by Max Hennessy
‘They’ll survive.’
While they had been speaking, Courtney’s face had been going grey, and Boyle, who had been watching him closely for some time, pushed a chair forward quickly. Courtney sat down abruptly and clicked his fingers, his eyes swinging to Boyle so slowly they seemed to creak in their sockets.
Boyle turned to Woolff. ‘Water,’ he snapped. ‘Quick!’
As Woolff disappeared, Courtney fished in his pocket with stumbling fingers and extracted a box, and as Woolff returned with the water, he dug out a couple of purple pills and swallowed them. For a while, he sat in silence, all their eyes on him, his hand waving Alix away as she fussed round him.
Boyle stared at him, his eyes compassionate. ‘Felton,’ he said quietly. ‘Did you get the dough you were after?’
Courtney stared at him, then he shook his head slowly.
‘You didn’t?’
‘No. They don’t believe I can do it.’
The old man glanced quickly at Alix, a fixed look of desperation in his eyes, as though all his own efforts to take some of the weight off Courtney’s shoulders were all brought to nothing by Courtney’s stubborn insistence on trying to raise funds. He fumbled hurriedly with a cigarette. ‘Felton, for God’s sake, why don’t you stop?’ he said at last. ‘You’ll be all right. Sit back. Get better. You can worry about money later.’
‘Later’s no good. I can try in Pittsburgh. I’ve got friends in Pittsburgh.’
Alix stepped forward. ‘Pa, you’ll kill yourself!’
Courtney said nothing, then he picked up his hat without a word and slowly, laboriously, rose to his feet.
They watched him stalk through the hangar, suddenly an old man. Alix’s eyes were scared. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said in a whisper to Boyle. ‘How sick is he? He’s on the ropes!’
Boyle took off his spectacles and polished them. ‘He’s pretty sick, Alix,’ he said.
‘Is he still trying to pull things together?’
Boyle shrugged. ‘He’s been trying to raise money in Washington.’
‘Again?’ She looked startled. ‘So he can lose it all again?’ Boyle shrugged. ‘When a man’s once had money, Alix, he’ll never stop trying.’
‘Do you think he’ll manage it?’
He paused, then he shook his head. ‘You heard what he said. He’s got nothing new to offer.’
She gave him a frightened look. ‘Is it my fault, Lave?’ she asked. ‘All this illness, I mean.’
The old man turned angrily. ‘Your fault? How the hell could it be your fault?’
She shook her head, as though trying to rid herself of a feeling of guilt. ‘I’ve wondered again and again if we drove him into spending too much,’ she said. ‘Over the Dixie, I mean. We persuaded him.’
Boyle snorted. ‘If he’d had the sort of cash he ought to have had,’ he observed, ‘ten Dixies wouldn’t have made any difference. And in any case, he didn’t find the dough – you did.’
She nodded, a little reassured, but still not quite certain. ‘Is it because I’m flying with Ira, then?’ she asked.
The old man stared at her for a while, thinking, then he shook his head firmly. ‘This has been coming a long time, Alix,’ he said. ‘The doctors have been warning him for two years. If it hadn’t happened today, something else – Joe Hughesden or some damned lawyer – would have done it tomorrow.’ He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘He always tried to do too much, Alix. He used to be the driving force behind Courtneys. He was never a great businessman but he could certainly keep things humming. If he wasn’t there, we always started losing money. He wore himself out keeping things going.’ He sighed and reached for the battered old velour he wore. ‘But not for a long time,’ he ended. ‘He ought not to be worrying more than necessary. I’ve done a bit of checking around. He’s worse than he thinks.’ He glanced to where Courtney was approaching the hangar door, his stride bent-kneed, his head sunk on his neck. ‘He’s an old man, Alix.’ He gave another sigh and clapped his hat on his head. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Bear it in mind.’
As he opened the door he almost bumped into Sammy, who gestured with a bandaged fist towards Courtney. ‘What’s up with Felton?’ he said.
Boyle ignored him and he watched silently as the old man hurried after Courtney across the hangar. There was silence for a while and Sammy said nothing as he saw Courtney climb heavily into a cab, helped by Boyle. His eyes were hard and he was struggling with his bandaged hands to open a packet of cigarettes. Woolff pushed one of his between his lips and lit it, and Sammy drew a long satisfied puff and blew it out.
