Seven Seats to the Moon

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Marion felt hurt; she adored her father. (No modern daughter dares admit this.)

  “Only confirm his original estimate,” said Win bitterly. “I’m devilish worldly, and I’ll come to no good end.”

  Papa might be right, thought Marion but didn’t say so.

  Win heard her just the same. “He might be right, eh?”

  “Oh, your father will probably talk your mother around,” said Marion. She sat down on the huge curving sofa.

  “Dad was in a funny mood tonight,” said Win. “Ma’s pretty much got her feet on the ground.” (Win adored his mother. Naughty, naughty! Never tell.)

  His father’s mood had made Win sad. How was it to be finished, to have done about as much as you are ever going to do? Lacking the forward plunge, the vorlage, the very hazards? To be safe and nothing more? I’d feel tired, too, Win thought. I’d feel like throwing it away, and the hell with it!

  “I told them I wouldn’t take it,” he said aloud.

  “What are you going to do, then?” Marion said.

  Win didn’t answer.

  “I can always take the kids and go home,” his wife said. “That would save money.”

  “If that’s the way you want it.” He didn’t look around at her. What the devil did she want, anyhow? “Do you mind very much waiting until after the Faulkners have been for supper next Sunday?”

  “Oh, not at all,” said Marion coolly. “And then, after a delightful social evening in the sprawling, modern hillside home of that brilliant young advertising executive Win Little, Mr. Faulkner will come drooling into the office on Tuesday aweek and sign the contract.”

  “You don’t think so?” said Win without passion.

  “And after that, of course,” she said, “you and I will live happily ever after.” She put her head back and closed her eyes. She was miserable.

  Win looked out over the sparkling valley. He began to think of his small but spry agency—G. W. Little and Associates—and of the brilliant presentation (damn it, it was brilliant) he’d made to Faulkner. And of the gate that would swing open toward bigger and better things, in spite of the fact that his bread-and-butter account had quit on him. Stodgy. Who needed it? Faulkner was exciting!

  Win knew he was turning to where the fun was. “Game” was not so inept a word. Damn it, why can’t a wife see what’s bound to happen when it gets to be no fun at home? If it weren’t for the Little kids, Win didn’t know that he’d mind so much if Marion did go home. Yah, home! She used that word for whatever parsonage the Reverend Coons happened to be in at the moment. Never for this house.

  And so to bed, Win thought, and three kids for fruit, and ups and downs and thicks and thins enough, already. She still wants me to be just like her Reverend Papa, which I’ll never.

  “I’m sure,” he said cuttingly, “the Faulkners will sense the generous warmth of a totally fulfilled woman.”

  “Oh, shut up, damn you!” said the minister’s daughter. (He’s always pushing me to be like Sophia, she thought, but I am not!)

  A Mr. Smith said into a telephone in Chicago, “I think you’d better get on out there yourself.”

  Tony Thees, on the other end of the line said, “Will do, sir.”

  At ten thirty o’clock Nanjo Little extracted herself from the farewell embraces of her escort. Cary wasn’t really trying, but she hated the conventional struggle. Oh, Nanjo knew how to pretend when the kids got talking, but for hard and selfish reasons she wasn’t going to mess around. Nanjo had an ambition. “Love” would stand in its way.

  She also knew that Cary Bruce, who never really tried, was just as glad to skim along where only the surface gestures were required and yet acquire status by dating one who was as “popular” as she. While Nanjo acquired merit of another sort by being broad-minded enough to date a boy without a background. (Of course, he had this car.)

  Oh, Nanjo knew how to balance things off, the pros and the cons, and get about what Nanjo wanted.

  Some light was on in the family room; the house seemed very still. She came around the corner and saw her father there alone, just sitting in his chair, not even reading.

  “Daddy? Where’s Mother?”

  “Gone to bed.” He roused himself. Nanjo was sure he was going to say his usual “Have a good time?” but J said, “Where were you, Nanjo?”

  “We went over to Debby’s, but she had a history paper to write, so we just rode around and then went to the hamburger hut.” J looked at his watch. “And then we just rode around some more. It’s not late,” said Nanjo defensively.

