The Rocketeer Read online

  There were the continued sounds of chaos from within the office, and Cliff and Peevy looked at each other with pure terror. Peevy took a step in the opposite direction, as if contemplating simply leaving the hangar and pretending that he’d never even seen the damned thing before. But Cliff went to the hole that the cylinder had drilled through the wall and, after a moment’s reconsideration, Peevy joined him. Together they peered tentatively through the hole in the office.

  The cylinder, still spitting fire and vibrating furiously as its powerful engine continued to operate, was half embedded in an easy chair. It looked as if, given a few more minutes, the thing would manage to get the chair airborne.

  Cliff entered the room, shying away from the intense heat of the flame. He reached out and grabbed a mop that was propped against a wall nearby and, shielding his face, punched the red button with the handle. Even as he did so he wondered, for one horrible moment, whether pushing the button a second time would, for example, push the flaming cylinder into high gear or something. He was fortunate, though, for the small jet engine promptly shut off. The only noise left in the office was the ragged breathing of Cliff and Peevy.

  Automatically Cliff started to reach for the rocket to pull it from its entrapment, and Peevy shouted, “Careful!” Wondering what he could have been thinking, reaching out with his bare skin to touch something that had been a flying inferno, Cliff immediately pulled his hands back. But then, very slowly, very gingerly, he brought his hands closer and closer to the housing, trying to sense for heat. There was none. He touched the metal lightly and then more firmly.

  His eyes widened. “The shell’s still cool!”

  Cautiously approaching the rocket, they each grabbed a side and, within moments, had pried it loose and gotten it back onto the work table. They set it down gingerly, as if afraid that they were handling a keg of dynamite that might blow up at the slightest wrong move.

  There was a long moment of silence as they circled the table, trying to get some sense of the object’s purpose.

  “Never seen nothin’ like this,” said Peevy. He leaned in closer, sniffing, and scented something familiar. “It burns alcohol!” He paused, shaking his head in wonderment. “What’s the damned thing for?”

  And slowly it began to dawn on Cliff. It was just a hunch . . . the size of the rocket pack itself, the arm’s length of the control cables . . . but maybe . . .

  Wordlessly he stepped up to the table and slipped his left arm through the first strap. Then his right arm through the second. He straightened up and the rocket pack now rested comfortably on his back. He slipped his hands through the curved, T-shaped metal bracelets, taking great care not to touch the red buttons on either side. The last thing he did was snap the buckle over his chest, securing the harness.

  Peevy and Cliff stared at each other for a moment, and then Cliff pointed wordlessly skyward.

  The sun was setting on what had been an extremely busy and hectic day. And watching the sun go down was Lucky Lindy.

  Not Charles Lindbergh himself, per se. Instead, it was a life-size wooden statue of Colonel Lindbergh, posed in his heroic best style, looking upward as if the statue expected to soar into the heavens at any given moment. It was the prime landmark that stood outside the Chaplin Field Flight School, which was called, naturally, “Lucky Lindy’s Flight School.”

  Lindbergh himself knew nothing of the school’s existence. The proprietor had not approached him on it for fear that he would say no. So they’d just gone on ahead and named it that. One of the first students had been, in real life, a sculptor, and in lieu of payment he had offered his services in creating a statue that would symbolize the bravery and nobility of the school’s theoretical sponsor. This offer had been eagerly accepted, which was how the statue of Lindbergh—a quite nice likeness, really—had come to sit on the front lawn of the Lucky Lindy Flight School.

  The proprietor lived in perpetual nervousness that sooner or later Lindbergh would learn of the school’s existence. He wasn’t sure just what the famed aviator’s response would be. With any luck—and considering that Lindbergh resided on Illiec, a French island off the coast of Brittany, and so probably wouldn’t be passing through Chaplin Field anytime soon—he would never know.

  It was reasonable to assume, however, that Lindbergh would definitely not have approved of what was being done to his likeness. Namely, it was shaking from side to side, accompanied by the steady sound of sawing. And, after long moments of sawing, the wooden statue tumbled over with a resounding crack.

