Flying Blind

by Max Allan Collins

“Well, Beatrice,” he was saying, “I know what you’re going through. Who could know better than I?…Yes…. Yes, I know, dear….”

  I asked Miller, “Do you know who he’s talking to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  He thought about whether or not to answer, then did: “Fred Noonan’s wife.”

  “Beatrice,” Putnam was saying, “I have a hunch they’re sitting somewhere on a coral island, just waiting for a ride home—Fred’s probably out sitting on a rock right now, catching their dinner with those fishing lines they had aboard. There’ll be driftwood to make a fire, and…Bea, please…Bea…. For Christ’s sake, Bea! Look, one of two things has happened. Either they were killed outright—and that comes to all of us sooner or later—or they’re alive and’ll be picked up…. Keep your chin up, Bea…. Bea?”

  Miller’s smile was gone; faint disgust had replaced it.

  Putnam came strutting back, shrugging, saying, “She hung up on me! What the hell’s wrong with that woman? What does she want from me?”

  “This is what I was talking about,” Miller snapped.

  “What is?”

  But Miller said nothing, and Joe came in carrying a little tray on his palm with my rum and Coke and Putnam’s Manhattan on it.

  “Let’s sit out on the patio, shall we, gentlemen?” Putnam asked, plucking his drink off the tray.

  I took mine also, sipped it.

  “Actually, G. P.,” Miller said, glancing at his watch, “it’s been a long day…so if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Nice meeting you,” I said.

  Miller said, “Pleasure, Mr. Heller,” shooting me the meaningless smile one last time, and slipped past us into the dining room, turning toward the hallway to the new wing.

  Soon Putnam and I were seated on the patio in white basket-weave metal lawn chairs, a round, white-metal, glass-topped table between us. Stretched out before us was a beautifully landscaped back yard washed ivory by moonlight, with stone paths, a trellis with climbing flowers, a fountain, potted agaves, and a flourishing vegetable garden.

  But Putnam, leaned back in his chair, was glancing skyward. “It’s comforting to know she’s under this same sky,” he said, and sipped his Manhattan.

  I gave the star-scattered sky a look, thinking, What a crock, and said, “I’m sure it is.”

  “Who are you working for, Nate?” he asked, still looking at the sky. The moon was reflected in the lenses of his rimless glasses like Daddy Warbucks’s eyeballs.

  “Nobody.”

  “’Fess up. Who hired you? Mantz?”

  Maybe Mantz had been right: maybe G. P. did have him followed in St. Louis.

  I said, “I came out here because of Amelia.”

  Now he looked at me, and half a smile formed; he raised his Manhattan glass and sipped. “Nate Heller? Working gratis? Has hell frozen over?”

  “Does everybody have to have an angle?”

  His expression turned astounded and amused. He gestured with the Manhattan glass almost as if he were toasting me. “You didn’t come here thinking I’d hire you? What could you do for A. E. that the Army and Navy can’t?”

  Well within earshot were the open double windows of the study where Margot and I had spoken; I wondered if Miller was sitting in that darkened room right now, listening in, like a good little spy.

  “Yeah, the Army and Navy,” I said, and took a swig of rum and Coke. “I notice you got them doing your dirty work…or is it the other way around?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Interesting houseguest you got there. He looks like John Wilkes Booth on the way to the theater.”

  He leaned forward. “Why were you bothering my secretary?”

  “I thought she was your wife’s secretary.”

  “What has that stupid girl told you?”

  I sipped my drink, shook my head, grinned. “How did you manage it, G. P.? How did you get Amelia to go along with you on this one? Or did you keep her in the dark about a lot of it? Of course, you had Noonan aboard, and he was Naval Reserve, and ex-Pan Am, the spy airline; was Noonan the real pilot of this mission?”

  He smirked dismissively and sat back, sipped the Manhattan again. “What kind of gibberish are you talking?”

