by T. E. Cruise
And maybe the world, Gold amended to himself as he took in Campbell’s diamond-encrusted wristwatch and the glittering rocks set in his pinky ring and his tie’s stickpin: the gems were big enough to double as airfield landing lights.
“So, you liking the airplane business, amigo?” Campbell asked.
“Still too soon to tell,” Gold replied.
Campbell nodded. “I always knew you’d follow in your father’s footsteps.”
“You knew more than I did.”
“Well, now, amigo.” Campbell smiled fondly. “Who’s known you longer than me?” He reached up to pat Gold’s cheek. “Come on, say it just once like you did way back when?”
Gold blushed. “Uncle Tim,” he murmured.
Campbell nodded, pleased. “You may have forgotten how I used to bounce you on my knee, but I haven’t, amigo….”
Gold nodded, remembering back over thirty years to when Tim Campbell was Pop’s close friend and business partner. In those days. Skyworld Airlines had still been a part of Gold Aviation and Transport, but at some point Tim Campbell and Herman Gold had suffered a falling-out. Steve Gold didn’t know the details. He’d been a little kid when it happened, and Pop had never talked about it, but whatever it was that had caused the disagreement, its result had been a split in GAT as the two men went their separate ways. Pop had retained control of the aviation design and construction portions of the GAT empire, while Campbell had taken control of the airline. Since then, Campbell had branched out. In addition to his interest in Skyworld, Campbell owned a sizable portion of Amalgamated-Landis Aircraft Corporation, which was exhibiting here at the IATC trade show. Campbell also had other extensive, diversified holdings in America and abroad. Like a spider sitting in the center of its web, Campbell’s reach extended to all corners of the globe, which explained why this little old man with the Moe Howard haircut and the bad suit turned up as a regular cover boy for the nation’s business magazines.
“Those were the good ole days, all right,” Campbell said. “But we can’t hold back the clock.” He paused. “You know how sorry I was when your father passed away?”
“Of course, Tim.”
“First Hull Stiles dying, and then your father.” Campbell shook his head. “I guess Father Time is breakin’ up that ole gang of mine….”
Gold sighed. Hull Stiles had been another of Pop’s friends and business partners; a fellow barnstormer pilot who had come in on the ground floor of Gold Express, helping Pop to establish the fledgling freight and mail air-transport business.
Campbell briskly decreed, “But we can’t dwell on the past, can we, amigo? How’s business here at GAT?”
“Like everywhere, I guess.” Gold shrugged. “It isn’t a seller’s market. President Nixon’s Watergate troubles combined with the Arabs’ oil embargo has sure put the brakes on the world economy.”
“It’s all politics, amigo,” Campbell said philosophically. “The politics of oil, and the dirty politics in Washington. I reckon ain’t nobody’s been harder hit than the airlines now that the price of kerojet has skyrocketed.”
“Is that what you ‘reckon’?” Gold teased. Tim Campbell had been born in Providence, Rhode Island, and knew how to speak perfectly well, but during a sojourn in Texas revolving around the oil business, Campbell had cultivated this half-cowpoke, half-good-ole’-southern-redneck’s manner of speech.
“You funnin’ me, boy?” Campbell winked to show he was aware of the joke.
“Just a mite, Tim.” Gold grinned. “But seriously, you’re right about the rise in the price of jet engine fuel shaving the airlines’ already slender profit margins.”
Campbell nodded. “And when a fella feels like he’s got a hole in his pocket, he’s in no mood to buy,” he moped. “Amalgamated-Landis has a paper airplane it’s been floating past the airlines, with no luck.”
“That’s too bad,” Gold said. A paper airplane was a jetliner concept still on the drawing boards that a manufacturer promoted to the airlines in order to gauge potential customer reaction before committing the enormous sums required to turn a concept into a prototype. A major trade show like this one was the perfect place to try to get such a ball rolling.
Campbell said, “Of course, I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, seeing as how you’re now the competition, but what the hell, blood’s thicker than water, and we’re almost blood, right, amigo?”
