Authors: Harry Bingham
The line moved forwards again but neither of the men had noticed. Annie wriggled free of their arms and stood ahead of them, asking them what sort of burger they wanted.
‘Good old Joe Burger,’ said Ronson. ‘A veritable prince of gooseberries. Ruining his Friday evenings to help the starving.’
‘Willard, what are you having?’
Annie turned to him, her fine brown hair damped down against her cheek. Willard stared at her blankly.
‘Old chap, your mouth is hanging open. Mr B here will probably have to stuff it closed with one of his excellent pickled gherkins.’
Willard shook his head.
How had Ted Powell known that Arthur Martin’s apartment and Arthur Martin’s desk would be empty in time for Willard’s arrival?
The question had no possible answer.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not feeling hungry.’
He pulled away from them and walked fast uptown, hatless through the pattering rain.
Abe ran through the little belt of turbulence over the Florida coast, turned, applied a side-slip with the nose into the wind. Then, just before the ground came up, he levelled the wings and kicked Poll straight with the rudder. The wheels came straight and touched down. As Poll began to shake her speed off into the grass, he let the tail float down as the elevator lost authority. He was a little later than he’d expected, partly because of headwinds, partly because he’d overflown one of the Marion launches on its way south. These days, he’d got into a routine with the bootleggers. They’d flash to him, signalling their presence and he’d flip into an aerobatic routine: loops, spins, barrel-rolls, dives. Once he came so low over the water at the launch, that by the time his undercarriage flashed over their heads, one of the bootleggers had been scared enough to jump overboard. The stunts were much appreciated. In the café in the Puerto del Ingles, Abe was a mini-celebrity. His drinks were always bought for him. He was showered with gifts: cigars, booze, chocolate. His routines grew more elaborate, more complex.
For now, though, Abe just taxied over to the hangar and stopped. The blur of propeller blades slowed to a flicker, then to a halt. Abe climbed wearily from the cockpit, pulled helmet and goggles off, scrubbed his head, face and neck under a cold tap. The hangar wasn’t just a place for Poll to come in out of the weather, it was Abe’s home too. As well as room for Poll and room for all the maintenance equipment she needed, Abe had set up a camp bed and thin mattress. He also had a sheet, a blanket, a coat rolled into a pillow, a small table, two chairs, two enamel mugs and plates, a primus stove, and a bag which contained his entire wardrobe. Aside from what was in the hangar or on his back, Abe owned nothing in the entire world.
He dried off with an end of towel. The beat of an airplane engine still thrummed in his ears, but it sometimes did after a long flight. He rubbed the sides of his head with his palms and listened again. The thrumming was still there, and it was a sound different from Poll’s. It was stronger, racier, deeper, cleaner. Abe jumped on an oilcan to get a better view, then saw it.
A plane was coming in from the south. She was flying low, steel-grey bodywork glinting in the sun. She was the most beautiful machine Abe had ever seen: a gloriously streamlined, squat-tailed biplane with stubby little wings and an engine asnarl with power. That she was a racing plane was obvious. That she was in trouble even more so.
The engine had a problem. It was running foul, firing wrong, missing beats. And there was another problem. Abe’s airfield had been designed for Poll. Because Poll was slow, she didn’t need much room to land or take off. And when the Miami authorities had approved the grant of land for an airfield, they had approved enough for Poll and not an inch more. The little racing plane didn’t have room to land.
The little plane howled overhead, its engine note all wrong. Abe watched, helpless. The longest strip of clear space on the airfield was on the diagonal, but a line of telegraph poles ruled out that approach. The little plane came to the same conclusion. It buzzed off towards the southwest, but Abe knew that the south-west held few options. A beach was fine for Poll’s slow and sturdy ways. But a racing plane could easily smash up on a beach. No. Abe corrected himself. Not could, would.
Would
smash up. Abe stared another moment, then ran to Poll. If he could get airborne fast, he could follow the pilot, and be on hand for the coming catastrophe.
But he was too late. The little plane came again. She was flying desperately low to the ground, tree-skimming and dune-hopping. Abe breathed slowly and evenly through his mouth. He silently urged the pilot not to do what he was about to do.
In vain.