  “Later than you think,” he muttered.

  She took a few steps. “Daddy, do you want anything? Is there anything I can do for you?”

  He said, “Why, yes, there is. You can stop just riding around with Cary Bruce.”

  Nanjo was so shocked she staggered. “What did you say?”

  “You’d be better off,” he said dreamily, “in a jungle with only lions and tigers.”

  “But, Daddy,” she gasped. “I’m not doing anything you have to worry about. All the kids ride around. And he’s just a date, you know. I mean, honestly, we’re not going steady or anything. I know he’s from the wrong side of the tracks.”

  “What tracks are these?” her father said, looking at her without the light of worship in his eye. “Money?”

  “It isn’t his fault,” said Nanjo, confused. “Don’t worry, Daddy,” she added impatiently. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I’ll worry on my own time,” said J.

  “But I can’t just stay home,” said his bewildered daughter.

  “Well, now,” said J, putting his head back and looking at the lamp, “that is just exactly what I would really like. Say, I’d like it fine if you’d stay right here in the castle, like one of those princesses your mother used to read about aloud. I’d be the king, you know, and in good time I’d line up before you a whole row of suitors—well-seeded characters. (Seeded by me, of course.) And from that group of the … the elite, you could choose a bridegroom. I wonder if things were ever like that? Just one of those human dreams, I suppose, that human fathers sometimes dream.”

  Nanjo was beginning to feel scared.

  “It sounds kinda gruesome,” she faltered, hoping he was clowning.

  “Oh, nowadays everything’s turned around the other way,” said J. He rubbed his eyes. “That’s a funny thing, though, Nanjo. I was taught that the human child takes longer to mature because there’s so much more to him that has to grow up. I thought that was a sign of a superior potential. But nowadays children are supposed to know what they’re doing better than you, on the day they’re born.” J had his eyes squeezed shut. “It kinda knocks out,” he said, “one reason for trying to learn anything, don’t you think?”

  Nanjo said timidly, in her littlest voice, “Daddy, why don’t you go to bed?”

  “And in the morning,” said her father, “I’ll see the sense of it all?” He smiled and touched her hand.

  Nanjo’s hand jumped.

  “I order you,” said J mischievously, “not to worry about me.”

  Nanjo didn’t know what to answer. He wasn’t acting like himself at all. “But I do worry,” she wailed. “I don’t want you to feel so low, Daddy. Everything’s all right. Honestly.”

  “You must have a ticket … to somewhere else,” said J sadly, “to be so sure of that.”

  “Daddy,” burst Nanjo in a moment, “if I promise not to date Cary anymore, will that make you feel better?”

  J lifted his head. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t think it would.”

  “Daddy, I don’t understand you.”

  “Oh, well, neither do I. But honest people shouldn’t go around making too many promises. Run along, baby.” He pulled himself higher. “Good luck with the universe.”

  “Goodnight.” Nanjo kissed his brow and slid away. She wished she knew what was the matter with her father! This was awful!

  J sighed and turned off the last lamp. The glas
s wall became transparent, and he could see, under the mild moon, his “small portion.” What did I say just now? he asked himself. Some philosopher! Quoting Victorian sundials. Old fogey, bemoaning the good old days (that never were) and wishing he had the running of the universe. “Ah, love, could you and I with Him conspire.…”

  J laughed, although not aloud. He got up and went to bed. Sophia was either asleep or playing possum. J was glad and possumed himself. It was only somewhat comforting to think about God for a moment, Who, if indeed He had made everything that is made, must, in all logic, have a sense of humor, mustn’t He?

  CHAPTER 7

  Monday Morning

  On a plane that left Chicago very early on Monday morning there was by no means a full contingent of passengers. When they had been airborne awhile, a tanned young man with a snub nose crossed the aisle, leaving his lonely bank of three seats, to sit down next to the young woman by herself at her window. Nobody sat immediately before or behind them.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” she said. “I thought I was supposed to handle this.”

