To Sail Beyond the Sunset (51 page)

If you invested $10,000.00, your portfolio is now worth $48,231.70.

If you invested $100,000, today your portfolio is worth $482,317.00.

But it is never too late to start prudent investing with Penny. You can start today with $4,823.17 (or any multiple or fraction), which you then place as follows:

(List of investments that add up to $4,823.17.)

If you want to see for yourself the details of how a thousand dollars grows to (current figure) in only (fill in) years and (blank) months, send ($1.00, $2.50, $4.00—the price went steadily up) to Pinch-Penny Publications, Suite 8600, Harriman Tower, New York, N.Y. HKL030 (that being a drop box that caused mail to be routed, eventually, to Eleanor’s stooge in Toronto) or buy it at your local book store:
The Housewife’s Guide to Thrifty Investing
by Prudence Penny.

The hugger-mugger about the address was intended to keep the Securities Exchange Commission from learning that “Prudence Penny” was a director of Harriman Industries. The SEC takes a jaundiced view of “inside information.” So far as I could tell, it would matter not at all to them that my advice was truly beneficial to anyone who followed it. In fact, that might get me beheaded even more quickly.

The column spread from country weeklies to city dailies and did make money after the first year, and quite a lot of money in the thirteen years that I wrote it. Women read it and followed it—so my mail indicated—but I think even more men read it, not to follow my advice, but to try to figure out how this female bear could waltz at all.

I knew that I had succeeded when one day George Strong quoted “Prudence Penny” to me.

My ultimate purpose was not to make money and not to impress anyone but to establish a reputation that let me write a special column in April 1964, one headed “THE MOON BELONGS TO EVERYONE—but the first Moonship will belong to Harriman Industries.”

I advised them to hang on to their Prudence Penny portfolio…but to take every other dime they could scrape up and bet it on the success of D. D. Harriman’s great new venture, placing a man on the Moon.

From then on “Prudence Penny” always had something to say about space travel and Harriman Industries in every column. I freely admitted that space was a long-term investment (and I continued to recommend other investments, all backed by Theodore’s predictions) but I kept on pounding away at the notion that untold riches awaited those farsighted investors who got in early in space activities and hung on. Don’t buy on margin, don’t indulge in profit-taking—buy Harriman stock outright, put it away in your safety deposit box and forget it—your grandchildren will love you.

In the spring of 1965 I moved my household to the Broadmoor Hotel south of Colorado Springs because Mr. Harriman was building his Moonship on Peterson Field. In 1952 I had tried half-heartedly to drop my lease in Kansas City after Brian had taken Priscilla and Donald back to Dallas (another story and not a good one). But George had outflanked me. Title to that house was in George, not Harriman and Strong, not Harriman Industries. When I told him that I no longer needed a four-bedroom house (counting the maid’s room), he asked me to keep it, rent free.

I pointed out that, if I was to become his paid mistress, it wasn’t enough, but if I was to continue the pretense of being a respectable woman, it was too much. He said, All right, what was the going rate for mistresses?—he would double it.

So I kissed him and took him to bed and we compromised. The house was his and he would put his driver and wife in the house, and I could stay in it any time I wished…and the resident couple would take care of Princess Polly.

George had spotted my weak point. I had once subjected this little cat to the trauma of losing her Only Home; I grabbed this means of avoiding doing it to her again.

But I did take an apartment at the Plaza, moved my most necessary books there, got my mail there, and occasionally took Polly there—subjecting her to the indignity of a litter box, true, but she did not fuss. (The new clay pellets were a vast improvement over sand or soil.) Moving back and forth this short distance got her used to a carrying cage and to being away from home now and then. Eventually she got to be a true traveling cat, dignified and at home in the best hotels, a sophisticated guest who would never think of scratching the furniture. This made it much easier for Elijah and Charlene to take vacations, or go elsewhere if George needed them elsewhere.

So in the spring of 1965 a few weeks before the historic first flight to the Moon, Princess Polly and I moved into the Broadmoor. I arrived with Polly in her carrying case, baggage to follow from the terminal of the Harriman Prairie Highway fifty miles north of there—I hated those rolling roads from the first time I rode one; they gave me headaches. But I had been told that the noise problem had been overcome on the Prairie Highway. Never trust a flack!

