“Not happening at the exact same time as when she took off! I’m sorry, Mr. Mantz — I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just — I know what I heard.” His speech picked up speed, as if his conversation were lifting off a runway after a long taxi. “And then she was talking to a radioman back on Lae, named Balfour, saying Mr. Noonan had passed her a sealed envelope with a note about a change of flight plans. She seemed really peeved... The radioman said he didn’t know about the change, that his orders were to give her weather reports. She said something about flying north to Truk Island.”
It was like listening to an idiot savant rattle off trigonometry equations. “You remember all this?”
He nodded, blond shock bouncing. “I wrote it down. I got my school notebook and I’ve been writing everything down.”
“There’s more?”
“Dozens of transmissions over the last few days!”
I sat forward, not really buying any of this, but impressed with his imagination. Mantz looked amused.
“She came on later, more relaxed, not so mad, even giggling a little, as she called out the names of islands she was flying over, trying to pronounce them — I heard her mention the tip of Rabaul, for instance. She lost contact with Lae about three hundred miles out, but I heard her say Noonan was getting good pictures of the Caroline Islands.”
“And you’re hearing all this over your Philco?” I asked.
“Sure! I heard her talkin’ to that ship, the Itasca, too! I heard her make her first contact with ’em, when they asked her to identify herself and she said, ‘The name is Putnam, but I don’t use that.’”
I had to chuckle; that did sound like her. Even Mantz was smiling a little, though I could tell he figured this kid was spinning a yarn.
“I listened all night,” Robert said. “She came on naming islands as she passed over them, sayin’ they were off her left or right wing... Bikar, Majuro, Jaluit, I’m leavin’ a few out but I got ’em written down... She said there was plenty of good light and they could see the islands fine. Then she had trouble getting the Itasca to hear her — here I am, in my living room in California, and I can hear her fine! I mean, there’s static and everything, and she kinda comes in and out, but I heard her asking Itasca to turn on their lights, sayin’ she must be circling the ship, but she couldn’t come down because it was too dark, she got there too early. Then it just got worse and worse... They weren’t answering her... She kept saying her fuel was low. She told the Itasca she was gonna try for Hull Island, but they didn’t hear her, and that’s when she spotted the Japanese fighter planes.”
“Fighter planes.”
He nodded, wild-eyed. “One was above her, the other two were near her wingtips; they fired on her! Machinegun bursts!”
“Look, kid—” Mantz began.
The boy just kept going, gesturing with both hands. “They were trying to force her to land at Hull, but when she looked down, she saw these ships offshore — a fishing boat, and two battleships — but they were able to outrun the Japs in the Electra, it was much faster. Mr. Noonan had her fly toward an island called Sydney, just a hundred miles away, and all the time she was still callin’ the Itasca, no response. And then one engine sputtered out — they could see the island! But then the other one went out, too, and I heard her say, ‘Oh, my goodness! We’re out of fuel!’”
As silly as this story was, hearing Amy’s familiar “Oh, my goodness!” from this kid’s mouth sent a chill up me.
“I heard the plane make this awful loud thud — you’d think it would have sounded more like a splash, but it didn’t — and I waited for seconds that seemed like hours before she came back on, saying, ‘We missed the trees and the coral reef... We’re on the water.’ She said Mr. Noonan injured his head, shoulder, and arm and she stopped transmitting to go check on him... Then it was morning, and I lost them... I’d been listening twelve hours or more.”
“Is this the story you told the police?” I asked.
Mantz was leaned back with a hand over his eyes.
“Oh, you listened to a lot more of it than the desk sergeant on the phone did... They’re still out there, Nate... Mr. Mantz... Amelia and Mr. Noonan. I’ve been listening to them every night. She comes on every hour and doesn’t stay on long — conserving the battery. They’re floating on the water... They’re hot and they’re hungry and Amelia’s really mad, she keeps saying, ‘Why are you doing this to us? Why don’t you come get us? You know where we are.’ Things like that. It’s real sad. But they are still alive... Isn’t that a relief?”
I nodded.
He leaned forward, puppy-dog eager, looking from me to Mantz and back again. “Would you like to come to my house and listen, tonight? I’m sure my mom and dad wouldn’t mind.”
“Thanks, kid,” Mantz said, with a sick smile. “I think I’ll take a rain check.”
I put a hand on Mantz’s shoulder. “Paul, can I have a word with you, for a minute? Outside?”
His eyes narrowed. “Sure.”
“Robert, you think you can handle another snail?”
The boy beamed. “Boy, could I! Warmed up and everything?”
“Live a little,” I said, and nodded over to Mom behind the counter, who smiled and took care of the order, as Mantz and I headed outside.
He dug a pack of Camels out of his sportcoat and lighted one up, saying, “You can’t believe any of that baloney. Tell me you don’t.”
There was runway noise and I had to work my voice up. “How do you explain some of what he knows? The names of those islands, for example?”
Mantz smirked, shrugged, blew smoke out his nose like a dragon. “I never heard of those islands. Maybe he made ’em up.”
“Maybe he didn’t.”
“Maybe he’s got a Rand McNally atlas in his house. Look, he and Amelia were friends, all of that stuff he told you was legit... But now he’s stayin’ up at night, with his head filled with what he’s readin’ in the papers about his famous friend, and he’s listening to staticky garbage and his imagination is running wild.”
“Is it possible for that Philco to be picking her up?”
“Sure.” The cigarette bobbled in his mouth as he spoke. “McMenamy thinks he’s heard her, too — of course, he hasn’t heard twenty or thirty exciting episodes like Robert has!”
Through the window we could see the kid chowing down on another snail.
I said, “I don’t understand how either of them could be hearing what the Itasca and the rest of the Navy and Coast Guard can’t.”
Mantz raised an eyebrow. “Well, the Electra’s radios sure can’t transmit over any considerable distance, but there’s always ‘skip.’”
“What’s skip?”
“A freak but common phenomenon. Sometimes radio reception turns up hundreds, even thousands of miles away.”
“And that’s what Robert could be hearing?”
“I think Robert’s hearing pixies.”
“I’m going to take him up on his invitation.”
“You gotta be pullin’ my leg! You can’t—”
“Go home. I’ll catch the train back to L.A. tomorrow.”
“Heller—”
“I’m going over to Robert’s to listen to the radio. Who knows? Maybe Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy, will win the big game.”
“I’m an Amos ‘n’ Andy man myself,” Mantz said, pitching his cigarette, sending it sparking to the ground. “And I’m takin’ my plane back to Burbank, before I miss tonight’s installment.”
The Myers house, though in a heavily residential section on the north edge of Oakland, sat alone on a small hill, a shingled bungalow absurdly dominated by that sixty-foot copper antenna Robert had told us about. That, at least, had been no exaggeration.