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

 Now he was frankly staring, his eyes studying my face intently with no pretense of doing anything else,
and I knew that in a moment he'd shake his head and say, "Mister, you better get to a doctor." But he
didn't. He continued to stare, his eyes examining my forehead now. He was a big man, his gray hair crisp
and curling, his lined face very intelligent, very kind; he looked the way ministers should look; he looked
the way all fathers should look.


He lowered his gaze to look into my eyes and beyond them; he studied my mouth, my chin, the line of
my jaw, and I had the sudden conviction that without any difficulty he was learning a great deal about me,
more than I knew myself. Suddenly he smiled and placed both elbows on the counter, one hand grasping
the other fist and gently massaging it. "Do you like people? Tell the truth, because I'll know if you aren't."

"Yes. It isn't easy for me to relax though, and be myself, and make friends."

He nodded gravely, accepting that. "Would you say you're a reasonably decent kind of man?"

"I guess so; I think so." I shrugged.

"Why?"

I smiled wryly; this was hard to answer. "WellтАФat least when I'm not, I'm usually sorry about it."

He grinned at that, and considered it for a moment or so. Then he smiledтАФdeprecatingly, as though
he were about to tell a little joke that wasn't too good. "You know," he said casually, "we occasionally
get people in here who seem to be looking for pretty much what you are. So just as a sort of little
jokeтАФ"

I couldn't breathe. This was what I'd been told he would say if he thought I might do.

"тАФwe've worked up a little folder. We've even had it printed. Simply for our own amusement, you
understand. And for occasional clients like you. So I'll have to ask you to look at it here if you're
interested. It's not the sort of thing we'd care to have generally known."

I could barely whisper, "I'm interested."

He fumbled under the counter, then brought out a long thin folder, the same size and shape as the
others, and slid it over the glass toward me.

I looked at it, pulling it closer with a finger tip, almost afraid to touch it. The cover was dark blue, the
shade of a night sky, and across the top in white letters it said, "Visit Enchanting Verna!" The blue cover
was sprinkled with white dotsтАФstarsтАФand in the lower left corner was a globe, the world, half
surrounded by clouds. At the upper right, just under the word "Verna," was a star larger and brighter
than the others; rays shot out from it, like from a star on a Christmas card. Across the bottom of the
cover it said, "Romantic Verna, where life is the way it should be." There was a little arrow beside the
legend, meaning Turn the page.

I turned, and the folder was like most travel folders insideтАФthere were pictures and text, only these
were about "Verna" instead of Paris, or Rome, or the Bahamas. And it was beautifully printed; the
pictures looked real. What I mean is, you've seen color stereopticon pictures? Well, that's what these
were like, only better, far better. In one picture you could see dew glistening on grass, and it looked wet.