Amerika

by Paul Lally

  I patted Frau Jäger’s shoulder. ‘You know what to do.’

  He nodded and stood up and waited while I made my way through the silent crowd that had gathered around Ava like she was a traffic accident. With my height, she spotted me instantly and wailed, ‘Sam, darling, it’s you! Oh, please, please, please take me away to your shiny bright plane right this instant!’

  She swept forward, the crowd parted and she fell into my arms in a Hollywood swoon.

  ‘What happened?’ I said to Ziggy.

  He played his part to perfection. ‘They welshed on the movie deal. Couldn’t get the numbers to work. She blew up. Had one too many. Party’s over. Now she wants to go home.’ He shrugged hopelessly. ‘Can we, captain?’

  “Certainly.” I made as if to ponder how to do it, and then said, ‘I’m returning to the plane with another passenger who needs assistance. I’d be happy to help you as well.’

  Ziggy’s face melted with relief. Ava came out of her swoon and said drunkenly, ‘My big brave man promises he’ll let me fly his shiny little plane all around the sky?’

  I extricated myself and smoothed my uniform jacket. ‘We’ll see what can be arranged, Miss James.’

  She grabbed me with one arm and swung her other one at Ziggy like a major general. ‘Check us out of here, you little twerp. And when we get back to Hollywood you want to know something?’

  ‘I know, I’m fired.’

  ‘No, you’re FIRED!’

  I said, ‘See you at the taxicab stand?’

  Ziggy just nodded, but for the briefest of instants, his eyes flashed and his face paled, as if he’d suddenly thought of something. But then he turned resolutely to the reception desk to play his part in the drama that had caused the lobby to fall silent and now waited see what would happen next.

  I steered Ava over to Frau Jäger who stood there, demur and sorrowful, her sheer black veil partially covering her face and blurring her features. As we approached, the crowd murmured back to life again, buzzing about the bravura performance they’d just witnessed. How many understood English didn’t matter. The way Ava acted made the place to buzz with excited gossip.

  We made our way out through the polished brass doors that opened onto Rua Duque de Palmela. We stood there on the sidewalk, letting the rush and roar of Lisbon at night wash over us in a hot haze. In contrast to the rest of Europe being darkened by war, Lisbon blazed with the lights of a nation at peace. Not a thing to worry about. All was well - and to this day I don’t know why that particular thought made me suddenly grab both women and steer them back inside the hotel, where we ran into Ziggy coming the other way.

  His face stayed neutral, but his eyes didn’t. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Change of plans.’

  ‘But we’ve got to get to the plane.’

  ‘Not this way. I smell trouble.’

  Ziggy started to say something but Ava said quietly, ‘Let’s play follow the leader, shall we?’

  I quickly led our parade back through the lobby, through the crowd and down a side corridor until I found an exit stairwell. There had to be more than one way to get out of this damned place and I was determined to find it. One flight down, and the clattering of our shoes on steel stairs ended when we arrived at a door that led to a side alley. Once outside, we hurried down the narrow, trash-can filled passage to a street running directly parallel to Rua Duque de Palmela.

  ‘We need to gain some altitude,’ I said.

  ‘Huh?’ Ziggy said.

  ‘The Santa Justa elevator. This way.’

  I had caught a glimpse of the famous Lisbon landmark on our drive to the hotel from the airport and prayed my memory served me as to its location. Built around the time of the Eiffel tower, the ornately designed, rectangular cast-iron elevator rose one hundred-twenty feet in the air like a gothic Jules Verne space rocket. Only instead of heading for the moon, the elevator lifted Lisbonites from Baixa, the lower town, to Largo do Carmo, the higher square, in a matter of minutes, bypassing the city’s steep hills in one short vertical leap.

  The elevator’s lift cage doors were opening just as we arrived. A good omen. We piled inside, along with a crowd of laughing, singing, half-drunk Lisbonites. The lift took off with a small lurch, everybody giggled, and then it settled down smoothly as the electric winches did their repetitious duty without complaint.

  Ava squeezed my arm. ‘What’s next?’

