"Dick, Philip K - Now Wait for Last Year v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

The answer, of course, was obvious. The bill itself pointed out the problem in all its depressing sobriety. He thought, Fifteen years ago I would have said Ц did say Ц that the combined incomes of Kathy and me would be enough and certainly ought to be enough to maintain any two semi-reasonable adults at any level of opulence. Even taking into account the wartime inflation.


However, it had not quite worked out that way. And he felt a deep, abiding intuition that it just never quite would.



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Within the TF&D Building he dialed the hall leading to his own office, squelching the impulse to drop by Kathy's office upstairs for an immediate confrontation. Later, he decided. After work, perhaps at dinner. Lord, and he had such a full schedule ahead of him; he had no energy Ц and never had had in the past Ч for this endless squabbling.


'Morning, doctor.'


'Hi,' Eric said, nodding to fuzzy Miss Perth, his secretary; this time she had sprayed herself a shiny blue, inlaid with sparkling fragments that reflected the outer office's overhead lighting. 'Where's Himmel?' No sign of the final-stage quality-control inspector, and already he perceived reps from subsidiary outfits pulling up at the parking lot.


'Bruce Himmel phoned to say that the San Diego public library is suing him and he may have to go to court and so he'll probably be late.' Miss Perth smiled at him engagingly, showing spotless synthetic ebony teeth, a chilling affectation which had migrated with her from Amarillo, Texas, a year ago. 'The library cops broke into his conapt yesterday and found over twenty of their books that he'd stolen Ц you know Bruce, he has that phobia about checking things out... how is it put in Greek?'


He passed on into the inner office which was his alone; Virgil Ackerman had insisted on it as a suitable mark of prestige Ц in lieu of a raise in salary.


And there, in his office, at his window, smoking a sweet-smelling Mexican cigarette and gazing out at the austere brown hills of Baja California south of the city, stood his wife Kathy. This was the first time he had met up with her this morning; she had risen an hour ahead of him, had dressed and eaten alone and gone on in her own wheel.


'What's up?' Eric said to her tightly.


'Come on in and shut the door.' Kathy turned but did not look toward him; the expression on her exquisitely sharp face was meditative.


He closed the door. 'Thanks for welcoming me into my own office.'


'I knew that damn bill collector would intercept you this morning,' Kathy said in a faraway voice.


'Almost eighty greens.' he said. 'With the fines.'


'Did you pay it?' Now for the first time she glanced at him; the flutter of her artificially dark lashes quickened, revealing her concern.


'No,' he said sardonically. 'I let the robant gun me down where I stood, there in the parking lot.' He hung his coat in his closet. 'Of course I paid it. It's mandatory, ever since the Mole obliterated the entire class of credit-system purchasing. I realize you're not interested in this, but if you don't pay withinЧ'