Glory Boys (51 page)

He was taken aback. His mouth was dry, but he was working hard to appear normal. ‘No, Sarah. No, no. Nothing like that.’

‘It was just that you were looking at me very hard.’

‘Was I? Probably thinking about something else. No, no, Sarah, if I want you I only need to ring.’

He gestured at his phone and the gesture woke him up. His self-importance returned like a favourite coat. Whatever it was that Pen had hoped to discover had slipped away again.

But she’d seen enough. There’s no better way to train your instincts than to fly. In her days of pylon racing, Pen had flown at full speed around a course marked out by thirty-foot steel pylons. She’d had to fly close to the ground, turning the plane up to two hundred and seventy degrees, and doing it all at more than two hundred miles an hour. The turns had been so hard that the blood had literally drained from her head. A couple of times she’d momentarily lost vision as the plane came around, regaining sight only as the plane levelled. What had kept her on course, above ground, still flying, still racing?

Instinct, only instinct.

And it was Pen’s instinct that told her what had happened. Somehow – she couldn’t even begin to guess how – the Marion mob had uncovered her new identity. Or to be precise: it suspected it. Someone had phoned the bank for confirmation. Had they hired anyone recently? A new girl, name unknown, short hair, probably blonde but maybe dyed, slim, taller than average, tanned?

Easy questions to ask, easy questions to answer. Rogers would have identified Pen within a few sentences. And then what? What had they told him? What had they asked of him? It was something that had shocked him, thrilled him, made him lie.

107

The movie theatre was advertising a Buster Keaton picture, but some dimwitted projectionist had leaned the reels up against a heating pipe and the celluloid had begun to crumple and melt. The management searched around for something else they could play instead and all they could come up with was an old flying picture: Willard T. Thornton in
When We Were Heroes.

Susan grabbed her sister’s arm. ‘Oh, Ros, look! It’s one of Willard’s.’

Rosalind stopped uncomfortably. She’d seen a couple of Willard’s movies and hadn’t liked them. She didn’t want to see another, but couldn’t very well say so. Meantime, Susan was putting her hand in her purse to find the admission money and asking Rosalind if she wanted her popcorn sweet or salted.

They watched the picture. Willard played a war hero. Eve Moroney, ‘the Prairie Flame’, played his girl. There was no plot. The girl kept on being kidnapped. Willard kept rescuing her, being captured, risking his life, escaping, then doing the whole lot again. The movie finished. The lights came up. The theatre, not full to start with, emptied.

‘Ros! No wonder you’re in love,’ said Susan. ‘Didn’t he look wonderful? Those stunts. Did he fly them himself? I hadn’t realised how –’

She broke off. Rosalind wasn’t crying, but she was close to it. She sat forwards in her seat, eyes fixed on the empty screen.

‘Ros? Ros? Are you OK?’

Rosalind nodded.

‘Was it seeing him with Eve Moroney? It’s only a picture.’

‘It wasn’t only a picture. He got her pregnant.’

‘Really? Wow! But, you know, that’s all over now.’

‘It’s not her. I don’t care about her.’

She spoke the truth. She didn’t care about whatever had once happened between her fiancé and the famously beautiful Prairie Flame. A black kid in a uniform two sizes too big for him finished sweeping out the trash from the other seats in the theatre and stood leaning on his broom, waiting for the two women to leave. He had big sad eyes and seemed ready to wait for ever.

‘Let’s go.’

Out on the street, they walked for a block in silence, before Rosalind spoke her mind.

‘You know, Suze, I once said to him that I loved a man who couldn’t act.’

‘Oh, Ros! That was a bit hard of you.’

‘Well, it’s not his strong point, is it? But the point is, what I saw in that picture was what I see…’ She was going to say in the bedroom, but the truth was she saw it everywhere else as well. ‘It’s what I see all the time. The same gestures. The same expressions. It’s like he’s always in front of a camera.’

‘Well, I suppose a thing like that gets into the blood. There are worse things in a man.’

‘Yes.’

Rosalind knew she was expected to say something stronger, but somehow couldn’t. When they were with friends, they seemed like the most brilliant couple in New York. But when they were alone, not dancing, not eating out, not getting drunk, just together alone, their relationship seemed to dwindle until Rosalind sometimes wondered whether she could see it at all.

‘He is brave, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. Very, I think.’

