Lotan Jack, a Marshallese working in 1937 as a mess steward at the Japanese naval base on Jaluit, told of hearing officers discuss Amelia’s plane being shot down between Jaluit and Mili-atolls; that she’d been routed to Kwajalein and on to Saipan.
On Saipan, a respected local politician, Manuel Muna, told of talking to a Japanese pilot who claimed to have shot the Electra down, and also took Buddy for a tour of the ruins of Garapan Prison, where he said the American prisoners — Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan — had been held.
“We’ve made three trips to Saipan,” Buddy said, “with limited results. At first, the Saipanese, the Chamorros, seemed less willing to talk than the other islanders.”
“Why do you suppose that is?”
“Well, for one thing, they still fear reprisals from the Japanese.”
“Even now?”
“There’s still a strong Japanese presence on Saipan, Nate, strong economic ties. Then there’s a general distrust, no, more a... hell, a downright fear of Americans, ’cause up till recently the CIA had a secret training center on the island, behind a security fence, not unlike the kind of fences the Japanese put up, in the old days.”
“And the Saipan natives were afraid of the Japs, so now they’re afraid of us.”
“Right. Just another foreign military presence to be feared. And they got worries from within, too — a good number of Saipanese collaborated with the Japs, vicious goddamn thugs, carrying clubs, beating and torturing their own people. Many of those mean old bastards, who were on the Japs’ ‘local police force,’ are still alive, and might retaliate if old secrets were revealed...”
“You’d think after the war, these snakes would’ve been rounded up and shot.”
“That’s not the way of the Saipanese. Yet gradually we did get natives to talk to us. Dozens of them, with similar stories of the lady pilot held in the hotel, and the man who’d come with her, kept in the prison.”
“So why bring me into it?”
He tapped the pocket where the photocopy was folded up; it crinkled under his prod. “You were on Saipan, Nate, well before the war... probably in 1939 or maybe ’40. Weren’t you?”
“Do I look like a priest?”
“You sure don’t look like a Jew. Even if your name is Heller. That’s ’cause your mama was a good Catholic girl; that’s where you get your Irish good looks.”
“What would I have been doing on Saipan in 1930-whatever?”
That bathroom tile grin flashed again; dentures, all right — you didn’t smoke that many cigarettes and keep them white like that unless they reside in a glass overnight.
“Same thing I was doing there in 1967 and ’69,” he said. “Looking for Amelia.”
“She’s been dead a long time.”
“Probably. But where did she die? And when? And where’s the body?”
Out the glass doors of our patio, moonlight glimmered on the waterway; but even with the moonlight, the night seemed dark.
I said, “Buried somewhere on that island, I suppose.”
He pounded a fist on the table. “That’s why I’m going back. To find her grave. To prove she was there, and give her a proper burial, and her rightful place in history as the first courageous casualty of the Second World War.”
I looked at him like he was the one who’d been mustered out on a Section Eight. “Then go dig her up. You don’t need me for it.”
The blue eyes narrowed and bore in on me like benign laser beams. “I think you’d be useful company, Nate. Might be interesting, seeing if that mug of yours stirs any memories, loosens any tongues. You’ll see some familiar faces. Remember a badass named Jesus Sablan? He was the head of the Saipan police — worst of the collaborators.”
My stomach grew cold again; my eyes felt like stones.
When I didn’t say anything, Buddy said, “Funny, I thought maybe you might remember him. One of the stories about the Irish priest involves Sablan... They say Sablan’s the one that killed Fred Noonan. Some of them say that, anyway. Quietly, they say it. Secretly. Praying it never gets back to Lord Jesus.”
“Still alive.” My voice sounded hushed, distant, like somebody else was saying it, somewhere else.
A sly smile formed; blue eyes twinkled. “Oh, you do remember Jesus Sablan, then?”
I gave him my own sly smile. “I never confirmed your theory, Buddy. Never said I’d been to Saipan before. This could all just be another horseshit Amelia Earhart yarn.”
“Could be.”
“Remember your research. Remember all those people who dismiss Nate Heller’s ramblings as bullshit self-aggrandizement.”
“Good point. Of course, another thing I read about you, they say you like money. You don’t turn down a good retainer.”
“I’m old and rich, Buddy. Anyway, rich enough. And old enough, to ignore you and any offer you might make me.”
“Ten grand, Nate. For ten days. Are you so well off ten grand don’t matter?”
Actually, I was.
But I said, “Okay, Buddy — I’ll take your money. Just don’t ask me to go on record about that priest business.”
“No problem.” He rose from the table. “We leave next week. I’ll mosey out so you can break it to your wife... no wives on this trip.”
“Good policy.”
“Please do thank her for the hospitality, and my regrets for messin’ up Valentine’s Day evenin’. Passport in order?”
I nodded. “I’ll phone my office in Chicago and get you a contract.”
“I’m disappointed,” he said as I walked him to the front door. “I figured you’d want cash.”
“That was a long time ago, that Nate Heller. I’m a different man, Buddy.”
And I was, or at least I thought I was, till I heard those names: Amelia Earhart, James Forrestal, Lord Jesus Sablan.
Buddy Busch was giving me an opportunity I’d never dreamed I’d get: before I really retired, I would return to a place I’d never expected to see again, to a job I’d left unfinished, a very long time ago.
And finish it.
One
Ceiling Zero
March 11-May 16, 1935
Chapter 2
Searchlights stroked the evening sky, motorcycle cops kept the traffic moving, and hundreds, hell, maybe thousands of gawking pedestrians lined the sidewalks, the flashbulbs of the press popping, as limousine after limousine drew up on Washington Street near State, where a doorman in green and gold livery helped women draped in diamonds and furs step to the curb, followed by husbands in black tie and bemusement. What might have been a Hollywood premiere was only another attention-attracting attempt by a floundering department store to regain its footing in dark Depression days.
The famous showcase windows of Marshall Field’s remained tasteful tableaus of prosperity, the classic Queen Anne opulence of a few years before replaced by Art Moderne; but the faces reflected in their glass belonged to window shoppers whose dreams of lives of luxury were as abstract as the streamlined geometry on display. Retail sales were down and wholesale was a disaster aided and abetted by the Merchandise Mart, the Field Company’s $30,000,000 white elephant, the world’s biggest (mostly empty) building, that mammoth warehouse conceived on the eve of the Crash.
Marshall Field’s clearly needed help, and the heroine of the hour was finally arriving.
The man in uniform opened the door for her and Amelia Earhart seemed to float from the backseat, an angelic blur of white. Then, as she paused to wave at the cheering crowd — her shyness and self-confidence a peculiar, peculiarly charming mix — she came into focus, tall, slender, tanned, loosely draped in a white topcoat, its large mannish collar and lapels those of a trench coat.