"Herr Cord! This is indeed a surprise! What are you doing here?"
I looked up at Herr Strassmer. "I just delivered a new plane," I said, holding out my hand. "But what are you doing out here? I thought you were in New York."
He shook my hand in that peculiarly European way of his. The smile left his eyes. "We, too, made a delivery. And now we go back."
"You were with that group outside?"
He nodded. He looked out through the window at them and a troubled look came into his eyes. "Yes," he said slowly. "We all came together in one plane but we are going back on separate flights. Three years we worked together but now the job is finished. Soon I go back to California."
"I hope so," I laughed. "We sure could use you in the plant but I'm afraid it'll be some time yet. The war in Europe may be over but if Tarawa and Okinawa are any indication, we're good for at least six months to a year before Japan quits."
He didn't answer.
I looked up and suddenly I remembered. These Europeans were very touchy about manners. "Excuse me, Herr Strassmer," I said quickly. "Won't you join me in some coffee?"
"I have not the time." There was a curiously hesitant look to his eyes. "Do you have an office here as you do everywhere else?"
"Sure," I said, looking up at him. I'd passed the door marked Men on my way over. "It's in the back of this building."
"I will meet you there in five minutes," he said and hurried out.
Through the window, I watched him join one of the groups and begin to talk with them. I wondered if the old boy was going crackers. You couldn't tell, but maybe he had been working too hard and thought he was back in Nazi Germany. There certainly wasn't any reason for him to be so secretive about being seen talking to me. After all, we were on the same side.
I ground my cigarette into an ash tray and sauntered out. He never even glanced up as I walked past his group on my way to the john. He came into the room a moment after I had got there. His eyes darted nervously toward the booths. "Are we alone?"
"I think so," I said, looking at him. I wondered what you did to get a doctor around here if there were any signs of his cracking up.
He walked over to the booths, opened the doors and looked. Satisfied, he turned back to me. His face was tense and pale and there were small beads of perspiration across his forehead. I thought I'd begun to recognize the symptoms. Too much of this Nevada sun is murder if you're not used to it. His first words convinced me I was right.
"Herr Cord," he whispered hoarsely. "The war will not be over in six months."
"Of course not," I said soothingly. From what I had heard, the first thing to do was agree with them, try to calm them down. I wished I could remember the second thing. I turned to the sink. "Here, let me get you a glass of— "
"It will be over next month!"
What I thought must have been written on my face, for my mouth hung open in surprise. "No, I'm not crazy, Herr Cord," Strassmer said quickly. "To no one else but you would I say this. It is the only way I can repay you for saving my life. I know how important this could be to your business."
"But— but how— "
"I cannot tell you more," he interrupted. "Just believe me. By next month, Japan will be verfallen!" He turned and almost ran out the door.
I stared after him for a moment, then went over to the sink and washed my face in cold water. I felt I must be even crazier than he was, because I was beginning to believe him. But why? It just didn't make any sense. Sure, we were pushing the Nips back, but they still held Malaya, Hong Kong and the Dutch East Indies. And with their kamikaze philosophy, it would take a miracle to end the war in a month.
I was still thinking about it when Morrissey and I got on the train. "You know who I ran into back there?" I asked. I didn't give him a chance to answer. "Otto Strassmer."
There seemed to be a kind of relief in his smile. I guess he'd been expecting to catch hell for not telling me about that Air Corps test pilot. "He's a nice little guy," Morrissey said. "How is he?"
"Seemed all right to me," I said. "He was on his way back to New York." I looked out the window at the flat Nevada desert. "By the way, did you ever hear exactly what it was he was working on?"
"Not exactly."
I looked at him. "What was it you did hear?"
"I didn't hear it from him," Morrissey said. "I got it from a friend of mine down at the Engineers' Club, who worked on it for a little while. But he didn't know very much about it, either. All he knew was that it was called the Manhattan Project and that it had something to do with Professor Einstein."
I could feel my brows knit in puzzlement. "What could Strassmer do for a man like Einstein?"
He smiled again. "After all, Strassmer did invent a plastic beer can that was stronger than metal."
"So?" I asked.
"So maybe the Professor got Otto to invent a plastic container to store his atoms in," Morrissey said, laughing.
I felt a wild excitement racing inside me. A container for atoms, energy in a bottle, ready to explode when you popped the cork. The little man hadn't been crazy. He knew what he was talking about. I'd been the crazy one.
It would take a miracle, I'd thought. Well, Strassmer and his friends had come into the desert and made one and now they were going home, their job done. What it was or how they did it I couldn't guess and didn't care.
But deep inside me, I was sure that it had happened.
The miracle that would end the war.
2
I got off the train at Reno, while Morrissey went on to Los Angeles. There was no time to call Robair at the ranch, so I took a taxi to the factory. We barreled through the steel-wire gate, under the big sign that read CORD EXPLOSIVES, now more than a mile from the main plant.
The factory had expanded tremendously since the war. For that matter, so had all our companies. It seemed that no matter what we did, there never was enough space.
