Murder -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Time travel -- Fiction
The wild theory Golfin had fed me was tame compared to what I was
beginning to suspect. I took out the rest of his money and picked out a
twenty dollar bill. Putting the rest back in my pocket, I studied the
twenty. I rubbed it against the margin of the newspaper. Ink came off.
It was genuine money.
Taking a deep breath, I squinted at the fine print. _Series of 1964._
I looked at the rest of the money I had taken from Golfin. The two ones
were okay. All the rest had dates in the future. I knew money. I could
spot a phony bill a block away. It was real money.
Either a master counterfeiter had--Another thought struck me. I
compared the serial numbers of the bills. All different. That clinched
it. They weren't phony.
That meant that Golfin was _actually from the future himself_. Then why
had he given me and Sarah Fish that story about prophetic dreams and
amnesia? I thought about that a bit and nodded to myself. He wanted to
give us something we could believe. We wouldn't have believed a raw
statement that he was from the future. Those three dollar bills....
* * * * *
The more I thought about them the less they seemed like a gag. I tried
to recall every detail of Golfin's passing it when he bought his
cigarettes. He hadn't done it like he was pulling a gag. He had taken
his change and walked out. He didn't know he had done anything wrong.
He had assumed a three dollar bill was used here--or now, rather.
My coffee was cold. The girl was looking at me as if she wanted to
close up. I smiled at her and tossed a quarter on the counter and went
out on the sidewalk.
I debated what to do. Should I forget the whole thing? Or should I take
a walk back to Sarah Fish's house and see what was going on? I decided
on the latter.
Her house was dark. No police cars were there. That was not what I had
expected. With a murder, there should be police cars, and the place
should be lit up. Or maybe not. It had been an hour since I left the
place.
I went back to the drugstore and caught the bus down to the Davis
Street El station. Riding on the elevated it occurred to me that maybe
I'd better not go to my apartment. If the police had gotten my wallet
from George Wile they might be waiting for me.
I decided to rent a room for the night and wait until morning. Then
I changed my mind. If I went back to my room I could claim Wile had
picked _my_ pocket. If the police were looking for me they would
eventually get me anyway, since I already had a record of three arrests
for this and that.
I sighed and relaxed, and after a while the train dipped down into the
subway, and I got off and had a late snack at the corner cafeteria.
It was almost midnight when I climbed the stairs to my apartment. When
I opened the door the phone was ringing. I turned on the light and
closed the door, and answered it.
"Ben Smith?" a strange voice said. "This is George Wile."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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