Code to Zero (5 page)

The
Jupiter C
missile has four stages. The largest part is a high-performance version of the
Redstone
ballistic missile. This is the booster, or first stage, an enormously powerful engine that has the gargantuan task of freeing the missile from the mighty pull of earth’s gravity.

Dr. Billie Josephson was running late.

She had got her mother up, helped her into a quilted bathrobe, made her put on her hearing aid, and sat her in the kitchen with coffee. She had woken her seven-year-old, Larry, praised him for not wetting the bed, and told him he had to shower just the same. Then she returned to the kitchen.

Her mother, a small, plump woman of seventy known as Becky-Ma, had the radio on loud. Perry Como was singing “Catch a Falling Star.” Billie put sliced bread in the toaster, then laid the table with butter and grape jelly for Becky-Ma. For Larry she poured cornflakes into a bowl, sliced a banana over the cereal, and filled a jug with milk.

She made a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and put it in Larry’s lunch box with an apple, a Hershey bar, and a small bottle of orange juice. She put the lunch box in his school bag and added his home reading book and his baseball glove, a present from his father.

On the radio, a reporter was interviewing sightseers on the beach near Cape Canaveral who were hoping to see a rocket launch.

Larry came into the kitchen with his shoelaces untied and his shirt
buttons done up awry. She straightened him out, got him started on his cornflakes, and began to scramble eggs.

It was eight-fifteen, and she was almost caught up. She loved her son and her mother, but a secret part of her resented the drudgery of taking care of them.

The radio reporter was now interviewing an Army spokesman. “Aren’t these rubberneckers in danger? What if the rocket goes off course and crash-lands right here on the beach?”

“There’s no danger of that, sir,” came the reply. “Every rocket has a self-destruct mechanism. If it veers off course, it will be blown up in mid-air.”

“But how can you blow it up after it’s already taken off?”

“The explosive device is triggered by a radio signal sent by the range safety officer.”

“That sounds dangerous in itself. Some radio ham fooling around might accidentally set it off.”

“The mechanism responds only to a complex signal, like a code. These rockets are expensive, we don’t take any risks.”

Larry said, “I have to make a space rocket today. Can I take the yoghurt pot to school?”

“No, you can’t, it’s half full,” she told him.

“But I have to take some containers! Miss Page will be mad if I don’t.” He was near to tears with the suddenness of a seven-year-old.

“What do you need containers for?”

“To make a space rocket! She told us last week.”

Billie sighed. “Larry, if you had told
me
last week, I would have saved a whole bunch of stuff for you. How many times must I ask you not to leave things until the last minute?”

“Well, what am I gonna do?”

“I’ll find you something. We’ll put the yoghurt in a bowl, and . . . what kind of containers do you want?”

“Rocket shape.”

Billie wondered if schoolteachers ever thought about the amount of work they created for busy mothers when they blithely instructed
children to bring things from home. She put buttered toast on three plates and served the scrambled eggs, but she did not eat her own. She went around the house and got a tube-shaped cardboard detergent container, a plastic liquid-soap bottle, an ice-cream carton, and a heart-shaped chocolate box.

Most of the packs showed families using the products—generally a pretty housewife, two happy kids, and a pipe-smoking father in the background. She wondered if other women resented the stereotype as much as she did. She had never lived in a family like that. Her father, a poor tailor in Dallas, had died when she was a baby, and her mother had brought up five children in grinding poverty. Billie herself had been divorced since Larry was two. There were plenty of families without a man, where the mother was a widow, a divorcée, or what used to be called a fallen woman. But they did not show such families on the cornflakes box.

She put all the containers in a shopping bag for Larry to carry to school.

“Oh, boy, I bet I have more than anyone!” he said. “Thanks, Mom.”

Her breakfast was cold, but Larry was happy.

A car horn tooted outside, and Billie quickly checked her appearance in the glass of a cupboard door. Her curly black hair had been hastily combed, she had no makeup on except the eyeliner she had failed to remove last night, and she was wearing an oversized pink sweater . . . but the effect was kind of sexy.

