"C M Kornbluth - The Little Black Bag" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

"Hyass! Hyass!" breathed the woman delightedly. "You like-a wine, docta?" She had a carafe of
purplish liquid before him in an instant, and the blond girl snickered as the doctor's hand twitched out at
it. He drew his hand back, while there grew in his head the old image of how it would smell and then
taste and then warm his stomach and limbs. He made the kind of calculation at which he was practiced;
the delighted woman would not notice as he downed two tumblers, and he could overawe her through
two tumblers more with his tale of Teresa's narrow brush with the Destroying Angel, and then-why, then
it would not matter. He would be drunk.

But for the first time in years, there was a sort of counter-image: a blend of the rage he felt at the blond
girl to whom he was so transparent, and of pride at the cure he had just effected. Much to his own
surprise, he drew back his hand from the carafe and said, luxuriating in the words: "No, thank you. I
don't believe I'd care for any so early in the day." He covertly watched the blond girl's face, and was
gratified at her surprise. Then the mother was shyly handing him two bills and saying: "Is no
much-a-money, docta-but you come again, see Teresa?"

"I shall be glad to follow the case through," he said. "But now excuse me- I really must be running along."
He grasped the little black bag firmly and got up; he wanted very much to get away from the wine and
the older girl.

"Wait up, doc," said she. "I'm going your way." She followed him out and down the street. He ignored
her until he felt her hand on the black bag. Then old Dr. Full stopped and tried to reason with her:




"Look, my dear. Perhaps you're right. I might have stolen it. To be perfectly frank, I don't remember
how I got it. But you're young and you can earn your own money-"

"Fifty-fifty," she said, "or I go to the cops. And if I get another word outta you, it's sixty-forty. And you
know who gets the short end, don't you, doc?"

Defeated, he marched to the pawnshop, her impudent hand still on the handle with his, and her heels
beating out a tattoo against his stately tread.

In the pawnshop, they both got a shock.

"It ain't standard," said Uncle, unimpressed by the ingenious lock. "I ain't nevva seen one like it. Some
cheap Jap stuff, maybe? Try down the street. This I nevva could sell."

Down the street they got an offer of one dollar. The same complaint was made:

"I ain't a collecta, mista-I buy stuff that got resale value. Who could I sell this to, a Chinaman who
doesn't know medical instruments? Every one of them looks funny. You sure you didn't make these
yourself?" They didn't take the one-dollar offer.

The girl was baffled and angry; the doctor was baffled too, but triumphant. He had two dollars, and the
girl had a half-interest in something nobody wanted. But, he suddenly marveled, the thing had been all
right to cure the kid, hadn't it?

"Well," he asked her, "do you give up? As you see, the kit is practically valueless."