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And as there were military air bases all over Southern California, he had also thought it possible, even likely, that they would be intercepted by Air Force or Navy—or even Marine—fighters because someone hadn’t got the word about an Argentine airliner having been cleared to enter the country. He knew how to talk to another American fighter pilot; none of the others did.
But no fighter had appeared off his wing, and when he called the Lockheed Terminal tower for approach and landing instructions, the air traffic personnel matter-of-factly gave them to him.
When Frade turned the Lodestar on final and felt he could finally relax, a warning message came from a remote corner of his brain:
Not yet, stupid.
You’ve come too far to get sloppy at the last minute and dump the airplane on landing.
If Lindbergh—probably then as tired as I am now—had dumped the Spirit of Saint Louis while trying to land at LeBourget, he wouldn’t have been remembered as “Lucky Lindy, America’s Hero.”
No, he’d now be remembered—or forgotten—as just one more crazy man who had tried and failed to complete a flight across the Atlantic.
I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that when Lindbergh was on final to LeBourget, he told himself, “Careful, Charley, don’t fuck it up now!”
Ninety seconds later, Frade greased the Lodestar in. For a moment he was elated, but then he had the further presence of mind to tell himself: And not yet either, stupid. You won’t be finished until they put the wheel chocks in place. You really don’t want to run over the Follow-Me truck before you’re parked.
Three minutes later, when the ground handler signaled that he should cut his engines, and he had done so without anything falling off or blowing up, he smiled at Delgano.
“Gonzo, we have apparently cheated death again.”
Delgano smiled back and shook his head, then started to unfasten his shoulder harness.
Clete decided, with an audible sigh, that now he really could relax.
Then he looked out the side cockpit window and saw that ground handlers were not the only people who had met the Lodestar. There were assorted uniformed police, Border Patrol officers, two Military Policemen, and several other men in business suits waiting to greet the visitors from Argentina.
[THREE]
The Chateau Marmont 8221 Sunset Boulevard Hollywood, California 1950 4 August 1943
The convoy of three mostly identical 1942 Chevrolet Carryalls—truck-based vehicles that could be described as station wagons on steroids; one white, two black, and all bearing U.S. government license plates and with the legend FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY painted on their doors—was stopped in the eastbound lane of Sunset. The Carryalls waited until there was a break in the flow of traffic, then turned left and rolled up a steep side street, then immediately into a driveway and stopped.
The passenger door of the lead truck, the white one, opened. A stocky man in a light brown military-type uniform, complete to Sam Browne belt and a holstered Colt .45 ACP revolver, got out. The epaulets on his uniform carried the twin silver bars of a captain. The patch on his shoulder was stitched: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BORDER PATROL.
“Okay, gentlemen,” the Border Patrol captain said as he folded down the back of the front seat, “here we are.”
Cletus H. Frade got out first. He was unshaven and he otherwise showed the effects of having spent most of the previous ninety-six hours flying across the South American continent, over Central America, and finally from Sonora to Burbank.
Frade looked around the dark and cool brick parking area. “And where is here? What is here?”
“This is where you’ll be staying until we get your status cleared up,” the captain said.
“That sounds like we’re under arrest,” Clete challenged.
“You’re being detained,” the captain said. “I told you that at the field. There’s a difference.”
“What is it?”
Delgano and two other pilots climbed out of the back of the Carryall.
“If you leave the hotel grounds,” the Border Patrol captain explained, “you’ll be arrested and taken to the Los Angeles County Jail. It’s not nearly as comfortable as the Chateau Marmont.”
“Chateau Marmont”? Frade thought.
Christ, this is a high-dollar Hollywood starlet hotel.
And either it’s my ears still ringing from the flight, or he mispronounced its name.
