by Anne Stuart
"It's not fair!"
"Honey," Clancy said wearily, "whoever said life was fair? Come down out of the clouds. Life is mean and dirty down here in the trenches. If you haven't found that out yet then you're about to."
"I've found it out." Her voice was flat, unemotional, but Clancy's hard expression softened for a moment.
"Yeah, that's right. There's Ramsey and there's your father. I never met him, but I heard he was all right. I guess you've been through your share in the last few years."
She straightened up, glaring at him. Pity was one thing she wasn't about to take from him. "You said Langston knows where this mechanic is?"
"Back to business, is that it? The colored section of Albany isn't very far from the shanty town. Convenient that way. He ran into Parsons a few days ago and they got to talking. If he's still around, it shouldn't take long to find him."
"Why wouldn't he be around?"
"People don't stay put when they're out of work. Why do you think shanty towns crop up around the railroad lines? He's been riding the rails. There's no guarantee that he hasn't decided to strike out for something better."
"You mean we made this trip for nothing?"
"I don't mean anything. I'm just warning you. You go through life expecting everything to go your way and you're going to get kicked in the teeth." He pushed away from the railing.
"And if you go through life expecting the worst then there's no reason even to try," she shot back.
His dark eyes raked her face for a moment. "Then I guess we're at a stalemate. You dream too much, I dream too little. Or maybe my dreams are just a little more practical. A Pan American Clipper crossed the Pacific last week. The first commercial aircraft to do so. That's where the future is, Red. Not hotheaded barnstormers breaking speed records and endurance records for the hell of it."
"Are you talking about me?" Her voice was frosty.
"No, Red. I'm talking about me." He moved past her, but the space on the tiny platform was too small to avoid touching her. She had the sense that if he could have, he would have, but she was damned if she was going to squeeze herself into a corner just to avoid him.
"Where are you going?"
"We're coming into Albany. I'm getting our bags."
"I thought you weren't a gentleman," she said, thanking heaven she'd thought to repack before coming in search of her traveling companion.
"I have my moments. Meet you on the platform." He disappeared into the darkened bar car with such speed that Angela might almost have thought he was trying to get away from her. Impossible, she told herself. He didn't care enough about her one way or another to want to run away. With a tiny mental shrug, she followed him, her high heels just slightly wobbly in the swaying car.
*
Clancy wanted to get as far away as fast as he could. The steady thrum of the train beneath his feet and the innocent, seductive sway of her slender body as she maintained her balance were driving him absolutely insane.
He'd had one holy hell of a night. He thought he'd gotten over his love of risk, his daring of fate. Why he'd hauled Miss High-and-Mighty Hogan up into his berth in the middle of the night couldn't be anything but sheer cussedness. Why he'd kissed her was even more unfathomable. Except for the fact that he'd wanted to kiss her ever since he'd seen her, glowering at him in that makeshift office inside the hangar.
How many times did he have to remind himself that she wasn't his type? He liked blond, busty babes with bright red bee-stung lips, china-blue eyes and enough intellect to wipe their nose and not much more. At least, that was what he liked in bed.
Women like Angela Hogan were better as friends, and surprisingly enough, he'd had a number of women friends over the years. Fliers, all of them, and he'd viewed them with the same lack of lust that he viewed Sparks. So why couldn't Angela join that select band of sexless women? Why did he want to... ?
With a muffled curse he grabbed the two flight bags from their berths as the train began slowing its headlong pace. The less he thought about Angela Hogan, the better. He needed to concentrate on finding a decent mechanic, one who understood Wasp engines and Percivals as well as Avians and Lockheed Vegas. Not to mention his own precious Fokker. He needed to remember that planes, that flying, came first, way above anything else. Certainly far beyond anything as paltry as his overactive glands.
He did his own double take when he stepped out on the platform as the train pulled in to Albany. Angela was carrying on a friendly, low-voiced conversation with Langston, and for once his old friend had dropped his defenses. She had gumption, Clancy had to grant her that. And persistence and her own kind of charm to be able to get through Langston's determined pride. She hadn't bothered to bestow any of that charm on Clancy, which was a damned good thing. She was a potent enough package wrapped in hostility.
