“Mr. Hughes will be right down,” he said. He and Walter Dean back on Romaine had gone to the same school. I could hear the buzzing of a small airplane outside and turned to look across the field. A dot appeared in the distance out of the waves of dark rain and grew larger as it headed toward us and touched down on the ground with a slight bump and whirr. The plane, a two-engine silver thing, kept getting bigger and moving slower till it came to a stop about thirty yards from us. Two men climbed out, one well built and wearing a light-colored suit, the other tall and thin with slacks and an old zipper jacket. The one in the suit ran ahead while the thin guy ambled, ignoring the rain and deep in thought. The guy in the suit burst through the door, panting. He was about fifty with thick glasses. He looked at me, took off his jacket, snapped it once to get the top layer of moisture off and looked at the door. The second man came in. He pushed back his wet, dark hair and clenched his teeth without looking at anyone and unzipped his battered jacket, revealing a clean white shirt and no tie. Something was on his mind. He was in his mid-thirties, about six-foot four and had a slight mustache, which couldn’t make up its mind whether to be something admirable or something inconspicuous. From the way the business-suited duo looked at him trying not to look at him, I assumed he was Hughes.
“Noah, tell Rod to back it another eighth of a revolution. No, make it a seventh. I’ll take it up as soon as it’s done.” The guy who had been in the plane with Hughes nodded, put his wet jacket back on and went into the rain without a word. Hughes sat at the edge of the desk, looking out of the window at the resting plane. He touched his lower lip, looked through me, and closed his eyes. Inspiration hit, and he turned to pick up the phone.
“Did Noah get there yet, Rod?” he shouted, as if unsure of the power of the phone to carry his voice. “Right, well in addition to the seventh, check the rear flaps again. I know you did.” Hughes hung up and crossed his arms. I gave him about three more minutes while I tried to gain sympathy from the guy who looked like the FBI, but he wasn’t having any.
Finally, I said, “Mr. Hughes.”
Hughes didn’t answer, and I got up. This time I was a little louder.
“Mr. Hughes.”
Nothing.
The third time, I gave it something close to a shout. Hughes looked up.
He turned his eyes on me and slowly focused into the room.
“You’re…”
“Peters, Toby Peters. I eat avocado and bacon sandwiches, wait around in blue offices for hours, take long rides in the rain, and occasionally do a confidential investivation.”
Hughes looked at me with serious interest for the first time.
“You’re five-foot nine, 44 years old. Your brother is an LAPD police lieutenant in the Wilshire District. You have an office in the Farraday Building, exactly $323 in the bank and a bad back which must be causing you some pain now because it flares up in humid weather.”
“What kind of gun do I have?”
He paused for a second, chewed on his mustache with his lower teeth, cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard. Apparently he was a little hard of hearing and didn ‘t feel like admitting it, so I asked the question louder.
“You own a.38 automatic, but you’ve never fired it at anyone and you don’t like to carry it. You have a good record with a reputation for knowing how to keep secrets. That’s important to me.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“You also have a reputation for doing foolish things.”
He did something that looked as if it might someday develop into a smile. Then his head twitched slightly in the direction of the door. It was enough of a message to send his well-dressed muscle man back out into the rain, closing the door behind him.
Hughes, his arms still folded across his chest and his rear against the desk, turned his eyes upward, looking at the ceiling and listening to the rain hit the roof.
“This country is going to be at war in a few weeks,” he said.
It seemed both reasonable and inevitable to me, and I had nothing to add. In a few minutes, he went on.
“Hughes Aircraft has designed some important equipment to help us win that war. We have finished plans for the D-2 bomber, the fastest, most accurate bomber plane in the world. We have also completed designs for a long- range, high-speed, giant wooden transport for carrying troops to Europe over the Atlantic or Pacific to bypass the threat of submarines.”
“Sounds great,” I said, waiting for him to tell me if I was going to pilot the bomber or the transport.
“I have reason to believe the Japanese have either stolen my plans or have tried to steal them.” He turned his eyes on me. They didn’t blink. I looked back at him, wondering what the hell my reaction was supposed to be. I nodded slowly, sadly, knowingly. It was a good choice. He went on.
“In 1934, we built the H-l, the Hughes One, a prototype for the world’s fastest landplane. It had a radial engine with two banks of cylinders and a 1,000-horsepower Pratt and Whitney twin Wasp engine.”
I raised my eyebrows in further appreciation though I didn’t know a Pratt and Whitney from a gumball machine. Hughes was looking straight at me and talking.
“We built that to run fast, even specified flathead screws countersunk and rivets installed flush with the metal to minimize wind resistance. We set a world speed record in that plane in 1935 in Santa Anna. Now the Japanese have a fighter plane they’re using in China, based on the H-l, and the United States is a good five years behind them.”
“Mr. Hughes,” I said, getting up and trying not to reach for my aching back, “I don’t know a damn thing about airplanes.”
“But you know a lot about thieves,” he said.
“I’ve caught them, lost them, played poker with them and been laid up by them. They come in all sizes and ages: old ladies in grocery stores who drop cans of soup in their knitting bags; fourteen-year-olds who break pawnshop windows to grab watches they can’t sell; guys with guns and no brains and guys with enough brains to be making ten times as much in something straight. I even know guys who own big companies who might qualify, and I don’t mean you. I want a hot bath and you want the cops or the FBI, not me.”
Hughes moved away from the desk toward me. A bead of water dripped down his forehead, and he looked tired as he stepped forward.
“The FBI doesn’t believe me, and the police who have jurisdiction can’t handle it.”
“Right,” I said, looking at him after a step toward the door. “What could I do? Play spy? Break codes?”
“You could listen,” he said, showing a distinct spark of irritation. He tried to cover it like an exposed sore, and the look in his eyes was embarrassment.
“I don’t get together with people very much,” he said carefully. “But last Monday I had a small dinner for some people who I thought might be of value when the war came. My plan was to organize a kind of lobby to support the projects I think are vital if we are to win that war. We’re already gearing up to munitions work and…” he trailed off, making it clear there were things I didn’t have to know. I agreed with him. There was a lot I didn’t have to know. My specialty was guarding bodies and hotel lobbies, finding runaway wives, husbands, parents and kids, lovers and deadbeats-not spies.
“Hear me out, Peters,” he said with a tone of anger, as my face showed my decision. He was about to say something else when the telephone rang. We looked into each others’ eyes while he talked loudly on the phone, “Right, yes, I’ll be right there. No, I’ll do it.” He hung up and gritted his teeth.
“Peters, I want you to quietly investigate the list of people I am going to give you. They were dinner guests last week at the house I’m using in Mirador down near Laguna. I also have the names of the three servants who were there. I’m sure someone on the night of that dinner went into the study and looked at my plans for the bomber and the transport. My papers were moved. I want you to find out who looked at those papers and if they actually got to copy them.”
I shook my head sadly. He looked at his watch.
“Look,” I said, “You can get a whole agency to work on this. Besides, I don’t think I can come up with anything based on what you’ve got. You’ve got maybes and you want miracles.”
Hughes moved toward the door and past me.
“You were recommended by one of our employees. You check out. No one can buy you off and no one can make you talk. I’ll give you $48 a day plus expenses. Walter Dean at the Romaine Office will be your contact and
