Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 10 (22 page)

“And you’re hearing all this over your Philco?” I asked.

“Sure! I heard her talkin’ to that ship, the
Itasca,
too! I heard her make her first contact with ’em, when they asked her to identify herself and she said, ‘The name is Putnam, but I don’t use that.’”

I had to chuckle; that did sound like her. Even Mantz was smiling a little, though I could tell he figured this kid was spinning a yarn.

“I listened all night,” Robert said. “She came on naming islands as she passed over them, sayin’ they were off her left or right wing…Bikar, Majuro, Jaluit, I’m leavin’ a few out but I got ’em written down…. She said there was plenty of good light and they could see the islands fine. Then she had trouble getting the
Itasca
to hear her—here I am, in my living room in California, and I can hear her fine! I mean, there’s static and everything, and she kinda comes in and out, but I heard her asking
Itasca
to turn on their lights, sayin’ she must be circling the ship, but she couldn’t come down because it was too dark, she got there too early. Then it just got worse and worse…. They weren’t answering her…. She kept saying her fuel was low. She told the
Itasca
she was gonna try for Hull Island, but they didn’t hear her, and that’s when she spotted the Japanese fighter planes.”

“Fighter planes.”

He nodded, wild-eyed. “One was above her, the other two were near her wingtips; they fired on her! Machinegun bursts!”

“Look, kid—” Mantz began.

The boy just kept going, gesturing with both hands. “They were trying to force her to land at Hull, but when she looked down, she saw these ships offshore—a fishing boat, and two battleships—but they were able to outrun the Japs in the Electra, it was much faster. Mr. Noonan had her fly toward an island called Sydney, just a hundred miles away, and all the time she was still callin’ the
Itasca,
no response. And then one engine sputtered out—they could see the island! But then the other one went out, too, and I heard her say, ‘Oh, my goodness! We’re out of fuel!’”

As silly as this story was, hearing Amy’s familiar “Oh, my goodness!” from this kid’s mouth sent a chill up me.

“I heard the plane make this awful loud thud—you’d think it would have sounded more like a splash, but it didn’t—and I waited for seconds that seemed like hours before she came back on, saying, ‘We missed the trees and the coral reef…. We’re on the water.’ She said Mr. Noonan injured his head, shoulder, and arm and she stopped transmitting to go check on him…. Then it was morning, and I lost them…. I’d been listening twelve hours or more.”

“Is this the story you told the police?” I asked.

Mantz was leaned back with a hand over his eyes.

“Oh, you listened to a lot more of it than the desk sergeant on the phone did…. They’re still out there, Nate…Mr. Mantz…Amelia and Mr. Noonan. I’ve been listening to them every night. She comes on every hour and doesn’t stay on long—conserving the battery. They’re floating on the water…. They’re hot and they’re hungry and Amelia’s really mad, she keeps saying, ‘Why are you doing this to us? Why don’t you come get us? You know where we are.’ Things like that. It’s real sad. But they are still alive…. Isn’t that a relief?”

I nodded.

He leaned forward, puppy-dog eager, looking from me to Mantz and back again. “Would you like to come to my house and listen, tonight? I’m sure my mom and dad wouldn’t mind.”

“Thanks, kid,” Mantz said, with a sick smile. “I think I’ll take a rain check.”

I put a hand on Mantz’s shoulder. “Paul, can I have a word with you, for a minute? Outside?”

His eyes narrowed. “Sure.”

“Robert, you think you can handle another snail?”

The boy beamed. “Boy, could I! Warmed up and everything?”

“Live a little,” I said, and nodded over to Mom behind the counter, who smiled and took care of the order, as Mantz and I headed outside.

He dug a pack of Camels out of his sportcoat and lighted one up, saying, “You can’t believe any of that baloney. Tell me you don’t.”

There was runway noise and I had to work my voice up. “How do you explain some of what he knows? The names of those islands, for example?”

Mantz smirked, shrugged, blew smoke out his nose like a dragon. “I never heard of those islands. Maybe he made ’em up.”

“Maybe he didn’t.”

