Trophy for Eagles (50 page)

Hafner pulled a daily diary from his desk drawer and leafed through the future-year calendars in the back. He selected a red pencil, and put a small X through June 1936. Things would have to be resolved by then. It gave him a little leeway; he could leave earlier or later, depending upon business conditions. But June 1936 would be perfect.

*

The Brown Palace Hotel,

Denver, Colorado/October 17, 1933

Bandfield had planned the operation from the moment he entered the lobby and gazed up the nine stories, each girdled by a hall and railing, to the ceiling. Asking for a room on the ninth floor, he'd spent twenty minutes at his desk, carefully drawing the plans. Folding the paper, he made a minute adjustment, then moved
swiftly out of his room and down the hallway to punch the elevator
call button. When it arrived, he stepped to the railing, took a quick look around, and launched the glider.

The elevator ride down was interminable, but when he reached
the lobby, he saw the glider making a wide circle at the fourth-floor
level, riding some internal thermal.

"Jesus, that's the first goddam airplane that's worked right for me
in years."

Bandfield walked over and sank into the deep couches that were
set with military regularity across the huge floor, brass nailheads
punctuating the glossy maroon leather. After a day with Mahew,
fending off his incessant demands and trying to get a few dollars in
progress payments, he was looking forward to the evening. The
glider finally made its last turn, having a midair with the back of a
clerk's head at the registration desk. Bandy turned the other way.

Things were really breaking right for once. Mahew had scheduled
the meeting in Denver purely for the convenience of his local staff—and because he had a mountain home in Colorado Springs.
The very next day, Patty had written, saying she would like to come
out to California for one final discussion of the racer. He'd sug
gested that they meet in Denver instead, so he could get completely
away from the problems of the plant and have her entirely to himself, away from the Rogets and Hughes and everyone else.

Stretching out, he parked his crossed legs on a throw rug made
from a sad-eyed brown bear who'd seen better days. Tonight he was
going to make a move. Twice before he had met with Patty on the racer, and each time she had been very friendly and open. Some
insane sense of reserve, an exaggerated regard for propriety, had kept
him from trying to kiss her. Their conversations were always
convoluted. She talked freely and openly with him in a way that
invited a response; instead he had kept her at a distance each time. The truth was this meeting wasn't necessary—it must mean that she
wanted to see him. Tonight she could be the one to keep the distance—if she wanted to.

He rose when he saw her coming, noting with pleasure how
heads bobbed as she went by. She was wearing a beige blouse and a
dark tan skirt, her long legs flashing as she walked. She came up to him and put out her arms. He embraced her, and they kissed with a precisely measured tenderness that mixed correct appearance and a
promise of things to come.

She was carrying the roll of plans.

"Let me park these at the desk. We can have dinner here, then go
to my room to study them."

They ate hurriedly. Bandfield, a man who usually scrimshawed
Porterhouse bones with his teeth, sent most of the enormous steak back to the kitchen uneaten.

Her room, unlike his own, was immaculate. He had a faculty for
immediately turning any living quarters into a Hooverville slum within thirty seconds. They put the plans on the bed and drew up two small chairs to sit on.

It had started on the usual crisp engineering note.

"Remember now, a standard Beech Staggerwing with a two-
hundred-and-twenty-five-horsepower engine has a top speed of about one seventy-five. With the seven-hundred-and-fifty-
horsepower Cyclone, you should be able to hit two-forty, maybe
two-fifty, and cruise at two-twenty. You don't have to be that fast to
set the women's record. A two hundred cruise would do it."

"That's the point, Bandy—I don't want to set women's records. I
think that's a mistake for women and for flying. The airplane doesn't
know whether the pilot's a man or a woman."

Bandfield's expression didn't change. "I think it's a mistake to try
to set an absolute record. But if you insist, don't put the big engine
on it right away. Learn to fly it with the standard engine, then work
up to the big one. It'll cost a little more, but that way you'll know the airplane, and it will be safer."

"I'll do whatever you say on the training. We have a little time."

As they leaned over, their arms brushed together. The hairs on
Bandy's arm stood up, static electricity directing them toward Patty.

She noticed and, laughing, said, "Look at those little devils, all trying to get hold of me."

She touched her finger to his arm, and a spark jumped.

"It's just my electric personality," he said, as other stirrings gathered heat. "Did I tell you I changed the gear-retraction mech
anism from pneumatic to electric? Takes a little longer to go up and
down."

He moved closer to her and put his finger back and forth on the
plans, tracing the arc of the retraction cycle. "It takes longer, but it's
a lot more reliable."

"That's good in an airplane or a man."

She was obviously not trying to be subtle, and whatever ambiguity or restraint he had felt dissolved in the sure knowledge that they
wanted each other. Still, he wanted to be smooth, not to appear abrupt and as greedy as he felt.

Patty felt a sense of relief; he had been stubbornly missing or ignoring her hints until she had been embarrassingly obvious, but
now he had taken command, and she was prepared to relinquish the
lead and herself.

They moved closer together now, playing to each other, enjoying
the mutual restraint, not wishing the little engineering loveplay to end just yet.

He tapped the color-specification block on the plans and said, "Yellow is a sexy color for an airplane. You'll look good in it."

She was looking at him, not at the plans, the slightest bit of moisture beading on her brow.

