Aces (47 page)

“Was your father upset?” Erica asked. “About leaving school, I mean?”

Blaize didn’t say anything for the length of time it took him to dig out his black onyx case and light a cigarette. “My father
died in a hunting accident during my last year at Eaton,” he said, exhaling the words in a steady hiss along with a stream
of smoke.

“I’m very sorry.” She saw Blaize offer her a thin smile, and immediately knew that his father’s death was far too painful
a topic to dwell on. “So, then you got yourself a job with Stoat-Black?” she asked brightly, and thought that Blaize looked
grateful to her for changing the subject.

“Stoat-Black pays me a small salary,” Blaize said. “It’s not much, but, then, there’s no shortage of young men who would gladly
take my place. Not that I’m in any danger of losing my position. I do have my engineering background, which comes in handy
when talking airplane performance with the people in research and design.” He laughed, exhaling cigarette smoke. “For all
that, I suspect that Stoat-Black favors me more for the cachet my title lends the company than for my technical expertise.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Suzy said.

“I can’t blame Stoat-Black, however. I’ve been living off my title for years.”

Suzy, listening, recoiled at the cool disdain she heard in his voice as he talked about himself.

“I’m always overdrawn on my salary, you see. Like my father, I happen to fancy the finer things in life, but they don’t come
cheap, and I don’t come with the ability to pay for them. In England, however, a peerage is often as useful as money in the
bank. I use my title to get credit at restaurants and hotels. With it I manage to placate my tailor and my jeweler. My title
also allows me to be something of a professional houseguest,” he added dryly. “Those with money, but no social position, seem
to enjoy having someone like me lounging about in tennis whites during the day, and in black tie in the evening. I suppose
that for my hosts I fulfill rather the same need as their purebred spaniels in front of the fire.”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Suzy said. At least, she
hoped
he was.

Blaize studied her, and then smiled. “You’re very kind to say so, Suze.”

She smiled. “That nickname does make me want to giggle. It makes me think of champagne.”

Blaize smiled back. “Do you like champagne?” he asked softly.

Suzy shrugged. “I’ve only had it a couple of times.”

“Of course!” he chuckled. “You’re only seventeen… Forgive me for forgetting…”

“Oh, that’s okay!” Suzy said happily.

“And do forgive me for rambling on,” he added, looking adorably earnest. “Please understand that I’m not used to talking about
myself… I certainly haven’t talked about my father to anyone in years.”

She nodded. “Blaize, why did you invite me out for this afternoon?”

“Because you’re a beautiful and charming young lady and I wished the pleasure of your company—” he began, smoothly.

“Oh, sure,” Suzy interrupted. “I bet you escort seventeen-year-old girls all the time.” She gazed at him. “Could I hear the
truth, please?”

He looked glum. “You’re certainly not a girl who misses much. The truth, Suze, may be hard for you to hear. I’m certainly
ashamed of myself concerning it, but you must understand that I didn’t think you were as…” He trailed off, looking very uncomfortable.
“As mature—as
knowing
and
wise
—as you seem to be…”

“Would you get to the point?” Suzy chuckled.

“Very well.” He spoke quickly, as if he wanted to get the confession out all in one breath. “I invited you because I was hoping
to get into your father’s good graces. You see, I hope to convince him to give me a job as one of his test pilots.”

“You mean in America?” Her heart was pounding wildly at the thought, but she kept a straight face, figuring that he expected
her to show a little outrage. And anyway, he deserved to be on the hotseat just a little, for his presumption. “So you only
wanted to use me,” she said, trying to sound angry.

“Please forgive me,” he said, sounding very ashamed. “As I said, I thought you were merely a child, so I didn’t consider your
feelings.”

Something told Suzy that she didn’t have to pretend with Blaize. That he liked her fine when she was just being herself. “You’re
forgiven.”

“There’s nothing for me in England, you see,” Blaize continued. “I was thinking that perhaps I could make a fresh start of
it in your country. I do intend to make the crossing, one way or the other. I just thought that things would be that much
easier if I had a job doing what I love already lined up when I got there.”

“I see,” Suzy said thoughtfully. She patted his hand. “Maybe I can put in a good word for you with my father.”

