I shook my head. “G. P. doesn’t want her dead. She’s worth too much alive.”
He got his face right in mine, eyes dark and burning; he smelled like Old Spice. “Maybe he figures, if she pulls it off, fine—I mean, he’s got the five-hundred-dollar-a-crack lecture tours lined up, right?”
So her fee was going to double, out on the circuit, after the round-the-world trip. Not bad.
“But if she dies trying,” Mantz continued, “then he’s got a
Dean, back on the mound, had just struck out Joe Moore on a high fastball. No beanballs all afternoon, so far anyway, not counting the close call of the first pitch of the day; Dean was slipping.
“Even if that’s true,” I said quietly, trying for a reasonable tone, “what the hell can we do about it? This flight’s more important to Amelia than her husband—she knows what’s riding on it.”
Mantz’s sneer spelled out his contempt. “Let me tell you about Gippy Putnam—I say to him, we got to paint the Electra’s rudder, stabilizer, and wing borders a nice bright red or orange, to make it easier to locate the bird if it goes down. He refuses. He says it’s gotta be Purdue’s colors—old gold and black!”
I shrugged, sipped the beer. “He’s always cut corners for the sake of promotion.”
Mantz’s brow furrowed. “She almost died on the Atlantic crossing, did you know that, Heller? It’s not just an exciting goddamn story for her to tell at those lectures—it happened, and it almost killed her. Storms, and mechanical malfunctions, engine on fire, wings icing up, plane damn near spinning into the ocean.”
“I know,” I sighed, hating the truth of what he was saying, “I know.”
“If
Lefty O’Doul swung at another Dean high fastball and struck out.
“You were part of it, Paul,” I said softly, no accusation in my voice.
But his face clenched in pain, anyway. “You think I don’t know that? Listen, I love that girl…”
“I thought you had a new fiancee.”
Myrtle Mantz had won her divorce decree last July, after plenty of embarrassment for Paul and Amy in the papers. Paul Mantz had steadfastly maintained, however, that theirs was strictly an employer/employee relationship.
“I love her like a sister,” he said irritably. “Why do you think this is eatin’ me up like a goddamn ulcer? I’m tellin’ ya, Gippy sold her out.”
I frowned at him. “How? Who to?”
“I don’t know exactly. That’s what I want to hire you to find out.”
“I don’t follow this. At all.”
The Giants were at bat. Burgess Whitehead had singled, Hubbell had sacrificed him to second, with Dick Bartell up. Dean half-turned to second, then with no stop in his fluid motion, pitched one at the plate, which Bartell reflexively swung at, popping out to left field. But the umpire called it a balk, and Dizzy Dean threw his cap in the air and charged toward the umpire to talk it over. The crowd went crazy with rage and glee.
“Look,” Mantz said, having to work his voice up a little, “let’s just start with Howland Island.”
“What is Howland Island, anyway?” I asked. “I never heard of the damn place before this flight.”
“Nobody had, except some military types.”
“Military?”
From the field, Dizzy Dean could be heard yelling, “I quit!” to the umpire, and he trundled toward the dugout. An uproar from the stands soon built into a thunderous chant: “
Mantz really had to work to be heard over that. “That’s the part of this thing that’s putting that nosedive feeling in the pit of my stomach. See, the original plan was to use Midway Island for refueling—that’s a Pan Am overnight stopover for Clipper passengers. They got a hotel there and even a golf course…”
“Sounds ideal.”
“Yeah, only there’s nowhere to land, no runway. Midway’s strictly a seaplane port, by way of a sheltered lagoon.”
“So why didn’t Amelia pick a seaplane for her flying laboratory, instead of the Electra?”
“Actually, the Electra could’ve been fitted with pontoons…but those are expensive, many thousands of dollars.”
Mantz continued with a nasty smile: “Now you know, Eleanor Roosevelt damn near has a crush on Amelia; and
