“Here’s your new best friend, angel,” Mantz said, stepping away from her, gesturing like a ringmaster to his center ring attraction. “The Link blind-flying trainer.”
And here was another little red plane, only this really was a little red plane, not much bigger than the ones that kids went ’round and ’round in at Riverview Park. With its tiny white wings and a precious white-scalloped tail and the words UNITED AIR SERVICES stenciled on its side, the squat fat-nosed trainer had a cockpit lid with no windows, and was elevated from the ground like a carousel horse.
“You’re joking,” she said.
But he wasn’t.
“Angel, as long as you insist on letting that goddamn Gippy con you into these long-distance flights…”
“G. P. doesn’t con me into anything,” she said firmly.
“Well, then, if you insist on trying to prove to yourself that you really are that Amelia Earhart person they write about in the papers, you had better learn some goddamn discipline.”
“I’ve had plenty of blind-flying training,” she said dismissively. “Anyway, I don’t like that term.”
“Call it instrument flying, then. Or dead reckoning—and dead is what you’ll be, angel, if you don’t face the reality of how often your life depends on an ability to fly precise compass headings through the shittiest weather known to God or man.”
“Let’s call it zero-visibility flying.”
“Fine. Call it Mickey and Minnie Mouse in the Tunnel of Love, as far as I give a damn. But over the next several weeks, angel, your pretty behind resides in that red tin can.”
And he gave her pretty behind a couple playful pats, and she laughed and said, “All right, all right, you evil man,” and somebody cleared their throat.
Actually, somebody cleared her throat, because it was a woman doing it, a redhead with green eyes and a pert nose and full red-rouged lips and a complexion like fresh cream and a chassis better constructed than any plane on that airfield.
“Isn’t this a cozy sight?” she said, her voice high-pitched, with a hint of Southwestern twang.
It was the least attractive thing about her. She was poised just inside the hangar, and for a fairly small woman, she threw a long shadow. Her frock was a sheer white polka-dot organdy with a draped cowl neck and bare arms, which were folded under the rounded wonders that were her breasts; she had her weight on one leg, though both legs—judging by the sleekly nyloned and well-turned ankles—were worth considering.
“Myrtle,” Amy said, and her voice seemed warm, as did her smile, “how delightful to see you!”
And Amy walked toward the woman with her arms outstretched.
Mantz whispered to me, “That’s the little woman.”
“You’re a lucky man.”
“There’s all kinds of luck.”
Amelia Earhart had now reached Myrtle Mantz, whose icy demeanor seemed suddenly to melt and the redhead accepted, and reciprocated, the hug Amy offered.
I was still trying to figure out what to make of that when they walked toward us, hand in hand, Myrtle’s high heels clicking on the cement floor, echoing in the high-ceilinged space like gunfire. Myrtle was smiling, now; a dazzler it was, too, with no gaps.
“Have you seen the torture chamber your husband’s arranged for me?” Amy asked Myrtle, and the two girls—chums now—peeked in and around the little red plane. Myrtle stood on tippy-toe and, under the organdy dress, the globes of her perfect behind were like firm ripe melons; as much as I admired Amy’s tomboyish pulchritude, Mantz was definitely a guy who didn’t need to leave the house to find a pretty behind to pat.
Shortly thereafter we recommenced to the Union Terminal’s Sky Room, a quaint mix of linen tablecloths, airplane memorabilia and cumbersome dude ranch furnishings. Birds tweeting in cages spoke more of captivity than flight, while a wall of windows looked out over endless runways where the bigger birds of United, Western, and TWA came and went; as dusk turned to evening, floodlights turned the tarmac to instant noon.
Mantz sat beside his wife but across from Amy; I was next to Amy and across from Mrs. Mantz, who was so gorgeous I instantly composed a private, filthy limerick about her, utilizing the word “pants” as the punchline.
A cocky, swaggering little guy, Mantz did most of the talking at dinner, frequently laughing at his own jokes. But mostly he was coaching his star pupil.
“You know you have a tendency to push your engine to the limit,” he said to Amy. We had finished our dinner—everyone had fresh seafood of one kind or another, delicious—and he was working on his third frost-rimmed martini.
