Authors: Harry Bingham
The boy grinned, five years too old for his skinny frame. ‘Two bucks a glass. A ten buys enough to pickle your head.’
Willard handed over ten bucks. ‘And fast, OK? I’m leaving soon. Appointment at the Senate, as a matter of fact.’
The kid took the money and vanished. He was back inside five minutes with a clear glass bottle and a scrap of paper. He waved the paper.
‘This is your prescription. Medicinal alcohol. All part of the service. When you’re done, empty the bottle and rinse it. The number of sick people in this hotel, you wouldn’t believe.’
The boy went. Willard drank. He imagined himself in a new career. Public service of some sort. Defence department. Responsibility for the Army Air Corps. He imagined himself at the White House. ‘Mr President, the future of warfare is in the air. Can any army resist aerial attack? No, sir. Can any navy? No, sir. This country must look to the sky for its security, to the sky for its greatness.’ He rephrased the speech a couple of times until it sounded right. He drank more, then went into the bathroom to comb his hair again. He leaned in to the mirror. ‘Listen, Mr President,’ he murmured. ‘If I were you, sir…’
It was time to go. He hurried downstairs, where Gregory had the Buick running. Willard climbed in and the big car slipped away. Willard felt the slow fire of patriotic excitement and pride. His father lived and worked in these surroundings, among the great men of his nation. It was an honour: an honour and a privilege. Willard sat forwards, watching the great white dome of the Capitol creep closer.
‘A beautiful sight, huh?’ said Gregory, quietly dropping the ‘sir’.
‘Wonderful.’
‘Even better by day.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘Just a shame about the skunks inside, right?’
Gregory’s comment spoiled Willard’s mood. He knew what most people thought of their politicians. He knew, if it came to that, what
he
had said about politicians most of his life. But he’d been wrong. The great white dome faintly gleaming against the night seemed proof of that.
‘They’ve got a tough job to do,’ he said, shortly.
That was the last thing Willard remembered in detail. The car arrived at the West Door. Gregory escorted him to a desk inside the entrance. Willard gave his name to the clerk and a man appeared to waft him down corridors of marble. Willard had an impression of white pillars, classical busts, oil paintings, dark panelling. The building had an atmosphere half-businesslike, half-reverent. Willard walked along half a pace behind the man, feeling like a peasant in a cathedral. At last, the man stopped outside a pair of wooden doors.
‘The library, sir.’
The man led him on inside. Willard was breathless with excitement. The library was furnished like the best sort of gentleman’s club. There were rows of leather-bound books, tables with that day’s newspapers neatly folded, a couple of generous log fires crackling away inside marble hearths. And everywhere there was the subdued murmur of great men directing the affairs of the greatest nation on earth.
Willard followed his guide down the length of the room. At the end, part of the library was partitioned off by a heavy red velvet curtain. The man went to the edge, drew a flap aside and motioned Willard forward. Willard stepped through alone.
And saw this: his father, jowled and craggy, too coarse for these refined surroundings, but also at home in them. Very much at home.
And this: around his father a small group of men, senators of the United States, some of the most important men in the country.
And this: a long mahogany bar, crowded with bottles, bottles of
alcohol
, every sort you could imagine. Beer, champagne, whiskies from Scotland and Ireland, American bourbons, white rum, brown rum, London gin, French brandy, port, madeira, sherry, tequila, vermouth, vodka, schnapps, liqueurs of every colour and description, wines red and white from the very best European vineyards, Californian wines with labels proclaiming the best pre-war vintages, glasses of every kind and size, cocktail shakers, ice buckets, lemons cut in cutesy little slices, bowls of nuts, olives, dumb little parasols for making dumb little drinks. Everything.
Willard experienced a rushing in his head. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. He saw, or felt, his father coming towards him. His father with a glass in his hand. His father’s face with a crooked smile of welcome. His father saying something, repeating it, saying it over and over.
‘Willard, my boy, welcome to the Senate of the United States.’
