Murder -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Time travel -- Fiction
The door splintered a little, the noise sounding like a shot. I took my
eyes off Golfin to look, and when I looked back Golfin was darting at
me, his hypodermic gadget in his hand and what looked like murder in
his eye.
* * * * *
I tried to grab his wrist. This time he was too fast for me. He evaded
my clutch and was behind me before I could turn. I felt a sharp pain
stab at the base of my skull. I started to turn. The room blurred as a
wave of dizziness swept over me....
"Here's your coffee, sir."
I looked at the girl behind the counter, then down at my newspaper.
"Thanks," I said. My stomach felt funny. I felt just like a guy I knew
once who had a premonition he was going to die. Heartburn, I decided
hastily. But I felt nervous.
I took a sip of the hot coffee and tried to concentrate on the paper.
Then I became aware of the little man. I felt instantly I had seen him
someplace before, but I couldn't place him.
"A package of Camels," he said to the cashier.
"That will be twenty cents," the baldish cashier said.
The little man handed him a bill he had been holding in his hand. "By
the way," he said smoothly as the cashier glanced at it, "could you
tell me the way to Sarah Fish's residence?"
The little man glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. He seemed
to know me, but gave no sign of recognition. The cashier was giving
him directions. I was listening, but I was trying to puzzle out the
strange feeling that I had been through all this before. And it wasn't
until the little man had left that it seeped into my consciousness that
something was queer about that bill.
"Hey!" I said to the cashier. "What kind of bill did that little guy
give you?"
"Why, a--a--Oh good Lord."
We examined it together. It was a three dollar bill. And instead of
surprise, I felt the jaws of a trap closing in on me. I listened to the
cashier babble about playing gags on his friends with it. A part of me
wanted to turn my back on the whole thing and forget it.
But some force pulled me in the direction the little man had gone. As
I walked I relaxed. I shrugged off the strange feeling I had. I told
myself I didn't believe in premonitions.
A party of some sort was in full swing at the Sarah Fish place. I
nodded to myself. I could go in and mix with the crowd. I could pick
this little man's pocket. Maybe a few more. The worst that could happen
would be that they wouldn't let me in.
Beside the huge door was a button. I pressed it and heard a series of
chimes ring out. A few seconds later the door swung open and a middle
aged man with a jovial expression said, "Come in, come in. I'm George
Wile. Sarah's somewhere. What's your name? Sorry I can't keep track of
all Sarah's friends."
"Ben Smith," I said, stepping inside.
"Sarah'll show up in a minute," George Wile said, and promptly forgot
me. That was okay by me. I had taken an instant dislike to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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