  The perpetrators froze in place, the noise having been far louder than they anticipated. But no one appeared to have heard; this was a fairly deserted section of the field, after all. So, after ascertaining once more that they were unobserved, Cliff and Peevy gathered up the statue and scurried off into the approaching darkness.

  6

  While Howard Hughes contemplated a dream that had died aborning, and about the same time that Cliff and Peevy drafted an unwilling statue of Charles Lindbergh for a historic flight, a man in a Hollywood Hills house examined the point of a sharp, gleaming fencing sword and contemplated his next move.

  The house was done up in an elaborate Mayanesque style that would have delighted your typical Spanish explorer. Parked in the flagstone courtyard in front of the house were a pair of black Cadillac sedans, glittering like beetles.

  There were two grim-faced, broad-shouldered men waiting by them, alert to the possibility of trouble both from inside and outside of the house. The likelihood of the former seemed greater, though, because they could hear angry words floating down from a second-story window. They glanced up and frowned, not liking the tone of things, and unconsciously let their hands stray near the guns that sat snugly in their shoulder holsters. They looked at each other in grimfaced assessment of the situation, and decided that they didn’t like it one bit.

  From within the house, meantime, the man who had spoken last—the man with the sword—leaned casually against the open balcony door at the edge of his elaborately decorated library. He deliberately selected the pose for its dramatic and stylish visual look, since that was of preeminent importance to him. He was painfully aware of just how the setting sun gleamed off his silk shirt, which was casually undone, or the way the orange rays reflected through the glass of champagne that was held suavely in one hand. In the other hand was the sword, which seemed to be with him at all times, to the degree that it appeared to be a permanent extension of his right hand.

  He was tall and elegant, with thick black hair and snapping eyes that reflected both intelligence and, somehow, a deep mercilessness. When the swordsman spoke, it was with a crisp British accent as he said quietly, “So what went wrong?”

  The man he was addressing was named Eddie Valentine. Compact and stocky in a pinstripe suit with a bright red rose in his lapel, Eddie rocked back and forth quietly on the balls of his feet, considering his answer.

  Eddie was something of a legend in the circles in which he moved. Growing up in a tough neighborhood where his father ran a grocery store, Eddie Valencia, as he was born, had come to love the country of his birth, the country that had been good to his parents when they’d immigrated years before, seeking a new and better life. So dedicated was he that when the Great War had broken out, he had lied about his age so he could serve in the army and help defend his country.

  When he’d gotten home after the war, though, he found his father had gone out of business, driven out by gangsters and thugs who wanted to take over every enterprise they could so as to build a power base. They didn’t care about his father per se; he was just someone to be stepped on as they went on about their business. When his father died a year later, a broken man, it hardened the heart of young Eddie Valencia and he vowed that if that was the type of man you had to become to succeed, then that’s what he would do. He was not going to be stepped on as his father had been.

  Eddie Valencia, for all intents and purposes, vanished, although Eddie Valentine continu
ed to make sure that his mother, still stubbornly residing on the Lower East Side of New York City, was always well cared for and wanted for nothing. Eddie Valentine headed for California, where he became a major player, with all sorts of “legitimate interests” to cover his shadier dealings. And now one of those shadier dealings was starting to become a major sticking point.

  Standing on either side of Eddie were two of his men, the lean and deadly-looking Spanish Johnny, and the broad-shouldered and thuggish-looking Rusty. Both men were leaning against a wall, a study in nonchalance, but taking in everything that was being said.

  “The FBI’s what went wrong. They showed up like flies at a picnic,” said Eddie. “Now Lenny’s dead and Wilmer’s in County General wrapped up like a stinkin’ mummy.” Not knowing about the girlfriend, since that riff had been Lenny’s idea, he didn’t mention her. “You didn’t level with me, mister. This was suppose to be a simple snatch-and-grab.”

  The swordsman paused a moment and said, “I’m sorry about your boys, Eddie. Truly. But I didn’t say it would be simple, and snatch-and-grab is what they’re supposed to be good at.”

  “They are! When they know what they’re grabbin’. What’s so important about this package that the feds are nosin’ in?”

