Rosalind hesitated. The chair was still out where she’d left it. Willard remembered how Rosalind had been dragging it when he’d burst in on her.
‘The cupboard? Did your sister mention that cupboard?’
Again that momentary hesitation. Then a nod. ‘Yes. It was the cupboard she mentioned.’
The cupboard in question was a large built-in affair, flush-fitted to the alcove next to the doorway. The bottom half was mostly full of bed and table linens. The upper half was full of Willard’s collection of flying and movie memorabilia. He wasn’t at all unhappy to have to root through it with Rosalind watching. He began pulling stuff out: movie posters, photographs, a medal, a leather flying helmet scored along its outer edge by a German bullet.
‘Oh, Willard Thornton,’ she said. ‘Gosh! Aren’t you …? Of course, you are. Silly me. I suppose I should have recognised you.’
‘Not at all, not at all.’
Willard knew for a fact that the cupboard had been bare on his arrival, but wasn’t going to let that stop him emptying it under Rosalind’s inspection. Selecting carefully, but appearing casual, he made sure that the choicest artefacts ended up in the pile closest to Rosalind: a condensed history in objects of his life as he liked to think of it. She picked up a model Nieuport, made in silver, a gift from his father to mark Willard’s first aerial victory. ‘They seem so fragile.’
‘Not really,’ he answered, with studied casualness. ‘Good plane the Nieuport. Wing struts had a tendency to come apart in a dive, but it wasn’t a danger if you knew what you were doing.’
‘Do you mind me looking?’
‘Not at all. It’s junk, really. I ought to throw it away.’ She shook her head.
The cupboard was obviously empty. Willard swept the back with his hand.
‘Your sister’s things aren’t here, but I’ll keep an eye out. What should I be looking for?’
‘Oh… I’m not sure. Some papers, I think. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have come. Sorry.’ She opened the apartment door. ‘Goodbye. Thank you.’
‘Wait!’
Rosalind stopped.
‘If I find anything, how do I get in touch with you?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. You can call me.’ She gave him a Manhattan phone number. ‘But don’t worry about it. Really.’
Her eyes flicked around the apartment, back to the cupboard, then to the mess on the floor.
‘And now I’ve put you out. I’m so sorry. Thank you. Goodbye.’
The shadow of Poll’s upper wing shifted slowly with the sun. At the moment, most of the shadow fell on the ground, but there was still a long bar of shade lying down the trailing edge of the lower wing. Abe lay with a cigarette in his mouth, his back warm against the fuselage. The Cuban boy who brought the mailbag for Miami was late again. Abe decided that, bag or no bag, he’d leave as soon as the shadow of the upper wing had left the lower wing completely.
The sun slid slowly down the sky. The shadow moved. Abe finished his cigarette and stubbed it out.
Another minute passed. The shadow had almost completely shifted now. Abe got up, ready to leave, when a big black American car drew up outside the airfield gates. A dark-suited man climbed out, leaving one man at the wheel and a second one in the passenger seat behind. The man who got out was bulky, jowly, tough, but also friendly. Abe recognised him as an occasional passenger with the Marion bootleggers – and their obvious superior. The big man came over.
‘You Rockwell?’
Abe nodded.
‘Hi. Bob Mason.’ The man pointed at his chest, as though he might have meant someone else.
Abe shrugged.
‘You going back to Miami?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I need a ride.’
Abe shrugged again.
I’ll pay. How much d’you charge?’
‘Can’t. I’m full. Sorry.’
‘Full? With a packet of letters?’ Mason snorted. ‘Say fifty bucks? I never taken a plane ride before.’
‘I thought you went by boat. You’d be more comfortable.’
‘Fool sailors left the choke wide open. Engine flooded. In this heat, too.’
Abe shrugged. Since he’d swum out to the boat that lunch-time and opened the choke himself, the news wasn’t a big surprise. He’d also undone the nut holding the propeller blade, so if the Marion folk had got the engine started, it would have lost its blade within seconds.
‘Too bad.’
Just then the Cuban kid came at a slow trot with the mailbag. Abe took the bag and buckled it behind his seat in the rear cockpit. The American came closer, tilting his head up to speak.
‘Fifty bucks. We got a deal, right? Where do I get in? Here?’ He made as if to climb into the front cockpit.
‘Hey! Out of there. I’m full, I told you. I’m not some kind of railroad service.’
Mason stopped where he was, half-in, half-out of the cockpit. He held Abe’s gaze square on.
‘A hundred bucks.’
‘I’m full. That’s the last time I’m telling you.’ Abe checked his instruments, before jumping out of the plane to swing the propeller a couple of times. On a cold day, it could take a few turns to bring enough fuel into the piston heads. But in the heat, Abe could tell by the smell that the pistons were already primed. He walked back to the cockpit.
‘Bullshit, that’s bullshit.’
Abe shrugged. ‘My machine, my route.’
He reached inside his cockpit, flipped the ignition, and set the throttle low enough that it would keep the engine turning without sending Poll skittering out across the field. Then he went back to the propellers, ready to spin the blades into action.
Mason let Abe pass him, then said in the same low voice, ‘Fuck you.’ He picked a hundred dollars from his wallet and threw them into the rear cockpit. Then he grasped the edge of the front cockpit with both hands and jumped up, before swinging his legs down and into the plane. A grimy blue curtain would have blocked his view of anything lying forward from the seat. Expecting empty space, he moved too fast and barked out loud in pain as his feet struck something hard and solid. He swore loudly, then grabbed at the curtain to pull it aside.
And saw it. Six cases of booze, Gordon’s Gin still in the original boxes, strapped tight against Poll’s wood and fabric hull.
Mason stared – stared – then began to roar with laughter.
‘Full! Ha! I’ll say you are. That’s a sweet little business you got yourself there.’
‘Right. So as you see, I got no space for you. Now scram.’
Mason shook his head. His eyes smiled but there was an unruffled confidence in his manner which hinted at something a whole lot tougher. ‘I’ll squeeze up. I promise not to snitch a drink on the way.’
‘It’s not a question of squeezing, it’s a question of weight. The plane won’t take off overloaded.’
‘Then lose the booze.’
‘I’d sooner lose you.’
Mason paused. His manner was still very easy, very calm. He looked inside the curtain and counted