Aces (55 page)

Suzy hated it when he talked about Daddy like that, but she’d learned not to say anything, or else Blaize would accuse her
of being disloyal, and she didn’t have the strength to deal with that scene again, not tonight.

“Well, it turns out that ever since Steven took off, my parents have had detectives regularly reporting in on his whereabouts.
The detectives tracked him to some horrid place in New Jersey where he was working as an airplane mechanic. I guess it looked
to them like he was settling in, so the detectives got lazy. They kept taking my dad’s retainer money, but they checked on
Steven only once every couple of weeks, instead of every couple of days, like they said they were.”

“Marvelous,” Blaize murmured. He gestured toward her with his glass, sloshing gin onto the carpet. “Do go on—”

“Well, one day they went to check, and he was gone. Poof! Just like that he’d disappeared. The guy he was working for claimed
not to know anything…”

“A friend in need is a friend, indeed,” Blaize mumbled.

“Well, the detectives called my folks, who panicked. They must have hired every gumshoe on the East Coast, and brought the
police into it, but so far, nobody has any idea where Steven could be.”

“Marvelous,” Blaze repeated. He downed his drink and poured himself another. “You say this all took place months ago?”

Suzy nodded. “He disappeared from New Jersey the beginning of May, but I didn’t know about any of this detective stuff until
today. You see, all along my parents have been feeding me this song and dance about how worried they were; that they were
martyring themselves to allow him his freedom.”

“Some freedom!” Blaize snarled. “With detectives watching his every move. He was merely on the world’s longest leash. What
a hypocrite your father is…”

Suzy gritted her teeth and ignored the dig. “But for the entire summer, and into the fall, my parents have been
really
moping around, you know? Finally, I managed to get my mother to tell me the whole story.”

“A toast to Steven,” Blaize said, raising his glass. “At last he has accomplished what I have failed to do. He is free of
your father.”

He turned his bleary eyes toward Suzy. She knew that look. He was drunk. Again.

“And a toast to you, my pretty,” he murmured, saluting her with his glass. “A toast to my pretty jailer.”

“Don’t say that to me!” Suzy jumped to her feet, livid with rage. “Don’t you ever say anything like that to me—”

“Aren’t you my jailer?” he asked, bemused. “My Circe, keeping me bewitched and a prisoner—”

She snatched up the gin bottle and hurled it against the wall, where it shattered. “You keep yourself a prisoner!”

She turned on her heel and ran through the apartment.

“Where are you going?” Blaize called out, and the raw panic in his voice almost stopped her.

“Home!” she yelled, pausing in the kitchen to grab her purse, and then out the door, and down the steps, out onto the street,
where she stood transfixed.

Down the block, where the boardwalk began, the fairy lights and music of a happy world beckoned. How she wished that she could
venture forth and lose herself in that promised gaiety; meet a happy young man, and never look back…

How she wished she didn’t love Blaize so much, or that she could at least find the strength to deny herself that love…

His hand upon her shoulder did not startle her. She knew that he would appear to draw her away from the lights and laughter.
There were tears in her eyes as she turned to face him. “It’s not fair that you can make me so happy,
and so sad—
”

Blaize nodded, and gently embraced her. “I can be a fool,” he whispered. “I am sorry.”

“Damn you! How could you talk to me that way?” she demanded.

Blaize continued to hold her tight. “I get angry… and I get drunk, and I say hurtful, foolish things to you. Things I don’t
mean.” He tilted up her chin. “This much I do mean. I need you, Suze. I love you and I need you. If you ever left me, I’d
walk out to the end of that pier and jump—”

“I don’t want to hear that kind of talk, either—”

“I swear that I would, Suze.”

She pulled away from him. “This feud between you and my father is destroying you.”

“Do you have any idea how much I detest myself for being
here
, when my country needs me?” Blaize said.

“But your RAF superiors assigned you here!” she argued. “You have your orders! Why can’t you just accept that?”

Blaize nodded. “It appears that I must… But I will never forgive your father for orchestrating my predicament!”

“Very well, hate my father!” Suzy shouted.

“I will! He’s spoiled everything!”

