Aces

by T. E. Cruise

  “All he’s done?” Campbell blurted in disbelief.

  “—I think the least we can do is pay him the courtesy of hearing what he’s got to say.”

  Saunders had a point, Campbell realized. And the more he thought about it, the more it seemed as if Saunders were sounding as if he too believed that Herman was licked. If everybody believed that Tim Campbell was a winner, why not act like one?

  “You’re absolutely right, Layton. I hold a winning hand. I can afford to be magnanimous to the outgoing chairman. I’ll be at the meeting. But I insist that it be held someplace neutral.”

  “Herman anticipated your feelings,” Saunders said. “He asked me if the meeting might be held in my downtown offices. I agreed. I assume that is acceptable to you?”

  “That will be fine.”

  “See you at the meeting,” Saunders said.

  “Good-bye, Layton.” Campbell hung up the telephone. An instant later it rang again. He snatched at the receiver. “Yes?”

  “I’ve been trying to call, but the line was busy,” Hull said.

  “I was talking to Saunders.”

  “So you know about the meeting,” Hull said nervously. “What are we going to do?”

  “Nothing!” Campbell heard the latent panic in his tone, and forced himself to calm down. “There’s nothing we have to do, because we’ve got it made. All that’s going to happen on the fifteenth is that Herman is going to humiliate himself in front of the board by making some sort of last-ditch plea to be allowed to keep his company. The board isn’t going to buy it. Even if they wanted to, they can’t. I went over the stock tallies you gave me this afternoon. Are your figures accurate?”

  “Of course they’re accurate,” Hull said, sounding offended. “When you put me in charge of keeping our Sky-world stock accounts I promised you I’d do the job right…”

  “Yeah, you did,” Campbell said. “I’m sorry, Hull. I’m tired, and I guess I’m a little high-strung these days.”

  “We both are,” Hull muttered. “Don’t forget that you’re not the only one in this. I’ve got every dime of my own locked up in this scheme.”

  “I know that,” Campbell said. “And I know I couldn’t pull this off without your help,” he added truthfully. “And I promise you, we will pull this off.”

  “I hope you’re right. Just don’t underestimate Herman,” Hull warned. “We both know what he’s capable of when his back is up against the wall.”

  Campbell laughed uneasily. “A shotgun and a can of gasoline won’t do him any good this time around.”

  “Just don’t underestimate him,” Hull repeated firmly. “Tim, we’ve both been poor, and we’ve been rich, and we know rich is a lot better.” He hung up.

  Campbell downed what remained of his scotch, and went to the drink tray on the sideboard. He picked up the decanter in which he kept his scotch, intending to pour himself another drink, but he paused. The decanter was crystal and gold. It was about 150 years old. It had been manufactured by a guy named Johann Mildner, who specialized in creating two layers of glass and fitting them together with engraved gold leaf sandwiched in between.

  Mildner had been Austrian. Was that the same as a German, like Herman? Campbell decided that it was close enough—

  To all clever Germans, he thought, taking a long swig of scotch straight from the decanter.

  His ranch house was perched on a cliff above the Pacific. He took the decanter with him as he stepped out through the French doors of his study, onto one of the house’s terraces overlooking the ocean. The warm wind blowing off the sea carried a tang of salt. The breeze rippled his robe. It was a cloudy, moonless night, but Campbell could make out the white spume as the waves raged against the rocks.

  It was better to be rich than poor, Hull had said. Campbell couldn’t argue with that. He and Herman had made themselves rich, and brought Hull Stiles and Teddy Quinn along for the ride. Both Hull and Teddy were good men, but Campbell and Gold had been the partners who’d made it all happen—

  But now the partners were on opposite sides, Campbell thought, sipping from the decanter.

  Campbell knew that money wasn’t enough, that a man needed a challenge to make life worthwhile. He’d worked hard to become rich, and now he was risking it all in order to take control of the company he loved. Once Skyworld was in his hands he would run with it; take it all the way. He would forge it into the biggest and best airline in the country, and maybe even the world—

  He hadn’t been lying when he’d once told Herman Gold that he wanted the turquoise and scarlet fleet to dominate the skies, but now it was going to be his fleet. Skyworld was going to belong to him. He was gambling his and his family’s future on being able to pull this off, and he knew he could do it. He was positive he could—

  But why was Herman calling this meeting? What the hell did he have in mind?