“Yeah, sure, Tim.” Gold wondered what Campbell’s angle was; “Uncle Tim” always had an angle.
“I think I’m going to have A-L concentrate on the military end of the stick,” Campbell was confiding. “I’ve had it with building airliners. In that game, there’s only one rule: survival of the fittest, just like in the jungle. Your daddy taught me that—”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Stevie,” Campbell chided. “Don’t kid a kidder. You tryin’ to tell me you don’t know how your father won the competititon between his GC-909 jetliner and my Amalgamated-Landis AL-12, back in the 1950s?”
Gold shrugged. “I always assumed the 909 got bought by the airlines because it was the better plane…. No offense, Tim.”
“That’s rich.” Campbell laughed. “Oh, that’s too rich!” He glanced around as if he was worried about being overheard, then took a step closer to whisper, “Your father scuttled my airplane.”
“Scuttled it? How?”
“He used his CIA contacts,” Campbell whispered.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Campbell hesitated, studying Gold. “You mean to say you really don’t know?”
“Know what?” Gold demanded, exasperated.
Campbell shook his head. “You go ask your business partner.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah, you go ask Don Harrison how your father got his buddies in Washington to see to it that my jetliner got its wings clipped.”
“I will ask,” Gold said defiantly, thinking there was no way his father could have done something underhanded.
“I hope you do, amigo. It’ll be a good lesson for you in your new line of work.” Campbell winked. “But now you tell me something: In this fucked-up economy, it’s plain there ain’t no manufacturer gonna scare up a launch customer for a new airplane ’less that manufacturer is willing to take on extensive seller financing.”
“Well, I suppose you’re right,” Gold agreed, a “launch customer” was that initial airline that could be persuaded to place a large order for a new jetliner, thereby legitimizing it to the rest of the industry.
“Tell me, amigo,”—Campbell was watching Gold’s eyes—“is seller financing what GAT has in mind in order to peddle the Pont 500?”
Gold hesitated. The Pont 500 jetliner was the latest product of the long association between GAT and the European aviation consortium Skytrain Industrie. This new version of the Pont was a smaller, fuel-efficient airplane ideally suited for short hops. It was the right jetliner at the right time in this era of escalating fuel costs, and was selling well in Europe. GAT had a large financial stake in the Pont 500, and hoped to get the airplane accepted by airlines in the United States.
But that was GAT’s business, and no one else’s. Gold thought. Old family friend or not, Gold wasn’t about to be reveal company sales strategy to Tim Campbell.
“I really can’t say, Tim—”
“Can’t or won’t?” Campbell pounced, eyes glittering.
“Can’t because I don’t know,” Gold replied, lighting a cigarette to hide his unease at lying. “You see, Don is handling the commercial jetliner side of the business. For the few months since I’ve joined up, I’ve been concentrating on the military market.” Gold remembered reading somewhere that the best lies had a healthy dose of truth mixed into them.
Campbell was nodding, but Gold couldn’t tell if he was convinced. “Well, thanks anyway, amigo,” Campbell said. “Now I got to be moseyin’ on.”
Gold was relieved. “Good to see you again….”
“Uh-huh.” Campbell looked am
used. “I have me a feelin’ we’ll be seein’ a lot of each other in the future, amigo. Now, don’t you forget to ask Don about the GC-909/AL-12 competition.”
“I will,” Gold promised.
Campbell nodded, looking satisfied. “Yeah, it’s ’bout time you had your eyes opened now that you’re playin’ with the big boys…. You give my regards to your sister, and your lovely mama….”
Gold waited until Campbell was gone and then beelined it into the GAT booth, intent upon finding Don, and finding out what Tim had been referring to concerning the jetliner competition. One of the GAT sales executives told Gold that Don was off checking out the competition. Gold left the GAT booth, hurrying as best he could along the narrow, crowded aisles, looking for Don at the Boeing and Lockheed booths; then fighting his way through the crowd to the Brower-Dunn exhibit, where a B-D sales rep told Gold that he’d just missed Don, who’d mentioned that he was heading over to the Pratt & Whitney booth.
