Hollywood Buzz

by Margit Liesche

  “That camouflage netting. Incredible.”

  I looked out my window. “Yeah. The Ocean Park Boulevard painted across the top of the Douglas plant blends so perfectly with the pavement at each end, it’s impossible to tell where the fake street stops and the real one begins. Look, oil streaks and tire marks even.”

  I banked the plane giving Gunnar a clear view of the cloth and framework reproduction of the Santa Monica Douglas aircraft plant nearby. “And there’s the dummy Douglas plant—fake field and all.”

  Once the U.S. Army Engineers had successfully obscured the real factory with the camouflage netting, making it look like an extension of the surrounding residential neighborhood, they realized the unmistakable bulk of the big hangar was impossible to completely disguise. So, a dummy plant was built as a more obvious diversion. Only a short distance away from the real thing, the fake facility was dominated by an imitation of the big hangar and flanked by a perfect—but bogus—airfield.

  “Brilliant,” Gunnar said. “Shrouding the fake facility with shoddy camouflaging to catch the eye of an alert bombardier.”

  I nodded, maneuvering the plane back on course. “The effort and skill that it took to disguise the real plant is one thing. But think of the thousands and thousands of dollars that went into making the reproduction.”

  “In the bookkeeping of war, it’s a small price to pay. Throwing an invader into momentary confusion and jumbling his plan of attack gives defending planes and gunners their chance.”

  At a sputtering in the engine’s sound, my grip on the throttle tightened. I held my breath, listening. A pilot’s ear, like that of a symphony conductor’s, is constantly tuned to perfect pitch. The slightest deviation is jarring.

  Gunnar looked over. He’d heard it, too.

  A scan of the instruments read normal and the engine’s hum was smooth again, yet neither of us spoke. We remained all ears, concentrating on the powerful vibration of the Pratt & Whitney and the normal hiss of airflow seeping into the cabin through vents and joints in the fuselage.

  I made a few adjustments to keep us on course.

  Finally, Gunnar let out a long breath. “What do you think it was?”

  I looked over with a blasé smile. “That little hiccup?” My voice sounded calmer than I felt. “Probably nothing. A random, normal sputter.” Of course, sputters weren’t the norm. But we were 9,300 feet up, and that’s what I was willing it to be.

  I entertained thoughts of heading back to Clover Field. But so much was riding on our getting to March Field on schedule, I quickly ditched the idea. Bulk had gone over the plane and I’d personally conducted the preflight inspection. There was nothing to be jittery about.

  Except that a saboteur may be lurking about.

  Shoving the thought aside, I said, “We were discussing camouflage. This morning I bumped into Wilma Wallace. She looked different. A stop in the make-up department, she said.” I looked over. “She was Brody’s lover.” Gunnar nodded. “You said she was questioned and cleared. Did you know she’s planning to leave town? Possibly the country?”

  Gunnar gathered his thoughts for a moment. “It’s a complex matter, but yes. She’s enlisted in the WACs, a good place for her to be.”

  “Chalmers is off the hook, so’s Wallace. Brody’s secretary, Myra? What about her?”

  The possibility that she might somehow be mixed up in Brody’s death had occurred to me immediately, and I was somewhat shocked to learn Gunnar did not consider her a suspect. I told him what Wallace had said about the likelihood of Myra knowing about the affair.

  “So Myra could have been blackmailing him.” I looked over. Gunnar nodded, but he was holding something back. “You don’t still suspect Ilka, do you?”

  He didn’t answer. We hit a few bumps. My stomach knotted as we rode out the turbulence, then uncoiled as the air settled again almost immediately. I adjusted the trim tabs. The bar on the artificial horizon gauge leveled out.

  Gunnar sent me a wan smile. “This is getting to be an interesting flight.”

  My eyebrow lifted. “I was asking about Ilka.”

  “Yes, she’s still a suspect. The herb found in Brody’s cup, remember? Got a message as I was leaving that the toxicology tests are in. Haven’t followed up, but I’ll know more soon.”

  “You said money was her motive. Ilka’s got a job. Three jobs, if you count palm reading and acting. Why would she need more money?”

