He called Eastman and told him how much he admired what he’d been doing. “NASA would like to promote this kind of work, Harry,” he said. “We’d like you to support an annual prize, the Eastman Prize, to someone connected with us. For outstanding contributions to special needs kids. Or battered women. Whatever fits. “

“I’d be honored,” Harry said, speaking from Houston, “but the foundation doesn’t really have money to spare. How much would it cost?”

“Just the price of the plaque, Harry. In other words, zero.”

“That’s very kind of you, Jerry.”

“Well, I wouldn’t kid you that we’re being entirely selfless. We expect to get good publicity out of it. And we’ve a few people who’ve been doing the kind of work you have. Not on your scale, but—”

“Let’s make it happen,” he said.

“Excellent. We’ll want you to come in for the first presentation. On our dime, of course.”

Harry laughed. He was lean, with gray hair and the kind of narrow, introspective features Jerry associated with people who’d been through painful experiences and hadn’t quite gotten past them. He wondered how all the time Eastman had spent with damaged kids had affected him. “I’ll be there. When’s it happening?”

—

Jerry asked his deputy, Vanessa Aguilera, to make the call to Kirby. Best was to keep his distance from the project and not let Kirby know he was involved. “Tell him,” he said, “that we wanted to do something special during the opening weeks of the Hall of Fame. And Mary suggested recognizing people associated with the Agency who’ve been doing public service. Something not having to do with space technology. So we came up with the Eastman Award.”

Vanessa was gone about ten minutes, then came back to tell him that Kirby had accepted. “He was excited,” she said.

“Excellent,” said Jerry.

Vanessa had soft brown hair and large blue eyes. She loved her job and was worried, like everyone else, that the organization was going under. It’s nice, she was fond of saying, to be doing work that matters. If the Agency shut down, when it shut down, she didn’t want to land eventually with a lumber company or in an Amtrak office doing accounting or answering phones. “He doesn’t look well, though,” she said.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, he’s pretty old. He’s in a wheelchair, and he was having a hard time breathing.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. Sounds as if he’s gone downhill since last year.”

“He commented that it seems to be a last-minute arrangement.”

Damn. That meant he suspected what was behind the award. Jerry was momentarily surprised that he’d agreed to come if he’d figured it out already. But then Vanessa eased his mind: “He thinks you want to get to him before he passes.”

“Oh.” Maybe they’d caught a break.

“He seems like a nice guy,” she added.

—

The first Harry Eastman Award would be made at the new Hall of Fame, on the last Thursday of the month, which was three weeks away. Jerry handed most of the organizing details over to Vanessa, issued special invitations to people who’d played a major role in NASA’s activities over the years, invited the media, and put together some appropriate remarks for Mary.

He settled back into his normal routine. He oversaw his blog, which was usually written by an intern; contributed to the NASA online presence; coordinated speaking engagements for the Agency’s representatives; made appearances at the University of Georgia and at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

The LEM story turned into a two-day gag line. Fortunately, it had no traction. Nobody believed there was anything to it. How could there be? Even Warren Cole, when he came by on an unrelated matter, laughed about it. “It’s a pity, though,” he said. “What a story that would have made.”

They were seated in the downstairs dining room. Cole was enjoying a plate of fish and fries, while Jerry, always conscious of his weight, settled for a grilled chicken salad. “You’re really disappointed, aren’t you, Warren?”

“I can’t get disappointed about something I never believed in the first place. Did you find out what they were talking about?”

“Not really. It has to have been a joke.”

“Yeah. Pity. It’s a story I’d have killed for.”

Cole was one of several reporters Jerry used to get stories out. It was always helpful to give someone an exclusive, even if you were planning a formal announcement a day or two later. It was a way of making reporters happy and keeping them on your side.

In this case, though, Jerry had his own motive. “On the subject of Myshko and the LEM,” he said, speaking casually, “did you know who the CAPCOM was on the ground?”

Cole thought about it. Shrugged. “Before my time.” He studied his fish and fries. And shrugged again. “Why, Jerry? Does it matter?”

“No.” Jerry took a large bite of his salad, chewed, and looked out the window. It was a gray, chilly day.

“Then why’d you bring it up?”

“His name’s Frank Kirby.”

“He’s still alive?”

“You got the handout on the Eastman Award?”

“Yes.”

“Kirby will be the recipient that night.”

Cole was prematurely bald, with a ridge of brown hair around his skull. He squeezed his forehead, rubbed his temples. “The story’s dead, Jerry. You’re not trying to bring it up again, are you?”

“Of course not. Though I wonder if he knows how close he came to giving the media the story of a lifetime.”

Cole made a face like a guy with a toothache. “I think I’ll leave it alone.”

Jerry smiled. “I’m in favor of that, Warren.”

“Have you mentioned this to anybody else?”

“No.” Jerry made a science of knowing the media people. Cole would say nothing to anyone. And on the day of the luncheon, he wouldn’t be able to resist. That would open the door.

When they’d finished eating, Jerry picked up the tab.

3

Morgan Blackstone looked out the window of his office and was well pleased. Off to the left, covering two acres of ground, was Blackstone Enterprises. To the right, thirty floors high and seeming to reach for the sky, was Blackstone Development. Between the two was the least impressive and most important of his businesses, Blackstone Innovations.

It was amazing, he reflected, what one forty-two-inch bosom could lead to. He’d seen the possessor of that bosom on the beach when he was barely twenty years old, talked her into posing nude in his studio (not that he owned one, but he rented a friend’s unused garage), and when no one would pay him what he thought was a fair price for his photos, he decided to publish them himself. He talked some acquaintances into pooling their money—he’d never had trouble raising money—and two months later published the first issue of Suave. He’d shared a dorm room with best-selling hard-boiled mystery writer Chuck Bestler’s son, got him to invest, and he in turn got Bestler to write the lead story. Blackstone had paid Bestler with 5 percent of the magazine, and Bestler, seeing gold in them thar hills, got all his friends in category fiction to contribute, at which point the magazine was a hit, and Blackstone, who barely knew one end of a camera from the other, hired a pair of top photographers who had their own stables of forty-two-inch models. And long before his twenty-second birthday, Morgan Blackstone was a multimillionaire.

He’d never liked his name, so he created a new persona, dressed like a cowboy (but in cowboy duds created on Park Avenue in Manhattan) and signed all his ads and editorials “Bucky.” The name and image stuck, and he was “Morgan” only on contracts and tax returns from then on. By the time he turned twenty-three, Blackstone was bored with the magazine. He knew there were more important challenges out there, and he never wanted to become the eighty-year-old embarrassment Hugh Hefner had become, a withered old man pretending he was thirty-five and assuming that people still cared about his notion of the Good Life.