“Say it louder, maybe the cop ain’t hear you. Why you think I watching you? You carrying for me uptown.”
He came off the bench again, patting himself all over like he had a rash. “What did you give me? Where is it?”
“Chill, you clean. I take it back ages ago. Just saying why I has my eye on you. I see you doing a elephant dance after the walrus. So don’t give me shit about you ain’t planning to lift something. I watching. You in trouble. Maybe I can help.”
Star Trek ran his hands through his hair, leaving it spiked like his barber came from Mars on the off chance nobody had noticed him so far. But he hadn’t walked away. Little J. was still in the game.
Finally he turned to Little J. with haunted eyes—black, liquid, not, Little J. decided, American. “Why should I not tell you? I am ruined anyway.”
Not only in the game. Star Trek was hooked.
Little J. kept it cool. “Good. I already knows the walrus be somebody you work with, on account of, you wearing the same ribbon.” Little J. pointed to the name-badge dangling around Star Trek dude’s neck. He could make out the R—he was pretty sure it was an R—but no more. “What’s you name, then?”
The man fingered the badge as if he had to check. He struggled to smile. “I am Razzak Nousherwani.”
“What’s that in American?”
“You are correct, I am not American. I am Indian.”
“I know what a Indian look like. You the wrong color.” Little J.’s black had plenty of cream in it. Star Trek was brownish-gray.
“Not American Indian. Have you never heard of a country called India, you ignorant boy?”
Business was business. Little J. looked past the insult and asked again, “What’s your name in American?”
This smile was better. “Call me Ricky, everyone does. And you?”
“I be Little J.”
“Little J. who?”
“Little J. all you need. Who the walrus?”
“Michael McSwain. People call him Iron Mike.”
“What people?”
“Those who work for him at McSwain Limited. Competitors. Clients. Everybody.”
“Which you be?”
Ricky didn’t even try to smile. “Employee. For the moment.”
He sounded ready to expand. Even if he cared, Little J. didn’t have the time. “What you planning to steal, Rick my man?”
Ricky wagged his shoulders someplace between a slump and a shrug and led Little J. to the main entrance, where three towering posters back to back to back announced today’s Big Thing.
Ricky said, “I am here for that.”
Out here by the doors, the sun told Little J. it must be midday. Time he headed uptown. But he circled the display. Letters never lined up in words for him, though numbers were no trouble. And numbers told him the event was today, on the 34th floor, at five o’clock. A picture on the third poster gave him the clue he needed.
“Buzz Aldrin.” He looked at Ricky with new respect. “No wonder you wearing a Star Trek pin. You heading for the moon, Rick, my man?”
“Very good. You surprise me.”
“You think you dealing with a fool?” Little J. pointed to the stegosaurus printed on his t-shirt. “I a museum man. Regular.”
Ricky looked down his nose. “Because of a t-shirt?”
“Tell me again who need help here?”
Ricky got real again. “I am not going to the moon. But—” His eyes glistened. “I am one helping others to do so. To live there one day, perhaps sooner than you think.”
“Buzz be going back then?”
“No.” Ricky’s eyes rolled. Not like Little J. had said something else dumb. Like the dude was running through a story—a looooong story—wondering where to start.
Little J. saw the glint on Ricky’s wrist. He leaned over and slid back Ricky’s jacket sleeve to his watch and read the time upside-down. Time he left. Mr. Sullivan was not a patient man.
Still: Buzz Aldrin.
He said, “I has a appointment uptown I got to make. Gimme you shortest version.”
Ricky said, “Think what we must bring with us to live on the moon, Little J. Food. Water. Clothing. Materials to build greenhouses and houses. Vehicles. Fuel.”
Little J. tried to hurry him up. “Take a honking big ship, that for sure.”
Ricky nodded, not hurrying at all. “Too big. Too heavy. We could never get such a ship out of our gravity.”
“You a lousy salesman. Tell me what you plan, then explain how you ain’t do it?”
