The Hot Pilots

by T. E. Cruise

  “Good morning!” she said when her father came on the line.

  “Good morning to you, maybe,” he replied. “But it’s lunchtime here, and hot as blazes …”

  “Poor you,” Susan said. “When are you coming home?”

  “I’ve got another couple of days here, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s a long trip this time around …”

  “Yeah. Something’s come up. A new project. The meetings are endless …” She could hear his exasperation. “Honestly, the way they like to have meetings, it’s a wonder the government gets anything done …”

  “Well, the world can’t be run like GAT,” she teased.

  “And why not?” he asked jovially.

  Susan laughed. She looked around to make sure that no one could overhear her, and then said, “Come home soon, Daddy. I miss you.”

  Sometimes the secrecy made her feel silly, but there was a point to it. She used her married name at work to keep people from knowing that Herman Gold was her father. She wanted people to relate to her for herself; not because she was the boss’s daughter.

  “I miss you, too, sweetie. Put Don on the line for me, would you?”

  Susan hesitated. “Um, he’s away from his desk …”

  “Oh …” Gold said, sounding disgruntled. “He knows I call every morning about this time. Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “All right, then. I doubt that I’ll be able to call later. I’ll be tied up in these damned meetings. I’ll call tomorrow. Good-bye.”

  Susan hung up the telephone, feeling guilty that she had lied. Everything wasn’t all right. Don hadn’t come to work this morning.

  For anyone else to miss a day of work was one thing, but since Don had started at GAT a couple of years ago he hadn’t missed a day. He’d even come in that time he was so sick with that terrible cold and the company nurse finally had to come around to insist that he leave so he wouldn’t risk infecting the rest of the department. What’s more, she was his secretary, so even if Don had decided to take a day off, he certainly would have called to let her know … Not that he would ever remotely consider not coming in when her father was away, as well …

  Calling Don at home had only compounded the mystery. There was no answer at his apartment, but when she called the apartment building’s front desk the concierge said that Mr. Harrison was at home …

  She’d been wondering what to do when her father had called, and had decided not to tell him of her concerns. There was nothing he could do about it all the way across the country, and anyway, he’d sounded like he had enough on his mind without her further burdening him with her female intuition …

  She reached for the telephone, thinking to call back the concierge and ask him to use his pass key to see if Don was all right. The telephone at the other end was ringing when Susan thought, How embarrassing if the man rushed up there, perhaps with the police, and Don was only sleeping—

  Linda Forrester popped into her mind. And what if Don wasn’t sleeping alone?

  “Lyndon Tower Apartments,” the concierge answered.

  Susan quickly hung up. Don had a girlfriend, let her check on him …

  She went back to her work, but she couldn’t concentrate. After another half hour of fretting and watching the clock she decided to try Don’s apartment again.

  She was listening to his telephone ring, and thinking that if she didn’t hear from him by noon, she’d just have to grit her teeth and call Linda Forrester at the Gazette to see if she knew Don’s whereabouts—

  The telephone rang and rang. He wasn’t home. She was about to disconnect when he picked up.

  “Hello? Hello?” he mumbled anxiously as though he were half-asleep. “Linda?”

  “No …” she replied, feeling peeved and angry and hurt, the way she’d felt months ago when after only a few weeks of dating, Don had abruptly jilted her in order to pick up with Linda Forrester. “It’s Susan …”

  He didn’t reply. What an indignity to have to add, “… at the office—?”

  “Oh … Susan …”

  “No need to sound so disappointed,” she said, forcing lightness into her tone. “I was worried about you …”

  “Yeah …” he grunted.

  “Don, what’s wrong?” she demanded, concerned all over again because the way he was acting was just not like him. “Are you sick?”

  “Yeah … Sick …”

  “I’m calling a doctor—”

  “No! I don’t need a doctor,” he said quickly. “I need …”

  “What? What is it? What do you need?”