The back door opened and Roy Brodsky came in. Roy was Larry’s best friend, and they greeted one another joyously, as if they had been apart for a month, instead of a few hours. Billie had noticed that all Larry’s friends were boys, now. In kindergarten it had been different, boys and girls playing together indiscriminately. She wondered what psychological change took place, around the age of five, that made children prefer their own gender.

Roy was followed by his father, Harold, a good-looking man with soft brown eyes. Harold Brodsky was a widower: Roy’s mother had died in a car wreck. Harold taught chemistry at George Washington
University. Billie and Harold were dating. He looked at her adoringly and said, “My God, you look gorgeous.” She grinned and kissed his cheek.

Like Larry, Roy had a shopping bag full of cartons. Billie said to Harold, “Did you have to empty half the containers in your kitchen?”

“Yes. I have little cereal bowls of soap flakes, chocolates, and processed cheese. And six toilet rolls without the cardboard cylinder in the middle.”

“Darn, I never thought of toilet rolls!”

He laughed. “I wonder, would you like to have dinner at my place tonight?”

She was surprised. “You’re going to cook?”

“Not exactly. I thought I’d ask Mrs. Riley to make a casserole that I could warm up.”

“Sure,” she said. She had not had dinner at his house before. They normally went to the movies, to concerts of classical music, or to cocktail parties at the homes of other university professors. She wondered what had prompted him to invite her.

“Roy’s going to a cousin’s birthday party tonight, and he’ll sleep over. We’ll have a chance to talk without interruption.”

“Okay,” Billie said thoughtfully. They could talk without interruption at a restaurant, of course. Harold had another reason for inviting her to his house when his child would be away for the night. She glanced at him. His expression was open and candid—he knew what she was thinking. “That’ll be great,” she said.

“I’ll pick you up around eight. Come on, boys!” He shepherded the children out through the back door. Larry left without saying goodbye, which Billie had learned to take as a sign that all was well. When he was anxious about something, or coming down with an infection, he would hang back and cling to her.

“Harold is a good man,” her mother said. “You should marry him soon, before he changes his mind.”

“He won’t change his mind.”

“Just don’t deal him in before he puts his stake on the table.”

Billie smiled at her mother. “You don’t miss much, do you, Ma?”

“I’m old, but I’m not stupid.”

Billie cleared the table and threw her own breakfast in the trash. Rushing now, she stripped her bed, Larry’s, and her mother’s, and bundled the sheets into a laundry bag. She showed Becky-Ma the bag and said, “Remember, all you have to do is hand this to the laundry man when he calls, okay, Ma?”

Her mother said, “I don’t have any of my heart pills left.”

“Jesus Christ!” She rarely swore in front of her mother, but she was at the end of her rope. “Ma, I have a busy day at work today, and I don’t have time to go to the goddamn pharmacist!”

“I can’t help it, I ran out.”

The most infuriating thing about Becky-Ma was the way she could switch from being a perceptive parent to a helpless child. “You could have told me
yesterday
that you were running out—I shopped yesterday! I can’t shop every day, I have a job.”

Becky-Ma burst into tears.

Billie relented immediately. “I’m sorry, Ma,” she said. Becky-Ma cried easily, like Larry. Five years ago, when the three of them had set up house together, Ma had helped take care of Larry. But nowadays she was barely able to look after him for a couple of hours when he came home from school. Everything would be easier if Billie and Harold were married.

The phone rang. She patted Ma on the shoulder and picked it up. It was Bern Rothsten, her ex-husband. Billie got on well with him, despite the divorce. He came by two or three times a week to see Larry, and he cheerfully paid his share of the cost of bringing up the boy. Billie had been angry with him, once, but it was a long time ago. Now she said, “Hey, Bern—you’re up early.”

“Yeah. Have you heard from Luke?”

She was taken aback. “Luke Lucas? Lately? No—is something wrong?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

Bern and Luke shared the intimacy of rivals. When they were young they had argued endlessly. Their discussions often seemed acrimonious, yet they had remained close at college and all through the war. “What’s happened?” Billie said.

“He called me on Monday. I was kind of surprised. I don’t hear from him often.”

“Nor do I.” Billie struggled to remember. “Last time I saw him was a couple of years ago, I think.” Realizing how long it was, she wondered why she had let their friendship lapse. She was just busy all the time, she guessed. She regretted that.

