Baby Is Three (23 page)

Naome whistled. “Really—a straight telegram? What about a night letter?”

Cris smiled at the place where the wall met the ceiling. “Straight rate.”

“Yes, master.” She wielded a busy pencil. “That’s costing us $13.75, sir,” she said at length, “plus tax. Grand total, $17.46. Cris, you have a hole in your head!”

“If you know of a better ‘ole, go to it,” he quoted dreamily. She glared at him, reached for the phone and continued to glare as she put the telegram on the wire.

In the next two weeks Cris had lunch three times with Tillie Moroney, and dinner once. Naome asked for a raise. She got it, and was therefore frightened.

Cris returned from the third of these lunches (which was the day after the dinner) whistling. He found Naome in tears.

“Hey … what’s happening here? You don’t do that kind of thing, remember?”

He leaned over her desk. She buried her face in her arms and boohooed lustily. He knelt beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “There,” he said, patting the nape of her neck. “Take a deep breath and tell me about it.”

She took a long, quavering breath, tried to speak, and burst into tears again. “F-f-fi-fi …”

“What?”

“F—” She swallowed with difficulty, then said,
“Fire of Heaven!”
and wailed.

“What?” he yelled. “I thought you said
‘Fire of Heaven.’
”

She blew her nose and nodded. “I did,” she whispered. “H-here.” She dumped a pile of manuscript in front of him and buried her face in her arms again. “L-leave me alone.”

In complete bewilderment, he gathered up the typewritten sheets and took them to his desk.

There was a covering letter.

With feelings of awe well mixed with astonishment, Cris turned to the manuscript.
Fire of Heaven
, by Sig Weiss, it was headed. He began
to read. For a moment, he was conscious of Naome’s difficult and diminishing sniffs, and then he became completely immersed in the story.

Twenty minutes later, his eyes, blurred and smarting, encountered “The End.” He propped his forehead on one palm and rummaged clumsily for his handkerchief. Having thoroughly mopped and blown, he looked across at Naome. Her eyes were red-rimmed and still wet. “Yes?” she said.

“Oh my God yes,” he answered.

They stared at each other for a breathless moment. Then she said in a soprano near-whisper:
“Fire of …”
and began to cry again.

“Cut it out,” he said hoarsely.

When he could, he got up and opened the window. Naome came and stood beside him. “You don’t read that,” he said after a time. “It … happens to you.”

She said, “What a tragedy. What a beautiful, beautiful tragedy.”

“He said in his letter,” Cris managed, “that if I had any suggestions to fix it up …”

“Fix it up,” she said in shaken scorn. “There hasn’t been anything like him since—”

“There hasn’t been anything like him period.” Cris snapped his fingers. “Get on your phone. Call the airlines. Two tickets to the nearest feederfield to Turnville. Call the Drive-Ur-Self service. Have a car waiting at the field. I’m not asking any woman to climb that mountain on foot. Send this telegram to Weiss: Taking up your very kind offer immediately. Bringing a friend. Will wire arrival time. Profound thanks for the privilege of reading
Fire of Heaven
. From a case-hardened ten-percenter those words come hard and are well earned. Post.”

“Two tickets,” said Naome breathlessly. “Oh! Who’s going to handle the office?”

He thumped her shoulder. “You can do it, kid. You’re wonderful. Indispensable. I love you. Get me Tillie Moroney’s number, will you?”

She stood frozen, her lips parted, her nostrils slightly distended. He looked at her, looked again. He was aware that she had stopped breathing. “Naome!”

She came to life slowly and turned, not to him, but on him. “You’re taking that—that Moron-y creature—”

“Moroney. What’s the matter with you?”

“Oh Cris, how could you?”

“What have I done? What’s wrong? Listen, this is business. I’m not romancing the girl! Why—”

She curled her lip. “Business! Then it’s the first business that’s gone on around here that I haven’t known about.”

“Oh, it isn’t office business, Naome. Honestly.”

“Then there’s only one thing it could be!”

Cris threw up his hands. “Trust me this once. Say! Why should it eat you so much, even if it was monkey-business, which it isn’t?”

