Aces (42 page)

“No, I’ve come to make a deal with you. I know I can’t stop you, so why not let me get out of this with something left of
my pride, just for old times’ sake?”

“What have you got in mind?” Campbell asked as the waiter appeared with his coffee.

“I’ve got twenty percent of Skyworld. Why don’t you buy me out?”

“Too late, Herman. I don’t need your stock,” Campbell said. “Maybe if you’d come to me all nice and polite like this a week
ago I might have obliged you. But now…” He shook his head.

“You certainly don’t need me around cramping your style.”

“On the contrary,” Campbell replied. “I like the idea of having you around, witnessing everything I do, but helpless to stop
me.” He laughed. “You want to sell, put your stock on the market. Otherwise, you can get in the backseat, keep your mouth
shut, and come along for the ride.”

“Oh, sure.” Gold scowled. “You know it’s too late. The stock is dead in the water as of today. I’ll take a beating if I try
and sell now.”

“You should have thought of that before you tried to take me on,” Campbell said.

Gold nodded sadly. “There is one other idea I had… I mean, I really wanted you to buy my stock,” Gold said dejectedly. “But
beggars can’t be choosers, I guess…”

“You’ve got that right, pal.”

“You’ve won, no matter what, but wouldn’t it be worth your while not to have me making trouble that will weaken the airline
further after this nasty public fight?”

“Get to the point, Herman. What do you want?”

“All right, here it is. You’re going to need new airplanes now that you’re a transcontinental airline. Why not contract for
say, twenty of my new GC-ls?”

Campbell shrugged. “I don’t know, Herm. I was thinking of going with Boeing’s 247 airliner…”

“Come on, Tim,” Gold said. “We both know that there’s a couple of years’ waiting list for Boeing’s 247. They’ve got to fill
their order for United before they can begin to build airplanes for anyone else. You really want to wait that long?”

“Well, no… But Lockheed has an interesting design…”

“Sure, the Electra, right?” Gold dismissed it with a wave. “It’s got only ten-passenger capacity, where my Monarch will carry
twelve.” Gold shook his head. “It’s up to you, pal, if you want to cut off your own nose to spite your face.”

“I hear you,” Campbell said. “Let’s say I went along with you on this. Are you willing to give me a price break?”

Gold shook his head. “Exactly the opposite, Tim. I’m going to charge you a premium—”

“I think this defeat has been too much for you,” Campbell said. “You’ve lost your mind.”

“Hear me out. We can work out the nuts and bolts later, but the gist of my idea is that Skyworld would contract for twenty
GC-ls at a hiked price that would subsidize my manufacturing costs, enabling me to undersell the competition, getting orders
for my new airplane from all the other airlines. My planes will be everywhere. That’s what
I
want. In exchange,
I’ll
subsidize Skyworld by sitting tight on the stock I own. In the long run, it could come out cheaper for Skyworld to play things
my way.”

“That’s all I get out of this?” Campbell scowled.

“We both get good publicity out of it,” Gold said. “You’re the man who taught me the importance of a good public image. What
better endorsement could a man have than having his former enemy buying his product? It’s got to mean that I’ve got the best
airplane on the market!”

“And me?” Campbell demanded.

“Think of it. You and me together up on that stage; shaking hands, embracing, in front of all the stockholders.”

“That would play beautifully with the press,” Campbell admitted, slowly starting to smile. “But you’d have to do more. Like,
say, graciously concede victory…” Campbell snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! I want you to make a motion at the meeting that
I be unanimously elected chairman!”

“You’ve got a deal,” Gold said, reaching across the table to shake hands.

The Swardsworth’s lobby had a marble floor, walls painted red and black, and a forest of potted palms beneath a high, gilded
ceiling starry with crystal chandeliers. The lobby was crowded with stockholders on their way to the ballroom for the meeting.
Gold made a detour to the public telephones and found a vacant booth. He dialed his Burbank switchboard, and asked to be put
through to Teddy Quinn. Teddy’s secretary answered and said that Teddy was down on the factory floor, supervising the work
on the Monarch prototype. Gold waited a few minutes until Teddy was located and came on the line.

“Herman? Did it work?” Teddy demanded.

“Like a fucking charm,” Gold said.

Both men were quiet for a split-second, and then both burst out laughing.