‘Clever? Handsome? Charming?’

‘Oh, I’m probably being an idiot. It’s probably just wedding nerves.’

‘It probably is, you know.’

‘So that’s all right then.’

Rosalind spoke bitterly, and it was half an hour before she seemed herself again. But though her mood improved, there was one image from
When We Were Heroes
that she couldn’t get rid of.

When Willard had finally thwarted the bad guys, rescued the girl, landed his plane, he had looked for a long moment direct into camera. Susan had been right, of course. Willard’s face wasn’t just good-looking, it was exceptional, a face made for the movies. But his expression! Bold – determined – triumphant – resolute – loving – masculine. There was nothing wrong with the expression. It was just right for the movie, Willard’s best scene of the film.

But it wasn’t the first time she’d seen it. She’d seen the exact same expression the time he’d come back from Canada, having, so he said, exposed and defeated the racketeers inside Powell Lambert. There was no reason why he shouldn’t have worn such an expression. He’d been through a time of uncertainty and danger. He’d used his guts and his brains. He’d avenged a good man’s death and brought justice to a criminal conspiracy. But it was so like the movies!

Rosalind played the moment over and over in her head. And the more she played it, the more she saw something different in it. Willard’s expression had been careful, controlled, deliberate.

Fake.

108

Willard had travelled plenty in his life. Manhattan was ‘his’ town, the East Coast his back yard. He had skied in Colorado, sunned himself in the south, visited relations in Canada, spent Augusts in England and Scotland, travelled west to Hollywood and the blue Pacific. But oddly enough, he’d never once been to Washington, his nation’s capital.

And now he was on his way. Not because he’d chosen to go, but because Powell had made him.

‘A vacation, Will. You’ve earned it. Think of it as a gift from the Firm. And when did you last see your old man? I swear to you, your pa spends too much time thinking about his guns and bombs. You go tell him how business is done in the rest of America.’

‘But, listen Powell, I’m busy.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re not if I say you’re not. I’ll get people to cover for you.’

‘Well, there’s Rosalind too. I’m about to get married, Powell. I’ve got –’

But Powell had his hand up. ‘Send her a postcard.’ The banker had a grin pasted across his face like an advert for toothpaste, but with Powell, Willard knew, you should always look at the eyes and the eyes weren’t smiling. And this wasn’t a vacation. He was being sent away so Roeder and Powell could do whatever the hell they wanted in Marion without interference. He felt powerless, stupid and angry.

But what could he do? Nothing. If he didn’t agree to go to Washington, Powell would make him go anyway. So he agreed. He agreed, but he did one extra thing. He booked a ticket on a liner leaving Los Angeles for Sydney, Australia in sixteen days’ time. He booked the ticket in the name John Jackson and arranged with one of the Firm’s clients, a drinks peddler with a profitable sideline in counterfeit documents, for a passport to be prepared in the same name. He put the ticket and passport in an envelope along with two thousand dollars in cash. He kept the envelope in his inside jacket pocket, close to his skin.

Because Willard had finally made a decision. He would do everything he could to get the package to Rockwell. He’d do what he could to make Rockwell see sense and get the hell out. He’d do what he could, and if he failed then he failed. Captain Rockwell had voluntarily entered a dangerous game.

Unltimately the consequences would be down to him.

109

Out on the airfield in Miami, the air was deathly still.

The hangar had its doors open, but not a single draught penetrated its gloomy walls. Hueffer’s shirt stuck to him as though glued. Any movement brought on a prickle of sweat. Two hundred yards away, down on the beach, the sea was an odd combination of sluggish and turbulent. On the surface, the waves looked dead. Greasy waves rolled over with hardly a ripple. But all the time, an uneasy swell grew in size. Bigger waves, not high but very broad, rolled steadily in.

The humid lifelessness of the air could mean only one thing, and that thing was confirmed by a glance to the south-east. Out to sea, a line of clouds, like some vast fortification, crept slowly forward as though on giant rollers. Hueffer had already been out to check that Poll was snug outside under her canvas cover. She was settled down as tight as could be, but even so Hueffer went out with extra ropes, a couple more steel pegs. He did what he could, then thought about checking the hangar roof. It was no good securing Poll if the hangar went and blew itself to bits. But before he could act, the phone rang. He snatched it up.

‘Yes? Hello?’

