Aces (53 page)

“So is this entire conversation,” Gold coldly replied. “But you still insist on having it. Well, let’s see if I can get this
through your thick skull: That stuff about you being a test pilot, that was kid talk, you get it?”

“Kid talk?” Steven repeated, looked baffled, but then his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said! It was funny at the time, but it’s not funny to hear you talking that way now.”

“So no matter how I try to compromise with you it doesn’t matter, is that it? My life is going to go the way you want, and
that’s it?”

“You finally figured it out, Steven.”

The elevator arrived. Gold stepped inside and pushed the button for his floor. As the doors slid closed they framed his son.
The look in Steven’s eyes made Gold think his son was on the verge of tears. The kid was pale and trembling. He had a white-knuckle
grip on the mail cart.

The elevator reached the top floor, and Gold got out. As he walked along the corridor, he began to think that maybe the glint
in Steven’s eyes came not from tears, but from anger. By the time he got to his office Gold was sure of it.

The thought haunted Gold all the rest of the day. A couple of times he thought about calling down to the mailroom and having
Steven come up, so that they could make peace, but his own telephone kept ringing with lengthy, important calls; there were
letters to read and revise and sign; and people in and out to see him. Before he knew where the afternoon had gone, it was
five-thirty. He tried the mailroom, but there was no answer.

Steven had evidently left for the day. Gold would see him at home. No harm done.

That night Gold decided to unwind by going for a drive instead of going straight home. It was a nice night, so he put the
top down on the Cadillac convertible coupe and headed out along the coast, letting the sea breeze, and the steady purr of
the Caddy’s big V-8, lull him into relaxation.

The more he thought about his arguments with Teddy Quinn, and his son, the more Gold felt that he’d been in the right. Sure
he understood how Blaize Greene or Steven might have their own ideas about what they wanted to do, but it was the obligation
of those older and wiser to set kids straight. By keeping Blaize out of combat, and his own son out of the cockpits of experimental
aircraft, he was saving their lives. Blaize and Steven might resent his actions now, but someday they would thank him, just
as Gold could imagine how he might have thanked his own father for looking out for him—if he’d had a father.

He stopped at a seafood shack near Newport Beach for some dinner, and to telephone home that he’d eaten and would be late.
He got the maid, and asked her to relay the message to his wife.

After dinner he went for a walk along the beach, so by the time he got home it was around midnight. The house was quiet and
dark. At first he thought that everyone had gone to bed, but he noticed that a light was on in the kitchen. He went in and
found Erica, in her robe and slippers, sitting at the table in the soft light, having a cup of tea.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” Gold said. “I did telephone; did you get my message?”

Erica nodded. “I got it.”

He thought she sounded funny, but decided she was probably just tired. “I went for a drive after work. I wanted to unwind.”
He yawned. “It’s been one hell of an awful day.”

“And it’s not over yet,” Erica said.

“You’re right about that,” Gold sighed, not really paying attention. “I have to talk to Steven. We had a little argument today.
I was already in a foul mood when it began. Maybe I was a little too rough on him. I think I should apologize—”

“He’s gone,” Erica said.

She looked up at him, and when he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed from crying he suddenly got very scared. “What do you
mean?’ he asked urgently. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s gone away. He left a note on his bed, asking us not to try and find him. He’s taken a dufflebag and some clothes.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Gold fumed. “Is Suzy all right?”

“She doesn’t know yet. She’s been out with Blaize.”

“We’ll call the police,” Gold said. “We’ll give them a description and the license plate of his car.”

“He didn’t take the car.”

“Why wouldn’t he take his car?” Gold demanded.

“Because it’s not his,” Erica said wearily. “It’s yours.”

“Of course it’s his car! I just bought it for him when he turned sixteen!”

“
You
bought it
for
him.”

“Our son is missing and you’re sitting here playing word games with me—”

“Herman, sit down.”

He nodded. “After I call the police.”

“Sit down, now,” Erica insisted. “Right now!” she added sharply.

Gold stared at her, and then nodded. He took the chair directly across from Erica, who reached across the table to take his
hand.