The desk clerk at the Broadmoor told me, “Madam, we have an excellent kennel back of the tennis club. I’ll have a bellman take your cat there.”

“Just a moment.” I got out my Harriman Industries card—mine had a gold band.

The clerk took one look at it, got the assistant manager on duty. He hurried over, gardenia and striped pants and professional smile. “Mrs. Johnson! So happy to welcome you! Do you prefer a suite? Or a housekeeping apartment?”

Princess Polly did not have to go to a kennel. She dined on chopped liver, courtesy of the management, and had her own cat bed and litter box, both guaranteed sterilized—so said the paper band around each of them, like the one around the toilet seat in my bath.

No bidet—aside from that the Broadmoor was a first-class hotel.

After a bath and a change—my luggage arrived while I was in the bath (of course)—I left Princess Polly to watch television (which she liked, especially the commercials) and went to the bar, to have a solitary drink and see what developed.

And found my son Woodrow.

He spotted me as I walked in. “Hi, Mom!”

“Woodrow!” I was delighted! I kissed him and said, “Good to see you, son! What are you doing here? The last I heard you were at Wright-Patterson.”

“Oh, I quit that; they didn’t appreciate genius. Besides, they expected me to get up too early. I’m with Harriman Industries now, trying to keep ’em straight. It ain’t easy.”

(Should I tell Woodrow that I was now a director of Harriman Industries? I had avoided telling anyone who did not need to know—so wait and see.) “I’m glad you’re keeping them straight. This Moonship of theirs—Do you have something to do with it?”

“Sit down first. What’ll you drink?”

“Whatever you’re having, Woodrow.”

“Well, now, I’m having Manitou Water, with a twist.”

“It looks like vodka tonic. Is that what it is?”

“Not exactly. Manitou Water is a local mineral water. Something like skunk, but not as tasty.”

“Hmm—Make mine a vodka tonic with lime. Is Heather here?”

“She doesn’t like the altitude. When we left Wright-Patterson, she took the kids back to Florida. Don’t raise your eyebrows at me; we get along just fine. She lets me know when it’s time for her to get pregnant again. About every three years, that is. So I go home, stay a month or two, get reacquainted with the kids. Then I go back to work. No huhu, no sweat, no family quarrels.”

“Sounds like a fine arrangement if it suits you two.”

“It does.” He paused to order my drink. I had never learned to drink but I had learned how to order a tall drink and make it last all evening, while ice cubes diluted it. I looked Woodrow over. His skin seemed tight on his face and his hands quite bony.

The waitress left; he turned back. “Now, Mom, tell me what you’re doing here.”

“I’ve always been a space travel buff—remember how we read Roy Rockwood’s Great Marvel series together?
Lost on the Moon, Through Space to Mars
—”

“Sure do! I learned to read because I thought you were holding out on me.”

“Not in those. A little in the Barsoom books, perhaps.”

“I’ve always wanted a beautiful Martian princess…but not the way you had to get one on Barsoom. Remember how they were always spilling each other’s blood? Not for me! I’m the peaceful type, Mom. You know me.”

(I wonder if any mother ever knows her children. But I do feel close to you, dear. I hope you and Heather really are all right.) “So when I heard about the Moonship, I made plans to come here. I want to see it lift off…since I can’t go in it. What do you think of it, Woodrow? Will it do the job?”

“Let’s find out.” Woodrow looked around, then called out to someone sitting at the bar. “Hey, Les! Bring your redeye over here and come set awhile.”

The man addressed came over. He was a small man, with the big hands of a jockey. My son said, “May I present Captain Leslie LeCroix, skipper of the
Pioneer
? Les, this is my daughter Maureen.”

“I’m honored, Miss. But you can’t be Bill’s daughter; you’re too young. Besides, you’re pretty. And he is—Well, look at him.”

“Stop it, boys. I’m his mother, Captain. You really are the captain of the Moonship? I’m impressed.”

Captain LeCroix sat down with us. I saw that his “redeye” was another tall, clear drink. He said to me, “No need to be impressed; the computer pilot does it all. But I’m going to ride her…if I can avoid Bill long enough. Have a chocolate éclair, Bill.”

“Smile when you say that, stranger!”

“A cheeseburger? A jelly doughnut? A stack of wheats with honey?”

