Aces (15 page)

“
The Yanks fire on the Red Baron, but the clever crimson Cur outfoxes them
—”

Gold put the Hisso-powered scarlet Jenny into a steep Immelman loop, coming around on the tails of the three red, white, and
blue Jennys. The drummer, watching, would now be rattling off a long string of gunfire. Gold watched as the pilot of the rear,
striped Jenny pulled the string on a smoke bomb attached to his fuselage.

“
Richthofen has scored again!”
Captain Bob would be shrieking into his megaphone. “
But the wounded young lad will be able to nurse his bullet-riddled flying machine back to his own lines, and land safely
.”

Gold watched as the “wounded young lad” dropped his Jenny in a credible imitation of a smoky fall. At 500 feet, he leveled
off, to land in an out-of-the-way corner of the pasture. Gold checked his stopwatch. Nine and a half minutes had elapsed.
It was time for his own demise.

“
The Red Baron has been cheated of his kill. And now, his time has come!
”

The two remaining Jennys were again on Gold’s tail. He kept his eye on his stopwatch, imagined the drum roll of gunfire going
on down below, and at precisely the ten-minute mark pulled the strings that lit the signal flares mounted to the undersides
of his wings. Tin plating, armoring the wings, protected the Jenny from catching fire, but from the ground the blazing signal
flares would seem to engulf the scarlet plane, impressing the hell out of the paying customers.

“
Yes, those good American boys have done it!
” the captain would be shouting. “
They’ve killed the Red Baron!
”

Gold popped a couple of smoke bombs and began to play dead, swaying the Jenny like a falling leaf as he fell toward the ground.
This part was dangerous. The falling-leaf maneuver could easily put the Jenny into a spin she might not be able to come out
of. He wouldn’t have tried it at all if he didn’t have the Hisso to rely on. Captain Bob had told him that at this point the
spectators went wild.

At 1,000 feet he put the Hisso-powered Jenny into a split-S power dive, pulling out to just skim above the ground. The Jenny
groaned, but she held together; Gold had designed and supervised the reinforcement of her structure to see that she would,
and he personally went over her before every performance.

By now the flares and smoke bombs had petered out. Gold slowed the Jenny down to her stall speed of 45 miles per hour and
prodded her along low over the crowd, dipping his wings in salute. Now he could see for himself that the folks were applauding
him. He could imagine their excited cheers.

This was what really made it worthwhile for Gold: that he was helping to introduce America to aviation; that he was making
airplanes a reality for people, many of whom had never seen a flying machine before. Tonight, over the dinner table, folks
would be talking about what they’d seen. Later that evening, when the children went to sleep, their dreams would be filled
with the vivid images of star-spangled and scarlet-hued airplanes cutting across the sky. Gold liked to think that he was
spawning tomorrow’s aviators at every performance.

Gold even thought that the good he was doing for aviation’s cause would have led Richthofen himself to forgive him. The idea
of parodying his onetime idol had troubled Gold, but he’d decided that since the Herr Rittmeister had loved flying, he would
not have wanted the advances in aviation to be lost in the postwar economic gloom that had gripped the world.

Gold circled the field a final time, and then brought the Jenny down. He could see the crowd already leaving the pasture.
The show was over for today.

Captain Bob’s Circus had been here two days; the troupe stayed in one place as long as the crowds kept coming. Tonight Jimmy
Cooper and the roustabouts would move on to the next town on the Captain’s itinerary, to nail up posters and prepare the field.
The mechanics with their parts trailer would camp out here, to keep an eye on the planes, while the captain and the pilots
would drive into town to put up at the hotel for the evening. Early the next morning the mechanics would do their maintenance
work and gas up the planes. By then the pilots would be straggling back. The mechanics would move on, and the pilots would
fly off, usually taking the time to perform a few antics over the towns neighboring the new show site, to drum up business.

The better part of each show was given over to those profitable airplane rides, intermingled with stunt-flying exhibitions
to keep the crowds entertained. Captain Bob’s grand finale was the Red Baron skit, and so it went.

Gold was enjoying himself. He was seeing the country, and the captain paid his hotel expenses as well as fifty dollars a week.
Gold would have been supremely happy if he wasn’t so lonely. He was as alone now as he’d been in the German Air Service, except
that now he was ostracized not only as a Jew but also as a German. All of the captain’s pilots were military trained, and
old grudges forged during the war would not easily die.