  “I mean, Amelia’s a pacifist. You’d think the last thing she’d do is the military’s bidding. On the other hand, if her wonderful friends in the White House leaned on her, maybe…”

  He was staring into his back yard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about you funding this flight by selling your wife out to the government. I’ve barely waded into this thing and already I’m drowning in the government’s involvement, from airstrips on Howland Island to cameras in the belly of that second Electra Uncle Sam bought her.”

  That last one startled him. He gestured with the hand that held the Manhattan glass. “If what you’re saying is true…and I’m not saying it is, I’m not saying it isn’t…that would only make my wife a patriot.”

  “Extra, extra, read all about it: we’re not at war right now. I seem to recall, in the campaign, FDR getting lambasted with a ‘warmonger’ label, for wanting to beef up the Army and Navy.”

  “I seem to recall him winning the election, anyway.” G. P.’s face was expressionless now; his voice empty. “Please leave.”

  “Maybe I do have an angle, at that. Like you said, G. P. Maybe there is a way for me to make a buck out of this.” I leaned across the table. “Can you imagine the kind of dough the Tribune would pay for a scoop like this? Colonel McCormick would dearly love to drag FDR’s aristocratic ass through the mud. I think they’ll like exposing you, too—we can start with you hiring that guy to put the acid on those rudder cables.”

  His face remained impassive, but the hand holding the Manhattan glass trembled.

  I snorted a laugh. “You know, it must have killed you, when you had to put a lid on so much of your publicity effort, once the military lowered its veil of secrecy. Here you trade your wife’s good name and maybe her life away, to fund the biggest flight of both your careers—and you can’t even properly exploit it! It’s a pisser.”

  The glass snapped in his hand. He dropped the shards to the tabletop; his palm was cut, bloody. But he ignored it and said, “I would never risk my wife’s life. I love her. How can you accuse me of these atrocities? Do you actually imagine I don’t love her?”

  Those unblinking eyes had filled with tears; maybe it was his cut hand.

  “That’s the oldest murder motive in the book,” I said. “A woman you love that doesn’t love you, anymore…. Better bandage that up.”

  “You go to hell.”

  “Probably. But I got a hunch I’ll be running into some familiar faces.”

  I rose, and didn’t go back in the house, just walked around it, skirting a fancy Cord roadster in the driveway, and walked half a block down to where I had parked the Terraplane. For all my indignation, I was driving an automobile that belonged to Putnam, and even though I’d been told he wouldn’t be around, I had rightly figured it might make sense to leave it out of sight.

  As I was starting up the car, the rider’s side door opened and Margot slipped in beside me, wearing a red silk kimono, belted tight around her. She was out of breath.

  “Oh, thank God, I wanted to catch you before you left,” she panted. “What did you and Mr. Putnam talk about?”

  “Not the weather. Margot, you better get back in there before he notices you’re gone. You may get fired for talking to me, anyway, and letting me in the house and all.”

  Her heart-shaped face was lovely in the moonlight. “I don’t care. At this point, I don’t care…. Nathan, we hadn’t finished talking.”

  “I thought we had.”

  She touched my arm with cool fingers. “No. There’s something…important…and personal. You have to know it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Can we go somewhere? Where are you staying?�
��

  “Lowman’s Motor Court.”

  Her anxious expression melted into a nostalgic smile. “That’s where you spent time with A. E., isn’t it?”

  “Christ, how much did she tell you about us?” That wasn’t like Amy; she was usually so private.

  “She told me a lot…. We could talk in your room.”

  I wasn’t sure what she had on her mind, but looking at her was enough to put something on mine.

  “First tell me,” I said, and touched her face. “What’s this personal something you need to share?”

  “Well…we were in the kitchen, having coffee, A. E. and me…it was just two days before she left…and I can’t remember her exact words, but she said when she came back she was going to give up flying, give up celebrity, and ‘just be a woman.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I think it’s because she thought she might be pregnant…. Nathan? Nathan, are you all right?”

  “…You go back in now, Margot.”

  She leaned toward me. “She didn’t mention your name or anything, but I knew she’d just seen you in Chicago and—”

  “Good night, Margot.”