Gold headed that way as well, striding down the aisle and turning the corner—
That was when Gold saw Linda Forrester browsing among the booths, collecting manufacturers’ brochures and stuffing them into a canvas shopping tote.
Son of a bitch, what’s she doing here? Gold wondered. He saw that she was wearing one of the bright-yellow press badges, and then he remembered that Don Harrison had told him that Linda had left her TV journalist’s job in order to write a book on the airline industry. She must have gotten her book publisher to arrange entry credentials….
Linda hadn’t yet spotted him. Gold took the opportunity to study her. She looked different than Gold remembered her, but then, a lot of years had passed since that day she’d stormed out of his bed and out of his life, he thought ruefully. Linda was in her forties now. Her brunette hair was cut very short. She was wearing a tan silk suit with her skirt ending well above her knees, patterned stockings, and alligator pumps. For jewelry she wore chunky gold earrings and a gold Tank watch on a brown leather band. The exhibition hall’s unforgiving fluorescent lights clearly revealed the laugh lines time had put around her eyes and her mouth, but the years had only transformed rather than robbed her of beauty: Her youthful, carnal sensuality had matured to sexy elegance.
She still had not seen him. Gold knew he could easily avoid her in the large, crowded hall, but what would be the point? She was researching commercial aviation for her book, and he was a GAT chief executive. They were destined to run into each other sooner or later. Anyway, Gold knew that she was married, that she had a couple of kids, for chrissakes.
The bottom line was that if Don Harrison could get over Linda, so could he. No! Make that, so had he. Gold amended, walking over to her before he could chicken out.
She still hadn’t noticed him when he said, “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
She looked up quickly, her expression blank. For an instant, Gold was acutely embarrassed, thinking: she doesn’t even recognize me. But then her blue eyes widened.
“Son of a bitch,” she murmured sardonically. “They’ll let anybody in this place, won’t they?”
Nodding dumbly, grinning like a fool, he awkwardly took her arm in order to give her a peek on the cheek. He found touching her to still be a thrill, even if she did stiffen slightly. She actually flinched against his touch on her sleeve.
“Long time no see,” Gold heard himself blurt to fill the roaring silence between them. Oh, yeah, just brilliant, he scornfully thought. “How have you been, Linda?”
“I’m fine,” she said adamantly. “I’m terrific!”
She was sounding strident. Clearly, she was just as fucked up over this as he was. Gold hoped the encounter wasn’t going to turn out to be a total fiasco. He thought hard for something to say. “I heard you were doing a book.”
“Yeah!” She nodded quickly, looking on the verge of hysteria.
Gold was feeling as awkward as a kid on his first date, which was not normally his style with women, to say the least. If his heart pounded any harder, he was going to have to sit down.
“Just look at you! All spiffy in your business suit!” Linda chattered. “I’d heard that you’d left the Air Force to join your father’s company—” She stopped short, her expression instantly turning sympathetic. “Oh, Steve, your father! I was so sorry when I heard….” She brightened. “But look at you now! That’s a lovely suit.” She ran her fingers along his lapel but then jerked her hand back as if she’d been burned. “I almost didn’t recognize you out of uniform!”
This was going nowhere, Gold thought, watching her. She looked like she was ready to bolt.
“Come on, Blue Eyes,” he kidded softly, knowing that he was taking a risk calling her that: Blue Eyes was what he’d used to call her back when they’d thought they were going to last forever. “You of all people have seen me out of uniform the mostest.”
She laughed at that, and the ice somewhat broke between them. Gold took out his cigarettes and offered her one, which she accepted. He lit her smoke and then his own. As she exhaled, he could see the tension flowing out of her.
“So, Steve,” she began, sounding self-assured and a bit smart-alecky; in other words, like the old Linda. “What’s it been like for you now that you’re among us mortals in mufti?”
