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“From your mother, I presume?”
“No, I met a girl who plays cards. Picked up the habit from her father. He plays cards, too.”
Bell nodded, glad the altar boy was stepping out. “Meet me back here when you’re done with Musto,” he said, and went looking for Dmitri Platov.
He found the Russian strolling down the ramp from Joe Mudd’s hangar car, wiping grease from his fingers with a gasoline-soaked rag.
“Good evening, Mr. Platov.”
“Good evening, Mr. Bell. Is hot in Peoria.”
“May I ask, sir, did you sell a thermo engine in Paris?”
Platov smiled. “May I asking why you asking?”
“I understand that an Italian flying-machine inventor named Prestogiacomo may have bought some sort of a ‘jet’ engine at the Paris air meet.”
“Not from me.”
“He might have been using a different name. He might have called himself Celere.”
“Again, not buying from me.”
“Did you ever meet Prestogiacomo?”
“No. In fact, I am never hearing of Prestogiacomo.”
“He must have made something of a splash. He sold a monoplane to the Italian Army.”
“I am not knowing Italians. Except one.”
“Marco Celere?”
“I am not knowing Celere.”
“But you know who I mean?”
“Of course, the Italian making Josephine’s machine and the big one I am working for Steve Stevens.”
Bell shifted gears deliberately. “What do you think of the Stevens machine?”
“It would not be fair for me discussing it.”
“Why not?”
“As you working for Josephine.”
“I protect Josephine. I don’t work for her. I only ask if you can tell me anything that might help me protect her.”
“I am not seeing what Stevens’s machine is doing with that.”
Bell changed tactics again, asking, “Did you ever encounter a Russian in Paris named Sikorsky?”
A huge smile separated Platov’s mutton-chop whiskers. “Countryman genius.”
“I understand vibration is a serious problem with more than one motor. Might Sikorsky want your thermo engine for his machines?”
“Maybe one day. Are excusing me, please? Duty calling.”
