Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (55 page)

Lewis' reply was forestalled by Henry and Jerry approaching, Jerry looking uncommonly keen and fresh given the hour.

"All ready?" Henry asked cheerfully.

"Ready," Alma said.

“P
assengers here, please,” the man with the clipboard called. “Official passengers, over here.”

Jerry turned slowly, careful in the crowd and on the concrete floor of the hangar. The last thing he wanted was to go sprawling, tripped up by his artificial leg. He felt reasonably rested, despite the late night; he’d shaved carefully and worn his own best suit, the one he’d had made in Chicago four years ago. It was a little old-fashioned, but it wouldn’t disgrace the team.

Mitch frowned. He hadn’t had time to shave, and there were circles under his eyes. “What — is this the drawing?”

Jerry nodded. This was the first of the publicity stunts: the passengers would draw their teams’ starting position an hour before the first plane left. He thought it was unfair, leaving everyone stewing and in doubt about their strategy, but Alma had just shrugged, and he’d left it at that. “Any particular position you want me to try for?”

He was good at influencing probabilities — dice, cards, lotteries — and he could see Alma consider it for a moment before she shook her head. “No. There’s ten minutes between each start, and it’s all elapsed time anyway, so — let’s save that for later.”

“Ok,” Jerry said, and started for the door.

The organizers had gathered the official passengers at the steps that led up to the platform, and one of the handlers was checking them off on a clipboard.

“Dr. Ballard,” he said, making his mark. “Gilchrist Aviation. Please stay right here.”

“Of course,” Jerry said, and leaned more heavily on his cane. At least he wasn’t the only man in the group. Comanche Air’s passenger was a craggy-faced man with the weathered skin of a cowboy; he caught Jerry’s glance and gave him a wry grin and a flick of the eyebrows that encompassed the gaggle of pretty girls surrounding them. Jerry smiled back, but didn’t move any closer.

It was easy to pick out the girls who belonged to the three mail lines, all of them blonde and curvy, with expensive makeup and dresses cut to make a show without actually being immodest, and all of them practiced at catching the camera’s eye. Up-and-coming actresses, all of them, Jerry remembered, though the one flying with American was supposed to be engaged to one of their pilots. The girl from Consolidated was a brunette, pert and pretty and equally at home in front of the cameras, a long scarf in Consolidated’s colors wound about her neck. She was a contract player at RKO, Jerry remembered from the party, and a would-be flyer herself. The remaining women had done their best, but next to the starlets they looked positively drab. May Saltonstall’s suit was well-cut, an expensive gray wool that would look perfectly fine in Boston, but in California made her look twice her age, and her face was pink from sun and nerves. The other two, representing Jezek Air and Bestways Air Transport, had done their best, but their frocks were last year’s colors, and the woman from Jezek had opted for an artificial silk that wilted in the morning heat. She was doing her best to pretend it didn’t matter, but Jerry could see the strain behind her smile.

“You’re from Jezek?” he asked, and she turned, relaxing slightly as she realized he wasn’t a reporter.

“Yes. And you’re — Gilchrist?”

Jerry nodded. “Mr. Kershaw warned us we’d need to watch out for the Corsair.”

She snorted. “Connie — my husband — tried to sell him on the design when he worked for Republic. But — we’ll see.”

“Hey! Mrs. Jezek! How’s the Polish Jalopy holding up?” That was one of the photographers, moving closer with his big camera.

Mrs. Jezek closed her eyes for a moment. “We are Czech, actually.”

“How about a smile?”

She managed one, and the girl from Consolidated linked arms with her, offering a bigger smile and a flash of leg.

“Don’t let ’em needle you, hon,” she said, under her breath. “They’re all going to follow Winchell’s lead.”

Mrs. Jezek managed a more natural smile, leaning closer to the Consolidated girl, auburn hair against rich brown, and the photographer raised his camera.

“Nice one! Hey, Doc, how ‘bout you join them?”

Jerry moved in, forcing a smile of his own, and the photographers snapped away.

“Passengers! Passengers on the platform, please!” one of the organizers shouted, and Jerry pulled away, hanging back a little so that he could go last, where there would be room to haul himself up in spite of the artificial leg.