“But must he spoil our love, as well?” Suzy challenged.

Blaize stared at her a moment, and then he smiled. “No,” he whispered. “He needn’t… Do you really love me, Suze?”

She resisted the urge to smack his face. “Would I be hanging around here if I didn’t?” she asked wryly.

He smiled, nodding in acquiescence. “Then let me try to explain. When I think of you as your father’s daughter, I see him
in you—there
is
plenty of him in you, you know—and that makes me hate you a little.”

“But what can I do about that?” Suzy demanded.

Blaize took a step toward her and kissed her lightly on the lips. “You could marry me,” he said.

“W-what are you saying?” she asked, shocked.

“Actually, I’m not saying, I’m proposing.” Blaize smiled. “You see, my love, if you married me, you would no longer be Herman
Gold’s daughter. You’d be Mrs. Blaize Greene.” He laughed. “Actually, seeing as I’m Lord Greene, you’d be Lady Susan…” He
winked. “Lady
Suze
, to me.”

“But… married… How could we?”

“We could elope! To Nevada! We could leave now! By this time tomorrow we could be man and wife.”

“Blaize, I do love you…” She stared at him. “You
are
sober? You know what you’re saying?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you do want to marry me for
me
, right?” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not trying to get even with my father?”

He looked angry for an instant, but then he relaxed. “I deserved that, for having behaved so abominably toward you these past
few months. If you will do me the honor of accepting my proposal, I swear to you that I will never again give you cause to
hold me in such low esteem.”

“Good answer.” Suzy chuckled, slipping her arms around his waist and giving him a kiss. “But why do we have to elope? It’ll
come as such a shock to my parents.”

“I want this to belong to us, alone. I don’t want your father tainting it for me.
Can
you understand?”

“Yes, I suppose I can. But I can’t—I
won’t
—choose between you two,” she warned. “I’ll love my father just as much as I always have.”

“I understand that,” Blaize said. “And perhaps I’ll be able to come to terms with him.” He smiled, shyly. “If you’re by my
side.”

Suzy needed to ponder it for only an instant to know what was right. She did love him, and wanted to marry him. “I’ll accept,
on a few conditions. Number one, no more drinking.”

“Done.”

“And you’ll take a shower, and shave, before we leave for Nevada.”

“Agreed.” He laughed.

“You’ll put on some weight—”

“I’ll blow up like a balloon!”

“And we don’t fly to Nevada,” Suzy said, between kisses. “We drive!”

At noon Herman Gold told his secretary he was leaving for lunch, and never went back. He was just too depressed to face the
office. He ended up driving to downtown L.A., where he decided to escape his own, and the world’s, troubles by going to the
movies.

On December 8, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt had declared war upon Japan. Three days later,
Hilter had declared war on the United States, and the day after that Herman Gold had declared war on the Axis, by presenting
himself at his local army recruiting center to volunteer for the U.S. Air Corps. The army’s doctors had looked him over and
then rejected him for any sort of duty, never mind being a pilot, telling him that he was too fat, and that he’d failed the
eye test.

Granted, it had been a dumb idea for Gold to have gone down there in the first place, he now thought as he wandered past the
Broadway movie houses. No doubt he was doing far greater service for America by overseeing GAT’s production of war birds.
It still irked him that he had been found unfit to defend his country.

He hadn’t told anyone about his misadventure, and he never would tell about it. He knew he’d never be able to endure the ribbing
if word of it ever got out, especially considering what he’d done to keep Blaize Greene out of the war. Gold shuddered at
the thought of the humiliation he’d have to endure if Teddy Quinn ever got wind of it…

But being stamped 4-F was only the final straw upon Gold’s backbreaking burden of disappointments, beginning with the news
that Blaize and his daughter were now man and wife.