“Maybe he’s got a Rand McNally atlas in his house. Look, he and Amelia were friends, all of that stuff he told you was legit…. But now he’s stayin’ up at night, with his head filled with what he’s readin’ in the papers about his famous friend, and he’s listening to staticky garbage and his imagination is running wild.”

“Is it possible for that Philco to be picking her up?”

“Sure.” The cigarette bobbled in his mouth as he spoke. “McMenamy thinks he’s heard her, too—of course, he hasn’t heard twenty or thirty exciting episodes like Robert has!”

Through the window we could see the kid chowing down on another snail.

I said, “I don’t understand how either of them could be hearing what the
Itasca
and the rest of the Navy and Coast Guard can’t.”

Mantz raised an eyebrow. “Well, the Electra’s radios sure can’t transmit over any considerable distance, but there’s always ‘skip.’”

“What’s skip?”

“A freak but common phenomenon. Sometimes radio reception turns up hundreds, even thousands of miles away.”

“And that’s what Robert could be hearing?”

“I think Robert’s hearing pixies.”

“I’m going to take him up on his invitation.”

“You gotta be pullin’ my leg! You can’t—”

“Go home. I’ll catch the train back to L.A. tomorrow.”

“Heller—”

“I’m going over to Robert’s to listen to the radio. Who knows? Maybe Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy, will win the big game.”

“I’m an
Amos ‘n’ Andy
man myself,” Mantz said, pitching his cigarette, sending it sparking to the ground. “And I’m takin’ my plane back to Burbank, before I miss tonight’s installment.”

The Myers house, though in a heavily residential section on the north edge of Oakland, sat alone on a small hill, a shingled bungalow absurdly dominated by that sixty-foot copper antenna Robert had told us about. That, at least, had been no exaggeration.

The boy had hitchhiked home, on the understanding that I would drop by after supper, his parents suitably warned. Robert knew I planned to check in at the Bay Farm Airport Hotel, which I did, and it was there that he tracked me down.

“I thought you didn’t have a phone,” I said into the receiver, as I sat on the edge of my bed in the hotel room.

“We don’t,” the kid’s voice said, “but our neighbor does. My folks want you to come over for supper. My mom’s a really good cook.”

I accepted, and drove over there in a buggy that Mantz’s friend, airport manager Guy Turner, loaned me, a ’32 Ford station wagon with bay farm airport stenciled on either side. When I parked out front, the hangars of the airport four miles away were visible from the hill the house perched upon.

Dinner was pleasant enough, in the small dining room of the cramped, modestly furnished home—meat loaf and mashed potatoes and creamed corn, served up by Robert’s mother Anna, an attractive woman in her thirties. His father Bob, Sr., a solid-looking quiet man, a little older than his wife, worked night shift in a canning factory. Robert’s sister, a cute blonde, probably seventeen, and a younger brother, maybe twelve, were fairly talkative, not at all put off by the presence of a stranger.

I had been introduced as a friend of both Paul Mantz and Amelia Earhart, and as a detective who was interested in checking out the short-wave transmissions Robert had reported. They understood I was not from the police, and I implied I was working for Mantz, whom both parents had met at the airport on an occasion or two.

Questions about what Chicago was like predominated, and the father—who had said little throughout the meal—finally said, over apple pie, “You think there’s somethin’ to this? What Robert’s been hearing on the radio?”

“That’s what I’d like to find out.”

“Paper says there’s lots of hoaxers.”

“I know.”

“Any fool with a short wave can get on and pretend to be the King of England.”

“Sure.”

“Lot of sick-in-the-head people in this world, you ask me.”

“No argument,” I said.

“Robert’s always been creative,” his mother said. She had lovely eyes and a nice smile, and Robert and his sister had gotten their blond hair from her, though Anna’s was now a dishwater variety. She had the haggard look of an overworked, underappreciated working-class mother.

“You mean Bobby’s always been a nut,” his sister said.

The younger brother laughed, too loud.

“Shut it,” the father said, and they did.

The mother smiled and laughed, nervously. “Brothers and sisters,” she said. “You know how it is.”

