Thompson had particular cause to worry about Cocoa Beach, the explosive town to the south of Canaveral which had once contained 2,600 people and would soon have many times that number. Never a pretty town, in the old days it had served as a winter resort for snow-birds who flocked south each December from places like Maine, Minnesota and especially Ontario. Those with wealth continued on to Palm Beach, a hundred and twenty-five miles farther south; only those on budgets parked their caravans at Cocoa Beach. The houses tended to be one story, frame, unheated and dusty, the stores two-storied and jumbled. There had been bars, most of which were shuttered during the summer, and living quarters for a small permanent population whose men commuted to jobs north along the coast to Daytona Beach or inland to Orlando.
Like Canaveral itself, the little town huddled on the outer chain of islands and expanded not like a lovely rose which flowered in all directions, but rather like a radish which elongated at each end but stayed the same in the restricted middle. Yet the town had a wild beauty, for to the east roared the somber Atlantic.
When the astronauts flew in to Cape Canaveral on duty assignments, which was constantly, austere bachelor quarters were provided in NASA buildings, but they preferred the livelier scene at Cocoa Beach, twenty miles to the south, and if they brought their wives along, which they often did, it became the custom for them to take rooms at a new and glossy motel called the Bali Hai, a name borrowed by many joints across the country from a popular song that was supposed to be tropical and sexy. This Bali Hai had been built by Canadians, who seemed always to have an uncanny sense of which Florida beach was going to become popular next, but it was run by a pessimistic married couple from Maine who had spent one winter too many among the snowdrifts of that igloo.
They were the Quints, ‘named after the Dionnes,’ they told guests who had never heard of the famous Canadian sisters, and in one way they were ill-prepared for the high nonsense that preempted their motel, for they were dour Yankees; but in another, they were a good choice, because in Maine they had spent their long winters studying wildlife and had learned that ‘animals, four-footed or two-, are capable of damned near anything.’
The Bali Hai had three considerable assets: a white beach from which the husbands could plunge into the high waves of the Atlantic, a blue-tiled swimming pool shaded by palm trees in which the wives could disport, and a large dark bar in which both could celebrate. The walls of the Dagger Bar were tastefully decorated with daggers, swords, knives, sabers, cutlasses, krisses, poniards, stilettos, rapiers, machetes and dirks, most of them contributed by well-traveled patrons who had brought them home from foreign ports. The effect was quite stunning, a congenial bar with inviting tables surrounded by weaponry which recalled the violence of the world and reminded the drinkers of the violence which had sometimes threatened their lives.
About the room evocative objects hauled in from the Bahamas were placed: large clamshells, fishing nets, green-glass floats used by fishermen, and two gigantic stuffed swordfish. The Dagger Bar featured rum drinks with exotic names like Missionary’s Downfall or Virgin’s Last Stand and an excellent fish dinner for a flat three dollars including one free beer.
Each new group of astronauts was advised by those who had gone before: ‘The scene is at the Dagger Bar. You’ll love the Quints, gloomiest people since Cotton Mather. But those fresh oysters, all you can eat for fifty cents!’ Tucker Thompson, anticipating that his crowd would want to lodge at the Bali Hai, checked the place out and satisfied himself that the rooms were clean and the drinks honest, but then he discovered something that sent icicles right up his spine: the Bali Hai was sometimes overrun by hordes of groupies who wanted to be where the action was, and since many of them were delectable and still in their teens, he could foresee disaster.
The Cocoa Beach groupies following space were identical with the girls of Europe who idolized bullfighters, those of South America who traipsed after race-car drivers, or those of Canada who chased hockey players. All societies appeared to produce a plethora of young girls eager for excitement and willing to break away from stable homes in order to seek it. And around the world they behaved the same: frequent the scene of action, haunt the popular bars, and jump into the right bed with practiced alacrity.