She expected him to be wildly grateful, but he remained silent, a pained expression on his face. For a moment she was confused,
but then she understood, and felt very bad for him. She hadn’t ever had to think about it until now; she guessed that it was
no fun always having to ask people for things…

“You know, I do love these gondolas,” he said. “The brass fittings, the varnished wood. They remind me somewhat of vintage
airplanes. The kind of airplane your father flew during the war…”

“I wouldn’t know,” Suzy shuddered. “I’ve never flown in an airplane.”

“What?” Blaize asked, clearly astounded.

“The whole idea of being up in the air petrifies me,” Suzy said. “It alway has… I mean, I understand why airplanes don’t fall
out of the sky, but when it comes to actually going up in one… And don’t you dare laugh at me!” she said hotly.

Blaize quickly muffled his smile. “You have to admit, it’s rather rich,” he said. “I mean, considering who your father and
mother are?…”

“Tell me about it,” Suzy said miserably. “I’ve endured ribbing about it all my life. My brother
never
lets up…”

“An impoverished nobleman, and the scion of one of the world’s foremost aviation families, who is afraid to fly,” Blaize mused.
“What a pair we make.”

Suzy resisted the urge to enthusiastically, wildly agree. She was going to show His Lordship Blaize Greene, at every opportunity,
that she was a full-grown lady. “Do we?” she asked coolly.

Suzy waited until late that night to talk to her father about Blaize Greene. She was lying wide awake in her bed listening
for her mother to tell her father good night. Her brother was already sound asleep in the room next door. She knew that her
father would be up for a while. He liked to read and have a brandy just before bed, and mother couldn’t abide having a light
on in their bedroom while she slept.

Suzy waited an extra few minutes, to give the brandy time to do its work, and to make sure mother really had retired for the
night. Something told Suzy that if she wanted to get Blaize a job as a GAT test pilot, and in the process keep him close at
hand, she had best leave her mother out of this. Suzy knew that her mother loved her, but she certainly wasn’t the pushover
that Daddy was. When she was certain the time was ripe, she slipped out of bed, put on her robe, and went out into the parlor.
Her father was sitting on a sofa. His reading glasses were perched on the tip of his nose, and a brandy snifter was within
easy reach, just as she’d imagined, but he wasn’t reading a book. He had several folders full of papers on the sofa beside
him, and an unfolded blueprint blanketing his lap.

Her father looked up at her and smiled. “What are you doing up?” he asked mildly.

“Daddy, can I talk to you about something very important?”

“You’re sounding very serious.” He put aside the papers, to make room for her beside him on the sofa. “Come sit, and tell
me what this is all about.”

Suzy sat down, and began to idly flip through the folders. “What are you working on?”

“Those are the specs on the Supershark. I got them from Stoat-Black. We’re going to build our own prototype version of that
plane back in Burbank, and run some tests on her.”

“That’s interesting,” she fibbed.

Daddy put his arm around her. “Quit stalling. You hate airplanes. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I want to ask you a favor, but not for me… For someone else…”

“And who would that be?”

“Blaize Greene,” Suzy said. “He’d like to come work for you in California.”

Her father merely nodded, not seeming at all surprised. But then, she’d never ever seen her father act truly surprised about
anything.

“I see… Did Blaize ask you to come to me on his behalf?”

She thought about it. “No,” she decided. “I mean, he said that he wants to come work for you, but he never asked me to talk
to you about it.”

“Then how did it come up?”

“When I found out he didn’t have any money—”

“He doesn’t have any money?”

“And I had to pay for our gondola ride—” She stopped, and smiled. Her father was shaking his head, but he was laughing.

“Maybe you’d better start from the beginning,” he said.

Blaize Greene ran along the beach. The sun was just coming up, glinting red fire against the Hotel Venezia’s top-floor windows,
visible above the trees. The sun washed the sky with orange light, and set to life the placid waters of the Adriatic. The
soft dawn brought awake the seabirds. They stretched their wings and sprang aloft, cawing loudly, as Greene padded past.