After supper, the father took off for work with his lunch pail in hand, and Mrs. Myers did the dishes, declining my offer of help. Her daughter pitched in, while the younger brother hung around the living room with us, as Robert sat me down on the couch across from the fireplace and the square-shouldered Philco console, which was not yet turned on.

For several mind-numbing hours, Robert showed me the charts and notes and maps he’d created, the supposed physical evidence of the transmissions he’d been hearing. He spread these out on the coffee table before me, and walked me through them, explaining his methods, reading aloud, and I could follow very little of it.

I had begun to suspect that Robert was, indeed, a “creative” young man, and possibly a seriously disturbed one.

Around nine o’clock, Mrs. Myers excused herself, having shooed the younger brother off to bed already (after the boy showed me the flying wings badge he’d sent for from a radio show called
The Air Adventures of Jimmy Allen
). The daughter had gone over to a girlfriend’s house to spend the night, or anyway that’s what she told her mother. Soon the house was dark, and I was on the couch and Robert—ring notebook and pencil at the ready—was kneeling in front of the Philco, as if it were an altar, bathed in its green glow, twisting the knobs, the dials, searching for Amelia.

And finding static.

“You’ll see,” he said. “You’ll see.”

This went on for some time. I sat with a hand covering my face, feeling like a moron, pitying this kid, exhausted, having slept very little over the past thirty-six hours, wondering why the hell I didn’t go back to Chicago where I had paying clients.

“
Oh my goodness, did you hear that?
”

The voice came from the Philco.

“
Fred just said he saw something!
”

“I told you!” Robert said, gleeful. He began writing, recording what he heard.

I sat forward.

“
Did you hear that,
Itasca?
Please hurry, please, please hurry!
”

Amy’s voice. It sure as hell sounded like Amy’s voice.

Another voice, fainter, male, but picked up over her microphone: “
It’s them! The Japanese!
”

“They’re going to be saved!” Robert said, turning to me, eyes glittering in the near darkness. He kept writing. My heart was racing.

The male voice again, faint but shouting: “
So big! The guns are so big!
”

I stumbled off the couch, and found myself crouching next to Robert, a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

The voice that seemed to be Amy’s said: “
They’re lowering small boats
…”

“Thank you, God,” Robert was saying, as he scribbled cursive notes. “Thank you, God, for letting someone find them.”

Amy said, rapid-fire words: “
I’ll keep talking,
Itasca,
as long as I can
….”

But static flared up.

They were gone.

“Is there anything you can do?” I asked the kid.

His terrified expression belied his calming words: “They’ll be back…they’ll be back….”

Finally, I heard the man’s voice again: “
They’re here! They’re opening the door!
”

And Amy said, “
Did you hear that,
Itasca?
They’re coming in!
”

Robert covered his mouth with a hand. He had dropped his notebook.

Sounds of grunting, metallic banging around in the plane, accompanied Amy’s near screams: “
Oh my goodness, he’s resisting them! No, Fred—no! Oh, they’re beating him terribly
….
Stop! Stop!
”

And that was followed by a sound that could only have been a slap.

Then dead silence.

We listened for a long time, but all we heard was that awful deathly stillness, and static. He picked the notebook up and recorded those last terrible sentences. Finally I helped the boy to his feet and we stumbled together over to the couch, flopping there, exhausted.

What had we heard? Cruel hoax? Or cruel reality?

“They’re saved, though, right?” he asked. “It’s better than nothing, the Japs saving them. Isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

Sitting there in the near dark, I nodded and smiled and put my arm around the boy, and pretended not to notice he was weeping.

He did me the same favor.

The sky was a glowing pastel blue with bright stars that created shimmering crosses if you looked right at them; the stars were electric, arranged in caricatures of constellations, and the sky merely the sculpted ceiling that rose in a gentle slope from behind the stage to shelter the posh crowd out on the mirror-varnished dance floor. They were gliding around to “A Foggy Day in London Town” as performed by Harl Smith and His Continental Orchestra, at the Club Continental, a shout away from Burbank’s United Airport, formal in its linen-covered tablecloths, fine china, and sterling silverware, intimate in its cozy booths, tables for two, and pastel-tinted wooden paneling.