Rachel Mott, observing the phenomenon for the first time, was appalled by the undisciplined behavior of her sex; it was really quite shameless the way the girls threw themselves at the men, but when Tucker Thompson asked about it one night in the Dagger Bar while five or six toothsome girls, all under the age of twenty, were clustering around Randy Claggett, she admitted grudgingly, ‘I’ve been quite shocked by these children. Where are their parents? But upon reflection, I’ve had to conclude that girls just like these probably haunted the camps where the gladiators trained, and on the day when the little men descend from another planet, a supply of our girls will be there to greet them.’
‘Well, they’ve got to lay off my astronauts,’ Thompson said, ‘or we’re going to look like fools.’ And he showed the Motts his magazine’s next week’s issue, in which his long-range program for the Special Group was revealed. It displayed on the cover, in the neatest possible array, the new astronauts, each man looking right into the camera with chin set, eyes ablaze and hair cut short, Marine style, THE SOLID SIX cried the headline, and Thompson sat back, highly pleased with his work.
‘In our business,’ he said, ‘the battle’s half won if you can label your product with a snappy title. The Brown Bomber made Joe Louis twice the man he would have been otherwise. The Lone Eagle–nobody ever did better than that. It made the public see Lindbergh, who was not an easy man to sell, as both aloof and particularized, almost human, you could say. I like that one they’ve started using for Brooks Robinson—the Glove. That’s classy. And I liked the Velvet Fog, the name they gave Mel Tormé when they discovered he couldn’t reach the hard notes. Saved his career. But the best they ever did was for that likable London heavyweight who came over here, to disastrous results. Phil Scott, his name was, and when he was knocked flat three times by punkos even before the big fight and all seemed lost, some clown gave him the name Phainting Phil, the Swooning Swan of Soho, and thousands paid to see him.’
‘The Solid Six,’ Mott repeated. ‘It has a good sound, and they certainly look solid.’
‘What we thought … and you understand, the final choice wasn’t mine. The whole board wrestled with this one. Our thinking was that Life had pretty well preempted the field of glamour with their crews. Glenn, Borman, Shepard. That’s a pretty classy group. Did you know that some people are now calling the original astronauts the Sacred Seven? Well, we couldn’t replay that record, but we could identify our men with something patriotic and lasting.’ He stopped to make an entirely different point: ‘The lasting part is important. Because our boys are going to be on the scene for a long, long time. The Sacred Seven are dropping away like flies … private business … all that. It will be our boys who make the great Gemini flights, the ones who’ll later fly the Apollos to the Moon.’
He drummed on the table, then looked past Rachel Mott to where the teenage groupies were still making a fuss over Claggett. ‘We blow the solid bit if any one of our boys explodes in scandal. The newspapers are already fussing about the fact that we have an exclusive, and if they could blast us out of the sky with a juicy scandal, they’d descend on us like hungry wolves.’ He stopped, looked at Mott and asked, ‘Did I mix my metaphors?’
‘You did,’ Rachel said.
‘Forgive it. Point is, Mott, I want you to talk with your boys.’
‘Problem’s not mine.’
‘You bet your sweet ass it is,’ Thompson said sharply. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but this is important. Mrs. Mott, here, is doing a great job with the girls. You keep the boys in line.’
He was so insistent and so irritated with Mott for not assessing the danger seriously, that he got in touch with his superiors at Folks and they called Senator Grant, who seemed to be the Senate spokesman
for the space exercises, and he telephoned Cocoa Beach immediately: ‘Mott, Tucker Thompson is dead right. It would be disastrous if scandal touched this program. You get those men straightened out. Pass the word.’
‘Senator, I can’t—’
His protest was not allowed. ‘Those lads are your responsibility, Mott. Pass the word!’
Mott waited till all the men were at Canaveral, for he did not want to discharge this messy task piecemeal, and the delay proved almost fatal, for a persistent teenager from Columbus, Missouri, the daughter of a professor no less, forced her way into Randy Claggett’s bedroom while he was working in one of the simulators at the Cape and was waiting for him, undressed, in bed when he returned to the Bali Hai.