He was wearing white canvas lace-up shoes with cork soles, white tennis shorts, and a crimson, cotton tennis sweater with
a thin yellow stripe running along its V-neck and around the cuffs. Greene’s hair was touseled and damp; sweat trickled down
his spine; his breath came easily as his legs pumped rhythmically. The salt air was invigorating. As he ran he mentally visualized
how he wanted this morning’s race to proceed. Periodically he checked his wristwatch. He’d been up for the past hour and a
half, running for the past forty-five minutes. Another fifteen minutes, and then he’d call it quits.

He waved to his race team as he ran past the three wooden launch ramps shared by all the Moden Competition entrants. His team
was just rolling the Supershark on its dolly out of its tent hangar, onto the ramp apron. Greene kept on running, to the Porto
Di Malamocco, a narrow channel that separated the southern tip of the Lido from the island town of Chioggia. As he turned
to run back, he glanced at the stone breakwater jutting out into the sea. On its far end was erected a tall, red and white
checkered pylon: one of the turning points in the race. Just for the hell of it Greene ran the length of the breakwater, skipping
nimbly along the slippery, barnacle-encrusted jumble of rocks. He touched the pylon, then ran back to the beach, and continued
on his way.

Greene’s society friends in London had accused him of having a split personality. When he wasn’t flying he was a late-night,
heavy-drinking sybarite; an infamous partygoer who never failed to get his name into the society pages or the more crass gossip
columns run by the Fleet Street rags. But when he was flying he became more spartan than a monk; no drinking, and no late-night
carousing. He just ran, got lots of sleep, and concentrated on the job at hand.

He went along with the jokes his London friends made about his grueling, self-imposed—or self-inflicted, depending on one’s
point of view—regimen. He pretended to need their commiserations. It wouldn’t do to expect them to understand, but he did
want to oblige them. He needed the company of his friends in order- to survive the interminable periods when Stoat-Black had
nothing for him to fly.

He was happy when he was flying, and miserable when he wasn’t. It was as simple as that, or as psychologically complex. He
was not particularly fond of himself as a human being, but at least he was a tolerable test pilot: he knew how to fly, and
he wasn’t afraid to take a risk during the course of a day’s work. People thought he was brave. He encouraged the perception.
The truth was that he really didn’t give much of a damn what happened to him. He suspected that the best of what life had
to offer was already behind him. He wasn’t going to be in his twenties forever, and it was going to be rather difficult to
freeload off his title and his charm once the lines set in around his eyes. He’d be a rather pathetic kind of sort of bloke,
then, wouldn’t he?…

Rather as pathetic as his father was, the day he tramped off into the woods in order to undergo his “hunting accident,” during
which he evidently, “accidentally,” put both barrels of his custom-engraved shotgun into his mouth and blew his head off…

Greene had only been eleven years old at the time. He’d been away at school. The headmaster had come to wake him in the middle
of the night, saying only that something awful had happened, and that he and his brother must hurry in order to take the next
train. And so they had, sitting alone, sleepy-eyed and staring at their own reflections in the rocking, brightly lit compartment’s
plate glass, sick to their stomachs with apprehension…

Greene stumbled on a piece of driftwood on the beach, almost turning his ankle. He realized that his steady pace had increased
to a sprint. He forced himself to slow down, to calm down…

Everyone had been awfully good about the circumstances surrounding the death of his father, Greene remembered. Hence the “hunting
accident” nonsense. Greene had been grateful to one and all at the time, and he still was, on his father’s behalf. It was
nice that they had let his father go off into eternity with at least his dignity intact. The old boy had been left with precious
little else.

Greene hoped that they would be as kind toward him when the time for his “accident” came around.

He again passed the launch ramps. The other race teams were bringing their seaplanes out, and parking them on the aprons.
Meanwhile, the Stoat-Black mechanics had the Supershark’s engine cowling off. Greene knew that they would perform a maintenance
check, then lightly mist the engine with oil and coat the seaplane’s moving parts with thick grease, to protect against the
salt spray. All of that would take a couple of hours. By ten this morning the Supershark would be rigged up to the crane and
hoisted off her dolly, onto the ramp. She was scheduled to launch at ten-fifteen. She would be one of the last to hit the
water. Today’s eliminations competition was scheduled to begin at ten-thirty.