“I can’t bear to see you throw yourself away!”

“You—I didn’t know you felt—”

“Shut up!” she roared. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s just that she’s … average. And so are you. And when you add an average to an average, you’ve produced NOTHING!”

He sat down at his desk with a thump and reached for the phone, very purposefully. But his mind was in such a tangle at the moment, that he didn’t know what to do with the phone once it was in his hands, until Naome stormed over and furiously dropped a paper in front of him. It had Tillie’s number on it. He grinned at her stupidly and sheepishly and dialed. By this time, Naome was speaking to the airlines office, but he knew perfectly well that she could talk and listen at the same time.

“Hello?” said the phone.

“Ull-ull,” he said, watching Naome’s back stiffen. He spun around in his swivel chair so he could talk facing the wall.

“Hello?” said the phone again.

“Tillie, Weiss found it he wrote another story it’s a dream he invited me down and I’m going and you’re coming with me,” he blurted.

“I beg your—Cris, is anything the matter? You sound so strange.”

“Never mind that,” he said. He repeated the news more coherently, acutely conscious of Naome’s attention to every syllable. Tillie uttered a cry of joy and promised to be right over. He asked her to
hang on and forced himself to get the plane departure from Naome. Pleading packing and business odds and ends, he asked her to meet him at the airport. She agreed, for which he was very thankful. The idea of her walking into the office just now was more than he could take.

Naome had done her phoning and was in a flurry of effort involving her files, which had always been a mystery to Cris. She kept bringing things over to him. “Sign these.” “You promised to drop Rogers a note about this.” “What do you want done about Borilla’s scripts?” Until he was snowed under. “Hold it! These things can wait!”

“No they can’t,” she said icily. “I wouldn’t want them on my conscience. You see, this is my last day here.”

“Your—Naome! You can’t quit. You can’t!”

“I can and I am and I do. Check this list.”

“Naome, I—”

“I won’t listen. My mind’s made up.”

“All right then. I’ll manage. But it’s a shame about
Fire of Heaven
. Such a beautiful job. And here it must sit until I get back. I did want you to market it.”

“You’d trust me to market that story?” Her eyes were huge.

“No one else. There isn’t anyone who knows the market better, or who would make a better deal. I trust you with it absolutely. After you’ve done that one last big thing for me—go, then, if you’ll be happier somewhere else.”

“Crisley Post, I hate you and despise you. You’re a fiend and a spider. Th-thank you. I’ll never forget you for this. I’ll type up four originals and sneak them around. Movies, of course. What a TV script! And radio … let’s see; two, no—three British outfits can bid against each other … you’re doing this on purpose to keep me from leaving!”

“Sure,” he said jovially. “I’m real cute. I wrote the story myself just because I couldn’t get anyone to replace you.”

At last she laughed. “There’s one thing I’m damn sure you didn’t do. An editor is a writer who can’t write, and an agent is a writer who can’t write as well as an editor.”

He laughed with her. He bled too, but it was worth it, to see her laughing again.

The plane trip was pleasant. It lasted a long time. The ship sat down every 45 minutes or so all the way across the country. Cris figured it was the best Naome could do on short notice. But it gave them lots of time to talk. And talking to Tillie was a pleasure. She was intelligent and articulate, and had read just as many of his favorite books as he had of hers. He told her enough about
Fire of Heaven
to intrigue her a lot and make her cry a little, without spoiling the plot for her. They found music to disagree about, and shared a view of a wonderful lake down through the clouds, and all in all it was a good trip. Occasionally, Cris glanced at her—most often when she was asleep—with a touch of surmise, like a little curl of smoke, thinking of Naome’s suspicions about him and Tillie. He wasn’t romancing Tillie. He wasn’t. Was he?

They landed at last, and again he blessed Naome; the Drive-Ur-Self car was at the airfield. They got a road map from a field attendant and drove off through the darkest morning hours. Again Cris found himself glancing at the relaxed girl beside him, half asleep in the cold glow of the dash lights. A phrase occurred to him: “undivided front like a Victorian”—Naome’s remark. He flushed. It was true. An affectation of Tillie’s, probably; but everything she wore was highnecked and full-cut.

