"Frederik Pohl - Wapshot's Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

look rich and he didn't look poor; he had a suit on that
was very far from new, but the overcoat was new, brand-
new, and not cheap. And besides he had come right out
and said what his business was; none of this fake air of
"I don't need a lawyer, but if you want to pick up a
couple bucks for saving me the trouble of writing a letter,
you're on" that I see coming in to my office thirty times
a week.
I said briskly, "Five hundred dollars for a starter, Mr.
Wapshot."
He grinned and tapped the envelope. "Count 'er up,"
he said.
I stared at him, but I did what he said. I dumped the
contents of the manila envelope on my desk.
There was a thick packet of U. S. Postal Money Orders
a hundred and forty-one of them, according to a neatly
penciled slip attached to them, made out variously to
"aeon Wapshot," "Clion Wopshatt," "C. Wapshut" and
a dozen other alternate forms, each neatly endorsed on
the back by my new client, each in the amount of $1.98.
There was a packet, not quite so thick, of checks, all
colors and sizes; ninety-six of these, all in the same
amount of $1.98.
There was a still thinner packet of one-dollar bills
thirty of them; and finally there were stamps amounting
to 74c. I took a pencil and added them up:
$279.18
190.08
30.00
.74

$500.00

Wapshot said anxiously, "That's all right, isn't it? I'm
sorry about the stamps, but that's the way the orders come
in and there's nothing I can do about it1 tried and tried
to turn them in, but they won't give me but half the value
for them in the post office, and that's not right. That's
wasteful. You can use them around here, can't you?"
I said with an effort, "Sit down, Mr. Wapshot. Tell me
what this is all about."
Well, he told me. But whether I understood or didn't
understand I can't exactly say. Parts of it made sense, and
parts of it were obviously crazy.
But what it all came to was that, with five appointments
and a heavy day's mail untouched, I found myself in a cab
with this deon Wapshot, beetling across town to a little
fleabag hotel on the West Side. I didn't think the elevator
was going to make it, but I have to admit I was wrong. It
got us to the fifth floor, and Wapshot led the way down