“Gentlemen on the ends, please,” a young woman was saying, as she sorted them into the most photogenic pattern. “Miss Collins in the middle, you ladies here — yes, perfect, thank you.”

She stepped back, and Jerry looked down to find himself next to May Saltonstall. She gave him a wry smile. “Quite a production — Professor Ballard, is it?”

Of course she’d been to Radcliffe, just as her brothers had been to Harvard. Jerry nodded. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Saltonstall.”

“I think we have a mutual acquaintance —”

A crackle of static from the speaker above them drowned out what she might have said, and Jerry composed himself to listen as the day’s master of ceremonies — the manager of Grand Central, a nice bit of publicity — stepped up to begin the proceedings. He ran through the race rules for the benefit of anyone who hadn’t been reading the papers — six legs from Los Angeles to Coconut Grove, all planes to be stock passenger planes, each one to carry a non-pilot passenger — while the sun beat down on the open platform, and Jerry felt the sweat begin to worm its way down his back. He kept his face unmoving, schooled to the same bland smile he’d worn under bombardment, and beside him May Saltonstall dabbed nervously at her mascara. Below them, a couple of hundred people crowded onto the tarmac, reporters and photographers filling the first rows, while the newsreel cameras ground away, black boxes poking up out of the edges of the crowd.

“— draw for starting positions,” the manager said at last, and another pair of pretty girls in bright red dresses made their way up onto the platform. They carried a long silver tray between them, nine envelopes laid on in a row against the polished metal. “Hold on to your envelopes, please, until everyone has chosen. Ladies first.”

They began with Mrs. Jezek, who hesitated only for an instant before grabbing the middle one. The girls in red moved down the line, letting the women pick, so that there were only two envelopes left when they got to Jerry. He considered for an instant, then took the left-hand one, and the girls brought the almost-empty tray back to the man from Comanche Air.

“Ladies — and gentlemen, of course,” the manager said. “You may open your envelopes now.”

Jerry ripped his open, saw the others doing the same, and unfolded his paper to reveal a large number five printed in heavy black ink. The girl from Consolidated held hers up at chest height, displaying a big 2, and the other women copied her. Jerry did the same, glancing down the line. United was first out, then Consolidated, then the Corsair — a nice break for them, if only for the publicity — then TWA. Gilchrist would follow them, with the Harvards next, and Comanche, Bestways, and American rounding out the field. For all that Alma swore the starting order didn’t matter, Jerry couldn’t help wishing he’d drawn a higher number. Below them, the camera shutters clattered, the photographers calling
smile
and
look this way
, and Jerry obeyed mechanically, looking over the crowd toward the hangar. It was time to get underway.

Chapter Six

L
ewis leaned over Alma’s shoulder, looking at the fuel calculations she and Mitch had been struggling over. Despite the late night, he felt pretty good — yeah, he could have used another couple hours’ sleep, but he was certainly ready. Mitch and Alma both looked worse, dark circles under Alma’s eyes, Mitch showing an unusual hint of stubble. Lewis touched his own chin in reflex, reassuring himself that he still looked presentable. He had a heavy beard, and had to shave twice a day if he wanted to look decent, and the last thing he wanted was to disgrace Gilchrist. Or Henry, he supposed, but it was really Alma who mattered.

He made himself focus on the numbers. “We’re not going with full tanks?” he asked, pitching his voice low to keep from being overheard.

Alma shook her head. “Mitch and I worked it out,” she said, lowering her voice to match. “Two hundred twenty gallons still gives us a decent margin, especially with a light tail wind predicted the whole way. And we’ll be three hundred pounds lighter.”

That would make a difference, all right, though Lewis couldn’t say he really liked it. Not when the shortest route took them over the Mohave most of the way. But those were the choices: fly north or south of the most direct line, and have towns and highways for landmarks to supplement the compass readings, or trust your dead reckoning and strike out for Flagstaff by the quickest route. The trouble with that plan was that if anything went wrong, mechanical trouble, weather, anything at all, there was nowhere to land but the desert itself. Or the broken badlands in between. “We’ve got extra water on board?”

Alma stopped, fixing him with a look. “Do you have a bad feeling here?”

Lewis paused, considering the question, trying to find the still center that would let him give a truthful answer. “No,” he said at last, and shrugged. “Guess it’s just preflight jitters.”

