The Rocketeer Read online

  They raced over to it and shut the rocket down. It gave a few last sputters of protest and then fell silent, as did the two men for a long moment.

  “Peevy,” said Cliff slowly, thoughtfully, “you’d pay to see a man fly, wouldn’t you?”

  Peevy had been dreading this moment. He knew it would be coming the second he saw the way Cliff had first looked at the thing. “I know what you’re thinkin’, Clifford,” he said dangerously. “Forget it.”

  As if that closed the subject, he grabbed Lindy’s feet and tugged him out of the furrow. Cliff grabbed the other end to help lug him to the truck, but he didn’t stop yammering.

  “But I’m talking about making some real money here—not just ten bucks a show, but enough to get us back on our feet and into the Nationals.”

  “Cliff, are your eyes painted on? That thing’s like strapping nitro to your back. Besides, the feds are mixed up in this.”

  “Yeah,” Cliff reminded him sourly, “and thanks to them we’re flying the clown act and scraping for nickels. They owe us.”

  “Well, maybe they don’t see it that way.” Peevy shrugged, trying not to grunt under the strain of the statue’s weight. “Look, we’re just a couple of sky bums. I don’t want to get tangled up with the FBI.”

  “I don’t want to keep it. Just borrow it for a while.”

  “You do, eh? Well, if you borrow something and don’t tell anybody, they call it stealing.” He didn’t add that borrowing something like this could also be termed “suicide.”

  Cliff was undeterred. “Just a week or two! Soon as we can afford a new plane, we’ll give it back. I swear.”

  Peevy shook his head, unconvinced. “Did you see what this thing just did? You want to turn your head into a plow? The thing don’t work!”

  “You’re always telling me what a genius you are. Fix it!” said Cliff, hurling down a challenge.

  Somehow he always knew just what to say to get Peevy’s goat. The annoying thing was that Peevy had already started coming up with ideas to fix the thing. He couldn’t help it. The ideas just started coming and he felt the itch to try them, just to see if they would work. But that didn’t mean everything was jake about the idea of turning Cliff into a flying guinea pig.

  But was it that very different, really, from sending him up in things like the GeeBee? Someone had to be first with any new aviation advancement, and if anyone could handle it—

  He shook his head, amazed at the direction his thoughts were taking. “We’re gonna need a hell of a lawyer,” he said ruefully.

  Cliff grinned to himself. He had gotten Peevy thinking of possibilities—and he hadn’t even needed to mention the other thing on his mind, namely, that he was trying to get together enough scratch to treat his girlfriend, Jenny, right. There were so many rich hotshots who could show her a great time, and she was always talking in significantly wistful tones about the places she wished she could go and do and see, places that needed guys with serious money to make it happen. Cliff wasn’t one of those guys, and he was becoming preoccupied with the notion that if he stayed a poor pilot without two nickels to rub together much longer, Jenny was going to go waltzing off into the sunset with one of her big-bucks Hollywood pals. Hell, strapping a rocket to his back was preferable to watching Jenny slip through his fingers any day of the week.

  They tossed the statue into the truck, and Cliff studied poor Lindy’s head. It had been completely splintered and Cliff realized that his skull, rock-hard as it was often called, would probably not fare much better.

  “I think we need a helmet,” he said.

  7

  The radio in the small bedroom was cheerfully playing a big band rendition of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” and Jenny hummed along with it as she leaned forward into the mirror, applying her lipstick.

  The black-and-white photograph that Cliff carried with him would do her justice only on the day the entire world went color blind. Up until that time, Jenny Blake remained a gorgeous creature who could be appreciated only in full living color. Her skin was soft and white, her just-decorated lips a startling and yet stunning red, and her long black hair lay meticulously about her shoulders. She wore a tight red skirt that ended provocatively just above the knee, and a low-cut striped wool shirt with a deep scooped back. She finished clipping the stocking to the garter and smoothed the red skirt, smiling at herself once more into the mirror approvingly.

  Twenty-four years old and dressed to kill.

  There was the sound of a car honking outside and she turned toward her friend and roommate, Irma. “Whose is it?” she asked.

