The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) - Joe Haldeman Page 0,49
pays the dealer 135.”
She got a pad and a stylus and did some figuring. “So the real Hailey Williams gets 6000k weekly for doing nothing. I work three days a week for 4050k. My assistant works three days for 1115k. The dealer gets 100,000k in fees and 735k per week. Lopsided, isn’t it?”
“Hmm…I’ll say. Quite illegal, too, I suppose.”
“For the dealer. Everybody else might lose their job and have to start over, if the Employment Board finds out. But the dealer gets brain-wiped.”
“Guess I better find a dealer, while I can still afford the fifty-grand bite.” Actually, I still had over three million, but planned to run through most of it in a short time. Hell, I’d earned it.
I was getting ready to go the next morning when Mother came in with a shoebox. Inside, there was a small pistol in a clip-on holster.
“This belonged to your father,” she explained. “Better wear it if you’re planning to go downtown without a bodyguard.”
It was a gunpowder pistol with ridiculously thin bullets. I hefted it in my hand. “Did Dad ever use it?”
“Several times…just to scare away riders and hitters, though. He never actually shot anybody.”
“You’re probably right that I need a gun,” I said, putting it back. “But I’d have to have something with more heft to it. Can I buy one legally?”
“Sure, there’s a gun store down in the Mall. As long as you don’t have a police record, you can buy anything that suits you.” Good; I’d get a little pocket laser. I could hardly hit the wall with a gunpowder pistol.
“But…William, I’d feel a lot better if you’d hire a bodyguard, at least until you know your way around.” We’d gone all around that last night. Being an official Trained Killer, I thought I was tougher than any clown I might hire for the job.
“I’ll check into it, Mother. Don’t worry—I’m not even going downtown today, just into Hyattsville.”
“That’s just as bad.”
When the elevator came, it was already occupied. He looked at me blandly as I got in, a man a little older than me, clean-shaven and well dressed. He stepped back to let me at the row of buttons. I punched 47 and then, realizing his motive might not have been politeness, turned to see him struggling to get at a metal pipe stuck in his waistband. It had been hidden by his cape.
“Come on, fella,” I said, reaching for a nonexistent weapon. “You wanna get caulked?”
He had the pipe free but let it hang loosely at his side. “Caulked?”
“Killed. Army term.” I took one step toward him, trying to remember. Kick just under the knee, then either groin or kidney. I decided on the groin.
“No.” He put the pipe back in his waistband. “I don’t want to get ‘caulked.’” The door opened at 47 and I backed out.
The gun shop was all bright white plastic and gleamy black metal. A little bald man bobbed over to wait on me. He had a pistol in a shoulder rig.
“And a fine morning to you, sir,” he said and giggled. “What will it be today?”
“Lightweight pocket laser,” I said. “Carbon dioxide.”
He looked at me quizzically and then brightened. “Coming right up, sir.” Giggle. “Special today, I throw in a handful of tachyon grenades.”
“Fine.” They’d be handy.
He looked at me expectantly. “So? What’s the popper?”
“Huh?”
“The punch, man; you set me up, now knock me down. Laser.” He giggled.
I was beginning to understand. “You mean I can’t buy a laser.”
“Of course not, sweetie,” he said and sobered. “You didn’t know that?”
“I’ve been out of the country for a long time.”
“The world, you mean. You’ve been out of the world a long time.” He put his left hand on a chubby hip in a gesture that incidentally made his gun easier to get. He scratched the center of his chest.
I stood very still. “That’s right. I just got out of the Force.”
His jaw dropped. “Hey, no bully-bull? You been out shootin’ ’em up, out in space?”
“That’s right.”
“Hey, all that crap about you not gettin’ older, there’s nothin’ to that, is there?”
“Oh, it’s true. I was born in 1975.”
“Well, god…damn. You’re almost as old as I am.” He giggled. “I thought that was just something the government made up.”
“Anyhow…you say I can’t buy a laser—”
“Oh, no. No no no. I run a legal shop here.”
“What can I buy?”
“Oh, pistol, rifle, shotgun, knife, body armor…just no lasers or explosives or fully automatic weapons.”