Chapter 4 #3
Pancho whistled loudly. The pilots turned to look at her, and she pointed at the reporters heading for the exit. She made a cut-your-engine gesture with her hand, swiping her fingertips across her throat, and then pointed at the journalists.
Grinning, the women sprang into action, converging on the reporters. Mingling among the men, the women commenced blocking the journalists’ paths, grabbing arms, insisting on posing for pictures, and generally distracting and confounding the male press corps.
Pancho and Marvel slipped quickly past the frustrated pack of reporters and sprinted for the Duesenberg.
A reporter impatiently broke away from the chaotic crowd, and Pancho spied Blanche racing up beside him. The willowy blonde dramatically faked a stumble and threw herself at the guy, latching on to his arm with both hands.
“Let go, lady!” he burst out.
“Oh, dear me, my shoe has come off,” Blanche wailed. “Help, sir. Don’t let me fall!”
Pancho smirked and shot the actress a thumbs-up as she and Marvel roared past in the Duesenberg.
Blanche grinned and nodded back. Turning her attention to the task at hand, Pancho told Marvel, “Head north. We’ll start on the west side of Los Angeles and work our way over to the coast. We’ve got to find our missing pilot before those press hyenas do. ”
“I’m on it,” Marvel said grimly.
BOI Agent Pullman’s stony expression never wavered as his men hauled out every last suitcase, satchel, and box from the back of Phoebe’s plane and emptied their contents on the ground.
Phoebe had to admit she was getting scared.
This guy seemed determined to find something to arrest her over, and she couldn’t very well fly the race from a jail cell.
She did her best to keep an eagle eye on the men searching her things and make sure they didn’t plant any false evidence in her possessions.
But it had gotten very dark out here, and it was impossible to see every move they made.
Finally, the two G-men straightened from the pile of ransacked clothing and supplies and shook their heads at their boss.
“As you can see, Agent Pullman, there is no contraband in my aircraft. No liquor and no drugs. I’m clean,” Phoebe declared.
The BOI man shook his head. “No barn-buzzer flies after dark, let alone any sensible person. All folks who fly at night are up to no good. You have to be doing something illegal. Save us the extra work and tell me what it is.”
Phoebe told herself sternly not to take offense at being called a barn-buzzer.
In fact, she’d started her flying career as a wing walker, and she’d buzzed more barns than she could count.
Flying low, fast, and loud over towns and nearby farms was a great way to drum up a crowd whenever she and her husband arrived in a town to put on an acrobatic show.
Suspicious lawmen were another thing she was no stranger to. Keeping calm was the way to overcome their doubts about her intentions.
She exhaled hard and said with all the patience she could muster, “I told you. I’m here to fly in the Women’s Air Derby that begins Sunday. I was looking for Clover Field when I ran out of gas and had to land here.”
“A women’s air race? Never heard of such a thing,” Pullman retorted.
“That’s because this is the first one ever. And it starts tomorrow. I’m supposed to check in for it tonight.” Phoebe resisted the urge to allow her tone to become demanding. Bruising this man’s ego wouldn’t help her cause one bit.
Pullman’s stare shifted to her plane. “I heard this country is building more planes than cars these days.”
“That’s right,” Phoebe answered, enthusiasm creeping into her voice.
“Some folks say flying is the travel mode of the future. German airships are carrying up to twenty-four passengers at a time, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, and the Graf Zeppelin is flying around the world as we speak. Last I read in the newspaper, it’s somewhere over Japan. ”
Pullman snorted.
She continued enthusiastically, “Everyone’s taking to the sky. Flying’s becoming safer, faster, and more dependable by the day. You should give it a try.”
“Trains go plenty fast for me. And I find them quite safe and dependable.”
She’d heard that a lot. Particularly from people who’d never flown . . . or who worked on trains. The railroad magnates and coal barons were emphatically not supporters of the budding air transportation industry. Thankfully, they hadn’t yet managed to slow the rapid growth of aviation.
Pullman added, “Flying’s unnatural, and ladies certainly shouldn’t be doing it.”
His implication that she was no lady was hard to miss. She’d heard that more than once as well. But she loved flying too much to lose sleep over what others thought of her. As for her, she wasn’t planning to trade her goggles for an apron any time soon.
“Hand over your keys . . . or whatever you use to start that thing,” Pullman declared abruptly. “I am seizing this airplane.”
“You can’t do that!” she burst out.
“Indeed, I can,” he snarled.
She gaped in disbelief. She didn’t even own the Monocoupe. The Mono Aircraft Company had built it and lent it to her in return for promoting their planes.
“Are you German?” Pullman demanded abruptly, his eyes narrowed.
“I beg your pardon?” she gasped.
“If you are not a dope smuggler or booze runner but you’re out flying around at night, then you must be a spy.”
Her jaw sagged as Pullman’s men jerked up their pistols and aimed them at her once more.
Great. This mess has just gone from bad to worse.
Pancho frantically scanned the dark fields they passed, looking for any sign of an airplane. Marvel was driving fast, doing her best to outpace the reporters who were also driving around in search of the downed plane and a big scoop to report.
“We must be close,” Marvel announced. “See anything?”
“I’m looking . . . Nothing yet . . .” Pancho grumbled, straining to make out the distinctive silhouette of an airplane or at least the shape of a wing or a tail.
If willpower alone were enough to make the plane materialize, it would be right in front of her this very second.
But all she saw were vague shapes of trees along the sides of the road.
Thankfully, an ocean breeze kicked up as they neared the coast, dissipating the fog.
Visibility improved enough to make out fences, tree lines, houses, and barns.
She spotted a road intersection ahead of them and squinted both ways.
Was that a cluster of headlights off in the distance? “Turn left!” she called to Marvel.
Marvel took the turn so fast she nearly dumped Pancho out of the car again.
“Sweet baby Moses going down the Thames River in a basket!” Pancho exclaimed as she righted herself.
“Baby Moses floated down the Nile,” Marvel corrected mildly. “Isn’t your husband a pastor?”
“I don’t much cotton to churchgoing, and I don’t much cotton to him,” Pancho retorted.
“Then why are you marr—”
“Cow!” Pancho shouted.
Marvel, who was scanning the dark fields out her side window and keeping only one eye on the road, almost plowed right into the huge black-and-white creature parked smack-dab in the middle of the road.