`I'm eccentric, all right,'' he said. `And it 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. `I 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, `and 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?’
`I 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. `I 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?’
`Of 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.
`Or 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.
``What's a Toshiba?' I asked. ``Something that comes on the side when you order a Reebok dinner?’
`It's a Japanese electronics company.'‘
I laughed dryly. ``Who're you kidding, mister? The Japs can't even make wind-up toys without getting the springs in upside down.'‘
``Not now,'' he agreed, `and speaking of now, Clyde, when is now? What year is it?’
``1938,'' I said, then raised a half-numb hand to my face and rubbed my lips.
