"Haldeman, Joe - No Future in It" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

NO FUTURE IN IT

It's not easy to keep exactly one-eighth inch of beard on your face. For a writer, though, it's good protective coloration. With a suit and tie, you look like a gentleman who's decided to grow a beard. With rumpled old Salvation Army clothes, you look like a down-and-out rummy. It depends on the class of people you want to listen to, study.
I was in the rummy outfit when I met Bill Caddis and heard his incredible story. At first I thought Bill was on the same scam I was; he talked too well to be in the dreg business. He was for real, though.
There's this wonderful sleaze bar in downtown Tampa. No name, just a bunch of beer signs in the window. The one for Pearl has a busted laser that flutters stroboscopically. You don't want to sit too near the window. It's a good bar for private conversations because it's right under the twelve-laner that sweeps out over the bay, and there's a constant moan of traffic, all day and all night. There's a fine gritty layer of plaster dust everywhere, and not too much light. The bartender is missing an eye and ten front teeth, and smiles frequently. The booze is cheap; they make most of their money upstairs, and like to have lots of customers in the bar, for camouflage.
I sat down at the bar and the bartender polished glasses while one of the whores, a pretty boy-girl, sidled in for the kill. When I said no she pleaded mechanically, saying she was saving for a real pair of tits and the Operation. I hesitatedЧI string for the Bad News wire service sometimes, and they like sexy pathosЧbut turned her down more finally. Bad News doesn't pay that well.
When she left the bartender came over and I ordered a Myers's with a beer chaser, suitable hard-core combination. I'd taken two Flame-outs before I came, though, so I could drink a dozen or so without too ill effect. Until morning.
"Little early in the day for that, isn't it?" The man next to me chuckled hoarsely. "Not to criticize." He was nursing a double bourbon or scotch, neat.
"Dusty," I said. The man was dressed a little more neatly than I, in faded work clothes. He looked too old to be a laborer, shock of white hair with a yellowish cast. But he did have the deep tan and permanent squint of one who's spent decades in the Florida sun. I tossed back the jigger of rum and sipped the beer. "Come here often?"
"Pretty often," he said. "When my check comes in I put a few bucks on a number. Otherwise . . ." He shrugged. "Cheap whiskey and pretty women. To look at."
"How many of them do you think are women?"
"Just looking, who cares?" He squinted even more, examining me. "Could I see your palms?"
Oh, boy, I thought, a fortuneteller. Might be a story if he actually believes in it. I held out my hands.
He glanced at them and stared at my face. "Yeah, I could tell by the eyes," he said softly. "You're no alcoholic. You're not as old as you look, either. Cop?"
"No. Used to be a teacher." Which was true. "Every now and then I go on these binges."
He nodded slowly. "Used to be a teacher, too. Until '83. Then I worked the sponge boats twenty years." When he picked up his glass, his hand had the regular slow shake of a confirmed alky. "It was good work."
I reached in my pocket and turned on the tape recorder. "Why was it you stopped teaching? Booze?"
"No . . . who drank in the eighties?" I didn't, but I wasn't old enough. "It's an interesting sort of pancake. You want to hear a story?"
"Sure." I signaled the bartender for two drinks.
"Now, you don't have to buy me anything. You won't believe the story, anyhow."
"Try me."
"You a social worker? Undercover social worker?" He smiled wryly.
"Is there such a thing?"
"Should be. I know. You're a writer."
"When I get work, yeah. How could you tell, Sherlock?"
"You've got two pens in your pocket and you want to hear a story." He smiled. "Steal a story, maybe. But you'll never get it published. It's too fantastic."
"But true."
"It's true, all right. Thank you kindly." He touched his new drink to see whether it was real, then drained off the old one in one gulp and sighed.
"My name's Bill Caddis. Doctor William Caddis, it used to be."
"Medical doctor?"
"I detect a note of reproof. As if no medico everЧwell. No, I was an academic, newly tenured at Florida State. History department. Modern American history."
"Hard to get a job then as it is now?"
"Just about. I was a real whiz."
"But you got fired in '83."
"That's right. And it's not easy to fire a tenured professor."
"What, boffing the little girls?"
That was the only time he laughed that day, a kind of wheeze. "Undergraduates were made for boffing. No, I was dismissed on grounds of mental instability; with my wife's help, my then wife, they almost had me institutionalized."
"Strong stuff."
"Strong." He stared into his drink and swirled it around. "I never know how to start this. I've told dozens of people and they all think I'm crazy before I get halfway into it. You'll think I'm crazy too."
"Just jump in feet first. Like you say, I'm a writer. I can believe in six impossible things before my first drink in the morning."
"All right. I'm not from ... here."
A loony, I thought; there goes the price of a double. "Another planet," I said seriously.
"See? Now you want me to say something about UFOs and how I'm bringing the secret of eternal peace to mankind." He raised the glass to me. "Thanks for the drink."
I caught his arm before he could slug it down. "Wait. I'm sorry. Go on."
"Am I wrong?"
"You're right, but go on. You don't act crazy."
He set the drink down. "Layman's error. Some of the most reasonable people you meet are strictly Almond Joy."
"If you're not from `here,' where are you from?"
"Miami." He smiled and took a sip. "I'm a time traveler. I'm from a future."
I just nodded.