  “Don’t underestimate Herman…,” Hull had said. “Remember what Herman can be like when his back is up against the wall…”

  Campbell remembered, and shuddered.

  He looked at the crystal and gold decanter in his hand. A hundred and fifty years old. Austrian. One of a kind, the shopkeeper had said. Campbell had a photographic memory when it came to remembering how much things cost. The price tag on this baby had been sixteen hundred bucks.

  Campbell went to the terrace balustrade, drew back his arm, and hurled the decanter as far as he could. As it went spinning away in the darkness, trailing a liquid plume of golden scotch, Campbell prayed to whatever gods paid attention to such matters that he win.

  He listened hard. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard the decanter shatter against the rocks. The black and restless ocean’s crash suddenly sounded like the sustained roar of a distant, cheering crowd.

  “Fuck it,” Campbell told the amused night sea. “Money isn’t everything.”

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  (One)

  Downtown Los Angeles

  15 April 1933

  Gold paused as he walked by the Horatio Building, on the corner of South Olive and Sixth Streets. Saunders’s offices were up on the tenth floor. Gold knew that in a very little while he was going to have to do some pretty fancy fast-talking up there…

  He looked at his watch. It was nine thirty in the morning, a half hour before the board meeting Gold had called.

  “First things first,” Gold muttered to himself as he continued past the Horatio Building and then turned right onto Sixth. As he walked he looked at his reflection in the storefront plate-glass windows. He was wearing an ivory linen, snap-brim fedora and a very conservative, dark blue, pinstriped suit. Double-breasted. If ever there was a day to look youthful and vigorous, this was it.

  He turned left on Broadway and walked a couple of blocks to Berry’s Cafeteria. He went inside. The breakfast rush was over. The place was fairly empty except for upstairs, where a few fellows down on their luck were smoking cigarettes and lingering over their “bottomless” cups of coffee at the tables along the balcony. Behind the food service area the attendants in their white coats were clearing the remains of the hotcakes and scrambled eggs from the steam tables. One of the employees was up on a stepladder, chalking the lunchtime specials onto the big hanging blackboard: Chicken Noodle Soup with Crackers 15¢/Macaroni & Cheese 35¢/Chipped Beef on Toast 55¢

  Gold finally spotted Hull Stiles. He was slouched at a table against the back wall, beneath a sweeping mural of California landscapes: the coastline, an oil field, a desert scene, a redwood forest.

  Gold went over to the counter, ordered a cup of coffee, paid a bored-looking cashier in her booth, and then took it over to Hull’s table. Hull was wearing a tan three-piece suit. Gold never could get used to Hull wearing a suit and tie, or anything other than flying clothes. Hull’s square-jawed, leathery face, weathered by his years spent in open cockpits, looked drawn and haggard. Gold noticed that Hull’s blond hair, slicked back and as thick as ever, had begun to show gray at the temples.
Time was taking its toll on everyone, Gold mused.

  Hull had a tray in front of him. On it was a cup of coffee and a barely touched slice of apple pie. Next to the tray was a crimson pack of Pall Malls, and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. The pie looked good, but Gold, thinking about his ever-expanding waistline, decided against going back to get some.

  “Thanks for agreeing to meet,” Gold said, taking a seat.

  Hull nodded, fidgeting. “If Tim finds out…”

  “He won’t.” Gold sipped at his coffee.

  “The reason I agreed is I’d like there to be no bad blood between us,” Hull blurted. “Do you think that’s possible? We could be friends again?…”

  “You’ll always be my friend,” Gold said. “Christ, do you think I’ve forgotten how you saved my life? I’ll always owe you for that, and for taking care of me again when you sent me that note tipping me off to what Tim was up to.”

  Hull stared at him. “How the hell did you know it was me who sent the note?” Hull finally asked, lighting a Pall Mall.