  Irma glanced out the window. “Yours. The flyboy. You know, I can’t figure out what the attraction is.”

  “Oh,” she laughed, “he likes me only because there’s a model of plane called a Jenny.”

  “No,” said Irma. “I mean I can’t understand what you see in him.”

  Jenny smiled once more. “He makes me laugh.”

  Cliff hopped out of the truck and crossed the street toward Jenny’s place. Technically speaking, it wasn’t just Jenny’s place. It was the place of a lot of young women, all of them actresses. The boardinghouse catered to them, and Cliff sometimes jokingly referred to it as the “Home for Wayward Girls,” which usually earned him an amused slap on the arm from Jenny.

  Other young men were picking up their dates, all under the stone-faced supervision of the matron, Mrs. Pye. The other men barely spoke to her beyond the formal, “ ’Evening, ma’am,” but Cliff was just outgoing enough—or stupid enough—to try to do more. “Good evening, Mrs. Pye,” he said gregariously. “I’ve come to pick up Jenny.”

  He started forward and, pretty much as he expected, Mrs. Pye placed an immovable palm on his chest.

  “You know my rules,” she said stiffly. “No gentlemen after six P.M.”

  He winked. “I’m not a gentleman.”

  “You can say that again,” she said. “This time don’t forget the curfew. I lock up at eleven sharp.”

  He remembered the last time, when they’d gotten in at 11:05 and the front door had been bolted. Cliff had wound up breaking a window to get Jenny in, which resulted in police cars showing up and a mad dash through backyards and . . .

  “Okay, warden,” said Cliff, having no desire to repeat the experience.

  Jenny swept out and chastely kissed Cliff on the cheek. She draped an arm around his neck and called out, “ ’Night, Mrs. Pye!”

  “Have a good time, dear. If he tries anything, deck him.” As she retreated into the boardinghouse, Cliff had a sneaking suspicion that that philosophy explained what must have happened to Mr. Pye.

  As soon as the door slammed, Jenny threw both arms around Cliff’s neck and kissed him long and hard on the mouth. The length and passion of the kiss drew good-natured hoots and catcalls from the other girls who were walking past or hanging out windows. Cliff broke off the embrace and, grinning, he and Jenny set off strolling down the street.

  “Cliff!” she said in that marvelously bubbly way she had. “Guess what! I think I got the part!”

  “That’s great!”

  “I won’t know for sure till I get to the set tomorrow, but the director liked my reading best.”

  “You mean you have lines this time?” said Cliff, surprised.

  “Just one,” she admitted, and then brightened, “but it’s to Neville Sinclair.”

  “Lemme hear it.”

  She stopped, threw her head back, and exclaimed, “Oh! My prince! Would that you drink of my lips as deeply!”

  Suddenly Cliff felt a slight buzz of annoyance. “And then he kisses you, right?” he said.

  “Naw, he’s too busy killing someone.”

  Her response had been an offhanded one, but then the tone of Cliff’s question sank in on her and she realized, barely suppressing a smile, that he was jealous. And since she was in far too good a mood to want a fight, she said briskly, “Now you tell me.”

  He looked at her, confused. “What?”
/>   “What do you think! The GeeBee, the maiden voyage! How’d it go?”

  “Okay, I guess,” he said evasively.

  She couldn’t quite hide her annoyance. “That’s it? ‘Okay, I guess’?” She had been sure that Cliff would be very enthusiastic about it, and it irked her that he didn’t deem it all that important. “How’d she fly?”

  “She flew great,” said Cliff. “Landing had a few bumps. Got some bugs to work out.” He shrugged as if it were all meaningless and then said, “We gotta hurry if we’re gonna catch a movie. I hear a new Cagney picture opened.”

  “So did a new Neville Sinclair picture.”

