The Hot Pilots (12 page)

“Thank you,” Gold said, feeling uncomfortable because his ex-partner hadn’t been invited. “It was just a small ceremony. You
know, the family, and —”
And a few close friends
, he’d almost said, grateful that the waitress had chosen that moment to come take their orders.

Campbell ordered the breakfast special: scrambled eggs, ham, home-fries, English muffin. Gold just ordered toast and coffee.

“You oughta eat,” Campbell chided. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day—”

“We decided to meet here because it was convenient to both of our offices, not for the cuisine,” Gold replied. GAT was close
by, and although Amalgamated-Landis had manufacturing plants scattered around the Los Angeles area as far away as Long Beach
and El Segundo, its executive offices were in Burbank. “I haven’t been in a joint like this in thirty years.”

“Ah, I ate in places like this all the time when I was kid,” Campbell sighed, sounding astoundingly sentimental about it.
“As a matter of fact, I met my wife in a place like this. She was working the counter at a coffee shop near the L.A. State
Normal school campus. I used to stop in there for coffee when I was working my way through night school.”

Gold nodded. He knew that like himself, Campbell was a self-made man. Tim had run away from his poverty-level Providence,
Rhode Island home when he was twelve, riding the rails across America until he was caught by the authorities, and committed
to a midwestern youth camp, where he’d received a basic education. When he was sixteen he left the camp, going to work as
a clerk for Western Union, at first in Tulsa, and later in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, he took night school courses in accounting
and bookkeeping, eventually landing a bank teller’s position at the Pacific Coast Bank in downtown L.A., where he’d worked
himself up to junior loan officer by the time Gold had met him. Then Campbell left the bank to come to work for GAT. The rest,
as they say, is history.

“That your car?” Campbell asked, looking out the win-down at the fiery red and gleaming chrome El Dorado convertible.

“Good guess,” Gold said dryly, eyeing the battered autos and work vehicles that surrounded his shiny new toy.

“Nice,” Campbell sniffed. “That’s what I’m driving, over
there
—” He proudly gestured toward the dove gray, Mercedes-Benz 300 SL gull-winged coupe, parked on a diagonal, taking up two spaces
in the crowded lot.

“I test-drove one of those,” Gold said. “At the Mercedes place over on Wilshire.” He made a face. “It was okay. A little small
for my tastes. But I ordered one for Erica.”

The waitress came with the food. Gold glanced distastefully at his toast. It was dripping with butter. At least, he
hoped
it was butter.

“Should’a ordered butter on the side,” Campbell observed as he dug into his ham and eggs.

“You said that you needed to talk to me about something?” Gold asked, glancing at his watch.

Campbell nodded. “First off, I wanted to offer you my congratulations, and assure you that I harbor no grudge over the way
GAT beat the shit out of Amalgamated-Landis concerning the jetliner competition.”

“Thank you,” Gold said, and then added carefully, “Tim, I heard that you were canceling production of your AL-12 …?”

“Well, you got all the orders from the airlines,” Campbell said. “What was the point of building an airplane nobody wants?”

Gold, assuming that was a rhetorical question, just sipped at his coffee, which wasn’t bad.

“Of course, what really killed us was that Civil Aeronautics Board investigation …” Campbel set down his fork to study Gold.
“Of course, you had nothing to do with that?”

Gold shrugged. “How could I have?”

Campbell smiled, resumed eating. “Just what I thought, Herman, old buddy. How
could
you have?”

“Well,” Gold said. “If there’s nothing else, Tim, I ought to get going—”

“There
is
something else.” Campbell set down his knife and fork, and took out of his coat pocket a silver and onyx cigarette case with
matching lighter. “The reason I asked you here was to make you a proposition.”

“What kind of proposition?”

Campbell took a cigarette from the case and lit it. “How’d you like to sell me some airplanes?”

Gold burst out laughing. “I’ve heard of selling ice boxes to Eskimos, but never anything as farfetched as GAT selling airplanes
to Amalgamated-Landis.”

Campbell smiled indulgently. “Actually, what I meant was, how would GAT like to sell some airplanes to Sky-world?”

