Seven Seats to the Moon

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Oh, well … They shifted around the house, never settling down together.

  Marietta, who thought of herself as a superservant, ever-willing, no snob, was “helping” Mrs. Arriola. After a while J, keeping one room ahead of them as best he could, was tickled to take notice of a war between woe and roses. Mrs. Arriola was, as usual, full of portents and intimations of disaster which pressed Marietta to rejoice more effusively than ever. As far as J could tell, woe was winning, at least on a practical level, because Mrs. Arriola was allowing herself to be helped to the point where she gave the instructions and Marietta did all the work.

  Nanjo was no help at all. She had heard about Cary’s performance with the car horn from her mother at breakfast and had protested that all the kids honked their horns. That was the way it was done in modern times. And Cary drove the way you’d better drive in modern times, and if you asked Nanjo, Bobby James was dangerously timid. She couldn’t help it if Cary hadn’t believed what Daddy said.

  Later, after one or two phone calls, Nanjo had said to her mother (not to J, although in nasal wails that he could not help but hear) that Cary had seen a light in her room. And if anybody had had any sense at all, they’d have seen it, too. And then if they had explained about her grandmother! Well, of course, Cary knew which room was Nanjo’s! Was it supposed to be a big old secret for gosh sakes?

  She had then gone to sunbathe, padding past J swiftly without speaking.

  Her father thought he’d probably have to spank her pretty soon, but he put it off. There wasn’t any private place to do it, with the house so full.

  Tony said brusquely, “If, at your not very smart reversal of your instructions, he has taken your advice, we’ll have to watch his wife, too.”

  Annette said, “You don’t understand. You weren’t there. It was the lesser risk, I’m telling you. We should have let him alone in the first place.”

  “Alone with Goodrick, eh?” Tony was furious.

  “Oh, come on,” she said wearily, disdainfully. “Goodrick does know a thing! He followed me last night. Why don’t you instruct me to take his mind off?”

  “Holy cats!” said Tony. “How female can you get? Listen, sweetheart …”

  “I’d be glad to listen,” she snapped, “if you’d speak up, for instance, like a man.”

  “The time has come for you to take this serious,” Tony glowered. He was too angry with her to use the pronoun “we,” which would have been proper. “There’s a private gathering,” he said. “I won’t say where, because I don’t know where. That’s a secret. But this bunch of world-important men will be together, and Goodrick and Company think it would be great sport if they were all blown up in one blast. Whoosh! Pow! But since Goodrick and Company have not been able to find out where is the gathering place, they can’t very well do that, can they?”

  “Elementary,” she murmured. She licked her lip.

  “Now, security is laid on, of course, in as much strength as is possible when the whole thing is theoretically private. But has it ever occurred to you, sweetheart, that some rich fella, if he had a mind to, could just as easily hire himself the help and buy himself what it takes and make himself a nice private little bomb that would do the job, all right? And say he’s a fanatic, why couldn’t he go ahead and drop the thing without asking anybody’s leave?”

  “And this rich fanatic is Goodrick’s boss?”

  “Yep. And I’m telling you, sweetheart, that if he does that, it ain’t going to be private no more.”

  “Really,” she said, her intelligence insulted.

  “So there go a whole lot of big brains, which is too bad. But still and all, lots of brains in the world, you know. Point is, there’s an added feature there. Every damned one of the gathered ones is a hero in his own land, see? And all kinds of countries are going to be good and mad at all kinds of other countries, especially this one. Not only that, but who is going to believe in a private fanatic and never have it enter his old cranium that the rich fella maybe acted on his country’s instructions? So not only do a whole lot of valuable men stand to get killed off in the first explosion, there stand to be plenty more explosions.”

  (She was looking serious, all right.) “Now,” he added, “if all that stands between this and us is you, setting out to lure Goodrick off his job …”

  “Our Little man knows about this?” she said sternly, condemning nonsense.

  Tony hesitated. “What he knows is the time and the place,” he said deliberately. “He doesn’t know he knows them, or what they mean. He’d been muddled with the moon biz. But let Goodrick and Co. get him under hypnosis, for instance, or anything else (like great pain?) that would give him total recall of what he definitely did hear, then the moon biz shows up for the moonshine it is, and they’ve got what they didn’t ought to have.”