“I got a note from him last summer,” Bern said. “He’d been reading my books to his sister’s kid.” Bern was the author of
The Terrible Twins,
a successful series of children’s books. “He said they made him laugh. It was a nice letter.”

“So why did he call you on Monday?”

“Said he was coming to Washington and wanted to see me. Something had happened.”

“Did he tell you what?”

“Not really. He just said, ‘It’s like the stuff we used to do in the war.’”

Billie frowned anxiously. Luke and Bern had been in OSS during the war, working behind enemy lines, helping the French resistance. But they had been out of that world since 1946—hadn’t they? “What do you think he meant?”

“I don’t know. He said he would call me when he reached Washington. He checked into the Carlton Hotel on Monday night. Now it’s Wednesday, and he hasn’t called. And his bed wasn’t slept in last night.”

“How did you find that out?”

Bern made an impatient noise. “Billie, you were in OSS, too. What would you have done?”

“I guess I would have given a chambermaid a couple of bucks.”

“Right. So he was out all night and he hasn’t come back.”

“Maybe he was cattin’ around.”

“And maybe Billy Graham smokes reefer, but I don’t think so, do you?”

Bern was right. Luke had a powerful sex drive, but he craved intensity, not variety, Billie knew. “No, I don’t think so,” she said.

“Call me if you hear from him, okay?”

“Sure, of course.”

“Be seeing you.”

“Bye.” Billie hung up.

Then she sat at the kitchen table, her chores forgotten, thinking about Luke.

Route 138 meandered south through Massachusetts toward Rhode Island. There was no cloud, and the moon shone on the country roads. The old Ford had no heater. Billie was wrapped up in coat, scarf, and gloves, but her feet were numb. However, she did not really mind. It was no great hardship to spend a couple of hours in a car alone with Luke Lucas, even if he was someone else’s boyfriend. In her experience, beautiful men were tediously vain, but this one seemed to be an exception.

It was taking forever to drive to Newport, but Luke seemed to be enjoying the long journey. Some Harvard men were nervous with attractive women, and chain-smoked, or drank from hip flasks, smoothed their hair all the time and kept straightening their ties. Luke was relaxed, driving without apparent effort and chatting. There was little traffic, and he looked at her as much as at the road.

They talked about the war in Europe. That morning in Radcliffe Yard, rival student groups had set up stalls and handed out leaflets, the Interventionists passionately advocating that America should enter the war, the America Firsters arguing the opposite with equal fervor. A crowd had gathered, men and women, students and professors. The knowledge that
Harvard boys would be among the first to die made the discussions highly emotional.

“I have cousins in Paris,” Luke said. “I’d like us to go over there and rescue them. But that’s kind of a personal reason.”

“I have a personal reason too, I’m Jewish,” Billie said. “But rather than send Americans to die in Europe, I’d open our doors to refugees. Save lives instead of killing people.”

“That’s what Anthony believes.”

Billie was still fuming about the night’s fiasco. “I can’t tell you how mad I am at Anthony,” she said. “He should have made sure we could stay at his friends’ apartment.”

She was hoping for sympathy from Luke, but he disappointed her. “I guess you both were a little too casual about the whole thing.” He said it with a friendly smile, but there was no mistaking the note of censure.

Billie was stung. However, she was indebted to him for this ride, so she swallowed the retort that sprang to her lips. “You’re defending your friend, which is fine,” she said gently. “But I think he had a duty to protect my reputation.”

“Yes, but so did you.”

She was surprised he was so critical. Until now he had been all charm. “You seem to think it was my fault!”

“It was bad luck, mainly,” he said. “But Anthony put you in a position where a little bad luck could do you a lot of damage.”

“That’s the truth.”

“And you let him.”

She found herself dismayed by his disapproval. She wanted him to think well of her—though she did not know why she cared. “Anyway, I’ll never do that again, with any man,” she said vehemently.

“Anthony’s a great guy, very smart, kind of eccentric.”

“He makes girls want to take care of him, brush his hair and press his suit and make him chicken soup.”

Luke laughed. “Could I ask you a personal question?”

“You can try.”

He met her eyes for a moment. “Are you in love with him?”