In my herringbone blue garbardine, the nicest suit I owned, I was underdressed. A good-looking brunette in furs and gown who might have been Paulette Goddard was dancing with a guy I didn’t recognize but who, like most of the men on the dance floor, wore a tuxedo.

I found Mantz at one of those cozy booths, seated across from a cute blonde; he was in a white dinner jacket with a black bow tie, and she wore a yellow chiffon evening dress with an admirable décolletage.

“Sorry to track you down like this,” I said. “But I’m leaving tomorrow morning, on the train.”

“Glad you did,” he said, and nodded toward his companion. “My fiancée, Terry Minor…. This is the guy I was tellin’ you about, Terry—Nate Heller from Chicago.”

“A real pleasure, Nate,” she said, and beamed, offering her hand for me to shake; she had a firm, friendly grip.

“Pleasure’s all mine, Terry,” I said.

She was in her early thirties, not movie star pretty, but it was easy to see what Mantz saw in her, and I’m not just referring to her neckline. Her hair in hundreds of tiny blonde curls, eyes bright and blue, she radiated the same tomboyish appeal as Amy.

“Sit down,” Mantz said, sliding over in the booth.

“I hate to think what he’s told you about me,” I said to Terry with a grin.

“I told her how you saved my behind,” Mantz said, frosted martini in hand, “when Myrtle came gunnin’ for me…. Considering why you were hired that night, that was pretty white of ya.”

He was fairly well oiled, good-naturedly so.

Softly, I asked him, “Have you, uh, informed Terry about why I’m in town?”

“I’ve filled her in,” he said. “We don’t have any secrets.”

“Speak for yourself,” she said with a little smile, sipping her own frosted drink.

That made him smile; in addition to being well lubricated, he was lovesick over this cutie.

“So…you’ve come to your senses, then,” he said. “You’re finally givin’ up on this foolheaded fishing expedition.”

I gave him half a smile. “Are you forgetting what fool headed me there, in the first place?”

That made Terry giggle, but her steady gaze let me know she didn’t take this subject lightly.

I waved a waiter over and ordered a rum and Coke. “Hell no I’m not giving up. I’m heading home and sell my story to the
Trib.
”

“Figures,” Mantz snorted. “Leave it to you to find a way to make a buck out of this.”

“I’m not in it for the money,” I said testily. “But what’s the harm of having your cake and eating it, too?”

Now the orchestra was playing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

“There are some damn dangerous people involved in this affair, Nate,” Mantz said. “That bird Miller, for one.”

“Frank Nitti’s a friend of mine,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ve run into tougher birds than William Miller.”

Last night, I’d told young Robert not to mention to anyone, even his parents, what we’d heard on the family Philco; but assured the boy he’d be hearing from me. I’d gone from the Myers house to the Bay Farm Airport Hotel, where after my day and a half of no sleep, I collapsed on the bed in a comalike pile. I didn’t wake up till noon, and took the train back to Los Angeles, catching a cab to the Burbank airport. There, late afternoon, I spoke with Ernie Tisor, to see if he’d be willing to come forward with what he knew, explaining that it would be to the press, not the authorities. He was willing. Mantz had left for the day, but Tisor mentioned his boss’s plans to take Terry out for dinner and dancing at the Club Continental. Then I’d driven the Terraplane to Lowman’s Motor Court, where I still had a room, from which I called both Margot DeCarrie and Walter McMenamy, to see if they were willing to come forward, too. Both said yes.

And, after a shower and a shave, I’d finally gotten out of that yellow polo and tan slacks and into my garbardine.

At the moment, Mantz was looking at me with his eyes round under a furrowed brow. “You don’t really believe you heard Amelia and Fred getting nabbed by the Japs?”

I’d just shared with Mantz and his fiancée the results of my slumber party at the Myers kid’s house.

“If it was a hoax,” I said, sipping my rum and Coke, “it was a hell of a job.”

Mantz smirked, shaking his head. “You do know, don’t you, that the
March of Time
did a reenactment of the flight, the day after Amelia disappeared? And so many calls came in, at Pearl Harbor, they flashed the
Itasca
that Amelia was transmitting!”

