Authors: Harry Bingham
‘I don’t know anything about airplanes. I don’t even know what type of plane this is.’
‘She’s a Curtiss JN-4D-2. You’ll have heard of her type as a Curtiss Jenny.’
‘A Jenny. Sure.’ He listened some more. ‘Four cylinders, right?’
‘Right.’
‘They’re firing OK, nothing wrong there.’ He moved his hands further down the engine cowling, then up again, like a doctor feeling for a pulse. ‘I’m getting a kind of metallic knocking sound. There… there … there.’ He beat time with his spare hand in time to the knocking. ‘That normal?’
‘No.’
‘And I could be wrong about this, I ain’t never seen an airplane engine before – still haven’t actually – but I don’t quite like the feeling I’m getting. She always shake this way?’
‘No.’
‘You happy with the crankshaft bearings?’
‘It’s not the crankshaft.’
Hueffer listened a little more, then removed his hand and came back to his seat.
‘You started out kinda simple, didn’t you? I was expecting something tougher.’
Abe looked at Mason, who looked back at Abe. ‘Well?’ said Mason. ‘Aren’t you gonna take a look?’
‘Don’t need to,’ said Hueffer. ‘My Aunt Jemmy could tell you that that engine needs its connecting-rod bolts tightened.’
Abe smiled
‘It sure does.’
He threw Mason a glance. Mason grimaced, but he nodded as well.
‘OK, buddy, you won the prize.’
It was a dark night on the Lower East Side.
A few drunks rolled by. Every now and then a car or truck. Down the block, steam curled upwards from a broken Conn Ed pipe, but no one paid it any attention. The street was quiet. Willard sat in a borrowed sedan, blinking to stay awake.
Earlier that evening, he’d called his mother from the office to let her know he was planning to visit that weekend. He’d given the times of his train, speaking slow and clear. Later on, at Grand Central, his ever reliable buddy, Greyhound-face, had been already there, lounging up against a hamburger stall, reading a racing paper, picking his yellow teeth. Willard had done everything as expected. He’d bought a ticket, bought some candy, strolled onto the platform, boarded his train. But then, instead of sitting down, Willard had run up the train, and changed his pale coat and hat for dark ones from his bag. Then he’d jumped off and hidden behind a pillar until he was able to leave the platform in the rush of disembarking passengers from the next incoming train.
He’d made his way here, unseen, unfollowed, to a place he already knew. He was parked outside the locked garage doors which might or might not belong to the Association of Orthodox Synagogues. According to the office paperwork, his precious Irish rabbis were expecting a delivery that very night – and Willard was painfully keen to see if the deliveries were any less fictitious than the organisation they served.
So he waited.
His eyelids ached to close. Sleep called. He opened the car window, first on one side only, then both. He drummed his feet. He hummed every tune he could remember. He took off his shoes and socks, so he could feel the cold metal of the pedals on his bare feet.
He thought about Rosalind. They were having sex all the time now, fantastic sex, marred only by the thick yellow condoms which he hated and she insisted on. And, though it had been slow progress, she was tipping over into love with him. He knew it. He could tell from her smile, her lips open in orgasm, the way she found his jokes funnier than before, the way she followed his lead, admired his example. Once, they’d been walking down the street, when they passed a bridal outfitters. There was a dress in the window: slim, lacy, straight. The sort of dress that would look a million dollars given the right girl. Rosalind hadn’t exactly stopped to look at it, but her gaze was caught and she had checked her stride. Willard stopped to let her view it. Rosalind looked in the window for another couple of seconds, then blushed. He laughed, made some light remark, let her laugh away the tension. But the point was there. Rosalind could at least consider the possibility that she would one day marry Willard.
And Willard? He didn’t rule it out either. He wasn’t a great one for falling in love. He enjoyed sex and he enjoyed being adored. Of course, one day, he’d marry and when he did, he hoped it would be with a girl like Rosalind. In the meantime, her slow tumble into love was like a rosy background glow that compensated a little for all the other things in his life he didn’t like.
Willard drummed his feet, yawned, fought to stay awake. It was three in the morning.
Down the street, a bakery store window lit up. Willard pulled his shoes and socks back on, and went to bang on the bakery door, which was yanked open by a sour-looking Brooklyner. From the kitchens behind there was a press of heat, white tiled walls, white dough, and clouds of white flour rising into the bright overhead light.