  I started to answer, but as I did, the lift cage cleared the street level and I could see down and across the jumble of rooftops to the flood-lit front entrance of the Aviz hotel where we had stood on the sidewalk moments before. My mouth dried up and I heard a ringing sound in my ears.

  A cluster of policemen milled around the front doors, and from the midst of the swirling mass of dark-uniforms appeared the familiar Gestapo-grey leather coat worn by Max Bauer, who angrily pointed this way and that, sending the officers scurrying off like wolves in search of their prey.

  ‘Bauer knows about us,’ I said.

  Ava watched in silence but said nothing.

  The elevator climbed higher over the brightly-lit city. The faint touch of pre-dawn light threw the Lisbon skyline into crisp silhouette, including the Lisbon Castle, lights ablaze, a fairy princess’s dream come true. Only in our case it wasn’t a dream, but a nightmare if we showed up at the Pan Am terminal and tried to board the clipper. Bauer and his goons would be there waiting for us.

  Ava said, ‘What are we going to do?’

  I said a prayer before reaching inside my small leather overnight bag and felt around until my fingers touched the smooth metal surface of the small pocket flashlight I always carried with me when I traveled. Under normal circumstances I would use it to light up my travel clock to see if it was time to get up for my trip. Tonight, with any luck - and I seriously wondered if we had any left after our narrow escape - this same flashlight just might save us from ending up in a Gestapo interrogation cell.

  The lift cage was almost at the top.

  I said to Ava, ‘How much cash you have?’

  ‘Enough.’

  I checked my watch.

  4:30a.m.

  Fatt and the crew would be on board by now, going through the pre- flight checks. We had less than an hour before the plane took off. Whether we were on it or not, depended on what happened between now and then in a strange city filled with cops looking for us, led by our good old pal, Max Bauer.

  Our cab driver wove his way down the steep hills like he was winning at in Le Mans. Ava’s promise of doubling his fee helped, but I think he would have done it based on her smile alone when she first flagged him down and the four of us piled in shoulder to shoulder like sardines. She got him singing about half-way there, and he kept it up until we came to a stop on a deserted side street adjacent to Pan Am’s maintenance building, about a quarter mile south of the main building, where the Lisbon-Baltimore passengers had most likely begun boarding. By now, Orlando must have loaded Frau Jäger’s two steamer trunks on board, and was nervously awaiting our arrival.

  But who had arrived instead, I’m sure, was a squad of Portuguese police, scouring the passengers for any trace of our little gang of thieves, who now waited in the shadows for mighty Captain Carter to make his next move. I tried to project that image by holding up my flashlight.

  ‘I’m heading across the street to that shed by the dock. Everybody wait here. When you see me flash my light twice, like this...’

  Their worried faces lit up briefly as I did so.

  ‘Then come running - correction - walk casually across the street and onto the dock like it was the most natural thing in the world. Got it?’

  Three heads nodded.

  ‘Sure you don’t need me?’ Ava said. ‘I’ve got more curves than you and a smile that can launch a thousand ships.’

  I debated her offer for a moment but decided against it. If I got caught, the others would still have a chance of escaping. Although I didn’t have a clue how, since Bauer had thro
wn a dragnet over Lisbon to find us. I bristled with anger at his lies and deceit, but repressed it and tried to make my voice sound confident and assured.

  ‘Watch for my light.’

  Three heads nodded and I was off.

  If my calculations were right - and they had to be or we were screwed from the start - the PanAir launch crew had already deployed their boat to the seaway to check for any floating debris the clipper might strike during its takeoff run. As I drew closer to the shed I felt a wave of relief when I spotted the sweeping searchlight of the high-speed launch out on the water doing its official duties as it cruised along the pale green seaway lights bobbing in the waters of Lisbon Bay.

  The most important moment was upon me. I squared my captain’s cap, smoothed my uniform, briskly opened the door to the boat shed and felt my knees get weak at the beautiful sight of the other PanAir launch, not hanging from a dry-dock sling for repairs, but bobbing peacefully at anchor instead.

  I looked around. Nobody in sight.