  “Actually I didn’t know, until just now.” Gold smiled. “But two things made me suspect it was you. The note was typed. The lowercase ‘t’ in the note had a broken crossbar that seemed familiar. It reminded me of the broken ‘little t’ on that banged-up, secondhand Underwood we bought for the Mines Field office, back when we first started Gold Express.”

  Hull chuckled. “You got a good memory, buddy. That was the typewriter I used, all right.”

  “I can’t believe you still have it,” Gold marveled.

  “I got it up on a shelf in my office,” Hull said. “I got a lot of stuff from the old days.”

  “Sentimental,” Gold said.

  “Nah,” Hull said gruffly. He stared down at the ashtray as he ground out his cigarette. “Not about most things, anyway, but I think I do miss our old days, Herm. I’m glad I got money, and all, but I almost wish we could go back to that time. We might have been living hand to mouth, but we were happy, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Herman said.

  “Maybe it was that things were simple,” Hull said, his voice full of longing. “I knew what I was doing. Now Tim’s got me acting as his purchasing agent to accumulate Sky-world stock. I’m spending my days hunting down stray shares and keeping ledgers, like I was a goddamned bookkeeper.”

  “I heard that he had you doing that,” Gold said.

  “Sometimes I got to remind myself that I’m still in the airline business…”

  “You’re still in it, all right,” Gold said. “No one knows the ins and outs of the airline business better than you.”

  “I can’t wait until I can forget all this stock business and get back to doing what I know…” Hull trailed off, shaking his head. “You said there were two things that tipped you off about the note?” he asked briskly. “What was the second?”

  Gold smiled. “You’re the only person involved who cares enough about me to give me a warning about the takeover.”

  Hull looked miserable. “I do care,” he whispered.

  “Then help me, now,” Gold said quickly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I can make it so that no one person gets hurt in this,” Gold said. “But I need your help to do it. You’ve got to trust me, and do what I ask.”

  “Has this got to do with this morning’s board meeting?” Hull looked hopeful, but the expression faded. “You want me to betray Tim, right?”

  “No,” Gold said firmly. “If you care about everyone involved, it’s not a betrayal to help put through a compromise solution that will be to everyone’s benefit.”

  “Why do I have to come into it at all?” Hull asked uneasily. “If your plan is so goddamned clever why not just do it and leave me out of it?”

  “I thought about trying to pull off what I have in mind without your help. It could work that way, but the chances of success are a lot better if you’ll play along.”

  Hull nodded in resignation. “You give me your word that nobody will get hurt?”

  “No, I didn’t say that,” Gold replied. “We’re all going to be hurt. I can promise you that with my plan all three of us will get something we want, but all three of us are also going to have to pay a price.”

  Hull glanced at his watch. “It’s almost time for the meeting. We ought to leave here separately.” He laughed nervously. “It wouldn’t do for us to be seen arriving at Saunders’s office together—”

  He’s not going to help, Gold thought. He’d been counting on Hull’s cooperation. Without it, his entire strategy was in jeopardy.

  Hull gathered his cigarettes and stood up. “You call me, tonight, at my home. You tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. All right?”

  “Yeah… Sure.” Gold grinned with relief. “Thanks, Hull. But you don’t yet know what I have in mind—”

  “Don’t have to.” Hull said firmly. “I know you. Whatever it is, it’s the right thing.”

  Gold watched Hull leave the cafeteria. He figured to wait a minute to give him a head start.

  A busboy wheeling his cart paused at the table. He eyed Hull’s tray. “Finished here?” the kid asked.

  “All except the pie,” Gold sighed, lifting the plate from the tray. He polished it off in three bites.

  Tim Campbell was waiting in the doorway to Layton Saunders’s conference room when Gold arrived. Campbell made a big show of smiling and shaking hands with Gold for the benefit of the other directors who were already seated. He stood aside to let Gold enter the room first.

  “Get ready for world war two,” Campbell whispered as Gold passed him by.