The sky had turned from grey to pale pink when they pulled up at the Turnville store. Cris honked, and in due course the screen door slammed and the old proprietor ambled down the wooden steps and came to peer into his face.

“Heh! If ’tain’t that city feller. How’re ya, son? Didn’t know you folks ever got up and about this early.”

“We’re up late, dad. Got some gas for us?”

“Reckon there’s a drop left.”

Cris got out and went back with the old man to unlock the gas tank. “Seen Weiss recently?” he asked.

“Same as usual. Put through some big orders. Seen him do that before. Usually means he’s holing up for five, six months. Though
why he bought so much liquor an’ drape material and that, I can’t figure.”

“How’d he behave?”

“Same as ever. Friendly as a wet wildcat with fleas.”

Cris thanked him and paid him and they turned up the rocky hill road. As they reached the crest, they gasped together at the sun-flooded valley that lay before them. “Memories are the only thing you ever have that you always keep,” said Tillie softly, “and this is one for both of us. I’m … glad you’re in it for me, Cris.”

“I love you, too,” he said in the current idiom, and found himself, hot-faced, looking into a face as suffused as his. They recoiled from each other and started to chatter about the weather—stopped and roared together with laughter. He took her hand and helped her up the cutbank. They paused at the top. “Listen,” he said in a low voice. “That old character in the store has seen Weiss recently. And he says there’s no change. I think we’d better be just a little bit careful.”

He looked at her and again caught that listening expression. “No,” she said at length, “it’s all right. The store’s outside the … the influence he’s under. He’s bound to revert when it’s gone. But he’ll be all right now. You’ll see.”

“Will you tell me how you know these things?” he demanded, almost angry.

“Of course,” she smiled. Then the smile vanished. “But not now.”

“That’s more than I’ve gotten so far,” he grumbled. “Well, let’s get to it.”

Hand in hand, they went up the path. The house seemed the same, and yet … there was a difference, an intensification. The leaves were greener, the early sun warmer.

There were three grey kittens on the porch.

“Ahoy the house!” Cris called self-consciously.

The door opened, and Weiss stood there, peering. He looked for a moment exactly as he had when he watched Cris stride off on the earlier visit. Then he moved out into the sun. He scooped up one of the kittens and came swiftly to meet them. “Mr. Post! I got your wire. How good of you to come.”

He was dressed in a soft sport shirt and grey slacks—a startling difference from his grizzled boots-and-khaki appearance before. The kitten snuggled into the crook of his elbow, made a wild grab at his pocket-button, caught its tail instead. He put it down, and it fawned and purred and rubbed against his shoe.

Weiss straightened up and smiled at Tillie. “Hello.”

“Tillie, this is Sig Weiss. Miss Moroney.”

“Tillie,” she said, and gave him her hand.

“Welcome home,” Weiss said. He turned to Cris. “This is your home, for as long as you want it, whenever you can come.”

Cris stood slack-jawed. “I ought to be more tactful,” he said at length, “but I just can’t believe it. I should have more sense than to mention my last visit, but this—this—”

Weiss put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you mentioned it. I’ve been thinking about it, too. Hell—if you’d forgotten all about it, how could you appreciate all this? Come on in. I have some surprises for you.”

Tillie held Cris back a moment. “It’s here,” she whispered. “Here in the house!”

The weapon—here? Somehow he had visualized it as huge—a great horned mine or a tremendous torpedo shape. He glanced around apprehensively. The ultimate weapon—invented after the planet-smasher, the sun-burster—what incredible thing could it be?

Weiss stood by the door. Tillie stepped through, then Cris.

The straight drapes, the solid sheet of plate glass that replaced the huge sashed window; the heavy skins that softened the wide-planked floor, the gleaming andirons and the copper pots on the fieldstone wall; the record-player and racks of albums—all the other soothing, comforting finishes of the once-bleak room—all these Cris noticed later. His big surprise was not quite a hundred pounds, not quite five feet tall—