Charlotte had learned to use the blackness that consumed him, offering him alternative targets and stoking his ego with the safety valves of prospective new triumphs. She knew that he wanted to cloak himself with achievements that would match what he had done in combat. It was too bad there wasn't a Blue Max for business, some bauble of reassurance that would satisfy him. She wondered what it was that combat did for him that nothing else—not success, not drinking, not sex—could do.
In a normal voice, she said, "We've settled all the legal questions regarding licensing Hadley Roget's wing."
It was the wrong note. Hafner's face suffused with anger at the mention of the name.
"Those jake-leg engineers have never built anything worth flying. Why the hell you paid him good money for a metal-wing design, I'll never know. I'm a better engineer than either one of them, and Bineau is twice as good as both of them put together!"
She jumped on the opening. "Armand disagrees! He likes their wing concept. Let me show you what he's proposing."
Bruno tried to resume the offensive. "Did you do what I told you and tell Bineau about his raise, about getting a share of the profits? We have to keep him sweet—he's priceless."
She nodded. "Yes, and he's delighted. And as long as we let him build the airplanes he wants, he'd work for bacon and beans."
Charlotte pushed a button and two golden oak doors opened into a luxurious indirectly lit conference room paneled in the same light wood as her desk. There was a stage and podium, and a glass case along one wall. In it were jewellike scale models of the Hafner products, past, present, and future. The Mead & Wilgoos engine line, the Premium propellers, a Hafner trimotor in Federated Airlines markings were all neatly modeled in the same scale. There was even a clever diorama of the harbor in Marseilles, a frowsy tramp freighter moored at a distance, a lighter with ominous-looking covered boxes en route to it.
"Jesus Christ, Charlotte, I wish you hadn't talked me into spending all the dough on this palace. We're getting overextended."
"Who taught me that it takes money to make money? You've outgrown the junkyard look. You deserve it."
She sensed her control over him return as he savored her compliment. He stroke forward to loom over the display table, where two models were covered by green baize drapery.
Bineau and two other Russians walked in, followed by seven members of the senior engineering staff. Rhoades brought up the rear. After some small talk, Bineau went to the podium. As fluent in English as in French or Russian, Bineau cloaked his engineering in flowery language worthy of a poet.
Bineau ancestors had been brought from France to Russia by Peter the Great and there prospered immensely. The son of a brilliant engineer and courtier in St. Petersburg, Bineau had been educated at the Imperial Naval Academy before working with Igor Sikorsky at the Russian Baltic Car Factory. When the war came, he had flown with Alexander de Seversky in a Baltic Sea bombing squadron. A heart condition, probably brought on by the excessive zeal with which he combined his engineering and his combat flying, placed him in the hospital for six months. Then he was sent to France as a part of a Russian plane-buying commission. He stayed there after the 1917 revolution, eventually joining his colleagues in the fertile aviation fields on Long Island.
It was a universal mystery how he could not only stand working for Hafner, but actually seem to enjoy it. Bineau was shielded from Hafner's usual wrath by both his ability and his demeanor. The Russian never raised his voice or seemed anxious, no matter what the situation, and he gave Hafner the same elaborate but sincere courtesy that he extended to all.
The truth was that Hafner was in awe of the man, impressed with his brilliance and fascinated by his personality. Bineau's manner of speech was perhaps the key. His voice had the range of a Barrymore, and he modulated it constantly in perfect accord with his subject. Most ingratiating of all, he had a way of inviting agreement, his merry eyes beckoning you into a complicity in a delightful, well-intended secret.
Bineau's two principal colleagues, Barinov and Kalinin, were beside him. Barinov spoke English well enough, but Kalinin used a Russian-French-English patois that Charlotte termed Exasperanto. The two men always let Bineau do the talking, and so did Charlotte for an engineering briefing.
