Orbit 9 Read online

  She stared at him.

  “To Punta Gorda. Trouble over the bulkhead rights in Charlotte Harbor. It has to be settled today and every time I get—get—” He still couldn’t remember. He sighed, then said, “Every time I get whatsisname on the phone he just gabbles jabberwocky at me.”

  “Who?”

  “You know. My partner.”

  “Oh.” She nodded.

  “That damn phone company.” He sighed again. “I can’t get a clear channel to Punta Gorda. Sunspots, they say.”

  “Oh, the children are outside playing. Those sunspots are very bad for them, aren’t they? Shouldn’t I call them in?”

  “I don’t think the sunspots will hurt them,” Murdock mumbled. “But you’d better call them in anyway. I have to leave immediately.”

  “You mean right now? This minute?”

  “Just about. On the next available flight to Fort Myers. I want to say good-bye to the kids. I’ve never left them . . . alone . . . before this.” He squared his sagging shoulders and added, “Call the airport, will you, while I pack. Assuming you can get through.”

  She rose. The sight of her standing there, still as slim and lithe as she’d been the day he married her, filled him with a sudden sense of pride.

  She was long-legged and small-breasted. Tousled blond hair cut fashionably short framed a face that was a little too emphatic to be called quite beautiful. She wore a loose ultramarine and green print housecoat and rope-soled shoes with no stockings. As she came toward him, she stuffed the pale lavender cloth into her pocket.

  She looked up at him. “How long will you be gone, dear?”

  “I don’t know. Not long, I hope. There’s something strange going on and I don’t like it. My option will expire tomorrow midnight if I don’t have the go-ahead from the land planning commission signed and in my banker’s hands. If this deal falls through for any reason, we’ve had it. I’ve got to go.”

  She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Everything will be all right.”

  He looked deep into her wide dark brown eyes. “Would you tell me something, dear?”

  “Of course.”

  “And not think I’m joking?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s my partner’s name?”

  “Shelly!”

  “No, that’s my name. What’shis name?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Jean?”

  “I’m thinking,” she said. “You know, I can’t seem to remember. It’s right here on the tip of my tongue. See?” She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “I don’t see it,” he said.

  She pulled in the tongue and tasted it, then frowned. “It was there.” Shrugging, she shook her head. “I’ll call the airport.”

  He kissed her again and went to pack.

  * * * *

  “Ten forty-five,” Jean said as Murdock came into the living room. “You’ve got almost an hour to get there.”

  “Seats?” he asked as he set down his overnight bag.

  “There were some cancellations. You have a reservation.”

  “Good.”

  He looked toward the children. Leslie was five now. His sister, Tracy, was four. Good, dutiful, obedient children, but more concerned at the moment with something Leslie held hidden in cupped hands than with their father’s impending departure. For an instant Murdock felt disappointment. He told himself they were both too young to understand.

  Doctor Kirk’s Bluebook on Successful Child-Rearing in Our Modern Society said that a father must never let his own troubles interfere with his appreciation and attention to the concerns of his children.

  Murdock grinned at his son and said, “Whatcha got there, champ?”

  The boy eyed his father.

  Tracy returned the grin. “It’s magic.”

  “Let’s see.”

  Peeling his thumbs apart, Leslie spread his hands open. The object nestled into his palm was small and shiny. A faceted shape made of some bright silvery metal.

  As Murdock started to take it, he realized there was already something in his hand. His monogrammed marble egg. He put it down on the pre-Colombian coffee table, carefully so it wouldn’t roll off, then reached for the silvery object.

  His fingers touched a surface as soothingly smooth as the polished stone they’d just relinquished. They closed tight on it. “What is it?” he repeated.

  “Has it got germs on it?” Jean asked.

  “It’s a pentadodecahedron,” Leslie said.

  Dutifully, Tracy added, “It’s magic.”

  Murdock stroked one facet of the curious object. “A what?”

  “Pentadodecahedron,” Leslie repeated.

  Tracy said, “We found it in the marigolds. The Easter Bunny laid it.”

  Jean nodded as if her worst suspicions had been substantiated. “It has germs on it.”

  “It’s got pictures on it,” Tracy said.

  Murdock opened his hand and looked. She was right. Each of its five-sided facets showed a small figure of some kind.

  “There’s a lion and a goat,” his daughter told him. “And some fishes and some children and—and all kinds of stuff.”

  He nodded agreement. The side he was looking at showed a pair of children facing each other. The figures seemed vaguely familiar. He couldn’t place them.

  “Shake it,” Leslie said.

  Murdock shook it. He heard a series of small but distinct musical notes like the clear tones of fine crystal struck lightly with something made of steel. Soothing.

  “That’s nice,” Jean said. “What is it, dear?”