  “Aw, Jenny, Cagney’s better,” protested Cliff. And he really was a big Cagney fan—had been ever since 1935, when Cagney appeared in both Ceiling Zero and Devil Dogs of the Air, two fairly sharp films about airmen, even if they were made by Hollywood types. Of course, Cliff didn’t bother to add that he didn’t feel like shelling out dough to go see some guy that Jenny might be talking about kissing tomorrow. He thought about Sinclair and all those pansy movies he’d made with his hoi polloi accent and snooty airs that made women swoon and men guffaw. “You won’t catch Cagney lounging around a penthouse in his underwear or walking poodles in the park or—”

  “Or getting shot down behind enemy lines?”

  He paused in surprise. “What?”

  “The movie?” she prompted. “Wings of Honor? Neville Sinclair?”

  He realized that this was leading toward the inevitable giving-in to Jenny, and he might as well do it gracefully. Besides, it might be worth a few laughs to see the fancy dan trying to pretend that he’s in the same class with Jimmy Cagney or Ralph Bellamy, or even Cary Grant, who had some of the same airs but at least seemed like he was taking himself a bit less seriously.

  “This I gotta see,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

  The show had already started as Cliff and Jenny made their way down the darkened aisle. Cliff was loaded down with popcorn and sodas, muttering, “Excuse me, pardon me,” as people who were already seated reluctantly moved their legs to accommodate him and Jenny squeezing past.

  As they moved toward two empty seats, the announcer of the newsreel that was unspooling on the screen intoned, “But as rumors of war haunt the Continent, Herr Hitler claims to be working for world peace . . . and the sovereignty of nations.”

  Cliff glanced up and saw the Nazis giving Chancellor Hitler that annoying, stiff-armed salute. It bugged the hell out of him. He’d had a lengthy argument with Malcolm about it one day at the Bulldog Café, when Malcolm—who’d been a pilot during the Great War—stated that Hitler could blow hot air all he wanted, but that he would never dare to start something really big because the Krauts had learned their hard lessons back in 1918. The world had kicked their tails and could do so again at any time, and that knowledge would keep the Germans in line.

  Cliff, on the other hand, hadn’t been so sure. There was something in the pictures and newsreels he saw of Hitler that gave him chills. Chills and an uneasy feeling that the world was becoming a trickier place to live with every passing day.

  As Cliff and Jenny seated themselves, the image on the screen changed as a zeppelin with a bold swastika painted on its tail descended from the skies over someplace or other. The announcer said with incredible cheerfulness, “And just to prove he’s a swell guy, here comes the chancellor’s latest goodwill gesture—the mighty airship Luxembourg, on a coast-to-coast friendship tour of the United States.”

  Jenny and Cliff divvied up the snacks as the zeppelin’s captain and crew mingled with an excited crowd on the screen. “First stop, New Jersey,” said the announcer, “where the locals turn out in droves to meet Captain Heinrick and the crew. Winning friends the old-fashioned way—with good German chocolate!” Sure enough, the German airmen were handing out candy bars to eagerly grabbing children.

  Cliff shook his head in disgust. Kids would do anything for a few slabs of candy, and here this stupid newsreel was making that seem like a good thing. To top it off, the Heinrick guy turned and waved to the camera as the announcer said, “Welcome, boys! Look us up when you get to Hollywood!”

  There followed afterward a trailer for a new Errol Flynn picture, The Adventures of Robin Hood. There was a quick shot of Olivia de Havilland saying to Flynn, “You speak treason!” Cliff chuckled to himself. She’d said the exact same thing to him in Captain Blood. Apparently Errol never tired of talking treason, and she never tired of hearing it. Flynn seemed like a decent enough duck. Anybody was better than that Sinclair creep.

  After that came a trailer for a new cliffhanger entitled The Return of Milo Flint, which looked to be a two-fisted detective flick, and then Cliff settled into the seat as the movie began and Neville Sinclair’s name appeared on the screen in huge letters.

  Jenny nudged him. “You’ll love this.”

  “I love it already,” muttered Cliff. “If I loved it any more, I’d be in the hospital.”

  The nurse emerged from the patient’s room and walked toward the police officer who was seated at the nurses’ station, adjusting the dials on a radio. Spooky music came on, followed by the sounds of ominously creaking doors and hollow, evil laughter. He looked up and asked her, “How’s he doing?”

