"Jeff Hecht - The Saucer Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hecht Jeff)

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The Saucer Man
by Jeff Hecht
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Copyright (c)1997 by Jeff Hecht
First published in Interzone, August 1997

Fictionwise
www.Fictionwise.com

Science Fiction


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"You've got to give up the flying saucer business, Jack. It's history.
That's why you're in Lawrence, Iowa complaining about motels from a pay
phone."
I sighed. "Look, Angie, it's my only salable skill."
"Not very salable, Jack. You've got to change with the times. Even my
channelling clients get bigger bookings than you. Alien abductions are hot
now. Can't you get your alien friends to snatch you for a few experiments?
Work a little sex into it, and I can get you plenty of gigs on the West Coast.
You could pull in a couple thousand every night of the year, not four or five
hundred a pop for a month or two."
Angie has hustled herself a long way from her start as a secretary back
when I was in aerospace. An agency hired her before the first layoffs, and
within three years she had her own agency. Six years ago, when I walked in her
door with a crazy idea, the Ramirez Agency was a one-woman show over a Mexican
restaurant on the seedy side of Hollywood. She landed me a book contract and a
saucer speaking tour back then; now she has a fancy suite with a secretary and
two assistants. "Let me think about it," I said.
"Okay," she answered, with audible annoyance. "Now let me get back..."
"What about the motel, Angie?" I needed an alternative to the Motel 6
across Main Street that was "closed for renovations." I didn't want to sleep
in a cornfield.
"Stupid database thinks it's still open. Nothing else is listed in
Lawrence, but there is a motel in Wilson's Crossing. That's supposed to be the
nearest town, north on Route 117."
I thanked her and wrote the phone number in my pocket calendar, hoping
I wouldn't need it. I was due at the American Legion Hall in half an hour. I
looked into the gas station and asked the kid who sat inside chewing gum, "Do
you know where there's another motel?"