  And she stepped out of the Terraplane, and padded down the sidewalk in her kimono like a geisha. I drove back to the motor court, where a bed waited but not sleep.

  12

  Nine o’clock the next morning found the sun slanting through high windows like swords in a magician’s box, seeking out Ernie Tisor and the other two mechanics who were busy at work on an older plane, mending a fabric wing with “dope,” the liquid tightening agent that filled the hangar with a pungent bouquet.

  Shielded from sun and smell within his glassed-in office, Mantz—typically dapper in a navy shirt, white tie, and tan sport jacket—sat at his desk, flipping through some paperwork; famous framed faces on the wall behind him seemed to be looking over his shoulder, while others noticed me coming in. Though airfield and hangar noise had entered with me, he didn’t look up.

  “What is it, Ernie?” he asked.

  “It’s not Ernie,” I said, shutting the door behind me. I was wearing the same yellow polo shirt and tan slacks as yesterday and they probably looked like I’d slept in them, which I had.

  His brow furrowed, his eyes widened. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I pulled up a chair and sat opposite him. “I’ve had warmer welcomes. I thought you wanted to hire me.”

  He threw the papers on his desk and smirked in disgust. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it? You look like you fell off a moving train.”

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  His smile was as straight as his pencil-line mustache. “Don’t tell me Nate Heller’s developing a conscience. Little late for that, isn’t it, boy?”

  “Just how late, do you figure?”

  The smile disappeared; he leaned back in his swivel chair, and began to rock. “I talked Amelia through ditching the Vega, before the Pacific flight, and I did the same thing where the Electra’s concerned, before this one. But it’s not the kind of thing you can really prepare for—and you don’t exactly wanna go out over the water and practice.”

  “Assume the best.”

  He tented his fingertips, stopped rocking. “Okay, let’s say she wasn’t over choppy waters, first of all. Then let’s say she lowered her flaps at the right moment, glided on in perfectly, stalling out at just the right height above the water, and let’s also say the plane stayed in one piece after impact—and, classically, the tail section’ll break off in a ditch like that—you still have the plane in a nose-down floating posture, due to the empty fuel tanks and the heavy engines. Assuming she and Noonan overcame all that, based on the Electra’s specs, I give her nine hours at best before that ship sank.”

  “Even with the ping-pong balls?”

  He frowned. “What ping-pong balls?”

  “I understand they stuffed every spare space on that plane with ping-pong balls for better flotation.”

  A harsh laugh rose from his chest. “That’s a new one on me. Maybe it would buy ’em more time; if they could drop the engines in the sea, they might make a boat out of that plane and float for a good long while.”

  “Could they do that?”

  “I sure as hell don’t know how. They did have a life raft and other emergency equipment on board, but in those waters, they’d be better off staying in the plane, if it’s floating.”

  “Why? They could paddle the raft.”

  There were no teeth in his smile, and no humor, either. “Those are shark-infested waters, Nate. What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  I rubbed my burning eyes with the heels of my hands. “I’m not trying to find Amelia and Fred. I’m pretty goddamn sure they’re not in Southern California.”

  Another harsh laugh. “You are a hell of a detective, aren’t you?”

  “You were right, Paul…dead right: G. P. did get Amelia tangled up in some kind of espionage mission.”

  He began rocking again; his eyes were half-closed, but he was looking at me with a quiet intensity. “What can we do about it, now?”

  “There’s a lot of rich Republicans who don’t like FDR.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I laughed. “I can hardly believe I said that; if my old man knew what I was thinking…he was an old union guy from way back. Socialist to the bone. I’ve been a Democrat myself, as long as I can remember.”

  “I still don’t follow you.”

  I leaned an arm on his desk. “I made a wisecrack to G. P. last night—”

  Alarm widened his eyes. “You saw G. P.?”

  “Yeah. In that bungalow with gland trouble, down the street from your old digs. I had a little chat with him, and before that, I talked to that cute secretary that works over there.”

