Aces (33 page)

Gold nodded. “Maybe that’s not such a bad way for me to look, right now. Like, I was coming courting, I mean…”

She smiled at that. He realized that he was grinning like an idiot. He walked slowly into the living room, coming close to
her, but not too close. He felt awkward. Like they really had just met. He wanted to embrace her, but didn’t know if he should.
He felt as if he needed permission to do something he’d done countless times in the past. It was strange to feel so uncomfortable
in his wife’s presence, but it was also arousing.

“So, you’re back,” he heard himself say.

“Yes.” She laughed. “The kids are asleep, upstairs.”

Gold nodded. The silence was awkward.

“I noticed you had the fence painted while we were gone,” Erica said.

Gold shrugged. “I’ll tell you about it later. I’m glad you’re back,” he abruptly blurted. “Thank you for coming back—”

She nodded, then she blushed. “When I saw the newspapers saying such awful things about you, I felt I had to come back, before
the papers found out that I’d left. I thought that my place was beside you at a time like this.”

“That’s right. You belong beside me, and I belong beside you.” Gold gazed at her. “I’d like to hold you,” he murmured.

“Nothing’s stopping you,” Erica said quietly, looking away.

He went to her, enfolding her in his arms, burying his face in her hair. She leaned against him. He began to shudder. He couldn’t
catch his breath. He realized that he was crying. Erica held him tight.

“I’m sorry you found out about me the way you did,” he managed. “I should have told you. Honest to God, I know that I should
have, but I was afraid that you would be ashamed of me.”

“No,” Erica said. “You’re my husband and I love you. The only one who’s ever been ashamed of you is
you
.”

“But then why did you leave?” Gold asked.

“I was angry that you lied to me,” Erica replied. “I felt humiliated that I had to learn the truth from the radio. Do you
understand? That affront, coming on top of our other difficulties… I was so hurt.”

Gold gently moved her at arm’s length to look into her eyes. “Is that true, Erica? Is that really true?”

“I don’t care what religion you were born into. Oh, maybe it would have been important if you’d told me while we were courting,”
she admitted. “It certainly would have given me pause. After all, I was just a young girl who knew very little about the world.”
She smiled. “It’s not like there were any Jews in Doreen…”

“If that’s the case, then I’m glad I didn’t tell you,” Gold said.

She laughed lightly. “I’m glad, as well. I might have missed out on being the wife of a wonderful man.”

“I’m sorry,” Gold began. “I’m so sorry—”

Erica pressed her fingers to his lips. “I know,” she said. “But it’s all over now. Unless you have something
else
to tell me. You
don’t
, do you?” Erica pretended to scold.

Gold sighed. “Only that we’re broke. We could lose everything, including the house, the cars, probably even your jewelry…”

Erica shrugged serenely. She tugged off her earrings and dropped them to the carpet. “There’s jewelry and there’s jewelry.”
She removed her bracelet, watch, rings and let them fall; everything but her modest, unadorned wedding band. “The best jewels
you ever gave me nobody can take away. I’d trade everything in my jewel box for that nighttime ride we took in that old Jenny.
All the jewelry in the world isn’t worth that view of the lights of the city, and what you said to me that night when you
showed me those lights…”

“I love you very much,” Gold whispered. He put his arms around her and kissed her. “It’s going to be different between us
from now on.”

Erica pulled away. “Don’t tell me that.” She took his hand, to lead him up the stairs. “
Show
me.”

Gold stood in the quiet hangar, appreciating the beauty of the G-1 Yellowjacket. Three weeks ago the prototype airplane had
been completed in Santa Monica, and then transported by trailer truck to Mines Field, where she was stored in a specially
built hangar. The hangar was guarded by uniformed private security guards. Gold had decreed that only a few people had access
clearance. He could be alone with his creation as much as he liked.

There were only a couple of the hangar ceiling floodlights on, creating a dim, shadowy, almost cathedral-like atmosphere.
The dramatic shafts of light burnished the smooth curves of the G-1’s silver skin, turning her into sculpture; if the Yellowjacket
was poetry in motion, she was, in response, the artistic evocation of flight.

