The storm had rolled up overhead. It was time to get off the highway. You looked at Erica. Without her glasses, she sacrificed distinction for prettiness. A small sacrifice. The wind, lashing at her long hair, whipped stray strands down into her face. She brushed them back with her hand.
Then the storm broke, and they made for a highway place near Bay Shore where Gary had gone once or twice before. She waited while he fastened the tarpaulin over the cockpit of the little car. It wouldn't have meant anything if she hadn't waited. But it meant a lot that she stayed.
Once seated in a booth, she tried to return the jacket you had lent her against the rain, and it was suddenly as though she were standing naked in front of you, her pale breasts gleaming through the wet transparency of the sheer fabric. You felt a little surge of excitement, and something inside your mind said, "Uh--Uh, mustn't," and you told her to keep it on.
Then she was asking questions, and it was somehow awfully important that you talk to someone. So you told her about yourself. Some things you didn't have to tell her. She knew Oneida. Durhamville was only a few miles away, on the road to Oneida Lake where your family spent its summers.
You told her about your father, the Reverend Garrison Heaslip, Ph.D., L.H.D., whose Methodism was expressed by the precise manner in which he imposed his will on wife and sons.
How the old man had planned that Gary should enter the ministry, a vocation of which Gary strongly disapproved--in which he had not a whit of belief. How Gary had gone to Colgate University and how he had spent his time at the nearby airport, learning to manipulate a Piper Cub.
How, when the Japanese let their bombs down on Pearl Harbor, it had been the legitimate excuse he had sought for the break with his father. How he had applied for the air corps, been accepted for flight training; how he had gone into four-engine craft, and been assigned to the Air Transport Command.
He told Erica how he had gone into the nonscheduled airlines after the war; how he had hoped to get a certificate and buy a ship of his own--a half-million dollar aircraft, that the Army would sell for five thousand borrowed dollars. Of how, when that scheme failed, he had flown other people's airplanes, lugging low fare passengers back and forth across the continent. Of how the monopolistic "grandfather rights" of the big airlines were supported by the corrupt Civil Aeronautics Board to destroy low-cost air transport, so you never knew how long the airline for which you worked would continue. Of how, at last, he had come to work for a scheduled feeder-line.
And of the crash in mid-air!
He told her about the hearings, and Hennler. About how his attorney, Hal Ludley, had stopped believing in him after hearing the fatal tape. About how, in September, there would be a final hearing--and if no counterevidence were presented, he would be grounded for the rest of his life.
He was faintly illumined, by this time. His voice was low, intimate, earnest. He leaned forward over the table, his face intense, stabbing at the tablecloth with a toothpick.
Erica said. "How can you be so certain of what Hennler said? I mean, how can you be sure you didn't mis-hear him? Isn't it pretty noisy in a plane? Isn't it possible he said three thousand and you only thought he said two?"
Gary shook his head. "Not a chance. You sound just like Hal Ludley. That tape recording convinced him, too. But I know that tape is a fake."
"It has your voice on it. He couldn't fake your voice, could he?"
"He didn't have to," Gary said. "You know what tape recordings are like? They're little ribbons of paper. On one side they have a very thin coating of powdered iron. The paper is pulled steadily past a couple of electromagnets. They magnetize the iron to match whatever sounds the machine hears. When you play it back, the magnetized iron activates a special gadget that reacts to magnetism like a compass needle. From then on it works like any phonograph. But you can cut this paper tape anywhere you like and patch it with ordinary Scotch tape, and you can't tell what's been cut out. You can also record something else different and splice it in to replace something you don't want on the tape. It's very simple."
"But couldn't you see if something like that had been done?" Erica's face was a little flushed. She had taken off the jacket when her blouse dried out, but her hair was still stringy about her face and she kept shifting on her seat to get rid of the damp contact of her skirt.
"No. Because, he must have spliced it like I told you and re-recorded it."
