The Fly Boys Read online

  “Yeah, sure,” Gold said softly. “Stevie,” he hesitated. “I …”

  “Talk to you soon, Pop.”

  “… love you—” Gold told the dial tone. As usual, a hundred different things to tell his son flooded into Gold’s mind. Why couldn’t he ever think of the damned things while Steve was still on the line?

  He hung up the telephone and lay back on the big circular bed, to stare up at the cherubs cavorting across the bedroom’s painted ceiling. It was just seven in the morning. What with the time difference between the coasts, Steven found it most convenient to call home early.

  The bedroom Gold shared his wife reflected her tastes. The French doors leading out to the balcony were framed in draperies of embroidered, emerald satin. Mirrors gilded in honey gold reflected ebony wall paneling inlaid with floral bouquets carved from ivory and rosewood. The room’s scrolled, gilt-bronze furniture reposed on lion’s paws upon the plush ivy-green carpeting.

  What Erica had spent down through the years just on interior decorating this house was more than they had paid in total for their first home, Gold thought. But what the hell; they had the money.

  He thought about how Steven liked to make all of his long-distance calls from his Pentagon office in order to save money. He wouldn’t have to worry about finances if he came to work at GAT, Gold brooded. And I wouldn’t have to worry about our estrangement.

  Father and son had traveled a rocky road since Steven had entered manhood. The battle over the boy’s destiny had begun back when Steve was still in high school. Gold had insisted that his son pursue the goal of a college education, but Steve had defied him by running away from home when he was barely seventeen. Gold had hired private detectives to track his son, but the gumshoes had lost the kid when he’d lied about his age and used a phony name to volunteer for service with the Flying Tigers in China. Gold had managed to find Steve and bring him home, and there’d been a reconciliation between them when Gold had accepted the fact that his son intended to serve as a fighter pilot. That uneasy truce had ended with the war. Gold had assumed that when the fighting ended his son would settle down into a career at GAT.

  He’d assumed wrong. Gold had never been so disappointed as on that day back in the fall of 1945 when Steve had informed him that he’d decided to make a career of the Air Force. Since then, Gold tried to understand that Steve wanted to be his own man, but he could not totally suppress his bitterness over the way his only son had so harshly and easily rejected everything he’d spent his life building.

  Gold got out of bed and headed for the shower. As he passed a mirror, he stopped to gaze at himself. He looked drawn and tired standing there sleepy-eyed in his rumpled pajamas. There were deep lines etched into his face. His day-old beard and what was left of his red hair were flecked with white.

  Fifty years old, he thought. Old enough to stop kidding myself; to know that I’m not going to be here forever.

  Old enough to accept the fact that Steve was not going to come into the business. Gold had no other sons. He had to wonder who would carry on as leader of GAT. What was the point of all his hard work if control of GAT was destined to pass into some other man’s—a stranger’s—hands?

  Gold showered and shaved and dressed for the office in a gray linen double-breasted suit, black leather loafers, maize cotton shirt, and a maroon and yellow foulard-patterned silk tie. He went downstairs to find his wife and daughter just finishing breakfast in the screened veranda off the kitchen.

  Large potted palms stood guard in the corners of the veranda’s gray slate floor. A slowly revolving fan suspended from the teak ceiling stirred the morning breeze. The veranda looked out on a fragrant flower garden. The splashing pink marble fountain was framed by a whitewashed arbor draped with purple wisteria.

  Erica was sipping her coffee as Gold came into the room. She was wearing a plum-colored satin dressing gown. Her blonde hair was down around her shoulders.

  “Good morning, darling,” she murmured as Gold came around the table to give her a kiss. “I thought Steve sounded good this morning, didn’t you?”

  “Hmm,” Gold grunted noncommittally. Erica had always sided with Steve against him. He loved his wife dearly, but sometimes it got on his nerves the way she persisted in the crazy notion that their son was right in resisting Gold’s efforts to bring him into the business.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Gold’s daughter, Susan, greeted him. Suzy was twenty-six. Like her brother, she had Erica’s coloring. This morning her blonde hair was twisted up into a bun. She was dressed for work in a gray skirt and white blouse.