  Gunnar shifted in his seat. “Family back home.”

  I bit my lip, recalling Ilka proclaiming she would use the money she made as an actress to help friends in the old country. Help Lugosi. Could Ilka have gotten involved in a crime ring as part of a desperate attempt to raise funds to help secure the release of her Grandmother Roza and other relatives in Hungary? Was that what Gunnar suspected?

  “But you don’t have any evidence.”

  Gunnar shrugged. “I’ll let you know what toxicology says.”

  “Identifying the herb won’t be proof.”

  “Pucci, Ilka has access to film studios and sets. She was there last night when you were attacked. Ilka’s a Gypsy…”

  I interrupted. “Hold it. Enough with the stereotype…”

  Even as I was saying the words, I was remembering what Ilka had said about her Gypsy heritage this morning on the set. I come from phony. She’d admitted criminal activities were part of the Gypsy culture. Hadn’t she even acknowledged that she’d personally lied and stolen many times? What if she’d been tantalized by something irresistible? Something like getting family out of harm’s way?

  I concentrated on the instruments and checked our course. Gunnar was completely silent. “Have you talked to your sister about this? Della has complete faith in Ilka.”

  “I would if I knew where she was.” He smiled, but I was not in the least bit charmed. The smile faded. “Pucci, don’t look so distressed. She’s only a suspect. One suspect. And now you’ve served up other leads. We’ll look into the news vendor. And Winwar. I’m also going to delve deeper into the secretary’s background.” He scratched his neck near his Adam’s apple. “You know, there’s something else it might make sense to reopen.”

  Gunnar at last came clean about his reasons for wanting the film segment of Frankie crying. In the clip, he’d picked out a woman’s image in the background. On a wild hunch, he thought he might turn up a connection to Brody’s blackmailers. A cameraman from the P-51 film crew had caught the scenario. It was taken just before Frankie went up. The image was fuzzy, and it was not possible to make out who else was in the shot. With nothing else relevant to go on, he’d dropped the thread. Now, building on my suspicions about Myra and keeping in mind she would have had access to the hangar, he would check back with the cameraman to see what he remembered.

  Goosebumps rose up and down my arms as Gunnar talked. Could the woman in the background be the culprit who’d put sugar in the A-24’s tank?

  Argh! There it was again. A momentary roughness in the engine hum. Barely perceptible. Gunnar’s “son of a bitch” was drowned out by yet another sputter.

  A hot rush of adrenaline charged through my veins. “Dammit,” I muttered before I could catch myself, “they’ve gone and sabotaged this plane, too.”

  I scanned the instruments.

  “What’s going on?” Gunnar asked, clearly alarmed.

  Preoccupied with weighing what to do about the situation, I didn’t answer right away. I looked out my window. The rugged peaks of the San Bernardino Mountains cut a jagged line against the horizon to the north. We were maybe ten minutes from March Field. Would we be better off putting down in the sage brush country below and taking our chances on the terrain, or pushing on to where an emergency crew would be on hand if we needed them?

  Gunnar picked up on my thoughts. “Think we should get this machine out of the air?”

  March Field seemed the right choice. Now all I had to do was to keep Gunnar—and myself—calm until we got ther
e.

  “No. No need to panic,” I replied, firmly. “Miss C’s been experimenting with some fancy schmancy high-octane fuel. My guess is that’s what’s going on.”

  “You mentioned sabotage,” Gunnar said, evenly, rubbing at a kink in his neck.

  Where was that hearing problem when I needed it? I’d hoped he’d missed my slip-up.

  The stress of carrying around the secret truth of what happened to Frankie seemed overwhelming all at once. Miss C was not available, but it was definitely time to confide in someone higher up and get some answers. And if anyone could learn why the findings of Frankie’s accident were being kept hush-hush, it’d be Gunnar. He knew Beacock at March; he was G-2; he obviously had an in with the brass hats. But what about my promise to Max? She’d been given orders to remain silent and had gone out on a limb telling first Miss C, then me. Her future was riding on my keeping the secret.

