Read Umney's Last Case for Free Online Page B

won't do you any good to draw this
    business out, Clyde.''
    ``What gave you that ide--''
    Then he said the thing I'd been dreading, and put out the last tiny flicker of hope at
    the same time. `Ì know all your
    ideas, Clyde. After all, I'm you.''
    I licked my lips and forced myself to speak; anything to keep him from yanking that
    zipper. Anything at all. My voice
    came out husky, but at least it did come out.
    ``Yeah, I noticed the resemblance. I'm not familiar with the cologne, though. I'm an
    Old Spice man, myself.''
    His thumb and finger remained pinched on the zipper, but he didn't pull it. At least
    not yet.
    ``But you like this,'' he said with perfect assurance, `ànd you'd use it if you could
    get it down at the Rexall on the
    corner, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, you can't. It's Aramis, and it won't be invented
    for another forty years or so.'' He
    glanced down at his weird, ugly basketball shoes. ``Like my sneakers.''
    ``The devil you say.''
    ``Well, yes, I suppose the devil might come into it somewhere,'' Landry said, and he
    didn't smile.
    ``Where are you from?''
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    `Ì thought you knew.'' Landry pulled the zipper, revealing a rectangular gadget made
    of some smooth plastic. It was
    the same color the seventh-floor hall was going to be by the time the sun went down.
    I'd never seen anything like it.
    There was no brand name on it, just something that must have been a serial number: T 1000. Landry lifted it out of its
    carrying case, thumbed the catches on the sides, and lifted the hinged top to reveal
    something that looked like the
    telescreen in a Buck Rogers movie. `Ì come from the future,'' Landry said. ``Just
    like in a pulp magazine story.''
    ``You come from Sunnyland Sanitarium, more like it,'' I croaked.
    ``But not exactly like a pulp science-fiction story,'' he went on, ignoring what I'd
    said. ``No, not exactly.'' He pushed a
    button on the side of the plastic case. There was a faint whirring sound from inside
    the gadget, followed by a brief,
    whistling beep. The thing sitting on his lap looked like some strange stenographer's
    machine . . . and I had an idea that
    that wasn't far from the truth.
    He looked up at me and said, ``What was your father's name, Clyde?''
    I looked at him for a moment, resisting an urge to lick my lips again. The room was
    still dark, the sun still behind some
    cloud that hadn't even been in sight when I came in off the street. Landry's face
    seemed to float in the gloom like an
    old, shrivelled balloon.
    ``What's that got to do with the price of cucumbers in Monrovia?'' I asked.
    ``You don't know, do you?''
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    `Òf course I do,'' I said, and I did. I just couldn't come up with it, that was all-it was stuck there on the tip of my
    tongue, like Mavis Weld's phone number, which had been BAyshore something-or-other.
    ``How about your mother's?''
    ``Quit playing games with me!''
    ``Here's an easy one--what high school did you go to? Every red-blooded American man
    remembers what school he
    went to, right? Or the first girl he ever went all the way with. Or the town he grew
    up in. Was yours San Luis
    Obispo?''
    I opened my mouth, but this time nothing came out.
    ``Carmel?''
    That sounded right . . . and then felt all wrong. My head was whirling.
    `Òr maybe it was Dusty Bottom, New Mexico.''
    ``Cut the crap!'' I shouted.
    ``Do you know? Do you?''
    ``Yes! It was--''
    He bent over. Rattled the keys of his strange steno machine.
    ``San Diego! Born and raised!''
    He put the machine on my desk and turned it around so I could read the words floating
    in the window above the
    keyboard.
    ``San Diego! Born and raised!''
    My eyes dropped from the window to the word stamped into the plastic frame surrounding
    it.
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    ``What's a Toshiba?'' I asked. ``Something that