“Of course,” Amy said, over her inevitable cup of cocoa. “The extra power makes up for the headwinds.”
“That’s no way to fly,” he said, exasperated. “It’s a foolish goddamn dangerous method to use on life-and-death long-range flights.”
Myrtle Mantz had said little through dinner; she was watching her husband and his charge talk about flying as if she were overhearing them pitching woo at each other. But neither Paul nor Amy seemed to notice the daggers in those green eyes.
“Listen,” he said to Amy, “when this Mexico flight is over, why don’t you leave the Vega with me? I can add it to my charter service. You can make a little dough, angel.”
Every time he called Amy “angel,” a furrow like a cut appeared between Mrs. Mantz’s finely plucked eyebrows.
Amy considered Mantz’s offer, shrugged. “I don’t see why not. How’s business been?”
“You know flying—up and down.” He chortled at this prime witticism, then said, “The big money’s with the Hollywood jobs, but when the weather’s bad and production schedules are slow, I fall back on the ol’ Honeymoon Express.”
Myrtle, finally acknowledging my existence, gazed at me with hooded eyes. “This is where Paul starts dropping names. It’s one of his least attractive traits.”
Mantz sipped his martini and said to me, “Don’t listen to her, Nate. Ever since Jean Harlow kissed me at that air show in ’33, she’s been like this.” And he said to her, “Baby, that’s how Hollywood is. They kiss and they hug and it don’t mean a goddamn thing. It’s like a handshake to these people.”
“He had Cecil B. DeMille in his plane last week,” she said to me. “I doubt there was much kissing and hugging on that flight.”
Then Mantz said to me, “Ask her if she didn’t beg me to come along on the Douglas Fairbanks charter.”
Generally it’s not a good sign for a marriage when the husband and wife speak to each other through a third party.
Suddenly Mrs. Mantz, her tone suspiciously civil, asked, “Amelia, where are you staying while you’re in town?”
“I haven’t lined anything up yet,” she said. “Maybe the Ambassador…”
“Nonsense,” Myrtle said. “The Ambassador’s all the way downtown, and we have plenty of room. Stay with us.”
“Oh, I don’t want to impose again,” Amy said.
Again? Had she stayed with the Mantzes before?
“Oh you simply must,” Myrtle said. “I won’t even be underfoot, much…. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon, to visit my mother in Dallas.”
“Well…” Amy looked at Mantz, “…if it won’t put you out.”
“Not at all,” Myrtle said.
“It’ll give us a chance to put our heads together at night,” Mantz said, and he patted Amy’s hand. “You know how hectic it gets out here at the field…. I’ve been working up charts with Clarence, and he’ll consult with us, too.”
Clarence Williams, Amy later explained, was a retired Navy navigator who’d been helping prepare the charts of her long-distance flights since the solo Atlantic crossing.
Amy looked at Myrtle searchingly. “If it’s really not an imposition….”
“Don’t be silly,” Myrtle said. “I want you to come.”
And she lifted her own frost-edged martini glass in a little toast to her invited houseguest, with a smile just as frosty.
5
> The almost-full moon was an off-white spotlight, casting an ivory spell upon the precious storybook houses of Valley Spring Lane. This was Toluca Lake, a district poised between Burbank and North Hollywood like a backlot positing an imaginary America that existed only in the movies. Small houses mostly, cottage-size—though on nearby Toluca Estates Drive I’d seen some larger ones, modest movie star mansions where perfect couples like Dick Powell and Joan Blondell had settled; but even those had a movie magic tinge, here a perfect Tudor, there a quaint gingerbread, and the occasional Spanish colonial-style, like this pale yellow stucco number with the green tile roof and matching front awnings, a dream bungalow in the bushes of which I was crouched by a side awningless window with my Speed Graphic with infrared film and the world’s most inconspicuous flash.
The role I was playing, in this ambitious production, was bedroom dick. I wasn’t proud of working the divorce racket, but there are those who would say I was typecast.