Langston flashed Clancy a rueful grin, shutting up as other passengers crowded onto the tiny platform, and for once Angela had the sense to follow his lead. Even in the free-thinking north, people might not like to see a white woman and black man having a casual conversation, and she knew that as well as Langston. And knew he'd be the one to suffer for it.
Clancy jumped down first after Langston lowered the steps, moving out of the way as his old friend helped the passengers down. Clancy had no intention of offering Angela a hand—she'd probably slap it away. He watched with surprise as she accepted Langston's assistance onto the high box on the station platform, and she pressed something in his hand, something he took with a bob of his head and the deftness of a magician.
Clancy didn't say anything until they were halfway down the almost-empty platform. Angela was managing to keep up, despite her shorter legs and ridiculous high-heeled shoes, and it wasn't until they were at the end that he turned and glared at her.
"Don't tell me you were fool enough to tip him?" he demanded, whirling around with sudden ferocity.
She stood her ground, not even flinching. "With a wife and family, doesn't he need the money?"
He cursed then. "I thought you were smarter than that, Red. How much did you give him?"
She just looked at him, her eyes calm and clear, saying nothing, and then it sank in.
"You didn't give him any money," he said.
"Of course I didn't. I figured he needed his self-respect more than he needed a handout. I gave him a card with my name and address and phone number on it. In case he wants to find work flying again."
"He won't."
"Maybe. But at least he's got a choice."
"He has no choice at all," Clancy said bitterly. "Don't you realize that you're just dangling a carrot in front of his nose, one that's forever out of reach? That's not being kind, Red. That's being damned cruel."
"If you spend your life knuckling under to bigots then you might as well give up trying," she said fiercely. "But then, we've already covered that ground, haven't we? I dream too much, you dream too little."
There was nothing he could say. He stood, fuming, exasperated, knowing he was right and yet wishing he weren't. "We're wasting time," he said finally. "We've got less than a day to find your mechanic before the Twentieth Century comes back through. Let's get moving."
"How are we going to get to the shanty town? I didn't see any taxis."
"We don't need a taxi, Red. Look over there." He pointed to the left, to a vast, sprawling mass of tents, shacks, lean-tos and the like, the smoke from hundreds of campfires swirling lazily into the early-morning air. "People without a home stay as close to the tracks as the railroad bulls will let them. You never know when you'll need a quick getaway."
She looked up at him with sudden curiosity. "Have you spent time in one of these places?"
"Honey, that's none of your damned business." He took a step away from her, away from the teasing scent of her perfume. He wasn't used to women who wore perfume, not such a subtle, tantalizing fragrance. They either used something musky and overpowering or nothing at all. Angela Hogan was a confusing mix of femininity and pilot, a
nd he began to think that Hal Ramsey had been a lucky man, even if he'd gone west before his time.
As they came to the edge of the hobo encampment, the smells rose in the air as well as the smoke. Beans and coffee, woodsmoke and poverty, unwashed bodies and pride and despair filling the air like a thick cloud. There were fewer families, thank God. Fewer people all together. Back in 1932, when the Depression had been at its worst, this Hooverville would have been twice the size. If prosperity hadn't been just around the corner when F.D.R. and his alphabet soup took office, at least things had improved for a number of people.
Fewer able-bodied men, too, though work was still scarce. Clancy strode at an easy pace through the encampment, always aware of Angela trotting along at his heels. He didn't spare her a glance, but if anyone had touched her, even looked at her in a way he didn't like, he would have known it and been on the man instantly. He'd lived on the edge long enough to know how to trust his instincts.
She slipped and he caught her instantly. A light drizzle had begun to fall and her usually smooth hair had begun to curl in the humidity. Her shoes were a wreck, with twigs and garbage clinging to them, and her stockings were splattered with mud. Her dress was shrivelling in the dampness, and he looked into her face, expecting a tirade.