  “Relax, Eddie—”

  “Relax!” Valentine exploded. “I’m not your delivery boy! I want to know why the merchandise I’m moving is so hot!”

  With incredible calm, as if discussing the weather, the swordsman said, “I don’t think that’s anything for you to worry about right now.”

  The swordsman and Eddie Valentine stared at each other for long, tense seconds. And then Valentine made an abrupt gesture to his men. “Let’s go, boys.”

  The principal philosophy of making a deal—any kind of a deal—is being prepared to turn and walk away from it no matter how much you stand to benefit. This was a lesson that Eddie’s father had drilled into him. It had served him well throughout his life, and it served him well now, for he and his men got only a few feet before the swordsman said quietly, “It’s a rocket.”

  Eddie turned back and stared at him incredulously. “A rocket—!” and then louder, “A rocket?!”

  “Yeah,” said the swordsman in a fair imitation of Valentine’s voice. And then in his more polished tone, he added, “Like in the comic books. Now, what happened to it?”

  Unsure of whether he believed the swordsman or not, Eddie said slowly, “Only one who knows is Wilmer. But the hospital’s so thick with cops, we can’t get near him. Maybe in a couple days when the heat dies down—”

  “I don’t have a couple of days!” For the briefest of moments he sounded nervous, and then he was composed once more. “If you can’t get to Wilmer, I’ll have to handle it myself.”

  Eddie laughed derisively. “Mr. Movie Star’s gonna walk past the cops with a handful of flowers?!”

  “Not precisely what I had in mind,” the man said quietly. He sipped his champagne and whipped his sword through the air, loosening up for another offensive.

  Eddie stared at him as if he’d lost his mind as he danced across the room in a ballet of blindingly fast steel. “So what the hell do you need me for?! I got half a mind to pull out! My boys are getting bloody and you’re not playing straight with me. Pay me what you owe me and I’ll—”

  Eddie had barely gotten the last word out when a rapid whhhhissh brought the sword point singing in his direction and stopping barely a centimeter from the hollow of his throat. Rusty and Spanish Johnny went tense, their hands poised near their coats, ready to go for their guns. But they’d never be able to draw them before the sword point would cause their boss to permanently whistle when he breathed.

  The swordsman’s eyes were blazing, deadly, and clearly he was capable of anything. “You’ll follow our contract,” he said, “or I’ll be extremely disappointed.”

  Yet Eddie met his gaze with unyielding ferocity, and with a menacing smile he said, “Try it.”

  There was a long moment of silence and then, incredibly, the swordsman burst into laughter. He shifted the point of his sword to the rose in Eddie’s lapel. With a quick upward flick of the wrist, the rose went sailing through the air. Rusty caught it in one quick motion.

  “I need the rocket, Eddie. And I need your loyalty.”

  Eddie harrumphed. “Loyalty’s extra.”

  The swordsman inclined his head slightly. “Bring me the rocket and your price is doubled. Fair?”

  Without taking his eyes off the swordsman, Eddie considered the offer.

  “Y’know, Sinclair,” he said, speaking the swordsman’s name for the first time. “Someday you could end up kissing fish under the Santa Monica Pier.”

  The man he’d called Sinclair looked surprised as Eddie and his boys started to walk down the hall. “That’s a good line, Eddie. May I use it if I ever play a cheap crook?”

  He smiled ingenuously as Eddie shot him an angry look, and then Valentine strode away with his men. Sinclair watched them go with barely concealed contempt. Then he briskly crossed to the table, threw down the foil, and moved toward his bookshelf as he said, “Bloody amateurs.”

  His fingers ran along the spines of the books, and then he stopped at one, pulling it halfway out. In response, the shelving slid aside to reveal a small room that Sinclair quickly entered.

  Inside the room sat a transmitter and assorted code books. Sitting in front of the transmitter, he spun the dials briskly and selected a frequency before speaking into the microphone. “I regret to inform that the package has been delayed. Over.”

  The response came quickly, as he expected. The nature of the response, though, was not what he had hoped. It emerged through the rotors of the decoding machine to his right, and when he pulled out the paper tape, it read simply, RENDEZVOUS CANNOT BE CHANGED.

