The Carpetbaggers (89 page)

"It's been a long time, Pop," I said and poured the whisky down my throat

* * *

I took my hands from the blueprints on the desk and snapped and rolled them up tight, like a coil spring. I looked at McAllister. "They look all right to me, Mac."

He nodded. "I'll mark them approved and shoot them on to Purchasing to have them requisition the materials on standby orders, to be delivered when the war ends." He looked at the bottle of bourbon on the desk. "You're not very hospitable. How about a drink?"

I looked at him in surprise. Mac wasn't much for drinking. Especially during working hours. I pushed the bottle and a glass toward him. "Help yourself."

He poured a small shot and swallowed it neat. He cleared his throat. I looked at him. "There's one other postwar plan I wanted to talk to you about," he said awkwardly.

"Go ahead."

"Myself," he said hesitantly. "I’m not a young man any more. I want to retire."

"Retire?" I couldn't believe my ears. "What for? What in hell would you do?"

Mac flushed embarrassedly. "I've worked pretty hard all my life," he said. "I’ve got two sons and a daughter and five grandchildren, three of whom I've never seen. The wife and I would like to spend a little time with them, get to know them before it's too late."

I laughed. "You sound like you expect to kick off any minute. You're a young man yet."

"I'm sixty-three. I've been with you twenty years."

I stared at him. Twenty years. Where had they gone? The Army doctors had been right. I wasn't a kid any more, either. "We'll miss you around here," I said sincerely. "I don't know how we'll manage without you." I meant it, too. Mac was the one man I felt I could always depend on, whenever I had need for him.

"You'll manage all right. We've got over forty attorneys working for us now and each is a specialist in his own field. You're not just one man any more, you're a big company. You have to have a big legal machine to take care of you."

"So what?" I said. "You can't call up a machine in the middle of the night when you're in trouble."

"This machine you can. It's equipped for all emergencies."

"But what will you do? You can't tell me you'll be happy just lying around playing grandpa. You'll have to have something to occupy your mind."

"I've thought about that," he said, a serious look coming over his face. "I've been playing around so long with corporate and tax laws that I've almost forgotten about the most important part of all. The laws that have to do with human beings." He reached for the bottle again and poured himself another small drink. It wasn't easy for him to sit there and tell me what he was thinking.

"I thought I'd hang my shingle outside my house in some small town. Just putter around with whatever happened to come in the door. I'm tired of always talking in terms of millions of dollars. For once, I'd like to help some poor bastard who really needs it."

I stared at him. Work with a man for twenty years and still you don't know him. This was a side to McAllister that I'd never even suspected existed.

"Of course, we'll abrogate all of the contracts and agreements between us," he said.

I looked at him. I knew he didn't need the money. But then, neither did I. "Why in hell should we? Just show up at the board of directors' meeting every few months so at least I can see you once in a while."

"Then you— you agree?"

I nodded. "Sure, let's give it a spin when the war is over."

* * *

The sheets of white paper grew into a stack as he skimmed through the summary of each of the contracts. At last, Mac was finished and he looked up at me. "We have ample protective-cancellation clauses in all the contracts except one," he said. "That one is based on delivery before the end of the war."

"Which one is that?"

"That flying boat we're building for the Navy in San Diego."

I knew what he was talking about.
The Centurion
. It was to be the biggest airplane ever built, designed to carry a full company of one hundred and fifty men, in addition to the twelve-man crew, two light amphibious tanks and enough mortar, light artillery, weapons, ammunition and supplies for an entire company. It had been my idea that a plane like that would prove useful in landing raiding parties behind the lines out in the small Pacific islands.

"How come we made a contract like that?"

"You wanted it," he said. "Remember?"

I remembered. The Navy had been skeptical that the big plane could even get into the air, so I'd pressured them into making a deal predicated on a fully tested plane before the war ended. That was over seven months ago.