Blaize and Suzy had run off to Nevada to get married, without telling anyone of their plans. Surprisingly, Erica hadn’t been
all that upset upon hearing the news. She’d seemed to think that eloping was romantic, and that Blaize wasn’t a bad catch
for their daughter, but Gold didn’t trust Greene’s motives. He’d been keeping his mouth shut for fear of being branded paranoid,
but Gold couldn’t shake the notion that Blaize Greene’s marrying Suzy was the young Englishman’s way of getting even…

But what was done was done, Gold now thought. At least Suzy was safe and sound, even if it was in some shabby apartment near
the Santa Monica pier, and as the wife of a man who professed to hate him. Gold could only hope that his son was also safe
and sound—

Somewhere…

Steven was still missing. Gold had hired more detectives, but they could find no trace of his son. He’d brought the police
into the search, but the New Jersey authorities had been no help at all. As far as they were concerned, a boy approaching
his eighteenth birthday was no kid, and had the right to go where he wanted. Gold supposed that was the point that Steven
had been trying to make all along, before giving up and taking off.

If only he hadn’t been too stubborn to listen, Gold brooded. Given the chance now, Gold would be too happy to swear that he’d
learned his lesson.

He paused to study the marquee outside the Century Grand Theater.
The Maltese Falcon
was playing. Gold had heard good things about the movie, but hadn’t gotten around to seeing it. He did like Humphrey Bogart…

Too bad he couldn’t hire a guy like Bogart to find his son for him, Gold thought as he bought a ticket and went inside. He
paused to buy a sack of popcorn in the mirrored lobby, and then he followed a uniformed usher’s bobbing flashlight to a seat
in the darkened auditorium. The theater was crowded, and Gold had to sit fairly close to the screen. He crossly wondered what
all these people were doing spending their afternoons hiding away in the dark. You’d think these able bodies would be able
to find work…

A newsreel was just beginning as Gold settled in. Up on the screen an intrepid fellow in a turtle-neck sweater, his trousers
tucked into high boots, was peering through a movie camera mounted on a tripod.

Kaleidoscope Productions presents your news picture magazine of the world
— the narrator exclaimed, as trumpets blared in the background.

The newsreel led off with pictures of the smoking devastation that was Pearl Harbor. There were airplanes burning on the tarmac,
and crumpled battleships going belly-up as they slid silently beneath the sea.

December seventh, a day that will live forever in infamy!
the narrator intoned, his voice quivering with indignation as he quoted Roosevelt.

Next came a shot of President Roosevelt himself, standing before a huge American flag backdrop as he addressed Congress, asking
for a declaration of war.

Watch out, Tojo!
the narrator warned.
Pearl Harbor is going to be the mistake you won’t live long enough to regret!

We take you now to Russia, where the German blitzkreig advances!

There was an aerial view of the vast, snowy tundra that was Russia in winter. Russian peasants—men, women, and children—were
shown building a barricade across the road that led into their village.

Yes, they’ll die in defense of Mother Russia, every last one of them! And they swear to Stalin that they’ll take a Nazi with
them! Watch out, Huns! Your “lightning strike” just might end up frozen dead in its tracks by Russia’s secret weapon: 01’
Man Winter!

Gold sighed. All this war stuff was only further depressing him. He’d come here to forget reality, not have the awful state
of the world thrust at him in images thirty feet tall. He was about to head out to the men’s lounge until it was time for
The Maltese Falcon
, when the screen was filled with a pair of fighter planes—Curtiss P-40s, Gold thought they were—banking across a clear sky.

The P-40s had the twelve-pointed Chinese Nationalist stars on their wings, and bizarre, toothy shark profiles painted on their
noses just aft their props.

Hi-ho, Tojo!
the voiceover chortled.
Before you yellow-bellied sons of the rising sun lay claim to China, you’ll have to deal with these fellows! Don’t let those
Chinese stars painted on the wings fool you. These pilots are Yanks! And this time they’re ready for you, Tojo, and spoiling
for a fight!

Gold settled back in his seat. Anything to do with fighter planes interested him.

We take you now to the exotic mountain jungles of Asia
—

The movie screen showed a map of Southern China and Burma, and then a bird’s-eye view of a narrow road, zigzagging between
rugged mountain passes thickly blanketed with vegetation.

And slithering like a serpent for seven hundred miles through these vast jungles is the Burma Road. With the Japs controlling
China’s sea-lanes, the Burma Road is China’s last supply link to the outside world!