Aces (54 page)

He sure missed home, and his parents, and his sister, but he didn’t see how he could go back now. He couldn’t go back until
he did something… something
big
. If he went back now, they’d just laugh at him.

Steven had been on the road for about five months before ending up here. Traveling around hadn’t been too bad. He’d found
that truckers would almost always stop and give him a lift, and when he ran low on money, he had no trouble getting a couple
of days’ work at gas stations and garages, changing tires or oil, or spark plugs. When the weather was good, he slept outside,
in a sleeping bag he’d bought in Cody, Wyoming. When it was cold or rainy, he’d keep on traveling until he reached a decent-sized
town, and then he’d rent a bed at the local YMCA. He had no trouble with the police. It helped that he didn’t yet have much
of a beard. Being clean-shaven seemed to make a good impression on people. He was always careful to wear clean clothes, and
to have some money in his pocket, so the cops were no bother at all.

Taking care of himself might have been easy, but finding work that had to do with airplanes was another story. He knew that
nobody would let him fly, but he figured that he could at least find something as a mechanic. It hadn’t worked out that way,
however. He’d made the rounds at the big and small airports all across the country, but nobody would even talk to him about
a job unless he was willing to fill out forms that always asked the same damned things: where was he born; who were his closest
living relatives; where had he gone to school; where had he learned his trade; where had he worked last, and did he have references.
Of course, he couldn’t truthfully answer any of those questions, and worried that any employer who went to the trouble of
having people fill out the forms might also go to the trouble of having the information checked. Steven couldn’t take a chance
on that. He was a minor, after all. If the cops ever did give him a second look, they’d call his folks and he’d get shipped
home just like that.

He’d about given up hope, when a trucker he was riding with made a delivery to Wilterboro. It was a pretty crummy excuse for
an airport. Just a chain-link fence wrapped around a mangy crab-grass field that looked like it would turn into mud-soup when
it rained. There were a couple of moth-eaten wind socks flapping from a pole, a handful of run-down buildings, and a graveyard
of obsolete or banged-up airplanes.

It was pretty dismal, all right, but then Steven saw the hand-scrawled M
EKANIC
W
ANTED
sign that was taped in the cracked front window of a run-down barn that had D
ONOVAN
A
IR
C
HARTER
painted over its double doors.

Back then Steven had guessed—correctly—that this was the sort of place that wouldn’t much care if you didn’t fill out a form,
as long as you could demonstrate that you knew your way around an airplane’s innards. He’d been working here for two months.
Ernie asked no prying questions and in exchange paid him squat, but he let Steven sleep on the cot in the office area, and
let him use one of the junk cars he kept out back. Steven hadn’t yet gotten up the nerve to tell Ernie that he knew how to
fly. Ernie would surely ask questions then.
One of these days, though
, Steven thought, and patted the Beechcraft’s cowling.

“So I guess if the price was right I could maybe get you those altimeters,” Ernie was saying.

“I’d need ‘em soon,” Red cautioned.

“What’s the rush?”

“It’s like this. My boss got called by some other guy, who’s putting together a big deal for the Chinese government,” Red
explained. “The Chinese talked the United States into selling them a bunch of P-40 Tomahawks. The fighters are sailing on
a freighter leaving New York Harbor at the end of the month. This guy who’s handling the logistics of the sale for the Chinese
called my boss to ask if he knew of any pilots who might be willing to go over there and fly those planes against the Japs.”

“Guys like me?” Ernie asked.

“Nah.” Red chuckled. “No offense, but they want young guys.”

Steven, intrigued, set down his socket wrench and wiped his greasy hands on the backside of his overalls. He knew that things
were heating up in the Pacific. China and Japan had been at war for years, and lately all the newspaper editorials were making
a big thing about how America had to help China if it wanted to avoid getting involved in the actual fighting. Steven had
agreed with what he’d read: that the Japs had to be stopped from getting Malaysia’s rubber, or the oil in the Dutch East Indies.