‘I thought he was sick some time ago,’ he said.
‘Dry up, Sammy,’ Ira said, and Sammy glanced quickly at Alix. She had dropped into the chair her father had vacated and there were tears in her eyes.
‘The old fool,’ she said. ‘The poor old fool!’
* * *
Late in the evening, long after Sammy had been picked up by Mae Minter, the telephone rang. It was the Weather Bureau. ‘There’s just a chance, Captain,’ they said, ‘that you’ll be able to get away at first light tomorrow.’
‘You sure?’ Ira said.
‘Sure we’re sure. It might not come to anything, but it might pay you to be ready.’
As they rang off, Ira telephoned Mae Minter’s apartment and got hold of Sammy.
‘Sammy,’ he said. ‘Better get down here if you’re interested. We’re probably off any time. We need to talk.’
When Sammy’s cab arrived, Ira and Hal Woolff and Alix were already in the office.
‘We might as well check our plans now,’ Ira pointed out. ‘If they don’t work for tonight, they’ll work another night. Sammy, you’ll be contacting the Wright men. They promised to come whenever we wanted them. Get ’em down to the field, together with the officials. Hal, you’ll be doing the final inspection and digging out that mechanic with the truck you’ve got lined up, to tow the Dixie over to Roosevelt. Sammy can handle any other arrangements. Just make sure the barograph’s installed and the tanks are sealed. Alix, how about your kit?’
‘It’s here.’
‘OK. You can arrange for police to control the crowds and for petrol and oil. I’ll be at the Weather Bureau for a last check over the charts.’
They talked for a while about their plans, going over them several times with meticulous care so that nothing should be forgotten. As they left the hangar to get some sleep, Sammy stopped and looked at the sky.
‘Heard anything about the Ryan outfit?’ he asked. ‘I bet they’ve not missed the weather. Everybody was clammed up all of a sudden when I was over there this morning.’ He gestured. ‘He let me have a look round, though. His plane’s “blind” all right and he’s got the tank smack in front of him with the instrument panel fitted to the back. But he can see ahead with his periscope and upwards through a skylight in the cabin roof. He takes off and lands by sticking his head out of the side window. He reckons he won’t need much else, the route he’s flying.’
Ira looked thoughtful. ‘Many crowds over there?’
‘Thousands. Mostly madwomen trying to get near enough to touch him.’
Hal Woolff pushed his cap to the back of his head.
‘There was a reporter from one of the tabloids around here this afternoon,’ he said. ‘He wanted to know who was flying with you, Ira. I told him Sammy. He didn’t believe me. He didn’t even believe we’d go. They don’t believe anybody at the moment. Levine’s still talking about records but he’s dropped Bertaud now and Bertaud’s not going to let ’em take off without him. He’s taking out an injunction.’
Sammy grinned. ‘That’s a handy thing to have on your back just as the weather shows signs of clearing,’ he said.
Woolff chuckled. ‘They’re in real trouble,’ he agreed. ‘This guy thought Levine was talking through a hole in his head. He thought I was, too, I guess, when I told him about you.’
While they were still laughing in the opening of the hangar do
ors, a small brown sedan drew up nearby and a stout man in a navy blue coat with a velvet collar climbed out and crossed to them, carrying a folded paper. He glanced curiously at Alix, and they assumed he was a reporter.
‘You Alexandra Sabra Beaumarchais Courtney?’ he demanded. He gestured at the aeroplane behind them in the hangar. ‘Owner of that ship, with Ira Abel Penaluna, Samuel Amos Shapiro and Harold Kenneth Woolff?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. That’s right. What’s all this?’
The man in the blue coat glanced towards the brown sedan. Two other men had climbed out of it now and were standing alongside it, watching them. He turned again to Alix and slapped the folded paper into her hand. As her fingers closed on it instinctively, he indicated the other two men.
‘The required two witnesses,’ he said. ‘I represent the Hughesden Instrument Company Incorporated. That’s an injunction. You’ll not be flying without Hughesden instruments.’