  “I just gave him a sedative,” said the nurse. “He’ll sleep like a baby.”

  Inside the hospital room, Wilmer, in heavy traction, lay dozing in bed. The only sounds in the room were his gentle snoring mingling with the creepy radio organ music filtering through the door.

  Then, slowly, the window slid open, the breeze billowing in the curtains. A massive figure crept into the room, moving with a quiet that was in remarkable contrast to its size. It approached the sleeping form of Wilmer and then, with a large thumbnail, cracked a match and held the faint illumination up to Wilmer’s face.

  The man—if such a word could be used—who peered down at the sleeping gangster, looked like something out of a Boris Karloff film. A neanderthal brute in a badly fitting pinstripe suit. His massive jaw was distended, his cheekbones were flat, and he didn’t have eyebrows so much as a heavy ridge that sat over small, sunken, piglike eyes.

  He reached up and clutched one of Wilmer’s traction cords in a meaty hand, and gave it a sharp yank.

  Wilmer’s groggy eyes fluttered open, and then his pupils dilated in horror.

  He recognized the creature looming over him, even in the poor light. He’d seen him once, but that one time was more than enough to make an indelible impression. He’d been called Lothar by that Limey fruit that Eddie had been contracting with. Lothar—a name out of a horror flick. Went with the face.

  “It’s you,” muttered Wilmer. “Tell your boss I don’t answer to nobody but Eddie.”

  Lothar eased his massive hands beneath Wilmer’s body and then lifted him easily.

  Wilmer gasped, having no control of the situation at all. The eeriness of the moment was heightened by the creepy music that was pouring out of the radio in the hallway, and suddenly Wilmer was even more afraid than when he’d been staring down the front of a plane that was hurtling toward him. More frightened than when the feds had been firing on him. More frightened than any time he could remember in his life.

  “Okay! Okay! Ease off,” he gasped. “I pulled a switch, see? I got the dingus stashed good . . . at the airfield. Hangar three. Some old plane . . .”

  And then he felt a horrible pressure begin to be exerted on him, a pressure as horrible as the satisfied, evil grin that played across the man-monster’s lips.

  “No!” gasped out Wilmer, and for the umpteenth time the thought went through his head, I was going to quit! This was my last job!

  At the nurses’ station they heard the screams but thought they were coming from the radio. They sounded a bit too loud, and the cop reached over to lower the volume, but before he could do so the program went to a commercial . . . and the screams kept on coming.

  It was then they realized what w
as happening, and the cop charged the door of the room where Wilmer was supposed to be sleeping. Wilmer, the man whom he was supposed to be guarding. Wilmer, who had talked endlessly of this being his last job and going straight.

  The cop shouldered open the door, his revolver drawn, with the nurse directly behind him. Her hands flew to her mouth and she screamed.

  The cop winced at the sight.

  This had indeed turned out to be Wilmer’s last job. However, he had not gone straight. In fact, he was just the opposite: he was hanging suspended above the bed, dangling from the traction gear, his body bent backward in half. His eyes were dead and staring.

  The cop rushed to the open window, where curtains were fluttering like ghosts. He peered out into the darkness. Nothing.

  He pulled back into the window, turned, and went to call his chief. His superior was not going to be the least bit happy to hear this.

  And on the ledge above, a massive pair of wingtip shoes shuffled off into the night.

  8

  The Bulldog Café was a stone’s throw from Chaplin Airfield and the second home—some would say the first—to a number of the fliers in Bigelow’s Air Circus.

  There had never been a café more accurately named than the Bulldog, for that essentially was what it was. It had been done up to resemble a large white and black canine, a full story high, sitting on its haunches. Its eyes were wide open in a perpetually surprised expression, as if amazed that anyone would actually come there to eat. A pipe stuck out of its mouth with a sign reading OPEN hanging down from it. The exterior had the word EATS painted in big letters on either side, and down the front of its left and right front legs were the words, respectively, TAMALES and ICE CREAM, which, so claimed some cynics, were indistinguishable from each other the way that Millie, the owner and head cook, prepared them.