  “Hi, Grandpa!” Gold’s grandson, Robert, was on the floor peeking out from beneath the table beside Erica’s chair.

  “Hi, kiddo!” Gold stooped down to give Robert a hug and a kiss. The boy was barefoot, wearing blue shorts and a white polo shirt. “Where’s your shoes?” he asked jovially.

  “Don’t need ‘em!” the boy boasted. Almost six years old, Robert was the spitting image of his late father—handsome, with eyes the color of emeralds, and thick coal-black hair. “I’m goin’ to the beach, Grandpa!”

  “Wish I could go,” Gold moped exaggeratedly.

  “Why can’t ya?” Robert demanded, his face scrunching up in concern.

  “Grandpa has to go to work,” Susan answered absently. “Just like Mommy,” she murmured, her brown eyes intently scanning the sports page of the morning newspaper.

  As Gold straightened up from his grandson in order to give his daughter a good-morning peck on the cheek, he glanced at the sports headlines. They were all about the upcoming summer Olympics in London, the first such games since Jesse Owens’s 1936 triumph in Berlin.

  As usual, the news and business sections of the paper were by Gold’s place setting. He scanned them as the new girl they’d hired to assist Ramona, the housekeeper, came out of the kitchen to pour him coffee.

  The front page had stories on the continuing political mess that was the presidential campaign, the turmoil in the Mideast as the fledgling state of Israel skirmished with the Egyptians in the desert, and the ongoing Berlin airlift. The business section had an in-depth article concerning where the presidential challengers—the Republican Thomas Dewey, the States’ Rights Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond, and the Progressive Party’s Henry Wallace—stood on the Taft-Hartley union-busting law. In the article all the candidates took the opportunity to attack the incumbent Truman, who was in the midst of a valiant but probably doomed whistle-stop campaign to save his presidency. Truman’s strategy so far in the election was to blast the Republican Congress for doing nothing, and to attack Taft-Hartley as a setback for the American working man.

  There was also an article in the business section on the windfall profits being enjoyed by various companies leasing transport equipment to the military for the duration of the airlift. GAT, for example, had leased some MT-37 cargo planes to the Air Force. Accordingly, Gold had been interviewed for the article.

  Gold was happy to see that the reporter who’d written the article had kept her promise to treat GAT kindly. He had initially been reluctant to cooperate with the reporter. From past experience he’d learned to be wary of the media, and in this specific instance he’d worried that it might put GAT in a bad light if the public knew the company was profiting from the Berlin crisis. He’d agreed to the interview only as a favor to Steve. It seemed that his son was close friends with the wire service correspondent, a young woman named Linda Forrest. According to Steve, Miss Forrest was just beginning a new job at World Press. Steve felt getting an exclusive with Herman Gold would be just the boost this particular assignment—and her career—needed.

  “Daddy, I’m going to drive my own car to work this morning,” Susan said as the nanny came in to collect Robert. “I’ve got a lot of work piled up on my desk, and I want to tackle it before the phones start ringing.”

  Gold watched admiringly as his daughter scooped up Robert, lifting the giggling boy high in the air before giving him a kiss good-by
e. His daughter was a big, strong girl.

  “Remember,” Susan warned the nanny as she set down her son. “Not too much sun for him today. I don’t want him coming home red as a lobster, like last time.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Greene,” the nanny said.

  “Good-bye, Mommy, good-bye, Grampa, good-bye, Gramma,” Robert called gaily as the nanny carried him out of the room.

  “Another fifteen years and he can come into the business,” Gold muttered.

  Both Erica and Suzy burst out laughing. Gold immediately blushed. He hadn’t realized that he’d been thinking out loud.

  “Poor Daddy!” Susan said sympathetically. “I’m so sorry that your talks with Steven upset you so.”

  Gold, frowning, waited until Suzy had left the veranda. “Working all day and taking those art courses at UCLA at night … I don’t think she’s spending enough time with Robert.”

