see what I can do with our banks. Maybe we wouldn't go all the way, just do one section of California. But I'd like to get the Catalina up to Canada; I think I can do some business there, and it ought to be good for Florida, too. They had a big fire in the Everglades and couldn't do anything about it. With all those lakes and canals, it would have been perfect for the Catalina." "Maybe next year?" "If either of us is still in business."
***
Chapter 12
Salinas, California/November 19, 1955
Bandfield woke to the almost forgotten sounds and smells of Patty making coffee. Groaning, he tried to roll over; he was stiff as a board, every joint and muscle aching from the long trip back from Washington in a T-33 the previous afternoon. The T-Bird was fine transportation, but the seat was a torture chamber after a couple of hours. He'd rented a car in Los Angeles and didn't even remember the drive to Salinas; he had continually dozed off, awakening sharply to the drum of tires signaling his drift to the side of the road. Easing himself to the side of the bed, he flexed his toes and stretched his muscles, aware for once of the care Patty had taken in decorating their home, imprinting her personality on it with the colors, the pictures, the things he called clutter and she called collectibles. She always said she wanted the home to be cozy and comfortable rather than a work of art. He realized how well she'd succeeded, when he compared it to the clinical austerity of the anonymous BOQ rooms he'd been leaping in and out of for the past six months, all done in early Cheap Motel. Between following up on Coleman's debacle at Frederick and the B-47 accident investigations, he'd been on the road more than three-quarters of the time, often working so late he couldn't even call home. No wonder Patty had given him the freeze last night.
The kids were glad to see him, though. Charlotte was seventeen and as beautiful as Patty. George was almost fifteen, big for his age, and built like Bandy's father, blocky but still able to move well, sort of a thin Jackie Gleason. Both children were readers, and when he was on the road, Bandfield tried to read the same books and the same authors, to be sure they had plenty to talk about when he was home. Right now George was devouring all of Kenneth Roberts's books, while Charlotte had discovered Agatha Christie. The music was something else; there they had no common ground at all.
Patty came in as he loved her best, no makeup, hair down, cloaked in a white terry cloth bathrobe, and, he knew, nothing else. She carried a tray bearing two mugs of black coffee, the morning paper, and dog biscuits for their mutt, Maya, now snuggled companionably at the foot of the bed.
"I'm sorry about last night, Bandy. I should have been more welcoming, but you came in, gulped down two big drinks, drank half a bottle of wine while you gobbled dinner and then fell asleep in the chair. Not exactly the Cary Grant treatment."
He pulled her to him and kissed her. "You're right—but I was wiped out. Now I'm feeling frisky, and won't take no for an answer. Where are the kids?"
"They're in town, decorating the gym for a dance tonight."
"Great! Then let me boot Maya out the door, and I'll try to make up with you."
"The coffee will get cold."
"That's okay, just so long as you don't."
Later, they lay in each other's arms, content. She snuggled against his chest and said, "Bandy, remember the old days, when you'd come in after a long mission, all hot and sweaty in your flight suit, and we'd make love right away? It was so earthy, so good; now you're always showered and shampooed, sticky with deodorant. Where's my old animal lover?"
"Growf. Right here. Tell you what, I'll work like a horse all day today, and tonight you can have me au naturel. But you have to do the same."
She agreed, and then he said, "But since we've had a little romp this morning, could I get a raincheck until tomorrow?"
"A raincheck? Like making love is some shopper's special? Bandy, you've gotten to be a mood-ruining expert. But, okay, a raincheck, and no showers."
Then, more hesitantly, "Bandy, how much time do you have in the service now—you must be pretty close to the magic twenty-year mark, aren't you?"
"I can tell you exactly—I had it checked out in August. With my cadet time, I've got eighteen years and eight months."
"Are you going to retire at twenty?"
"I don't know—I don't know what I'd do for a living."
"Don't be foolish—Hadley and I need help. But I'm thinking about the kids. You're never around, and they're at a stage when they need you, particularly George. He's so big now, it's tough for me to discipline him."
"You think I should get out at twenty?"
She sat up, leaning on her elbow, pulling the sheet across her breasts. "Let me put it to you differently. If you don't, I'm getting a divorce."
He checked her eyes to see if she was kidding; she was not.
"Understood. What if I'm in the middle of something, like these accidents?"
She turned away from him, not saying a word.