Willard asked for a couple of rolls. ‘Five minutes, maybe ten,’ said the Brooklyn man, but instead of heading back to the clatter of ovens, the guy stayed at the counter, cracking wise and talking about the movies.
Willard was about to launch into his ‘do you know who I am’ spiel, when he remembered that he needed to be anonymous. The guy preferred the slapstick stuff anyhow. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Cops. Although Willard had once got drunk with Keaton and swum in Chaplin’s swimming pool, he said nothing. And it was kind of nice. Odd but nice. Regular guy talk, man to man.
The rolls came. The Brooklyner asked if Willard wanted coffee, which he did. He ate the rolls, drank the coffee, and paid for it all with some coins he’d found rolling on the floor of his friend’s car.
He resumed his post and waited some more. Day broke. The streets grew busy.
Then, just as Willard worried he’d wasted his night, it happened. At eight-fifteen sharp, a canvas-sided truck came down the street. The truck had no markings, looked neither new nor old, and had two men sitting up in the cab. Outside the garage, the truck stopped. One of the men jumped out, unlocked a padlock, and swung the double doors open. The truck drove on inside. The double doors were closed again and locked.
That was it.
As the man had pushed open the garage doors, his coat had swung open. Willard thought maybe he’d caught a glimpse of a shoulder holster. Before the doors had swung shut, Willard had driven slowly by. Inside, he’d seen a concrete yard, the truck, some fuel cans, some wooden boxes. Nothing else.
On Monday morning, he placed a call to the Association of Orthodox Synagogues.
‘Hello?’ The voice on the other end of the line was as Jewish as the Blarney Stone and as orthodox as a plateful of pork.
‘Willard Thornton here from Powell Lambert. Some confusion in the paperwork, I’m afraid. It looks as though you won’t be getting your first delivery until a week from now.’
‘It’s already arrived, mister. Arrived and unloaded.’
‘It’s arrived? That can’t be right. According to my papers –’
‘Forget your papers. We got the stuff. Saturday morning, no problems.’
‘Really? What time? If you have an arrival time, I can check back with the transport people.’
‘Jay-sus… Eight o’clock. Half past. How would I know? Any case, we got it. Forget about it.’
A Jewish religious association which didn’t exist. A stream of deliveries which definitely did. Bugged phone calls and secret watchers. One man dead and a second man jailed.
The one thing Willard couldn’t do was to forget about it.
Arnie Hueffer pulled his head out of the cowling, his olive skin blotted and smudged with oil.
‘Done!’
Not for the first time, Abe was impressed. Hueffer had stripped, cleaned and reassembled an engine he’d never seen before in little longer than Abe would have taken himself. Hueffer turned on the ignition and let the engine build up power. He listened to her like a maestro, his fingertips delicately pressed against its metal skin. After a minute, his startling grin returned.
‘Sweet,’ he commented.
Abe nodded. ‘Sounds good. You want to take a ride?’
‘Take a ride?’
‘You been up in an airplane before?’
‘Motherogod, no!’
‘You want to try?’
Hueffer shook his head with unnecessary force. ‘Not for a million dollars. I don’t like heights.’
‘How d’you know? There’s nothing in Brunswick higher than two storeys.’
‘That’s why I like Brunswick.’
‘Try it. You might like it.’
‘I might hate it.’
‘Sure?’
‘Positive.’
Abe shook his head in bafflement. ‘Suit yourself.’
The aircraft in question was no longer Poll, but the new first lady of the hangar,
Havana Sue.
Sue was a converted de Havilland bomber, the DH-4. As promised, Mason had left the choice up to Abe, and – after the long and exquisite pain of choosing – he’d opted for the plane he’d first thought of. There were bigger planes on the market, but no better ones.
And Abe was pleased for a wider reason. The team was beginning to come together. Hueffer was a first-class mechanic, but not only that. He was also a man who’d lost his best friend, a fisherman, in an argument out at sea. A boat belonging to some bootleggers had snared this man’s nets. He yelled at them. They yelled at him. He yelled some more. Then they shot him five times in the head at close range. Hueffer didn’t just dislike mobsters, he hated them.
Abe had the plane. He had the mechanic. He had Bob Mason’s trust.
Only one thing bothered him. Mason wanted his boats tracked and guarded from Havana all the way to Marion. That was more than one man could do on his own. Abe needed help not only on the ground, but in the air as well.
