"Encounter, The by Kate Wilhelm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Award Stories 7)

The icy blast and the inrushing snow made Crane start to shake again.
He looked over at the woman, who was huddling down, trying to wrap
herself up in the skimpy coat.

His shivering eased and he sat down and opened his briefcase and pulled
out one of the policies he had taken along to study. This was the first
time he had touched it. He hoped the woman would fall asleep and stay
asleep until the bus came in the morning. He knew that he wouldn't be
able to stretch out on the short benches, not that it would matter
anyway. He wasn't the type to relax enough to fall asleep anywhere
but in bed.

He stared at the policy, a twenty-year endowment, two years to go to
maturity, on the life of William Sanders, age twenty-two. He held it
higher, trying to catch the light, but the print was a blur; all he could
make out were the headings of the clauses, and these he already knew
by heart. He turned the policy over; it was the same on the back, the
old familiar print, and the rest a blur. He started to refold the paper to
return it to the briefcase. She would think he was crazy, taking it out,
looking at it a moment, turning it this way and that, and then putting
it back. He pursed his lips and pretended to read.

Sanders, Sanders. What did he want? Four policies, the endowment, a
health and accident, a straight life, and mortgage policy. Covered,
protected. Insurance-poor, Sanders had said, throwing the bulky
envelope onto Crane's desk. "Consolidate these things somehow. I
want cash if I can get it, and out from under the rest."

"'But what about your wife, the kids?"

"Ex-wife. If I go, she'll manage. Let her carry insurance on me."

Crane had been as persuasive as he knew how to be, and in the end he
had had to promise to assess the policies, to have figures to show cash
values, and so on. Disapprovingly, of course.
"You know, dear, you really are getting more stuffy every day,"
Mary Louise said.
"And if he dies, and his children are left destitute, then will I be
so stuffy?"
"I'd rather have the seven hundred dollars myself than see it go
to your company year after year."
"That's pretty shortsighted."
"Are you really going to wear that suit to Maggie's party?"
"Changing the subject?"
"Why not? You know what you think, and I know what I think,
and they aren't even within hailing distance of each other."
Mary Louise wore a red velvet gown that was slit to her navel,
molded just beneath her breasts by a silver chain, and almost
completely bare in the back, clown to the curve of her buttocks.