  Trying to put across the seriousness of the situation, Sinclair snapped into the radio, “I need more time!”

  The next response was no less encouraging, and far more final: UNACCEPTABLE, AWAIT FURTHER TRANSMISSION. END.

  Angrily Sinclair slapped the code book shut. Then, after only a moment’s pause, he picked up a telephone and dialed a number.

  The phone rang on the other end and he paused, tapping his foot with minor impatience. Then there was the sound of the phone being answered and a thick voice, low and deadly, responded. “Yes?” In the background the swordsman could hear Amos ’N’ Andy playing on the radio, and then it was shut off so that he could be heard.

  “That job we discussed,” said Sinclair. “I’d like you to visit a friend in the hospital . . . a condolence call . . . Room 502, County General.”

  At the other end there was simply a grunt of acknowledgment, and Sinclair smiled. That was the pleasure of dealing with someone like Lothar. There wasn’t a lot of nattering about. You gave him the job, he did it, and that was all. No excuses. No failures. And no one alive to talk about it afterward. Just the way Sinclair liked doing business.

  Far away, out of sight of the Hollywood Hills, the headlights of a truck—Peevy’s truck—were illuminating a metal stake that Cliff was driving into the ground near a large bean field. Despite his long and arduous day, he was throwing himself into his task with undisguised enthusiasm, swinging the mallet and sending it thudding onto the stake over and over, to make sure it was in good and solid.

  The stake was attached to a chain, and the other end of the length of links had been nailed to the wooden chest of the statue of Lindbergh. The rocket pack was resting on Lindy’s back as securely as it had been on Cliff’s earlier that day. As Cliff hammered, Peevy unspooled a large roll of wire attached to the ignition switch.

  Cliff prodded the stake with his foot and nodded in satisfaction to Peevy. Then they both scurried to a nearby ditch, ducked down behind it, and exchanged a significant look. Cliff gave Peevy a quick thumbs-up as Peevy connected the two ends of wires.

  The rocket roared as the circuit was completed, and Peevy and Cliff reflexively ducked. Lindy, t
his time without benefit of plane or life, went immediately airborne. The chain snapped taut and there, twenty-five feet in the air, the statue was flying in great wide circles at the end of the chain, like a great dog leashed in its backyard. The roar was deafening, but Cliff and Peevy didn’t seem to mind. Instead, they stared up in amazement as Peevy shouted, “If I weren’t seeing it, I wouldn’t believe it . . .”

  And then Cliff managed to take his eyes off Lindy and check the grounding. Immediately he shouted in alarm, “Peevy! The stake!”

  And sure enough, the stake was loosening in the ground. The pull of the rocket was simply far stronger than they could have anticipated.

  Cliff started to leap out of the ditch, but Peevy immediately yanked him back, pointing to the chain that was whirling around at high speed like the world’s longest and deadliest yo-yo string. “That chain will cut you in half!”

  But to Cliff, nothing was more important than the hardware. “We’re going to lose it!”

  And sure enough the stake uprooted. Lindy rocketed skyward, hurtling upward into the night sky faster and faster. The rocket’s flame dwindled and finally faded into the blackness.

  That was it.

  It was over.

  Cliff couldn’t believe that, after all that—the preparation, the theorizing, the planning—it was gone as if it had never been there.

  And then they got a souvenir. They were warned just in time by a strange metallic moaning, and then twenty-five feet of chain slammed into the dusty earth between them.

  “Holy hell!” said Peevy in awe.

  Cliff’s frustration bubbled over. “We lost it! We shoulda anchored it to your truck!”

  “My truck would be halfway to Cincinnati by now, you chowderhead!” retorted Peevy, no happier than Cliff.

  They started to argue and then they heard something else—a whistling, like a bomb dropping. They threw themselves to the ground as Lindy had his revenge for being sawed down from his perch. He dive-bombed them from behind, skimming right over them at what seemed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred miles per hour. It missed them by inches and slammed into the ground, plowing a furrow in the bean field before coming to a stop.