Randy did not feel obligated to force the girl from his bed, or even to make her put her clothes back on, but when he told her at half past nine that he really must go down for some supper and that she could not walk down with him, she understood and used a fire escape. Tucker Thompson watched the way they came straggling in from two different directions, painstakingly unassociated, then met casually as if for the first time and sat together for a huge plate of oysters and two bowls of chili, and he was positive that his carefully orchestrated plan for his six astronauts was on the verge of destruction. Looking hastily about the darkened room to see if any newsmen had witnessed the sexual charade, he was relieved to find that all of them were absent, attending a briefing at the Cape regarding the impending second Gemini shot in which the popular Edward White was going to walk in space. But even as he took a deep breath he saw at a corner table a compelling young Japanese woman, not yet thirty, small, exquisitely framed, with becoming bangs, high cheekbones and just a hint of Asia in her eyes. Her complexion was that delicate coloring which appears on the finest celadon vases of the Orient, smooth and placid, and she seemed the kind of woman with whom any responsive man would want to discuss his troubles. Also, she wore that special combination of informal clothing which invited men to approach her table when she sat alone: a pleated blouse in handsome tan colors that matched her skin, a casual sweater thrown carelessly about her shoulders, a very wide belt emphasizing the smallness of her waist, a free-swinging skirt and Italian-style loafers with broad, blunt toes.
As soon as Tucker saw her, warning bells started ringing: That one is no groupie. She’s for real. But what truly terrified him was the fact that from her corner, under the Malayan daggers which framed her lovely square face with its sensuous drooping mouth, she was watching with professional cynicism everything Randy Claggett and his teenage supper companion were doing and was occasionally writing in a notebook.
‘Who’s that?’ Thompson asked.
‘The woman in the corner?’ Mrs. Mott asked. ‘She’s an accredited reporter from Japan. Well regarded in the profession. Did a stint with the New York Times. Got an M.A. with top grades from Radcliffe. Now writes for the Asahi Shimbun, biggest paper in the world, and is syndicated in Europe.’
‘What’s a Japanese doing at Cape Canaveral? Spying?’
‘She writes beautifully about space. Has a real feeling for it. Has a pilot’s license, I believe, and she did a lot of glider soaring in New Hampshire when she was at Radcliffe.’
‘What’s her name? She’s not on my list.’
‘Yes she is,’ Rachel said with some embarrassment. ‘She’s the one we thought was a Japanese man. Rhee Soon-Ka. Rhee’s the last name. When I went to meet Mr. Rhee—voilà!’ And she pointed to the lovely young woman taking notes under the Malayan daggers.
‘A Japanese!’ Thompson growled. ‘Emperor Hirohito would do anything to get even.’
‘Tucker, take it easy!’
He could not. He had lost too many battles with the press not to recognize an enemy when he saw one, and knew intuitively that he would find himself, during the next decade, doing continuous battle with Madame Fu Manchu. ‘You say she worked for the New York Times?”
‘An exchange job, I believe.’
‘The evil tricks she didn’t learn in Japan, I’m sure she picked up in New York.’ A flash of genius struck him: ‘Do you think I could go over and strangle her right now?’
‘Tucker! She’s a woman doing a job. She doesn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.’
‘A cobra doesn’t weigh six.’ He studied the intruder for several minutes, then rose abruptly and walked to her table. ‘I’m Tucker Thompson, Folks.’
‘I know,’ she said in a lilting voice. ‘Sit down. You’re the one who keeps the six little Boy Scouts locked up.’
‘It’s our job to write about them.’
‘You don’t seem to have that one behind bars,’ she said, pointing to Claggett.
‘His niece, from Kansas.’
‘Popes used to have nieces. Astronauts have pickups.’
‘You write one word …’
‘I intend to write about sixty thousand words.’
‘You be careful …’
‘It’s your job, Mr. Thompson, to provide the American public with fairy tales. It’s mine to provide the rest of the world with adult interpretations.’
‘You be very careful …’
‘I don’t have to be. I’m not trying to sell anything. Tonight I’m taking notes on a most attractive young man, a most lecherous one.’
‘Now, Miss …’ He hesitated. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Born Rhee Soon-Ka. In America, I use Cynthia Rhee.’
‘As a Japanese alien, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble, Miss Rhee.’
‘I’m Korean.’