This was my third night in southern California. After dining at the Sky Room with the Mantzes that first evening, Amy had presented me with the keys to a blue ’34 Terraplane convertible she and G. P. kept in California, a perk from the Hudson company for her current endorsement deal.
“I’m going to do the driving?” I asked, mildly surprised that I was being chosen to pilot the stylish little streamlined coupe, which was parked outside Mantz’s United Air Services hangar.
“Not when I’m along,” she said, needling me gently. “But Paul and Myrtle’ll take me home with them tonight, and you’ll need something to get to your motel.”
She—or perhaps G. P.—had made reservations for me at Lowman’s Motor Court on North San Fernando Road.
“I thought we were staying at the Ambassador,” I said.
“No, I knew Paul would insist I stay with him. I always do.”
Every mention of Mantz from her lips gave me a twinge of jealousy. Funny attitude for a peeper trying to get the goods on a cheating wife.
“And,” I said, “G. P. wasn’t about to spring for a nice room for me if he didn’t have to.”
Her half-smile made a deep, wry dimple. “I would say that’s an insightful reading of my husband’s character.”
The next day I watched from the sidelines as Amelia followed Mantz’s lead, working all morning in the little red Link trainer. She wore a red-and-green plaid shirt with a tan bandanna and chinos and all she lacked to be a cowgirl in a Gene Autry picture was the right hat. Mantz, when he wasn’t flying, maintained an image that was part executive and the rest dashing playboy; he wore a nubby brown sportcoat with a light blue shirt and blue striped tie, his pants navy gabardines.
Amy was a dutiful pupil, for the most part, though at lunch, in the Sky Room again, she showed impatience when he told her about a gadget that next-door neighbor Lockheed was going to install in the Vega.
“It’s called a Cambridge analyzer,” he said. “You use it to know how to reset your mixture control, and get maximum miles per gallon.”
“Oh for Pete sakes, Paul,” she said, gnawing on a carrot stick like Bugs Bunny, “you take all the fun out of flying.”
“There’s nothing fun about running out of fuel over the goddamn Gulf of Mexico.”
“You’re still stewing about that?”
Mantz’s concern for her ran deep; but I still couldn’t read whether it was a lover’s caring or that of a teacher or friend.
“It’s stupid,” Mantz spouted, “cutting across a body of water that size, when you don’t have to. Jesus, angel, it’s seven hundred miles, half an Atlantic!”
“I flew a whole Atlantic, before…. Look who’s here!”
She grinned the gap-toothed grin and waved enthusiastically.
“Toni!” Amy called. “Over here!”
I turned to see, checking in with the hostess at the register, a slightly chunky but still nicely put-together woman, medium height, perhaps thirty, decked out in a goggled tan flying helmet, white blouse with a red and yellow polka-dot knotted scarf and brown jodhpurs; her features reminded me of a slightly less attractive Claudette Colbert. It struck me she didn’t need the helmet indoors, but maybe she wanted to make sure people knew she was a flier.
In which case, you’d think the woman would relish public attention from the most famous female pilot on the planet. But the response to Amy’s zealous hello was tepid; the round, makeup-less face twitched a polite smile. Then the woman took a seat alone, near one of the birdcages by the far wall.
Amy frowned. “I don’t understand…. Toni’s a friend. I haven’t seen or talked to her in some time, but—”
“Maybe she’s holding a grudge,” Mantz offered.
“Whatever for?”
“Didn’t you turn her down when she wanted you to partner up for the refueling-in-flight endurance record?”
“Well, yes, but I just couldn’t do it…G. P. had me so heavily booked with lectures…. Anyway, she got Elinor Smith to go with her, and they set the darn record.”
“Sure. And didn’t get near the publicity if Amelia Earhart had been along.”
Amy’s mouth tightened and she rose. “I better go talk to her….”
She went over to the woman’s table and began speaking very earnestly, a hand to her breast, standing before cool, seated audience. The woman had removed her helmet to reveal a boyish black-haired bob with pointed sideburns.
“A lot of jealousy between the girls who fly,” Mantz commented.
“Who is that?”
