Aces (31 page)

“Yes,
Señor
.”

“Have him paint the damn fence white if he has to, but I want it gone, as soon as possible, do you understand?”

“I will see to it,
Señor
Gold,” Ramona said. “If the handyman cannot come, I will have my father and brothers do it, but it will be done.”

Gold forced himself to try to relax. He made himself smile. “Thank you, Ramona.”

“You are a good man,
Señor
,” she said fiercely. “God smiles on
you
, not on the evil ones who did that. Now, please, sit down, you must eat.”

He didn’t have the strength of will left to argue, so he ate the breakfast and drank the coffee that she’d prepared for him.
While he ate, she called the handyman, and then came back into the kitchen to tell him that the man was on his way. Gold nodded.
Everywhere he looked in the green and white tiled kitchen he seemed to see the black obscenities scrawled.

When he was done eating, he left for Santa Monica. On his way out to the garage, he checked the garden. The gasoline had wilted
many of the shrubs and flowers, and left ugly brown splotches on the lawn.

“There is a way out of the predicament you find yourself in, Herman,” Tim Campbell was saying over coffee in Gold’s office.

It was ten-fifteen. Campbell had arrived at ten o’clock on the dot, had spread out the bank’s files on Gold Aviation on Gold’s
desk, and had quickly reiterated everything he’d said on the telephone last night. Gold had listened patiently, preparing
himself for the pitch that he knew was coming.

“Are you okay?” Campbell was asking. “You look tired.”

“I had a rough night,” Gold replied.

Campbell nodded. “Anyway, getting back to what I was saying, we’ve got to put this company on a more businesslike footing—”

“‘We’, meaning
you
. Is that it, Campbell?”

“I mean
us
,” Campbell firmly repeated. “You know about airplanes. You and your staff have the ideas, but ideas need organization to
turn them into reality. I can supply that organization. I can straighten out your books, control your expenditures, and keep
track of your billing.” He grinned. “I can supply you the firm foundation Gold Aviation needs to reach the heavens.”

Gold stifled his own smile. He was starting to like this guy. “Go on, I’m listening.”

“The first thing we do is restructure your organization. We set up a holding company for your airplane manufacturing division
and air transport line. We could call it Gold Aviation and Transport—”

Gold smiled. “GAT, huh?”

“GAT.” Campbell nodded. “I come to work for you as C.E.O. of the company, in charge of the overall financial aspects of the
two divisions.”

Gold thought about it. He knew that what Campbell had said was true. His ledgers were in a mess; his business had simply gotten
too big for his secretary to keep the numbers straight, and he sure as hell wasn’t interested in taking on the bookkeeping
drudgery. “So far, so good,” he told Campbell. “But if I lose my CAM routes there aren’t going to be any books to keep… What
do you suggest I do, to beat out South California Air Transport?”

Campbell was beaming. “Here’s the beauty part, Herman. You appoint me in charge of your mail and passenger transport business.
That way, you can concentrate on your first love, thinking up and tinkering with new airplane designs, here in Santa Monica.
I’ll personally manage the Mines Field operation.”

“How’s that going to solve my problems?” Gold asked skeptically.

“Number one, it gives you a whole new aggressive image. No longer are you on the defensive, reacting to things. Now, you’re
on the offensive, making bold changes in your company to confront the changes in the status quo. Number two, the local business
community and the post office can’t argue with the fact that I’ve got the business background to whip Gold Transport back
into financial shape. My being in charge will renew your financial credibility. Finally, I could take over as the public spokesman
for Gold Transport during the bidding process. It would be my picture and quotes in the newspapers, not yours. I was born
in New England. I’m as Yankee as they come. The fact that I’m in charge will completely neutralize SCAT’s personal attacks
against you concerning your being a German-Jew.”

Gold shook his head. “But it’s still my company, Campbell. Everybody will know that you’re only a figurehead.”

“It’s still your company, and I’ll be working for you, but I won’t be a figurehead,” Campbell said seriously. “That much you’ll
have to accept if you want my help. Remember what I said before. You’re putting me in charge of finances. I’ll have the authority
to approve or disapprove of any financial expenditure. Once that gets around, the business and financial community, and the
public in general, will come to accept that I’m for real.”

