The Other Side of Midnight (26 page)

At nine o’clock on Monday morning Larry Douglas reported to the chief pilot, Captain Hal Sakowitz, at the Pan American office at LaGuardia Airport in New York. As Larry walked in the door, Sakowitz picked up the transcript of Larry’s service record that he had been studying and shoved it into a desk drawer.

Captain Sakowitz was a compact, rugged-looking man with a seamed, weather-beaten face and the largest hands that Larry had ever seen. Sakowitz was one of the real veterans of aviation. He had started out in the days of traveling air circuses, had flown single-engine airmail planes for the Government and had been an airline pilot for twenty years and Pan American’s chief pilot for the past five years.

“Glad to have you with us, Douglas,” he said.

“Glad to be here,” Larry replied.

“Eager to get into a plane again?”

“Who needs a plane?” grinned Larry. “Just point me into the wind, and I’ll take off.”

Sakowitz indicated a chair. “Sit down. I like to get acquainted with you boys who come in here to take over my job.”

Larry laughed. “You noticed.”

“Oh, I don’t blame any of you. You’re all hotshot pilots, you have great combat records, you come in here and think ‘if that schmuck Sakowitz can be Chief Pilot, they oughta make me Chairman of the Board.’ None of you guys plan to stay navigators very long. It’s
just a stepping stone to pilot. Well, that’s fine. That’s the way it should be.”

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Larry said.

“But there’s one thing you have to know out front. We all belong to a union, Douglas, and promotions are strictly by seniority.”

“I understand.”

“The only thing you might
not
understand is that these are damn good jobs and there are more people coming in than there are leaving. That slows up the rate of promotion.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Larry replied.

Sakowitz’s secretary brought in coffee and Danish pastries and the two men spent the next hour talking and getting acquainted. Sakowitz’s manner was friendly and affable, and many of his questions were seemingly irrelevant and trivial, but when Larry left to go to his first class, Sakowitz knew a great deal about Larry Douglas. A few minutes after Larry had departed, Carl Eastman came into the office.

“How did it go?” Eastman asked.

“OK.”

Eastman gave him a hard look. “What do you think, Sak?”

“We’ll try him.”

“I asked you what you thought.”

Sakowitz shrugged. “OK. I’ll tell you. My hunch is he’s a goddamn good pilot. He has to be, with his war record. Put him in a plane with a bunch of enemy fighters shooting at him, and I don’t think you’ll find anyone better.” He hesitated.

“Go on,” Eastman said.

“The thing is, there aren’t a hell of a lot of enemy fighters around Manhattan. I’ve known guys like Douglas. For some reason I’ve never figured out, their lives are geared for danger. They do crazy things like climbing impossible mountains or diving to the bottom of the ocean, or whatever the hell else danger they can find. When a war breaks out, they rise to the top like
cream in a cup of scalding coffee.” He swerved his chair around and looked out the window. Eastman stood there, saying nothing, waiting.

“I have a hunch about Douglas, Carl. There’s something wrong with him. Maybe if he were captain of one of our ships, flying it himself, he could make it. But I don’t think he’s psychologically geared to take orders from an engineer, a first officer and a pilot, especially when he thinks he could outfly them all.” He swung back to face Eastman. “And the funny part is, he probably could.”

“You’re making me nervous,” Eastman said.

“Me, too,” Sakowitz confessed. “I don’t think he’s—” He stopped, searching for the right word, “stable. Talking to him, you get a feeling he has a stick of dynamite up his ass, ready to explode.”

“What do you want to do?”

“We’re doing it. He’ll go to school and we’ll keep a close eye on him.”

“Maybe he’ll wash out,” Eastman said.

“You don’t know that breed of cat. He’ll come out number one man in his class.”

Sakowitz’s prediction was accurate.

The training course consisted of four weeks of ground school followed by an additional month of flight training. Since the trainees were already experienced pilots with many years of flying behind them, the course was devised to serve two purposes: the first was to run through such subjects as navigation, radio, communication, map reading and instrument flying to refresh the memories of the men and pinpoint their potential weaknesses, and the second was to familiarize them with the new equipment they would be using.