  “Call off the gathering!” she cried. “Or else get out the Army and the Navy and the Air Force! What good is this gathering supposed to do, anyway?”

  “Who knows?” said Tony, who became the calmer the more excited she. “Nobody knows what might happen if human brains ever did sit down to hassle things out in cold blood.”

  “Secretly?” she cried. “What kind of devious mind thought this up?”

  “You could say,” said Tony, “it was a big brain who didn’t want the sensation-mongering press to roil up the common people.”

  “Why would the common people …”

  “Grow up,” said Tony. “It’s only a dream. You never heard of a dream that got to be too wide-open to the sensation-mongering press and too occupied with roiling up the common people (which is to say playing propaganda games) to do a whole lot of thinking on behalf of the human race?”

  She glared at him for a moment. “Tony, how do you know Goodrick and Co. want to blow them up?”

  “We had some reason to think it was under consideration to do something,” said Tony, “because one of the old man’s former pupils called him up one day and said he didn’t want to see the old man dead or anything, and he wished the old man wouldn’t go to the gathering.”

  “Oof!” said Annette.

  “Well, now, seeing as how the chap shouldn’t have known there ever was to be such a gathering, we should have guessed things were getting a little out of hand. If we had taken serious what the old man told us, that is.”

  “You should have called it off then and there,” she stormed.

  “Doctor Willing thought so,” said Tony rather sadly. “But you see, those big brains were willing to risk it on one another’s integrity, on the cold-blooded assumption that they all thought it would be better if they all stayed alive to think some more. And they were right, I guess. They were big about it. None of them knew one ordinary Little man was going to get in on the act.”

  Annette kept staring at him.

  “It’s too late, honey child,” he said with a sigh. “As of this morning, half of them are already there, and the rest are on the way.”

  “What’s to do?” she said quietly.

  “We may have to fix to kidnap our Little man and hide him in a very deep hole.”

  “Until after Sunday?”

  “Right. After that, they couldn’t get them all.”

  “But if he’s told his wife …” She was thoughtful.

  “Oh, it’s trickier than that. Tell you why. We’re pretty sure … hell, we are sure … that Goodrick doesn’t know yet, and therefore he doesn’t know the urgency. Possibly he’ll keep on fooling around the outskirts long enough. But if we jump, he jumps. And deep enough holes are hard to find. Oh, I’m thinking. I’m thinking.”

  “Tell you what,” she said, “while you’re thinking … which is a better idea than letting Goodrick see you fooling around the outskirts …”

  (Tony shut his eyes. Okay. She was smart. She had caught on to his basic mistake.)

  “Why don’t I wangle myself into that house?” Annette was saying. “I can butter up his old lady. I understand her type, now. You know, suburban eart
h-mother. No fool, exactly. But if I’m there, watching in the nighttime, ready to holler “Cops” and so forth, Goodrick can’t kidnap our Little man by night. And my being there won’t tell him a thing. Hey, I’m invited to lunch, and I’m going!”

  She jumped up and began to take fresh clothing out of the hotel closet. He didn’t try to stop her.

  “Tony?”

  “Uh, huh?”

  “I was just thinking, what if you told our Little man the whole thing? Wouldn’t he agree to vanish? Wouldn’t that be … you know … easier on everybody?”

  “For God’s sakes,” he burst, “do not tell him the whole thing! Right now, he doesn’t even know what he knows. So there’s the chance that, even if they do get him, he’ll somehow omit what’s important. But if he knows.…”

  “You mean it will then be uppermost in his mind?” she said slowly.

  “Sometimes you’re quite bright,” Tony said grudgingly.

  She opened her mouth but closed it. Silently she began to change her clothes.

  Win Little said on the phone to his wife, “If I come home, will you fix me a sandwich?”

  “We might run to that,” Marion said.

  “Honey, will you please not take everything I say …”

  “I’m sorry. I get confused. I don’t know whether to feel rich or poor.”

