“When my mother got the housekeeper position here — I’m a local girl, well, Glendale local — I just went crazy. I’ve been a fan of A. E.’s since I was twelve! I just adore her — you should see my scrapbooks. Did you know she had scrapbooks, too, when she was a girl? Full of stories about women doing work that was supposed to be a man’s domain? And I’d been writing her fan letters since forever, and do you know, she answered every one?”
“Really?”
“So when Mother got this job, I just had to come around and meet A. E., and she was so wonderful, you just wouldn’t believe, well I guess you would knowing her like you do, but I started coming around and, well, maybe I made a pest of myself, telling her how I was a graduate from the business college over in Van Nuys, dropping all kinds of hints, telling her how terrible it must be to be swamped like she was with so much fan mail and all, and anyway, finally she said, A. E. said, I guess I really could use a Girl Friday at that, and ever since then I’ve been in charge of fan letters, filing, and even the household accounts... I studied more than secretarial skills at business college, I have accountancy capability too you know... and I help out in a lot of other ways, meeting airplanes, showing guests around, and entertaining A. E.’s mother, who just went to stay with her other daughter, A. E.’s sister, Muriel, in West Medford, for a while.”
“Is that right?”
“And you know it’s funny, I don’t really think A. E. feels all that close to her real sister, I mean I think she may kind of resent sending her checks all the time, actually I’m the one sending them lately, ever since A. E. disappeared, though I think Mr. Putnam may put a stop to it, but the thing is, we really did get close, we were more like sisters, I think, sometimes, than she was with her real sister, which is why I know what I know about you.”
“What do you know about me?”
“That you love her, too. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
And then she turned away from me in sudden embarrassment and began bawling like a baby. I gathered her up like she was a hurting child, which maybe she was, and held her to me, let her hug me and bury her face in my chest and cry there. I had to wonder when Margot said she loved Amy, if it was the Toni Lake variety; but my hunch was not. This was about hero worship, not hormones.
As she began to settle down, I fished a clean handkerchief out of my pocket and gave it to her; she thanked me, dried her eyes and moved away a little, sitting with her hands in her lap, clenching the hanky. She looked very small, her face devoid of makeup now, a pale cameo.
“But you don’t love G. P., Margot, do you?”
A little humorless smirk dimpled her cheek. “No. Not hardly. At first I accepted him... I mean, after all, A. E. married him, and she doesn’t make many mistakes.”
“That one was a whopper, though.”
“He’s a terrible man. Egotistical. Selfish. He’s nothing more than a publicity-seeker, with no regard for anyone but himself.”
“You’re right.”
She pressed her hands to her bosom and looked across at the trophy case. “A. E. made me feel so good about myself... She made me feel I could conquer the world.”
Margot had lapsed into the past tense about Amy, too. It was tough not to.
She turned her gaze upon me, and it was so earnest, I wanted to laugh — or cry. She asked, “What can you do about this, Mr. Heller?”
“I figure once I’ve had my arm around a girl, she’s earned the right to use my first name.”
She liked that. “Thanks, Nathan. You’re everything A. E. said you were...”
“Let’s not jump the gun. As for what I can do — I’m not even sure why I came out to California, Margot. It was an impulse.”
I told her about Paul Mantz trying to hire me — weeks ago, while Amy was still on American soil — to look into the funny business surrounding the world flight, and how I turned him down. How I may have missed the chance to head this disaster off before it started.
“Oh dear,” she said, looking at me with tenderness and pity, “you must feel terribly guilty!”
“You really know how to lift a fella’s spirits, Margot... If the Coast Guard and Navy can’t find her in the ocean, I’m not sure what good I can do in Burbank. But I do know I don’t want G. P. getting away with this.”
Her eyes got teary again and her lower lip quivered. “I don’t think he cares if she comes back... I don’t think he wants her to come back...”
“I suspect you’re right. But first things first — I’m still trying to piece together what’s really going on here.”
Her expression turned firm; dabbing the new tears away with my hanky, she asked, “How can I help?”
“Tell me what you’ve seen.” I gestured around us.
“What unusual has happened here at the house?”
She drew air in and then blew it out through a Clara Bow pucker. “Ooooh, so many things... One of the things that struck me was all the military people parading through.”
“What kind of military people?” I sat sideways on the couch, to look right at her. “You mean, like the Navy chauffeur who drove her around in a staff car, sometimes?”
“Well that, but these were very high-ranking officers, Army and Navy both. They’d come over and meet with G. P. and A. E., or sometimes with just G. P.”
“You remember any names, Margot?”
She nodded. “There was a General Arnold, and a General Westover...”
Generals were dropping by?
“This was after Mr. Miller moved in,” she elaborated.
Then she shuddered. “Such a cold man.”
“In what way? Who the hell is he?”
“He’s with the government, too — the Bureau of Air Commerce. I think A. E. put up with him only because she’s so friendly with his superior, Mr. Vidal. Mr. Miller is the ‘coordinator’ of the flight.”
“What does that mean?”
“Who knows? His first name is William, and I’ve never heard him called Bill; G. P. just calls him Miller. Most everybody seems to, although I wasn’t raised that way. I call him Mr. Miller. And other things, to myself.”
“When did he move in here?”
“In April, after the last of the meetings with Mr. Baruch. But he’s not here all the time, he has an office in Oakland—”
“Wait, wait, what meetings with who?”
“There were three meetings between G. P. and A. E. and Mr. Baruch starting in, uh, late March I believe, with the last one in early April.”
“This is Bernard Baruch we’re talking about.”
“Yes. He’s a gentleman in his sixties, early sixties, I would say; somewhat heavy-set but not fat. Beautiful white hair, glasses that sit on his nose. A nice man. Soft spoken, well spoken. Do you know him?”
“Not personally.”
Maybe they didn’t get around to current events at that business college in Van Nuys, but I knew who Bernard Baruch was, even if my newspaper of choice was The Racing News. Self-made Wall Street millionaire, philanthropist, so-called “park bench sage”... and advisor to FDR.
That was Bernard Baruch.
“Margot, did you take notes at these meetings?”
“No, but I was around... I overheard some things, things I probably shouldn’t have. I know A. E. was upset after the meetings, though it was all very... civilized. I don’t think she ever agreed to do what he wanted... or maybe I should say, what the President wanted.”
“What was that?”
She frowned; worry, not anger. “I think he asked her to volunteer to help the government... What would an ‘intelligence operation’ be exactly?”