Card Sharks

'I don't know, Dr. Rudo. I try not to have any opinion about it at all and just let the facts speak for themselves. Honestly, I don't think any of this will pan out, but I feel that I have to examine every possibility.'

Rudo smiled again and stood, extending his hand. 'That is best, certainly. If I can be of any more help to you …'

His handshake was firm and warm. 'Thank you, Doctor. You've been more than helpful already. I have another appointment this evening, as a matter of fact, someone else who might know something about Durand.'

'So you've been looking her up, also.'

'Yes. Actually, her background is more interesting than Dr. Faneuil's.'

'Fascinating. Then I'll simply wish you luck.' He started to walk Hannah toward the door, then stopped. He cocked his head to one side slightly, as if appraising a painting or sculpture. 'Forgive me for saying this, but as a psychologist, I notice things. Your accent tells me that you're not native to the city, and I suspect that you're not entirely happy here. If I can be of any help in that area …'

'Am I that transparent?' Hannah asked, genuinely shocked. She tried to laugh; it sounded utterly false.

Rudo chuckled with her. 'No, Ms. Davis. I just … well, pick up on these things. My offer's genuine. Sometimes a neutral ear …' He smiled again.

'I'll keep it in mind,' Hannah told him. The way work is going, the way my relationship with David has gone sour … 'Maybe …' she said, not realizing until a second later that she'd spoke aloud.

'Please do. Trust yourself, Ms. Davis. You strike me as both dedicated and intelligent. I'm sure you will find your arsonist, and very soon.'

'It was this picture, Mr. Dearborn. A rather famous picture, from what I'm told. When I saw her file, when I saw where she'd worked and what had happened there, I checked the Wolfe book out of the library. I also found out that you lived in New York now.'

'True Brothers.' Dearborn gave her a lopsided grin. 'Wolfe might be a fine writer, but he ain't a pilot, and no amount of poetic language can replace that. I never could read his book, but I remember the picture.'

The retired Navy captain had an apartment in the Village overlooking one of the little parks. He took the book from Hannah, studied the photo reproduced there through his bifocals. Dearborn looked almost skeletal. 'Ahh, we were handsome then,' he said, handing it back to her. His hand trembled with a palsy. He's on medication, the tenant downstairs had told her. Really sick. Sometimes it makes him a little, well, rambling. She'd tapped her head.

'We had hair,' Dearborn said, chuckling. 'Lots of it. We thought nothing could kill us. Nothing, ever. We were immortal.'

He chuckled again, then leaned back on the couch. A television, the sound off but the picture still on, flickered in the corner of the room. All around, there were pictures of Dearborn, standing alongside a series of aircraft. A half-dollar was sitting on the coffee table. Dearborn picked it up and began flipping it. Heads. Flip. Heads. Flip. Heads. He noticed Hannah watching him and put the coin down again.

'Yes, that's Margaret Durand,' Dearborn said. 'Peggy, we called her. She was our flight nurse for the project. Thayer took the picture at Pancho's, in fact. He used my camera; I had an old Argus C-3. Lot of those shots on the walls taken with it. In fact, I think it's still around here somewhere. Life bought the reprint rights from us … afterward. Wolfe did, too.' He licked dry, cracked lips. 'Maybe except for Peg, I'm the only one left of the bunch, as I guess you've found out. The only one … Sometimes I think about that, and it scares me. I don't have much time left myself: colon cancer. Not too many people know or care what happened back then….'

Hannah broke in as Dearborn's gaze drifted away. 'I'm very sorry, Mr. Dearborn. Would you know where Margaret might be now?'

'Lord, no,' Dearborn answered. 'After … we didn't really keep in touch. I think we were all ashamed. Too much mud got slung around and a lot of it stuck. Do you know about it? Really know about it?'

'No, sir. Not very much. Would you take a look at this other picture?' Hannah interrupted. 'It's taken much later, around 1982.'

Dearborn looked closely at the photograph, holding it up to the lamp alongside the couch. 'Why, that's Peggy, too. Older and heavier, but I'd recognize that face and that smile anywhere. So she did get back into nursing…. Where was this taken? Looks like Africa somewhere.'

'Kenya,' Hannah told him. 'You're certain that's Margaret?'

Dearborn glanced at the photo again, then handed it back. 'Positive.' Dearborn frowned. 'You said you were some kind of investigator. Is she in trouble again? Is she dead?'

'In trouble again?'

Dearborn sighed. A flash of pain seemed to run behind his eyes. His lips tightened and he groaned. 'Mr. Dearborn?' Hannah asked. 'Is there something I can get for you?'

'Pills,' he said. 'On the table in the kitchen. No,' he said as Hannah started to get up. 'Let me get them. It's one of the things I won't let myself do — I'm not going to give in to the pain and let someone take care of me. I take care of myself. Always have, always will.' He moved off into the kitchen. Hannah could hear him running water, drinking. 'I'll be back in a minute,' he said, and his footsteps moved away into another hidden room.

Hannah heard a door open and the sound of boxes being moved. A few minutes later, Dearborn came out again with a cardboard carton. He set it down on the coffee table and looked at her. 'No one really knows what happened,' he told her. 'No one. Not even Wolfe. I was never one to write things down, but Thayer was. His lawyer sent me this stuff after Thayer's car wreck — it was in the will that this went to any surviving member of the project. Poor guy: six months out of prison and he loses control on a curve. I never really looked at the notebooks; that wasn't a period in my life I particularly wanted to remember. But Thayer wrote it all down, the way he saw it, anyway. There's stuff about Peggy in there….'

Dearborn pulled the box open. A yellowed newspaper clipping wafted out. Dearborn plucked it from the air and gave it to Hannah….

A Method Of Reaching Extreme Altitudes

Michael Cassutt

(From The Los Angeles Herald, Monday, April 12, 1958:)

U.S. TO TRY ROCKET FLIGHT

BEFORE RUSSIANS?

ROSAMOND, CALIFORNIA. (Herald exclusive) The United States may attempt a manned rocket flight in the next few weeks in an attempt to beat the Russians into space, it was learned here today.

Officials at the Muroc Lake Test Site of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics referred this reporter to the USAF office here, which declined comment. NACA's Muroc Site is part of the larger, restricted access Tomlin Air Force Base.

Nevertheless, it is known that six Air Force and NACA test pilots are training for flights in a winged rocketplane known as the X-11A. Several of these pilots are reported to have taken part in as many as five unpowered free flights of the X-11A, in which the Northrop-built vehicle glided to a landing on the dry lakebed at Tomlin.

The planned orbital flight would reportedly see the X-11A take off from Tomlin to rendezvous with a specially-modified Boeing tanker at 30,000 feet. Following re-fueling, the X-11A would rocket into orbit on its own