"Will I look sexy in it, too?"

"Sure. Is it getting warm in here, or is it just my imagination?"

"It's warming up."

"Let's put a red stripe of trim down the side, something dramatic." He glanced away to sketch a broad red arrow, the feathers ending at the tail and the head spread across the cowling.

She ran her long fingers across the arrow, then moved in closer.

"Do you ever think how symbolic a marking like that is?"

"Symbolic? Of being fast, of being dangerous?"

"Sure, a fast sex symbol, that's what I want to fly, that's what I want to be."

What the hell, he thought. He turned to her and they gently guided themselves into bed.

Their first kisses had the awkward gasping quality of a thirsty man
at a slow fountain, a sort of rasping, sucking urgency that shot Bandfield's testosterone gauge past the red line. He would not surrender her lips. She backed away to grab a breath, and he held
her face forcibly to his, beginning to unbutton her blouse. She tried
again to move away, and he fastened to her, mumbling, "Don't stop, don't stop." She realized he wanted to strip her of her clothes without letting his mouth part from hers.

Her hands worked his buttons, and their lips began to pain from the pressure, but he was unremitting, not willing to let her have a second to herself, yet gentle, taking her clothes with care. She was not wearing a corset; when he removed her slip, with her help, he moved his head away for the first time.

She gasped, light-headed, her eyes rolled back.

"I was making up for lost time."

She started to unfasten her brassiere, and he stopped her.

"No, stay like this for a minute." He shucked himself out of his own clothes like a hot dog squeezed from a bun, and knelt beside her.

"This is pretty fancy underwear. Do you wear stuff like this all the
time?"

"It's a treat for you. I want all of me to be a treat for you."

He moved her bra slightly to kiss the lines left by the elastic, then
did the same with her step-ins, then began kissing her in a continuous stream, working from one ankle across her middle, tongue
gently flickering under the silken cloth, and back down to the other.
Then he rolled her over. "My God, you have a beautiful bottom." He kissed her thoroughly, his fingers unfastening her bra.

Her breath was coming fast, and he removed the rest of her
clothes. He held her cradled in his arms, kissing her lips in a Rodin
statue pose. Then he eased her to the bed and kissed her brow, her
eyes, her nose. Their mouths merged for a long moment, then he pulled away, starting a line of kisses at her chin and ending it with his head tucked between her thighs.

"Come inside me," she called. He moved and covered her, her legs grasping him tightly.

"This is heaven." She nodded agreement, her eyes closed.

He was surprised at his control. He had wanted her for so long, and was almost irrepressibly excited, yet he managed to be re
strained, moving easily with her, their bodies fused, the undulations
steady but not frantic, both equally enjoying the long deferred moment.

Her breathing changed, and he sensed the passion tearing away her control as the tempo of her pelvis quickened. They stopped
kissing and her head moved beside his ear, he could hear her breath coming faster and faster, little low moans telling him that she could
not wait. He felt his own rush, and they moved more swiftly, climaxing together, she with triumphant little murmurs, he with a gasping joyous cry of relief.

He collapsed upon her, maintaining himself within, nibbling at her earlobe. After ten minutes of murmured love words, he leaped up, saying, "Stay there."

He returned from the bathroom with three towels, one very warm
and moist, one cool, and one dry. He put the warm one between
her legs and wiped her body down lovingly with the cool one. Then
he threw both towels by the side of the bed and gently patted her dry.

"I could get to like this."

"You're going to get a chance to. I'm never letting you out of my
arms again. I'm just going to send out for club sandwiches and milkshakes, and keep you here forever."

They made love again; he let her be the aggressor, kissing him erect, then maneuvering until he covered her again. After they had climaxed, she got up with the towels.

"My turn."

Later, lying nude together in the fully lit room, she said, "You know, this was your last chance. If you hadn't kissed me in here, after I had set everything up, I was going to give up."

"You don't realize how intimidating you are. You are so goddam
good-looking that you scare the hell out of me."

She looked at him quizzically. "No, it's not that at all. The big
thing is that you knew Stephan. You felt funny making a pass at the
widow of a friend, particularly a pilot."

"That's part of it."

She sat bolt upright. "Is there someone else? Are you going with
someone now? It's okay, of course, you have every right—"

"No. There was. You probably heard about it. Her name was Millie Duncan."

It took a moment for the name to register.

"The girl on the airplane in the race to Hawaii?" He nodded. "Bandy, that was six years ago. Are you still carrying a torch?"

He felt foolish. "It's not exactly that. It's just that I made a
promise to myself that I'd never fall in love with a woman who flew
again."

He was startled at what he'd said.

"What about me? After Stephan died the way he did, I should fall
for a preacher, or a doctor, somebody who plays it safe."

They both stopped, each afraid that they had gone too far too soon, that talk of love and marriage was premature.

"The problem is that ever since Cleveland, before Stephan's
death, I was attracted to you. You replaced Millie in my dreams, in my fantasies. Then there was the accident and you went away, back
to France for a while, I guess, and I just couldn't forget you."

She put her finger on his lips. "Let me shock you completely. If you had made a pass at me in Cleveland, before Stephan died, I could not have helped myself. I would have come to you. That's a terrible thing to say, but it's true and I want you to know it."