  “I’ll tell you on Tuesday. Cheer up. Please. You’ll jinx the luck.”

  “I don’t understand going on luck, Win. I don’t understand borrowing your grandmother’s bonds for thirty days. What if …”

  “Never mind,” he said, “I understand it. On second thought I’m going to some posh place for lunch. For luck, you know.”

  But it’s not so much for luck, he thought, hanging up. It’s for morale. Oh, he loved Marion, had loved, and loved still the sweetness of her flesh. He loved the Little kids.

  And yet, if Marion could not bear the gambles he must take, could not enjoy them as he enjoyed them, could not in any other way be with him—well?

  Susie Neeby was saying to her late morning caller that J Middleton Little was, indeed, known to her, and she was glad to be able to tell the FBI that he was a loyal American, an upright citizen, with high moral standards, a very dear friend, who had never been in any trouble that Susie could remember.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Neeby,” said Goodrick, “but wasn’t there a little trouble in Chicago just this last weekend?”

  “I don’t know,” said Susie, round-eyed. “I know that something happened. I haven’t heard the story yet. I get the idea that it’s a funny story. J tells stories awfully well.” Her little pink face went into a kind of total pucker. “What kind of trouble?” she demanded.

  “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps nothing,” Goodrick said soothingly. “Well, thank you very much, Mrs. Neeby.”

  “I didn’t realize,” said Susie, “that J was in any kind of business that had to have clearances. Why does he?”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t just now,” said Goodrick.

  “Is he looking for another job?” gasped Susie.

  Goodrick began to show some slight impatience as he evaded answering all these blunt intrusive questions.

  J was holed up in his den when Sophia tapped on the door. “Your girlfriend seems to be arriving. No boyfriend in tow.”

  J started up.

  “She’s early, isn’t she?” said Sophia and withdrew.

  J, for reasons unknown to himself, scooped up the ticket to the moon and put it into his top desk drawer.

  When he got to the entrance area, Sophia had already let the girl in.

  “I should have called, but I just came,” Annette was saying girlishly. “I don’t have any manners, do I, Cousin J?”

  “Oh, well,” said J, “manners may be obsolete.” But he relented. (J did not enjoy being rude. A matter of taste, perhaps.) “Hi, Cousin Annie.”

  “Come on back,” said Sophia, “and tell us how you are today.”

  “Oh, I’m all right,” said Annette dubiously, “but I think I know, now, what I need. Mrs. Little, you did help me. You have no idea how much. And I’ve got something to ask you … ask both of you … I know I am being selfish but—”

  “Just a minute,” J interrupted. “Mrs. Arriola” (for there stood Mrs. Arriola in the door to the kitchen, looking for something terrible to suspect) “do you mind if we entertain in this room?”

  “That’s okay,” said she gloomily. “We’s finished in there.”

  “Could you please,” said Sophia, who knew the market value of the cleaning woman and spoke humbly, “rush a bit with the kitchen? We have a guest for lunch,” she apologized.

  Mrs. Arriola turned and bellowed over her shoulder, “Say, Miz Thomas, better not start cleaning that oven. Oh, Miz Little, it’s going to be in bad shape by Monday.”

  But Sophia was enjoining the guest to sit down. Mrs. Arriola retreated, muttering.

  J chuckled. “I can see by your face,” he said to Annette, “that you haven’t had to cope with the servant problem in suburbia.” He went on (and this was careless of him!) to say to his wife, “Listen, Mrs. Arriola ought to split the fee with your mother. Don’t you know what’s been going on here all morning?”

  At this, J felt the peace between them shatter. What, Sophia said in silence, makes you think I don’t know what’s going on here? Obviously you want to talk to your little phony alone. Very well, of course.

  Sophia said aloud, “I think I am going to have to deal with matters in the kitchen. If you will excuse me, Annette? I’m sure J will do the honors nicely.”

  As Sophia tripped off, Annette met J’s eyes with a look of urgency. “Did you tell her?”

  The phone rang. J, moving his head in the negative, said aloud, “Excuse me, just a minute?” and went to answer the phone.

