"Dick, Philip K - We Can Build You - txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

WE CAN BUILD YOU
by Philip K. Dick


Copyright 1972 by Philip K. Dick

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Originally published by DAW Books, Inc., New York, in 1972.

Magazine serialization copyright 1969, 1970 by Ultimate Publishing Co., Inc.

ISBN O-679-75296-X


To Robert and Ginny Heinlein,
whose kindness to us meant more
than ordinary words can answer.



1

Our sales technique was perfected in the early 1970s. First we put an ad in a local newspaper, in the classified.

Spinet piano, also electronic organ, repossessed,
in perfect condition, SACRIFICE. Cash or good credit
risk wanted in this area, to take over payments rather
than transport back to Oregon. Contact Frauenzimmer
Piano Company, Mr. Rock, Credit Manager, Ontario, Ore.

For years we've run this ad in newspapers in one town after another, all up and down the western states and as far inland as Colorado. The whole approach developed on a scientific, systematic basis; we use maps, and sweep along so that no town goes untouched. We own four turbine-powered trucks, out on the road constantly, one man to a truck.
Anyhow, we place the ad, say in the San Rafael Independent-Journal, and soon letters start arriving at our office in Ontario, Oregon, where my partner Maury Rock takes care of all that. He sorts the letters and compiles lists, and then when he has enough contacts in a particular area, say around San Rafael, he night-wires the truck. Suppose it's Fred down there in Mann County. When Fred gets the wire he brings out his own map and lists the calls in proper sequence. And then he finds a pay phone and telephones the first prospect.
Meanwhile, Maury has airmailed an answer to each person who's written in response to the ad.

Dear Mr. So-and-so:
We were gratified to receive your response to our notice
in the San Rafael Independent-Journal. The man who is handling
this matter has been away from the office for a few days now,
so we've decided to forward to him your name and address with
the request that he contact you and provide you with all the
details.

The letter drones on, but for several years now it has done a good job for the company. However, of late, sales of the electronic organs have fallen off. For instance, in the Vallejo area we sold forty spinets not so long ago, and not one single organ.
Now, this enormous balance in favor of the spinet over the electronic organ, in terms of sales, led to an exchange between I and my partner, Maury Rock; it was heated, too.
I got to Ontario, Oregon, late, having been down south around Santa Monica discussing matters with certain dogooders there who had invited law-enforcement officials in to scan our enterprise and method of operating . . . a gratuitous action which led to nothing, of course, since we're operating strictly legally.
Ontario isn't my hometown, or anybody else's. I hail from Wichita Falls, Kansas, and when I was high school age I moved to Denver and then to Boise, Idaho. In some respects Ontario is a suburb of Boise; it's near the Idaho border-- you go across a long metal bridge--and it's a flat land, there, where they farm. The forests of eastern Oregon don't begin that far inland. The biggest industry is the Ore-Ida potato patty factory, especially its electronics division, and then there're a whole lot of Japanese farmers who were shuffled back that way during World War Two and who grow onions or something. The air is dry, real estate is cheap, people do their big shopping in Boise; the latter is a big town which I don't like because you can't get decent Chinese food there. It's near the old Oregon Trail, and the railroad goes through it on its way to Cheyenne.
Our office is located in a brick building in downtown Ontario across from a hardware store. We've got root iris growing around our building. The colors of the iris look good when you come driving up the desert routes from California and Nevada.