That was sudden, but she liked men who could surprise her, so she answered candidly. “No. I’m fond of him, I enjoy his company, but I don’t love him.” She thought about Luke’s girlfriend. Elspeth was the most striking beauty on campus, a tall woman with long coppery hair and the pale, resolute face of a Nordic queen. “What about you? Are you in love with Elspeth?”

He returned his gaze to the road. “I don’t think I know what love is.”

“Evasive answer.”

“You’re right.” He threw a speculative look at her, then seemed to decide that she could be trusted. “Well, to be honest, this is as close to love as I’ve ever come, but I still don’t know if it’s the real thing.”

She felt a pang of guilt. “I wonder what Anthony and Elspeth would think of us having this conversation,” she said.

He coughed, embarrassed, and changed the subject. “Damn shame you ran into those men at the House.”

“I hope Anthony won’t be found out. He could be expelled.”

“He’s not the only one. You might be in trouble too.”

She had been trying not to think about that. “I don’t believe anyone knew who I was. I heard one of them say ‘tart.’”

He shot a surprised glance at her.

She guessed that Elspeth would not have used the word “tart,” and she wished she had not repeated it. “I suppose I deserved it,” she added. “I was in a men’s House at midnight.”

He said, “I don’t think there’s ever any real excuse for bad manners.”

It was a reproach to her as much as to the man who had insulted her, she thought with annoyance. Luke had a sharp edge. He was angering her—but that made him interesting. She decided to take the gloves off. “What about you?” she said. “You’re very preachy about Anthony and me, aren’t you? But didn’t you put Elspeth in a vulnerable situation tonight, keeping her out in your car until the early hours?”

To her surprise, he laughed appreciatively. “You’re right, and I’m a pompous idiot,” he said. “We all took risks.”

“That’s the truth.” She shuddered. “I don’t know what I’d do if I got thrown out.”

“Study somewhere else, I guess.”

She shook her head. “I’m on a scholarship. My father’s dead, my mother’s a penniless widow. And if I were expelled for moral transgression, I’d have little chance of getting another scholarship. Why do you look surprised?”

“To be honest, I’d have to say you don’t dress like a scholarship girl.”

She was pleased he had noticed her clothes. “It’s the Leavenworth Award,” she explained.

“Wow.” The Leavenworth was a famously generous grant, and thousands of outstanding students applied for it. “You must be a genius.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, gratified by the respect in his voice. “I’m not smart enough to make sure I have a place to stay the night.”

“On the other hand, being thrown out of college is not the worst thing in the world. Some of the cleverest people drop out—then go on to become millionaires.”

“It would be the end of the world for me. I don’t want to be a millionaire, I want to help sick people get well.”

“You’re going to be a doctor?”

“Psychologist. I want to understand how the mind works.”

“Why?”

“It’s so mysterious and complicated. Things like logic, the way we think. Imagining something that isn’t there in front of us—animals can’t do that. The ability to remember—fish have no memory, did you know that?”

He nodded. “And why is it that just about everyone can recognize a musical octave?” he said. “Two notes, the frequency of one being double that of the other—how come your brain knows that?”

“You find it interesting too!” She was pleased that he shared her curiosity.

“What did your father die of?”

Billie swallowed hard. Sudden grief overwhelmed her. She struggled against tears. It was always like this: a chance word, and from nowhere came a sorrow so acute she could barely speak.

“I’m really sorry,” Luke said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Not your fault,” she managed. She took a deep breath. “He lost his mind. One Sunday morning he went bathing in the Trinity River. The thing is, he hated the water, and he couldn’t swim. I think he wanted to die. The coroner thought so, too, but the jury took pity on us and called it an accident, so that we’d get the life insurance. It was a hundred dollars. We lived on that for a year.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about math.”

“Well.” He thought for a moment. “Math is as weird as psychology,” he said. “Take the number pi. Why should the ratio of circumference to diameter be three point one four two? Why not six, or two and a half ? Who made that decision, and why?”

“You want to explore outer space.”

“I think it’s the most exciting adventure mankind has ever had.”

“And I want to map the mind.” She smiled. The grief of bereavement was leaving her. “You know, we have something in common—we both have big ideas.”

He laughed, then braked the car. “Hey, we’re coming to a crossroads.”