"But don't tape recorders have some kind of eraser on them? I--Dr. Carter has one, and you can erase the tape and put a new recording right over where the old one was."
Gary shook his head. "That wouldn't have worked for Hennler. The eraser part is a few inches from the recording head, so you always erase a little more than the part you re-record on. Besides, you can always detect faint traces of what was there in the first place. It's all right for music. The new music drowns out the old. But with voices it shows through. Just the slightest sound of re-recording would have loused him up."
Somebody started a juke box, and a silken voice demanded "... just one more chance."
Erica said, "Dance with me?" Her fingers tapped out the beat.
He looked down quizzically at his still soaked clothing.
"Oh, you can't look any funnier than I do," she said.
He got up. On the dance floor she felt small and soft and warm in his arms. Then, dancing, feeling her body pressed close to his, he thought of the way she had started to say "Ivan," instead of "Doctor Carter," and then he thought, she's a nice kid and you couldn't go after her like that for money. You wanted to tell her about it, but that would mean telling her you knew about Carter. You were kind of sorry that you knew about Carter at all.
He had not yet seen Carter--except briefly when he had driven away from the hotel. There had been no chance to see his face then. But on that synthetic identity, Gary found himself imposing the face of the Reverend Doctor Heaslip. He said. "Let's go back to our table and have another drink."
"After this number," Erica said, smiling. Then, "What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"You look so serious? Ooh! My skirt is soaked. That damned half-slip keeps getting tangled in my legs." The idea of the wet slip excited him. He held her closer.
"Easy, Captain Heaslip," she said. "I'm breakable."
The record came to an end. Somehow, not quite noticing how it had happened, he found himself sitting on the same side of the table with Erica.
She said, "Gary? Have you done anything about Hennler, yet?"
"No. I haven't had a chance. I had to get a job, first. That damned lawyer cost a big hunk of dough."
"What are you going to do?"
"Make him confess."
"But how can you be sure? Do you have anything really to go on to prove he was the one that made the mistake? How can you be so certain?"
"Honey," Gary said, earnestly, "you can't make mistakes in a plane. Commercial planes don't have parachutes. You're with that plane. If something goes wrong, it's not just the passengers, it's your tail, too."
He sipped at his drink. "You hear a lot about pilots being to blame for smashing up ships. Don't kid yourself. It's like these wrecks on the Long Island railroad. Right away they blame the engineer. That's so people won't be scared of the lousy equipment. Damned few pilots make mistakes. They think too much of themselves to let themselves get killed." His voice had risen steadily.
Erica reached over and laid her hand on his arm. "I believe you, Gary. You don't have to get mad at me. I mean it. I really do believe you."
He grinned and, putting his arm about her shoulder, gave her a quick squeeze. "Thanks, kid. Another drink?"
The liquor formed a bridge of intimacy between them, crossing the abyss of conventional restraint that keeps people remote from one another. He put his hand over hers. "You know," he said, very solemnly, "you're a good kid."
"We're both good kids." She let her head fall over on his shoulder. "Everybody is a good kid but dirty old Hennler."
"Never mind Hennler," he said. "We're talking about you. You know, you're pretty without your glasses!"
"Thank you, sir."
"But you're interesting with them."
"Go to hell." Then, with sudden seriousness, "What are you going to do about him?"
"I don't know. I can't just walk up and say. 'Hennler, you dirty bastard, you better admit you faked that tape!' If I just beat him up until he admits it, he'll retract as soon as he's safe from me, and they'll toss me in the clink."
"Have you ever been in jail?" with pert interest.
"Well, make up your mind. What kind of conversation do you want to have?"
She shook her head, a little woozily. "No conversation. Just this." She reached up and put her arms around his neck, pulling his head down to her, his lips to her lips.
Somewhere, after a moment, just out of the range of his vision, a voice said, "Your drinks, sir."
"Just put them down, I'm busy," Gary said.