I got out and paid the cabby and as he pulled away, I looked up at the familiar old building. It was worn now, and looked dingy and obsolete compared with the new additions, but its roof was gleaming white and shining in the sun. Somehow, I could never bring myself to move out of it when the other executives had moved their offices into the new administration building. I dropped my cigarette on the walk and ground it into dust beneath my heel, then went into the building.
The smell was the same as it always was and the whispers that rose from the lips of the men and women working there were the same as I always heard when I passed by "El hijo." The son. It had been twenty years and most of them hadn't even been there when my father died and still they called me that. Even the young ones, some of them less than half my age.
The office was the same, too. The heavy, oversized desk and leather-covered furniture now showed the cracks and wear of time. There was no secretary in the outer office and I was not surprised. There was no reason for one to be there. They hadn't expected me.
I walked around behind the desk and pressed the switch down on the squawk box that put me right through to McAllister's office in the new building, a quarter of a mile away. The surprise echoed in his voice as it came through the box. "Jonas! Where did you come from?"
"The Air Corps," I said. "We just delivered the CA-JET X.P."
"Good. Did they like it?"
"I guess they did," I answered. "They wouldn't trust me to take it up." I leaned over and opened the door of the cabinet below the telephone table, taking out the bottle of bourbon that was there. I put the bottle on the desk in front of me. "How do we stand on war-contract cancellations in case the war ends tomorrow?"
"For the explosive company?" Mac asked.
"For all the companies," I said. I knew he kept copies of every contract we ever made down here because he considered this his home office.
"It'll take a little time. I'll put someone on it right away."
"Like about an hour?"
He hesitated. When he spoke, a curious note came into his voice. "All right,
if it's that important."
"It's that important."
"Do you know something?"
"No," I said truthfully. I really didn't know. I was only guessing. "I just want it."
There was silence for a moment, then he spoke again. "I just got the blueprints from Engineering on converting the radar and small-parts division of Aircraft to the proposed electronics company. Shall I bring them over?"
"Do that," I said, flipping up the switch. Taking a glass from the tray next to the Thermos jug, I filled it half full with bourbon. I looked across the room to the wall where the portrait of my father looked down on me. I held the glass up to him.
"It's been a long time, Pop," I said and poured the whisky down my throat
* * *
I took my hands from the blueprints on the desk and snapped and rolled them up tight, like a coil spring. I looked at McAllister. "They look all right to me, Mac."
He nodded. "I'll mark them approved and shoot them on to Purchasing to have them requisition the materials on standby orders, to be delivered when the war ends." He looked at the bottle of bourbon on the desk. "You're not very hospitable. How about a drink?"
I looked at him in surprise. Mac wasn't much for drinking. Especially during working hours. I pushed the bottle and a glass toward him. "Help yourself."
He poured a small shot and swallowed it neat. He cleared his throat. I looked at him. "There's one other postwar plan I wanted to talk to you about," he said awkwardly.
"Go ahead."
"Myself," he said hesitantly. "I’m not a young man any more. I want to retire."
"Retire?" I couldn't believe my ears. "What for? What in hell would you do?"
Mac flushed embarrassedly. "I've worked pretty hard all my life," he said. "I’ve got two sons and a daughter and five grandchildren, three of whom I've never seen. The wife and I would like to spend a little time with them, get to know them before it's too late."
I laughed. "You sound like you expect to kick off any minute. You're a young man yet."
"I'm sixty-three. I've been with you twenty years."
I stared at him. Twenty years. Where had they gone? The Army doctors had been right. I wasn't a kid any more, either. "We'll miss you around here," I said sincerely. "I don't know how we'll manage without you." I meant it, too. Mac was the one man I felt I could always depend on, whenever I had need for him.
"You'll manage all right. We've got over forty attorneys working for us now and each is a specialist in his own field. You're not just one man any more, you're a big company. You have to have a big legal machine to take care of you."
"So what?" I said. "You can't call up a machine in the middle of the night when you're in trouble."
"This machine you can. It's equipped for all emergencies."
"But what will you do? You can't tell me you'll be happy just lying around playing grandpa. You'll have to have something to occupy your mind."
"I've thought about that," he said, a serious look coming over his face. "I've been playing around so long with corporate and tax laws that I've almost forgotten about the most important part of all. The laws that have to do with human beings." He reached for the bottle again and poured himself another small drink. It wasn't easy for him to sit there and tell me what he was thinking.
"I thought I'd hang my shingle outside my house in some small town. Just putter around with whatever happened to come in the door. I'm tired of always talking in terms of millions of dollars. For once, I'd like to help some poor bastard who really needs it."
I stared at him. Work with a man for twenty years and still you don't know him. This was a side to McAllister that I'd never even suspected existed.
"Of course, we'll abrogate all of the contracts and agreements between us," he said.
I looked at him. I knew he didn't need the money. But then, neither did I. "Why in hell should we? Just show up at the board of directors' meeting every few months so at least I can see you once in a while."
"Then you— you agree?"
I nodded. "Sure, let's give it a spin when the war is over."