  “Oh, Herman,” Erica chided affectionately, “we’ve been through all this countless times.”

  “I know,” Gold moped as Ramona, the matronly servant who ran the household, came in with his bacon and eggs. His mood momentarily lightened. Ramona was the only person in the world who could cook eggs just the way he liked them. A few months ago, with his pants getting tight in the waist, he’d put himself on a diet: bacon and eggs for breakfast only every third day, fruit and wheat toast the rest of the week. Normally he looked forward to his big breakfasts, but this morning he had no appetite.

  He stared at his wife. “I still think you’re defending Suzy because it was your idea that she go to work.”

  “I just thought that if Suzy began to get out and around, meeting new people—new men,” Erica emphasized, “she would come out of her shell.”

  “I know, I know. You meant well, and I agreed with you at the time,” Gold admitted.

  Suzy and the baby had moved back in with them in December 1942, just after her husband, Blaize Greene, an RAF fighter ace, was killed in action. Blaize and Susan had been married just over a year, and his death had left her emotionally shattered. If it hadn’t been for the baby, Suzy might have gone completely to pieces, but the responsibilities of motherhood helped her to pull herself together. About a year later, Erica came up with the bright idea that Gold should offer Suzy a job at GAT.

  Suzy had been enthusiastic when Gold had offered her a position. Like a lot of women, she’d felt that going to work during wartime in a defense-oriented industry was the patriotic thing to do. Suzy had some secretarial skills from finishing school, so Gold put her to work as a secretary in Teddy Quinn’s Engineering Research and Design Department. Eventually she’d moved up in the department to become Teddy’s personal secretary.

  “I’ve started to think your strategy has backfired,” Gold complained to Erica as he picked at his breakfast. “I asked her the other day why a beautiful girl like her wasn’t dating when there were so many eligible men around. You know what she told me? That with work and school she didn’t have the time!”

  Erica frowned. “You think that she’s using the job and her night school courses as an excuse to keep men at arm’s length?”

  “That’s right,” Gold replied. “She keeps herself busy, and that way she doesn’t have to think about the fact that she’s determined to be a widow for the rest of her life.”

  Erica shook her head. “I still think she has a better chance of running into the man who might snap her out of it by being out and around, instead of staying home with Robert all day.”

  “And what about Robert?” Gold demanded irritably. “Is he better off?”

  Erica shrugged off his question. “What about you?” she countered, quietly scrutinizing him.

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “You know as well as I do that Robert is doing just fine. The question is, what has put you in this foul mood?”

  “Who says I’m in a foul mood?” Gold said defiantly.

  “For one thing, you haven’t stopped growling like a bear since you came downstairs. For another, it’s bacon-and-eggs day, but you’re not eating.”

  Gold looked down at his plate. He’d nibbled most of the bacon, but the two untouched sunny-side-up eggs were staring back at him accusingly. He pushed away the plate. “Okay, okay, so maybe I’m not in such a great mood today.”

  “What’s wrong?” Erica paused. “Suzy was right, wasn’t she? It was your conversation with Steve, wasn’t it? Did you two get into another argument once I was off the line?”

  Gold shrugged. “Not another argument, the same argument.” He paused while the new maid came in to pour them both more coffee and take away his plate. “Every time it’s the same thing. I swear to myself that I’m not going to bring up the matter of his coming into the business, that I’ll leave the entire subject alone and keep the peace.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “But then, while we’re talking, my mind starts to play tricks on me. I want so badly for him to change his mind that I start to think I’m hearing that he has changed his mind, but that he’s too proud to tell me. Then I think that if I make the offer again, this time he’ll accept.” He sighed. “But, of course, he doesn’t accept, and I hear that sarcastic tone in his voice, and it pushes my buttons, and then we’re off and running.”

  “All I can tell you is that it’s the same thing from his side,” Erica said. “He doesn’t want to fight with you, but he’s just as helpless as you to avoid the arguments.”

  “How do you know that?” Gold asked sharply.

  “He tells me.”

  “Great,” Gold muttered. “You’d think he’d tell me something once in a while,” he trailed off, shaking his head.

