The Race

Having figured out what made the Farman’s wing strong, the Jonas brothers set about weakening it. They felt in the dark for the turnbuckle used to tighten the strong multistranded stay that angled from the top plane to the bottom plane.

“Roebling wire,” George whispered. “Good thing Frost said no hacksaw. It would take all night to cut this.”

Shielding a flashlight in their hands, they inspected the turnbuckle. A strand of safety wire had been wrapped around it to prevent it from loosening from vibration. They carefully unwound the safety wire, unscrewed the turnbuckle to slacken the Roebling wire stay until they could remove the end from its co

They tightened the turnbuckle until the stay hummed again, carefully rewound the safety wire exactly as they’d found it, and draped the shroud back over the wing. They took care to note which aeroplane they had sabotaged – Harry Frost had made it clear he had to know – checked the color of the wing fabric with their flashlight, left the infield and the track, found their truck, and drove to a nearby farm, where they parked and fell asleep. An hour after dawn they met Harry Frost in Hempstead where he had told them to and reported which machine they had sabotaged.

“Describe it!”

“Biplane. One propeller.”

“Front or back?”

“Back.”

“What color?”

“Blue.”

Frost paid them one hundred dollars each – more than a month’s salary for a skilled mechanician even if he had a generous boss.

“Not bad for one night,” Georgie Jonas said to Peter Jonas on the long drive home to Brooklyn. But first they had to fill the ice truck as payment to their brother-in-law, who owned it. They weighed out a load at a waterfront “bridge” controlled by the American Ice Company trust. Four dollars a ton.

George asked, “How about the fifty-cent rebate?”

“Independent dealers don’t get rebates.”

Peter said, “There’s supposed to be two thousand pounds in a ton. How come the ton you charged us for only weighs eighteen hundred pounds?”

“It’s ice. It melted.”

“But you’re supposed to slip in a couple of hundred extra pounds to cover melting.”

“Not for independents,” said the trust man. “Move your truck, you’re blocking the bridge.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

They rode the trolley home to their favorite saloon, laughing how they should persuade Harry Frost to reform the ice business. What a racket. Add it all up, the trust controlled ice harvesting, shipping it, storing it, distributing it, and selling it. Had to be ten million bucks a year. The Jonas boys laughed louder. Harry Frost would reform it, all right. Harry Frost would take it over.

It was a beautiful morning. With several beers and a couple of hard-boiled eggs under their belts, they decided to ride the electric train back to Belmont Park to watch the blue biplane fall out of the sky.

9

ISAAC BELL EYED A MOB OF REPORTERS. They were descending on the English contender Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin as he waited for his mechanicians to pour oil and gasoline into his Farman. The fact that the journalists moved about the infield as a group made him extra alert. It would be so easy for a killer to hide among them.

Archie was nearby, keeping a close eye on Josephine, who for once had not vanished into the blue sky but was waiting her turn in the exhibition speed race. The infield was unusually crowded with visitors – it seemed everyone and his brother had procured a pass somewhere, so Archie had doubled the guard. At the moment, ten Van Dorns, four disguised as mechanicians, were within easy reach of Josephine.

Bell satisfied himself that he recognized all of the reporters. So far, only newspapers owned by Whiteway were covering the race, which made it a little easier to keep track. When and if the public got sufficiently fired up over the race, Whiteway had told him, other papers would have to write about it. Bell figured they would cross that bridge when they came to it. In the meantime, Whiteway was taking full advantage of his monopoly, and his reporters were telling the story exactly as he wanted it told. American fliers were the underdogs, and the lowest underdog of all was “America’s Sweetheart of the Air.”

A drinking man from the flagship Inquirer led the way, shouting at Eddison-Sydney-Martin, “If England’s champion could say anything he wanted to American readers, what would that be?”

“May the best man, or woman, win.”

Bell noticed that Eddison-Sydney-Martin’s hands were shaking. Apparently Archie had been correct about the baronet being painfully shy. Bell could see that addressing a group of people held greater terrors than flying three thousand feet in the air. His wife, Abby, a beautiful brunette, was at his elbow to lend support, but Bell was struck by the man’s courage. Despite his shaking hands, and a deer-blinded-by-a-searchlight rounding of his eyes, he stood his ground.

The Whiteway reporter pretended incredulity. “You can’t mean that, Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin. The London papers are proclaiming to the whole world that you are racing for England and the honor of Great Britain.”

“We Britons have in common with Americans an enthusiastic press,” the baronet replied. “In actual fact, you could say that I am virtually half American by the great good fortune of marrying my lovely Abby, who is a Co

A reporter who shouted out the name of a Whiteway business journal published in New York asked, “Do you see a commercial future in flying machines?”

“Will passengers pay to fly? Lord knows when we’ll see an ‘aero bus’ with such lifting capability. But just moments ago I saw a commercial venture that might hold lessons for the future. As I passed above Garden City, three miles to the north, and was volplaning down to Belmont Park, I noticed motoring beneath me a trades van headed here in the employ of the publishing house Doubleday, Page and Company. How, you might well ask, could I see that it was a Doubleday, Page and Company motor van from high above? Well, the answer is that in addition to the signs painted on the sides of the van, an alert advertising manager in their Garden City headquarters looked up at a sky filled with flying machines from Belmont Park and painted ‘Doubleday, Page and Company’ on top to catch the attention of aviators.”

The reporters scribbled.

The baronet added, “Obviously, it caught mine as I sailed above it. So perhaps the commercial future in flying machines lies in supine billboards.”

Isaac Bell joined in the laughter.

Eddison-Sydney-Martin’s long face brightened with sudden relief, like a man released early from prison. “Hallo, Josephine!” he called.

Josephine was hurrying toward her yellow airship, head down as if hoping to slip by unobserved, but she paused to return his wave, and then call warmly to the baronet’s wife, “Hello, Abby.”

“Here, you journalist chaps,” said the English airman, “wouldn’t you have a jollier time interviewing an attractive woman?”

As the reporters caught sight of Josephine, he vaulted onto his Farman and shouted urgently, “Spin it, Ruggs.”

Lionel Ruggs, his chief mechanician, spun the propeller. The Gnome rotary engine caught on the first pull, and the baronet rose from the grass, trailing blue smoke.

Isaac Bell moved swiftly to intercept the reporters stampeding toward Josephine, all too aware that anyone who wanted to do her harm could jam a press card in his hatband and unobtrusively join the mob.