"Jack Finney - Of Missing Persons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

OF MISSING PERSONS
by Jack Finney
Here, more than in any other story in this book (though "Bulkhead," and
"Home There's No Returning" come close), is pure fable in the form of
science-fantasy. And this time there is even a moral, clearlyтАФ if
sadlyтАФstated.

The conflict in this story is not, as in most of the others, generated by the
prospect of problems we may have to face tomorrow or next year. It is the
immediate and all-too-familiar problem of a normal, nice guy caught in the
trap of steel and concrete, of wheels, fumes, and strangers that we call The
City.

There were two other stories published this past year that handled the
same theme, either of which might have been included here instead:
Abernathy's "Single Combat," and "The Vanishing American," by Charles
Beaumont. I chose the Finney, both for its compassionate treatment and for
its evocative prose.


Walk in as though it were an ordinary travel bureau, the stranger I'd met at a bar had told me. Ask a
few ordinary questionsтАФabout a trip you're planning, a vacation, anything like that. Then hint
about The Folder a little, but whatever you do, don't mention it directly; wait till he brings it up
himself. And if he doesn't, you might as well forget it. If you can. Because you'll never see it;
you're not the type, that's all. And if you ask about it, he'll just look at you as though he doesn't
know what you're talking about.

I rehearsed it all in my mind, over and over, but what seems possible at night over a beer isn't easy to
believe on a raw, rainy day, and I felt like a fool, searching the store fronts for the street number I'd
memorized. It was noon hour, West 42nd Street, New York, rainy and windy; and like half the men
around me, I walked with a hand on my hatbrim, wearing an old trench coat, head bent into the slanting
rain, and the world was real and drab, and this was hopeless.

Anyway, I couldn't help thinking, who am I to see The Folder, even if there is one? Name? I said to
myself, as though I were already being asked. It's Charley Ewell, and I'm a young guy who works in a
bank; a teller. I don't like the job; I don't make much money, and I never will. I've lived in New York for
over three years and haven't many friends. What the heck, there's really nothing to sayтАФI see more
movies than I want to, read too many books, and I'm sick of meals alone in restaurants. I have ordinary
abilities, looks, and thoughts. Does that suit you; do I qualify?

Now I spotted it, the address in the 200 block, an old, pseudo-modernized office building, tired,
outdated, refusing to admit it but unable to hide it. New York is full of them, west of Fifth.

I pushed through the brass-framed glass doors into the tiny lobby, paved with freshly mopped,
permanently dirty tile. The green-painted walls were lumpy from old plaster repairs; in a chrome frame
hung a little wall directoryтАФwhite-celluloid, easily changed letters on a black-felt background. There
were some twenty-odd names, and I found "Acme Travel Bureau" second on the list, between "A-l
Mimeo" and "Ajax Magic Supplies." I pressed the bell beside the old-style, open-grille elevator door; it
rang high up in the shaft. There was a long pause, then a thump, and the heavy chains began rattling
slowly down toward me, and I almost turned and leftтАФthis was insane.