The Ypsilanti Daily Press

SYNOPSIS

Following her mother's death, red-haired, slim Mary Dexter leaves Omaha to take a job in the Nordex Aircraft plant in California. She shares an apartment with Fran Bond, night club singer and dancer. Friendship develops between Mary and Ken Grant, young mechanical engineer, also newly employed at Nordex. Mary has been attracted to Bruce Martin, Nordex test pilot, over whom a dark cloud seems to hover.

YESTERDAY: The suspicion with which other Nordex workers regard Bruce Martin nearly flares into the open as Bruce makes off-hand angry remarks during lunch with Mary in the company cafeteria.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At half past eleven the swing shift moved out of the Nordex plant into a night of unbelievable beauty. The warm weather had brought a soft, deep blue night sky so peculiarly Californian. Stars seemed to hang suspended from it.

It was not stars, however, or even the waxy crescent moon that drew all glances upward as the crowd moved tunnelward. It was the four searchlight beams that converged upon the moving speck of a plane droning its lone way across the sky.

The beams were following the plane, moving with it, holding it in their wedged focus with careful, steady aim. It was a beautiful sight, but it brought with it a cold breath of apprehension. Every watcher knew the significance of the maneuver, knew that some night their lives might depend upon those practicing lights, that some night the plane would be an enemy bomber, and the beams of light would be interspersed with the desperate volleys of anti-aircraft guns.

Tonight, the crowd was moving too slowly for Mary's dancing feet. She twisted and pushed her way through the tunnel in an eager rush to catch her bus. If she could make the first bus she could be home 15 minutes sooner, and that might make a lot of difference tonight.

"Hello, there, stranger!" Mary turned about even as she started her dash for the bus. It was Ken. She hadn't seen him for so long she couldn't believe her eyes. He laughed at her. He was his old friendly self, she realized with relief.

"Don't tell me you're not working overtime!" she chided breathlessly.

"Thought I'd take a night off and look up my old friends," he grinned. "How do you feel about a lift in the old jaloppy?"

"I'd love it," Mary said.

As they hunted out his car in the vast parking place, she thought how strange it was that you didn't realize how you missed some people until you were with them again.

As they moved out into the stream of traffic she was enveloped in the old, familiar sense of security and comradeship she always had felt while with him. Even the engine of his car held a familiar note.

"Your tappet's loose again," she said.

"That's funny," Ken cocked his head to listen. "It hasn't let out a peep all the time I've been driving alone. You're too strong medicine for it, I'm afraid."

She told him all the news of the apartment—about the Glass Hat's closing and about Burke's and Fran's chance in the movies.

"That was the big celebration the other night I missed?"

Mary nodded.

"And I still think you should have gone. I thought I heard it in your voice over the phone. Now I can see it in your face. You're working too hard."

"Such solicitude!" teased Ken. Then he sobered to admit, "I couldn't keep this pace up long. But it's just temporary."

"Just till you're killed off?" demanded Mary.

They had stopped under a street light at a stop signal and she was shocked by the new lines in his forehead, the haggard, set expression that told of near exhaustion.

He smiled briefly. "No. You see there aren't enough men in my branch of engineering just at the moment to go around. Four of the men in the department had to be sent out to other plants, and until new men can be broken in and trained, we've had to kind of double up... quadruple up, I should say. It's been hard, because once you get loggy you get scared—scared you'll slip up on something, make a mistake. And we don't dare to make mistakes these days."

Mary idly watched the moving arcs of light in the sky painstakingly stalking the plane. "We're in a pretty big game, aren't we?" she murmured.

"So big," said Ken slowly, "and so terrible we haven't any conception of it. We're all walking around in a dream. And sometimes I think we're going to wake up too late."

"What do you mean?" said Mary.

"I mean, when the scene shifts—when the big, bad boys begin playing in our back yard—we're going to go to pieces. We're not hardened, disciplined. We haven't got it into our thick heads that the job ahead of us is long and hard and dirty, and we've got to throw everything overboard and get into it."

"My, you have been working too hard!" Mary chided him gently.

He laughed. "I think I practice those speeches in my sleep, too," he admitted. "I feel as though I had been orating all night sometimes when I wake up in the morning. Maybe you're right. I do need some relaxation. How about driving out somewhere?"

Mary reached for a polite evasion. She couldn't tell him the truth—couldn't tell him the reason for her soaring spirits tonight. If he knew that she had been lunching with Bruce, he'd hate it. She didn't want to have Ken angry—and yet even as she rode beside him she could not pull her blissful thoughts from Bruce's attitude at lunch tonight. He had promised to wave a flag, and he had certainly dropped his usual challenging belligerency. He had been gay and attentive, and as he left her at her door, had added the final touch to her happiness when he suggested their stepping out somewhere after work if he didn't have a batch of overtime. He'd let her know.

No, she definitely couldn't tell Ken. She remembered how he mistrusted, suspected Bruce Martin.

So she pleaded some odd jobs that wouldn't even let her go riding tonight.

Ken stopped the car before the apartment with a determined jolt.

"I'll just dash up and help you with those odd jobs," he said, "and then we'll go for our ride."

Mary weakly protested, but Ken was not to be diverted from the channels of his purpose. Mary realized with a sinking heart that she could not use subtle methods with Ken. He trusted her and believed she would tell him if she had anything like another engagement.

Ken took her key and opened the apartment door with a proprietary flourish. He stood on the threshold surveying the charming room with a Lord of the Manor air that didn't hide the pleasure in his eyes.

"Looks like the same old place," he said. "Boy, I've really gotten homesick to see it sometimes."

Mary laughed at him as he prowled around the room carefully noting each change in arrangement or added ornament. But she caught her breath as he picked up a flower box she hadn't noticed on the table. He smelled it. "Did I send you these?" he puzzled.

"You must have, m'lord." Mary took the box and tried to set it down carelessly out of sight, but Ken insisted on seeing the flowers.

"That settles it," he cried good-naturedly. "No more night work for me. I've got to come back and take matters in hand. Let's see what they are and I'll send you something better."

Mary jerked at the string. Why did he have to be so curious? She opened the box and threw out a corsage of three orchids! She tried to laugh at Ken's loud howl of pain, but her nervous fingers dropped the card. She stooped for it, but Ken was before her. Even as he straightened she knew that he had read the card. His teasing, concerned expression was gone. On his face was a look of set anger and disappointment. He held out the card to her, his eyes watching her face as she read. "The last name is Martin?" he asked in a low, heavy voice.

Mary nodded. She felt like a guilty child, caught in some piece of despicable mischief.

"Ken," she pleaded, "if you knew him. I mean—I don't think—I mean, he's really nice. He's—"

"All right. Cut it." His voice sounded dry, harsh. "So he's cute. So you're going to shut your eyes and your ears and pretend he's straight. That's great. The spirit that keeps the country together. The spirit of—a gangster's moll!"

"Ken—wait!"

But he was at the door, had thrown it open, his blue eyes blazing coldly, the freckles standing out on his pale, angry face.

"Goodby, Mary," he threw back. "I wish you luck."

The door slammed after him.

(To Be Continued)