Ricky squatted so they were face to face. He put out a hand like he touched something Little J. couldn’t see. Barely above a whisper, like he was awed by his own words, he said, “Imagine instead a swarm of tiny ships—robots—spreading their wings like dragonflies and soaring up into space.”
World was full of fools. Some sold, some bought. Little J. preferred the selling end. He turned to leave. “Talking nonsense.”
Ricky caught his shoulder.
“It can happen. Look, there is one.” He waved at one of the posters, at a picture of something square and dark, its body centered around a big eye.
“Look more like a waffle than a dragonfly. Plus it be plenty bigger.”
“Bigger than an insect, yes, but only half as big as you. No more than thirty pounds, I promise you.”
“Oh? How much food that thing going to carry?”
Ricky gave him a now-you’re-talking look. “Robots don’t need food. Their job is fly to asteroids—an asteroid is—”
“Told you, I a museum man.”
“Ah, yes. They fly to asteroids and map them and send back information telling us what each one contains. A dozen robots, testing for platinum. Iron. Water. The sensor—”
“That be the eye?”
“Perhaps you really are a museum man. Yes. The eye can see ten miles down into the asteroid. That way we could send a small ship to the moon. They would know exactly where to go to mine what they need from nearby asteroids.”
Little J. was impressed in spite of himself. “You build this thing?”
Ricky shook his head. “Mike McSwain is building it. But—” He stuck out his chest. “I designed the eye. The optical sensor.”
“Its brain, like.”
“Yes. That is my work.”
“Why steal it? It yours. Zap the plans anywhere you like.”
“Our computers are monitored, Little J. Us also. We are searched when we arrive at the laboratory and when we leave. Today only, Iron Mike has the sensor in his breast pocket. He plans to put it into his robot, live on the six o’clock news.”
Even when something was crazy, it should make its own kind of sense. Little J. took a stab. “That why you after it? People from India has something against teevee?”
“No, foolish boy. Iron Mike’s is not the only robot. This is for a NASA competition.”
“Iron Mike get hisself on teevee, figure he makes a big splash. Impress NASA. Only he look like a loon instead because he blind. No eye. You figure they wash they hands of him.”
Ricky’s face lit up as if it had actually happened. “Exactly.”
“Then you sell it someplace else for more?”
“I am no thief!”
“Why I has to keep saying? I watch you my own self.”
“I only want to hide it until after the news. Once the cameras go away, I can put the sensor back.”
“Except you ain’t got it. Besides, even if you got the skills—which you ain’t—why put it back? Take the risk coming and going.”
“Because without NASA, Mike will sell it to people in a private space program.”
“The ones with they dragonflies.”
“Precisely.”
“So we hides the eye, temporary, makes Iron Mike look like a ass on television, he lose his NASA gig and sell the eye to private moon men instead. That the idea?”
Ricky opened his mouth and closed it again and opened it again to let out one word. “Yes.”
; “You eye be the star of the show. You invent a fucker like that, why you want to make it look bad?”
Ricky sighed. “If only it were that simple. If Iron Mike wins the NASA competition, he will sell my sensor to them. It will be eight years before they use it. Maybe ten.”
“You ain’t Iron Mike’s slave. You goes to somebody else.”
“But the patents will stay with Iron Mike. I want to see my eye working now.” Ricky fingered the Star Trek pin on his lapel. “To send the dragonflies. I want to watch them boldly go and know I, Razzak Nousherwani, helped to make this happen. Besides—” Ricky’s shoulders caved. For a second Little J. thought he might actually put his hands over his face and blubber. “If I don’t soon prove my worth with something concrete, I will be sent back to my own country. I can’t go back.”
Little J. tried to buck him up. “What the worst they can do? Kill you?”
“Maybe. Probably. The other men in my family are already dead.”
And maybe he was just being dramatic. Little J. tried to bring him down to earth. “The other companies, they all knows you a genius, they work something out.”
Ricky sighed. “It is the way of Immigration. If you call on Monday you get one answer, Tuesday you might hear something entirely different. If the phone rings on one desk, they say, You stay. If it rings on another, they say, You must leave.”