“I don’t get why the Chinks would want them altimeters,” Ernie was saying. “They ain’t gonna fit in no Tomahawk fighters…”

Steven wanted to hear more. He climbed down off the stepladder and wandered over to the cardboard boxes, where he pretended
to be scrounging around for a part. He had a good view of the two men sitting at the folding card table that served as Ernie’s
desk. They were passing a pint of rye back and forth between them as they talked.

“The Chinese won’t know they’re getting no altimeters, until it’s too late,” Red said. “You see, when my boss got that call
asking if he knew of any guys who might be willing to volunteer as mercenaries to fly them P-40s, he remembered the altimeters
were floating around, and sent me across the river to see you. He figures why not put the altimeters on the freighter along
with them airplanes and bill the Chinks for them? They’re so gung-ho for shit to throw at the Japs, they’ll buy anything.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” Ernie nodded, taking a long swallow off the pint.

“Just remember, I need ‘em by the end of the month,” Red said, standing up. “And remember, if you should hear of any pilots
who’re looking for work, put ‘em in touch with me…”

“What’s in it for me?” Ernie asked as he handed him the pint.

“Fifty bucks a head,” Red said. He took the stogie out of his mouth, took a swig from the bottle, and quickly popped the stogie
back between his lips, like it was a cork.

“What’s in it for you?”

“Fifty bucks as well. My boss makes another fifty. I don’t know what the guy who called gets. Probably more than that put
together. This operation is half-assed in some respects, but there’s a lot of money floating around. For instance, the pilot
gets a three-hundred-dollar bonus for signing on, and at least six hundred a month, with a bonus for any Japs he might shoot
down. And then there’s insurance, and disability pay, and so on. It’s a good deal.” He smirked. “If you don’t mind getting
shot at.”

“Jeez, I’d think they’d want military guys to fly fighters,” Ernie said.

“They do. The Feds gave the okay for them to recruit military fliers—”

That was good, Steven thought. It had to be jake if the government had given the okay for army fliers to get involved.

“—but they’s so desperate they’ll take anybody who fits the minimum requirements,” Red was saying. He ticked them off on his
fingers. “They’s got to have good health and good character; be at least twenty years old, and have at least three hundred
hours flight time.”

“I’ll go,” Steven said, coming around the boxes.

Red looked at him, and then back at Ernie. “What’s this guy about?”

Ernie shrugged. “Name’s Steve Smith. Started work here a couple months ago. Can tear down and build back an engine okay, at
least the small stuff.”

“And I’m a pilot,” Steven said. “The kind of pilot you’re looking for.”

“Sure, kid,” Red humored him. “Look, I know you mean well. You want to have yourself an adventure, kick-ass against the Japs;
all that good stuff,” He shook his head. “But they want accomplished pilots over in China. Guys capable of flying fighters
to defend against Jap bombers.”

“You said the minimum requirements were to be in good health and twenty years old.”

Red chuckled. “You’re forgetting the little matter of a minimum of three hundred hours in the air.”

Steven hesitated. He knew there was a risk in showing his pilot’s license. It was legitimate, all right.
Too
legitimate. It had his real name, and, more important, his real age on it… But what choice did he have if he wanted to convince
this guy that he was a pilot?

“I’ve got my license,” he said.

“I guess you mean driver’s license.” Red grinned around his stogie, winking at Ernie. “Look, kid, flying an airplane ain’t
like driving a car up in the sky.”

“I
meant
pilot’s license.”

Red exchanged another look with Ernie, who shrugged. “Fork it over,” he demanded, snapping his fingers impatiently.

Steven extracted the license from his wallet and handed it over. Red slowly rolled his stogie from one side of his mouth to
the other as he studied it.

“Says here his name’s Steven Gold,” Red told Ernie.

“He told me Smith,” Ernie stubbornly said.

“It says here you was born in 1924, kid.” Red scowled. “That would make you only barely seventeen.”

“Holy shit, he told me he was twenty,” Ernie complained.

“He looks twenty, I’ll give him that,” Red mused. He handed back the license. “It takes dough to get one of those, kid. Your
folks loaded?”

Steven shrugged. “This isn’t about my folks.”

“Why you using a phony name?” Red asked. “You on the lam from the law?”

“I’m on the lam, period,” Steven said.