  Ah, but Max hadn’t asked me not to tell anyone about finding sugar in the tank of the wreckage. She’d only said I couldn’t tell anyone where I’d heard it.

  “Miss C told you I’m on a case…” I began, quickly bringing Gunnar up to speed.

  Gunnar was astounded by the news. If he was to be believed—and I’d decided to trust him, hadn’t I?—he had no knowledge that sabotage was behind the incident. If he, with his connections to the intelligence community, wasn’t aware of the sabotage, did that mean the enemy could be ruled out? Could it be, as we’d been speculating all along, that the deed had been “friendly fire,” meant as a warning to WASP pilots? That someone in our own Army Air Force wanted us to throw down our wings and leave the flying to the men?

  Gunnar didn’t have any ready answers to what was going on. Not even any guesses.

  “But, Pucci, if the objective was to frighten off the WASP, why has the discovery been kept under wraps? Wouldn’t the idea be to publicize the incident?”

  “And launch a full scale investigation?” I shook my head. “No way. The incident is being kept hush-hush because the saboteur is ‘one of their own.’” I glanced over at him. “Word about the crash will get out soon enough via the grapevine. They’ll make sure of that. Then the news will leap like wildfire from one ready room to the next.”

  Gunnar looked at me long and hard. “I’ll make some contacts soon as we’re on the ground. See what I can learn.”

  “One more thing,” I said. “You brought up the P-51 cameraman. Sam Lorenz was on that crew, and he was a friend of Frankie’s. He’s got a drug problem, did you know?”

  “We know…”

  According to Gunnar, Sam had been assigned to Fort Roach in spite of the known addiction, the shortage of writers having worked to his advantage. That, and the certificate indicating he’d completed a three-month treatment program at the state hospital. Gunnar hadn’t known he was back on drugs.

  “But I’m not shocked…”

  The engine lurched; my stomach heaved. The engine sputtered, and the gyro and every needle on the panel hiccupped wildly.

  Tiny beads of perspiration had formed along Gunnar’s hairline.

  “You all right?” I asked when everything was steady again.

  “Fine.” He swiped the line of sweat with his finger. “You might have told me about the sabotage before I buckled up.”

  I sighed. “That’s funny coming from you. You know what it’s like to be sworn to secrecy.”

  Gunnar cleared his throat.

  “Sorry. That was unfair. Our little tight-lipped conspiracy put you in a dodgy plane.”

  “At least I’m with you,” he said with goofy grin meant to cut some of the tension.

  I smiled then grew serious. “The fact that the problem is intermittent suggests it’s something in the fuel feed. We’re almost at March. I think we can make it.”

  There was no hesitation. “You’re the pilot. March Field it is, then.”

  I smiled at the vote of confidence.

  March Field came into view in the distance.

  “We’re there.” I reached to flip on the radio transmitter. Without warning, the engine shuddered, then quit. Heat surged through my body. Instinctively, I dropped the nose in an effort to hold a glide pattern. I looked below. We were over chaparral country. There were clumps of dwarf trees and dense thickets of mesquite brush. There was plenty of flat open space as well. Could be worse.

  I tightened my seat belt. Gunnar followed suit. An uncanny calm came over me as I began running emergency procedures, rapidly checking lines, gauges and controls.

  “Can I do something?” Gunnar’s voice sounded loud in the eerie silence.

  With a swift motion, I flipped a switch to put us on another tank. My tongue pressed against the parched roof of my mouth, making a sticky sound. I swallowed to get some moisture going.

  “Not yet,” I managed finally, the voice sounding nothing at all like mine.

  I pumped the throttle with vigor. The engine failed to react. I put the Staggerwing into a gentle turn, heading for the clearest flat area around. We continued to lose altitude. The propeller caught a shaft of sunlight. I watched it slowly windmill in the slipstream. I glanced at the altimeter, then over to Gunnar. He didn’t say anything, but signaled thumbs up.

  I went back to manipulating the pump lever, mixture controls and throttle. Suddenly, the engine backfired—once, then twice. I held my breath. A sputter. Then, with a roar, the Pratt & Whitney sprang back to life.