The little plane sank lower. It was flying just twenty feet off the ground, dead level with the telegraph poles, dead level with the wire. It was an insane way to fly in any case, but here on the coast, with the turbulent ocean breezes making any manoeuvre vastly more difficult, it was beyond lunatic. The plane kept coming. Heading for the telegraph wire, heading for extinction.
The plane got closer – closer – closer – then at the last possible moment dipped its nose down. Like a terrier easing under a gate, the little plane scuffed its way beneath the wire. Its wingtips were so close to the telegraph posts on either side, Abe could virtually hear them twang. The pilot held his four feet of altitude another half second, then touched down on the airfield within mere yards of the boundary.
It was precision flying of the highest calibre, but the danger wasn’t over.
The pilot had already cut his approach speed to the bare minimum, but the plane was still running too fast. The aircraft tore across the airfield, kicking up a storm of dust from its wheels, its tailskid digging into the sand. Slowly – too slowly? – the racer lost speed. The pilot was using fullback stick, to drive the tail down and maximise drag from the wings. All the same, the little plane bounded three-quarters of the way across the field – then four-fifths – then nine-tenths – then ended up, engine still running, just fifteen yards from a three-foot ditch.
After a short pause, the racer made a cautious turn and bumped slowly up to the hangar.
Up close, the machine was beautiful – stunning. Abe recognised the plane as one of the Curtiss R6 series of planes, purpose-built racers, winners of all the flying competitions in 1922 and 1923, and holders of the world speed record before the Europeans had snatched it back. The plane was power and force and beauty and speed. Abe was open-mouthed with envy and delight.
The plane came up and stopped. The air emptied of sound, huge and hollow after the noise.
Abe looked at the pilot, whose head poked out from a cockpit screened by a low windshield raked back hard from the nose. The pilot was only just visible in the cramped cockpit, dust- and oil-stained, still helmeted and goggled, but obviously young and boyish. The pilot caught Abe’s glance and raised a gauntleted hand.
Abe nodded in answer.
The hand fell back and thumped the edge of the cockpit twice. The gesture meant ‘Thanks, old girl’, or maybe, ‘Thanks and sorry’. It was a gesture Abe had used often enough. He knew the pilot’s feelings: a mixture of relief, exhaustion, happiness, shock – a bubbling brew which took hours to settle.
The pilot took another few moments to gather himself, then pulled a face. The face might have meant something about luck and close shaves and being relieved, or it might just have been that his heart was still pounding in his chest and he was too tired to say anything sensible. Abe stood back, didn’t try to rush things.
Then the newcomer pulled off his goggles and dropped them in the cockpit. He was young, terribly young, reminiscent of the boys who had served with Abe in France. Served and died, in so many cases. He stood back as the pilot got ready to jump out. For a second – or less, perhaps just half a second – the pilot paused, as though expecting Abe to step forwards and offer a hand. But maybe not. Shock could make even the most familiar things seem strange. In any case, the pause ended. The pilot put his hands to the side of the cockpit and rolled his body out and onto the ground. He was around Abe’s height and, as far as you could tell anything about a person wrapped head to toe in sheepskin, thin.
‘That was a heck of a landing. One of the best bits of flying I’ve ever seen.’
The pilot smiled and puffed out with relief. Then he put his hand to his head and removed his helmet.
Or rather, not.
Not
his
head,
his
helmet. But
her
head,
her
helmet. Abe goggled in astonishment as a pretty sandy bob emerged into the strong Miami light. The pilot’s face
was
boyish, but it was boyish the way that the fashion plates in the women’s magazines were boyish, fine-boned but unfussy, clear-skinned, fresh and direct. It was an attractive face, the sort of face a man could like straight away and never change his mind about.
The woman smiled.
‘Hi.’
As problems went, it ought to have been a small one.
The Association of Orthodox Synagogues was expecting a consignment of ‘Sacred Books and Sacramental Materials’ from a Long Island based import-export outfit. The documents were in good order. The goods were in Long Island, ready for delivery. Insurance and transportation arrangements had been settled. But there was a problem.