She drew away from him at length. Then she said. "Look, Gary," her seriousness bringing tears of earnestness to her eyes, "if there's anything I can do to help--absolutely anything--I will ..."
He wondered what had happened to him lately. Women were never like this before...
VIII
AUGUST HENNLER
August Hennler liked his mother-in-law. That was what made it so much worse when it happened, because he could tell there was no malice in it.
Mrs. Rupert Gaines came from an old upper-middle-class New England family, in which the "upper" part had worn threadbare with time and generations.
Mrs. Gaines, who was only forty-six when her husband took final advantage of his insurance policies, had promptly opened a small real-estate office in Hyannis, and was now quite independent even of the annuity Rupert had left as his bequest.
August remembered she had been responsible for his job with Long Island Airlines. Mother Gaines had leased property to Jack Williamson, who was president of L.I.A., and when Evelyn brought August home and introduced him as her intended, Mrs. Gaines had strained the contact with Williamson to the breaking point to get him the job as chief radio operator with the airline.
Evelyn had met August aboard the USS Malfory, when he was the radio officer, and she was a passenger homeward bound from a two-month European tour which Mrs. Gaines had felt essential to Evelyn's education.
That first evening, Mother Gaines had been completely taken with him. "But," she said, "you owe it to Evelyn to get some sort of work on shore. It's all very romantic and nice to meet on shipboard, but what kind of a marriage will you have if you're constantly gallivanting around the world while Evelyn waits at home for you?" Forthwith she had pounced on Williamson.
She had even encouraged the move to Montaugan. "It's far enough away," she said, "so you won't have your mother-in-law under foot. And near enough so we can get together whenever we like." L.I.A's flights made the trip in something under two hours, including stops.
He remembered, as he drove to the airport, that hot first Sunday morning in July, to meet the morning plane on which Mother Gaines would arrive, how she had backed his argument that there was no need for Evelyn to put Alec and Bertha in a day school. And it had been with as much pleasure as he had felt in the past month that he saw the heavy, middle-aged figure descending from the plane, and waving to him across the apron.
Mother Gaines had turned her cheek. "Where's Evelyn?" she asked. "And the children?"
"Home," he said. "She's working up a big pot roast in your honor. The kids are in the car. I had to leave them there. I don't know what's got into them lately. They're all over the place, constantly raising the dickens. I can't make them do a thing." The woman gave him an odd look, as he led the way to the parked car, from whose windows Alec peered, while Bertha serenely sucked her thumb in the middle of the back seat.
He opened the car door, suddenly filled with trembling anger. "Bertha!" he said. "Get your thumb out of your mouth! What have I told you? Do you want to have to wear braces?"
The child reluctantly wiped the wet digit on the front of her dress. And, uncontrollably, August said, "And stop mussing your dress!"
Mrs. Gaines touched his arm. "Augie," she said, gently. He was suddenly deeply ashamed.
Mother Gaines held both children in her lap as they rode back.
But what would she feel about the man who had married her daughter if he told her, ever, that he had been to blame for the deaths of seventeen people and had let another man take the rap?
But, he assured himself, he hadn't done it for himself. It was Alec and Bertha--for whom he abruptly felt a great wave of tenderness. He reached over, from behind the wheel, and touched Alec's swirling hair--and felt a surprised agony when the boy flinched away from him as though in fear of a blow.
For a moment he had the impression that even the children suspected him, as if his guilt shown on his face like the unclean "lion-look" of the leper. Then he thought, it's just nerves. The kids are acting like they always do. You're just making a big thing out of nothing.
But, as he turned into Pearl Street, he saw his mother-in-law watching him with the intent gaze that she used in appraising a doubtful piece of property.
Then the kids were out of the car, screaming, "Mommy, Gramma's here!"
He watched her follow them into the house, and then drove the car back to the garage. Today was July first, Sunday, the first of July. In eleven weeks, seventy-seven days this thing would come to an end. He crossed his arms on the wheel of the car, and let his head fall forward against them, thinking, what else could a man do?