  “Be damned if I know.”

  “A pentadodecahedron,” Leslie offered patiently.

  Jean looked at her offspring. “Where did you get it?”

  Tracy repeated, “We found it in the marigolds.”

  “Looking for Mister Moto,” Leslie said.

  Mister Moto was the snow-white, blue-eyed, stone-deaf tomcat that had been adopted into the Murdock household a few months ago, after Irving died.

  “Did you find him?” Murdock asked, hefting the object. It was very light. Too light for the size of it. It chimed in his hand.

  “We called and called, but he never came,” Tracy said.

  Leslie shot his sister a scowl of disgust. “Nope. Can I have my pentadodecahedron back now?”

  “It has germs on it,” Jean told him. “You don’t know where it’s been.”

  “Yes, we do,” Tracy said.

  “Where?”

  “In the marigolds,” she sighed.

  “Does this mean I can’t have it back?” Leslie said.

  “We can look for more,” Tracy suggested. “Maybe the Easter Bunny laid a lot of them.”

  “Listen, children,” Murdock said. “I’ve got to go on a short trip. I want you two to behave yourselves while I’m gone.”

  “Can we go, too?” Tracy asked.

  Leslie just glowered at his father.

  The pentadodecahedron chimed again as Murdock turned his arm to look at his watch. “We better get moving.”

  Jean instantly looked harried. “I’ve got to fix my face.”

  “I’ll get the car out. Come on, kids.”

  He picked up the suitcase. It had his initials on it in gold leaf that was still as bright as the day it was bought. The matched luggage had been a wedding gift. For an instant he wondered who’d given it to them. And why. The thought passed.

  Tracy mumbled, “I wanna hunt Easter Bunnies.”

  * * * *

  Jean backed the car out of the driveway, swung it in a wide arc and stepped on the gas. It jolted forward. Murdock tested his seat belt for the third time since he’d strapped in. It felt secure. He checked the kids, saw that they were all right, then stared at the road ahead.

  “Jean,” he said suddenly, “our car was blue. Wasn’t it?”

  “Isn’t it?” she said. She gripped the steering wheel hard with both hands and set their course by sighting down the hood orna
ment, a chromed scorpion with unfurled wings.

  “No, it’s green,” he told her. “Look at it.”

  “You’re right.” She pondered the problem and came up with an answer that satisfied her. “It must be the sunspots.”

  “How in God’s name could sunspots change the color of a car?”

  “Sunspots do all sorts of things, don’t they?”

  He wasn’t sure. “Maybe. Watch out!” he shouted as Jean ran a red light with practiced ease.

  “I wish you wouldn’t scream in my ear like that,” she said, more hurt than indignant. “It’s very distracting. Don’t you want to make your flight?”

  Murdock didn’t reply. Jean slammed on the brakes.

  Murdock lurched forward. The safety belt cut painfully into his bulging middle. It held. As he rocked back, he saw that the light over this intersection was green.

  “What the hell?”

  “Look, Mommy!” Leslie called from the back. “A parade!”

  “Yes, dear,” Jean said.

  “I want some ice cream!” Tracy wailed.

  Murdock stared up the cross street. A pair of perfectly matched piebald horses proceeded at a stately pace, towing a gilded float behind them. On the float a huge papier-mâché boll weevil basked in a blanket of pink and white camellias. It rolled slowly past, followed by men on horseback and men pedaling high-wheeled velocipedes and ten-speed English racing bikes with red, white and blue streamers whipping in the wind.

  Small girls in filmy lawn intertwined complicated dance steps among the riders, strewing flower petals and cotton bolls. Dogs in ruffled clown collars and tasseled nightcaps staggered along on their hind legs, yipping and snapping at the petals and bolls as they blew past their noses.

  The sound of a brass band preceded its actual appearance. The oompahs converged on the spot and overwhelmed completely the tiny string ensemble that paced along behind with an air of indefinable sadness and regret. Short-skirted girls with bright red boots and rouged batons high-stepped by to the cheers of the people lining the street.

  “I want some ice cream!” Tracy wailed.

  “There’s the ice cream man!” shouted Leslie.

  “The children would like some ice cream, dear,” Jean said.

  Murdock said nothing.

  Leslie leaned excitedly over the back of the seat and pointed. “There he is! See? See him? Right there!”

  A man in white pushing a small cart with tinkling bells suspended on strings.

  “I’m afraid that’s not really ice cream,” Jean said.

  Murdock scowled at the large red letters across the side of the cart: FRENCH FRIED POTATOES.

  “I want some ice cream!” Tracy wailed.

  The parade line gapped. The vender shoved his pushcart across the street. Leslie mumbled a word his mother didn’t approve of. Murdock heard it and nodded.

