"Alien Harvest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sheckley Robert)

4

Next morning he had a chance to show Julie around his house. She admired the fine old silverware he had inherited from his grandparents, and looked with something approaching awe at the portraits of his ancestors that hung on the great staircase that led to the upper rooms. There were dozens of somber oil paintings in ornate gilt frames, showing stern-faced men — some with side-whiskers and some clean-shaven — and proper-looking ladies in starched black bombazine and stiff Dutch lace. Stan had been lucky that this stuff still remained after the great destruction.

“It's wonderful, Stan,” Julie said. “I never knew who my parents were. They sold me before I knew them.”

“I've got more than enough relatives,” Stan said. “You can have some of mine.”

“Can I? I'd like that. I'll take that fat one with the smile for my mother.”

“That's Aunt Emilia. You've picked well. She was the best of the bunch.”

There were other treasures upstairs. Eiderdowns whose cases were heavy with intricate embroidery; gaudy antique jewelry; massive furniture cut from gigantic tropical trees whose species had become extinct.

“This is such beautiful stuff,” Julie said. “I could look at it forever. How do you ever pull yourself away?”

“You know, it's funny,” Stan said. “I never liked any of this before. But since you've come here… Well, it looks pretty nice to me now.”

The next day Stan was pleased when it was the time for action. He felt like his life was just beginning. He was very pleased with this notion, although he also dreaded it, because if his life was beginning, it was also drawing to a close. Which would come first, he wondered, victory or death? Or would they arrive simultaneously?

He refused to think about it. What was important was that he and Julie were in this together. He was no longer alone.

He dressed with special care that morning, humming to himself as he shaved. He selected an Italian silk suit and a colorful Brazilian imported shirt made of a light cotton. He wore his tasseled loafers, even going so far as to buff them up to a high polish. He usually laughed at people who took pains over their dress and appearance, but for this morning, at least, he was one of them. It was a way of reminding himself that he was making a fresh start.

He had been thinking a lot about fate and chance, and how they were influenced by the human will. He had come to the conclusion that what he wanted very badly was going to happen, as long as he willed it hard enough. It seemed to him that he was allied to a universal spirit that determined the course of things.

As long as he wanted what the universal spirit wanted for him, he couldn't go wrong.

Although these were exhilarating thoughts, Stan also had some doubts. He wondered if the fire caused by the Xeno-Zip might be affecting his mind. Was he getting a little … grandiose? Did he really think he had found a way to cheat death?

Sometimes it seemed obvious to him that death was what was really happening to him. This was the real meaning of the disease rotting out his insides. There were too many details of his everyday life to remind him; the spitting and spewing into basins; the many pills he was continually taking, and their many strange effects.

He knew he was a very sick man. But he thought it represented some ultimate courage in himself that he was refusing to face the facts. He decided that if people really faced the facts, they'd all be licked before they could start.

He was determined to go on. It was not yet time to give up and let go. That would come later, when he found his doom; for Stan sensed a horrible fate awaiting him, one that was presently without a name or a face. Then he shook his head angrily and put those thoughts out of his mind.

He found a fresh daisy from the garden for his buttonhole.

It was a bright crisp day outside, a day that seemed filled with infinite promise. He could hear Julie humming from the kitchen. She had come down after her shower and was making breakfast. He went in. She was wearing his long fluffy bathrobe. Her hair was tied up in a Donald Duck towel. Her face sparkled, and she looked very young, ingenuous. It was a nice thing to see, though he knew it was an illusion, and only a temporary one at that.

They had bacon and eggs over easy, toast, coffee. A simple breaking of the fast. And now they were ready to discuss plans.

“The first thing we need,” Stan said, “is operating capital. I've got a lot of ideas for how to get this project of ours going. But it's going to take some money. Have you any thoughts on how we could acquire a cash flow?”

“I do,” Julie said. “Raising money at short notice is what a thief does best, Stan. And I'm the best thief that ever was. How much do we need?”

Stan made some calculations. “A hundred thousand, anyway.”

“And how much money do you have right now?”

“I don't know,” Stan said. “A couple hundred, I suppose, maybe a thousand in savings.”

“That's not enough, is it?” Julie asked.

“Nowhere near. We need fifty thousand anyway.”

“As much as that?” Julie said. “Are you sure we need so much?”

“I'm afraid so,” Stan said. “We'll have a lot of expenses to set up what we need in order to get a ship, put Norbert into final working shape, get the equipment we need, and get on with our plan.”

“All right, Stan,” Julie said. “I think I can be of some use here. Give me what you've got. I'll double it.”

“How will you do that?”

“Watch and see.”

“Will you use your skills as a thief?”

“Not immediately,” Julie said. “There's an intermediate step I need to take.”

“Could you be a little clearer?”

“I'm talking about gambling.”

“I didn't know you were a gambler as well as a thief,” Stan said.

“My real profession is thief, but I'm a gambler also because everyone needs a second line of work. The fact is, I'm lucky at certain games. Like Whorgle. I've been told that I've got latent psychokinetic abilities. I can affect the fall of dice sometimes. But they don't play dice at Callahan's, only card games. Well, Whorgle is a new game that depends on hand-eye coordination. I've got that, and I've also got something else. A certain X-factor that sometimes does the trick.”

“Well, I guess you know what you're doing,” Stan said. “Although I've been wanting to see some of this thieving of yours in action.”

“Being a good thief costs money, Stan.”

“That's a funny thing to say. I thought you were supposed to make money that way.”

“That's the result, of course. But when you work in the upper echelon of crime, you don't go in and hold up a candy store. And you don't knock off a bank, either.

Those are not what I was trained for. You never asked what kind of thief I was, Stan. Well, I'm telling you now. I'm a high-society jewelry thief. I knock off only the best people. I work at political conventions, movie openings, awards ceremonies, great sports events, things that bring together crowds of people with lots of money. But that requires a setup. Otherwise I'd have to spend too long just trying to dope out how to do it. I buy a ready-made plan from an expert in the field. It comes high. But it's guaranteed to bring me to large amounts of money and jewelry.”

“How much does a plan like that cost?”

“If you buy one from an expert like Gibberman, it can cost plenty. I'm going to use your money to win more money so I can pay Gibberman to give me one of his great plans. It may sound like a roundabout way to you, but name me any other profession where you can go from a thousand dollars to around a million in less than three days.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Stan. “Can I come along?”

“Well, of course you can, at least for some of it, but you have to be real cool. You mustn't even act like you're with me. You see, gambling is hard work. I'm going to have to give it all my attention. Then, assuming I win, there's the next part of the operation, which calls for even more attention.”

“Yeah? What's that?”

“That's walking out of the gambling place with your money, Stan.”