Almost immediately, we'd run into trouble. Stress tests proved that conventional metals would make the plane too heavy for the engines to lift into the air. We lost two months there, until the engineers came up with a Fiberglas compound that was less than one tenth the weight of metal and four times as strong. Then we had to construct special machinery to work the new material. I even brought Amos Winthrop down from Canada to sit in on the project. The old bastard had done a fantastic job up there and had a way of bulling a job through when no one else was able to.

The old leopard hadn't changed any of his spots, either. He had me by the shorts and he knew it. He held me up for a vice-presidency in Cord Aircraft before he'd come down.

"How much are we in for up to now?" I asked.

Mac looked down at the sheet. "Sixteen million, eight hundred seventy-six thousand, five hundred ninety-four dollars and thirty-one cents, as of June thirtieth."

"We're in trouble," I said, reaching for the telephone. The operator came on. "Get me Amos Winthrop in San Diego. And while I'm waiting to talk to him, call Mr. Dalton at the Inter-Continental Airlines office in Los Angeles and ask him to send down a special charter for me."

''What's the trouble?" Mac asked, watching me.

"Seventeen million dollars. We're going to blow it if we don't get that plane into the air right away."

Then Amos came on the phone. "How soon do you expect to get
The Centurion
into the sky?" I asked.

"We're coming along pretty good now. Just the finishing touches. I figure we ought to be able to lift her sometime in September or early October."

"What's missing?"

"The usual stuff. Mountings, fittings, polishing, tightening. You know."

I knew. The small but important part that took longer than anything else. But nothing really essential, nothing that would keep the plane from flying. "Get her ready," I said. "I'm taking her up tomorrow."

"Are you crazy? We've never even had gasoline in her tanks."

"Then fill her up."

"But the hull hasn't been water-tested yet," he shouted. "How do you know she won't go right to the bottom of San Diego Bay when you send her down the runway?"

"Then test it. You've got twenty-four hours to make sure she floats. I’ll be up there tonight, if you need a hand."

This was no cost-plus, money-guaranteed project, where the government picked up the tab, win, lose or draw. This was my money and I didn't like the idea of losing it.

For seventeen million dollars,
The Centurion
would fly if I had to lift her out of the water with my bare hands.

I had Robair take me out to the ranch, where I took a hot shower and changed my clothes before I got on the plane to San Diego. I was just leaving the house when the telephone rang.

"It's for you, Mr. Jonas," Robair said. "Mr. McAllister."

I took the phone from his hand. "Yes, Mac?"

"Sorry to bother you, Jonas, but this is important."

"Shoot."

"Bonner just called from the studio," he said. "He's leaving at the end of the month to go over to Paramount. He's got a deal with them to make nothing but blockbusters."

"Offer him more money."

"I did. He doesn't want it. He wants out."

"What does his contract say?"

"It's over the end of this month," he said. "We cant hold him if he wants to go."

"To hell with him, then. If he wants to go, let him."

"We're in a hole," Mac said seriously. "We'll have to find someone to run the studio. You can't operate a motion-picture company without someone to make pictures."

That was nothing I didn't know. It was too bad that David Woolf wasn't coming back. I could depend on him. He felt the same way about movies that I did about airplanes. But he'd caught it at Anzio.

"I want to make San Diego tonight," I said. "Let me think about it and we'll kick it around in your office in L.A. the day after tomorrow." I had bigger worries on my mind just now. One
Centurion
cost almost as much as a whole year's production at the studio.

We landed at the San Diego Airport about one o'clock in the morning. I took a taxi right from there to the little shipyard we had rented near the Naval base. I could see the lights blazing from it ten blocks away. I smiled to myself. Leave it to Amos to get things done. He had a night crew working like mad, even if he had to break the blackout regulations to get it done.

I walked around the big old boat shed that we were using for a hangar just in time to hear someone yell, "Clear the runway!"

And then
The Centurion
came out of the hangar, tail first, looking for all the world like an ugly giant condor flying backward. Like a greased pig, it shot down the runway toward the water. A great roar came from the hangar and I was almost knocked over by a gang of men, who came running out after the plane. Before I knew it, they'd passed me and were down at the water's edge. I saw Amos in the crowd and he was yelling as much as any of them.