Chapter 5
Clouds still covered the sky but they were higher now and seemed thinner, so that the light seemed to have grown brighter. The depression which had been hanging about off the coast of North America on and off for so long was at last showing the first hesitant signs of dispersing. It looked as though the Weather Bureau would be right in the end. The greyness persisted, however, and the lights that hung among the girders above the red Dixie seemed dim and weak in the cold gloom of the hangar.
Ira stood in front of the machine, staring at the name painted on the side and the black smooth cylinder heads of the Wright engine, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes baffled and angry, his heavy brows down. The newspapers had picked up the story of the injunction from Hughesdens, and the telephone conversations with Lavery Boyle had been acrimonious and had got them precisely nowhere.
Hugging his bandaged hands, a cigarette hanging from his lips, Sammy eyed him with a faint trace of irritation on his face, as though his cynical insistence on realism was wearing a little thin before Ira’s stubbornness, because there were seals on the hangar doors now to prevent them wheeling the machine out and there was a lawyer’s official outside, a thick-set man with a grey velour hat and a dead cigar in his mouth.
‘Ira,’ Sammy said for the tenth time. ‘You’ve got no alternative. You’ve got to have the Hughesden instruments.’
Ira gave a restless movement of his shoulders as he shrugged off Sammy’s nagging. ‘The Atlantic’s cold and wet, Sammy,’ he said pointedly. ‘I don’t want the Hughesden pump. Not if I can help it.’
They were all feeling depressed as they gathered in the office and Woolff produced a bottle of whisky wrapped in brown paper and thinly disguised to look like a pair of shoes. Pouring several solid measures, he splashed in water from the tap and handed the glasses round.
‘The whole lousy set-up makes me want to vomit,’ he said bitterly. ‘If we’d only had our twenty-four hours of good weather yesterday, we could have gotten her out on the field. And if we had, not even Joe Hughesden nor any of his minions down to the smallest snot-nosed office boy could have sweet-talked us out of going. And that’s God’s blessed and unflyblown truth!’
His plump features quivered with indignation and his normally mild eyes blazed as he worked himself up into a destructive fury. Sammy smiled faintly.
‘Take it easy, Hal,’ he advised. ‘The steam’s coming out of your ears.’
Woolff refused to be calmed. His plump face was drawn with worry and he gestured angrily. ‘They think we won’t make it,’ he said. ‘This on top of the sell-out finished us as far as the papers are concerned. They think we’re done for.’ He stared at the window. ‘We’ll miss our chance,’ he went on. ‘The weather’ll break and we’ll miss our chance.’
‘Let’s not get in a muck sweat, Hal,’ Ira advised. ‘Alix and Lave Boyle are up in Boston now and they ought to sort it out for when the weather changes. Hughesdens haven’t got a leg to stand on and we’ve still time. The Bellanca crowd are still fighting with each other. Levine’s trying to say now that Bert Acosta’s still going but the Byrd outfit says he’s signed on with them.’
‘There’s nothing holding up the Ryan,’ Sammy pointed out in flat tones.
Woolff swept his hand down in a flat derisory gesture. ‘He doesn’t count,’ he said. ‘He can’t do it – not on his own!’
As they talked, the telephone rang. It was Boyle. The old man sounded as though he was seething with fury.
‘I’m ringing from Boston,’ he said. ‘We’ve had three lawyers, including me, in the office here in this goddam talk-fest. They’re quoting that contract that gives them the right to install their pumps and compasses.’
Ira exploded. ‘We don’t want a bloody Hughesden pump!’
Boyle sounded distraught. ‘You might have to have one,’ he announced. ‘The contract says – and I’ve seen it – that Hughesden instruments are to be fitted to all Courtney vehicles.’
‘An aeroplane’s not a vehicle.’
‘The contract doesn’t differentiate and for the purposes of the law, they’re claiming it is. They say it travels on wheels over the ground and therefore it’s a vehicle. By the time we’ve managed to unclaim it, it’ll probably be too late. They’re after all the publicity they can get because they know there’ll be sales if you get across, and they want to be able to say you did it with their equipment.’
‘Using their equipment,’ Ira snapped, ‘we probably shan’t. Can’t you call ’em off?’
‘I’m doing all I can.’ The old man sounded weary. ‘I shan’t stop, I promise.’
Suddenly, Ira wondered how Alix was. Of them all, she was probably suffering most. ‘Is Alix there?’ he asked.