Sometimes the air that lies just ahead of a big storm is absolutely still. So still, it can feel like flying through a churchyard: solemn, quiet, and in the looming presence of something vast. Other times, the air is troubled. It has bands of stillness, then sudden bursts of turbulence, like long fingers eddying out from the wall of destruction in the sky. This storm was of the second sort. It was harder to fly, but also more exhilarating. It needs to be
flown
not simply crossed. Abe liked the way his DH-4 hit the winds and sailed them, he liked the strength of his wings, the roar of his engine.
The miles rolled past. The grey, white and red of Jacksonville came into view and then, north of town, Samana Field. The field was a stretch of dune grass and beaten mud, once part of some developer’s scam, now derelict. It was large enough, flat enough to take a plane. Abe and Pen had designated it their emergency field, their secret, their rendezvous.
And although Abe flew clearly, handled the controls, the regular minor course adjustments with perfect accuracy and authority, he felt as he had never felt in his life before. Pen mattered to him like nothing else in his life before.
He remembered haw urgently he had felt the loss each time one of his young pilots in France had been killed or captured. He remembered how deeply he had wanted his kids to come back alive. But those feelings had been negative ones. He hadn’t been especially attached to the individual kids, he just hadn’t been able to bear the constant useless deaths. The experience had seared him. He’d run from commitment, run from feeling.
All that had changed. With Pen, the whole of Abe was liberated. He could be an adventurer
and
a lover, a loner in the cockpit
and
a romantic on the ground. Abe had so many plans for them both. He imagined them flying together, making a home together – good grief, he even thought of them having kids together. He loved her talk, and he loved her silences. He liked her face when she was unaware of him. He loved her body when it was close to him.
He flew as he had always flown, but his heart raced as it had never raced before.
He flew over the field. He could see nothing beneath, no sign of Pen. That in itself meant nothing. She’d be keeping out of sight until the last possible minute. There were a couple of low, dark metallic shapes concealed in a thicket of maritime oak. Abe tried to see them better, but couldn’t. It didn’t matter. The developers had begun a little construction before going bust and they’d left some rubbish behind. The shapes were probably just tin huts left over from the build.
He came in to land.
The storm was out of reach. The air was still. Abe could pick his approach, give himself the maximum length of clear runway. It was a simple landing.
He touched down.
The front wheels hit the ground cleanly, the tail skid began to kick up a trail of dust. Abe kept his hand on the throttle, closing it down but not off. He kept his eyes on the little clump of trees.
The mystery of the metallic shapes resolved itself. Cars, two of them, full of men. Men with guns. Rifles already jabbing out of the windows and shooting. The plane was rolling towards them. Abe couldn’t veer, brake or turn.
The plane still raced forwards. The cars approached, firing wildly. Abe’s hand was still on the throttle. He was still running fast. He’d never intended to land this time anyway. The touchdown had been a feint to draw out anything that might be lurking.
He pushed forward on the throttle, gathered speed, felt the wings complain at him for keeping them down, then touched back on the stick and leaped into the air. He passed the two cars seventy feet over their heads. Any bullets passed harmlessly behind. Keeping close to the ground, Abe tore away, out of range, out of sight.
And all he could think was,
What has happened to Pen?
Willard actually staggered back.
He caught his foot in the curtain that divided the Senate library and had to reach for a white marble pillar to steady himself. His father smiled indulgently.
‘Quite an impressive sight, huh? I think you once asked if the Firm operated any speakeasies, and I said we did. Just one.’ He waved his hand. ‘This is it. The most exclusive, the best-served, the most fully stocked, the best-run club in the entire world.’
‘But
‘But what?’ His father carried on grinning, as though unable to guess Willard’s objection.
‘But, Father,
here
? Of all places,
here?
How do you …? I mean, don’t you…?’
Junius Thornton put his hand to his son’s back and steered him through to the bar.
‘What’ll you have?’
‘Anything, Father – or no, nothing, water. I had a drink before I came out. I hadn’t thought…’
His father’s grin was beginning to look wrong; Some men have faces made for smiles. Others don’t. Junius Thornton didn’t. Willard wished his father would stop smiling.
‘Water, really?’
Willard nodded. A barman was hovering close by ready to take any order. Junius Thornton said nothing, just nodded. The barman vanished. Thornton stopped smiling. He turned back to his son.