The monoplane had a steel tube frame, covered over with a duralumin skin. The only other all-metal aircraft design was the
Ford Tri-Motor, but Ford’s “Tin Goose” was a much larger, more expensive airplane. The G-1 was twenty-five feet long, with
a forty-foot wingspan. Her heart was a 450-horsepower, air-cooled, radial engine, the Yellowjacket AAA, developed exclusively
for the project by the San Diego firm of Rogers and Simpson. In designing the G-1, Gold and Teddy Quinn and his staff had
gleaned the best from Spatz, Fokker, Lockheed, Boeing, and the other aircraft builders, and then incorporated their own innovations.
They’d also taken into account the design suggestions of their veteran pilots, many of whom had been flying the mail in all
kinds of airplanes for close to a decade.

The G-1 had a variable rate propeller and hydraulic wheel brakes. Her open, single-seat cockpit was set well back. Her wing,
which incorporated Gold’s “C-Gull” brake flaps, was raised up on stilts to afford the pilot a better forward view and further
increased aerodynamic efficiency. A duralumin “speed cowling” for the engine and matching “speed pants” on the fixed landing
gear streamlined the G-1, cutting down on air resistance and in the process giving the airplane an aggressive, bird-of-prey
appearance.

Gold had dispensed with his usual paint scheme for the G-1: she was pure silver all over, except on her vertical tail fin,
which had two slender, diagonal slashes of turquoise and scarlet, and a small rendition of his signature centaur against its
oval yellow field.

Gold knew the G-1 Yellowjacket was beautiful, but more important, he knew that she was stable and forgiving in flight; that
she had an admirable cruising speed of one hundred and sixty-two miles per hour; and could take off and land, fully loaded,
on a dime—and leave a nickle’s worth of change.

He knew all that because he’d personally test-flown her every day for the last three weeks. Next week, right here at Mines
Field, the G-1 would strut her stuff for the purchasing agents of the United States Postal Office, which was looking for something
new to add to its aging fleet. The future of Gold Aviation hinged on the postal service’s decision. As Gold had told Teddy
and the other designers fourteen months ago, “
We either grab the brass ring this time around, or the merry-go-round ride will be over
…”

Back in August, the fire that destroyed South California Air Transport’s Clover Field facility was front-page news, distracting
the media’s attention away from Gold Aviation’s troubles. It turned out that the SCAT employee who’d died in that fire had
a lengthy criminal record and had been wanted in New Jersey on a rape charge. That was all Tim Campbell needed to go on the
offensive, holding press conferences in which he charged that any organization that would hire such a man was “morally unfit”
to fly the mail.

According to the plan, Gold let the undeniably American Campbell do all of the talking for Gold Aviation. Gold also hired
an attorney who specialized in such matters to help him through the naturalization process to become a United States citizen.

As the date for the postal service’s awarding of the CAM routes moved closer, the situation began to turn in Gold’s favor.
Partly this was due to Campbell’s efforts, and partly because a coalition of important Hollywood Jewish movie executives and
Los Angeles Christian religious leaders publicly denounced the news media for allowing coverage of the bidding competition
to devolve into an “open season on Jews.” What really tilted things Gold’s way was his announcing a cut-to-the-bone, low-ball
rate for private freight transport. The business community was thrilled. Gold Aviation was practically offering to pay them
for the privilege of carrying their freight. Pressure began to be applied to the investment group that was underwriting SCAT.

On September 14, 1925, just hours before the route assignments were to be announced by the postal service, SCAT’s backers
pulled their financial support. SCAT was forced to withdraw its bid, vanishing like a bad dream. Gold Aviation retained its
CAM routes. The same newspapers that had vilified Gold now called him a winner.

At the time, Gold didn’t feel much like a winner. The low-ball private rate he’d been forced to offer his customers meant
that his routes were now just barely breaking even. His creditors were complaining, and he had a payroll to meet.

Gold believed the solution to his financial problems was the G-1. He believed that there was a fortune to be made in America
selling planes as well as commercially flying them, but the G-1 was still just a gleam in his and Teddy Quinn’s eyes. Campbell
had managed to get twenty thousand dollars for the project by locking up as collateral all of Gold’s personal assets, but
Gold knew that amount would barely carry the project past the drawing boards.