‘No. She’s already left for New York. She’s gone to Long Island.’
‘Is she coming down here?’
‘I guess so. She was wondering if she couldn’t raise some more dough on that house of hers to fight Hughesdens. Law costs money. It isn’t worth much but it’ll fetch a bit and she’s determined to put everything she’s got into this project.’
‘Mr Boyle, there isn’t a project as long as Hughesdens’ man’s on the door of the hangar. Won’t they accept a settlement?’
‘What do we pay ’em with? Felton’s trying to drum up some dough again. He went to Pittsburgh as he said he would. Some old wartime buddy he knows.’
‘We could probably raise a bit more between us.’
‘Ira’ – the old man seemed weary of arguing – ‘you’re wasting your time. So’s Felton. All the dough in King Solomon’s Mines won’t buy ’em off. It’s not dough they’re after. It’s publicity. They say they have a contract to install their instruments on Courtney vehicles and they’re going to install ’em!’
Ira exploded. ‘This is crazy!’ he snorted. ‘We’re not a Courtney vehicle now, in any case.’
‘You were when the plane was built!’ Boyle sounded terse and angry. ‘You can’t get round that, and the contract was signed by Felton and Joe Hughesden. I’ve seen it. In 1922. Nobody thought of flying the Atlantic then.’
* * *
As Ira put the telephone down, they heard a car come to a halt outside the door with squeaking brakes, and Alix appeared. There were a dozen reporters waiting, but she dodged them and slid quickly through the door, which was promptly slammed behind her by Woolff.
‘I’ve put the house on Long Island up for sale,’ she announced. ‘It’ll probably raise a few thousand dollars after we’ve paid off the mortgage.’
‘Alix, forget it,’ Sammy said quickly. ‘We’ll raise the money somehow. We don’t need the house.’
‘What’s the good of a house,’ she said shortly, ‘without an income to keep it up?’
She leaned against the door and lifted her eyes tiredly. ‘They wouldn’t remove the injunction,’ she said. ‘They’re after blood.’
‘We heard,’ Ira said. ‘Boyle rang.’
She stared at him for a moment, as though what he had said hadn’t sunk in. ‘They won’t do a thing to help,’
she went on. ‘They’ve got us over a barrel and they’re aiming to keep us there. They dressed it up a bit, of course, telling us that it wasn’t Joe Hughesden’s wishes, but that they had to look after the investments of all the little people who’d got their money in Hughesdens.’ She gave an explosive laugh that was harsh and mirthless. ‘Little people! Anybody’d think they’d got elves putting their dough in these days. The only thing that’s little bout Hughesdens is Joe Hughesden’s mind.’
‘What about your Pa, Alix?’ Woolff asked.
She looked at him unhappily and shook her head. ‘He wired. He’ll get nothing. We can forget Pa, Hal. Lave’s right. He’s a sick man and I’m not going to be the one who knocks the props from under him.’ She pulled off her hat wearily and tossed it on to the desk. ‘We’ve got no choice. We’ve got to accept the Hughesden instruments.’
Ira frowned. ‘It’s not quite as simple as that,’ he pointed out. ‘The Wright engineers don’t think much of the Hughesden pump either, and if we refuse to use a Viking as they recommend, they say they can’t be held responsible.’
Her eyes flickered miserably. ‘They’re washing their hands of us?’
Ira sighed. ‘Not quite. But while they were prepared to offer what was in effect a guarantee with their engine before, they’re not prepared to now. That’s what it amounts to.’
She looked at Sammy and Woolff. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Do we accept the Hughesden pump and compasses, or don’t we?’
‘You said it yourself, old love,’ Sammy pointed out. ‘We haven’t much option. The weather’s picking up all the time. We’ve got to make up our minds now or we might miss it.’
She looked at Ira and he shrugged. ‘I’m afraid Sammy’s right,’ he said.
‘OK.’ She straightened and jerked up her head. ‘Let’s go ahead. I’ll ring Lave Boyle and tell him to let Hughesdens know we agree. They’ve had men here on the field waiting to do the job for days.’
Woolff sighed and turned away. Half an hour later, sick at heart, he was dismantling the fuel pump while Ira was unscrewing the compasses.