"Connie Willis - Inside Job" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

Inside Job
Connie Willis
Connie Willis is currently working on a new novel called All Clear. Set in the same time-travel world as
Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and “Fire Watch” (Asimov’s, February 1982), the novel
involves four historians studying World War II, from the evacuation of the children in 1939 to the Blitz to
the deception war that preceded D-Day. The book will be out in the spring from Bantam. Her latest tale
for Asimov’s takes a look at a psychic debunker, his beautiful assistant, and a very unusual . . .


“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
—H.L. Mencken

“It’s me, Rob,” Kildy said when I picked up the phone. “I want you to go with me to see somebody
Saturday.”

Usually when Kildy calls, she’s bubbling over with details. “You’ve got to see this psychic cosmetic
surgeon, Rob,” she’d crowed the last time. “His specialty is liposuction, and you can see the tube coming
out of his sleeve. And that’s not all. The fat he’s supposed to be suctioning out of their thighs is that goop
they use in McDonald’s milkshakes. You can smell the vanilla! It wouldn’t fool a five-year-old, so of
course half the women in Hollywood are buying it hook, line, and sinker. We’ve got to do a story on
him, Rob!”

I usually had to say, “Kildy—Kildy—Kildy!” before I could get her to shut up long enough to tell me
where he was performing.

But this time all she said was, “The seminar’s at one o’clock at the Beverly Hills Hilton. I’ll meet you in
the parking lot,” and hung up before I could ask her if the somebody she wanted me to see was a pet
channeler or a vedic-force therapist, and how much it was going to cost.

I called her back.

“The tickets are on me,” she said.

If Kildy had her way, the tickets would always be on her, and she can more than afford it. Her father’s a
director at Dreamworks, her current stepmother heads her own production company, and her mother’s a
two-time Oscar winner. And Kildy’s rich in her own right—she only acted in four films before she quit
the business for a career in debunking, but one of them was the surprise top grosser of the year, and
she’d opted for shares instead of a salary.

But she’s ostensibly my employee, even though I can’t afford to pay her enough to keep her in toenail
polish. The least I can do is spring for expenses, and a barely known channeler shouldn’t be too bad.
Medium Charles Fred, the current darling of the Hollywood set, was only charging two hundred a
seance.

“The Jaundiced Eye is paying for the tickets,” I said firmly. “How much?”

“Seven hundred and fifty apiece for the group seminar,” she said. “Fifteen hundred for a private
enlightment audience.”
“The tickets are on you,” I said.