"Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Murderer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

"Wrong author," Jones replied. "Try H.G. Wells."
"You're a Martian?"
Jones shook his head. "A time traveler."
"Oh, I see, you're from the future?" Stein made no attempt to hide his sarcasm.
"That's right."
"All right, get on with it, then," Stein said. "Let's hear the story."
"It's simple enough. In 2020 I was a first-year grad student at Berkeley, and someone in the physics
department thought he'd invented a time machine. I don't know anything about how it worked-- he didn't
want me to, because he was worried about how I might affect the past if I knew how to build a time
machine once I got back there. He was afraid I'd tell someone, and change the history of science." Jones'
mouth twisted wryly. "What a fool."
"So you were one of his students?"
"Me? Oh, hell, no-- I was a grad student in history, not physics! And this physics guy advertised for a
volunteer, 'some knowledge of history useful,' and I was bored and could use the hundred bucks he was
offering, so I checked it out, and next thing I knew I was in 1892."
"Seventy years ago," Stein said.
"That's right. Seventy years ago. I don't think he had the machine calibrated very well yet; I can't
imagine why he'd pick 1892. But there I was-- still in Berkeley, I didn't move at all except in time. So I
looked around, and then I went down across the bay to San Francisco-- I couldn't resist seeing San
Francisco before the Quake of 1906! I was a historian, or I wanted to be, anyway, and the early
twentieth century was my specialty-- I couldn't pass up a chance like that, and I don't care how worried
the professor was about my interfering with the past. I had a gadget with me that was supposed to send
me home again, and it would go off automatically after forty-eight hours, or I could hit a panic button any
time before that, so I figured I was safe enough, even if I did look really weird there, dressed the way I
was, talking the way I did. I had a bunch of old money we'd bought from a collectors' shop, so I could
buy food and souvenirs, and I picked up a lovely old Colt revolver-- well, it's old now, it was brand-new
then."
Stein shifted in his seat. "Do you expect me to take any of this seriously, Mr. Jones?"
Jones shrugged. "I don't much care."
Stein stared at him for a moment. "Go on, then," he said.
"Well, as I said, there I was in San Francisco, in 1892, and it was just so amazing that I was
wandering the streets in a daze. I had the gun I'd bought, so no one was bothering me, and then it
happened-- I saw William Randolph Hearst coming out of the Examiner building, I knew him from the
old pictures, and I heard his name, so there wasn't any doubt, and I couldn't resist. It was such an
incredible stroke of luck. I mean, it didn't all seem entirely real to me, any of it, if you see what I mean-- I
couldn't really be in 1892, could I? I wasn't thinking about him as if he were a real person, or as if I
could be in any danger. Instead I was thinking about the Spanish-American War, and all those scandals,
all the lives he ruined, and I couldn't help it. It was such an opportunity, it was like a miracle. I pulled out
the gun I'd just bought, and I shot him dead."
"Shot who?" Stein asked, shocked.
"Hearst," Jones answered. "William Randolph Hearst."
"Who's he?" Stein knew it was a stupid question, before the words were even out of his mouth, but he
had been caught off-guard. He had known he was dealing with a murderer, with a crazy old man who
had shot a kid without warning, for no reason, but he hadn't expected a confession of another murder,
seventy years before.
Jones smiled a smile that the horrified Stein couldn't interpret as anything but pure joy.
"Nobody," Jones said. "Not any more. He was a millionaire's son who ran a newspaper. But now he's
nobody."
"Because you shot him."
"That's right," Jones said. "Right there on the street. And when I saw the blood and saw him fall, all of