“I think I know the difference between Amelia’s voice and Westbrook Van Voorhis,” I said, referring to the radio show’s announcer.

He put a hand on my shoulder; his speech was slightly thick. “Nate, every paper in the country’s givin’ banner headlines to any scrap of information on our missing girl, and that includes every rumor, false hope, and practical joke…. These publicity-seeking radio hams are jammin’ the airwaves with their phony broadcasts!”

“I’m enlisting McMenamy to check with his radio-ham pals,” I said. “We’ll sort out the pranksters and publicity hounds, and see if anybody else heard what that kid and I did, last night. Anyway, even without that, I got juicy stuff for FDR’s enemies in the Fourth Estate.”

Harl Smith and his boys were having a go at “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.”

“Excuse me,” Terry said, gently, “but I don’t see how this helps Amelia.”

Mantz had said almost the same thing, yesterday.

“It doesn’t,” I admitted. “But it helps me.”

“Make a buck?” Mantz asked.

“Sleep at night.”

“You really wanna see G. P. get his tit in a wringer,” Mantz said with a chuckle.

Terry didn’t blink at his crudity.

I took a last gulp of rum and Coke. “Him and the other sons of bitches who put her at risk…. Pardon my French.”

“I think you’re very sweet,” Terry said, stirring her drink with a swizzle stick.

“I don’t get accused of that, often.”

“Amelia’s lucky to have a friend like you,” she said.

With his fiancée’s seal of approval, I figured this was the perfect time to spring it on Mantz.

I slipped an arm around his shoulder. “So, Paul, how about it? Will you come forward, when I’m lining up sources for the
Chicago Tribune
?”

He sighed; his mouth twitched. He glanced across at Terry who was looking at him, carefully.

“Sure,” he said. “It might be fun to watch Gippy Putnam twist in the wind.”

They invited me to have dinner with them, and I accepted, with no further talk of the Amelia matter. The happy couple shared Chateaubriand, and I tried the Lobster Newburg. Later, as the orchestra played “Where or When,” I danced with Terry, who pointed out Mr. and Mrs. Joe E. Brown, Mr. and Mrs. George Murphy, and Marion Marsh with lanky, craggily handsome Howard Hughes, who you may recall was an acquaintance of Robert Myers. Hughes wasn’t wearing a tux, either; we had that much in common.

As I was taking my leave of them at their booth, Mantz said to me, “If you haven’t picked up your train tickets, Nate, keep in mind I can get you a discount on fares, if you fly United or TWA. You got to come by and drop off the Terraplane at my hangar, anyway.”

“No thanks,” I said. “I kinda had my fill of airplanes.”

Traffic was light as I made my way back toward Lowman’s Motor Court, and I wasn’t speeding, in fact I was probably poking. My stomach warm and full, I felt a certain satisfaction knowing what I was going to do about Putnam and company. I did believe what Robert and I had heard last night, and had a small sense of relief knowing Amy was alive, though a nagging sense of dread about what she might be going through, a spy in the hands of the Japanese.

So I was surprised, as I loped along North San Fernando Road, when I heard the siren coming up behind me, and my first notion was they were on their way to some emergency. I pulled over to let them pass, but they rolled in behind me, a black patrol car, its side-mounted white spotlight hitting the Terraplane with its blinding beam.

Terraplane idling, I got out, shielding my eyes from the glare but still able to see a cop getting out on either side of the black Ford, the blouses of their dark uniforms bisected by the black leather straps of their holsters, badges gleaming on blouses and flat-crowned caps.

This was a somewhat undeveloped stretch, North San Fernando Road also being Highway 6, scrubby landscape on either side of us. A breeze was whispering through the underbrush; suddenly the night seemed chillier.

“What’s the problem, officers?” I asked, meeting them halfway.

Their faces were pale blots; with that light in my eyes, I could make out no features, but the first voice was older: “Okay, boyo—lean your hands against the side of the car.”