‘How do we operate a fully-stocked bar in the heart of the United States Senate?’
Willard nodded.
‘Depends what you mean. If you mean, how do we keep the bar supplied with liquor, then the answer is that we have a procurement office downstairs. We take stock every night. Any requirements are logged right away and phoned through to Wall Street. We aim to supply any liquor in the world from stock within twenty-four hours. The gentlemen here –’ Thornton waved his arm around the room, including about a dozen senators in his wave ‘– they enjoy testing us. “Neapolitan grappa, splash of blue curaçao, served on the rocks, twist of lime.” If we can’t do it then and there, we pretty much guarantee to have it ready for them same time, next day. These days, there’s not a lot we can’t supply on the spot.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
‘What did you mean?’
That was a fair question. What
did
Willard mean? He chose his words carefully.
‘These men are the nation’s most senior lawmakers. They’re here to… Hell, you know what I’m saying. These guys here make the law. Make it and uphold it. And this bar isn’t some minor violation. This bar violates the Constitution… Father, isn’t this wrong?’
Junius Thornton had a way of showing nothing in his face. He could hold his face that way in the midst of conversation. His brown eyes never stopped assessing the situation, gathering and analysing information, but neither his eyes nor his mouth gave anything away. In those moments he looked like some highly efficient predator, coolly judging the coming kill.
The moment passed.
‘Wrong? What’s right and wrong these days, Will? Do you know? Damn me if I do. When I married your mother, she’d never kissed a man before. Hardly looked at one. These things girls put on their faces nowadays – your sisters, no less – lipsticks, powders, colours – if your mother had worn anything of the sort, she’d have been considered no better than a chorus girl, and quite likely a good bit worse. Your girl – what’s her name, again?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Your girl?’
‘Oh.’ Willard had to pause for a second to find the name himself. He got it straight away, of course, ‘Rosalind,’ but the strange thing was that it was little Annie Hooper’s dimpled, freckled face that came to mind.
‘Rosalind, right. Now I’m not saying a word against her, times have moved on, but those dresses she wears, your mother would have died rather than worn. Or take your jaunt into Hollywood. I was wrong about that. I thought it was a business that no gentleman should undertake. But I was thinking about the way things used to be, not the way things are today. Maybe it was the war that changed things. Maybe progress. Maybe money. But things change, you can’t judge things in the old-fashioned way.’
‘But the law? There’s no law about what a girl can wear. There’s no law against motion pictures.’
‘No, no.’
Junius’s answer implied a tone of total agreement, as though he hadn’t understood Willard’s objection. Willard pushed his case.
‘If we can’t trust the lawmakers, Father, then what’s left? Even now, aren’t there things too sacred to touch?’
‘Sacred?’ The older man lifted his massive eyebrows for a moment, as though questioning Willard’s entitlement to use the word. ‘Hmm! Tell me, in your view, Prohibition, is it a good thing or a bad thing?’
The question put Willard on the spot. He’d never thought about it much.
‘Well, you know, Pa, the American working man needs protection. He comes home at the end of a day, wants a drink, takes too many, then what have you got? Illness, accidents. Businesses can’t run themselves. And the wives and kids, what are they meant to do? I mean, I don’t know, but I’d say, on the whole, a good thing.’
Junius Thornton’s massive head began slowly nodding. ‘I’m with you, my boy. I agree.’
‘You do?’
‘And look around.’ Willard looked at the senators talking and laughing over their drinks. The curtained-off area only occupied about one third of the total library floor space, but it held at least two thirds of the library’s occupants. ‘What do you see? Do you see any illness? Accidents? Unhappy wives or fatherless kids?’
‘No. Of course not. No.’
‘Anyone here not up to the job?’
‘No, no, of course. I didn’t mean…’
‘Well that’s it, my boy. The entire story. Judgement and discretion. Some men have it, other men don’t. If you make a law, you can’t try to separate between the two. You have to make a law that applies to everyone, no exceptions. But that’s the law. The practice is different. These men are some of the best in the country. Patriotic. Committed. Thoughtful. Honourable. And now and again, some of them want a drink. Can you think of any reason on earth why not?’