“And if I should
disagree
with your opinions?” Gold asked.

“If at some point you don’t accept my advice, I’d be wasting your time, and you’d be paying me a salary I wasn’t earning,”
Campbell replied. “Here’s the deal: I’ll supply you with my written resignation. You stick that envelope in your desk drawer.
The first time you think I’m wrong, or we can’t come to a compromise, or you just think you can do better without me than
with me…” Campbell shrugged. “Just open that envelope.”

Gold leaned back in his chair and regarded Campbell. He seemed earnest enough. “You’re starting to impress me. Now answer
this: it’s no secret I’m broke, and you yourself have said that the name Gold Aviation is currently poison at the banks. How
are we going to raise the money we need to survive?”

Campbell frowned. “You’re broke all right. For the short-term, we’re going to have to get your suppliers to cut you some slack.
I think I can do that; get the extended credit we’re going to need.”

“What about long-term?”

“We take our show on the road, for the long-term,” Campbell replied. “Banks are no longer the solution for your financing
problems; the private sector is. We’re going to take GAT public. You and I are going to be traveling salesmen, peddling stock.
The two of us will deliver a one-two punch. You’ll get up and paint a bright picture for aviation, then I’ll get up and close
the deal with a detailed financial outlook on invested returns.” Campbell paused. “If we believe in ourselves, we can get
others to believe in us.”

Gold nodded. “I’m willing to do that, but let me make one thing clear. I want to maintain a controlling interest. This is
my company, and I intend for it to stay my company.”

“Fair enough,” Campbell said. “Let me tell you up front that I intend to use my bank contacts to borrow the money to buy as
much GAT stock as as possible.”

“I think that’s a wise investment.” Gold smiled. “Speaking of money, we haven’t discussed salary…”

“Right now I’m making five thousand dollars a year at the bank. For the meantime I’ll take the same, until I’ve gotten you
out of financial hardship. After that, whenever I feel I’ve helped you to afford it, you’ll give me a raise.”

“I see.” Gold laughed. “In other words, your salary is just another money worry you’re going to take care of for me?”

“There’s no sense worrying about tomorrow, today,” Campbell reasoned. “I’ll never ask you for more than I’m worth. If you
should come to think I have, well, you can always use that resignation I’m going to supply you with.”

“I see.”

“The first thing I can do is telephone around to see how much you can borrow on your house, and cars, and your wife’s airplane.”

“Is that really going to be necessary?” Gold asked glumly.

Campbell shrugged. “You tell me how important your G-1 development program is. The twenty—maybe twenty-five —thousand you
could borrow on your personal assets would be the money that would keep the project going for the time being.”

“Then it’s necessary, all right.” Gold sighed. “Thank God, it’s at least possible for me to put my house up…”

“What’s that mean?” Campbell asked.

Gold told him about the attempted arson. “Thank God I’d fallen asleep downstairs, and not up in the bedroom, or else I would
never have heard the guy fiddling around out in the garden.”

Campbell nodded. “So that’s why you look so exhausted. Hell, I would be, too, after an ordeal like that. Too bad the bastard
got away.” He scowled. “Well, you’ll never see him again.”

“Wrong,” Gold replied. “I’ve already seen him again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Yesterday SCAT announced that they’d purchased planes and taken a terminal facility at Clover Field, right here in Santa
Monica.”

“Right.” Campbell nodded. “They announced that during the same conference in which they revealed your past.”

“Well, this morning, on my way to work, I drove past their facility,” Gold explained. “There was no reason, beyond that I
just wanted to see what it looked like. That’s where I saw him. That guy who tried to torch my house works for SCAT.”

“Jesus,” Campbell breathed, shaking his head. “I can’t believe they’d do anything that outrageous—”

“I saw the guy with my own eyes, I tell you.”

Campbell nodded. “And it makes for a kind of nasty logic. They know you’re financially strapped. Burning down your house would
certainly have precluded you borrowing against it. Also, the emotional distress of losing your house might have been enough
to have made you throw in the towel concerning the bidding competition.”

