“I’m not coming out there, Mantz.”
“Don’t bother. It’s probably too late, anyway.”
And he hung up.
I thought about what he had said, weeks later, when I heard the news that Amy’s plane was missing, somewhere between Lae and Howland Island, somewhere in the Pacific where a very expensive government rescue mission was in progress.
And that, finally, was the beanball that hit me in the head and prompted me to go back out to Burbank.
Chapter 10
The bar was a South Seas refuge, the patter and spatter of a tropical storm on its tin roof, water streaking and streaming in lazy patterns behind opaque window glass that glowed with a yellow-orange sunset as foliage outside cast curious silhouettes; no music played, no native drums pounded, but there was the not-so-distant caw of strange birds, and earthen bowls in netting hung from the bamboo-beamed ceiling where churned lazily the blades of fans fluffing the blades of palms hovering over tiny teakwood tables with wicker furniture and coconut shell candles, each table situated within this bamboo-and-thatched-hut world so as to provide an island for two.
I had almost missed the place, and not just because I was a stranger in these exotic parts. The pair of inter-locking, wooden-shuttered stucco boxes on North McCadden Place in Hollywood might have been a nondescript apartment complex but for the knee-high bamboo fence and the tropical thicket through which the bamboo-pole entrance peeked.
No sign announced this as one of the most popular joints in town; and it was too early — three-thirty-something in the afternoon — to put out the restraining velvet ropes. Of course, there would be no waiting for such regular customers as Rudy Vallee, Marlene Dietrich, and Joan Crawford (whose framed pictures, among many others, peered from a wall through hanging fronds).
Right now, however, the bar was unpopulated, except for a few stuffed parrots, fake monkeys, and a real bartender at his bamboo station. The “rain” on the false roof sprayed down the ceiling from garden hoses, and ran down the glass partitions of the “windows” to feed planters. The offstage bird calls came from a few real live caged parrots and macaws out in the open courtyard, where the palms weren’t phony like the ones whose shadows fell on me; bunches of bananas, here and there among the fake vegetation, were real and could be plucked by a bold customer and eaten, free of charge.
Don the Beachcomber’s was quite a joint, with a Chinese grocery just inside the door, a shop devoted entirely to different types and brands of rum (an idea whose time, I sincerely believed, had come), and a gift shop where fresh flower leis were available. Various meandering rooms presented themselves, with names like Paradise Cove, Cannibal Lounge and Black Hole of Calcutta, which was where I was waiting for my companion. This was the kind of joint where the lighting was so dim, just about any woman would look good, or at least mysterious.
Unfortunately, I was waiting for a man — and an airplane mechanic, at that.
Taking a cab from the train station, I had arrived at the United Airport at Burbank around two-thirty, and wandered into Mantz’s United Air Services hangar only to find no sign of him. It was Tuesday, July 6, a mild breeze doing its best to downplay a blistering heat that defeated my lightweight maize polo shirt and tan slacks, turning them into sticky swaddling cloth. I hadn’t warned Mantz I was coming; the day before, I’d gone back and forth about whether to stick my nose in this, then impulsively threw some things in a suitcase and caught a Sante Fe sleeper at Dearborn Station.
The vast hangar, nicely cool compared to the outside, was littered with small aircraft, among them several biplanes and Amy’s little red Vega, though Mantz’s Honeymoon Express wasn’t among 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 around here, either...
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...”