“Toni Lake. Ever hear of her?”
“No.”
“Well, she’s pulled off as many aviation feats as our girl Amelia, a real slew of altitude and endurance records in fact, and yet you’ve never heard of her. And that’s why she’s so royally pissed off, I’d guess.”
But something interesting was happening over at that side table. Toni Lake was standing and the two women were suddenly hugging, grinning, patting each other on the back. Amy had won her over.
Hand in hand, the two rival aviatrixes came over to the table and joined us. Amy made introductions (I was her “bodyguard and chief bottle washer”) and Toni Lake sat next to Mantz, across from Amy and me.
“Paul,” Amy said, “you’ve got to hear this…. Toni, tell Paul what you told me.”
“Tellin’ you’s one thing, hon,” the woman said. “Spreadin’ it around, tellin’ tales outta school, makes me look like Miss Sour Grapes of 1935.”
To tell you the truth, with her scorched-tan, leathery complexion, Toni Lake didn’t look like Miss Anything; but she did have lovely brown eyes and lashes longer than some store-bought I’d seen.
“G. P.’s done Toni an awful injustice,” Amy said; she was pretty worked up about it.
“Go ahead, Toni,” Mantz said, sitting back. He was working on one of his trademark frosted martinis; this was lunch so he’d only had two. “Let me warn ya, though—nothing you tell me about Gippy Putnam’s gonna much surprise me.”
But it was Amy who began the story, blurting, “G. P. tried to hire Toni to an exclusive contract to fly with me in the Women’s Derby.”
The Powder Puff Derby, as Will Rogers had dubbed it.
“She was to pretend to be my ‘mechanic’ but do most of the flying,” Amy said, indignantly.
“He said you weren’t ‘physically strong enough,’” Lake said with a humorless smirk. “Her loving husband offered me a two-year seventy-five-bucks-a-week contract to co-pilot Amelia, only she had to seem to be doin’ all the flyin’. You know, I’m not some damn dilettante or socialite, I’m just a girl who likes to fly and was lucky enough to have an old man who’s a pilot and runs an airfield. Seventy-five bucks is big money to this little girl.”
Amy was shaking her head, mortified.
I asked, “How the hell did G. P. figure you could make it look like Amelia was doing all the flying?”
Lake shrugged. “When we made stops, I was supposed to either get out of the way of the photographers, or stand to the left so I c
ame second in the captions.”
“You have to believe me, Toni,” Amy said, and she seemed close to tears, not a frequent state for her, “I knew nothing of this. I would never have stood for it. Oh my goodness, how he could even think—”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Toni said. “When I refused to sign the contract, he blew sky high, started swearin’ like a stevedore, said he’d ruin me and all. Said I’d never fly professionally again and even if he hasn’t quite managed that, he’s put all sorts of barriers in my path…officials causin’ me problems, sponsor contracts fallin’ through. And I can’t get press coverage to save my life, anymore. They used to cover me like a movie star. Now I could fly to the moon and they’d just report an eclipse.”
“Toni,” Amy said, “I couldn’t be more embarrassed. I promise you, I swear to you, I will take care of this.”
“Well, even if you can’t—”
“I can, and I will, Toni. Count on it.”
“Sweetie, I’m just glad to know you weren’t in on it. I mean, everybody knows that your husband works against the other women pilots—”
“I didn’t know.”
“Just ask anybody. Ask Lady Heath, ask Elinor Smith, ask ‘Chubby’ Miller….”
“I will,” Amy said, her mortification giving way to resolve. Suddenly I almost felt sorry for old G. P. “In the meantime, join us for a nice lunch. On me.”
That afternoon, to Mantz’s displeasure, Amy abandoned her flight preparations for the company of Toni Lake, who owned a pair of Indian Pony motorbikes. The aviatrixes spent hours racing up and down the runways on the bikes, flight helmets and goggles on, like a couple of schoolgirls having the time of their lives playing hooky. Chasing small planes, cutting figure eights, pursuing each other like cowboys and Indians, they attracted something of a crowd, when word got out one of the two naughty children was Amelia Earhart.
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