That must have scared shit out of him.
“While the professor was in the cemetery,” Lindbergh told us, Wilson taking notes fast and furious, “that same fellow in the brown suit we’d seen before came running down the other side of the street, from the direction of Whittemore. He covered his face again, with his handkerchief, as he passed by the car—and blew his nose so loudly that it could’ve been heard a block away.”
“Did you see his face?” Irey asked.
“Not directly,” Lindbergh said. “He ran to a spot some distance away, but I saw him drop the handkerchief—like a signal of some kind.”
“Colonel, you heard Cemetery John’s voice,” Wilson said, looking up from his note-taking. “Could you identify him by it, do you think?”
Without hesitation Slim shook his head, no. “Oh, I remember the voice clearly enough. But to say I could pick a man out by that voice…I really couldn’t.”
“Well, I could,” Condon said, slapping his hand on the table. “My hearing
“Get a sketch artist over here,” Irey told Wilson, who nodded, pocketed his notebook and went out. Irey began questioning Condon about various details; Slim got up and moved around and sat next to me.
“Nate,” he said, “are you going with us?”
“To search for the Boat
“I want you to. Maybe you should grab a nap on a couch. It’s after one A.M., now. We’ll be leaving at dawn.”
“Okay,” I said, yawning, stretching as I pushed away from the table. I got up. “You know, one thing surprises me.”
“Oh?” Lindbergh said.
“Yeah.” I grinned. “The way you been playing fair, playing by the rules, I’m halfway surprised you didn’t wait six hours, like you were told, before you opened that envelope.”
“Oh, I was going to,” Slim said. “But Dr. Condon talked me out of it.”
21
It was still dark when we reached the airstrip. We’d left Manhattan around 2:00 A.M., bound for Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lindbergh driving, Breckinridge in the front, Condon, Irey and me in back. Wilson stayed behind “coordinating,” whatever that was. I fell quickly asleep against the locked door as Jafsie, sitting between Irey and me like an oversize child, his cow eyes glazed, alternated between chortling over his triumph of depriving the kidnappers of four hundred fifty-dollar gold certificates, and spouting Shakespeare.
I awoke, briefly, when the car came to a stop, saw Lindy conferring with airport officials and some Navy men, and quickly surmised that our plane hadn’t arrived yet. I saw a middle-aged fellow in civilian clothes, apparently an airport manager, hand Lindy a small but bulging bundle and Lindy smiled at him gratefully, taking the bundle, shaking the man’s hand. I went back to sleep, Condon next to me in the car’s backseat, as alert as a watchdog, and nearly as smart.
A whirring roar, louder than Judgment Day, awoke me. I sat up sharply; Condon was gone. I got out and saw, across the airfield, the rising sun glittering on the blue-gray surface of Long Island Sound. Above, a huge silver flying boat wheeled in the sky, making its approach.
“A Sikorsky amphibian,” Irey yelled, above the din. He was standing just behind me, his topcoat flapping in the wind, as he held his hat on with one hand. Some of it was the breeze; most of it was the airplane, coming in for her landing.
Irey moved closer to me. “That’s perfect,” he shouted, almost directly into my ear. “We can spot the Boat
I nodded. I wondered what he meant by “we.” I’d never been up in a plane, and had no intention of starting now.
As the huge silver bird set down, slowed, and swung gently around, its propellers turning from a blur into blades, Lindbergh walked into, and seemed to enjoy, the wind the props manufactured. I kept my distance while he, Colonel Breckinridge and Irey gathered near the plane. Slim inspected the ship, talking casually but intently with the pilot who brought her in.
Condon was next to me, looking with some trepidation at the big silver bird.
Lindbergh opened up a cabin door and stowed inside the bundle the airport official had given him. Then he strolled over to us and smiled in his boyish way. There was something in his face today I hadn’t seen before. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
“All right, gents,” he said brightly.
Hope. That was it: there was hope in his face, the crinkles around his eyes, the tug at the corners of his smile.
“I’d like you to go along, Doctor,” Lindy said to Condon. “You’re not afraid of planes, are you?”
Jafsie raised his chin and said, “Sir, I will go anywhere you go.”
Lindy turned to me. “How about you, Nate?”
“Slim, if God had wanted me to fly, I’da been born with a parachute…and I still wouldn’t go.”
“Well, God isn’t asking you—I am.”
I sucked in some air and blew it out. “What do you want me along for? Somebody ought to stay with the car.”
“We can use another spotter. Besides, you’ve been in on this since almost the beginning. You deserve to be in