How could you weigh Heaslip--a man you didn't even know--against Evelyn and Alec and Bertha and Mother Gaines? How could you shatter your life into a thousand pieces, break up your home, start a new way of making a living, load the children down with the weight of your disgrace--perhaps even lose them entirely--because you had made a mistake of just one lousy little word? Your mind went plunging back, as it did every night, as it did every time you were alone these days ...
You were alone in the radio room. Heaslip's voice had come in, "Long Island flight one-oh-five to Montaugan." He'd asked for the weather.
Then flight one-twelve had called in for conditions at Montaugan. Before you could answer, the intercom from the tower had called down the information about the change in flight clearance for one-oh-five. Through the window you could see the crew climbing into Cape Airlines C-46 out on the apron, as you gave one-twelve the dope he wanted. After that you called Heaslip. You told him to report leaving five thousand, and waited until he did. Then you worked on your log until suddenly, shockingly, Heaslip's voice screamed:
"Long Island one-oh-five to Montaugan! Crashed another ship! Going into the ocean just off Montaugan Point."
For a moment--a long moment--you had been stunned. Then you called back, "Montaugan to one-oh-five? Montaugan to one-oh-five? Come in!"
No answer.
That was when you called out the alert.
Then you saw the memo you had taken at the intercom call from the tower came in. "Change one-oh-five to three thousand." There it was in your own writing. But you remembered, remembered, remembered you'd said to Heaslip, "Boston Center reports converging traffic at five thousand. Clears Long Island one-oh-five, descend immediately to two thousand. Report leaving five thousand."
Then one-twelve came down, and you watched the activity on the field as Williamson and everybody else took off in cars for the point. The C-46 that had been running up on the apron, waddled down to the line.
When the air was clear, you cut off the recording on the tape, and rewound it until you were back past the conversation with Heaslip. You played it forward again, and heard your own voice saying, "... descend immediately to two thousand." Then you knew that you were to blame for the crash. That was when you phoned Evelyn.
You ran the tape on almost to the end, quickly re-recorded the instructions and cut off the short piece of tape with a scissor. Then back, back, back u
ntil you located the spot in the original recording. Then you cut it out with scissors, and spliced in the new words. When Evelyn came, you checked to see that no one saw her coming across the road to the radio room.
She brought the portable tape-recording unit in, and you told her to go wait in the car. You removed the spliced tape from the radio recording unit and slipped it into place on your own portable recorder, setting it for playback. Hurriedly, because there was not much time left before your relief came on, you began dubbing the one tape on to the other.
The tape ran for an hour at the normal rate, and you had to re-record the whole thing because a break in sequence would give you away. But you could speed up the recording and playback rates to twice the normal speed. Although the sound through the earphones was a skittering gibberish at high pitch, it came out fine on the replacement tape when played back at the normal rate. That way the hour-long reel took only thirty minutes to transcribe.
After a while you took off the earphones and watched the reels unwinding--implacably transcribing fateful words from powered iron to powdered iron.
Then you looked up at the big clock over the equipment and it was five minutes of five. You left the reels turning--like the mills of the gods--and went to stand in the doorway, watching for Kerby, the relief man.
When you saw him, there were still about fifteen minutes of dubbing to go. You signaled him to hurry. He broke into a run as he came across the road to the radio room. When he was within shouting distance, you called, "Jack! One-oh-five crashed off the Point. I'll stick here. You go to the main office and let me know if they need anything. Stick there and ..."
"Okay," Kerby said, and you watched his figure dwindling.
After a while, it was done. You cut off the equipment, leaving the balance of the dubbed tape in the machine, closed up your portable recorder with the spliced tape inside and walked around in back of the building, setting the unit in the little open space between the flooring and the ground.
You went back inside and called on the intercom, getting Kerby in the main office. "Jack? Did you just call me? I was trying to monitor the search, but I can't pick anything up. Anything doing there?"
Private Chauffeur Page 7