  “Company. Would you come over—?”

  She hesitated, thinking, Where was Linda Forrester?

  “Please, Susan … I need someone to talk to.”

  “All right. I’ll come. At lunchtime. See you then.”

  (Two)

  It was a little after one in the afternoon when Susan found a parking space on Wilshire Boulevard, a block down from Lyndon Tower. She didn’t immediately get out of her lemon yellow, bug-eyed little Triumph TR2; she just sat there by curbside, lightly gunning the motor, wondering if she had the nerve to go through with this.

  On the drive over she’d put the pieces together, remembering how Don had answered the telephone bleating “Linda? Linda?” like some goddamned, lost little lamb. Okay, so he’d had a romantic setback; it happened to everyone, God knew. Likely it was just a lover’s spat, but wasn’t it just like Don to take it so seriously?

  The question was did she really want to be his shoulder to cry on? Could she bear to be relegated to that status, considering her own, simmering resentment over the way he’d dumped her for that sexpot?

  But then again, she supposed that she had to go to him. She’d said that she’d come, so now he was expecting her, she told herself as she got out of the Triumph. And anyway, she’d already arranged for one of the other girls in the department to cover her telephone until she got back …

  Lyndon Tower was a Spanish-influenced, art deco building, rising up eight stories behind the palm trees lining the boulevard. The apartment house was painted a pale lavender, and frosted like a wedding cake with statues and modernistic friezes. It was a ritzy address, with all the amenities, including a uniformed doorman who tipped his cap to Susan as he held the door.

  The lobby was done in an Oriental motif by way of Terry and the Pirates and the Technicolor division of the prop department at MGM: Everything was brilliantly lacquered orange and red, with lots of green porcelain dragons and burnt sienna lions cluttering up the place. There were groupings of armchairs and low tables with fanned-out arrangements of newspapers in the lobby, and as Susan strode past on her way to the concierge a couple of men looked up from their reading to watch her go by.

  Susan smiled. When Don had jilted her it had made her feel drab and frowsy, but in her saner moments she was objective enough to know that she was a pretty, brown-eyed blonde. It was true that she was a big girl, with a full figure, but she’d always been big, just as she’d always been athletic. Now, at thirty-one, her body was still as sleek and youthful as when she’d been a teenager, thanks to a rigorous routine of tennis, swimming, and golf. Strangers she met were always shocked to find out that she had a ten-year-old son.

  She knew she looked especially good today, thanks to her new suit. Its gray silk ankle-length skirt and belted jacket fit her curves so well that she’d made the quickest little detour home in order to change into it before seeing Don. (She was not above rubbing salt in Don’s wounded heart by showing him just what he’d missed out on by taking up with that skinny little Linda Forrester who was giving him so much grief.)

  At the front desk she said that Mr. Harrison was expecting her, and then waited as the concierge telephoned upstairs.

  “Sixth floor, apartment D, miss,” the concierge told her. “The elevators are just around the corner…”

  She had butterflies in her stomach as she rang for the elevator, and then
during the ride up. What the hell was she going to say when Don started in whining about his beloved Linda—?

  “Sixth floor,” the operator said, sliding open the elevator door, and then Susan was walking like a condemned prisoner on the last mile down the carpeted, sconce-lit corridor to apartment D.

  When she got there she found that the door was ajar. It squeaked somewhat on its hinges as she pushed it open.

  “Susan?” she heard Don call out.

  “Yes—”

  “Come in …”

  She entered through a short hallway, going past the coat closet, into the large living room. The walls were painted pale gold with white trim, and dotted with tasteful landscapes in ornate, gilded frames. There was light blue wall-to-wall carpeting, and furniture upholstered in a cabbage rose chintz, arranged around an oval coffee table with a mosaic top and curved, brass legs. The room was tasteful and immaculate, but obviously unlived in, like a display behind the plate glass window of a furniture store.