“It’s tempting to me, kid. I could use a quick fifty bucks…” Red shook his head. “But I got to pass—”

“But—”

“And you should count yourself lucky that I am. You volunteer for something like this, it ain’t no day at the beach, kid.
You’d be living in the jungle. Risking your life flying every damned day.”

Fucking sounds great
, Steven thought, and then pondered how his father might negotiate to turn this around the way he would want it to go.

“Red.” Steven grinned. “You said that there’s a three-hundred-dollar bonus due any man who signs up, right? Well, you take
me on, and I’ll kick back to you a hundred bucks of that…”

Red stared at him. “What about your age?”

“You said yourself that I look twenty,” Steven said quickly.

Red was nodding, then he frowned. “But what about the three hundred hours?—”

“What the hell?” Steven said jovially. “Maybe I
don’t
have three hundred hours,
exactly
…”

“Maybe you don’t even have half of that,” Red sourly agreed.

“But the two of us could work up a phony history for me,” Steven enthused. “We could say I’ve been flying for years! For…”
He glanced at Ernie. “For Donovan Air Charter!”

“I need a drink,” Ernie said, reaching for the pint.

“You’ll go along with this, won’t you, Ernie?” Steven pleaded.

“For another fifty bucks I would,” Ernie solemnly said.

“There you go, Red!” Steven beamed. “I’ll give you a hundred, and I’ll give Ernie fifty out of my own sign-up money. That’s
added to the money you both get just for recruiting me.”

“It might work, if you could pull it off, kid,” Ed mused.

“Sure I can pull it off! We can make up my record right here and now. Both you guys know airplanes. You’ll know in a few minutes
that I’ve got the patter to back myself up.”

“Fuck, kid, you’re seventeen years old,” Red complained. “You really want to get yourself into this?”

“Yeah, I do,” Steven said earnestly. “You can’t imagine how much I want to get myself into this.”

Red nodded. “And I get the one hundred from you?”

“As soon as I get my bonus I’ll fork it over. You can’t lose.”

“Okay, on one condition, kid. You use a phony name, and we all agree to keep our mouths shut about this. That goes for you,
too, Ernie,” he warned.

“No problem with me,” Ernie said.

“If the shit ever hits the fan, I’m going to claim you lied to me, kid, just like you lied to everyone else. But what we got
to do is keep our traps shut so that the shit never does hit. The guy in command over there in China ain’t like me. He’s got
scruples.”

“No problem.” Steven grinned. “What’s this guy’s name, anyway?”

“An ex-army Air Corps captain. Expert flier. A guy named Chennault. Clair Lee Chennault.”

“Never heard of him,” Steven said.

“Hah!” Ernie shook his head, laughing. “Now I need
another
drink.”

Red sighed. “Kid, I do hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“You say he’s disappeared?” Blaize laughed.

Suzy nodded. It was early evening. They were in the front room of Blaize’s apartment on Colorado Boulevard, near the pier.
It was a warm night, and the windows were open. They could hear the merry-go-round’s jolly calliope melodies, the shouts and
laughter coming off the boardwalk, and over it all, the ever-present murmur of the Pacific.

“It turns out that my parents have had private detectives keeping an eye on Steven ever since he ran off.”

“How typical of your father,” Blaize said. He reached for the bottle of gin next to the overflowing ashtray on the glass-topped,
bamboo coffee table.

“Blaize, don’t you think you’ve had enough of that for tonight?” Suzy asked gently, but he pretended not to have heard. She
thought he looked terrible. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and looked like he was losing weight. His face was gaunt,
and his eyes were dark hollows: green fires burning in deep caves. When they made love, which these days they did infrequently,
Suzy could feel his bones, cold through his thin skin, as if he were a skeleton masquerading as a man.

“Blaize, I said haven’t you had enough—”

“Never enough…” Blaize laughed joylessly.

“Daddy says you haven’t come to work for three days.”

“Doesn’t matter.” His voice was slightly slurred. As he poured the gin into his glass he slopped some of it onto the coffee
table. “I am blessed with a job from which I cannot be fired. Now tell me more! Tell me everything about how your brother
has fucked over your fuck of a father.”