‘Just as bad. I have the power to cause you a lot of trouble.’
‘Have you chanced to read my series on the Kremlin? I’m always in trouble. You get fine stories when you place yourself in harm’s way, as your Admiral John Paul Jones so handsomely phrased it.’ She spoke a beautiful, halting English, so carefully pronounced that it stung and infuriated, and she was not even trivially disturbed by Tucker Thompson’s bluster.
‘I wish you a lot of luck with your story, Miss Rhee,’ he said as he rose to depart.
‘And you will do everything possible to prevent me from getting it.’
‘With my six astronauts, I will.’
‘And they happen to be the very six about whom I am writing.’ And without referring to her notes, she recited the names in order: ‘Randy Claggett of Texas, wife Debby Dee. Hickory Lee of Tennessee and his wife Sandy. Timothy Bell of Arkansas and his wife Cluny. Harry Jensen of South Carolina and his pretty wife Inger. Ed Cater of Mississippi and his wife Gloria. And perhaps the most interesting of all, John Pope of Fremont and his ambitious wife Penny. You’ll be reading about them, Mr. Tucker.’
When Thompson returned to his table he received the harshest shock of all, delivered by Rachel Mott: ‘She’s supposed to have said in the bar that in order to complete her research, she intended to sleep with every one of our six.’ She paused a moment, then added, ‘The Solid Six, as you describe them.’
The urgent meeting was held in Thompson’s room at the Bali Hai, and although he had originally intended for Stanley Mott to carry the ball, he could not refrain from getting immediately to the heart of the crisis. ‘Men, it’s very simple. If you besmirch the name of astronaut with cheap sexual adventures, you endanger a program of vital importance to the nation and to the world.’ The listeners could see that he was sweating, and as they wondered what he would say next, he added, ‘Rumors are circulating. I myself have seen things that would have looked damned suspicious to a knowing reporter.’
He really did not know how to proceed past that point, so he shifted gears completely. ‘You stand to lose a great deal of money, all of you, if this thing blows up.’ And as soon as he uttered these words, he knew he had blown it. What lusty young man would quarantine himself from some of the most nubile young women in the world simply because a monetary contract was in danger?
Mott took over. ‘Senator Grant just telephoned me. He’s responsible for the funds you fellows spend in your T-
38s. He’s got to wangle through Congress the billion-odd dollars for your Gemini program.’ He stopped and laughed at himself. ‘How in hell do you say that word? I hear it four ways. Hard G. Soft J. Dictionary says it ends -eye. NASA uses -ee.’
Ed Cater said, ‘Our radio station has an astrology program and they give it the hard G and the -eye.’
‘I would despise taking my intellectual leadership from an astrology program. Forgive me if I call it Jem-in-ee.’
With the tension broken, Thompson adopted a different tone. ‘Men, the Senate leaders, the NASA leadership, all of us want to see this program move forward in an orderly way. You know you’re already being ticketed for future flights, ones of profound significance. Don’t blow it by allowing some silly—’
He was interrupted by a hard, flat, unemotional voice; it belonged to John Pope. ‘If you’re talking about sex, say so.’
‘That’s exactly what we’re talking about,’ Thompson snapped. ‘If you men allow yourselves to get mixed up with those groupies …’
Pope was inflexible. ‘It’s highly improper for you to come here and lecture us on such a subject. We’re not Boy Scouts.’
‘The public thinks you are.’
‘Maybe that’s because of what your magazine writes, Mr. Thompson.’
‘We write what America needs to hear.’
‘We’re test pilots. Each of us had to decide long ago how we’d behave. So far we’ve done a pretty good job, and frankly, we do not seek high-school counseling now.’
The words were so unexpected, and from a source so surprising, that Mott made no effort to respond; these were not the statements of some young astronaut, but rather the end-of-life reflections of a Socrates or a Voltaire. But Tucker Thompson was not silenced, because he was custodian of property rights which must be protected. ‘Don’t take this too lightly. There’s a newswoman in these parts who’s announced publicly that she’s going to sleep with every one of you, then write a book about your performances.’
Space: A Novel Page 51