  He said, “You don’t know everything, sweetheart.”

  “God forbid!” She rolled her large eyes that had been carefully framed in assorted colors of paint. “Something more I ought to know?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “See, it was just a question of a follow-up until our beloved leader found out that somebody went to the trouble of scrambling onto the same plane with our Little man, yesterday.”

  “Somebody we’d rather he hadn’t?”

  “You know a man name of Barry Goodrick? Tell me true.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Then I’d better tell you what he looks like,” said Tony Thees, “in case you cross his track.” He made her a picture briefly and added, “Don’t give him the time of day.”

  “So you’re going to do something about him, eh?”

  “If he’s hanging around our Little man,” said Tony, “all I can say is we had better know it.”

  “Say no more.” The girl was well-shaped in the body; her face was thin, almost hollow-cheeked. Her hair was so pale as to seem silver; cut short and artfully uneven, it thatched her round skull. She seemed lively, confident, and full of mischief this morning. “Mine not to know the inside of the inside,” she said flippantly.

  “I’m turning it in my mind,” said Tony gloomily, “to call you off and send you home. I’m not so sure you’re a good idea.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she drawled. “Isn’t our pigeon one of those dull family men, getting a bit long in the tooth?”

  “He’s forty-nine years old.”

  The girl smiled. “Ah, the dangerous age. Our leader knows life!”

  But Tony wasn’t amused. “It’s not too funny, anymore,” he said. “It’s really not too funny.” He gave her a sharp look. “I thought the old man was more or less having a fit of nerves. Damn sick, he was. But the more I think the more I wonder, especially now.”

  The girl seemed to be thinking hard. She changed her voice to soft pleading. “Could you tell me again, Tony darling, exactly what I’m supposed to accomplish?”

  Tony was silent for a while. (Darling! he thought. Hardy har har!) Then he said quietly, “The Little man has promised not to repeat some things he heard in the hospital room. The old man was pretty sure he meant to keep his word. But he can’t be much of an actor, can he? And he’s not trained in our business. Where you come in is, first, you’re going to be his chum, in on the deal, and he can talk to you. Second, you’re going to take the lightning off, in case he acts as if he’s got a secret.”

  “Yes,” she said, grave and sweet, all mischief gone, “I understand. I’ll be the secret. And that crazy ticket and all, that’s for openers?”

  “Right. Don’t bother about it, by the way. I’ll fix it today. Think you can take his mind off?”

  “Oh, I should imagine so,” she drawled. “Mysterioso cum sexy, who could ask for anything more?” She moved her mouth. It softened and moistened.

  Tony looked away and said, “If Goodrick’s been put off and has gone elsewhere, that’ll be fine.”

  “How will you know whether Goodrick’s elsewhere?”

  “I don’t care where he is,” said Tony, “if he’s not dogging our Little man. So I dog our Little man. Elementary? Just the same, the first thing you do, sweetheart, is find out whether Goodrick did approach him and, if so, exactly what was said.

  “My mind shall be as your tape recorder, master.”

  He twitched. Then he smiled. “Make like a pickup. Smile at me, sweetheart.”

  She smiled and looked at him flirtatiously. (Only yesterday she had said she wouldn’t marry him.) “Suicide,” she said, “gives me the damnedest goose bumps. I hate to even think …”

  “I get goose bumps, too,” said Tony. And shut her out of his thoughts with a slam of will.

  That old man didn’t jump for fear of pain, he thought. I don’t believe it. So shall I go the easy route and say to myself for-get it, all suicides are crazy. Hm. Maybe I brushed off Dr. Ambrose Willing a little too soon. Would a man like that be scared for no reason? Would he try to call off his whole life’s dream—like some kid who can’t go to the party and therefore wants the party wrecked for all the rest? I don’t believe it. If I get sure they know the time and place, Smith will absolutely have to call it off.

  He yearned for their arrival.

  The girl took out her compact and studied her face, coolly inspecting a work of art.

  Later on the same morning, in a shabby booth of a third-class restaurant in Los Angeles, Goodrick was listening to the purring voice of a small, slim, round-faced man who was too immaculately and expensively clad for these surroundings.