  The next section of the parade arrived.

  Two identical men in identical blue uniforms with gold shoulder-braid were supporting between them the ends of a gigantic billowing banner that read

  THE GREAT SAVANNAH TO ATLANTA

  CROSS-COUNTRY LOVE-PAGEANT AND

  COTTON FESTIVAL EXTRAVAGANZA

  in onyx open lettering.

  Behind them came a small tidy man with a large sign saying

  STAMP OUT THE DEWEY

  in publicity Gothic.

  Behind him a girl of about ten with mauve ribbons in her long dark hair carried another sign of the same size and lettering style.

  DECIMAL IN GEORGIA

  She was followed by a grim buxom matron whose sign said

  LIBRARIES AND SCHOOLS

  From the distance came a curious wail quite unlike a fire engine or an air raid warning siren. Black smoke hovered over an approaching segment of the parade. Brilliant white puffs of steam rose to engage the dark cloud in combat.

  Another brass band strode past, each man cradling his instrument in silent respect to the heartbeat measures throbbing from the big bass drum. None of them were in step.

  “We’re going to miss my plane!” Murdock said.

  Jean patted him on the arm. “Don’tworry, dear. We’ll make it all right.”

  “Ice cream!” Tracy howled.

  “Me too!” Leslie added with small hope of success.

  In unison: “ICE CREAM!”

  “Shut up!” Murdock snarled.

  Immediately he felt guilty. He reached into his pocket for the monogrammed marble egg. It wasn’t there. His fingers twitched.

  “Calm down, Shelly,” Jean said. “You’re just a bundle of nerves.”

  “I am not!”

  She gave him a significant look.

  “Ummm,” he said and slumped in the seat as far as the safety belt would let him, which wasn’t very.

  “There’s calcium in the glove compartment,” Jean said.

  He stretched out an arm and snapped open the compartment door. A flashlight rolled out and fell between his feet with a clunk. Ignoring it, he fished for the emergency bottle of calcium.

  “Did you remember to pack your kelp tablets?” Jean asked.

  “Ummm,” he said.

  He found the bottle and took three pills.

  The eerie wailing resolved itself into an approximation of a melody. The clouds of smoke loomed closer. They spewed from the chimney of a brass-plated boiler. Ranks of gleaming gilt tubes tootled the puffs of steam.

  At the keyboard of the calliope, a burly man in a clown suit pounded out a ponderous waltz. The calliope rolled past, drawn by two white horses in red harness.

  The following float was pulled by a pink-and-white candy-striped jeep driven by a pretty young girl in a skimpy bikini. There was nothing to the float itself but a flatbed on bogie wheels, decorated with black crepe. It bore like a wearisome burden the weight of a small gray whale with sawdust leaking out of a vent in its side.

  The whale was not alone. A pair of stalwart men in yellow nor’westers kept it company. Both wore jet-black beards, lush and untrimmed. One brandished a harpoon toward Murdock as the float came even with the car, and shouted, “You oughta seen the one that got away!”

  His companion gave Murdock the peace sign.

  Nothing followed the float for a good five hundred feet.

  A cop appeared in the opening. He gestured at Jean with one International Day-glo Orange-gloved hand.

  She stepped on the gas.

  Murdock checked his seat belt.

  “Ice cream?” Tracy said.

  * * * *

  Murdock realized he’d been holding his breath. He sighed. They were on the edge of a vast expanse of grass, dotted with gray aged buildings of an undefined nature and scarred with sharp straight strips of rotting concrete. Then he saw the terminal building, topped with its green fishbowl, posing proudly at the head of one blacktop strip.

  Chatham Field at last, Murdock thought.

  “Here we are, dear,” Jean said. “And in plenty of time, too.”

  He didn’t answer her.

  Was it Chatham Field, he wondered, or was it Travis Field? They’d changed the name some time ago, after it had ceased to be a military base. Which had it been; what was it now? Had they changed the name again? He’d heard a rumor that it was now McGee Field. He wished he’d looked at the sign by the gate as they drove in. Well, it didn’t matter, did it?

  Jean surveyed the herringbone patterned parking places, chose one between two other cars, and swung the steering wheel sharply. The car whipped around. Its front bumper slammed against the rear chrome of a large black limousine. Satisfied, she backed and filled, deftly jockeying the car into its slot by ear.

  It wasn’t until the whine of the electric engine had died away that Murdock opened his eyes and unfastened the safety belt.

  He said his good-byes before he got out. Clutching his overnight bag, he walked around the car. He paused to lean in the open window and give Jean a peck on the lips. Then he pulled his head out and stepped back. He looked at the car.


  “Green?” he said.

  “Sunspots,” she replied.

  * * * *