"Right, twenty it is. Now go let Maya in."
*
En route to Montgomery, Alabama/ December 8, 1956
It was in that lovely epheme
ral time just before dawn, when the colors of the eastern sky reach out in long fingers toward the aircraft, and the ground below grudgingly sheds its gray camouflage, giving up its shapes to shadow. The cream and green Roget Rocket was cruising slightly nose down at seventeen thousand feet; they'd burned off most of the fuel coming from Los Angeles, and the two Pratt & Whitney radial engines were throttled back to a comfortable low grumbling hum. In the cabin, Saundra lay asleep on a leather couch, covered with cashmere blankets that bore the monogram fp.
Frost ran his fingers admiringly over the radio console. "This bucket has everything! Old Hadley really did a job on it."
Frost's comments broke in on Marshall's jealous doubts.
"What's that? Yeah, it's sensational. And for the first time in his life, he's making money selling airplanes."
"No wonder he named it 'Rocket'—with a three-hundred-mile-per-hour cruise and a thirty-five-hundred-mile range, this is one going Jesse."
Marshall smiled to himself. Frost probably had no idea that "going Jesse" referred to Jesse Owens, a Black man like himself, a natural leader like the man they were flying money to in Montgomery.
Grateful to have his worries interrupted, he responded, "Yeah, Roget really pissed Lockheed off; they said he could never get this kind of performance out of a Lodestar. It sort of made them look bad when he did, like they didn't do it right the first time."
Frost's laughter seemed to boom across the cockpit. "I'll bet! But it's a whole different deal, customizing one plane at a time instead of turning them out like cookies on a production line. Did Roget have any help with it?"
"Well, Bandy, of course. They'd worked on their first Rocket back in the twenties. And they got Gordon Israel, the racing pilot, to help, knew him from the races at Cleveland. Israel's like Roget, not much for degrees but inspired and with lots of common sense. They cleaned up the whole airframe, changed the wing profile, smoothed out the cowling and nacelles. Then they added a lot of nice touches—flush mounting all the windows, carrying the flush riveting all the way back to the tail, stuff Lockheed couldn't take the time to do."
"I hear Roget went nuts cutting weight and drag."
"Yeah, he went over the entire airplane, all of it, feeling it with his hands, not just trusting his eyes to see something that might cause drag, but sweeping it with his hands like a sculptor molding a statue. It paid off."
Marshall was glad Frost liked the airplane. The man was a natural pilot, one of the few Marshall had ever met, and he handled the Rocket as if he'd flown it for years.
Frost put his finger to his lips as he responded to an inquiry from air traffic control.
"We'll start our descent on the hour, Bones. Now what's the drill?"
"We'll land and taxi over to get refueled. You get off and go into the ops shack to file our clearance for the flight back. We don't want to spend any more time on the ground than we have to. I'll handle the refueling. They won't mind a Black guy doing that. You do the paying, though."
It occurred to Marshall in passing that he was calling himself Black now, just as Saundra and Peterson did. Funny—it was a word he would have refused to use a year ago.
"When we're done, Saundra will get out and walk over to side entrance to the operations shack. Somebody will be there to meet her with a car."
"How about her luggage?"
"She'll take the one bag with her. When you come back out, I'll hustle her bags over to her. I'd like her to get out without anybody seeing her, if I can."
Frost nodded that he understood. Then he leaned over and asked, "Has this got anything to do with the bus boycott down here?"
Marshall liked Frost and trusted him; he didn't feel he could ask him to make flights like this without knowing what was going on.
"Corky, I'll level with you. They didn't even tell me what this is all about. But Fred Peterson wouldn't ask Saundra to make a trip like this unless it was important. I suspect she's carrying some money for the local leadership."
"Where does this guy Peterson get his dough?"
"He's a hell of a businessman. When he bought this airplane Roget was suspicious because of all the gyrations Peterson went through, with one company owning the airplane, another financing it, another leasing it—but when it was all done, Roget had a check for seven hundred grand in his hand."
"You know, you ain't got no money, you ain't never gonna get any; you got money, you can't stop gettin' it."
"Looks like it. Me, I'm one of the 'ain't got no' types. Let me go back and wake Saundra, so she can clear her ears on the way down."
