The demolished man by Alfred Bester Read Free Book Online Page A

interesting."
    "What do you want it for?"
    "Read me, Jerry, and find out. I haven't anything to hide. It's all quite
    innocent."
    Church screwed up his face, then quit in disgust.
    "Isn't worth the trouble," he mumbled and shuffled off into the shadows. There
    was a distant slamming of metal drawers. Church returned with a compact nodule
    of tarnished steel and placed it on the counter alongside the money. He pressed
    a stud and the lump of metal sprang open into steel knuckle-rings, revolver and
    stiletto. It was a XXth Century knife-pistol... the quintessence of murder.
    "What do you want it for?" Church asked again.
    "You're hoping it's something that can lead to black-mail, eh?" Reich smiled.
    "Sorry. It's a gift."
    "A dangerous gift." The ostracized peeper gave him that sidelong glance of snarl
    and laugh. "Ruination for someone else, eh?"
    "Not at all, Jerry. It's a gift for a friend of mine. Dr. Augustus Tate."
    "Tate!" Church stared at him.
    "Do you know him? He collects old things."
    "I know him. I know him." Church began to chuckle asthmatically. "But I'm
    beginning to know him better. I'm beginning to feel sorry for him." He stopped
    laughing and shot a penetrating glance at Reich. "Of course. This will make a
    lovely gift for Gus. A perfect gift for Gus. Because it's loaded."
    "Oh? Is it loaded?"
    "Oh yes indeed. It's loaded. Five lovely cartridges." Church cackled again. "A
    gift for Gus." He touched a cam. A cylinder snapped out of the side of the gun
    displaying five chambers filled with brass cartridges. He looked from the
    cartridges to Reich. "Five serpent's teeth to give to Gus."
    "I told you this was innocent," Reich said in a hard voice. "We'll have to pull
    those teeth."
    Church stared at him in astonishment, then he trotted down the aisle and
    returned with two small tools. Quickly he wrenched each of the bullets from the
    cartridges. He slid the harmless cartridge cases back into the chambers, snapped
    the cylinder home and then placed the gun alongside the money.
    "All safe," he said brightly. "Safe for dear little Gus." He looked at Reich
    expectantly. Reich extended both hands. With one he pushed the money toward
    Church. With the other he drew the gun toward himself. At that instant, Church
    changed again. The air of chirpy madness left him. He grasped Reich's wrists
    with iron claws and bent across the counter with blazing intensity.
    "No, Ben," he said, using the name for the first time. "That isn't the price.
    You know it. Despite that crazy song in your head, I know you know it."
    "All right, Jerry," Reich said steadily, never relaxing his hold on the gun.
    "What is the price? How much?"
    "I want to be reinstated," the peeper said. "I want to get back into the Guild.
    I want to be alive again. That's the price."
    "What can I do? I'm not a peeper. I don't belong to the Guild."
    "You're not helpless, Ben. You've got ways and means. You could get to the
    Guild. You could have me reinstated."
    "Impossible."
    "You can bribe, blackmail, intimidate... bless, dazzle, fascinate. You can do
    it, Ben. You can do it for me. Help me, Ben. I helped you, once."
    "I paid through the nose for that help."
    "And I? What did I pay?" the peeper screamed. "I paid with my life!"
    "You paid with your stupidity."
    "For God's sake, Ben. Help me. Help me or kill me. I'm dead already. I just
    haven't the guts to commit suicide."
    After a pause, Reich said brutally: "I think the best thing for you, Jerry,
    would be suicide."
    The peeper flung himself back as though he had been branded. In his bruised face
    his eyes stared glassily at Reich.
    "Now tell me the price," Reich said.
    Quite deliberately, Church spat on the money, then levelled a glance of hurtling
    hatred at Reich. "There will be no charge," he said, and turned and disappeared
    into the shadows of the cellar.
     
     
     
    4
    Until it was destroyed for reasons lost in the misty confusion of the late XXth
    Century, the Pennsylvania Station in New York City was,