In October of 1925, Gold and Campbell began peddling stock in the newly named Gold Aviation and Transport Corporation. They
began with GAT’s employees, announcing that anyone who wanted to stay on would have to take one half of their salary in stock.
Teddy Quinn convinced the Santa Monica contingent. Over at the Mines Field facility the pilots and mechanics balked, threatening
to walk out, until Hull Stiles talked them into going along.

With his payroll burden slashed, Gold was able to keep up payments on his various loans, thereby holding on to his business
and his home. He’d bought himself some breathing room, but it was only temporary. The true test lay ahead. It was time to
take their stock-peddling act on the road.

Gold and Campbell traveled up and down the West Coast, and as far east as Salt Lake City. It was territory that had been served
for years by Gold Aviation, and before that by Gold Express, so the name Herman Gold was well known. No town was too small
for them. Gold and Campbell spoke at church suppers and chamber of commerce meetings; they placed ads in local newspapers
in advance of their arrival, and then sat around in rented hotel suites, waiting for potential investors to wander in.

For almost three months Gold worked harder than he ever had in his life, and Campbell sure as hell did his part. They were
fortunate that the American economy was booming and that folks were anxious to make a financial killing by investing in business.
By New Year’s Day 1926, Gold and Campbell had managed to sell $122,000 worth of stock. Gold kept a thirty-five-percent controlling
interest. Campbell used his bank contacts to borrow the money to buy three percent.

The cash infusion allowed Gold to get the G-1 prototype built and keep his business afloat, but now the money he and Campbell
had raised was almost gone. GAT was a trembling house of cards, stuck together with jury-rigged financing, precariously perched
on the sleek, slippery back of the G-1 Yellowjacket. If, next week, the post office turned thumbs down on Gold’s creation,
everything would come tumbling down—

The hangar’s sliding door rattled, then slid open, startling Gold out of his reveries. He squinted his eyes against the bright
daylight spilling into the hangar’s dark interior.

“Herman! You promised you’d be ready to go!” Erica scolded. She was silhouetted by the light as she stepped into the hangar.

Gold glanced at his wristwatch. “Damn! I totally lost track of the time!” In less than an hour his four-year-old daughter
was graduating from kindergarten. All the parents had been invited to the ceremony. Susan was going to sing a song—

He looked down at himself. He was wearing old clothes: chino trousers, a light blue cotton sweater, tan oxfords, and a camel-hair,
belted polo coat. The suit and shirt and tie he intended to wear to the recital were hanging in Hull Stiles’s office. Considering
the time it would take to change, and then drive to the school, they were going to be late—

Erica was laughing. “You should see your face. Stop worrying!”

“But Susan’s recital—”

“Isn’t for another
two
hours.” Erica grinned, coming over to him. “I knew you’d pull a stunt like this, so I purposely told you the recital was
an hour earlier.”

Gold relaxed, smiling. “I guess you know me pretty well.”

She was wearing a slimly tailored, gray silk tweed suit, gray silk stockings, and black pumps. Her earrings were silver and
black onyx. She wore a black felt cloche hat with a gray grosgrain ribbon and carried a black leather envelope bag. She looked
fabulous. Like an elegant flapper. Like the million bucks he very soon hoped to have.

She came over to give him a kiss. She smelled familiarly of lavender and roses, and fragrances which Gold could never identify,
but which nevertheless never failed to stir him. He put his arm around her, feeling that jolt he always felt when he touched
her. Even when things had been bad between them, the electricity had always been there.

“I ran into Hull Stiles at the main hangar,” Erica said. “He told me you’ve been spending lots of time in here. I almost didn’t
come in, it seemed so dark. What do you do in here, all by yourself?”

Gold leered. “I’ll never tell.”

“Then I’m sorry I asked,” Erica said, smiling. “Seriously, the purchasing agents will be here to evaluate the G-1 next week.
There’s nothing left for you to do.”

“I know.” He shrugged shyly. “I guess I just like to look at her. She’s not just an airplane, she’s
my
airplane. The first ever to carry my name. She wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for GAT. Can you understand?”