“Ok,” Alma said, and nodded.

“Problems?” Mitch asked.

Lewis shook his head before Alma could answer. “Just going over the details.”

“We’re fueled and ready,” Mitch said. “Now it’s just finding out where we start —”

There was a roar from the crowd gathered outside the hangar, and Lewis looked over his shoulder to see the first of the reporters scurrying toward the planes. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

At the back of the hangar, a man in one of the red-striped jackets that marked a race referee lifted a megaphone to his mouth. “Teams, you may start your engines!”

“Not until we find out where we start,” Mitch muttered.

“Fifth,” Alma said.

Lewis craned his neck to see where she was looking, and spotted Jerry limping through the crowd, holding a piece of paper over his head that was emblazoned with a big number five. “No hurry, then,” he said. There was a ten minute gap between starts; no need to waste fuel or worry about overheating by idling on the runway.

“Go ahead and start the preflight, though,” Alma said.

Lewis climbed into the Terrier, glad to be out of the crowd’s eye for the moment. It was warm in the fuselage in spite of the new white exterior, and he shrugged out of his jacket, leaving it neatly folded on a rear-facing seat. By rights this should be Mitch’s leg — the Terrier was his baby — and Lewis meant to do right by him. He settled himself into the cockpit, fitting himself behind the familiar controls, and ran down the checklist that was becoming as familiar to him as breathing. Everything was in order, just the start sequence left, and he leaned forward to peer out the narrow side windows. Across the hangar, the Ford in United’s colors fired its engines, spitting flame and smoke before it settled to a smooth roar. A moment later, Consolidated started up, and the race marshals began moving the planes out of the hangar.

Mitch brought the ladder over, climbed it to turn the big propeller, making sure everything was clear, left wing, right wing, nose. Lewis heard the familiar clatter of Jerry pulling himself into the passenger compartment, and then Alma joined him in the cockpit, settling herself into the copilot’s seat.

“Ok,” she said. “Fire her up.”

Lewis glanced out the windows again to be sure Mitch was clear, then pumped the primer a couple of times. Throttle closed, fuel at “Full Rich,” spark at “Full Advance.” Starter on, starter dog engaged. He took a breath, and switched on the ignition and the booster magneto. The center engine caught and fired, and then the pair on the wings; he adjusted the spark and eased the throttle open, watching the oil temperature climb.

He heard the rattle of the stairs being folded in, and then the bang of the cabin door sealing. A moment later, Mitch stuck his head into the cockpit.

“We can taxi when ready,” he said. “Follow the flagman.”

“Right,” Lewis said. The oil was warm now, the engines turning over nicely, and he looked at Alma. “Ready when you are, Al.”

“Let’s do this,” she said, but her expression was grimmer than her words.

Lewis lowered his side window and waved to the flagman, signaling that they were ready. The man waved back, and Lewis eased the throttle back to idle and followed him decorously out of the hangar.

A plane had just taken off, little more than a bright dot disappearing into the eastern sky, and the TWA Ford was taxiing slowly toward the end of the runway. Lewis let the Terrier creep slowly forward, engines at idle, watching the engine temperatures climb and then hold steady, testing flaps and rudder one last time.

“Flag’s up,” Alma said. “There goes TWA.”

Lewis nodded, watching the big trimotor turn into the wind. It trundled forward, clumsy at first, then more graceful as it picked up speed. The pilot let the tail come up, and the Ford rose neatly into the air, banking as it turned south toward the Banning Pass.

“We’ll all be going that way to start,” Alma said. “After…”

After that, they’d see who the real gamblers were.

Lewis eased the Terrier into position at the end of the runway, revving the throttle and tightening the brakes as the last minutes ticked away. At the end of the runway, the flag went up. He released the brakes and shoved the throttle forward, fuel once again at “Full Rich” for the takeoff. The Terrier responded eagerly, leaping forward, the tail coming up almost at once, and he couldn’t help grinning as the ground fell away below them. At three hundred feet, he banked south and east, Alma calling out the heading for the Banning Pass, and he watched the compass turn, straightening the plane to come smoothly onto the new course. For an instant, he thought he felt something shift in the tail — no, not even a shift, just an odd heaviness, something off, but then it was gone again. He checked the instruments, saw nothing wrong.