She switched on the flashlight and looked at the map on her knee. “Turn right,” she said.

They were approaching Newport. The time had passed quickly. She felt sorry the trip was coming to an end. “I have no idea what I’m going to tell my cousin,” she said.

“What’s he like?”

“He’s queer.”

“Queer? In what way?”

“In the homosexual way.”

He shot her a startled look. “I see.”

She had no patience with men who expected women to tiptoe around the subject of sex. “I’ve shocked you again, haven’t I?”

He grinned at her. “As you would say—that’s the truth.”

She laughed. It was a Texan colloquialism. She was glad he noticed little things about her.

“There’s a fork in the road,” he said.

She consulted the map again. “You’ll have to pull up, I can’t find it.”

He stopped the car and leaned across to look at the map in the light of the flash. He reached out to turn the map a little, and his touch was warm on her cold hand. “Maybe we’re here,” he said, pointing.

Instead of looking at the map, she found herself staring at his face. It was deeply shadowed, lit only by the moon and the indirect torchlight. His hair fell forward over his left eye. After a moment he felt her gaze and glanced up at her. Without thinking, Billie lifted her hand and stroked his cheek with the outside edge of her little finger. He stared back at her, and she saw bewilderment and desire in his eyes.

“Which way do we go?” she murmured.

He moved away suddenly and put the car in gear. “We take. . . .” He cleared his throat. “We take the left fork.”

Billie wondered what the hell she was doing. Luke had spent the evening smooching with the most beautiful girl on campus. Billie had been out with Luke’s roommate. What was she thinking about?

Her feelings for Anthony had not been strong, even before tonight’s calamity. All the same, she was dating him, so she certainly should not be toying with his best friend.

“Why did you do that?” Luke said angrily.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t intend to, it just happened. Slow down.”

He took a bend too fast. “I don’t want to feel like this about you!” he said.

She was suddenly breathless. “Like what?”

“Never mind.”

The smell of the sea came into the car, and Billie realized they were close to her cousin’s home. She recognized the road. “Next left,” she said. “If you don’t slow down, you’ll miss it.”

Luke braked and turned onto a dirt road.

Half of Billie wanted to arrive at the destination and get out of the car
and leave behind this unbearable tension. The other half wanted to drive with Luke forever.

“We’re here,” she said.

They stopped outside a neat one-storey frame house with gingerbread eaves and a lamp by the door. The Ford’s headlights picked out a cat sitting motionless on a windowsill, looking at them with a calm gaze, disdainful of the turmoil of human emotion.

“Come in,” Billie said. “Denny will make some coffee to keep you awake on the return trip.”

“No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll just wait here until you’re safely inside.”

“You’ve been very kind to me. I don’t think I deserve it.” She held out her hand to shake.

“Are we friends?” he said, taking her hand.

She lifted his hand to her face, kissed it, and pressed it against her cheek, closing her eyes. After a moment she heard him groan softly. She opened her eyes and found him staring at her. His hand moved behind her head, he pulled her to him, and they kissed. It was a gentle kiss, soft lips and warm breath and his fingertips light on the back of her neck. She held the lapel of his rough tweed coat and pulled him closer. If he grabbed her now, she would not resist, she knew. The thought made her burn with desire. Feeling wild, she took his lip between her teeth and bit.

She heard Denny’s voice. “Who’s out there?”

She pulled away from Luke and looked out. There were lights on in the house, and Denny stood in the doorway, wearing a purple silk dressing gown.

She turned back to Luke. “I could fall in love with you in about twenty minutes,” she said. “But I don’t think we can be friends.”

She stared at him a moment longer, seeing in his eyes the same churning conflict she felt in her heart. Then she looked away, took a deep breath, and got out of the car.

“Billie?” said Denny. “For heaven’s sake, what are you doing here?”

She crossed the yard, stepped onto the porch, and fell into his arms. “Oh, Denny,” she murmured. “I love that man, and he belongs to some woman!”

Denny patted her back with a delicate touch. “Honey, I know
just
how you feel.”

She heard the car move and turned to wave. As it swung by, she saw Luke’s face, and the glint of something shiny on his cheeks.

Then he disappeared into the darkness.