At nine fifty-five, under the blazing floodlights of the Burbank airport, I watched her rumble down the endless runway and, finally, when her speed overcame the six thousand pounds of loaded-down, fueled-up Vega, she lifted into a clear but moonless night sky, which soon swallowed her up.
I didn’t say anything to Mantz or Putnam, who I’d handed the Terraplane keys over to, earlier. I just found my way to the United Airport terminal and went out front and got a cab to the train station.
Amy’s record-setting flight to Mexico City was fairly uneventful. She threw Commander Williams’s elaborate flight plans away and flew south, following the coastline until she figured she was parallel to Mexico City and took a left. When she couldn’t find it, she landed in a dry lake bed and asked directions of a farmer.
Delayed by weather, her eventual return to Newark (which included crossing the Gulf of Mexico, despite Mantz’s warnings) found her mobbed by fifteen thousand admiring fans who pawed at her and tore her clothing. Putnam reaped substantial publicity benefits from the flight, and had arranged for several honorary degrees and awards to be presented to her in the glow of this latest accomplishment.
Within a week of her return from Mexico City, Amelia Earhart was in Chicago, Illinois, to accept a medal from the Italian government at a conference of two thousand women’s club presidents, every one of whom represented a potential lecture booking on a future tour. I was employed by the Emerson Speaker’s Bureau, at Miss Earhart’s request, to provide security.
Her husband did not accompany her on the Chicago trip.
And since Putnam had essentially fired me, it was necessary that, in doing this job for his wife, I remain undercover.
Reprehensible son of a bitch that I was.
8
Press coverage was minimal when Amelia Earhart (and an all-male crew) lifted off in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra 10E from the Oakland Airport on St. Patrick’s Day, 1937, on what was, technically at least, the first leg of her round-the-world flight. Heavy rains had caused numerous postponements, and many reporters—who, frankly, were probably a little bored with Amelia Earhart by now, anyway, finding her a relic of a quaint, earlier era of pioneering aviation—had bailed out. But one memorable photo—which appeared all over the country, including Chicago—caught the Electra, shortly after takeoff, poised above the almost-finished Golden Gate Bridge.
When they arrived at Honolulu fifteen hours and forty-seven minutes later (setting a record), Paul Mantz handled the landing, due to fatigue on Amy’s part. At least, this is what Mantz later told me, dispelling the official word that the twenty-four-hour delay before beginning the first true leg of the flight (and the most dangerous)— Honolulu to tiny Howland Island, more than 1,800 miles away—was due to shaky weather forecasts; in fact, it was to give Miss Earhart time to rest up for the physically demanding flight. Mantz, who was only along for the Oakland-Honolulu leg, took advantage of the delay and flew one last test flight of the Electra, to check out a few last-minute adjustments that had been made.
The papers were referring to the sleek, all-metal, silver Electra with its fifty-five-foot wing span as “the Flying Laboratory” (a G. P. Putnam touch, no doubt) and I knew the ship was a great source of pride to Amy.
April of the year before, back on the lecture circuit (interspersing speaking engagements with campaign appearances for President Roosevelt’s reelection), she had been glowing about it.
“They’ve put fifty thousand dollars into a research fund,” she said, “can you imagine?”
I knew all about huge sums of money; I figured I had at least six bucks (factoring in tip) invested in our tables d’hote (filet of sole with Marguery sauce for her and filet mignon for me). The elegant oak-paneled Chez Louis on East Pearson Street near the Gold Coast was one of the handful of places in Chicago where a celebrity could dine unaccosted, though many eyes were on my tall, slim companion in her canary shirt, string of pearls and tailored gray slacks. Amy was the first woman I knew who chose slacks as evening wear.
“So they gave you fifty thousand clams,” I said matter-of-factly, carving myself a bite of rare filet. “Who is ‘they’?”
“Purdue University. Or anyway, Purdue’s ‘Amelia Earhart Research Foundation’…whatever that is. Probably some rich alumni whose arms G. P. twisted.”
“Why Purdue University?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Since last fall, I have two positions with Purdue: I’m their aeronautics advisor but I’m also a consultant in the Department for the Study of Careers for Women.”
“Is that what they’re calling Home Economics now?”
A wry smile dimpled an apple cheek. “You tread a thin line with me, sometimes, Nathan Heller…. I spend several weeks a semester there.”
“So it’s not just an honorary title, then?”
“No,” she said, touching her napkin to her lips, finished with her sole, “I live right in the dorms with the girls, eat in their cafeteria, sit elbow to elbow with them. I let these young women know they don’t have to settle for being nurses, they can be doctors; they don’t just have to be secretaries, they can be business executives.”
“That’s a swell sentiment, Amy, but do you think it’s realistic?”
Amy smiled at the colored busboy removing her plate. “Oh, I let them know they’ll be facing discrimination… both where the law is concerned, and good old-fashioned male stupidity.”
“It was probably good old-fashioned stupid males who ponied up your fifty grand…. You wouldn’t have your eye on a new plane, by any chance? That twin-engine job you’ve been craving?”
The waiter was delivering our desserts.
She licked her upper lip in anticipation of the delicious parfait before her; or she might have been thinking about her new plane. “Two motors, dual controls, capable of a twenty-seven-thousand-foot altitude. It’s an Electra.”
I had a parfait too and spooned a bite of the frozen confection. “Isn’t that a passenger plane?”
“Yes, seats up to ten. But Paul’s going to strip it for auxiliary fuel tanks; he says we’ll have a capability of four thousand five hundred nonstop air miles.”
“That’s a long time between pee breaks,” I said.
