Conquerors of the Sky (72 page)
Read Conquerors of the Sky Online
Authors: Thomas Fleming
“Don't try to soothe me with California pop psychology,” Sarah raged. “This isn't an encounter group. It's a marriage. A word, a reality, you've never even tried to understand. A marriage you've betrayed and betrayed until you turned me into a betrayer in my own cowardly way and I helped you betray our son, the best, the finest, the dearest son two parents as worthless as us could ever hope to haveâbetrayed him to your friends the generalsâ”
“Betrayâbetray?” Cliff snarled. “You're the world-class expert in that department, sweetheart. How many goddamn years did you pretend to love me while you were secretly yearning for Billy McCall's cock? Tell me the truth for once. Did you imagine you were doing it with him every time we did it? Was there ever anyone else there behind those saintly closed eyes when you came?”
“I stopped loving him a long time ago. He was more loathsome than youâbut I'll say this for him. He wasn't a hypocrite. He didn't lie to his women. He didn't play smarmy husband. If I had to choose between you and himâI'd take him for his honestyâhis mad loathsome honesty.”
“Why don't you get in a fucking plane and imitate him?” Cliff shouted. “You can be honest together at the bottom of the Pacific. Then I can marry a woman who loves me.”
“You don't know the meaning of the word
love
. You never did. It was all slavering appetite. Beach blanket bingo. California fucking. Marriage American style.”
love
. You never did. It was all slavering appetite. Beach blanket bingo. California fucking. Marriage American style.”
“How about English style? Twenty years of playing let's pretend. Appetite had nothing to do with it? You didn't like what you were getting? You were just doing your duty? Is that why you crawled in bed with me in dear old England?”
“All England proved was you can take the boy out of America but you can't take America out of the boy. You're loathsome people. I can't believe you were ever English, that we share one drop of your vile blood. My deepest regretâmy only regretâis that my son died in the service of your vicious amoral country.”
Hatred, hatred, it was like a million cages of hissing snakes writhing across the landscape, Dick thought. Slithering, biting, thrashing across America over Vietnam, the rise and fall of Negro hopes, the virulent political divisions Nixon seemed to encourage. Women like Sarah concentrated it in their tormented hearts. Why did he find himself almost paralyzed by dread?
Dick slammed down the phone. He did not want to hear another word. He sat in the bedroom while Cliff and Sarah reviled each other for another twenty minutes. Dick stared out the window at the curving ultramodern architecture of the Watergate complex, struggling against a sense of disorientation, disintegration. Were there any certainties in this hate-racked America? Was Adrian Van Ness's smooth assurance that Richard Nixon was the president who would solve all Buchanan's problems worth anything?
As Cliff Morris whirled around the globe selling planes and pursuing Angela Perry, most of the day-to-day decision making had gravitated into Dick's hands. More than ever he felt the weight of being responsible for the survival of Buchanan and the thousands of designers, engineers, salesmen, and assembly-line workers who had put years of their lives into the company.
Thunk
. Cliff had hung up. He was draining his glass of Inverness as Dick returned to the living room. “Does that happen often?” Dick said.
. Cliff had hung up. He was draining his glass of Inverness as Dick returned to the living room. “Does that happen often?” Dick said.
Cliff shook his head. “I knew it was there, waiting to come out. The way you know some things in a marriage. You know them but you don't think about them.”
Dick nodded, thinking about his own tense marriage. Maybe it was time for some emergency repairs. Exactly what these should or could be, he had no idea.
Dick drank and listened to Cliff talk about Tama and Buzz and Adrian and Billy and the dirty game Cliff and Sarah had played to destroy him. Cliff did not feel guilty about it because Billy was going to destroy him if he got the big job. That was the game they were playingâkill or be killedâthe game that had started when Billy had moved into Cliff's house at the age of eleven. It was all so stunningly inevitable, Dick was reduced to speechlessness again.