“Fuck the house. I could have died. And what about my wife and kids?” Gold said, and then told Campbell about the filth scrawled
on the fence. “Everyone, including myself, assuming I survived, would have assumed that some crazy bigot had done the crime,”
he finished. “No one would have suspected SCAT was behind it.”

“Well, all you can do is forget about it, Herman.”

“Forget about it?” Gold repeated. “No way. I’m going back to the SCAT facility tonight to give them a big taste of their own
medicine.”

“You mean burn them out? That’s crazy!” Campbell insisted. “I won’t let you do it.”

Gold smiled. “Not only will you let me. You’re coming along to help.”

“What? No way!”

“Tim, listen to me.” Gold said very seriously. “It so happens I was the only one home last night, but SCAT couldn’t have known
that, so they just didn’t care. They were willing to risk my life, and the lives of my wife and kids, to get what they wanted.”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Campbell protested.

“Fuck you!” Gold said angrily. “It wasn’t your house and family put at risk. You weren’t the one insulted, called foul obscenities!
I’m telling you now, I’m through being dragged through the gutter. I’m going to fight back. If you want to be my partner,
you’ll help me. If not, walk out that door. It’s up to you. I need to know if I can trust you. This is the way that I’m going
to find out.”

Campbell weakly shook his head. “I could go to the police and tell them what you’re planning…”

“You could.” Gold nodded. “But I think you’re too smart to do that. You turn me in, it would only be your word against mine.
Regardless of that, the bad press your charges would generate would finish me in business, once and for all.” Gold smiled.
“But
that
would keep you at the bank, making five thousand bucks a year. Come on, Tim, you really expect me to believe that you’re
the kind of guy who would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?”

Campbell sighed. “When are you doing this?”

“Tonight.”

“What do you want me to do to help?”

“Meet here at ten o’clock,” Gold said. “I’ll have what we need to do the job.”

Campbell nodded. Gold extended his hand across the desk. “Lots of people think Gold Aviation is a sinking ship, but welcome
aboard, Tim.”

Campbell eyed Gold warily. After a moment he shook hands.

“When can you start?” Gold asked. “How much notice do you have to give the bank?”

Campbell grinned. “I gave them my two weeks’ notice two days ago, about an hour after your files reached my desk.”

“You’re shitting me!” Gold exclaimed. “Come on, did you really?”

“Consider this your first lesson in salesmanship, Herman,” Campbell smiled, packing up his briefcase and standing up. “You’ve
got to give yourself appropriate motivation before you deliver your pitch.”

Gold watched him walk to the door. “Tim,” he called out. “Tell me the truth—Did you really already give the bank your notice
without knowing how I was going to respond to your pitch?”

Campbell winked. “Here’s the second lesson in salesmanship: Never give anything away.”

Once Campbell was gone, Gold buzzed his secretary and asked her to get him Hull Stiles. When Hull was on the line, Gold picked
up his telephone and said, “I haven’t talked to you since the news about me came out yesterday.” He paused. “I don’t know
how you feel about me now. I don’t know if we’re still friends…”

“Christ almighty!” Hull exploded. “I’m sorry I’ve neglected you, darling. I’ll have a heart-shaped box of chocolates and a
dozen red roses sent over soonest. Will that make it okay for my snookums?”

“Fuck you.” Gold laughed. “In that case, meet me here in Santa Monica around nine-thirty tonight.”

“What’s up?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you. I need some help doing something about the competition. Something that’s going to be kind of
rough.”

“How rough?” Hull asked.

“Remember Mexico? As rough as that.”

“No shit?” Hull replied calmly. “Well, then, I guess I’ll see you later.”

That night Gold was waiting in his car in the parking field of the Santa Monica facility when he saw a pair of headlights
come lancing through the gates. Gold was wearing low-cut oxford work shoes, a pair of those sturdy, dark-blue denim pants
held together with metal cleats that were being manufactured in San Francisco, and a brown pullover crew-neck sweater. While
he’d been rummaging around in his closet for suitable attire in which to burn down a rival’s business, he’d come across that
moth-eaten, old, gray flannel fedora he’d used to wear as a kid to keep the sun off his head, back when he was barnstorming.
He was wearing the fedora tonight, hoping that it would bring him luck.