Finally Little J. got it. He said darkly, “Like Family Services. They fucks you over to fill the time before lunch.”
“Perhaps.”
“So you ain’t un-American, just un-Immigration.”
Ricky said, “Let us say rather, Immigration is un-Razzak Nousherwani.”
“You say it, I ain’t even try.”
Little J. had too many questions left. That was a risk of being a businessman: you had to make up your mind before you had all the facts.
One obstacle. “Only thing, Buzz be a NASA man.”
Ricky shook his head. “Not any more. He works with the private space industry now.”
“In that case, I think about it. This talking, it just a onceover, you feel me? Only I overdue uptown. Meet you back by Buzz’s poster at four o’clock. You tells me the rest then. And bring lots of pictures of the place inside. Where they lights is. Men’s room. Table where you big eye going to be. Pretend you me, take anything you thinks of. They ax why, tell them you a reporter.”
Ricky had that ruined look again. “You make me realize how impossible it is. Perhaps I won’t bother to come back at four o’clock.”
Little J. said sternly, “If we going to pull this off, you has to stop acting like a limp dick. Besides—” He shot his cuff back to reveal the glinting gold band on his wrist. “—you wants to see you watch again, ain’t you?”
* * *
The watch Little J. had borrowed from Ricky was gold with a wide chain band, paper-thin. He didn’t need to read the label to know what kind: Rolex. It even told good time. It was bang-on four o’clock when he got back to Buzz Aldrin’s poster at the doors of Penn Plaza.
Ricky was waiting—no surprise there—in a fancy suit. Black, with a spanking-white shirt and a dinky black tie. He didn’t look stupid in it, either, even with his ribbon and badge dangling. Little J. had a new t-shirt himself—black, with planets spinning every which way. New was the only way to get clean on the street. No jacket. Cops tended to look past bare-armed thieves.
Little J. brushed by Ricky with a muttered “Follow me.”
At least Ricky knew to keep his mouth shut. He tagged a safe ten feet behind as Little J. crossed to an escalator and down a flight to Penn Station. He waited at the bottom for Ricky to catch up.
Fool was breathless. Out of shape. “Why so dramatic, little man?”
“They a cop up there who know me. Best he ain’t see us together.”
“Alas, it doesn’t matter. I have no pictures. They take all phones and only give them back when one leaves.”
“Then why you here?”
“Well—”
At least he looked ashamed. Little J. said with disgust, “Let me guess. You watch.”
Business was business, good and bad. Little J. handed him the watch and prepared to leave.
“But I did get you this. A souvenir of the day, for your efforts.” Ricky took out a ribbon and badge like his own, and hung it around Little J.’s neck. “I have a friend on the committee.”
A badge not quite like his own: this was made out for J. Little.
“My idea. It sounds more like a name.”
“Why ain’t you say so in the beginning, fool? Once I inside, I does my own looking.”
Ricky looked like a dog who’d finally done something right. He seemed to sense it himself. He said, “I have to remind myself who is the man here, and who is the child.”
He meant, who was the fool and who the businessman.
“How big this eye we working with then?”
Ricky held out his hands like he cupped a baseball. Flatter, though.
“Big for a breast pocket. Unless it be in the coat he wearing?”
“No, the jacket underneath.”
“How big a fool you be? You planning to reach inside both the coat and the jacket? For you first-ever try?”
Ricky hung his head. Well, he should.
“Never mind, you ain’t doing it. Right or left pocket?”
“I saw him put it into the left one.”
“When the big teevee event?”
“Six-ten. He says, give the networks time to read the top headlines, then give them what they want. Well?”
Little J. felt like a doctor. “Time we get started.”
Ricky said, “First I must know a thing, Little J. Why do you help me? Iron Mike is selling to your government. To NASA. They are American. Why do you not want them to have it?”
“You joking.”
“I assure you, I am not.”
“When they going to take ten years to get back to the moon? Look at me, Rick. I be ten. I live on the street. I in a risky business. You think I has ten years to wait?”