  I shoved the throttle to stop the descent and gain airspeed. Gently, I pulled up, banking to the left to get us back on course.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My stomach settled slowly.

  “Nice work,” Gunnar said calmly, looking a little pale.

  I grinned. “Thanks. Nothing to it.”

  Gunnar studied the instruments. “Still think the problem’s in the fuel feed?”

  “More than ever. The tanks are on separate systems. We were on a wing tank. I switched us to the reserve. Seems to have licked the problem.”

  Gunnar smiled thinly. “How about setting us down before the reserve goes bonzo?”

  I called the tower for clearance, entered the pattern, and began a slow descent.

  As we were approaching our runway, Gunnar said softly, “You cannot go up in the P-51 until we know what’s going on.”

  “But all the arrangements are made. Novara, the film crew, they’re driving out to March, hauling out all the equipment. They may already be here. Besides,” I added, already knowing he was right but reluctant to give in, “it’s possible the fuel system wasn’t tampered with at all. Could be mechanical failure.”

  “Your pal’s plane was sabotaged. That’s enough for me. Should be for you, too.” Gunnar checked his watch. “You can try to catch Novara and the film crew. They may not have left Fort Roach yet. Afterwards, we’ll fix things with Beacock together.”

  A chance to fly the P-51 was hard to walk away from. I sighed. “Righto.”

  Set up for the landing, I cranked the handle for the landing gear and cocked the nose into the crosswinds. Dropping us gently onto the runway, I worked the brakes and flaps to slow us down. A turn near the end of the runway, and we were taxiing toward our designated spot. At Hangar Ten, I flipped off all switches and cut the engine. Gunnar and I breathed loud sighs of relief.

  Down on the tarmac, we went our separate ways. I searched out Novara and the film crew, discovering to my relief that only a team of gaffers and grips had arrived so far. My luck held when I called Fort Roach. Novara was still there. Without providing any detail, I explained that a crisis had arisen at March Field and that filming would have to be postponed. He was irritated, but grateful they hadn’t wasted time making the trip. An urgent new film project had been thrown his way. He’d be working late into the night as it was.

  Gunnar and I joined up again to meet with Major Beacock. We provided a different spin, indicating that a snag had developed back at Fort Roach necessitating a delay in the film shoot. B
eacock agreed to reschedule whenever we could pin down a date in the future.

  Gunnar stayed on to talk with Beacock and I went to see Max. She had taken on the post-flight inspection of the Staggerwing. She thought she could get back to me this afternoon.

  I hitched a ride back to Clover Field with the film crew.

  ***

  It was time to put Gunnar’s Gypsy and herb theory to rest. I navigated the Packard in the general direction of the Dunns’, taking a slight detour through the streets of Culver City first.

  The dark-haired man with the walrus mustache who’d been filling in for Gus earlier in the day was still at the kiosk. I parked and scooted up the walk.

  15 JAP WARSHIPS HIT; THREE SUNK. I saw the bold headline before I reached the kiosk. Closer in, I read the subhead: U.S. NAVY FLYERS DESTROY 88 NIP PLANES. Good work. Way to go boys, I cheered inside.

  The man had his back to me, straightening a pile of papers below the counter. I felt a twinge of regret at noting the absence of the can of flowers, but my greater remorse was the growing certainty that I’d been deceived by the immigrant news vendor Gus…or whoever he was.

  Gus’ sub straightened and turned to face me. “Top o’the day, darlin’.” He had a pug-nosed Irish face and spidery, oversized eyebrows to match the expansive bristly patch above his lip.

  “Help yourself.” With a sweep of his arm, he backed away from the news racks so I could browse.

  “Where’s Gus?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “That scalawag? Skipped without word. The wife’s sick. I’m needed at home. Signed him on to fill in for a month. Now he’s gone.” A worried look seized his face.

  “You’re the owner, then?”

  The man nodded.

  “And you don’t know where to find him? No address?”

  “Darlin’, this here’s no military operation. I take what I get. Say—” He pinched an end of his mustache. “Fella was just here askin’ about Gus. Smelled like a copper. Now you’re nosin’ around too…”