  Susan smiled, thinking that she knew Don well enough to guess that cabbage rose chintz was beyond him. He must have sicced an interior decorator on the place, and now poor Don probably felt like a guest in his own home; and yet the notion of having everything “just so” because it was the proper thing to do fit Don to a tee.

  “Don?” she called. “Where are you?”

  “In the bedroom …”

  Oh, great, Susan thought. No way, she decided.

  “Well, I’m here,” she said sweetly. “Aren’t you going to come out and see me …?”

  She stifled her shock as he came staggering into the living room clutching a fifth of vodka, looking and smelling like he’d just crawled out of a sewer.

  “My God, what’s happened to you?” Susan demanded.

  He didn’t answer, but just stood swaying in his rumpled clothes, his hair dangling in greasy ringlets down his forehead. She watched him stumble over to a wall, lean his back against it, and then slide down to the carpet. He stayed there, with his head sagging, his knees drawn up, and the bottle on his lap, like some back alley derelict.

  “Just how drunk are you?” Susan demanded.

  He shrugged, looking up at her with bleary eyes. “Not very. I’ve been trying, but every time I get close I get nauseous and have to stop …”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “But you did drink all that vodka?”

  His grin was horrendous. “Second bottle …” he said proudly. “First was gin …”

  “Well, I wouldn’t brag about it.” Susan scolded, her smile fading. “From the looks of you it’s clear you can’t hold your liquor …”

  He looked away, shaking his head. “Can’t hold my booze,” he muttered thickly. “And can’t hold my woman …”

  Oh, shit, here we go, Susan thought. He’s going to start blubbering about Linda Forrester.

  “Okay,” Susan began briskly, thinking to head him off, wrap this up, and get the hell out of his apartment and back to work. “I guess it’s clear you had a little tiff with Linda. These things happen. No doubt she’s just as upset as you are…”

  Fat chance of that, she thought. It would be like expecting an alley cat—and she did mean alley cat—to be remorseful while it was licking the canary’s feathers off its claws…

  “Don, I’m sure that if you just telephoned Linda you two could make up, and everything would be all right and…”

  “We’re through—” Don cut her off. “I caught her with—”

  “Yes?” she asked. He’d paused abruptly, and now he was looking at her so strangely. “What are you trying to tell me?” She knelt beside him on the carpet.

  “I—I caught her with another man!”

  “I’m sorry.” And I’m not in the least bit surprised—

  “I went to see her last night, and I caught her with him … I—don’t know who he was …”

  “Oh, Don,” she sighed, taking his hand. “I’m really so sorry for you.”

  “Yes,” he murmured, eyeing her. “I think you really are … and after I treated you so shabbily…” He looked wistful. “But then you know what it feels like to lose someone …”

  “You mean my husband, I suppose?” Susan asked quietly. When Don nodded she said, “Well, yes. I suppose I do …”

  “How did you get over it?”

  “Get over it?” she echoed. “It’s been ten years since I lost Blaize, but I still …” She trailed off, shaking her head. “It helps to know that he died doing what he wanted to do, for a good cause. He’d struggled for so long to be an RAF fighter pilot, and God knows the war he fought was just and right … It also helps to know that he died a hero, and that my husband lives on in my son … I think it was knowing that I had to carry on for the sake of Robbie that kept me from crumbling to pieces … But you asked me how did I get over my loss, and so I have to tell you that if the loss is genuine, you never do gt over it—”

  She could feel herself getting all unsettled inside, so she clamped the lid on her memories, shook herself, and then said brusquely, “But drinking yourself sick isn’t going to help anything.” She reached over and took away the vodka. “I think you should take a shower, eat something, and then just go to sleep. I know it sounds trite, but you really will feel much better in the morning—” She began to stand up.

  “Wait—” Don implored. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got to get back to the office …”

  “No! Stay!” He seemed to be trying to make a joke out of his desperate plea. “You’re my secretary, right?” he grinned. “Well, today we’re working outside of the office.”

