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words they use. Do that, and you will meet your half of our bargain."
Lucy hadn't made the bargain. Stanley Hsu and the Triads had forced it on her. But if this would satisfy
them . . . "You're sure?" she asked, suspicious still.
He held up his hand again. "So help me, I'm sure."
"What will you do if you don't like the answer?"
"Whatever seems necessary," he replied with a shrug. "But it won't have anything to do with you, whatever
it is."
Things weren't that simple. Lucy could see as much. She could also see that Stanley Hsu's friends would do
whatever they were going to do if she didn't get them their answer. That helped clear her conscience. "All
right," she said. "I'll ask it."
"Yes, ma'am." Paul tried to sound enthusiastic about a stereo system that would have been a hopeless
antique in the home timeline. "This one will make your records sound better than they ever have before."
Even talking about records made him feel as if he'd fallen back into the dim, dark days of the twentieth
century.
"That's nice," said the woman who was admiring the stereo. "And it will also be something most of my
neighbors don't have, won't it?"
"Oh, yes." Paul tried to exude sincerity. "This is our very latest model."
She smiled at him. Her teeth had braces on them. That was much much less common and more expensive
here than in the home timeline. Her dress was of a turquoise silk that glowed under the lights in the shop.
She wore a wedding ring with a fat diamond in it, too. She was old about his father's age and kind of
dumpy, but she had money. Maybe she was a nob of Nob Hill. Paul had always liked the sound of that.
"I'll take it," she said. Only after she decided that did she bother to ask, "How much does it cost?"
"Like I told you, this is our very top-of-the-line model," Paul answered. "It's $499.95." Not even five
benjamins, he thought. But it wasn't the same thing. Five benjamins, in the home timeline, meant a burger
and fries and a soda at Burger King. Some people here didn't make five hundred dollars a year.
She reached into her purse. She reached into her wallet. Out came five hundred-dollar bills. She was as
casual with them as if they were benjamins back home. "Here you are," she said grandly. "Let me get my
chauffeur. He'll carry it to the Mercedes."
She threw that right in Paul's face. It was supposed to hit him even harder than the cash. Hardly any
Americans in this alternate could afford a fancy German car. She wasn't just rich, then. She was very rich.
And she had connections, too, or she would have had to get along with a Cadillac or an Imperial.
The chauffeur was a big, beefy man. Paul held the door open for him. He lugged the stereo system down
the street to the car. The Mercedes was a big one. Somehow, Paul wasn't surprised. The trunk swallowed
the system. The chauffeur closed it with a thud. He opened the rear door for his boss, then got in himself
and drove away.
Paul was glad to put the money in the register. He wanted to rub his hands on his jeans even after he got
rid of it. It didn't feel clean to him. What had that woman or her husband done to earn it? Did he really want
to know?
He made a sour face when the bell chimed again a minute later. Someone else who had more money than
he or she knew what to do with and wanted a new toy to impress the neighbors? But then Paul found
himself smiling. "Hello, Lucy," he said. "How are you?"
"I'm doing pretty well, thank you." She strolled up and down the aisles. "So many wonderful things here."
She didn't sound as if she wished she could afford them, though Paul knew she couldn't. He remembered
that her father worked with this alternate's electronics. Maybe that helped her see how much better this
stuff was, even if it would have been junk in the home timeline.
"We try to stock the best," Paul said which was true, if you compared it to the state of the art here.
Lucy Woo nodded. "And you do." Now she smiled at him. "Did I tell you I got a promotion? Now I'm a
clerk they took me off my sewing machine."
"That's terrific! Congratulations!" Paul said. "Did you get a raise, too, I hope?"
"Oh, yes. A nice one," she said. "And I only have to work half a day on Saturday."
"Wonderful!" Paul worked hard to sound happy for her. The hours people here put in would have been
illegal back home. Working half a day on Saturday on top of long hours Monday through Friday was no [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]