  “This is a difficult time for him, too, you know,” Erica said. “We both can read between the lines, Herman. We know it’s not all peaches and cream for him in the Air Force. He’s not happy stuck where he is.”

  Gold nodded. “He said he’s working on something for himself, but he was vague.” He eyed his wife. “Did he tell you about it?”

  Erica shook her head. “Only that he wants it to be a surprise.”

  “Maybe it’s a big promotion,” Gold fantasized. “Or maybe he’s going to be reassigned as an aide to a general. A couple of years doing something like that would give him the confidence he needs to come to work at GAT,” he added wistfully.

  “Herman,” Erica said in warning.

  “Okay, okay,” Gold surrendered. “You know, as much as I want him working with me, at least I’m grateful that he’s safe and sound at a desk job in Washington, and not risking his neck flying fighters.”

  Erica laughed. “You make it sound like we’re still at war.”

  “Well, look at what’s going on in Berlin,” Gold pointed out. “You don’t think our SAC interceptor squadrons in Europe aren’t on alert in case the Reds try something? And even in peacetime fighter squadrons fly practice maneuvers, you know. And accidents happen.”

  “Stop!” Erica complained. “Herman, you are in a black mood talking like that! I swear, if this keeps up I’m not going to let you talk to Steven anymore.”

  “It’s not just Steven,” Gold said, shrugging.

  “Then what?”

  “Ah …” He made a face. “I’ve got a luncheon meeting with some big shots from Air Force Procurement today. They’ve flown in for a few days to meet with the various contractors. Maybe I’m a little worried about it.”

  “Is it about the BroadSword?”

  Gold shook his head. “It’s about a new design for a bomber we’ve come up with. These guys have had our proposal for months, but we haven’t heard a thing from them.”

  “I’m sure they’re going to buy lots of your bombers, darling.”

  Gold chuckled. “You know, you’re pretty cute when you talk like that.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get going,” he said, standing up. “I’ve got a ton of things to do at the office.”

  “Just remember,” Erica smiled, “you had butterflies in your belly the day you pitched your first airplane, and you prob
ably always will.”

  “Hmm, you’re so smart,” Gold murmured, coming around to kiss her.

  “Hmm, I know,” Erica said, kissing him back. “Go sell your airplanes, and then come home to me and we’ll celebrate.”

  “Champagne?” Gold asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Caviar?”

  “But of course.”

  “Wanton lovemaking?”

  Erica pretended to ponder. “It depends on how large an order the Air Force gives you.”

  “Then it shall be for a vast air armada,” Gold declared.

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Erica laughed.

  “Whose fleets shall darken the skies.”

  “You’d better call before you leave for home tonight, so I can turn down the covers and put on perfume.”

  “Just make sure you perfume all of my favorite places.”

  “And where, pray tell, might those be?”

  Gold winked at her. “How big a bottle of that stuff have you got?”

  It was a sunny morning, so Gold put the top down on the scarlet, Cadillac Series 62 convertible for the drive to Burbank. With its 150-horsepower V-8 engine, the convertible wasn’t the biggest or most expensive Caddy out of Detroit, but it was the only one the company made.

  He’d bought the car last year, as soon as the ‘47s had come out, and had it shipped directly from the showroom to the company that did the interiors for his airliners. He’d had them gut the Caddy’s interior along with its bench seating for six, and install new carpeting, burled walnut inserts for the dashboard and inside door panels, and a single pair of custom-built, thronelike bucket seats upholstered in cream-colored leather—the same kind used in the first-class sections of his Monarch GC series. The customized interior made the Caddy a better car, but it was still not a great car. Nevertheless, Gold figured to stick with it until somebody somewhere began selling a vehicle designed for serious driving.

  Gold usually enjoyed threading in and out of traffic, giving the Caddy a workout as he made a game out of trying to get to the office in the shortest possible time, but this morning he was content to motor sedately with the stop-and-go traffic. He figured he was going to need all of his energy and competitiveness for his upcoming lunchtime encounter with the tightfisted skeptics from Air Force Procurement.