Flying Blind

“Who?”

He thought about whether or not to answer, then did: “Fred Noonan’s wife.”

“Beatrice,” Putnam was saying, “I have a hunch they’re sitting somewhere on a coral island, just waiting for a ride home—Fred’s probably out sitting on a rock right now, catching their dinner with those fishing lines they had aboard. There’ll be driftwood to make a fire, and…Bea, please…Bea…. For Christ’s sake, Bea! Look, one of two things has happened. Either they were killed outright—and that comes to all of us sooner or later—or they’re alive and’ll be picked up…. Keep your chin up, Bea…. Bea?”

Miller’s smile was gone; faint disgust had replaced it.

Putnam came strutting back, shrugging, saying, “She hung up on me! What the hell’s wrong with that woman? What does she want from me?”

“This is what I was talking about,” Miller snapped.

“What is?”

But Miller said nothing, and Joe came in carrying a little tray on his palm with my rum and Coke and Putnam’s Manhattan on it.

“Let’s sit out on the patio, shall we, gentlemen?” Putnam asked, plucking his drink off the tray.

I took mine also, sipped it.

“Actually, G. P.,” Miller said, glancing at his watch, “it’s been a long day…so if you’ll excuse me.”

“Nice meeting you,” I said.

Miller said, “Pleasure, Mr. Heller,” shooting me the meaningless smile one last time, and slipped past us into the dining room, turning toward the hallway to the new wing.

Soon Putnam and I were seated on the patio in white basket-weave metal lawn chairs, a round, white-metal, glass-topped table between us. Stretched out before us was a beautifully landscaped back yard washed ivory by moonlight, with stone paths, a trellis with climbing flowers, a fountain, potted agaves, and a flourishing vegetable garden.

But Putnam, leaned back in his chair, was glancing skyward. “It’s comforting to know she’s under this same sky,” he said, and sipped his Manhattan.

I gave the star-scattered sky a look, thinking, What a crock, and said, “I’m sure it is.”

“Who are you working for, Nate?” he asked, still looking at the sky. The moon was reflected in the lenses of his rimless glasses like Daddy Warbucks’s eyeballs.

“Nobody.”

“’Fess up. Who hired you? Mantz?”

Maybe Mantz had been right: maybe G. P. did have him followed in St. Louis.

I said, “I came out here because of Amelia.”

Now he looked at me, and half a smile formed; he raised his Manhattan glass and sipped. “Nate Heller? Working gratis? Has hell frozen over?”

“Does everybody have to have an angle?”

His expression turned astounded and amused. He gestured with the Manhattan glass almost as if he were toasting me. “You didn’t come here thinking I’d hire you? What could you do for A. E. that the Army and Navy can’t?”

Well within earshot were the open double windows of the study where Margot and I had spoken; I wondered if Miller was sitting in that darkened room right now, listening in, like a good little spy.

“Yeah, the Army and Navy,” I said, and took a swig of rum and Coke. “I notice you got them doing your dirty work…or is it the other way around?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Interesting houseguest you got there. He looks like John Wilkes Booth on the way to the theater.”

He leaned forward. “Why were you bothering my secretary?”

“I thought she was your wife’s secretary.”

“What has that stupid girl told you?”

I sipped my drink, shook my head, grinned. “How did you manage it, G. P.? How did you get Amelia to go along with you on this one? Or did you keep her in the dark about a lot of it? Of course, you had Noonan aboard, and he was Naval Reserve, and ex-Pan Am, the spy airline; was Noonan the real pilot of this mission?”

He smirked dismissively and sat back, sipped the Manhattan again. “What kind of gibberish are you talking?”

“I mean, Amelia’s a pacifist. You’d think the last thing she’d do is the military’s bidding. On the other hand, if her wonderful friends in the White House leaned on her, maybe…”

He was staring into his back yard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about you funding this flight by selling your wife out to the government. I’ve barely waded into this thing and already I’m drowning in the government’s involvement, from airstrips on Howland Island to cameras in the belly of that second Electra Uncle Sam bought her.”

That last one startled him. He gestured with the hand that held the Manhattan glass. “If what you’re saying is true…and I’m not saying it is, I’m not saying it isn’t…that would only make my wife a patriot.”