"How do you know we're going in the right direction?" she asked calmly enough, instead of the tantrum he'd been fearing.
"Langston said he was over in the west corner last he heard. If he's still here, we'll find him." A thin, ragged woman was moving past, her cotton housedress soaked with the rain, her hair straggling down around her scrawny neck. Clancy reached out and caught her arm, and she stared at him out of vacant, hopeless eyes. "We're looking for a man named Will Parsons," Clancy said. "Have you seen him?"
The woman pulled away, shaking her head. "People don't use their last names around here." And she started to move away.
"Wait," Angela said, moving after her. The woman stopped, watching numbly as Angela spoke to her in low, hurried tones. A moment later what almost passed for a smile crossed the woman's face, and then she was gone.
"I suppose you gave her money," Clancy said with a sigh as Angela rejoined him. "You know how stupid that is, in a place like this? There are people here who'd kill their own mother for two bits. You start flashing money around and we may not make it out of here—"
"These aren't criminals, Clancy. They're just people who've run out of luck."
"What do you think makes some people criminals, Red? No luck, no job, no hope. You can't afford scruples and honesty when you can't feed your kids. You're just lucky it started raining. If you looked like Miss Society from Chicago instead of a half-drowned kitten, she wouldn't have given you the time of day."
"Maybe. Women tend to help each other, despite their backgrounds."
He shook his head. "You'll never learn, will you? I suppose she told you where to find Parsons. And I suppose you believed her?"
"You're not having much luck so far, Clancy. Let's try it my way."
Now it was his turn to follow her through the muddy paths of the makeshift city. The rain was coming down more heavily now, forcing the weary inhabitants back inside their rude dwellings, but Angela scarcely seemed to notice it. Her hair hung in wet rats tails over her padded shoulders, her feet slipped in the mud and the dress clung to her subtle curves with a stubborn tenacity. Clancy tried to concentrate on that, on the way the lavender material wrapped itself around Angela's hips, instead of the way the rain was sliding down inside his collar. It would be a damned lucky thing if neither of them got pneumonia.
She came to an abrupt stop by a rough lean-to. The fire in front of it was sizzling and hissing in the rain, not quite out, and the battered coffeepot balanced on top of it was putting forth wonderful smells. There was no sign of humanity anywhere around the shack, and Clancy was just about to open his mouth and tell her just how wrong-headed she was when he noticed the photo of the airplane just inside the open doorway. Clancy's experienced eyes recognized a Lockheed Vega, practically identical to the one Angela flew. The picture looked as if it had been ripped from a magazine, and he took a step closer to see whether it was Amelia Earhart's famous Lockheed or one of its humbler cousins, when a man's gruff voice stopped him cold.
"Who the hell are you?" the man demanded in a rough, scratchy voice. "And what do you think you're doing, poking around my digs?"
Chapter Seven
Angela stood there, rain plastering her hair against her skull, and surveyed the man she'd traveled so far to find. What she could see was scarcely reassuring. He was of average height, dressed in old, patched clothes, a wide-brimmed hat keeping the rain off his face. That face was obscured by a huge, bristling, gray beard and thick, bottle-lensed glasses, and she thought she could see the red tracery of scarring across his nose and cheekbones. She was overcome with the strangest sense of emotion, of deja vu, of deep, inexplicable sadness that vanished as quickly as it came.
"Are you Will Parsons?" Clancy asked, standing his ground.
"What if I am? Who wants to know?" The old man barely glanced in Angela's direction, stomping past her into the makeshift lean-to, and ripped a picture of an airplane off the wall, tossing it into the hissing, spitting fire.
"My name's Clancy. We've come a long ways to see you, Mr. Parsons."
"You didn't fly in this weather?"
"What makes you think I know how to fly?" Clancy countered smoothly.
"Stands to reason." Parsons hunkered down by the fire, pouring himself a cup of coffee into a battered tin mug. "You wouldn't be coming to see me for any other reason. You must be looking for a mechanic. And I'm guessing you're Jack Clancy."