  Now the eyes narrowed. “You see that guy Miller?”

  “Sure did. Kind of like an All-American version of Bela Lugosi, isn’t he?”

  He was sitting way forward, shaking his head. “What in God’s name are you getting yourself into? Don’t think you’re getting me in—”

  “You called me, remember?”

  “Over a goddamn month ago!”

  “Like I was saying, I made a wisecrack to G. P. about going to the Tribune with this lovely story, and on reflection, I don’t think it’s such a bad idea. This is the kind of bullshit presidents get impeached for, if somebody doesn’t shoot ’em first.”

  He held both palms up, as if he were balancing something invisible. “What good does that do Amelia?”

  “Probably nothing. But it puts G. P.’s nuts in a wringer, and everybody from the White House down who thought it was a good idea to con Lady Lindy into playin’ Mata Hari’ll find themselves all over the front page and out of work and maybe in jail.”

  “You really didn’t get any sleep last night, did you?”

  “I caught about two hours, after the sun came up. Don’t you like my idea?”

  “Wouldn’t it just be easier to kill G. P.?”

  “I don’t rule that out. I’d rather have him publicly humiliated first.”

  Mantz was gazing at me as if I were insane; imagine that. “You’re not joking, are you?”

  “Not in the least. You take that cocksucker up for a ride, I’ll toss him out of the plane. Deal?”

  “You need some rest….”

  “I’m not looking for you to subsidize my investigation, Mantz. I’m off the clock; call it a busman’s holiday. All I ask is for a little information, a little help; I need you to approach some people and set up some meetings.”

  He was shaking a hand in the air, as if waving goodbye. “Look—I was all for this…”

  “You pulled me in.”

  “…but that was when Amelia hadn’t left the country, yet. We coulda done some good. We coulda saved her. But right now, her best chance is the government, the Coast Guard, the Navy, that they find her. And if she’s workin’ for them, it benefits th
em to find her—they gotta be spendin’ millions on this search—”

  “Further proof you were right. Since when does the government, who can barely get Congress to give ’em two nickels for defense, go spendin’ that kind of dough looking for a downed stunt pilot?”

  His expression was grave. “I’m sorry, Heller. I’m out.”

  “You got a charter today?”

  “…No.”

  “You do now.” I reached in my hip pocket for my notebook. “I want to talk to these radio nuts…. McMenamy, who I understand has done work for you, and this Myers kid, in Oakland.”

  “Well…”

  “You want dough? Here.” And I dug in my front pocket for my money clip, and tossed two double sawbucks on his desk. “That cover the charter?”

  “You want me to fly you to Oakland to talk to a fourteen-year-old kid with a ham radio.”

  “That’s right. And I want you to set up a meeting for me here, with the other guy, McMenamy.”

  “Heller…stop….”

  “Earlier, you assumed the best. Now let’s assume the worst: she crashed in the ocean and if she was unlucky and didn’t die on impact, the sharks made screaming meals out of her and Noonan. That’s a menu courtesy of G. P. Putnam and Uncle Sam.”

  “I’ll make the calls,” he said. “And take your goddamn money. Get it off my desk.”

  “Okay,” I said, and put the twenties back in my money clip, not giving a damn whether he took them or not.

  That’s how far gone I was.

  Within the hour, Walter McMenamy was seated before me at a table at the back of the Burbank terminal’s Sky Room restaurant. He’d been doing some work at Patterson Radio Company for his friend Karl Pierson, chief engineer for the firm and a fellow amateur radio enthusiast.

  “We’re designing an entirely new type of short-wave receiver,” McMenamy said, his voice soft yet alive with enthusiasm. Probably in his mid-thirties, and despite his businesslike dark suit and navy and red tie, McMenamy came across as a husky kid, his oblong head home to a high forehead with dark widow’s-peaked hair, and boyish features: bright eyes, snub nose, full, almost feminine lips.

  “Thanks for dropping everything,” I said, “to come talk to me.”

  It was midmorning, and we were drinking Coca-Cola on ice.