Suddenly he snapped the book shut and looked at the cover. It read, Greeneville, N. F. A momentary suspicion that he was in the wrong Greeneville died and another fainter suspicion died before it was born when he read the smaller type—Spring, 1952.
He still didn’t believe it somehow. He wanted to open that book and go through the B’s again.
Instead, he walked forward to the soda counter and sat down on one of the old-fashioned wire-legged stools. Behind the counter the druggist—a little gray-haired man with thick spectacles—was polishing glasses. He looked up. «Yes, sir?»
«A Pepsi, please,» Keith said. He wanted to ask questions but he didn’t know what questions to ask. He watched while the druggist drew the Pepsi.
«Beautiful night out,» the druggist said.
Keith nodded. He’d have to remember to watch for the flash of that moon rocket, whatever else happened. He looked at his watch. Almost eight—another hour and a quarter and he’d be outside, watching the dark of the moon.
He drank the Pepsi almost at a gulp. It tasted cool and good but it made him realize he was getting hungry. Eight o’clock—why, dinner was over by now at the Bordens’ place! He looked around back of the soda fountain for any signs indicating that the druggist served sandwiches or other food. Apparently he didn’t.
Keith took a quarter out of his pocket and put it on the marble top of the soda fountain.
It rang metallically and the druggist dropped the glass he had been polishing. Behind the thick glasses the druggist’s eyes got wide and scared, and he stood there without moving his body but his head swiveled back and forth from one end of the store to the other. He didn’t seem to realize or notice that he’d dropped and broken a glass. The towel too fell from his fingers.
Then his hand went forward, covered the coin and picked it up. Again he looked both ways as though making sure he and Keith were alone in the store. Then, shielding the coin deep in his cupped hands, he stared at it, moving it close to his eyes. He turned it over and studied the other side.
Then his frightened eyes went back to Keith’s face.
«Beautiful!» he said. «Hardly worn at all. And a nineteen twenty-eight.» His voice was so soft it was almost a whisper. «But—who sent you?»
Keith closed his eyes and opened them again. «Either I’m crazy,» he thought, «or he is.»
«Nobody,» he said.
The little druggist smiled slowly. «You don’t want to tell. It must have been K. Well, never mind that, in case it wasn’t. I’ll take a chance. I’ll give you a thousand credits for it.»
Keith didn’t say anything.
«Two thousand, then. I know it’s worth more but that’s all I can give you. If my wife—»
«All right,» Keith said.
The hand that held—and concealed—the coin dived into the druggist’s pocket like a prairie-dog popping into its hole. Unnoticed glass crunched under the druggist’s shoes as he walked down to the cash register at the end of the counter and punched a key. No Sale came up behind the glass. He came back, counting bills, and put a pile of them in front of Keith Winton.
«Two thousand,» he said. «Almost breaks me but I guess it’s worth it. I’m a little crazy, I guess.»
Keith picked up the bills and looked long and hard at the top one. There was a familiar picture of George Washington in the center of it. The figure in the corners was 100 and under the oval portrait of Washington was spelled out One Hundred Credits.
And that was silly too, Keith thought. Washington’s picture belonged only on one dollar bills—unless things were different here.
Here! What did he mean by here? This was Greeneville, New York, U. S. A., in the year 1954. The phone book said so. George Washington’s picture said so.
He looked again, read more printing. United States of America, he read. Federal Reserve Note. And it wasn’t a new bill. It looked worn and circulated and genuine. There were the familiar little silk threads. A serial number in blue ink. To the right of the portrait, Series of 1935, and a reproduced signature, Fred M. Vinson, over fine type, Secretary of the Treasury.
Slowly, Keith folded the little stack of bills and put them into his coat pocket.
He looked up, and his eyes met those of the druggist, looking out at him through the thick spectacles, looking anxiously. The druggist’s voice was anxious, too.
He said, «It’s—it’s all right, isn’t it? You’re not an agent? I mean, if you are you’ve got me now, for collecting and you might as well arrest me and get it over with. I took a chance and, if I lose, there’s no use keeping me in suspense, is there?»
«No,» Keith said slowly. «It’s all right. Can I have another Pepsi, please?»
This time some of the Pepsi slopped out as the druggist put it down on the marble. And, as glass again crunched under the druggist’s shoes, he smiled nervously and apologetically at Keith, got a broom from the corner and began to sweep behind the counter.
Keith sipped his second Pepsi and thought. If, that is, one could call the whirl of things inside his head thinking. It was more like a ride on a pinwheel. He watched until the druggist had finished with the broom.
«Look,» he said. «I’d like to ask you a few questions that may seem—uh—crazy to you. But I’ve got a reason for asking them. Will you answer them, no matter how they sound to you?»
The druggist looked at him carefully. «What kind of questions, mister?»
«Well—what is the exact date?»
«June tenth, nineteen fifty-two.»
«A.D.?»
The druggist’s eyes got wider again, but he said, «Of course.»
«And this is Greeneville, New York?»
«Yes. You mean you don’t know—»
«Let me ask,» Keith said. «Do you know a man named L. A. Borden who has a big estate near here? A magazine publisher?»
«No. Of course I don’t know everybody around here.»
«You’ve heard of the Borden chain of magazines that he runs?»
«Oh sure. We sell them. New issues just came in today of some of them. Over on the stand there. The July issues.»
«And the moon rocket? This is the night it lands?»
«I don’t understand what you mean, ‘This is the night.’ It lands every night. It’s in by now. We’ll be getting customers any minute. Some of them drop in on their way to the hotel.»
Again, for a moment, Keith closed his eyes. He thought, «I’m crazy or he is.»
He opened his mouth to ask another question, closed it again. He was afraid. He wanted something familiar to reassure him and he thought he knew what it would be. He got up off the stool and walked over to the rack of magazines. He saw Perfect Love Stories first, and picked it up. The cover girl reminded him a little of the editor, Betty Hadley—only she wasn’t as beautiful as Betty. How many magazines, he wondered, had editors more beautiful than their cover girls? But Betty Hadley—
He shoved Betty Hadley resolutely to the back of his mind and looked for Surprising Stories and saw it. He picked it up too.
Yes, the July issue. Just the same as—
Was it? The cover was the same scene but the art work wasn’t quite the same. It was better, more vivid. It was Hooper’s technique, all right, but as though Hooper had been taking lessons. The gal on the cover was more breathtakingly beautiful than he’d remembered her to be from the cover proofs and the monster—he shuddered.