The customer named on the delivery note was the Association of Orthodox Synagogues. But the beneficiary named in the insurance documentation was the Associated Synagogues of New York. Did it matter? Maybe not. But if there was a screw-up and Powell Lambert took a hit, then it would be Willard who suffered, no one else.
Larry Ronson wasn’t around at the time Willard ran into the issue. Willard didn’t like Leo McVeigh and didn’t want to ask him. Iggy Claverty and Charlie Hughes were both there, but Willard guessed Claverty was bound to be flippant and Hughes fussy and nervous. Sunshine cut across the room, hurting Willard’s eyes, reminding him of his time in the cockpit, when throwing the plane around in the sky made the sun bob and spin like a wild thing…
He strode across the room and pulled down a blind. Annie caught his eye and smiled at him. She smiled at him more than at Ronson now. Willard noticed and was pleased. He went back to his desk. The problem was still there. Sunshine still swam in through a flaw in the blind. The Association of Orthodox Synagogues? The Associated Synagogues of New York? Which? Willard dialled a number, got no reply. To hell with it.
The documents both contained the same address, which was only a short walk away on the Lower East Side. Willard jumped up.
‘I’m going out, Annie. Shan’t be long.’
She smiled at him again and tucked a strand of light brown hair behind her ear. It was a menace that strand: always falling loose and needing to be put back, especially when she knew he was watching her. Willard didn’t flatter himself that she was flirting, but he knew that she was very aware of his presence.
In a rare good mood, he strode north, but as he got closer, his mood evaporated. The neighbourhood was a poor one. There was something edgy in the air: smells of bad plumbing, decaying masonry, conversations that fell silent as he approached. He found the address: a shabby doorway at the bottom of a concrete staircase. A domestic argument droned angrily from a nearby room. There was no plate on the door. Split green linoleum rippled underfoot – Willard noticed it particularly, because he had just taken delivery of half a dozen pairs of handmade shoes. He was wearing a pair now, and his feet were sore and uncomfortable in the stiff new leather. He rang the bell.
No answer. He rang again. Then, just as he was about to give up and go, an Irishman, unshaved, wearing trousers and his undervest came to the door.
‘Yeah?’
‘Oh… Excuse me, I believe I must have the wrong address.’
‘Who d’you want?’
‘I understood that a Jewish religious organisation was based here. As I say, I must –’
‘Huh? Kikes?’
There was a muffled shout from the dark interior beyond the Irishman’s shoulder. ‘Uh … wait a moment, will you,’ he said, and disappeared.
When he came back, he’d found a shirt from somewhere, but hadn’t bothered to button it.
‘Sure, you’re right. At least, they’re not here exactly, but… What d’you say your name was?’
‘My name is Willard Thornton, representing the Trade Finance department of Powell Lambert.’
Willard handed the man a card, who blinked at it, and stuffed it into a greasy pocket. ‘Jesus!’ He pronounced the name the Irish way, Jay-sus.
‘You can get a message to them?’
‘I can, sure. There’s a fellow, black coat and that, a rabbi. I guess he’ll give you a call, maybe. Is that all you’ll be wanting? OK.’
The door slammed shut. From inside, a burst of laughter crashed against the shabby plywood. Willard was suddenly angry. Whatever had just happened, he had the sense of being made a fool of. He folded his fist, wanting to smash it through the door, wanting a fight.
He didn’t, of course, but when he got back to Powell Lambert, he sought out Ronson. Willard explained the problem in angry, affronted tones. Ronson looked serious.
‘You think there might be a problem with this outfit?’
‘It was no place to find a bunch of…’ Willard swallowed the word ‘kikes’ and used the word ‘rabbis’ instead. ‘The place was a shithole, Larry, honestly.’
‘You worry somebody’s playing us for suckers? That’s your worry?’
‘Well, good Lord, something didn’t add up.’
‘Maybe. On the other hand, there’s no law against shitholes. And the thing with the insurance note, I’ve had that before. The insurance clerks just scribble down whatever the hell they want. No attention to detail. Now what I’d do if I were you…’
The conversation drifted into the comforting detail of paperwork and insurance forms. Willard was grateful to Ronson for his help. Iggy Claverty came over and helped out too. The problem seemed resolved.
And that was all.
Or almost.