I gladly turned my back on the blinding light, heading back to the Terraplane, where I leaned against the sleek curve of a fender, waiting for the frisk. It came. My gun was back in the motel room, which was a good thing, I guessed. I felt my wallet leave my back pocket; my little notebook was in the motel room, also.

“Does this car belong to you?” the second one asked; he was young, or anyway younger.

“No it doesn’t.”

“You’re damn right it doesn’t,” the older cop said. “This car was reported stolen.”

Christ! Putnam. Somehow he got wind I was using Amy’s car, and he set me up, the prick.

“This is a misunderstanding,” I said, and risked looking back with a small smile. “I was loaned this car.”

“That may come as news to the guy you pinched it from,” the older one said. “You’re going to have to come with us, boyo.”

A night in jail loomed ahead. No reason to fight it. Mantz could straighten it out tomorrow morning; this was just Putnam’s way of getting back at me.

The older officer took me by the arm and hauled me around; a little rough, nothing special, par for the copper course. I knew enough not to cross him.

“Hey, Calvin,” the younger one said, gazing into my open wallet as if it were a crystal ball. “I think this guy’s a cop….”

Calvin, still holding onto my arm, snatched the wallet from his young partner’s grasp and held it close to his face. “What’s this…Chicago Police Benevolent Association?…You on the job?”

“I work private now,” I said. “I was on the Chicago department for ten years.” That was a five-year lie.

I could now make out their faces. The older one had sharp features and dull eyes. The younger one had a bulldog mug that would make a great cop face, in a few years, but right now it looked a little silly.

“Ten years, you say,” the older one said. “Why’d you step down?”

“Disability,” I lied. With my free hand, I gestured to the arm he had hold of me by. “Took one in the shoulder.”

He blinked and let go of my arm as if it were hot. “How’d it happen, son?”

I’d gone from “boyo” to “son”—an encouraging raise in rank.

“Stickup guy,” I said, as if that explained it.

They nodded, as if I’d explained it.

The older cop’s sharp features softened. “You didn’t really steal this car, did you, son?”

“No. It was loaned to me. Like I said.”

The two cops looked at each other, then the younger one’s bulldog mug wrinkled into a plea of mercy, and the older one nodded.

“Look, friend,” the older one said, promoting me again, “this was a roust. We were supposed to haul you in. Keep you busy.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know.” The younger one shrugged. “A guy tipped us you’d be driving down this road sometime this evening, and we been keepin’ an eye out.”

I jerked a thumb toward the Terraplane. “
Was
this car reported stolen?”

“No,” Calvin said, shaking his head, a thumb in his gunbelt. “But the guy said you’d buy the story.”

I nodded. “And you’d just put me in a holding cell for a few hours.”

“Yeah,” the young one said. “And call a number and let this guy know we had ya…then again when we let ya out.”

Didn’t these clowns know they might have been setting me up for a rubout? No self-respecting Chicago cop would do that—for less than a C-note.

“What did this guy look like?”

“Gray hair, dark eyebrows, dark suit,” the younger one said. “Medium build, maybe six feet. Respectable-looking.”

Miller.

“What did he pay you?”

“Sawbuck each,” Calvin said.

Life was cheap in California. I dug in my pocket, but the younger one said, “No! Your money’s no good.”

I don’t think his partner appreciated this magnanimous gesture, but he let it go.

In fact, he said, “We ain’t gonna be party to rousting a brother officer.”

“Thank you, fellas,” I said.

And they tipped their hats to me, walked back to their black Ford, cut the spotlight, and headed back toward Burbank.

A few minutes later, I pulled into Lowman’s Motor Court, wondering just what the hell I’d gotten myself into. If Miller was military intelligence, willing to buy off local cops to set me up in some fashion, I needed to head home in a hurry, back to my contacts at the
Trib.
The sooner this was in print, the better.

I didn’t remember leaving the lights on in my cabin, and in retrospect you’d figure a guy in my business would be smarter; but the truth is, if I was smart I wouldn’t be in my business, and nobody had been parked in my stall, or the two stalls next to mine, which was the last in the row of cabins, so when I stepped inside and found the two guys tossing my room, I was genuinely surprised.