"Mack Reynolds - Criminal In Utopia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

He didn't take the vacuum tube transport from his own building, knowing that a record was kept of all trips in the computer banks, and the john-fuzz might trace back later on his Uni-Credit Card number. Instead, he walked several blocks and entered a public terminal.
He looked up at the map and selected another terminal a couple of blocks from his destination, then entered the next twenty-seater going through that point. After putting his credit card in the payment slot, he realized that with the buying of the toy gun, he probably had only a few cents left to his balance. He didn't even have enough credit to get back to his apartment if this little romp pickled. What a laugh that would give the boys if he had to walk home.
He left the vacuum-tube transport terminal and walked to the building where Vassilis lived. This was the crucial point now. If there were others present, his plan had come a cropper. However, if he had read between the lines correctly, the senior Mr. Vassilis lived alone in his apartment in this swank neighborhood.
There was an identity screen in the front entry. Keeping his fingers crossed that his Universal Credit Card wouldn't be required for entrance, he said into the screen, "Roy McCord, on appointment to see Mr. Frank Vassilis. "
The door opened, and he entered.
There were two elevators. He entered one and said, "The apartment of Frank Vassilis."
The Vassilis apartment was on the top floor but one. Rex Moran got out of the elevator, found a door with the Vassilis name on it and activated the door screen. When it lit up, he said into it, "Roy McCord, calling on Mr. Vassilis, by appointment."

The door opened, and he stepped through.
And came to a halt. The man standing there in a dark suit was not the Mr. Vassilis he had spoken to earlier on the teevee phone. This worthy was a stiffish type, of possibly fifty. His eyes went up and down Rex Moran superciliously, taking in the less than elegant suit, taking in the rugged features.
He said, "Yes, sir. Mr. McCord? The master is awaiting you in his escape room."
The master? Holy jumping Zoroaster, Vassilis had a man servant. Whoever heard of personal servants in this day and age? The obituary had hinted that the old boy was upper class, but Moran hadn't been thinking in terms of something so rich as an establishment with a servant.
However, he followed along. It was the largest apartment he could offhand ever remember being in. They went down one hall, turned right and down another one.
There wasn't even an identity screen on the door before which they stopped. The servant knocked gently and opened the door before there was any reply. Evidently, old Vassilis was expecting him, all right.
The servant stood stiffly and said, "Mr. McCord."
The elderly man Rex Moran had talked to on the teevee phone earlier looked up from where he sat in a comfort chair, a small magnifying glass in one hand, a dozen or so stamps on a small table before him. He was evidently a philatelist.
He said, "Ah, yes, Mr. Roy McCord, Jerome's friend. Please come in." As the servant had before him, he took in Moran's clothing and general appearance, and his eyebrows went up slightly. "Now, what is it I can do for you, Mr. McCord?"
Rex Moran looked at the servant.
Vassilis said, "That will be all, Franklin."
Franklin turned and left, closing the door quietly behind him.
No need to mince around. Rex Moran brought the toy gun from his pocket briefly, let the other see it and returned it to his side pocket, but still holding it in his hand.
He said, "This is a romp, Mr. Vassilis."
The other goggled at him. "You . . . you mean you are a thief? That you got into my home on false pretenses?"
Moran let his face go empty. "I wouldn't put it that way. Let's just say that I'm tired of not getting my share of the cake. And since the powers that be won't give it to me, I'm taking it."
The old man stared at him. "You are a fool, young man."

"Maybe, maybe not. " Rex Moran jiggled the gun in his side pocket suggestively.
"Being a thief doesn't make sense in this day. Society has made arrangements to defend itself against the thief. There's not enough profit in petty crime to pay off."
Rex Moran grinned at him sourly. "I didn't exactly have petty crime in mind, Mr. Vassilis. Now, hand me your credit card."
"What other kind of crime is possible? Nobody but I can spend my dollar credits. I can't give them away, gamble them away, throw them away, be cheated out of them. Only I can spend my dividends."
"We'll see about that." Rex Moran nodded. "Now, let's have your Universal Credit Card." He jiggled the gun in his pocket again.
The older man contemptuously took a beautiful leather wallet from an inner pocket and brought forth a standard Uni-Credit Card. He handed it over.
Moran said, "You have a vacuum delivery box in this room? Oh, yeah, here we are. Zoroaster, look at the size of it! Now that's the advantage of being an upper class like you, Mr. Vassilis. You should see the teeny auto-delivery box in my mini-apartment. If I want anything of any size at all, I've got to use the box down in the lobby of the crummy building I'm in. Now, with a nice big auto-delivery box like this anything you wanted would have to be really supersize before you couldn't get it delivered right here into your escape room."
Vassilis said, "You are a fool, young man. The officials will be after you in no time flat.'9
Moran grinned at him and sat down before the box, keeping one eye on the other. He put the card in the teevee screen's slot and said, "Credit balance, please."
A robot voice said, "Ten shares of Inalienable Basic. Two thousand and forty-six shares of Variable Basic. Current cash credit, forty-two thousand and twenty-nine dollars and eighteen cents."
Rex Moran whistled. "Two-thousand-and-forty-six-shares-of-Variable!
Vassilis grunted contempt of him.
Moran dialed the ultra-market, then sports, then firearms, then handguns. He finally selected a .38 Recoilless and dialed it and a box of cartridges.
He thought for a moment, then dialed photography and selected a Polaroid-Pentax and some film for it.
"Might as well do this up brown," he said conversationally to the

older man. "Might as well put a generous hole in that credit balance. "
"There'll be no hole-as you call it-at all," Vassilis said bitterly. "When I report this thievery, the authorities will return to my account the sum involved in any deprecations you have performed. "
Rex Moran dialed men's clothing and took his time selecting a full outfit, including shoes.
"Now, this is the crucial point," he said thoughtfully, to no one in particular. He dialed jewelry and finally selected a two-thousand-dollar diamond ring.
"I guess that's it," he said. Then, "Oh, one other thing." He dialed sports again, and camping, and eventually a length of rope.
He turned back to Frank Vassilis. "And now, old man, come on over here and stick your thumbprint on this order screen."
" Suppose I refuse?"
Rex Moran grinned at him. "Why should you? Like you said, when you report this, the authorities will return your credit dollars to you and come looking for me. You're not losing anything."