  It was Bringgold. “How’re you doing?” he wanted to know rather sourly.

  “Fine,” said J.

  “You didn’t think you ought to come in this morning, eh?”

  “As I remember, you told me the rest of the week,” said J mildly, knowing very well that Bringgold wasn’t going to remember this or, if he happened to remember, he wouldn’t have quite meant this.

  Sure enough, Bringgold said, “I couldn’t have said anything of the kind. We are in a mess down here that is about to send me off my rocker. Your assistant” (his assistant was all J’s fault naturally) “has managed to foul things up.… Four seniors are snarling at one another right now. The client is having fits, and they’re not the only ones. I wish you’d get down here.”

  “You need me, eh?”

  “Damn right.”

  “Okay,” said J, “I’ll be in right after lunch.” He hung up, feeling rather pleased to be needed. He could see the street from where he stood. There was a car parked out there in front of the Neebys. J moved to see it better.

  Sophia, having reproached both Mrs. Arriola and her mother while still fighting her own temper, left them temporarily allied under the lash and came into the family room to find the guest all alone, sitting on one foot, swinging the other, and gazing raptly out into the yard.

  “Don’t tell me J has lost his manners, too,” Sophia said.

  Annette smiled at her and explained that J was on the phone.

  Sophia sat down, her back to the glass. “Panic all gone away?” she spoke as to a child. “Don’t hesitate to be selfish. Unless you’d feel more comfortable confiding in a man.”

  Annette controlled herself beautifully. “Mrs. Little,” she said solemnly, “I needed to talk to a wise woman. But first, forgive me.…” Annette was too young to resist seeming “wiser.” “If you don’t know, I’m sure you ought to know. You are a mother. You wouldn’t approve of what’s going on out there, would you?”

  Sophia was stiffening toward stone. No phony little twerp was going to tell Sophia Thomas Little what she ought to know. But she turned her head.

  CHAPTER 19

  Wednesday Noon

  The first J heard of the tr
ouble was Nanjo’s howling. She was howling in the family room. “What’s the matter! What’s the matter with Mother?”

  J hurried around the wall. Nanjo, barefoot and a good bit more than half-naked in her sunbathing outfit, stood with the big towel trailing off one shoulder and her face in turmoil, howling at the stranger, who started to speak.

  But J looked through the glass and saw Sophia and Cal, the gardener, and he knew by their postures that his wife was in the throes of what J thought of as a white rage. A big one! He hurried out there.

  His wife turned a bloodless face; even her voice was white hot. “J, find out what we owe this man, and give it to him. I want him out of this yard as fast as he can go, and I never want him to come back.”

  Cal had his head down, but he was looking up and muttering, “How come it’s my fault? Hell, lady, what do you want?” He seemed to J to be on the verge of an outburst.

  “J,” Sophia’s voice rang out, “do as I say!”

  “Just go into the house, Sophia,” said J gently, turning her with a firm but gentle hand on her shoulder. She began to walk stiffly. “I think,” J said to Cal, the gardener, “there’s nothing to be said or done except for me to pay you what we owe you. Mrs. Little no longer wants you working here.”

  “Yah!” Cal looked after Sophia, who was moving stiffly and slowly away, as if he would like to stab her in the back with his pruning device. “That’s okay for you. What do you care? Sit on your fat can and get rich, and your kids can do what they damn feel like. But me, I work for a living, and I can go …”

  As he began to use words that in all prudence J had to ignore, J began to figure out the debt in his own mind.

  In the house Annette swung her free foot and said to Nanjo, who was whimpering and shivering, “Honey, you’ve got to be kidding! With that equipment you mean to say you didn’t know a man was standing there, practically …”

  “Well, it’s not my fault,” howled Nanjo.

  “Why give it away, honey?” said Annette with an air of reason. “He was getting a whole lot too much for nothing.”

  “You’re disgusting!” screeched Nanjo. (She had been toasting in the sun, dreaming a dream. An audience had been clapping. From all sides had been beaming approval and admiration. How adorable! How adorable she is! Tiny waist. Lovely shoulders. Dear little bosom.)