"C M Kornbluth - Kazam Collects" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

The detective looked around the room. "Meaning who?" he demanded.



"Runi Sarif. He's trying to reach your mind and turn you against me."



"Balony," said Fitzgerald coarsely. "You get yourself registered as a religion hi twenty-four hours; then
find yourself a place to live. I'll hold off any charges of fraud for a while. Just watch your step." He
jammed a natty Homburg down over his sandy hair and strode pugnaciously from the office.



Joseph Kazman sighed. Obviously the detective had been disappointed.
 That night, hi his bachelor's flat, Fitzgerald tossed and turned uneasily on his modern bed. Being blessed
with a sound digestion able to cope even with a steady diet of chain-restaurant food and the soundest of
consciences, the detective was agitated profoundly by his wakefulness.



Being, like all bachelors, a cautious man, he hesitated to dose himself with the veronal he kept for
occasions like this, few and far between though they were. Finally, as he heard the locals pass one by
one on the El a few blocks away and then heard the first express of the morning, with its higher-pitched
bickering of wheels and quicker vibration against the track, he stumbled from bed and walked dazedly
into his bathroom, fumbled open the medicine chest



Only when he had the bottle and had shaken two pills into his hand did he think to turn on the light. He
pulled the cord and dropped the pills hi horror. They weren't the veronal at all but an old prescription
which he had thriftily kept till they might be of use again.



Two would have been a fatal overdose. Shakily Fitzgerald filled a glass of water and drank it down,
spilling about a third on his pajamas. He replaced the pills and threw away the entire bottle. You never
know when a thing like that might happen again, he thoughtтАФtoo late to mend.



Now thoroughly sure that he needed the sedative, he swallowed a dose. By the time he had replaced the
bottle he could scarcely find his way back to the bed, so sleepy was he.



He dreamed then. Detective Fitzgerald was standing on a plain, a white plain, that was very hot. His feet
were bare. In