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[Concluding chapter twelve]
The flight from Glendale to Clover Field was wonderful, a pleasure that Casey stretched out as long as possible. Hogan’s Thomas-Morse remained a joy to fly, and Casey hoped there were plenty of Great War flying pictures in Hollywood’s immediate future. They may have been nonsense—certainly the ones written by John Monk Saunders were as ludicrous as any tale Casey had ever heard—but they all seemed to want rotary-powered ships, and Casey was conscious of his position as a member of the small elite that knew how to fly these temperamental machines.
Two surprises awaited him at Clover Field. The first was Hogan’s contract, which paid him a hundred dollars a week—when working—in addition to a substantial percentage of what Hogan charged the studios for stunts. A crash of the sort he’d done yesterday, for example, netted Hogan fifteen hundred dollars. Half of that would be Casey’s. Even something as simple as flying upside-down while being filmed would earn Casey fifty dollars in addition to his daily pay. “There ain’t a lot of work all the time,” Mitch said when Casey whistled, “but when we work we eat pretty well.” Even better, Hogan insisted that Casey familiarize himself with all of Hogan’s planes. So the contract actually required Casey to fly several times a week, even when not working. He wouldn’t be paid for that time, but what did he care about that? Had he been able to afford it, he’d have paid Hogan for the privilege of flying the big Bristol and Hogan’s two Travelaires.
The other surprise was the car Hart had decided to loan him. When he was given the papers and shown the bus, Casey understood why the actor had been so pleased: the car was a huge, six-and-a-half liter Bentley, a left-hand drive version of one of the British cars that had done so well at Le Mans the previous year. A note attached to the big steering wheel read: “A fast car for an ace fly-boy”.
The Bentley had a turbo-charger, a nasty-looking brutish accumulation of metal bits protruding through the bottom of the radiator grille that promised to propel the car faster than any plane Casey had flown. I know the real reason you’ve lent this to me, Hart, he thought. McMahon is scared to death of what might happen to you, so he’s forbidden you to drive this thing anymore.
He found himself wondering what sort of damage Desiree could wreak with a car this powerful, and for a brief moment he smiled. The smile didn’t last, though. I probably didn’t treat her very well. He shook his head, angry at his sentimentality. It was Desiree who had betrayed him, not the other way around. He’d always known that her primary loyalty would be to her employers, but that hadn’t lessened the shock he’d felt when she had actually gone so far as to put McMahon and Neal ahead of their partnership.
Is that what it was? Of course, he told himself. He hadn’t wanted to work with her originally, but common interests had brought them together: they each had their reasons for discovering who had killed Lily Cross.
So if it was a partnership and nothing more, why does it bother you so much that she preferred McMahon’s money to your moral purity?
This wasn’t getting him anywhere. Casey kicked the Bentley’s right-front tire. Then he kicked it again, in the mistaken belief that the first kick had made him feel better. Finally, he went back to Hogan’s hangar and helped Mitch drain the fluids from the Tommy’s engine.
Two hours later he was still thinking about Desiree and what she had done to him. Not only had the work failed to drive her from his mind, it had been sufficiently mindless in itself that it had allowed him to think of nothing but Desiree. He needed a more visceral form of distraction. Terror, he decided, would do nicely.
Casey spent an hour or so in the Bentley, tearing around the packed-dirt roads outside Santa Monica at speeds that he was pretty sure no sane person would consider desirable. Then he drove into Hollywood to make some phone calls.
Next Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
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