  All ten directors were present as Gold took his place at the head of the rectangular mahogany table. Campbell, as president, sat at the opposite end. Beside him was Hull, the C.E.O. of the company. Next to Hull sat Layton Saunders, who was chairman of finance. Saunders was a burly, bearded gent, partial to Irish country tweeds, gaudy satin waistcoats, and smelly cigars. He had more money than anybody Gold knew. Saunders’s grandfather had been one of the original California forty-niners. The old boy had struck gold in the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Saunders family had parlayed that stake into a West Coast real estate empire.

  Gold avoided making eye contact with any of the directors. On the wall was an antique Wells Fargo banjo clock, bracketed by the dour portraits of Saunders’s father and grandfather. The clock chimed the hour.

  “Well, I suppose we can begin,” Gold said, standing up.

  He realized that he was sweating. He was having a hard time catching his breath. He stared down at the blank yellow legal pad in front of him. He had to get hold of himself. Hell, back when he and Campbell were traveling around peddling stock he’d faced far more hostile audiences. He could do this. He had to do it.

  “Gentlemen,” Gold began. “I called this emergency board meeting for a specific reason. If Mister Campbell wins his proxy fight and becomes chairman, he will acquire Cargo Air Transport, and with it, a Chicago to New York route that will make Skyworld a coast-to-coast airline. I applaud Mister Campbell’s devotion to my company—”

  Gold paused. He stared around the table, daring the others to contest his choice of words. The gazes of several of the directors could not meet his. Gold suddenly felt comfortable. For the first time since this mess began he felt in charge.

  “Yes, I do applaud Mister Campbell’s loyalty to Sky-world, but he is gravely mistaken in his intended course of action. I called this admittedly unprecedented, emergency meeting because I intend to rescue my airline from the brink of disaster.”

  Gold noticed that Campbell, leaning back in his chair, was smiling. Campbell winked, as if to say, Have your fun while you can, Herman…

  And you smile while you can, Tim, Gold thought, but resisted the urge to wink back.

  “The proposed Cargo Air acquisition is a disaster because of its cost, and because of the evolving political climate in this country. These two negative aspects are fun
damentally related. Cargo Air’s stock price has been artificially inflated by the unnatural conditions imposed upon the free market by the Watres Act.”

  Gold paused for a beat; the way he’d learned to do in order to recapture an audience’s flagging attention back when he and Tim were scouring the countryside in search of initial investors.

  “The skies above this great nation are vast, gentlemen,” he continued, his tone reverent, impassioned. “There is more than enough room for the various airlines to compete with one another for passengers.” Gold suddenly brought his fist crashing down against the tabletop. A couple of the directors flinched. “All that’s stopping us is the Watres Act!” he declared fiercely. “I believe that part of our new president’s New Deal may be a new look at this ill-conceived conspiracy by the postal service to barricade the heavens.”

  Several directors, Saunders included, were frowning in disapproval. Gold had expected that: these men had come out early and loud on behalf of Hoover’s reelection bid. They’d long ago petrified each other by exchanging rumors about how that “socialist” FDR was going to “redistribute the wealth.” Ironically, these so-called capitalists supported government intervention in their affairs through the Watres Act because it closed the door on new competition in their airlines industry. Gold hadn’t intended to convince the Board to accept his antiregulatory point of view. He just wanted to plant an uncomfortable seed of doubt in their minds concerning the uncertain future.

  “If the chairman will excuse the interruption,” Campbell said. “We all know that in the recent presidential election Mister Gold was a Roosevelt man.” Campbell made a show of looking at his watch. “If the chairman would get to his point, assuming he has one, it would be appreciated. I do have a rather important luncheon date…”

  The directors who had already announced themselves behind Campbell did not try to hide their smiles. Gold ignored them.

  “My point is that a conservative long-term corporate strategy is sound business practice during uncertain times. Sky-world should not be looking to expand, but to retrench. It should be looking to weather what you all must admit is a possible—and I would say probable—industrywide hurricane of reform. When that hurricane hits—not if it hits, gentlemen, but when—not everyone will survive. For those who do, transcontinental routes will be the least of their spoils.”