There was a great splash as
The Centurion
hit the water, a moment's groaning silence as the tail dipped backward, almost covering the three big rudders, and then a triumphant yell as she straightened herself out and floated easily on the bay. She began to turn, drifting away from the dock, and I heard the whir of the big winches as they spun the tie lines, drawing her back in.

The men were still yelling when I got to Amos. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I shouted, trying to make myself heard over the noise.

"What you told me to do — water-test her."

"You damn fool! You might've sunk her. Why didn't you get a pressure tank?"

"There wasn't time. The earliest I could've got one was three days. You said you were taking her up tomorrow."

The winches had hauled the plane partly back on the runway, with her prow out of the water. "Wait here a minute," Amos said, "I gotta get the men to work. They're all on triple time."

He went down the dock to where a workman had already placed a ladder against the side of the giant plane. Scrambling up like a man half his age, Amos opened the door just behind the cabin and disappeared into the plane. A moment later, I heard the whir of a motor from somewhere inside her and the giant boarding flap came down, opening a gaping maw in her prow that was big enough to drive a truck through. Amos appeared at the top of the ramp inside the plane. "O.K., men. You know what we gotta do. Shake the lead out. We ain't paying triple time for conversation."

He came back up the dock toward me and we walked back into his office. There was a bottle of whisky on his desk. He took two paper cups from the wall container and began to pour whisky into them. "You mean it about taking her up tomorrow?"

I nodded.

He shook his head. "I wouldn't," he said. "Just because she floats don't mean she'll fly. There's still too many things we're not sure of. Even if she does get up, there's no guarantee she'll stay up. She might even fall apart in the sky."

"That'll be rough," I said. "But, I'm taking her up, anyway."

He shrugged his shoulders. "You're the boss," he said, handing me one of the paper cups. He raised his to his lips. "Here's luck."

* * *

By two o'clock the next afternoon, we still weren't ready. The number-two starboard engine spit oil like a gusher every time we started it up and we couldn't find the leak. I stood on the dock, staring up at her. "We'll have to pull her off," Amos said, "and get her up to the shop."

I looked at him. "How long will that take?"

"Two, three hours. If we're lucky and find what's wrong right away. Maybe we better put off taking her up until tomorrow."

I looked at my watch. "What for? We'll still have three and a half hours of daylight at five o'clock." I started back toward his office. "I'm going back to your office and grab a snooze on the couch. Call me as soon as she's ready."

But I might as well have tried to sleep in a boiler factory, for all the shouting and cursing and hammering and riveting. Then the telephone rang and I got up to answer it. "Hello, Dad?" It was Monica's voice.

"No, this is Jonas. I’ll get him for you."

"Thanks."

Laying the telephone down on the desk, I went to the door and called Amos. I went back to the couch and stretched out as he picked up the phone. He shot a peculiar look at me when he heard her voice. "Yes, I'm a little busy." He was silent for a little while, listening to her. When he spoke again, he was smiling. "That's wonderful. When are you leaving? . . . Then I’ll fly to New York when this job is finished. We'll have a celebration. Give my love to Jo-Ann."

He put down the telephone and came over to me. "That was Monica," he said, looking down at me.

"I know."

"She's leaving for New York this afternoon. S. J. Hardin just made her managing editor of
Style
and wants her back there right away."

"That's nice," I said.

"She's taking Jo-Ann back with her. You haven't seen the kid for a long time now, have you?"

"Not since the time you walked the two of them out of my apartment at the Drake in Chicago, five years ago."

"You oughta see her. The kid's turning into a real beauty."

I stared up at him. Now I'd seen everything — Amos Winthrop playing proud grandpa. "Man, you've really changed, haven't you?"

"Sooner or later, a man has to wise up," Amos said, flushing embarrassedly. "You find out you did a lot of fool things to hurt the people you love and if you're not a prick altogether, you try to make up for them."