"Spider Robinson - The Magnificent Conspiracy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

have for jobs where a lift might get in the way. With the help of unusually effi-cient
lighting, I studied him as he approached me. Late fifties, snow-white hair and goatee,
strong jaw and incongruously soft mouth. A big man, reminding me strongly of Burl
Ives, but less bulky, whipcord fit. An impression of enor-mous energy, but used
only by volitionтАФhe walked slowly, clearly because he saw no need to hurry.
Paradoxical hands: thin-fingered and aristocratic, but with the ground-in grime which
is the unmistakable trademark of the professional or dedicated-amateur mechanic.
The right one held a pipe wrench. His overalls were oily and torn, but he wore them
like a not-rented tux.
I absorbed and stored all these details auto-matically, however, while most of my
attention was taken up by the utter peacefulness of his face, of his eyes, of his
expression and carriage and manner. I had never seen a man so mani-festly content
with his lot. It showed in the purely decorative way in which the wrinkles of his years
lay upon his face; it showed in the easy swing of his big shoulders and the
purposeful but carefree stride; it showed in the eager yet unhurried way that his eyes
measured me: not as a cat sizes up another cat, but as a happy baby investigates a
new personтАФwith delighted interest. My purple sneakers pleased him. He was
plainly a man who drank of his life with an unquenchable thirst, and it annoyed the
hell out of me, because I knew good and goddam well when was the last time I had
seen a man pos-sessed of such peace and because nothing on earth was going to
make me consciously acknowl-edge it.
But I am not a man whose emotions are wired into his control circuits. I smiled as
he neared, and my body language said I was confused, but amiably so.
"Mr. Cardwell?"
"That's right. What can I do for you?" The way he asked it, it was not a
conversational conven-tion.
"My name's Bob Campbell. I ... uh ... "
His eyes twinkled. "Of course. You want to know if Arden's crazy, or me, or the
both of us." His lips smiled, then got pried apart by his teeth into a full-blown grin.
 "Well ... something like that. He offered to buy my car for, uh, more than it's
worth, and then he offered to sell me the classiest-looking car on the lot for ... "
"Mr. Campbell, I'll stand behind whatever prices Arden made you."
"But you don't know what they are yet."
"I don't need to," he said, still grinning. "I know Arden."
"But he offered to do a free ring job on the car, for Chrissake."
"Oh, that convertible. Mr. Campbell, he didn't do that `for Chrissake'тАФArden's
not a church-going man. He did it for his sake, and for mine and for yours. That car
isn't worth a thing without that ring jobтАФthe aggravation it'd give you would use up
more energy than walk-ing."
"ButтАФbut," I sputtered, "how can you pos-sibly survive doing that kind of
business?"
His grin disappeared. "How long can any of us survive, Mr. Campbell, doing
business any other way? I sell cars for what I believe them to be genuinely worth,
and I pay much more than that for them so that people will sell them to me. What's
wrong with that?"
"But how can you make a profit?"
"I can't."
I was shocked speechless. When he saw this, Cardwell smiled againтАФbut this
time it was a smile underlain with sadness. "Money, young man, is a symbol
representing the life energy of those who subscribe to it. It is a useful and even