"Captain Hafner, I freely and gladly admit that the basis of what you are about to see derives from Hadley Roget's wing. We will be the first to use the structure, but you can expect, as night follows the day, that our competitors will adopt it."
Hadley's design had been as simple as Bineau was elegant, not only solving the problem of adequate strength, but giving space for fuel, equipment, and even retracting the landing gear.
With his customary flourish, he uncovered the first model, announcing with bravura, "The Hafner Skyshark."
Bruno was visibly moved. "Jesus, that's beautiful!"
Armand pointed to the model's nose. "Two guns, and a streamlined turret that protects the gunner from the slipstream." His voice was lilting; you could almost see the wind around the model.
Charlotte chimed in, "At two hundred and twenty miles an hour, he'll need it."
Bineau went on, "But, Captain Hafner, I want to tell you again that without Roget's wing it wouldn't be possible to get speed like that in an airplane this big—it has a seventy-foot span, and will weigh almost thirteen thousand pounds fully loaded."
While Bruno was leaning down, admiring the lines—he'd long since learned not to risk a knuckle rap by picking up one of Bineau's models—Armand pressed a switch, and the gears extended and then retracted.
Bineau continued, "I want to pay tribute to your staff for the concept and the hard engineering behind it. My colleague Alexander Kalinin did the stress work, making full use of the inherent strength of the design. Sergei Barinov is a genius at the drafting board and in the wind tunnel."
Kalinin stepped forward, clearing his throat. "You vill note de deep fillets on de wing, and de boot"—the word seemed to have ten o's—"on de horizontal stabilizer."
Bineau's enormous white eyebrows semaphored disapproval at Kalinin's intrusion, and he said, "Yes, certainly, and we believe these will both boost speed and eliminate flutter."
The small team of Russians had spent thousands of man-hours on the theoretical calculations, and were scheduled to have almost a thousand hours of wind-tunnel time at New York University and Langley Field. The only downside to Bineau's report was that the new 650-horsepower engines would not be ready until the following April.
Hafner nodded in eager agreement. "When the Skyshark flies for the first time a year from this June, we are totally confident of its success," Bineau concluded.
Hafner asked the usual questions on performance and costs, and was pleased by the answers. Bineau stressed that although the Air Corps had rejected the wing when Hadley offered it, the Corps recognized its mistake now, even after purchasing a service-test quantity of, the Boeing B-9 bomber—thirteen, including the prototypes.
Bineau became absolutely evangelical. "This airplane will sweep the B-9 off the board. It is to laugh! The B-9 is no longer competitive. "
Charlotte broke in. "I've saved the best for last. Major Caldwell says that if our projected performance figures are met, he will guarantee a production order for at least one hundred Skysharks."
Bruno slipped his arm around Charlotte, and even as she remembered the passionate night long ago in Passaic, when he had made exactly the same gesture, she had to steel herself not to cringe.
"Honey, let's send Caldwell a car, maybe a Model A convertible."
Rhoades spoke up for the first time. "Bruno, if you do that, he'd regard it as a bribe and you would never get another order from him or from the Air Corps. You don't need to bribe him—you've got the best airplane."
Hafner smiled. "You're right. I was thinking about the old days of the fighter competitions in Berlin, when Fokker would make sure that all the pilots were taken care of."
Bineau continued, "Bruno, we not only have the best airpla
ne, we have the best airplanes. The next aircraft is without question the result of Charlotte's perseverance."
He bowed low to her, extending his arm in a graceful sweeping movement as if he were wearing a sword and a plumed hat. If anyone else had done it, it would have been impossibly phony. Bineau made it perfectly natural. "I said we were too overworked, that no one could do it, not even our staff. In her gentle way she insisted, and we hired a few more people."
Like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, he produced the second model.
"Voila, again, the Hafner Skyangel," he said, unveiling a sleek passenger transport. Only the bomber's fuselage had been changed; everything else was the same. "A crew of three and ten passengers cruising comfortably at three miles a minute. It will drive the Fords and Fokkers and even our own trimotors from the sky, and all the single-engine transports with them."