He slipped back into the cabin and stared at her for a moment. Even though she was so tired, worn-out from trying to do too much, she was still so beautiful. Yet she'd become so remote; they no longer had a marriage in the real sense. They were faithful to each other, and sometimes they still had sex, but he could tell it was just conjugal duty on her part, all the old fire was gone. They no longer enjoyed themselves on the rare occasions when they went out to eat, or to a show. Paradoxically, the only time they became close was when they talked about the thing that was pulling them apart, the civil rights movement.
The problem was that he loved her so, even though she clearly had a new mission in life. Only a few months ago she'd been consumed by her business; now she'd virtually turned it over to her managers, spending as little time with them as possible. She was totally committed to working with the small group of Black leaders from Atlanta that Peterson had introduced her to.
He stroked her head. "Saundra, wake up. We're almost there. Be sure to keep your ears clear on the descent." He kissed her and went back to his seat.
She sat up and began combing her hair. She wore very little makeup now—it didn't seem appropriate, even if she was in the business.
Clearing her ears carefully as they descended, it struck her that it was the first time she'd ever flown with John, and that she'd paid no more attention to him than if she'd been on a commercial flight. It was natural, she had faith in his ability. She wished she could have the same faith that he would understand what was happening to them, that he would approve of her being called to a vocation.
Yet as much as she tried to convince herself that it was purely a religious calling, she was aware that it was also a part of her endless search for a father figure. That's why she'd been so attracted to John at first, and then, when he was gone, why she'd been drawn to Fred. Now, when she had proved herself in business, when she was financially independent, another cause—and another man—had come along. She was still groping for a way to explain her feelings to John when she heard the squeak of the wheels touching down on the Montgomery airport runway.
They taxied past the line of hangars to the fuel pit, where the transfer went off easily. Marshall had flight-planned to arrive just before dawn, and the sleepy line boy was more than glad to have him help with the refueling. While John kept him occupied, Saundra flitted out from the airplane like a ghost; the line boy didn't see her.
Twenty minutes later John carried her two bags over to where she was waiting. He put the luggage in the trunk of a tan 1941 Ford sedan; the two men in front nodded to him but did not speak.
"Saundra, are you going to be all right? Have you got a place to stay? This whole thing is beginning to scare me."
"They'll fix me up with some family in town. I'll be fine, and I'll call you in a few days."
He kissed her, and she said, "John, this is important. You know I wouldn't leave you, leave my business, unless it were."
"I know it's important. I just hope it's not more important than me, than us."
She didn't answer; instead, filled with a nameless excitement, she gave him a little wave, then slipped into the backseat of the Ford.
*
Nashville, Tennessee/January 26, 1956
Elsie McNaughton, mink coat almost dragging on the ground, moved slowly through the guesthouse, talking to the U.S. marshal with her. He was friendly but businesslike, assigned by the court to make su
re that she took nothing but personal belongings from the property.
She had lost the guesthouse forever, just as she had lost the house Troy had built for her and the old farm that Henry Caldwell had given her. All the properties had been wrapped up in the complex financing of McNaughton Aircraft, and the settlement she'd made took them all away from her. In exchange, the government had arranged a sale that gave her more money than she'd ever dreamed of. It was more than a good deal; it suited her new attitudes, her new habits. Once a fireball of energy, she now was relaxed and easygoing, content to enjoy herself.
She felt that the government had been rigorous but fair. As both a stockholder and a chief executive, she was considered responsible for the installation of the defective milk-bottle pins, even though she had denied any role in the coverup. Because the plant was essential to B-47 production, she was given a choice of criminal prosecution or divesting herself of her interests in McNaughton.
It had been an easy decision. So many things had changed. Troy was dead, Baker was gone, and the nature of the business was so different. McNaughton no longer made aircraft, and she'd found no enjoyment in subcontracting to other manufacturers. In the past year, the new management she'd brought in had tried to diversify—they were making canoes and buses now, along with metal cabinets, barrels, and other totally boring products, and making money on none of them. The canoes were three times as expensive as a standard canoe, and the buses broke down with monotonous regularity. It was time to take the money and run. Surprisingly, finding a buyer had been easy; Congressman Dade had seen to that. It had not been difficult for him to get financiers interested; they knew that his hinting of a whole series of juicy contracts was better than another man's promise.
The Air Force had been as anxious as she was to consummate the deal and shut down the investigation. They had shown no interest in trying to find Baker, and if they had tumbled to the Ruddick connection, they had declined to pursue it.
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