"C M Kornbluth - Time Bum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

Time Bum



C. M. Kornbluth




Time Bum



HARRYTWENTY-THIRD STREETsuddenly burst into laughter. His friend and sometimes roper
Farmer Brown looked inquisitive.



"I just thought of a new con," Harry Twenty-Third Street said, still chuckling.



Farmer Brown shook his head positively. "There's no such thing, my man," he said. "There are only new
switches on old cons. What have you got—a store con? Shall you be needing a roper?" He tried not to
look eager as a matter of principle, but everybody knew the Fanner needed a connection badly. His girl
had two-timed him on a badger game, running off with the chump and marrying him after an expensive,
month-long buildup.



Harry said, "Sorry, old boy. No details. It's too good to split up. I shall rip and tear the suckers with this
con for many a year, I trust, before the details become available to the trade. Nobody, but nobody, is
going to call copper after I take him. It's beautiful and it's mine. I will see you around, my friend."



Harry got up from the booth and left, nodding cheerfully to a safeblower here, a fixer there, on his way
to the locked door of the hangout. Naturally he didn't nod to such small fry as pickpockets and dope
peddlers. Harry had his pride.



The puzzled Farmer sipped his lemon squash and concluded that Harry had been kidding him. He
noticed that Harry had left behind him in the booth a copy of a magazine with a space ship and a pretty
girl in green bra and pants on the cover.



"A furnished . . .bungalow?" the man said hesitantly, as though he knew what he wanted but wasn't quite
sure of the word.