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

The older man, grumbling, came erect in his chair. He came over to the auto-delivery box and, with a sneer of contempt for his intruder, stuck his right thumbprint on the screen.
Moments later, the articles had arrived.
Vassilis returned to his comfort chair.
Rex Moran began fishing the articles he had ordered from the box. He loaded the gun, put it next to him, within handy reach and then dressed in his new clothes. He took up the camera and slung it over his shoulder. He looked at the ring admiringly and tucked it away in an inner pocket, and then the gun.
He muttered, "I have half a mind to order a few more of these but that big a drain on your account all at the same time might throw some relays and have the computer people check back."
"Thief," Vassilis said bitterly.
Moran grinned at him. "What's your beef? It won't be you who loses. "

He took up the rope. "First we'll tie you up a bit, old chum-pal, and then we'll call in Franklin, or whatever you called him, and do a job on him."
"You'll never get away with this, you young cloddy," the old man bit out.
"Famous last words," Moran grinned back at him.

Back on the street, he realized it was going to be necessary to walk to his next destination. His credit standing simply did not allow even such a small sum as riding in the vacuum tubes. However, happily, it wasn't as far as all that. As he walked, he took the toy gun from his pocket and threw it into a waste receptacle. He had the real thing now. He found the neighborhood and had a choice of three alternatives. He took the smallest of the shops and entered.
There were even a few display cases. How anachronistic could you get? He grunted sour amusement to himself; here was the last of the kulaks, the last of the small businessmen.
A quiet man of about fifty entered from a back room and took Rex in before saying in a soft voice, "Yes, sir, what can I do for you?"
Rex Moran went into his act. Hesitantly, he said, "I understand that you sometimes buy personal property."
"That is correct. Buy and sell. But what type of property, Mr. . . . . ?"
"Adams," Rex Moran said. "Timothy Adams. I have a ring that used to belong to my mother. It is of no value to me, now, and I thought . . . well, I might as well realize what dollar credit value it has. "
"I see. Please sit down, Mr. Adams. Heirloom jewelry is a bit of a drug on the market, but we can take a look." He sat himself behind a desk and motioned to a straight chair.
Rex Moran sat down and brought the diamond ring from his pocket and proffered it. The other took it and set it on the table. He looked at Rex Moran thoughtfully. "This is a very modem setting, Mr. Adams. I had gained the impression that it was an older piece your mother had left you."
"Oh, no," Rex Moran said. "She bought it not too very long before she died. If I had a wife, or someone, I might give it to her, but I haven't. "
The other looked at him evenly. "Mr. Adams, I am not a fence, you know. This is a legitimate business."
"Fence?" Rex Moran said blankly.
"I buy and sell such items as art objects and jewelry, but I do not receive stolen goods. Where did you say your mother bought this?"

"On a vacation in Common Eur-Asia. In Budapest, I think, or possibly Belgrade.
"So it would be untraceable here in the United States of the Americas. "
"Why, it never occurred to me."
'Me shop owner took up the ring and looked at it thoughtfully. He brought a jeweler's glass from a drawer and peered through it.
He put it down7finally and looked at Rex Moran. "I'll give you two hundred dollars for it."
"Two hundred dollars! My mother said she paid more than two thousand. "
"Then she paid too much. The markup on jewelry is very high, Mr. Adams, and such items as this can take a very long time to move."
Rex Moran thought about it. "Make it three hundred."
The other considered that. "Very well," he said finally. "But I am making a mistake."
"Yeah," Rex Moran said sourly. He brought his Uni-Credit Card from his pocket and stuck it into one of the slots on the other's Exchange Screen.
The shop owner put the ring in a drawer, brought forth his own Universal Credit Card and put it into the other exchange slot. He said into the screen, "Please transfer the amount of three hundred dollars from my account to this other card."
A robot voice said, "Transfer completed."
Rex Moran retrieved his Uni-Credit Card and came to his feet. "I still think I was robbed," he muttered.
The other said nothing, simply sat there and watched after him as Rex Moran left the shop.
Well, he now had three hundred dollars to his account. That was a damn sight less than he had expected to get. However, he hadn't dared buy a more expensive piece of jewelry than the two-thousand-dollar piece, on Vassilis's credit card. There would have been more of a chance of the shop owner checking on such an item. More chance of it being able to be traced. Besides, if he had drained Vassilis's account too badly, there might have been a computer check at that point.
He strode rather rapidly to the nearest vacuum-tube transport terminal and into it, wanting to get out of the neighborhood as quickly as possible. He took a two-seater vehicle to the downtown area of the pseudo-city, if a pseudo-city can be said to have a downtown area.

When he left the vacuum tube, it was to emerge in the vicinity of several restaurants. It was just about noon, but since he hadn't been able to afford breakfast, he was feeling hunger. Well, three hundred dollars was three hundred dollars, and he might as well blow himself to a fairly good repast in an auto-cafeteria.
He selected one and sat himself down at a table and stared down at the menu listed on the tabletop. To hell with anything based on Antarctic krill, plankton protein, or soy beans; he was up to some real animal protein and Zoroaster could take the cost.
He put his credit card in the table slot, his thumbprint on the screen and dialed chicken and a mug of sea-booze. He would have liked a shot of pseudo-whiskey to begin, but his funds weren't that unlimited.
His wrist teevee phone buzzed.
He looked down at it in some surprise. He had it set on Number One Priority, and only two people in the world were eligible to break in on him on that priority, and he certainly was not expecting a call from either.
But there was a strange face in the tiny screen. Strange and severe.
The voice said, "This is Distribution Service, Subdivision Police. Rex Moran, you are under arrest for attempt to violate regulations pertaining to usage of the Universal Credit Card. Report immediately to the nearest Police Administrative Station. Failure to do so will compound the felony."
"Get lost, fuzz-john," Rex Moran snarled. He snapped the instrument off, then stared down at the blank screen in dismay. What had gone wrong? Especially, what had gone wrong so quickly? It had to be something to do with his selling that damned ring. But what? He had expected the ring to stay in that tiny shop, waiting for a customer for months, perhaps even years. And even then, when it was resold, the transaction should never have appeared on the computer records, except as an exchange of dollar credit from the purchaser's account to the shopkeeper's.