  But then suddenly, ‘Ja? Was ist los?’ A close-cropped, bullet-headed young mechanic walked purposefully toward me.

  ‘You speak English?’ I said.

  He shook his head. I made a sign with my hands imitating an ignition key turning and pointed to the boat.

  He frowned in ignorance.

  ‘Key to the boat,’ I said imperiously. ‘Hand it over. Now.’

  He suddenly understood because he glanced over his shoulder at the wall behind him and we both spotted the key hanging there at the same time. Then he turned back, his face quickly gathering into a dark cloud.

  ‘Nein.’

  I smiled as big a smile as I ever have in my life, and just as he started to smile back, as I knew he would - humans are like monkeys, we can’t resist this reflex - I nailed him with a right cross that snapped his head back so hard I thought it would come off. Instead, the force of the blow knocked him back against a tool-filled wall, his head struck against a huge wrench and he dropped like a stone.

  A quick search turned up some extension cords that served to bind his hands and feet. A few windings of electrical tape over his mouth to keep him quiet, and then I dragged him down into the launch and flopped him inside out of sight.

  ‘Sleep tight, kamerad.’

  PanAir motor launches are built for speed and can accelerate like a rocket when needed. But at the moment ours burbled sedately in the shadows of the shore, about a half-mile away from the Yankee Clipper. Ava had the wheel while I stood beside her, bracing myself against the windshield to keep steady while I used my flashlight to send my Morse code message.

  ‘Any luck?’ she said.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Ziggy said, ‘What happens if they don’t see it?’

  ‘Party’s over.’

  ‘Are you sure it was Bauer back at the hotel?’

  ‘Damn right. Stay down back there. The professor too.’

  Sound carries across the water and I heard the Yankee Clipper’s engines start before I saw the blades catch the silvery dawn light. Boarding was finished. She was getting ready to go. This was not looking good.

  ‘C’mon, Fatt, don’t let me down, old timer,’ I said. ‘Open your beady little eyes.’

  Ava throttled up slightly. ‘Maybe we need to get a little closer.’

  ‘Okay, but go easy.’

  The other PanAir launch was about a mile-and-a-half away, patrolling the takeoff lane, unaware that its sister launch was up to no good. One by one the clipper’s three other engines caught and coughed into life. The red and green navigation lights on her wingtips gleamed softly, as if beckoning us. And then to my knee-buckling relief a light began flashing from the pilot’s window, answering my dots dashes and with this message:

  STBD HTCH WILL HIDE YOU FROM SHORE. FATT

  The plane revved its engines and began taxiing toward the takeoff lane. I almost lost my cap in as Ava increased our speed in response.

  ‘This is not going to be easy,’ I warned. ‘But if anybody can do it, you can.’

  She didn’t respond, so I said, ‘I’ll put out the fenders.’

  ‘Roger, that. Make sure the bowline is coiled.’

  ‘Aye, aye, captain.’

  That got a smile out of her. Not a big one, but at least a smile.

  ‘Can we sit up yet?’ Ziggy said.

  ‘No way. We’re kicking up a wake and Bauer and his boys are watching. We’re just two Pan Am workers doing their job.’

  And that’s what they saw, because every curve of Ava’s body was temporarily lost in the voluminous folds of the Pan Am white coveralls she wore over her street clothes. Mine were a better fit, but not by much. We had grabbed what we could from the crew lockers before we left. At this distance, I hoped the police couldn’t distinguish us other than being two white blobs in the morning light. The faint tendrils of morning fog here and there helped our cause, but lifting fast.

  The clipper neared the takeoff lane, her bow wave a small white moustache curving gracefully as she parted the sea. We drew closer and closer, now pacing her, and then slowly catching up until we were gliding beneath her majestic triple tail towering high above us.

  We drew alongside her hull, slewing and slicing as we bounced up and down in the wake. The prop wash buffeted us like a boxer in a ring. I climbed up onto the bow and crouched, line in hand. Just as I did so, the boarding door popped open and Purser Nawrocki’s smiling face greeted me.

  ‘About time,’ he shouted to be heard above the engine roar.

