"James E. Gunn - The Magicians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

a slot machine. I should have told her then that I didn't want her job, I didn't like the sound of it, I didn't
believe a word she had said, and I was out of the business anyway, but I looked down at the top of the
desk and hit the jackpot. Beside the quarter was a rectangular piece of paper printed green. In each
corner was a figure "1" followed by three lovely symbols for nothing. One by one the gears clunked to a
stop. This I could understand. I picked up the bill and turned it over, I crinkled it. It was crisp and new
and untouched, and I loved the feel of it, "Is it real?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," she said. "It's genuine. And it's yoursтАФ"
"How did it get there?" I asked. The pleasure of finding it was wearing off.
"I put it there while you were looking away," she said.
I hadn't looked away from her for an instant, and I knew she hadn't moved. But she said it as if
she were telling the truth, and I have heard enough lies from students about absences and late papers to
know the truth when I hear it. That was one talent I had for detective work. I looked at the old lady
sitting in the big chair, her spectacles sitting on the end of her nose, her eyes twinkling, and before I could
say anything else she said, "It's yours if you take the job. Is it enough?"
"To start on," I said, and I was lost. "Let me get this straight. The man you want me to find will be
coining into the hotel lobby about ten in the morningтАФIf you know he's going to be there you can find
him yourself!"
"That's just the beginning."
"I see," I said, nodding. "You want me to tail himтАФ"
"And make very certain he doesn't know you're doing it. Very certain. He can be dangerous."
"Dangerous, eh?" I stared at the bill in my hand and crackled it again. Maybe it wasn't so big
after all. Not that I'm afraid of danger. Not in moderate amounts. I just wasn't sure I wanted a thousand
bucks' worth. "So I tail him. And then what?"
"You find out his name."
"His name?"
"His real name."
"I see." This is the first thing I had understood in a long while, "He going under an alias."
She hesitated. "I guess that's what you call it."
"He's blackmailing you," I said with a scarcely concealed note of triumph in my voice. At least I
had figured it out; things began falling into place like the last pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
She looked shocked right down to the tip of her nose. "Nothing like that!"
"He's involved with your daughter, and you suspect he's married!"
"I have no daughter!" she said indignantly.
I tried once more. "He claims to be a long-lost relative, and you think he's an imposter." But it
was weak, and even I couldn't put any conviction into it.
Her lips pressed together into a single line, like an old-maid schoolteacher I once had who taught
handwriting in the fourth grade. She hadn't taught me much either. "Just do what I tell you and don't jump
to conclusions. Remember: he's very skillful atтАФat disguises. If you see him get in a car and see someone
get out later looking much, much different, don't be surprised. Believe your own powers of logic, not
your prejudices about what you think is possible. Because the man who gets out of the car will be the
one you want; it's his name I want you to find out."
"But what if he doesn't get into a car?" I asked.
"That's just an example, silly!" she said impatiently, "You know what I mean."
"I get it," I said. I really did. The old lady was crazy. She had what psychologists call a
monomania. She had been looking under her bed for so long that she had started seeing things. And now
she wanted to know his name. You might not suspect it, just looking at her, but monomaniacs may be
completely normal except on one subject.
I knew what would happen. Nobody would show up in the lobby. I'd hang around for two or
three hours, charge her for a day's work, and give the rest of the money back to her. Hell, I rationalized
to myself, if I turned her down she might go to someone who wasn't ethical, who would give her a fake