"William Tenn - Lisbon Cubed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

Lisbon Cubed
William Tenn


The telephone rang. Alfred Smith, who had been hauling clothes out of his valise and stuffing them into
a typical hotel room bureau, looked up startled.
"Now, whoтАФ" he began, and shook his head.
Obviously it must be a wrong number. Nobody knew he was in New York, and nobodyтАФthis for a
certaintyтАФknew he had checked into this particular hotel. Or come to think of it, somebody did.
The room clerk at the desk where he had just registered.
Must be some hotel business. Something about don't use the lamp on the end table: it tends to
short-circuit.
The telephone rang again. He dropped the valise and walked around the bed. He picked up the
phone.
"Yes?" he said.
"Mr. Smith?" came a thick voice from the other end.
"Speaking."
"This is Mr. Jones. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Kelly are with me in the lobby. So is Jane Doe. Do you
want us to come up or shall we wait for you?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Well, then, we'll come up. Five-oh-four, isn't it?"
"Yes, but wait a minute! Who did you say?" He realized they had hung up.
Alfred Smith put down the telephone and ran his fingers through his crewcut. He was a moderately
tall, moderately athletic, moderately handsome young man with the faintest hint at jowl and belly of recent
prosperity.
"Mr. Jones? Cohen? Kelly? And for suffering Pete's sake, Jane Doe?"
It must be a joke. Any Smith was used to jokes on his name. What was your name before it was
Smith? Alfred Smith? Whatever happened to good old Johnnie?
Then he remembered that his caller had just asked for Mr. Smith. Smith was a common name, like it
or not.
He picked up the phone again. "Desk," he told the operator.
"Yes, Desk?" a smooth voice said after a while.
"This is Mr. Smith in Room 504. Was there another Smith registered here before me?"
A long pause. "Are you having any trouble, sir?"
Alfred Smith grimaced. "That's not what I'm asking. Was there or wasn't there?"
"Well, sir, if you could tell me if it is causing you inconvenience in any way..."
He got exasperated. "I asked you a simple question. Was there a Smith in this room before me?
What's the matter, did he kill himself?"
"We have no right to believe he committed suicide, sir!" the desk clerk said em-phatically, "There
are many, many circumstances under which a guest might disap-pear after registering for a room!"
There was a peremptory knock on the door. Alfred Smith grunted. "Okay. That's all I wanted to
know," and hung up.
 He opened the door, and before he could say anything, four people came in. Three were men; the
last was a mildly attractive woman.
"Now, lookтАФ" he began.
"Hello, Gar-Pitha" one of the men said. "I'm Jones. This is Cohen, this is Kelly. And, of course, Jane
Doe."
"There's been a mistake," Alfred told him.
"And how there's been a mistake!" said Cohen, locking the door behind him care-fully, "Jones, you
called Smith by his right name! When the corridor door was open! That's unpardonable stupidity."