“Oh, Lord, I’d give anything to be a fly on the wall in the room when Tim finds out he already
owns
most of your Skyworld stock. He will be shit-faced!”

“It may be a while before what I did comes to light,” Gold said. “And that’s fine with me.”

There had been a renewed flurry of trading in Skyworld following the publicity surrounding Campbell’s court injunction against
Gold’s stock-issue ploy. Gold had used the increased market activity to camouflage his selling off all but a fraction of his
Skyworld holdings. His investment broker cooperated by disposing of Gold’s stock through certain brokerage houses and other
friendly outlets.

“Now that you mentioned it, I hope Tim doesn’t find out, for Hull’s sake,” Teddy said. “And for the sake of the deal.”

Gold had done all he could to remain anonymous, but it was Hull’s cooperation that had been crucial. Campbell had delegated
to Hull the authority to buy as much Skyworld as he could, no matter the price, as long as the buy was made prior to the stockholders’
meeting. Despite all of Gold’s precautions in disposing of his Skyworld holdings, Hull could have found out who was putting
up such large blocks of stock if he’d asked the right questions. It was Hull’s promise not to ask those questions that assured
Gold that he could make good on his own, earlier promise to his old friend: everyone had gotten something they wanted, but
everyone had paid a price.

“Don’t worry. Hull’s got a defense when the truth comes to light,” Gold replied. “Tim’s Achilles’ heel is that he thinks he’s
so much damned smarter than everyone else. All Hull has to do is say that I tricked him, like I tricked Campbell. Tim will
buy that. He has to. He needs Hull to handle the day-to-day running of his airline. And don’t worry about Tim’s promise to
buy our airplanes. You know him as well as I do. He’ll stick to his word, even if he was tricked into giving it.”

“So how do you feel about it all?” Campbell asked.

“Tim and Hull have their company. I’ve lost Skyworld, but I’ve made a lot of money in the last couple of days, and the GC-1
Monarch is getting the leg-up on the competition that will help it to dominate the industry. What’s most important to me,
personally, is that it looks like we can all remain friends.”

“Not bad,” Teddy said. “Considering that during the past couple of years you’ve become only marginally interested in the airline
business, anyway.”

“I owe it all to Tim.” Gold laughed. “I’ve never forgotten the lesson he taught me years ago: ‘Never give anything away.’”

AMERICA TOASTS TO PROHIBITION’S REPEAL—

The Drink’s on Us,” Lawmakers Tell a Thirsty Nation—

Philadelphia Bulletin–Journal

HITLER ELECTED TO BE NEW HEAD OF STATE—

Germans Swear Allegiance to their Führer—

New York Gazette

GOLD AVIATION AND TRANSPORT WINS 1934
ROSS TROPHY—

GC-2 Monarch Airliner Takes Aviation’s Top Award—

FDR Congratulates GAT Founder Herman Gold at White
House Fete—

Baltimore Globe

LUFT HANSA COMMERCIAL AIRLINE SPANS GLOBE—

Goering Named German Air Minister—

RAF Calls Luft Hansa a Smokescreen for Secret War
Buildup—

London Post

U.S. WAR DEPT. HOLDS AVIATION CONFERENCE—

Aviation Industry Vows to Answer Call for a New Heavy
Bomber—

Herman Gold Rebuffed on Fighters—

GAT Founder Told the Future of Air Power Belongs to
the Bomber—

Aviation Trade
magazine

JAPANESE FLEET INVADES CHINESE PORT OF SWATOW—

Both Sides Shell Each Other at Yuntung River—

Chinese Leader Chiang Kai-shek Warns That War Is
Imminent—

Boston Times

GERMANY ENTERS INTO PACTS WITH ITALY,
JAPAN—

Mussolini Describes “Axis” Around Which Powers May
Work Together—

San Francisco Post

FRANCE, ENGLAND DECLARE WAR ON
GERMANY—

Los Angeles Banner

U.S. ENTERS WAR AFTER JAPS BOMB PEARL
HARBOR—

Washington Star Reporter

Gold was awakened by the low rumble of a motor launch cruising past the hotel. He was all alone in the big, canopied bed.
Erica, wide awake and dressed, was finishing putting on her makeup at the mirrored vanity table.

She saw him looking at her in the mirror, and threw him a kiss. “It’s close to nine, sleepyhead. I’m on my way out.”

“Where are you off to?” Gold mumbled, stretching under the covers.