They went from Billy to Charlie and the mess the United States of America had made of the war in Vietnam. They did not have an answer much less an explanation. They talked as men, as friends, as survivors of an earlier warâand
could only agree that America had failed to use its air power in a decisive way. Whether this was the whole truth or only part of it, whether it was even true, was beyond their competence that night. They were dealing with pain, loss, grief, not strategy.
could only agree that America had failed to use its air power in a decisive way. Whether this was the whole truth or only part of it, whether it was even true, was beyond their competence that night. They were dealing with pain, loss, grief, not strategy.
By the time dawn began tinting the Washington sky, they had both drunk so much Inverness they no were longer making sense. Dick hoisted Cliff to his feet and towed him into the bedroom and sprawled him on the king-size bed.
“Dick,” Cliff said. “Never forget this. Y'real friend.”
“Just promise me one thing. You won't become a movie producer.”
Cliff shook his head. “Gonna build that bomber. For Charlie. Gonna make it so fucking good no president has to send kids eyeball to eyeball with flak batteries.”
For Charlie and for Billy McCall.
Dick was still struggling with his own memories of the part he had played in Billy's destruction.
Dick was still struggling with his own memories of the part he had played in Billy's destruction.
In the living room, Dick called Cassie in California. “I know you won't like thisâbut I'm not going to make it home for Christmas.” He explained what had happenedâwhy he felt Cliff needed a friend to stay with him for a few days.
“Doesn't he have a wife?” Cassie said.
“They're through. Between this and Angelaâshe's ditching him.”
“Sarah?” Cassie said. She had been on several of Sarah's benefit committees. They had not become friends. Sarah, performing as that empty vessel, Mrs. Clifford Morris, had no friends.
Dick gave Cassie a brief summary of the dialogue between Sarah and Cliff. “I didn't think she could be that impolite,” Cassie said.
Dread sucked at Dick's nerves again. He could think of nothing to say. “When can we look forward to celebrating Christmas?” Cassie asked. “Anytime before New Year's?”
“I hope so. I'll call you.”
“We'll be so grateful.”
Dick collapsed on the couch and slept until noon. He awoke with an even more acute sense of dread. It seemed to ooze from the walls of the Watergate complex. Wrong, wrong, whispered a warning voice in his head. Everything was going wrong. Politically, personally. He heard the bitterness in Cassie's voice and suddenly wanted to be on a plane to California as soon as possible.
Cliff was still snoring. Dick called Adrian and told him about Charlie. “Good God. How did Sarah take it?” Adrian asked.
Dick gave him a succinct summary. “This will make Cliff inseparable from that left-wing Hollywood slut,” Adrian said. “She'll rush to console him. For an artist of her minor talents, real-life drama like this is irresistible. It supplies the emotion her imagination lacks.”
Adrian sighed. “Are you ready to be the next president of Buchanan Aircraft, Dick?”
“I don't think this is the time or place to bring that up,” Dick said.
“I suppose not,” Adrian said. “But I'm not withdrawing the question.”
Dick went out in search of breakfast. There was no food in the apartment. When he returned Cliff was on the phone. “Wear a fur coat. It's cold as hell,” he said. “I'll be waiting at the gate.”
Cliff hung up and smiled almost cheerfully at Dick. “I called Angela. She's flying in. You don't have to hang around. Don't you want to get home for Christmas?”
“I missed my plane.”
“I'll get you on an Air Force plane.”
A call to the Pentagon located a Colossus that was flying replacement crews to Thailand to maintain the B-52 bombing threat until the Communists signed a peace treaty. Dick sat with the young pilots and bombardiers and gunners, listening to them discuss the tactics that were being used over Vietnam. They all thought the generals were idiotic.
“It's World War II stuff,” one freckled-faced redhead said to Dick, as if this was synonymous with prehistoric. “We should be coming in low, under the radar.”
Dick thought of the BX, the invisible plane they should be flyingâthat they would be flying if the U.S. Congress was not a collection of pinheads. It had taken a full year to negotiate the TPP contract and write up its 13 million pieces of paper. Buchanan's enemies in the Senate, people like Proxmire and the Creature, were already threatening to block funding for the program. That meant its supporters and the Air Force would keep it alive by turning it into a stealth item in the budget. This accumulated stupidity and hatred left these kids flying bombers that were almost as old as they were into skies full of radar-guided missiles and antiaircraft shells.
