‘OK.’
‘And last thing. If I need to get hold of you, I’ll be your Aunt Polly. Just do whatever the old bird asks. Also, you might want to check your yard from time to time. Your aunt might take it into her head to drop messages there.’
‘I’ll look out.’
‘And you need to be able to reach me, but I don’t want you to use the mail or, assuming I get one, the phone.’
‘It’s a long way to holler, Captain.’
‘Where does Mrs Hennessey dry her washing?’
‘Huh? Her laundry? Out in the yard. She’s got a line.’
‘OK, good.’ Abe gave Hennessey instructions about what to do if he needed Abe’s help. ‘And remember, we need to assume that they don’t trust me, they don’t trust you, and that they’re gonna be watching us both.’
‘I got it. You take care, Captain.’
‘Both of us, Hen. We must both of us take care.’
45
‘Miss Hooper,’ proclaimed Larry Ronson, holding up one of the group’s detested files, ‘thou hast erred. Erred greatly. Or, to put it another way, please remove this thing.’
He handed the file back to her.
‘No, Larry. No mistake. It’s your turn. The others are snowed under.’
‘The snow it snoweth every day. I don’t mind taking another of your filthy files, my dear lady. But this one belongs to that man there.’
He pointed to Willard, who looked up.
‘Oh?’
Larry took back the file from Annie and dropped it on Willard’s desk.
‘The well-known and highly religious Association of Irish Rabbis is buying ever more… I don’t know. Torahs. Skullcaps. Candles. Dried fish. Whatever makes an Irish rabbi jump for joy.’
Willard opened the file. It was his old friends at the Association of Orthodox Synagogues. They had another large order for religious materials, the first part of which was due to be shipped soon. He hesitated. The file was dodgy and it was Ronson’s file. What’s more, Willard had a sense that, by bad luck or by some malevolent design, the tough files always came his way. The files with errors in, the files with incompetent counterparts, the ones with documents missing. Perhaps he was wrong about that. But what was certainly true was that, although everyone in the trade finance team worked long hours, Willard’s hours were the longest, the most brutal.
Annie picked up the file and was about to pass it back to Larry, telling him to stop ducking work. But Willard stopped her.
‘No, Annie, that’s all right. I’ve become rather fond of my invisible rabbis. I don’t mind taking this one. You give Larry the next one you’ve got lined up for me.’
Annie frowned, feeling that Ronson had somehow pulled a fast one.
‘You’ve got plenty to do already.’
‘I must be a saint.’
‘Saint Willard of Wall Street,’ said Ronson. ‘I’ll light a candle.’
Willard sat back down, his blood already beating faster in his veins. He knew the feeling. It wasn’t the sudden, explosive excitement of combat, but the moment of silence beforehand. It was the first sight of specks in the sky: the glimpse of a target, a hint of battle.
46
‘He’s a good guy, Captain. Jesus!’ Mason spat on the hangar floor, then brushed the mark into the dirt with his toe. ‘I had a real sweet Lincoln. Wouldn’t start no matter what I did. This guy comes in and fixes it, sweet as a nut.’
‘I’m flying an airplane, not a nut tree.’
Mason wouldn’t quit. ‘It makes a lot of sense to pick someone from the organisation. We like keeping things among friends, especially our most important things. And that includes you, buddy, like it or not.’
Abe said nothing, just turned to the mechanic that Mason had brought. ‘Take your coat off.’
‘Huh?’
‘If you don’t want to get your coat covered in oil, take it off.’
The mechanic, a man with eyes that scraped the ground and big hands twisting uncomfortably in his lap, took his coat off. He wasn’t carrying a gun now, but Abe could see the lines of sweat where a gun-harness had been not so long ago. Abe threw the man an overall.
‘I’ve got an engine here that’s not sounding right. I want you to tell me what’s wrong.’
‘Yah! OK. Sure.’ The mechanic threw Mason a look, which Mason refused to acknowledge.
Abe started up Poll’s engine and let her run. Alongside the regular thunder of her pistons firing, there was a telltale noise of something loose and a perceptible vibration in the engine cowling, different from the normal vibration.
‘OK,’ said Abe. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Huh?’
‘I want you to tell me what’s wrong with the engine.’
The man gestured helplessly. ‘You got it running. You want me to look, you better switch off.’
Abe switched off. The mechanic struggled into the overall which was a couple of sizes too small. He removed the engine cowling quickly enough, then spent fifteen minutes rooting around inside. Abe hated the idea of anyone he didn’t trust with his hands inside Poll’s most personal space, but he forced himself to wait.
‘He’s doing good, huh?’ said Mason. ‘Thorough.’
‘We’ll see.’
Eventually, the mechanic finished. He brought the engine cowling down too hard and it echoed through the hangar with a hollow boom.
‘I reckon you got a problem with your oil. Dirty filter. Here, I took it out.’ He held it out, dripping oil onto the concrete floor.
‘OK, wait outside.’
The man went.
‘Well?’ said Mason.
‘The filter’s clean. I cleaned it this morning.’
‘Cut the guy slack. He’s never even seen an airplane before.’
‘He should have seen an oil filter.’ There was an ugly pause. ‘I need a mechanic, Mason, not one of your heavies holding a monkey wrench instead of a gun.’
‘It’s true though, he fixed my car.’
‘I need a mechanic. A guy who understands engines. You need him too. I can’t fly for you, if my plane isn’t flyable.’
Mason wanted to spit again, but knew Abe didn’t like it. He pursed up his lips and scowled. ‘Who’s next?’
Arnold Hueffer was next. A lean, dark man, with a shock of hair that fell across his eyes like a raven’s wing. He had an olive complexion and quick brown eyes, that suggested his mother wasn’t as Germanic as his surname.
Abe went through the same question and answer routine with Hueffer. Name. Previous employers. Experience. Engines previously worked on. Responsible positions held. Hueffer didn’t have much to boast of. He worked in a small garage in Brunswick. When the owner had retired, Hueffer had bought him out. He worked on any type of engine that drove in through the door. He’d answered the ad because he’d always liked airplanes, the idea of them anyway.
‘OK, Mr Hueffer. I’ve got a problem. Poll here isn’t working quite right. I want you to tell me what’s the matter.’ He threw the overall across to Hueffer, then went over to Poll and started the engine. Hueffer sat in his seat, holding the overall across his lap and listening. After a while, he went up to Poll and listened closer to, keeping the fingertips of his left hand pressed lightly against the cowling. He had left the overalls lying across his seat.
‘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 airpla
ne 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.’
47
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.
48
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?’
<
br /> ‘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.
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