The instrument flying was done in a Link Trainer, a small mock-up of an airplane cockpit that rested on a movable base, enabling the pilot in the cockpit to put the plane through any maneuver, including stalls, loops, spins and rolls. A black hood was put over the top of the cockpit so that the pilot was flying blind,
using only the instruments in front of him. The instructor outside the Trainer fed orders to the pilot, giving him directions for takeoffs and landings in the face of strong wind velocity, storms, mountain ranges and every other simulated hazard conceivable. Most inexperienced pilots went into the Link Trainer with a feeling of confidence, but they soon learned that the little Trainers were much more difficult to operate than they appeared to be. It was an eerie sensation to be alone in the tiny cockpit, all senses cut off from the outside world.

Larry was a gifted pupil. He was attentive in class and absorbed everything he was taught. He did all his homework and did it well and carefully. He showed no sign of impatience, restlessness or boredom. On the contrary, he was the most eager pupil in the course and certainly the most outstanding. The only area that was new to Larry was the equipment, the DC-4. The Douglas planes were long, sleek aircraft with some equipment that had not been in existence when the war began. Larry spent hours going over every inch of the plane, studying the way it had been put together and the way it functioned. Evenings he pored over the dozens of service manuals of the plane.

Late one night after all the other trainees had left the hangar Sakowitz had come upon Larry in one of the DC-4s, lying on his back under the cockpit, examining the wiring.

“I tell you, the son-of-a-bitch is gunning for my job,” Sakowitz told Carl Eastman the next morning.

“The way he’s going, he may get it,” Eastman grinned.

At the end of the eight weeks there was a little graduation ceremony. Catherine proudly flew to New York to be there when they presented Larry with his navigator’s wings.

He tried to make light of it. “Cathy, it’s just a stupid little piece of cloth they give you so you’ll remember what your job is when you get into the cockpit.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “I talked to Captain Sakowitz and he told me how good you are.”

“What does a dumb Polack know?” Larry said. “Let’s go celebrate.”

That night Catherine and Larry and four of Larry’s classmates and their wives went to the Twenty-one Club on East Fifty-second Street for dinner. The foyer was crowded, and the maître d’ told them that without reservations there were no tables available.

“To hell with this place,” Larry said. “Let’s go next door to Toots Shor’s.”

“Wait a minute,” Catherine said. She went over to the captain and asked to see Jerry Berns.

A few moments later a short, thin man with inquisitive gray eyes bustled up.

“I’m Jerry Berns,” he said. “May I help you?”

“My husband and I are with some friends,” Catherine explained. “There are ten of us.”

He started to shake his head. “Unless you have a reservation…”

“I’m William Fraser’s partner,” Catherine said.

Jerry Berns looked at Catherine reproachfully. “Why didn’t you tell me? Can you give me fifteen minutes?”

“Thank you,” Catherine said gratefully.

She went back to where the group was standing.

“Surprise!” Catherine said. “We have a table.”

“How did you manage that?” Larry asked.

“It was easy,” Catherine said. “I mentioned Bill Fraser’s name.” She saw the look that came into Larry’s eyes. “He comes in here often,” Catherine went on quickly. “And he told me if I ever came in and needed a table, to mention his name.”

Larry turned to the others. “Let’s get the hell out of here. This is for the birds.”

The group started toward the door. Larry turned to Catherine. “Coming?”

“Of course,” Catherine said hesitantly, “I just wanted to tell them that we’re not…”

“Fuck ‘em,” said Larry loudly. “Are you coming or aren’t you?”

People were turning to stare. Catherine felt her face redden.

“Yes,” she said. She turned and followed Larry out the door.

They went to an Italian restaurant on Sixth Avenue and had a bad dinner. Outwardly Catherine acted as though nothing had happened, but inwardly she was fuming. She was furious with Larry for his childish behavior and for humiliating her in public.

When they got home, she walked into the bedroom without saying a word, undressed, turned out the light and got into bed. She heard Larry in the living room, mixing a drink.

Ten minutes later he came into the bedroom and turned on the light and walked over to the bed. “You planning to become a martyr?” he asked.

She sat up, furious. “Don’t try to put me on the defensive,” she said. “Your behavior tonight was inexcusable. What got into you?”