“I’ve been thinking about this for hours. I’ve come to some conclusions. They may be hard for you to accept, but I want you
to try to understand.” She sighed. “First of all, he’s a big boy, and he’s smart, even if he is only sixteen. I doubt very
much that anybody is going to pick on him, or that he’s in any immediate danger.”

“But why didn’t he take his car? That’s what I want to know…” Gold was muttering.

Erica seemed not to hear the question. “Listen to me,” she repeated. “I’m as much to blame as you, but these past few months
the two of us have been pretending everything was all right concerning Steven, and everything wasn’t all right.”

“The kid was acting a little nuts about his future is all,” Gold shrugged, but he stared down at the table, unwilling to meet
Erica’s gaze. “He’s a little confused. That’s what happens with kids these days.”

“I know that you love Steven, and I know that he loves you, but you’re a very strong man, Herman. It’s hard for Steven to
try and live up to your standards. He wants to make you happy, and, someday to fill your shoes, but he’s got to do it his
own way.”

“So far, he’s on the wrong track,” Herman grumbled. He looked up accusingly. “So what are you saying to me? That my success
is suffocating my son? That it would have been better for him if I’d been a failure, and that way he wouldn’t have so much
to live up to?”

Erica laughed. “No, darling, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that if you think about it, you’ll realize that he has been trying
to talk to us, but we’ve been so busy talking
at
him that we couldn’t listen.”

“When you say ‘we,’ you mean ‘me,’ right?” Gold asked gruffly.

Erica nodded, smiling. The dim light was softening the lines that time had put in her face. Gold always thought she looked
beautiful, but just now, for a few moments at least, he found he could pretend he was talking to Erica as she’d looked when
Steven was little enough to sit on his lap, and when Gold could do no wrong in his son’s eyes.

“You asked why he didn’t take his car. I think it’s because you gave it to him. He didn’t earn it, you
gave
it. It’s easy to feel inadequate when you’re existing off of others’ generosity.”

“That’s an interesting notion. I’d like to experience that sort of inadequacy someday,” Gold said dryly. “Of course, no one
has ever given me anything—”

“That’s my point!” Erica quickly replied. “You earned everything you have, so you’re secure about who you are. Now, think
about your son. Where does he lay claim to
his
manhood?”

Gold leaned back in his chair and did think about it. He slowly nodded. “I… I never looked at it that way. Erica, you must
know that all I wanted was to be a good father to him! Honestly, all I ever wanted was to do everything I could for him, like
my father might have done for me, if I’d had one…”

“I do know that, my love,” Erica said softly. “But now listen, and I’ll tell you how you
can
be a good father. The kind of father he needs, right now.”

“Anything,” Gold said. “Anything at all to bring him home.”

“You
don’t
bring him home,” Erica said. “You don’t call the police. You let him go.”

“What are you saying? What about school?”

“He can always go back to school.”

“What if he gets into trouble, or…” Gold trailed off, helplessly. “Or something dangerous?” he moaned.

“Here’s what I think we should do,” Erica said. “We hire private detectives—”

“Now you’re talking!” Gold said, feeling relieved. “That’s better than the police! Detectives can work for us twenty-four
hours a day.”

“It shouldn’t be all that hard to find him,” Erica said. “After all, he is
your
son. No matter where he wanders, chances are he’ll always wind up near airplanes.”

“And that means airports!” Gold exclaimed. “Sure! Assuming he can’t find a job flying—and he won’t because he’s too young—he’ll
get a job as an airplane mechanic.”

“Once the detectives find him, we have them keep an eye on Steven to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble,” Erica said. “But
otherwise they’re to leave him alone.”

“They’re not to bring him home?” Gold asked weakly.

“If they did, what do you imagine would happen?” Erica demanded.

“You’re saying he’d run away again?”

“Unless you kept him under lock and key. Let your son have his adventures,” she said. “Let him get a taste of the world on
his own terms; a taste as Steven Gold, not as Herman Gold’s son. Let him try his wings. Believe me, that will be the quickest
and surest way to bring him home, and
keep
him home.” She paused, and smiled. “And who knows? Maybe it’ll end up that someday
you’ll
be known as Steven Gold’s father…”

“That’s fine with me,” Gold said. “As long as he stays out of trouble, and as long as he stays out of danger! I don’t want
my son risking his life.”

