Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein Read Free Book Online Page A

leave the ship at Papeete? Oh, no! If he was, I might be marooned in the islands indefinitely.
    No, maybe not. This appeared to be a routine end-of-a-month billing.
    The size of Graham’s bar bill shocked me…until I noticed some individual items. Then I was still more shocked but for another reason. When a Coca-Cola costs two dollars it does not mean that a Coke is bigger; it means that the dollar is smaller.
    I now knew why a three-hundred-dollar bet on, uh, the other side turned out to be three thousand dollars on this side.
    If I was going to have to live in this world, I was going to have to readjust my thinking about all prices. Treat dollars as I would a foreign currency and convert all prices in my head until I got used to them. For example, if these shipboard prices were representative, then a first-class dinner, steak or prime rib, in a first-class restaurant, let’s say the main dining room of a hotel such as the Brown Palace or the Mark Hopkins—such a dinner could easily cost ten dollars. Whew!
    With cocktails before dinner and wine with it, the tab might reach fifteen dollars! A week’s wages. Thank heaven I don’t drink!
    You don’t what?
    Look—last night was a very special occasion.
    So? So it was, because you lose your virginity only once. Once gone, it’s gone forever. What was that you were drinking just before the lights went out? A Danish zombie? Wouldn’t you like one of those about now? Just to readjust your stability?
    I’ll never touch one again!
    See you later, chum.
    Just one more chance but a good one—I hoped. The small case that Graham used for jewelry and such had in~ it a key, plain save for the number eighty-two stamped on its side. If fate was smiling, that was a key to a lockbox in the purser’s office.
    (And if fate was sneering at me today, it was a key to a lockbox in a bank somewhere in the forty-six states, a bank I would never see. But let’s not borrow trouble; I have all I need.)
    I went down one deck and aft. “Good morning, Purser.”
    “Ah, Mr. Graham! A fine party, was it not?”
    “It certainly was. One more like that and I’m a corpse.”
    “Oh, come now. That from a man who walks through fire. You seemed to enjoy it—and I know I did. What can we do for you, sir?”
    I brought out the key I had found. “Do I have the right key? Or does this one belong to my bank? I can never remember.”
    The purser took it. “That’s one of ours. Poul! Take this and get Mr. Graham’s box. Mr. Graham, do you want to come around behind and sit at a table?”
    “Yes, thank you. Uh, do you have a sack or something that would hold the contents of a box that size? I would take it back to my desk for paper work.”
    “‘A sack’—Mmm… I could get one from the gift shop. But—How long do you think this desk work will take you? Can you finish it by noon?”
    “Oh, certainly.”
    “Then take the box itself back to your stateroom. There is a rule against it but I made the rule so we can risk breaking it. But try to be back by noon. We close from noon to thirteen—union rules—and if I have to sit here by myself with all my clerks gone to lunch, you’ll have to buy me a drink.”
    “I’ll buy you one anyhow.”
    “We’ll roll for it. Here you are. Don’t take it through any fires.”
    Right on top was Graham’s passport. A tight lump in my chest eased. I know of no more lost feeling than being outside the Union without a passport…even though it’s not truly the Union. I opened it, looked at the picture embossed inside. Do I look like that? I went into the bathroom, compared the face in the mirror with the face in the passport.
    Near enough, I guess. No one expects much of a passport picture. I tried holding the photograph up to the mirror. Suddenly it was a good resemblance. Chum, your face is lopsided…and so is yours, Mr. Graham.
    Brother, if I’m going to have to assume your identity permanently—and it looks more and more as if I had no choice—it’s