"You're guessing right. And no, we didn't fly. We took the Twentieth Century. Not because of the weather. Because we need a mechanic. Our planes are grounded. Got any more of that coffee?"
"Plenty of coffee. Only one other mug." He glanced over at Angela and his expression was no more than faintly interested. "Your wife mind sharing?"
"I'm not his wife," Angela said sharply. "And I'd share a mug with Adolf Hitler."
"Hey, Red, I'm not quite that bad," Clancy drawled, sounding surprisingly at ease as he took the second cup from Parsons gloved hand. "Why'd you throw that picture into the fire?"
"What picture?" Parsons said, staring at Clancy, staring into his oily black coffee, staring everywhere but at Angela.
"The one of the Lockheed Vega."
Parsons shrugged. "What can I say? I like Amelia Earhart."
"That wasn't AE's plane. Hers is painted bright red to help people find her if she's in trouble."
Parsons scratched his head in an elaborate show of surprise. "Gee, you can't trust anybody nowadays. And I thought for sure that was Amelia Earhart."
“If you like lady fliers, I've got one here you can do a favor for."
The old man glanced over at Angela then, and she thought she could feel animosity behind those thick lenses. She was almost ready to tell Clancy to forget it, that she didn't want any favors from such a nasty old man, when she noticed had badly his hands were shaking.
"I don't like lady fliers," Parsons said in his raspy, ruined voice. "They should be married and having babies. You have any babies, lady?"
"I'm not married." She was tired of this pussyfooting, tired of standing in the rain with mud oozing through the open toes of her ridiculous high heels, the shoes she was too damned stubborn to admit she should have left behind. "My name's Angela Hogan, Mr. Parsons. I own a small air transport firm just outside of Chicago. I've got a Percival, a Lockheed Vega and an Avian, and Clancy's got a Fokker coming up from South America before long. We need a mechanic, a good one."
"I'm not a good mechanic, Miss Hogan. I'm the best there is."
"Then you're what we need."
"Sorry, not interested."
She opened her mouth to protest, but Clancy forestalled her, handing her the half-empty mug of coffee. "Why not? Angela can pay you what you're worth."
&n
bsp; "John D. Rockefeller himself couldn't pay me what I'm worth," Parsons said. "Can't you find any mechanics in Chicago? There must be a dozen of them swarming around. If they've already got a job, steal 'em away."
"Angela has a little problem."
"Who says I care?" Parsons shot back.
"A man named Charlie Olker is determined to put her out of business. He's scared all the mechanics away, hired them away, fixed it so that all she can get by with is rum-soaked old has-beens."
Parsons set his cup down in the mud, and there was no ignoring the trembling in his hands. "So you thought you'd see if you could find a rum-soaked has-been named Parsons instead of hiring a local one?"
Clancy glanced at his hands, and there was sympathy in his dark eyes. "Rough night?"
"I'll be okay in a few hours. Just as soon as I find the hair of the dog. You don't happen to have a little nip on you?"
"No," Clancy lied.
"Do you drink all the time?" Angela asked.
"What the hell does it matter to you, lady? I'm not working for you."
"It means I can be relieved instead of disappointed," she snapped, taking a sip of the awful coffee, letting its warmth sink into her chilled body.
"Shut up, Angel," Clancy said. "Why won't you work for us, Parsons?"
"I'm sick of airplanes."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me. I'm sick of the damned things. I need more challenge in my life. I've decided airships are the wave of the future."
Clancy stared at him in disbelief. "You're kidding me! After all the disasters involved with dirigibles, do you think people still want to travel in them?"
"Nobody's done 'em right. The durn government spent millions on two big, showy pieces and what happens? They go down, taking over a hundred lives between 'em. Same thing's happened all over the world. England, France and Italy have all backed out after a little bad luck. The thing is, there's still incredible potential and I think I can lick their problem. I've had a thought or two that might just turn the tide."