  Just then Fatt reduced power on number three engine to make things easier, wind-wise, but still a rocky ride. Faces filled the passenger windows, watching our every move. Great. All we needed was an audience. Ava sensed this too, but ever the actress, she tossed her cap off in response, shook her hair free and laughed like she was having the wild, drunken adventure of her life, this was just one more crazy Hollywood escapade that those who lived in tinsel town did all the time, so enjoy the show, brothers and sisters, I’m here to entertain you.

  I used hand signals to guide her closer and closer to the sponson’s edge. The tie down eyelet was tantalizingly close, but so small a target that it kept eluding my fumbling fingers as I tried to thread the line through.

  ‘No use,’ I shouted. ‘Got to board.’

  Line in hand, I judged the swells between our boat and the slab-like sponson and, at the right instant leaped and landed, but immediately began sliding off. I spread eagled as fast as I could to stop myself. Seconds later I made fast the line and began drawing the launch closer and closer, until directly alongside, its rubber fenders cushioning the boat’s bobbing and bouncing motions as it kept perfect pace with the ever accelerating clipper.

  I guided Frau Jäger across the slippery aluminum deck until she made it into Nawrocki’s arms and he guided her inside. Ziggy followed next, giving a great WHOOP as he leaped onto the sponson.

  Ava pointed to starboard and shouted, ‘Here come the Indians!’

  The foaming bow wave of a dark blue police launch was growing closer and closer. Its bright searchlight stabbed back and forth through the wisps of fog in search of its prey.

  ‘You next,’ I shouted.

  Ava locked down the throttle, stepped out of her coveralls like a Broadway stripper, and gracefully hopped onto to the sponson and into my arms as though this was something she did every day of her life.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here.’ she yelled.

  I handed her off to Nawrocki and leaped back into the launch. I had two minutes at the most before the police boat, with an angry Inspector Bauer on board, arrived to put an end to our game.

  I waved at the figure leaning out the open co-pilot’s window. Couldn’t tell who, but he waved back. Then I motioned vigorously to starboard at the approaching police boat and he gave me a vigorous thumbs-up. They knew what to do and did it almost immediately, revving up the starboard engines even higher to swing the plane away from the intersecting track of the police boat.

 
; Time for me to do my part as well. I went below to where the mechanic sat, hands still tied, tape over his mouth, but now wide awake and angry as hell.

  I stripped off my coveralls, put on my captain’s cap, yanked the man to his feet, knelt behind him and pressed the tip of my puny little penknife against his jugular vein. The best I could do for a weapon under the circumstances, and I prayed he would think it the tip of a menacing commando knife instead.

  With my other hand, I reached around and ripped off the electrical tape covering his mouth. And even though he didn’t understand English, my whisper in his ear made my intentions clear as I shoved him forward and hissed, ‘Get moving Fritzie, and no funny stuff.’

  Just before we got topside, I untied his hands, shoved hard and he went stumbling over to the wheel and flopped into the seat. I quickly pocketed my knife, not wanting the world to see what was happening. He sat there, stupefied. I smiled my winning smile and saluted him

  ‘Auf wiedersehen.’

  The WHOOP-WHOOP of the police boat siren drove me across to the sponson, where with two quick slashes of my knife, I cut the line that had been holding us. The launch lurched away to starboard as the Yankee Clipper continued its swooping turn to port. We were going at least thirty knots by now, and if I didn’t watch it, Fatt would take off with me hanging on like a wing walker.

  I crouched down and made my way toward the open hatch. Nawrocki was shouting something at me, but I couldn’t hear him over the engine roar. His hands grabbed me, I was inside, the hatch slammed shut and the scream of the engines muted to a dull roar.

  The PanAir boat arced away in the distance, and so did the police boat, now a dwindling speck of frustrated authority as the clipper reached her takeoff speed, and the drumming, slapping thrum of steel on water suddenly disappeared as she lifted off the water and flew.

  I turned away from the window and was startled to see Ava and Ziggy and Frau Jäger standing there staring at me like I was the main attraction in a carnival side show.

  Ava said, ‘You sure know how to have a good time.’