Hull and Lester Stiles were the ringleaders in the crusade to give him the cold shoulder. Gold supposed that he understood
the way that they felt: after all, he had been responsible for knocking them out of the sky and into a German P.O.W. camp…

The lobby of the Trent Hotel was plushly carpeted in crimson. Above the walnut-wainscoted walls was green-flocked wallpaper.
Cattlemen lounged on brass-studded leather furniture, smoking cigars as they commiserated over the dismal price of beef on
the hoof.

Herman Gold and Captain Bob Brooke were seated in leather armchairs beside a huge potted fern. The captain was wearing a gray
wool suit; Herman a tan corduroy Norfolk jacket, a white shirt, a maroon four-in-hand, and olive twill trousers. He’d taken
to tucking his trouser bottoms into the tops of his high boots, in emulation of the captain. On the captain’s advice he’d
also let his curly red hair grow longer and had the beginnings of a decent moustache. The captain said it made him look older,
and more like a rake, which helped make him more credible in his role as Count Fritz, the man who had taught the Red Baron
how to fly.

Gold and the Captain were passing the evening reading newspapers and enjoying the breeze set up by the softly whispering ceiling
fans, when the telegram the captain had been waiting for finally arrived. Gold lowered his newspaper and watched as the captain
tore open the wire, then read it.

“They went for it, son.” The Captain grinned. “We’ve got our commitment from Americana Oil. They’re notifying their dealers
all across the country to provide us with gas for the rest of our tour.”

“You did it, Cap.” Gold shook his head in admiration. “I didn’t think you’d pull it off, but you did. Free gas…”

“Not free,” the captain admonished. “We’re paying for it, in advertising. Tomorrow I’ll have the mechanics paint the tail
of every one of our airplanes with the Americana trademark.” He laughed. “Except the Red Baron’s, of course. That wouldn’t
look too good for Americana now, would it? To have their trademark on the tail, and Hun Crosses on the wings.”

“I guess not,” Gold said quietly, and buried his nose in his newspaper.

“Oh, hell.” The Captain frowned. “Here I’ve gone and hurt your feelings.”

“You know, Cap, when this tour is over, I’m going to look forward to just being an American.” Gold sighed. “It’s not easy
playing the villain all the time.”

The Captain nodded. “Well, son, to me, you are an American. The good Lord saw fit to grant you the gift of bona fide Yankee
ingenuity.”

Gold chuckled. “Thanks for saying so, Cap.” He laid aside his newspaper on the hotel’s leather-inlaid coffee table. “So what’s
next?”

“Next I contact Stallion Motor Supply and Medallion Tire. I’ll tell them that Americana has accepted my proposal and ask do
they want to come aboard. If so, we’ll paint their trademarks all over everything, and I’ll have parts and rubber as well
as gas and oil, without paying out a single greenback.”

“Real canny of you, Cap.” Gold smiled.

Captain Bob regarded him. “Tell me something, son. You spend your evenings with me because you’re interested in business,
or because the other boys give you the brush-off?”

“A little of both, I guess,” Gold admitted. “I’m sorry the others hold what I am against me, but that’s been happening to
me all my life, more or less, so I suppose I’ve grown used to it.” He paused. “At least, I’ve learned to tolerate it… Anyway,
I do want to get ahead in life, so I want to learn about business. I no longer believe I can accomplish much by working for
someone else, not even you; no offense meant, Cap.”

“No offense taken, son. I think you’re thinking right.”

“I’d like to make my mark in some facet of aviation,” Gold confided. “But I don’t have your salesmanship abilities.”

“The good Lord has seen fit to grant only a precious few the gift of profitable gab, starting with that greatest of all salesmen,
Jesus Himself,” the Captain intoned. “But as for you, son, don’t you worry, one of these days you’ll see your opportunity,
whatever it may be, and you’ll take it. I’ve no doubt of that.”

Gold tapped his newspaper. “I’ve been reading about the air passenger transportation business in Europe, Cap,” he said excitedly.
“I think there could be a future for that here.”