Reluctantly, Mason had agreed to let Abe find another pilot. That, in itself, should be simple. At four hundred bucks a week, better than twenty grand a year, Abe could have filled a flying vacancy a hundred times over. But it wasn’t that simple. Abe needed a first-class pilot. He needed someone who could take Mason’s money but still be loyal to Abe. And Abe was a realist. He knew that the flying was dangerous and the Marion mob more dangerous still. So, on top of his other requirements, Abe added one more. He needed a man without family, without ties.
Abe had drawn up a list of all the pilots whose flying he trusted. One by one, he went through his list. Without success. Most of the guys had families. Those who didn’t were over-fond of liquor, girls or gambling. One by one, Abe crossed off every name. Every name bar one.
And Abe was just thinking about that one last improbable name, when he heard it.
An engine whine pushing down against the wind. A low note, but clear, soon followed by the plane itself. The stubby little shape. The curled-up power. The perfect beautiful streamlined monster. And in its cockpit, helmeted and goggled, sat a slim boyish confident figure – the last pilot left on Abe’s list.
Willard replaced the phone and stood up. He felt ridiculously nervous. He ran his hands over his smoothly parted hair, checked his collar, his already straight tie. Annie Hooper spotted his anxiety and came over.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘Oh no, of course not. Just Powell, you know.’ He said the last bit like he didn’t give a damn about Powell.
‘He wants you to see him?’
‘Yes. Right away, it seems.’
‘What about?’
‘No idea. It wouldn’t be very like him to bother telling me.’
‘No.’ Annie put her hands to his tie as though it needed adjustment, which it didn’t. She let the backs of her hands rest against his chest as she fiddled with the knot. ‘You’ll be fine.’
Willard let her fiddle. Willard realised with sudden pleasure that his almost automatic showing off had achieved its objective. Without particularly wanting to, he had won Annie’s tender heart. He smiled his movie-star smile and put his hand on her arm.
‘Oh, it’s all mouth with Powell. I’d tell him what I think of him, except for the damn loan.’
Annie looked away and moved her arm. ‘Good luck anyway.’
Feeling foolishly buoyed by his triumph, Willard bounded up the stairs to Powell’s office.
‘Thornton! Excellent! Come in. Listen, how long have you been with us now?’
‘Getting on for five months, sir.’
‘Hell, as long as that? I haven’t been looking after you properly. Your papa will probably want to kill me.’
A bottle of French champagne sat openly in a bucket of ice. Powell grabbed the bottle and began tearing at the foil and the wire cage. Willard stared at the bottle.
‘Is there something to celebrate, sir? My move into investments perhaps?’
‘Why d’we need a reason? I just wanted to offer a drink to the son of one of my pals. Here.’
Powell had torn the wire off the bottle and jammed a glass into Willard’s hand. He ripped the cork out of the bottle and held the bottle over Willard’s glass, not caring that the champagne splurged out everywhere, over-filling the glass, pouring down onto the expensive carpet and Willard’s hand-made shoes. Willard reflected, not for the first time, that there was something coarse in everything Powell was or did. Coarse and brutal. The wire cage from the bottle lay on the floor in the middle of the champagne spill. Powell let it lie there and just trampled it underfoot, as though unaware that the carpet was a pure wool, deep pile affair that probably came in at ten bucks the square yard.
‘How you getting on downstairs? Ronson looking after you? McVeigh? Claverty?’
‘Yes, indeed. Thank you. I’ve been made most welcome.’
‘Come on, Thornton, you don’t have to talk like you’ve got a stick up your ass. Really, how are you getting on?’
‘Fine, honestly. A lot of hard work, of course, only…’
‘Yeah? Only what?’
‘Well, sir, I don’t mind the hard work.’ Willard’s voice jerked petulantly as he spoke. As a matter of fact, though the hard work itself was OK, he did mind the fact that there seemed to be a conspiracy which passed the hardest files to him. He was sure now that his workload was the highest in the group’s, a fact he resented bitterly. But he steadied his voice as he continued. ‘What concerns me is my financial obligation to you. When you introduced me to the bank, you mentioned that if I were to repay the loan, it would be through my ability to earn exceptional returns on the bank’s money. I’d like to be given a chance, sir. I’m keen to start.’