Ricky looked serious. “You are an outsider. As I am.”
“You crazy? I on the inside. Anybody have a problem with me, they on the outside. Just telling you why they private moon men has my vote. In ten years, they have a town, a sheriff, probably a moon branch of Hooters. Plus they be filthy rich off mining they asteroids.”
Ricky looked confused. Little J. couldn’t imagine why. He led the way back upstairs to Penn Plaza and the elevator bank that led most directly to the thirty-fourth floor. Down the hall, past a rack holding a couple dozen rich men’s coats, to two pairs of double doors. They fell into line, fidgeting their way forward. Little J. couldn’t help but notice that everybody else was a foot and a half taller. And fancier. Men in black suits with little black bow ties, women in skimpy dresses that looked fan-tata-tastic.
The first problem came when they reached the doors and the name-checkers couldn’t find J. Little on their guest list. Ricky’s fan-girl must have gone off-duty.
“You must be joking,” Ricky said. “You can see, he already has his badge.”
“Check for yourself, sir.”
Ricky pivoted the list and ran a finger down.
“Chill,” Little J. muttered. He turned away, forcing Ricky to follow to a hallway left of the coat-rack.
“Why are you doing this?” Ricky asked in a frantic undervoice. “I could have persuaded her.”
“In your dreams. Besides, after you fuss, they keep they eyes on me like glue. We has to think of something else.”
Ricky did his shoulder cave. “It was good of you to try.”
“What I warn you about?”
“To be realistic is not to be a limp dick!”
“Quiet. I thinking.” At least Ricky didn’t pester him.
At last Little J. reached over to Ricky’s wrist and read his watch. “It say on the poster downstairs, Buzz due at 5:45.” In numbers, not print. About time they had a break. “That be ten
minutes. You going to convince him to talk me in.”
“I can’t.” Ricky backed farther down the hall. “Not possibly.”
This went way beyond limp dick: the man had turned more gray than brown.
“Ain’t you already met him?”
“Not to ask a favor. And if you—we—are caught—I am sorry. I fear I am not a courageous man. But I know I cannot.”
Little J. sighed. “Then give me you watch.” He could have taken it, but the man had to commit to something. Ricky slid it off hastily.
“Now go on back inside so nobody see you with me.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Go, damn it. Get out of my way.”
Ricky slunk away.
Little J. poised himself in the shadow of the coat rack. Ten minutes. Eleven. Twelve.
Then there he was, sliding off a coat. Older. Grayer. So what?
Little J. went out where he’d be seen when Buzz turned and flung himself into a salute. “General Aldrin, sir!”
Buzz’s own salute back was casual. “At ease, son. And it’s just Colonel.”
Little J. relaxed fractionally. “I can’t help what they ass-hats ain’t get around to.”
“Me, either, son. Something I can do for you?”
“I see you in January, General. At the Planetarium.” Little J. tapped his t-shirt. “I a museum man.”
“Now you’re seeing me again.” Buzz patted Little J.’s shoulder and would have passed on.
Little J. said quickly, “Only I thought, this time—” He stuck there.
Buzz glanced at Little J.’s official ribbon. Maybe it did the trick. “You want to see what we do. Feel the magic. Let’s see what we can do for—” Buzz examined Little J.’s badge. “—J. Little. What’s the J for?”
Little J. hung his head. No help for it. “That all there be. My ma never got around to it.”
“No harm, no foul.” Buzz turned to the name-checkers. “Jay, here, is with me. That’s not a problem, is it?”
He was in.
Not only in, Buzz personally toured the huge room with him. The lights were fierce, but there were also shadowy spots between them. Front and center was a table with an actual robot with a hole in its head where Ricky’s sensor-eye would go. Behind it was a giant poster of the sensor itself. The robot might look like a waffle, but the sensor could have belonged to a giant dragonfly, glittery, many-faceted, spooky. Tables covered with linen and stacked with papers. Facing the robot’s table, a blocked-off space chock-a-block with teevee cameras.
Moon Shot Page 10