Steven Gold was up on the stepladder, working on the Beechcraft’s engine when the guy came in. At first Steven thought the
guy was a gangster here to see Ernie Donovan, the proprietor of Donovan Air Charter. Ernie mostly did cropdusting, and made
a little dough in summer by fitting floats on the Beechcraft and taking tourists for rides along the Jersey shore, but sometimes
he did fly gangsters here and there. Not that Ernie liked to talk about that too much.

On closer inspection, however, Steven realized the guy who had just come in was too cheap-looking and shabby to be a gangster,
who were all real sharp dressers. This guy’s purple mohair suit looked worn, his collar looked grimy, and his tie had spots
on it. He had white whiskers stubbling his cheeks, like he hadn’t had a shave in maybe two days. Being up on the stepladder,
Steven could see that the guy’s hat brim was frayed. And he had no overcoat, despite the brisk April weather.

Also, the gansters who came around tended to act edgy. They would always be looking over their shoulder and complaining that
they were anxious to get going. This guy just looked down on his luck, and kind of tired.

“The boss around, kid?” the guy asked. He was coming over to the Beechcraft when he suddenly skidded on the greasy concrete
slab floor and began windmilling his arms to keep from landing flat on his ass. Steven wanted to smile, but he didn’t dare.
The guy didn’t look like a gangster, but you could never tell.

“Back here, Red,” Ernie called, standing up, so that the guy could see him over the stacked cardboard boxes filled with used
airplane parts and odds and ends.

The guy checked the bottom of his shoes and made a face. He gave the the grease buckets and tools littering the floor a wide
berth as he meandered over to the office area of the hangar. It was kind of dark back where he was heading—Ernie liked to
save on electricity—but Steven figured the guy could make his way all right. There was as much light coming in through the
chinks in the hangar walls as from the bare bulbs strung from the roof rafters above his work area.

“What brings you around here, Red?” Ernie asked the guy. “I thought you got yourself a job working for Bradley Aviation Export?”

“I am working for Gil. That’s why I’m here. We heard a couple of truckloads of mint altimeters got lost coming out of Norton
Instrument’s Brooklyn warehouse. I thought maybe you could give me a lead on them. By the way, you got a drink here, Ernie?”

Steven smiled to himself. Ernie was known to fence hot airplane parts and supplies on occasion. He went back to working on
the Beechcraft.

It was an old D-17 biplane with an enclosed cabin. It was painted tan, except where the dings and rust spots had been touched
up with gray primer. The Beechcraft may have looked like hell, but it flew okay. It wasn’t as good an airplane as the GAT
Yellowjacket or Dragonfly had been, but the Beechcraft hadn’t been bad, in its day.

Steven guessed he could say the same thing about Ernie, who reminded him of Popeye the Sailor from the funny papers. Like
Popeye, Ernie was little and wiry, with gnarled forearms and a lantern jaw. He looked about a hundred years old. He had a
granite-gray brushcut, and watery blue eyes. He claimed that he’d flown with Rickenbacker’s Hat in the Ring Squadron during
the war. Steven was respectful, but he didn’t much believe Ernie’s war stories. Nevertheless, he knew that his father had
been somewhere around that area of France during the war, and would have liked to have asked Ernie if he’d ever crossed swords
with a scarlet and turquoise Fokker with a centaur painted on its side. Of course, Steven didn’t ask. He was using a phony
name and struggling to grow a moustache to disguise himself; the last thing he wanted was to call attention to his real identity.

“Steve! Quit daydreaming and get that fuckin’ plane back together!”

“Sorry, Mister D!” Steven called, and went back to work.

The Beechcraft was the only airplane Ernie had. Whenever Steven worked on it, Ernie would fret that somebody might come in
and want to charter a flight.

Whenever Ernie wasn’t around he would sit in the Beech-craft and fool around with the controls. A couple of times he’d even
started her up and taxied her around the field. Steven sure wished he could take her up for an hour or so… He hadn’t flown
anything for a long time, not since leaving home, almost seven months ago. At least back home he got the chance to fly some
of the old Yellowjackets his dad kept around the GAT airfield…