Charlotte watched her husband's expression change from the embarrassment Rhoades's comment on bribery had caused to one of choirboy hopefulness. She felt she could risk reminding him of her role in the project.
"Bruno, do you remember the night you called me from Oakland, and said we could build transports with our own engines and props? This is it."
She let him absorb the idea. "We'll build the transports on the same line with the bombers, and won't take orders from anybody until we reequip the Federated fleet with maybe sixty or seventy airplanes. We'll have the industry tied up."
Hafner's entire physical demeanor changed, the years and inner anguish both slipping from him equally. Prospective success gave him a roaring rush of pleasure. For the moment, the entire world was golden, and the people in the room were the agents of his harmony. Only at times like this did he find in life the strength and pleasure that mortal combat had given him.
He grabbed Charlotte's arms and whirled her around. "What a doll baby you are!" He turned to the group, smiling broadly. "And Armand, you're the best thing to come from Russia since caviar."
He shook the hands of the other engineers, and even slipped his arm around Rhoades's shoulders.
"Dusty, did you ever think you'd see anything like this?"
"Russia lost a great designer when we snared Bineau, and there's nothing that Charlotte can do that would surprise me. I've heard you call her 'champ,' and champ she is."
Bruno sustained his upbeat mood the rest of the morning while he went over their holdings with Charlotte. The engineers left, pleased that they had pleased Hafner, and the room which had seemed so wastefully opulent when he walked in now seemed just right. Charlotte had a stack of journals, gray-bound with green spines, each labeled in gold letters.
She handed him summary profit-and-loss statements and an interim balance sheet. "You can see this is a tough time. We need money for current operations, and I don't see it coming from anywhere but capital."
He nodded.
"We're losing money every day on Federated with the trimotors. They're too slow and don't carry enough people."
"What do you hear about their stopping the mail subsidy?"
"Nothing but rumors so far, but I believe it will happen. The government might start to fly the mail again."
"Yeah, that's what I hear too. Say, I didn't want to mention it in front of Bineau, but why only ten passengers in the new transport?"
"It's the only way we could use the same wing as the bomber. If we wanted more passengers—sixteen or twenty—we'd have to build two completely different airplanes, and we just don't have the capital or the engineering capacity to do it."
"The next one has to be bigger," he answered.
That afternoon, Charlotte took him out to the small hangar next to the main factory. Inside was a gleaming red-and-white Gee Bee Model Y Senior Sportster monoplane, a tiny open-cockpit two-seater whose big engine gave it a hydrocephalic look. Standing under a trimotor's wing it looked like a child's pedal toy.
"How do you like my baby? I'm going fly it in the National Air Races at Cleveland."
Bruno made a swift assessment of the gains versus the risks.
"No, mein Gott, that's too risky. I'd rather you just stuck to flying the company planes for publicity."
"Dammit, Bruno, I'm bored. I need the challenge of the competition."
"We can't afford to lose you—I couldn't stand it if something happened to you. Leave the races to people like Amelia Earhart."
A sudden pleasure at Bruno's rare compliment was washed away immediately in resentment.
"Look, I'm tired of hearing about Amelia Earhart. She's just a beginner—I don't think she can fly worth a damn."
"She must be doing something right." Bruno knew immediately it was the wrong tack.
"It's her husband, Putnam! He works it so that she can't cough without getting a headline."
A wave of foreboding that he didn't understand passed over Bruno. "Every time I fly one of our planes the press just assumes that I'm along for the ride," she said. "They act as though some other pilot is doing the work. In a race, I'll be the only one in the airplane."
"Charlotte, racing is a man's game. You don't need to take chances pushing an airplane around the pylons, fifty feet off the ground. Too many people get hurt that way."
