Read Online Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone by Jack Womack - Free Book Online Page B

Besides, it was so tedious being constantly interrupted by Boohoo that we were both happiest to be hearing nothing, just then. The flakes eased off before we reached Madison. By the time we crossed Park the wind had started blowing the clouds away. A full moon, silver-dollar size, hung over the Waldorf like an Evacuation Day ornament.
    »You know the Indians had a different name for the moon every month?« she asked. »I forget what it’s called this month. I remember September through December, that’s all. Hunter’s moon, Harvest moon, Beaver moon, Cold moon. Wish I could remember the rest.«
    »You’re doing all right to remember Indians,« I said.
    »They’re really going to land on it next year?« she asked. »It’s go with mission control?« I gave her a nod. »When are they leaving?«
    »Next summer sometime. June, July. Depends on the weather.«
    »You’re so scientific, knowing these things. And once they land on it, what do they do?«
    »Anything,« I said. »Anything at all. Main thing’s landing there. That’s as ultima groovitudina as it gets.« She hooked her hands tighter around my arm. »You know I’d love to go there someday.«
    »I thought you’d already been,« she said, smiling.
    »You know what I mean,« I said. »Wouldn’t you want to go there, somebody gave you half a chance?«
    »I’d just figure I’d do no better there than here,« she said. »You’re such a junior birdman, Walter.«
    »Always had a soft spot in my heart for science fiction.«
    »Heart, or head?« she asked. »Think I’ll start calling you Buck.«
    I shook my head. »Flash.«
    Listening – don’t know for what – I heard nothing but the sound of tyres shusshing over wet pavement and the tap tap tap of our heels. »Aren’t half the ones working on Apollo ex-Nazis?« Trish asked. » They probably have some ideas what to do, once they get there.«
    Sad but true – it was another one of those things that leave you feeling drawn and quartered if you think about them too long. Thanks to Nazi science, man would walk on the moon. We had to destroy the village in order to save it – that kind of logic wears away the stone real fast. While under the influence of something, a little while back, I’d been reading the Saturday Review when I read what they called that numbness that sinks into your head like a bad cold when you start trying to keep two realities in the same place, and pharmaceuticals aren’t involved. Cognitive dissonance; catchy. Seemed like something I suffered from more often than not.
    The entrance to the East Side IRT yawned before us. »Don’t let the bedbugs bite, snookums,« she said, planting a wet one on me. »Or Jersey girls.«
    »You know me.«
    »Too well,« she said, and skipped down the stairs.
     
    A freelance existence has its advantages but stability isn’t one of them. February is always the quietest month, but this year it was going way past dead and deep into embalmed. When I’d heard no word from my usual employers by the first week of March, I realized that somebody up there was trying to starve me into submission. Served me right: I’d ignored the key rule for junkies and freelancers alike, don’t keep your eggs in the foxes’ basket. Martin and I may have had a big something in common, but that didn’t mean he’d always do everything I wanted him to do. At least he still took my calls.
    »Walter,« he said, when he finally picked up the phone, »if I had a job for you, you’d know it. I swear, believe me.«
    »Wish I could.«
    » Walter –«
    »You know in the paper this morning I counted references to twenty-seven ongoing student actions, all Vietnam-related,« I said. »Pretty amazing that none of ’em call for my kind of expertise.«
    »Not exactly. Not until –«
    »I agree to start singing ›Danny Boy‹.«
    Almost felt his breath coming out the phone when he sighed. »Walter, what are you trying to prove?«
    »Trying to prove nothing,« I said. »It’s just