“Suzy and I had breakfast sent up. We want to get an early start sightseeing so we can catch the first of the races before
lunch.”

“What about Steven?”

“He’s a sleepyhead, like his father,” Erica said. “He thinks sightseeing is sissy stuff, so I told him he could come along
with you, later.”

“Fine.” Gold yawned, and sat up in bed. Erica was donning a plum-colored hat. Gold watched, amused, as she intently experimented
with the rake of its wide brim in the mirror. She caught him looking, and stuck out her tongue at him as she stood up. “Well,
do you approve?” she demanded, pirouetting.

Gold smiled. She had on a long-sleeved, tan silk dress, cinched snugly at the waist with a braided leather belt. Her white
anklets were turned down over sand-colored, suede bucks with red crepe soles.

“Like a dewy young school girl,” he said. “He patted the bed. Care to come over here and fool around with a dirty old man?”

“You sleep late, you miss out. See you at the races, to coin a phrase,” she said gaily, grabbing her purse as she swept out
of the bedroom. Gold heard her out in the sitting room, rapping on Suzy’s bedroom door and telling her to hurry up.

He got out of bed and wrapped himself in his robe. He heard his wife and daughter leaving the hotel suite as he padded barefoot
across the Persian carpet to throw open the French doors and step out onto the bedroom’s balcony. It was a magnificent morning,
clear and warm, with no humidity, thanks to the spicy sea breeze blowing in from the lagoon. Sunlight dappled the opalescent
waters of the Grand Canal. The play of light and shadow embellished the unbroken line of stately, pastel-hued, quay-side palaces,
their stone bulwarks etched by the centuries, grown dark and mossy down near the waterline. A gondolier, as timeless as Venice
in his striped jersey, was poling his sleek, black, cigar-shaped craft toward the grand, baroque domes of the Church of Santa
Maria della Salute, on the opposite side of the canal. A motor launch, a green and black, steam-powered vaporetto, passed
by, churning up a frothy wake that set the spidery gondola rocking. The gondolier protested the indignity with a baleful shout
as he shook his fist at the fast-departing launch.

Gold went back inside, through the bedroom, and into the parlor. Their hotel suite had three bedrooms and two baths, arranged
off of this sitting room. The suite was furnished with antiques and hung with tapestries. One entire wall of the parlor was
glass, opening up onto a waterside terrace that stretched the length of the room.

Gold knocked on Steven’s bedroom door, telling his son to get up and get dressed. As he returned to his own bedroom, to shower
and shave, and select the day’s wardrobe from the armoire, its lacquered doors inlaid with mother-of-pearl, he found himself
whistling in happy anticipation.

Venice held fond memories for him. The last time he had been here was back in 1936, a purely frivolous detour during a business
trip that was in itself both a great pleasure and a triumphant vindication.

GAT’s prototype, twin-engine, Monarch GC-1 airliner debuted in the summer of 1933, to a resoundingly positive industrywide
reception. The airplane was everything that Gold had hoped, but the GC-1 never saw mass production. While GAT was tooling
up its production lines, Teddy Quinn and his people worked out a way to stretch the Monarch’s fuselage to allow for two more
passengers. It was this “stretched” version, dubbed the GC-2, that was put into production and delivered to Tim Campbell’s
Skyworld Airline. Soon after, Tim Campbell would say that the smartest move he’d ever made was to let Herman Gold con him
into buying the Monarch.

In 1934 the GC-2 won the coveted Ross Trophy, one of the aviation industry’s highest honors. Gold would never forget the award
presentation ceremony, held in the Rose Garden of the White House, and that sublime moment when President Roosevelt shook
his hand in congratulations, while Erica and the kids looked on…

Nineteen thirty-four also saw FDR charge that the airlines were operating as an illegal cartel, and cancel all the route assignments
awarded under the Watres Act. Gold took no pleasure in being proved right. He wanted things to go well for Tim Campbell and
Hull Stiles. The government invited new bids on the routes, but in order to “punish” those who had participated in the cartel,
no airline that had previously held a route could participate. The airlines got around that by simply changing their names:
Campbell’s Skyworld Airlines became Skyworld, Incorporated on its new papers. A potentially more serious restriction was that
no contract would be awarded to any airline that still employed anybody who had attended the original conference in Washington
to divvy up the routes, held just after the Watres Act had been passed, in 1930.