  “Obviously Halliwell Bryce inherits the project,” he was saying.

  “Question: What’s the project?” said Goodrick with his jack-o’-lantern smile.

  “I have decided that you should know my thoughts,” purred the other man. “Scientists are a strange breed, you know, Barry. Highly disciplined, within limits—outside of which they are the worst of wild-eyed dreamers.” He sipped his late breakfast tea and made a grimace of distaste.

  “Smith’s no scientist,” said Goodrick. “Who is he hired out to?”

  His companion’s shrug was minimal. “Smith has been trotting around the world for some time, talking confidentially only to men at the very top in what I may as well call weaponry. That includes more than hardware, of course. In deepest secrecy,” the man wiped a faint smile from his lips with his own handkerchief, “he has been working up an international—no, an extranational conference—at which these great brains will sit down and reason together. Transcending political allegiances as well as race, creed, and color,” the voice was mocking, “they will discuss with pitiful solemnity the future of the entire world. Although with typical hypocrisy they are not really including all races, creeds, colors, or ideologies.…”

  Goodrick cut in. “So what you want is an ear in? Pick up secrets cheap, eh?”

  “No, no. I doubt they’ll exchange anything practical in the way of secrets. It will be fears and hopes and noble resolutions. Poor innocents, they dream they can meet as individuals at a private party.”

  “Sure ought to be a swinging party. Heh, heh.” Goodrick poured himself more coffee. “Why not break the secret to the press? They’d cover it for you.”

  “No, no,” said the man. “They’d kill it. If the press began to spout off, imagine the uproar, traitors, everyone! Political consequences! There would be no meeting. All I want,” he said more softly than ever, “is the rendezvous.”

  “They can’t possibly keep that a secret,” said Goodrick bluntly.

  “Not forever,” his companion agreed. “There’ll be transportation laid on, routes converging from all around the globe. But although I have eyes, I cannot afford them everywhere. Nor am I in possession of a precise list of those who will be going. I may run into the problem of false tr
ails, co-incidental journeys, even decoys. The true meeting place may not emerge from the pattern soon enough for my purposes.”

  Goodrick asked no question. He was gnawing on his thumb.

  “You see,” said his companion, “I am a private party in this instance.” He settled back and spoke dreamily. “If the meeting is to be on a ship, for instance, which would seem a fairly convenient device, there would be no difficulty in arranging a marine disaster of some mysterious sort. If they choose a remote and isolated spot on land, some individual ‘madman’ or other could be found to fly over, just once, and once would do. Afterwards all governments would prefer a mystery.”

  Goodrick took sugar. “Be a little harder,” he said, “if they pick some big city. But, say they want secrecy, any city crawls with newshawks.” He stirred his coffee vigorously. His companion seemed to be watching his hand. Goodrick took the spoon out of the cup and said, narrowing his eyes. “You drop that thing on a city, nothing’s going to keep it any mystery. Shoop. Shoop.” Goodrick’s lips opened and pursed on this strange sound. It seemed to indicate disapproval, as if a robot were saying, “It does not compute.”

  “One thing I am sure of,” said the man coldly. “Doctor Ambrose Willing was deeply involved. If the rendezvous has been set, he knew it.”

  “Oh, oh,” said Goodrick. “I wish I’d known what I was after.”

  “Yes, I may have sent you too blindly. That’s why I tell you all this now. You tell me, Barry … you have a strong proportion of the blood. Why will these people suicide? Why did Doctor Willing end his life last evening? Personal despair, his career being over? Fear of suffering? A sentimental guilt, perhaps? Do they feel shame?”

  Goodrick shrugged. “Why don’t you find out the rendezvous the same place you found out about the project?”

  “Aren’t you clever?” said the other man nastily. “There happened to be one of these so-called brains—a Doctor Etting—dying in a hospital the other side of the world a few weeks ago. And in attendance a young nephew of mine. Oh, indeed, I sent him back to get the rendezvous. But it had not yet been set—at that time.” He sighed.