“Mom, do you see what that scoundrel is doing? Trying to keep me from dieting just because he’s scared I might break his arms. Or his neck.”

“Why would you do that, Woodrow?”

“I wouldn’t. But Les thinks I would. He weighs just one hundred and twenty-six pounds. My best weight, in training, is one forty-five, you may remember. But by liftoff day and H-hour I have to weigh exactly what he does…because, if he catches a sniffle or slips in the shower and breaks something, God forbid, I have to sit there in his place and pretend to pilot. I can’t avoid it; I accepted their money. And they have a large, ugly man following me around, making sure I don’t run.”

“Don’t believe him, Ma’am. I’m very careful going through doors and I won’t eat anything I don’t see opened. He intends to disable me at the last minute. Is he really your son? He can’t be.”

“I bought him from a Gypsy. Woodrow, what happens if you don’t make the weight?”

“They slice off one leg, a bit at a time, until I’m down to exactly one twenty-six. Spacemen don’t need feet.”

“Woodrow, you always were a naughty boy. You would need feet on the Moon.”

“One is enough there. One-sixth gravity. Hey, there’s that big, ugly man they got watching me! He’s coming this way.”

George Strong came over and bowed. “Dear lady! I see you have met our Moonship captain. And our relief pilot, Bill Smith. May I join you?”

“Mom, do you know this character? Did they hire you to watch me, too? Say it ain’t so!”

“It ain’t so. George, your relief pilot is my son, Woodrow Wilson Smith.”

Later that night George and I had a chance to talk privately and quietly. “George, my son tells me that he must get his weight down to one hundred and twenty-six pounds in order to qualify as relief pilot. Can that be true?”

“Yes. Quite true.”

“He hasn’t weighed that little since his junior year in high school. If he did get his weight down to that and if Captain LeCroix fell ill, I suspect that Woodrow would be too weak to do the job. Wouldn’t it make more sense to adjust weights the way they do with race horses? Add a few lead weights if Captain LeCroix flies; take them out if the relief pilot must go?”

“Maureen, you don’t understand.”

I admitted that I did not.

George explained to me just how tight was the weight schedule for the ship. The
Pioneer
was stripped down to barest essentials. She carried no radio—only indispensable navigational instruments. Not even a standard pressure suit—just a rubber acceleration suit and a helmet. No back pack—just a belt bottle. Open the door, drop a weighted flag, grab some rocks, get back in.

“George, this doesn’t sound to me like the way to do it. I won’t tell Woodrow that—after all, he’s a big boy now”—assumed age, thirty-five; true age, fifty-three—“but I hope Captain LeCroix stays healthy.”

Another of those long waits in which George pondered something unpleasant—“Maureen, this is utter, Blue Star secret. I’m not sure anyone is going to fly that ship.”

“Trouble?”

“Sheriff trouble. I don’t know how much longer I can hold off our creditors. And we haven’t anywhere else to turn. We’ve pawned our overcoat, so to speak.”

“George, let me see what I can do.”

He agreed to live in my apartment and look after Princess Polly while I was away—okay with Princess Polly, as she was used to him. I left for Scottsdale in the morning, to see Justin.

“Look at it this way, Justin. How bad will the Foundation be hurt if you let Harriman Industries collapse?”

“The Foundation would be hurt. But not fatally. We would be able to resume full subsidy in five years, ten at the outside. Maureen, one thing is certain: A conservator of other people’s money must never throw good money after bad.”

Eight million was the most I could squeeze out of him, and I had to guarantee it. Half of it was in CDs, some of which had due dates as long as six months away. (But a certificate of deposit can always be used in place of cash, although it may cost you points.)

To accomplish that much I had to tell Justin, first, that he would never get another “Theodore” tip out of me if he didn’t produce the money, and, second, that if he laid the money on the table, I would place beside it a full and complete transcript of those notes I had taken in the middle of the night on the twenty-ninth of June, 1918.

In the Broadmoor the next morning George would not accept the money from me but took me to Mr. Harriman, who seemed detached, barely able to recognize me, until I said, “Mr. Harriman, I want to buy some more participation in the Lunar launching.”

“Eh? I’m sorry, Mrs. Johnson; there is no more participation stock for sale. That I know of.”

“Then let me put it this way. I would like to lend you eight million dollars as a personal loan without security.”