In my herringbone blue garbardine, the nicest suit I owned, I was underdressed. A good-looking brunette in furs and gown who might have been Paulette Goddard was dancing with a guy I didn’t recognize but who, like most of the men on the dance floor, wore a tuxedo.
I found Mantz at one of those cozy booths, seated across from a cute blonde; he was in a white dinner jacket with a black bow tie, and she wore a yellow chiffon evening dress with an admirable décolletage.
“Sorry to track you down like this,” I said. “But I’m leaving tomorrow morning, on the train.”
“Glad you did,” he said, and nodded toward his companion. “My fiancée, Terry Minor... This is the guy I was tellin’ you about, Terry — Nate Heller from Chicago.”
“A real pleasure, Nate,” she said, and beamed, offering her hand for me to shake; she had a firm, friendly grip.
“Pleasure’s all mine, Terry,” I said.
She was in her early thirties, not movie star pretty, but it was easy to see what Mantz saw in her, and I’m not just referring to her neckline. Her hair in hundreds of tiny blonde curls, eyes bright and blue, she radiated the same tomboyish appeal as Amy.
“Sit down,” Mantz said, sliding over in the booth.
“I hate to think what he’s told you about me,” I said to Terry with a grin.
“I told her how you saved my behind,” Mantz said, frosted martini in hand, “when Myrtle came gunnin’ for me... Considering why you were hired that night, that was pretty white of ya.”
He was fairly well oiled, good-naturedly so.
Softly, I asked him, “Have you, uh, informed Terry about why I’m in town?”
“I’ve filled her in,” he said. “We don’t have any secrets.”
“Speak for yourself,” she said with a little smile, sipping her own frosted drink.
That made him smile; in addition to being well lubricated, he was lovesick over this cutie.
“So... you’ve come to your senses, then,” he said. “You’re finally givin’ up on this foolheaded fishing expedition.”
I gave him half a smile. “Are you forgetting what fool headed me there, in the first place?”
That made Terry giggle, but her steady gaze let me know she didn’t take this subject lightly.
I waved a waiter over and ordered a rum and Coke. “Hell no I’m not giving up. I’m heading home and sell my story to the Trib.”
“Figures,” Mantz snorted. “Leave it to you to find a way to make a buck out of this.”
“I’m not in it for the money,” I said testily. “But what’s the harm of having your cake and eating it, too?”
Now the orchestra was playing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”
“There are some damn dangerous people involved in this affair, Nate,” Mantz said. “That bird Miller, for one.”
“Frank Nitti’s a friend of mine,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ve run into tougher birds than William Miller.”
Last night, I’d told young Robert not to mention to anyone, even his parents, what we’d heard on the family Philco; but assured the boy he’d be hearing from me. I’d gone from the Myers house to the Bay Farm Airport Hotel, where after my day and a half of no sleep, I collapsed on the bed in a comalike pile. I didn’t wake up till noon, and took the train back to Los Angeles, catching a cab to the Burbank airport. There, late afternoon, I spoke with Ernie Tisor, to see if he’d be willing to come forward with what he knew, explaining that it would be to the press, not the authorities. He was willing. Mantz had left for the day, but Tisor mentioned his boss’s plans to take Terry out for dinner and dancing at the Club Continental. Then I’d driven the Terraplane to Lowman’s Motor Court, where I still had a room, from which I called both Margot DeCarrie and Walter McMenamy, to see if they were willing to come forward, too. Both said yes.
And, after a shower and a shave, I’d finally gotten out of that yellow polo and tan slacks and into my garbardine.
At the moment, Mantz was looking at me with his eyes round under a furrowed brow. “You don’t really believe you heard Amelia and Fred getting nabbed by the Japs?”
I’d just shared with Mantz and his fiancée the results of my slumber party at the Myers kid’s house.
“If it was a hoax,” I said, sipping my rum and Coke, “it was a hell of a job.”
Mantz smirked, shaking his head. “You do know, don’t you, that the March of Time did a reenactment of the flight, the day after Amelia disappeared? And so many calls came in, at Pearl Harbor, they flashed the Itasca that Amelia was transmitting!”
“I think I know the difference between Amelia’s voice and Westbrook Van Voorhis,” I said, referring to the radio show’s announcer.
He put a hand on my shoulder; his speech was slightly thick. “Nate, every paper in the country’s givin’ banner headlines to any scrap of information on our missing girl, and that includes every rumor, false hope, and practical joke... These publicity-seeking radio hams are jammin’ the airwaves with their phony broadcasts!”
“I’m enlisting McMenamy to check with his radio-ham pals,” I said. “We’ll sort out the pranksters and publicity hounds, and see if anybody else heard what that kid and I did, last night. Anyway, even without that, I got juicy stuff for FDR’s enemies in the Fourth Estate.”
Harl Smith and his boys were having a go at “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.”
“Excuse me,” Terry said, gently, “but I don’t see how this helps Amelia.”
Mantz had said almost the same thing, yesterday.
“It doesn’t,” I admitted. “But it helps me.”
“Make a buck?” Mantz asked.
“Sleep at night.”
“You really wanna see G. P. get his tit in a wringer,” Mantz said with a chuckle.
Terry didn’t blink at his crudity.
I took a last gulp of rum and Coke. “Him and the other sons of bitches who put her at risk... Pardon my French.”
“I think you’re very sweet,” Terry said, stirring her drink with a swizzle stick.
“I don’t get accused of that, often.”
“Amelia’s lucky to have a friend like you,” she said.
With his fiancée’s seal of approval, I figured this was the perfect time to spring it on Mantz.
I slipped an arm around his shoulder. “So, Paul, how about it? Will you come forward, when I’m lining up sources for the Chicago Tribune?”
He sighed; his mouth twitched. He glanced across at Terry who was looking at him, carefully.
“Sure,” he said. “It might be fun to watch Gippy Putnam twist in the wind.”
They invited me to have dinner with them, and I accepted, with no further talk of the Amelia matter. The happy couple shared Chateaubriand, and I tried the Lobster Newburg. Later, as the orchestra played “Where or When,” I danced with Terry, who pointed out Mr. and Mrs. Joe E. Brown, Mr. and Mrs. George Murphy, and Marion Marsh with lanky, craggily handsome Howard Hughes, who you may recall was an acquaintance of Robert Myers. Hughes wasn’t wearing a tux, either; we had that much in common.
As I was taking my leave of them at their booth, Mantz said to me, “If you haven’t picked up your train tickets, Nate, keep in mind I can get you a discount on fares, if you fly United or TWA. You got to come by and drop off the Terraplane at my hangar, anyway.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I kinda had my fill of airplanes.”
Traffic was light as I made my way back toward Lowman’s Motor Court, and I wasn’t speeding, in fact I was probably poking. My stomach warm and full, I felt a certain satisfaction knowing what I was going to do about Putnam and company. I did believe what Robert and I had heard last night, and had a small sense of relief knowing Amy was alive, though a nagging sense of dread about what she might be going through, a spy in the hands of the Japanese.