“The same guy that got into you.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“I’m talking about Mr. Perfection. Bill Fraser.”

She looked at him, not understanding. “Bill’s never done anything but help us.”

“You bet your ass,” he said. “You owe him your business. I owe him my job. Now we can’t even sit down in a restaurant without Fraser’s permission. Well, I’m sick of having him shoved down my throat every day.” It was Larry’s tone that shook Catherine even more than what he was saying. It was so filled with frustration and impotence that she realized for the first time how tormented he must be. And why not? He had come back from four years of fighting to find his wife in partnership with her former lover. And to make it worse, he himself had not even been able to get a job without the help of Fraser.

As she looked at Larry, Catherine knew that this
was a turning point in their marriage. If she stayed with him, he would have to come first. Before her job, before everything. For the first time Catherine felt that she really understood Larry.

As though reading her mind Larry said contritely, “I’m sorry I acted like a shit-heel this evening. But when we couldn’t get a table until you mentioned Fraser’s magic name, I—I’d suddenly had it up to
here
.”

“I’m sorry, Larry,” Catherine said, “I’ll never do that to you again.”

And they were in each other’s arms, and Larry said, “Please don’t ever leave me, Cathy,” and Catherine thought of how close she had come to it, and she held him tighter and said, “I won’t leave you, darling, ever.”

Larry’s first assignment as a navigator was on Flight 147 from Washington to Paris. He stayed over in Paris for forty-eight hours after each flight, then returned home for three days before he flew out again.

One morning Larry called Catherine at her office, his voice excited. “Hey, I’ve got a great restaurant for us. Can you get away for lunch?”

Catherine looked at the pile of layouts that had to be finished and approved before noon. “Sure,” she said, recklessly.

“I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

“You’re not leaving me!” Lucia, her assistant, wailed. “Stuyvesant will have kittens if we don’t get this campaign to him today.”

“It will have to wait,” Catherine said. “I’m going to have lunch with my husband.”

Lucia shrugged. “I don’t blame you. If you ever get tired of him, will you let me know?”

Catherine grinned. “You’ll be too old.”

Larry picked Catherine up in front of the office, and she got into the car.

“Did I screw up your day for you?” he asked mischievously.

“Of course not.”

He laughed. “All those executive types are going to have a stroke.”

Larry headed the car toward the airport.

“How far is the restaurant?” Catherine asked. She had five appointments in the afternoon, beginning at two o’clock.

“Not far…Do you have a busy afternoon?”

“No,” she lied. “Nothing special.”

“Good.”

When they reached the airport turnoff, Larry swung the car into the entrance.

“Is the restaurant at the airport?”

“At the other end,” Larry replied. He parked the car, took Catherine’s arm and led her inside to the Pan-Am gate. The attractive girl behind the desk greeted Larry by name.

“This is my wife,” Larry said proudly. “This is Amy Winston.”

They exchanged hellos.

“Come on.” Larry took Catherine’s arm and they moved toward the departure ramp.

“Larry—” Catherine began. “Where…?”

“Hey, you’re the nosiest girl I’ve ever taken to lunch.”

They had reached Gate 37. Two men behind the ticket counter were processing the tickets of emplaning passengers. A sign on the information board read: “Flight 147 to Paris—Departing 1:00
P.M.
”

Larry walked up to one of the men behind the desk. “Here she is, Tony.” He handed the man a plane ticket. “Cathy, this is Tony Lombardi. This is Catherine.”

“I’ve sure heard a lot about you,” the man grinned. “Your ticket’s all in order.” He handed the ticket to Catherine.

Catherine stared at it, dazed. “What’s this for?”

“I lied to you,” Larry smiled. “I’m not taking you to lunch. I’m taking you to Paris. Maxim’s.”

Catherine’s voice broke. “M—Maxim’s? In Paris?
Now?
”

“That’s right.”

“I can’t,” Catherine wailed. “I can’t go to Paris now.”

“Sure you can,” he grinned. “I’ve got your passport in my pocket.”

“Larry,” she said, “you’re mad! I have no clothes. I have a million appointments. I—”

“I’ll buy you some clothes in Paris. Cancel your appointments. Fraser can get along without you for a few days.”