The Hindenburg Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,60

waiting to make a great big point about the fallibility of Hitler’s Germany.

He found Hilda saving a seat for him in the dining room at a table for four, shared with the Adelts. The handsome middle-aged journalist wore the same dark suit he’d come aboard in, and his blonde young wife looked typically pretty in a yellow-and-white frock.

“Luncheon’s a bit premature, isn’t it?” Charteris said, pulling up a chair, joining them.

“They’re serving it early,” Gertrude said, “so we’ll all be able to take in the view.”

“We will pass over New York shortly,” Hilda said.

“Ah,” Charteris said.

“Yes,” Leonard said, “and we’ll be flying low enough to get a nice close look. I think after this long, dull crossing, the captain wants to finally give us our money’s worth.”

“I trust that isn’t a sentiment expressed in that article of yours,” Charteris said, pouring Hilda and then himself a glass of Liebfrauenmilch.

“Oh, no,” Leonard said. “I assure you I’ve lied so thoroughly and convincingly that even the Ministry of Propaganda would approve.”

“So you’ve finished it, then? Your article?”

“All but the ending. This brush with the roofs of skyscrapers should provide it.”

The view of New York from the promenade’s slanting windows proved no disappointment. With his arm around Hilda’s shoulder, Charteris stared down as the towers of Manhattan revealed themselves magically, poking up through the mist.

“We’re flying quite high,” Leonhard said, at Charteris’s left. “The skyline looks like a board of nails….”

“We’ll get a closer look. Patience. It’ll be worth the wait.”

“There’s the Statue of Liberty!” Gertrude said.

“Small as a porcelain figure,” her husband muttered, as if writing his article aloud.

Hilda said, “So then you like New York, Leslie?”

“It was love at first sight,” he said.

As the airship dipped lower, and the skyscrapers seemed to reach for them, he thought of how when he had first arrived in America, on that small steamer, with twenty-five bucks in his pocket, he’d found the buildings of Manhattan even taller and shinier than he’d imagined. He remembered sitting in that cheap hotel room on Lexington Avenue, looking across at the soaring white towers of the Waldorf—so clean and graceful compared with the stodgy, smoke-grimy architecture of home, rising sheer and white against a spotless blue sky the likes of which London seldom saw.

When was that? Thirty-two?

And now, after this very gray trip, the sky was that spotless blue again. The sun was out, and the ship was loping low across Times Square, sightseers pointing to the sky, standing frozen on the west side of Broadway. How he loved the electric nervous urgency down there, scurrying crowds on sidewalks, the press of honking traffic in packed streets. The elemental force of it had spurred him to try to match that pace, dazzling him with the prospect of infinite horizons.

But the Hindenburg had the power to bring this frantic city to a standstill, stopping traffic, and that was a delight, as well. On rooftops and firescapes, from windows and sidewalks, thousands of sophisticated New Yorkers gaped like farmers, craning their necks for a look at the vast airship draping its blue shadow over their city.

Despite the bright sunshine, lurking behind the tall buildings, thick black clouds billowed, like foul factory smoke.

“More rain coming,” Charteris said softly.

“Oh dear,” Hilda said. “Will our landing be delayed?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it.”

The sunshine carried them over Brooklyn, where the Dodgers were playing some team or other (the prevailing opinion on the promenade was the Pittsburgh Pirates), a game that halted temporarily as the fans stared upward, cheering and waving. The ship—which had acquired an escort of small planes of press photographers—swung north, crossing crowds on Wall Street.

The ship swooped so low over the Empire State Building, the shouted greetings of sightseers and photographers on the observation platform were easily heard; a passenger could have readily recognized a familiar face in the crowd.

“That was originally designed to be this ship’s mooring mast,” Charteris said to Hilda, pointing out the Art Moderne structure’s tapering silver peak.

“It would be more glamorous than Lakehurst, New Jersey,” Leonhard said. “But also less practical.”

The good weather lasted as the airship flew over the Hudson River, and as it turned south to the lower bay, toward New Jersey, the boats in the harbor tooting hello as the ship glided over. But to the west, black clouds were conspiring to conjure up a summer thunderstorm.

Charteris felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Lehmann, his expression genial.

“I thought you would like to know,” the Reederei director whispered, “Mr.