They landed at Vandenberg Air Base in California to refuel and Dick hitched a ride to Los Angeles with a civilian employee. He did not call Cassie. He decided it would be fun to surprise her and the kids. He bailed his car out of LAX and roared up the Ventura Freeway to their house in Nichols Canyon. It was about six o'clock when he unlocked the front door. He found nine-year-old Jake (for John) and seven-year-old Catherine watching television.
“Daddy!” they yelled and danced around him.
“Where's Mommy?”
“She's visiting up street,” Jake said. “At Dennisons.”
The Dennisons were real estate brokers. Dick had bought the house through them. Lately they had hired a publicity man and became known as “brokers to the stars.” They sold houses for fabulous prices in Malibu, Westwood.
An hour later, there was still no sign of Cassie. “Did Mom say when she'd be home?” Dick asked.
“No,” Catherine said. “Sometime she stays up there a long time.”
“What do you do for dinner?”
“We heat up TV trays in the microwave. Mom showed me how to turn it on,” Jake said.
“I think I'll go tell Mom I'm here.”
Dick walked up the steep winding road, his mind racing ahead to what he
might find at Dennisons, then denying it as absurd. When he reached the sprawling two-story house, clinging, like his own, to the steep slope of the canyon, he thought it looked deserted. There was only one car in the open garageâa 1960 Dodge. Usually there were three or four, including some flashy sports cars. The Dennisons raced them as a hobby.
might find at Dennisons, then denying it as absurd. When he reached the sprawling two-story house, clinging, like his own, to the steep slope of the canyon, he thought it looked deserted. There was only one car in the open garageâa 1960 Dodge. Usually there were three or four, including some flashy sports cars. The Dennisons raced them as a hobby.
Dick rang the bell. Silence. He rang it again and again. Silence. He pounded on the door. Carl Dennison jerked it open. He was a big freckle-faced man with a handlebar mustache and slightly protruding teeth.
“Dick!” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“I'm looking for Cassie.”
“Cassie? I haven't seen her.”
He was a very inept liar.
“The kids told me she was visiting you. Where's your wife?”
“Sheâshe's away.”
“Cassie!” Dick shouted. “Guess who's home for Christmas.”
Silence. Dennison stood there, anxiety exuding from every pore. “Listen,” he said. “This was a onetime thing. She didn't know Doris had split. We started talking and got carried awayâ”
“Cassie!” Dick roared.
He shoved Dennison aside and strode into the house. The place was all but stripped of furniture. Doris had apparently split in a moving van. He found Cassie sitting on the edge of an unmade bed off the living room, pulling on a pair of blue jeans. On top she was still naked. She looked ashamedâand defiant. With great deliberation she put on an old denim shirt and buttoned it.
“Merry Christmas,” Cassie said.
Dick realized she was drunk. “Let's go home,” he said.
They walked stiff-legged downhill to their house. “Reminds me of my stewardess days,” Cassie said. “Walking down the aisle while the plane was climbing. Gave all the ginks a good look at the equipment.”
“How long has this been going on?” Dick said.
“Not long. Let's have dinner and argue later, when the kids are in bed.”
They struggled through dinner with the kids doing all the talkingâmostly about school. Dick gave them a laundered version of visiting the White House, which impressed Jake. They watched a dramatization of Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
until nine o'clock. Unreality clawed at Dick's brain. In Washington Cliff Morris grieved for his son, blasted out of the sky by Russian missiles over Hanoi. He sat in California watching sentiments that moved nineteenth-century Londoners to tears, trying to think of what to say to his adulterous wife.
A Christmas Carol
until nine o'clock. Unreality clawed at Dick's brain. In Washington Cliff Morris grieved for his son, blasted out of the sky by Russian missiles over Hanoi. He sat in California watching sentiments that moved nineteenth-century Londoners to tears, trying to think of what to say to his adulterous wife.
Cassie put the kids to bed. Dick waited in the living room. She finally appeared, a half glass of bourbon in her hand. He grabbed it away from her and threw it into the fireplace. Seeing her on the booze upset him more than her infidelity.
“Why?” he said. “That's what I want to know. Do you love him?”
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