‘Hello?’ The voice was a woman’s, its pitch and intonation unfamiliar yet also reminiscent of something or someone.

‘May I help you?’

‘My name is Miss Torrance calling from the Savings Bank of Northern Florida. Who am I speaking with please?’ The familiar-unfamiliar voice suddenly made sense. It was Pen’s voice shifted and distorted, but still hers. She was speaking strangely in order to fool any listeners on the line. Hueffer gripped the phone harder and answered carefully.

‘This is Arnie Hueffer. I’m afraid Captain Rockwell is away on business. I can reach him by telephone if you wish.’

‘No, I’d like to speak with Mr Anderson, if possible.’

She spoke very clearly and deliberately. A wrong number call for Mr Anderson was the agreed code calling for instant help, for Abe to launch an airborne rescue mission.

‘There’s no Mr Anderson here. You maybe need to check your number.’

There was a pause. The code had been used and acknowledged. By rights they ought to hang up, only neither of them wanted to. Hueffer wanted to ask what the problem was, but knew he couldn’t.

‘I guess so. I’ll check it,’ said Pen. She too was hanging on to the call: a friendly voice, a trusted one. Oceans of unspoken friendship and concern washed around in the silences.

‘Listen, if you’ve got a call to make, you should make it soon. There’s a bad storm coming in. Real bad. I’d say there ain’t gonna be many phone lines standing after it’s passed through.’

He wanted to say:
There’s no way on God’s earth Abe can fly in this weather.
He wanted to say: ‘
Get the hell out. We’ll come find you later; soon as we can.

‘Right… It’s Mr Anderson I need,’ said Pen stupidly. ‘Mr Anderson.’

She was saying:
I have to have Abe. With an airplane. Storm or no storm, I have to have them.’

‘Right… Well, like I say, no Mr Anderson here.

Code acknowledged once again. He’d do what he could. He wanted to say.
Look after yourself, Fen. For Christ’s sake. Whatever happens. Look after yourself.

‘OK. Sure. I’ll check the number.’

Maybe it was the line, but Pen’s voice sounded a million miles away, small and lost.

‘You do that.’

‘Sure.’

Hueffer hung up. It was no use checking the hangar now. Loose sheets of tin, cracked roof joints, who cared any more? That phone call meant the endgame was in its last desperate stage. The three of them had already agreed that if Pen made her emergency call, they’d all assume their cover had been finally compromised. Arnie could no longer risk remaining where he was. He’d have to run for it, try to escape into the vastness of America.

But first he made the call he had to make. He called Abe in Marion.

‘Just had a call. Some dame wanting a Mr Anderson. You don’t know an Anderson, do you?’

‘Not me,’ said Abe. The same unspoken sentences washed between the two men. Then Abe changed the subject, or appeared to. His voice mostly sounded like its normal self: unhurried, decisive, quiet. But beneath the confidence there was something else. Anxiety not just for Pen, but for the conditions in which he was being asked to fly. ‘I don’t quite like the weather up here. There’s a bank of cloud a long way out still, but maybe you can see more your end.’

Hueffer glanced out of the gaping hangar door. The storm was unmistakable now. The sky south and east of Miami was dominated by the vast black wall of thundercloud. A greyish-yellow lightning flickered evilly between the parapets of clouds.

‘It’s bad,’ he said simply. ‘As bad as we’ve had. Not flying weather. It’ll hit here soon.’

‘I guess…’ Abe started, then let his voice fade. But Hueffer knew what he’d wanted to ask.

‘I told the dame there was a storm coming in. I told her if she wanted to reach this Anderson guy, she’d better do it before the phone lines are blown to hell. She was sure anxious about it.’

‘Uh-huh. OK… No, Arnie, I don’t know anyone of that name. Sorry I can’t help.’

‘OK. Don’t worry.’

A pause.

‘Take care, buddy.’

‘Yeah, you too. Take care.’

Just before they hung up, Abe said, ‘Oh, Arnie. I guess… I mean it isn’t worth worrying about or anything, I wouldn’t want you to…’

‘You’re worried about Poll?’

‘Not worried, I just wanted to know … well, OK, yes, darn it, I am worried.’

‘I’ve been out to check her out. I put a couple of extra turns around her. She’s as snug as I can make her. But this is a bad one, buddy. I don’t know if the hangar will be here in the morning.’