* * *
The sheets of white paper grew into a stack as he skimmed through the summary of each of the contracts. At last, Mac was finished and he looked up at me. "We have ample protective-cancellation clauses in all the contracts except one," he said. "That one is based on delivery before the end of the war."
"Which one is that?"
"That flying boat we're building for the Navy in San Diego."
I knew what he was talking about. The Centurion. It was to be the biggest airplane ever built, designed to carry a full company of one hundred and fifty men, in addition to the twelve-man crew, two light amphibious tanks and enough mortar, light artillery, weapons, ammunition and supplies for an entire company. It had been my idea that a plane like that would prove useful in landing raiding parties behind the lines out in the small Pacific islands.
"How come we made a contract like that?"
"You wanted it," he said. "Remember?"
I remembered. The Navy had been skeptical that the big plane could even get into the air, so I'd pressured them into making a deal predicated on a fully tested plane before the war ended. That was over seven months ago.
Almost immediately, we'd run into trouble. Stress tests proved that conventional metals would make the plane too heavy for the engines to lift into the air. We lost two months there, until the engineers came up with a Fiberglas compound that was less than one tenth the weight of metal and four times as strong. Then we had to construct special machinery to work the new material. I even brought Amos Winthrop down from Canada to sit in on the project. The old bastard had done a fantastic job up there and had a way of bulling a job through when no one else was able to.
The old leopard hadn't changed any of his spots, either. He had me by the shorts and he knew it. He held me up for a vice-presidency in Cord Aircraft before he'd come down.
"How much are we in for up to now?" I asked.
Mac looked down at the sheet. "Sixteen million, eight hundred seventy-six thousand, five hundred ninety-four dollars and thirty-one cents, as of June thirtieth."
"We're in trouble," I said, reaching for the telephone. The operator came on. "Get me Amos Winthrop in San Diego. And while I'm waiting to talk to him, call Mr. Dalton at the Inter-Continental Airlines office in Los Angeles and ask him to send down a special charter for me."
''What's the trouble?" Mac asked, watching me.
"Seventeen million dollars. We're going to blow it if we don't get that plane into the air right away."
Then Amos came on the phone. "How soon do you expect to get The Centurion into the sky?" I asked.
"We're coming along pretty good now. Just the finishing touches. I figure we ought to be able to lift her sometime in September or early October."
"What's missing?"
"The usual stuff. Mountings, fittings, polishing, tightening. You know."
I knew. The small but important part that took longer than anything else. But nothing really essential, nothing that would keep the plane from flying. "Get her ready," I said. "I'm taking her up tomorrow."
"Are you crazy? We've never even had gasoline in her tanks."
"Then fill her up."
"But the hull hasn't been water-tested yet," he shouted. "How do you know she won't go right to the bottom of San Diego Bay when you send her down the runway?"
"Then test it. You've got twenty-four hours to make sure she floats. I’ll be up there tonight, if you need a hand."
This was no cost-plus, money-guaranteed project, where the government picked up the tab, win, lose or draw. This was my money and I didn't like the idea of losing it.
For seventeen million dollars, The Centurion would fly if I had to lift her out of the water with my bare hands.
3
I had Robair take me out to the ranch, where I took a hot shower and changed my clothes before I got on the plane to San Diego. I was just leaving the house when
the telephone rang.
"It's for you, Mr. Jonas," Robair said. "Mr. McAllister."
I took the phone from his hand. "Yes, Mac?"
"Sorry to bother you, Jonas, but this is important."
"Shoot."
"Bonner just called from the studio," he said. "He's leaving at the end of the month to go over to Paramount. He's got a deal with them to make nothing but blockbusters."
"Offer him more money."
"I did. He doesn't want it. He wants out."
"What does his contract say?"
"It's over the end of this month," he said. "We cant hold him if he wants to go."
"To hell with him, then. If he wants to go, let him."
"We're in a hole," Mac said seriously. "We'll have to find someone to run the studio. You can't operate a motion-picture company without someone to make pictures."
That was nothing I didn't know. It was too bad that David Woolf wasn't coming back. I could depend on him. He felt the same way about movies that I did about airplanes. But he'd caught it at Anzio.
"I want to make San Diego tonight," I said. "Let me think about it and we'll kick it around in your office in L.A. the day after tomorrow." I had bigger worries on my mind just now. One Centurion cost almost as much as a whole year's production at the studio.
We landed at the San Diego Airport about one o'clock in the morning. I took a taxi right from there to the little shipyard we had rented near the Naval base. I could see the lights blazing from it ten blocks away. I smiled to myself. Leave it to Amos to get things done. He had a night crew working like mad, even if he had to break the blackout regulations to get it done.
I walked around the big old boat shed that we were using for a hangar just in time to hear someone yell, "Clear the runway!"
And then The Centurion came out of the hangar, tail first, looking for all the world like an ugly giant condor flying backward. Like a greased pig, it shot down the runway toward the water. A great roar came from the hangar and I was almost knocked over by a gang of men, who came running out after the plane. Before I knew it, they'd passed me and were down at the water's edge. I saw Amos in the crowd and he was yelling as much as any of them.
JC1 The Carpetbaggers Page 69