them. A trio of jumpsuited mechanics was at work; one of them was washing down a sleek little racing plane, a Travel Air Mystery S, which I recalled Mantz saying belonged to Pancho Barnes, an aviatrix pal of Amy’s. Mantz allowed a number of fliers to store their planes in his hangar to make his “fleet” look bigger. The other two mechanics were working on the engine of another little red and white Travel Air, a stunt plane of Mantz’s.
I recognized two of the three mechanics—the guy washing the racing plane was Tod Something, and one of the pair working on the Travel Air was Ernie Tisor, Mantz’s chief mechanic. Pushing fifty, wide-shouldered, thick around the middle, hair a salt-and-pepper mop, the good-natured mechanic frowned over at me, at first, then grinned in recognition, then frowned again—it’s a reaction I’d had before.
Rubbing the grease off his hands with a rag, he ambled over to me; his tanned, creased, hound dog’s face was blessed with eyes as blue as the California sky under cliffs of shaggy salt-and-pepper eyebrows.
“Nate Heller,” he said. He gave me half a smile; something odd lingered in his expression. “If you’re looking for the boss, he’s on a charter, sort of.”
“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”
The half-smile continued and seemed strained. “Well, him and Terry and Clark and Carole went off to La Gulla.”
Gable and Lombard. I was not impressed. I had met actors before. And Terry was Mantz’s new wife, or soon to be, anyway.
I asked, “What’s La Gulla?”
“A dirt strip down the Baja California peninsula.”
“What attraction does that hold?”
Now he gave me a complete smile, not at all strained. “No telephones, no pressure. Rolling hills and mountain quail.”
“Ah.”
“They’ll probably be back tomorrow morning, sometime.” He seemed to be studying me.
“Something on your mind, Ernie?”
“…You come out here ’cause of Miss Earhart?”
I shrugged. “Few weeks ago Paul asked me to get involved and, frankly, I passed.”
“Asked you before she got lost, you mean.”
“Yeah.”
“Asked you, ’cause he thought something wasn’t…kosher about this setup.”
“Yeah.”
His eyes narrowed in an otherwise expressionless mask. “And you turned him down, and now she’s lost…and you don’t feel so good about it.”
“I feel lousy about it.”
His mouth flinched, and at last I understood what the look in his eyes meant: they were haunted, those sky- color eyes. “Me too,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder. Then he whispered: “Look, I wanna fill you in on some things…some things I saw.”
“Okay.”
“But not here.”
“Some bar around here we could find a corner in?”
He shook his head, no. “Not
I give you the address of a place, think you can find it?”
“I’m a detective, aren’t I? That’s what cab drivers are for.”
“You don’t have wheels? Wait a second….”
He went inside Mantz’s glassed-in office and soon he was handing me some car keys, and a slip of paper with Don the Beachcomber’s address.
Still almost whispering, he asked, “Remember that convertible of Miss Earhart’s?”
“The Terraplane?”
“Right. She keeps it here, leaves it with the boss; it’s kind of a spare car…. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you use it.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course, if the boss thinks I overstepped, he’ll ask for the keys back and that’s that.”
“Sure.”
“You go on and find that address…. See you there around four.”
It was ten after four, and I had polished off a plate of chop suey; for California, it was early to eat, but I was still on Chicago time and my last meal on the train had been breakfast. The waitress, a sweet brunette in a lei and sarong, asked if I cared for an after-dinner drink. My choices included a Shark’s Tooth, a Vicious Virgin, and a Cobra’s Fang. I opted for the house specialty, originated here: the Zombie. One ounce each of six kinds of rum blended with “secret ingredients….”
I had braved two sips of the Zombie when Tisor wandered in, glancing around the otherwise still-empty Black