Gold wondered:
What the hell are you up to, Timmy?
Skyworld Airlines had been the “transport” part of Gold Aviation and Transport, before Campbell had parted with the airline
back in ‘33, after that major stock battle between the two partners.

“By the way,” Campbell said. “While we’re on the subject of Skyworld, Hull says hello.”

Gold nodded. Hull Stiles was Gold’s old buddy from his barnstorming days. Hull had been with GAT from the beginning, but he
was an air transport man, not an aircraft builder, and so had chosen to go with Tim Campbell after the split. Campbell became
the president of Skyworld, and Hull Stiles became the airline’s CEO. Thanks to the two of them, Skyworld prospered, easily
weathering out the turbulence of 1934, when FDR’s administration charged that the entire air transport industry was operating
as an illegal cartel. That was the year that the Feds invited new bids on domestic air route assignments, but stipulated that
no airline that had previously held a route could participate. The airlines got around that by simply changing their names.
Skyworld Airlines, for instance, became Skyworld, Incorporated on its new papers. A potentially more serious restriction was
that no route contract would be awarded to any airline that still employed the same top-level people in its executive suite.
Campbell got around that by resigning his position as president and putting Hull Stiles in full charge. Meanwhile, Tim stayed
on, taking no salary, as Skyworld’s chairman emeritus. Technically, he was no longer employed by the airline; he was merely
an investor, but Hull remained Campbell’s puppet, and no decision concerning Skyworld was made without Campbell’s approval.

“I had lunch with Hull a few weeks ago,” Gold said. He got together with his old friend regularly, and knew that Hull didn’t
mind being Tim’s second. Hull enjoyed the nuts-and-bolts side of running the airline. Tim occupied himself with what he called
“the big picture.”

“But let’s get back to your intriguing request to buy some airplanes from me,” Gold suggested, signaling the waitress for
a coffee refill. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

“Easy enough,” Campbell replied. “In the beginning, naturally, I expected Skyworld to buy AL-12 jetliners from Amalgamated-Landis.”

“
Naturally
, since you have controlling interests in both companies,” Gold smiled.

“Skyworld was at the top of A-L’s order list,” Campbell added. “And stayed loyal right through the CAB scare.”

Gold grinned to himself as he remembered how upset Hull Stiles had been about that. Hull had complained that all the other
airlines were canceling their orders for the suddenly controversial AL-12, and was worried that if Skyworld ended up being
the only airline equipped with the jetliner, the traveling public would stay away.

“But when all the other airlines deserted us in favor of buying your GC-909, I saw the handwriting on the wall,” Campbell
continued. “I knew we couldn’t allow A-L to go broke tooling up a production line to build airplanes exclusively for Skyworld.
But when Amalgamated canceled the AL-12, Skyworld was faced with a new predicament—”

Gold nodded. “Canceling the AL-12 left Skyworld without any jetliners on order.”

“And so, as hard as it is for me to accept,” Campbell said, smiling wryly, “I now find myself sitting across from you, and
asking if you’ll sell me some airplanes. So what do you say?”

“There’s no problem in my selling you 909s, Tim,” Gold began. “But I can’t promise you when you’ll get them. GAT’s commercial
transport division is working at full capacity, but I’ve still got a three-year order backlog. All I can do is put Skyworld
at the bottom of the list.”

“Come on, Herman,” Campbell scowled, disgusted. “All I want is a half dozen airplanes, and you’re telling me I’m not gonna
see ‘em until 1960, for chrissakes.”

“I don’t see a way around that,” Gold said firmly.

“Maybe Skyworld oughta buy from Boeing or Douglas …”

“That’s not much of a threat,” Gold replied, thinking that Boeing’s 707 had made its maiden flight, but that it was going
to be some time before the Seattle-based aircraft manufacturer could gear up to fill commercial orders. Douglas was even further
behind concerning its DC-8 jetliner.

“The competition is definitely on my heels with some fine airplanes,” Gold acknowledged, “but at this moment, GAT is the only
game in town when it comes to commercial jets. If you want some, you’re just going to have to wait your turn.”

“Now hold on, Herman,” Campbell said, looking worried. “Maybe we can negotiate a way out of this unhappy situation …”

Gold shrugged. “I’m listening.”