Even as he took her hand, he felt his mood changing. In the past Charlotte had been just a valuable business asset, someone to use to get where he wanted to go. Yet the more valuable she had become to him in business, the more he resented depending upon her.
He hadn't minded when she had played around sexually—he'd done plenty of that—although the business with Rhoades was becoming too long-term, and that bothered him. He understood too how she manipulated him; he permitted that. But this self-assertive independence was something else, something that might not be tolerable. And there was more. The realization that he needed her for comfort as well as for strength annoyed him. He didn't want to be dependent on anyone. Yet after fighting the world for years, he had isolated himself from it. Charlotte was his connection, and he didn't want her killed in some stupid race.
"Charlotte, I don't want you to do it. I forbid it."
She was resolute. It was an issue that had to be faced.
"Bruno, I won't give in on this one, no matter how much you bluster. I'm going to race whether you like it or not. You're just worried that you won't have someone to run the plant if I kill myself."
He was silent, uncertain of his own feelings. In a quiet voice, he said, "Be careful. That's a mean little bastard, and a Gee Bee killed Lowell Bayles last December. We can't have anything happen to you.
"I'll watch it. You watch it too."
She was content; she'd won all the meaningful points, and he was still not enraged. She let him slip his arm around her as they walked back to the factory. Rhoades watched from the window, shaking his head in a mixture of jealousy and amusement.
*
Sayville, Long Island/June 16, 1932
Patty and Stephan lived in a guest cottage near the enormous Tudor mansion Bruno had bought Charlotte after she had sold the Army the A-11. In the years that Patty had been away in France, Bruno and Charlotte had somehow assumed totally new personalities. Her stepfather, formerly frivolous in his work habits, was obsessively preoccupied with the aircraft plant. In the past he'd been willing to delegate, to let Armand Bineau and his crew pretty well run things, with Charlotte there to protect his interest. He had to be at the center of every meeting, kibitzing, making notes, demanding more and more frequently that things be done his way.
Charlotte told him that he was driving everybody crazy, but the changes had some totally unexpected side benefits. He was much easier to live with; his hours were predictable, and at home he would work in his little office till late at night. He'd developed a new hobby, photography, and was buying camera equipment almost every week. Two rooms and a tiny bathroom in the basement had been converted to a professional darkroom, and he spent hours developing his own prints.
On balance, Charlotte seemed content. She and Bruno had separate bedrooms
, and Patty no longer saw any indication of intimacy in their conduct. She remembered that earlier in their marriage, when she was just a child, their randy sexual activity had caused her more than one embarrassing moment, and she had learned to make plenty of noise before coming into a room she knew they occupied. Then there was the debacle in Orleans!
Yet with it all they seemed still to be friends, to enjoy the house, the business.
She stopped Charlotte on the veranda and said, "Stephan will be competing in the National Air Races this year. Will you be there?"
"There? I'm going to be competing too, in my Gee Bee."
She sighed, rolling her eyes, and it came to Patty what the real change in her mother was. She was no longer inveterately flirtatious; she had grown beyond the femme fatale manner of just a few years ago. It was a becoming difference, one more suitable for her age and work at the aircraft plant.
Charlotte's voice was pensive as she said, "It won't be easy to get away. The factory is running full-tilt, and Bruno is into everything. I have to follow him around, patching up the personnel problems he causes with his damn buttinsky attitude."
"You've changed, and so has he. Do you mind if I say you're both easier to live with?"
Charlotte laughed. "Not if you mind if I say you're not. You remind me of myself ten years ago, vaguely discontented and ready for adventure. Do you want to talk about it?"
Patty laughed. "Translated roughly from motherese, that comes out as 'Where the hell are my grandchildren?' "
"Right. It's one thing to be modern and control the size of your family—it's another not to have any kids at all."
"It's a bigger problem than being modern. We've tried for years. Stephan and I have both been to doctors. They say it's just fate, that it will happen in time. I'm ready to adopt a baby, but I know Stephan won't agree."
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