The Very Best of F & SF v1 Read Free Page B

young couple stared at the bleached white face with its deadly eyes.
The half smile left Knight’s lips, and Jane shuddered involuntarily. There was
chill and dismay in the backroom.
     
    “My God!” Knight
glanced helplessly at Jane. “This can’t be happening. He’s got me believing.
You?”
    Jane nodded
jerkily.
    “What should we
do? If everything he says is true we can refuse and live happily ever after.”
    “No,” Jane said
in a choked voice. “There may be money and success in that book, but there’s
divorce and death too. Give him the book.”
    “Take it,” Knight
said faintly.
    Boyne rose
instantly. He picked up the parcel and went into the phone booth. When he came
out he had three books in one hand and a smaller parcel made up of the original
wrapping in the other. He placed the books on the table and stood for a moment,
smiling down.
    “My gratitude,” he
said. “You have eased a precarious situation. It is only fair you should
receive something in return. We are forbidden to transfer anything that might
divert existing phenomena streams, but at least I can give you one token of the
future.”
    He backed away,
bowed curiously, and said: “My service to you both.” Then he turned and started
out of the Tavern.
    “Hey!” Knight
called. “The token?”
    “Mr. Macy has it,”
Boyne answered and was gone.
    The couple sat
at the table for a few blank moments like sleepers slowly awakening. Then, as
reality began to return, they stared at each other and burst into laughter.
    “He really had
me scared,” Jane said.
    “Talk about
Third Avenue characters. What an act. What’d he get out of it?”
    “Well... he got
your Almanac.”
    “But it doesn’t
make sense.” Knight began to laugh again. “All that business about paying Macy
but not giving him anything. And I’m supposed to see that he isn’t cheated. And
the mystery token of the future...”
    The Tavern door
burst open and Macy shot through the saloon into the backroom. “Where is he?”
Macy shouted. “Where’s the thief? Boyne, he calls himself. More likely his name
is Dillinger.”
    “Why, Mr. Macy!”
Jane exclaimed. “What’s the matter?”
    “Where is he?”
Macy pounded on the door of the Men’s Room. “Come out, ye blaggard!”
    “He’s gone,” Knight
said. “He left just before you got back.”
    “And you, Mr.
Knight!” Macy pointed a trembling finger at the young lawyer. “You, to be party
to thievery and racketeers. Shame on you!”
    “What’s wrong?”
Knight asked.
    “He paid me one
hundred dollars to rent this backroom,” Macy cried in anguish. “One hundred
dollars. I took the bill over to Bernie the pawnbroker, being cautious-like,
and he found out it’s a forgery. It’s a counterfeit.”
    “Oh no,” Jane
laughed. “That’s too much. Counterfeit?”
    “Look at this,” Mr.
Macy shouted, slamming the bill down on the table.
    Knight inspected
it closely. Suddenly he turned pale and the laughter drained out of his face.
He reached into his inside pocket, withdrew a checkbook and began to write with
trembling fingers.
    “What on earth
are you doing?” Jane asked.
    “Making sure
that Macy isn’t cheated,” Knight said. “You’ll get your hundred dollars, Mr.
Macy.”
    “Oliver! Are you
insane? Throwing away a hundred dollars...”
    “And I won’t be
losing anything either,” Knight answered. “All will be adjusted without
dislocation! They’re diabolical. Diabolical!”
    “I don’t
understand.”
    “Look at the
bill,” Knight said in a shaky voice. “Look closely.”
    It was
beautifully engraved and genuine in appearance. Benjamin Franklin’s benign
features gazed up at them mildly and authentically; but in the lower right-hand
corner was printed: Series 1980 D. And underneath that was signed: Oliver
Wilson Knight, Secretary of the Treasury.
     
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All Summer in a Day - Ray Bradbury
     
    Ray Bradbury has said that he’s not