“You just told me that GAT is operating at full capacity?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you’re years away from filling all your orders, and meanwhile you know that Boeing and Douglas are breathing down your
neck, doing all they can to gear up to start stealing away the bottom two-thirds of your waiting list …”

“It’s the price of success, I suppose,” Gold replied. “We thought about subcontracting out the airframe manufacturing process,
but the economics aren’t there.”

“That’s right,” Campbell agreed. “Subcontracting is out of the question when you’re talking about an airplane like the 909,
but what about outright taking over new manufacturing capacity?”

Gold shook his head. “Once again, the cost would be enormous—”

“
Without
a major cash outlay?”

“Get to the point, Tim.”

“The point is that I’m desperate for those airplanes,” Campbell said. “Skyworld’s lifeblood is its domestic routes, especially
its New York to Florida runs. A lot of our Northeast corridor competition is due to receive their 909s. Sky-world is not going
to make it if all it can fly are prop planes. What I want you to do is push Skyworld to the top of your list, and in the meantime
find a way to temporarily snitch a couple of 909s from somebody else’s order, and immediately lend them to us, so that Skyworld
can be first on its block with jet aircraft.”

Gold thought:
It was certainly feasible
. GAT was about to deliver a large order—five 909s and ten intercontinental 909s—to Trans European Airlines, but the largely
international carrier was entering into its post-holiday winter doldrums, while Skyworld was beginning its New York to Florida
winter rush. TEA wouldn’t need its full order until spring, which would roughly coincide with Skyworld’s slower period, and
by then, if GAT put Skyworld at the top of its list, the airline could take possession of some 909s of its own.

“Okay, I
could
do that for you,” Gold said. “Now tell me why I
should
?”

“Because Skyworld will pay you a substantial leasing fee, and I, personally, will trade you three hundred thousand shares
of Amalgamated-Landis, and give you an option on another two hundred fifty thousand shares, in exchange for two hundred fifty
thousand shares of GAT.”

“That would make me the major stockholder in your company,” Gold said.

“And if you exercised your option you could take outright control,” Campbell added. “Then, by selling off A-L assets you could
finance the retooling of our Long Beach commercial transport plant complex, providing GAT with the extra 909 manufacturing
capacity it so desperately needs to fill its orders before Boeing and Douglas can get into the act.”

“The deal you’re offering me will cost you a fortune,” Gold pointed out.

“Sometimes you’ve got to spend money to make money,” Campbell philosophically replied. “Let me be frank. When the Civil Aeronautics
Board came after A-L the price of the company’s stock fell; it fell even further when we announced we were canceling our AL-12
program …”

“In other words, you’re taking a bath, and want to cut your losses by getting out,” Gold said.

“I want out, all right.” Campbell nodded. “This way I can get out and also help Skyworld to prosper. Plus, I can recoup some
of my losses by getting in on the ground floor with a quarter of a million shares of GAT that will skyrocket when it becomes
public that your company has doubled its 909 manufacturing capacity—”

“Separate checks here, gents?” The waitress had returned, and was reaching across the table to clear the plates.

“What kind of pie today?” Campbell asked.

“Cherry, apple, blueberry—”

“Apple, and more coffee for me—in a fresh mug,” Campbell stipulated. “You, Herman?”

“Nothing,” Gold said absently, pondering Campbell’s deal. “I didn’t like the sound of that last bit about you getting in on
the ground floor of GAT.” He frowned. “I’m not sure I want you back as a sizable stockholder.”

Campbell raised his right hand. “Word of honor, amigo. No trouble.”

“And I’m not so sure that you will make a killing on GAT stock,” Gold warned. “If we do this deal it’s going to be totally
on the up and up. Full disclosure to the public and the Feds, who, I expect, will be all over us on what amounts to a merger
between two major aviation concerns …”

“
Naturalmente,
” Campbell said lightly. “We can also figure on the Defense Department getting into it on the national security angle, since
both companies have military contracts …”

“It’ll be months before we get the okay,” Gold said.

“I understand that,” Campbell said. “But there’s nothing I can do to speed up that process. What I’m offering you is the best
I can do to persuade you to give Skyworld the jetliners it needs
now
. Without your help, Skyworld will go belly up.”