“I don’t think so, son,” Captain Bob said. “Europe’s roads and bridges and railways got all torn up during the war, and they’re
always crossing this or that channel, or sea, or whatever, to get where they’re going. Now consider America. We’ve got nothing
torn up, and just a few itty-bitty rivers to cross, now and again. Anyway, over in Europe, life’s cheap. You won’t find God-fearing
Americans risking their necks in uncomfortable flying machines to go visit grandma on Thanksgiving Day.”

“They go for rides with us, Cap,” Gold respectfully pointed out.

“Thrill seekers ain’t going to keep an air transportation company in the green.”

“I guess what’s needed are better, safer planes. Maybe that’s what I ought to concentrate on,” Gold mused.

“That’s right, you’re a bit of a mechanic,” the Captain said. He took a cigar out of his jacket breast pocket and nipped it
with a golden cutter on the end of his watch chain. “I’ve heard that you’ve been tinkering on my airplanes; improving their
performance.” He struck a match and puffed on the cigar to get it going. “My mechanics tell me that you worked miracles on
that Hisso-powered Jenny. That after you were done modifying her structure and engine she could pull stunts like no other
Jenny, no matter how skilled the pilot.” He ignored the stand ashtray beside his chair, flicking the spent match into the
nearby potted fern.

“I’m good with machines, but I want to be more than a grease monkey,” Gold said. “I’m reading up on aero-engineering and design.
I have books sent to me from New York City.”

“Yeah, well, whatever, son.” The Captain nodded. “Me, I never liked to get my hands dirty. But if you ever should come up
with a new thingamajig, don’t you hesitate to bring it to your old pal, the Cap, you hear?”

“Sure, Cap,” Gold murmured evasively. If there was one thing he’d learned from Captain Bob, it was never to give anything
away.

“I don’t know shit about inventing, son, but I can promote the hell out of anything,” the Captain declared. “And promotion
and advertising is ninety percent of it today, and will be ninety-nine percent in the future. You mark my words. This war
we’ve just been through has rattled everyone’s cage pretty good. What folks are going to want is for somebody to tuck them
in and tell them a bedtime story about how everything’s going to turn out all right. That’s what salesmen do, they tell bedtime
stories.” He rattled his newspaper. “Just like President Harding.”

Gold was on his way upstairs to his room after dinner when he heard Hull Stiles call out, “Hey! Wait a minute! I want to ask
you something.”

Gold waited for him on the landing. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask you…” Hull began, but hesitated, nervously fingering the ends of his moustache. “Back during the war, you
know? When you shot down Lester and me, we’d both noticed something, and we’ve always been wondering about it. I was hoping
I could ask you about it now…”

Gold nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Your plane had only one machine gun. Isn’t that so?”

Gold sighed. “Yes, only one.”

“I mean, it wasn’t like one of your guns jammed, right? You had only one.”

“That’s right, Hull. I carried only one gun.”

Hull nodded. “How come?”

“It’s a long story,” Gold began. “Let’s just say that with one gun I felt I could shoot down airplanes without harming the
pilots.”

“That’s what my brother and I thought,” Hull replied. “Back then as well as now, I mean. We talked about it a lot in that
P.O.W. camp. It had seemed to us that you went out of your way to choose your shots, to not simply spray the cockpit.”

Gold looked away. “Hull, I don’t mean to be rude, but it seems like such a long time ago.”

“That’s what Les and I have been thinking recently,” Hull replied softly. “We’ve talked to the others about it. Everyone thinks
you’re a good pilot, and all…” He blushed. “Hell, I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe it’s best to let sleeping dogs
lie…” He trailed off.

“Yeah, I guess that is best,” Gold said thickly. “Well…” He smiled hard.

Slowly, Hull extended his hand. Gold shook it.

“There.” Hull smiled shyly. “A bunch of us are taking a drive out to some hog farm that Eddie claims he knows about. He says
they got some kind of still or speakeasy going on out there. White lightning, and like that.” Hull shrugged. “Maybe some girls,
I dunno…”

“Gee.” Gold shrugged, still smiling fit to bust. “Sounds good.”

“Yeah, it does… Probably won’t amount to shit, though. Eddie’s a talker. Anyway.” Hull looked down at the dusty toes of his
scuffed boots. “Feel like coming for a ride?”