  “Oh, Don,” she said, uncertain. “I’m not sure it would be appropriate.”

  “Suzy, I just need somebody to be with,” he said. “You know how that can be, don’t you?”

  “Yeah …” she said after a moment. “I know…”

  So what if she didn’t go back to work today, she thought? The other girls could cover the telephones for the rest of the afternoon, and she didn’t have to be home at any specific time for her son, who today was out sailing with his uncle.

  Her brother Steve had always shown an interest in Robbie, but never more so than during this month’s leave from the Air Force. For her part, Susan had encouraged her son’s relationship with his uncle. Now that Robbie was becoming a young man, she was grateful that the boy had a strong father figure to whom he could relate. Her father spent as much time as he could with his grandson, but his schedule was hectic, and anyway he was getting on in years. Even when he’d been younger Herman Gold hadn’t been the type to go running on the beach, or play catch, or do any of the other things that amused a ten-year-old, although Robbie did look forward to flying with his grandfather in his private plane.

  “… You just wait here,” Don was saying. “Maybe make us some coffee, while I shower and shave. Then we can go out. We can go for a drive along the coast. Wouldn’t that be nice? Out by the water, where everything’s cool and clean and fresh …”

  He took hold of her hand and squeezed it gently. Susan thought, How good to be held again, even that little bit. Don was looking at her with such need in his eyes, and wasn’t that what she needed: to be held and cherished?

  “Okay,” she said. “You get cleaned up. I’ll make us some coffee.”

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  (One)

  GAT

  7 April 1955

  Herman Gold’s huge corner office was located on the top floor of the main building. It had a commanding view of GAT’s sweeping airfields, and the majestic, tawny California hills beyond the factory complex’s boundaries. The office had wall-to-wall, moss green carpeting, and was furnished with sofa and armchair groupings upholstered in supple, burgundy leather. Custom-built display cases laden with mementos highlighting Gold’s decades in the aviation business lined the oak-paneled walls, beneath his collection of commissioned oil paintings of GAT airplanes in flight. Gold’s desk chair was a wine-hued, leather throne. His oak,
marble-topped desk was the length and width of a dining room table. Gold had been surrounded by these—and other—trappings of wealth and power for so long that he scarcely noticed them. If pressed, he would have admitted that he took them for granted; that he’d had so much for so long that he’d become jaded.

  Today, however, was different. Today he was as excited and happy—and goddamned grateful—as a kid on Christmas morning over what good fortune had seen fit to present him.

  When his secretary told him over the intercom that she’d located Don Harrison and had him on the line, Gold snatched up the telephone.

  “Don, it’s me. I’ve just got off the phone with my son—”

  “Oh, how is Steve these days?” Don asked a trifle coolly, Gold thought.

  “You should know as well as I do that he’s doing just fine in Washington.” Gold laughed. “You’ve been spending so much time with Suzy and Robbie; whenever I’m with my grandson he never shuts up about his Uncle Steve at the Pentagon …”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Don admitted. “But when Robbie gets off on that kick of his about Steve I suppose I just shut it off.”

  What an odd thing to say, Gold thought. “Well, anyway, you’ll never guess why I called! It’s just the greatest news—”

  “Just spit it out, Herman,” Don replied, sounding amused. “What is it? Something about the 909?”

  “No! No!” Gold impatiently cut him off. “It’s better than business—”

  “Now I am stumped.” Don chuckled. “What’s up?”

  Gold took a deep breath. For so many years he’d been dreaming of the day when he could say these few words: “Steve’s decided to leave the Air Force and come to work with us—”

  “I see,” Don replied, sounding like he’d just been told he was the target of a lawsuit. “In that case, Herman, you’ll have my resignation on your desk by the end of the day.”

  “What?” Gold gasped, bewildered. “What did you just say?”

  “I think you heard me.”