“It’s had its ups and downs,” Gold told her. “Mostly downs, until now. You’re the first person I’ve met here all day that I wanted to talk to. I heard you were married and living in New York? That you had a couple of kids?”
“You’re half right,” she replied. “I have two boys, seven and nine years old. But I’m back here in L.A. now. My marriage didn’t last,” she added evenly.
“Oh, I’m sorry….”
“The divorce went through a couple of years ago,” she said, dismissing the matter with a wave of her hand. “My ex now lives in Chicago. It’s history.” She paused. “Like a lot of things, huh?”
She was contemplating him, that old, devilish smile he remembered so well playing at the corners of her mouth. Gold felt his groin stir as the memory of that smile unleashed a thousand other memories of Linda Forrester that rushed through him. This wasn’t going to be as safe as he’d thought. As a matter of fact. Gold realized that he was on very thin ice.
“Where you living?” he asked.
“My boys and I live in Rustic Canyon.”
“It’s beautiful there.”
She nodded. “Good for kids. You still living in Malibu?”
“Uh-huh. Still on the beach.”
“My boys like the beach….”
“What kid doesn’t?” Gold remarked.
“No matter how old,” Linda pointedly commented. “Good old Steve.” She laughed in response to his frown. “Some things never change, huh?”
Gold realized he was holding his Pall Mall with his thumb and index finger, like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Cut it out, before she nails you on it, he warned himself. “So, your boys are seven and nine?”
“Uh-huh.”
She was watching him now with her head cocked, her attention focused. Gold couldn’t shake the feeling that every word he was saying carried supreme weight and importance. He could see her evaluating his responses—reevaluating him—and he realized that he had already made his decision about what he wanted. All right, let’s get this over with, one way or the other.
“Boys that age are a real trip,” Gold began. “I remember how much fun I had with my nephews when they were that age. God, I had some great times with them camping out, fishing, or just messing around.” He paused. “Do your kids get to see their father much?”
She shook her head. “Like I said, he lives in Chicago. My boys see him whenever he’s on the West Coast for business, and for two weeks every summer.”
“But you take the boys to the beach?
“Every weekend I can.”
“Well…” Gold hesitated. “Well, maybe next time you’re at Malibu you’ll stop by the house to introduce me to them? I’m usually home on weeke
nds….”
“Okay.” She smiled tentatively, suddenly seeming very shy. “Maybe I will.”
“Yeah, that would be great!” Gold said, knowing he was sounding overeager but not caring.
“I know they’d love to meet you,” Linda said. “You being an ex-fighter pilot. A war hero and all—”
“And I’d like to meet them,” Gold said firmly. “Maybe if we hit it off I could take them fishing sometime. It’s not much fun fishing alone.”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t be.” Linda agreed, watching him very, very closely now.
Talk about fishing, Gold thought. He swallowed hard. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll have a soft spot in their heart for an old Air Force man?” He pushed the rest of it out. “Like their old lady… ?”
Linda’s eyes were bright blue beacons. “Anything’s possible.”
(Two)
Malibu
The beach outside Steve Gold’s house was wide and flat. The sand was almost as blindingly white as the pale disc of sun burning through the overcast. There was a cool breeze blowing off the Pacific, creating swirling eddies upon the low, sunbaked dunes. The waves were rolling in very high. The rough blue surf crashed rhythmically as it broke against the beach. Gold, hearing that somber sea song played in counterpoint to the gull’s shrill laughter, could let it carry him back in time, to when he was a child, building damp sand castles just out of reach of the foaming swash. But now, in the bedroom of his house, in his big double bed, Steve Gold was lost in another form of time travel as he made love to Linda Forrester.
The wind off the beach rattled the bedroom’s jalousie windows, carrying with it the salt tang of the sea as it caressed and cooled the lovers’ sheened, naked bodies. The wind moved the windows’ lowered bamboo blinds, casting slanted patterns of light and dark on the bedroom’s white walls, and on the white bed, and on the lovers’ white limbs, entwined.
