“Well, you see, the thing is...” Jordan struggled, his previous reticence returning in full force.
“Are you in need of spiritual guidance?”
“No, it’s not that,” Jordan denied immediately, his fear of having to talk to anyone about God overwhelming his nervousness. “I just found this egg by the station and I can’t see anything like it on the birdwatcher sites and I was just curious and Marcie said you was into that sort of thing and...”
“You’d like me to take a look and tell you what laid it?” the preacher suggested, sensing that if he didn’t break in soon he might end up listening to his caller’s entire life history. That was fine when it was a member of his flock, but when they didn’t contribute to the collection plate each Sunday it was more than the job required.
“Well, yeah,” Jordan agreed, winding down now that the request was made.
“Sure. I’ve got some calls to make out in your direction tomorrow, so I can swing by in the afternoon,” Talbert offered.
“I’d appreciate that.”
“See you tomorrow, Jordan,” the priest said and rang off.
Jordan put down the phone’s handset and wondered how he was going to be able to wait until then.
Talbert’s gas-station-owner-bankrupting hybrid slid soundlessly onto the gas station forecourt a little before two o’clock the following day. The electric motor made so little sound that Jordan didn’t know that it was there until the door to the storefront rattled open and frightened him half to death.
The Reverend Talbert was living proof that God looked after his own. Tall, slim and sunburned in a way that spoke of healthy outdoor living rather than intolerance to the sun’s rays, he was dressed in a white suit that looked as impeccable as though he had taken it off the hanger only a few minutes before. His clear grey-green eyes swept the length of the room and then he asked in homely good humour, “Slow day today, Jordan?”
“Slow decade,” Jordan grumbled, but didn’t add that he blamed it partly on those who were un-American enough not to drive gas-guzzling four by fours.
“Wife OK?” the preacher asked, reaching out with one carefully-manicured hand. “Mary, isn’t it?”
“Marcie,” Jordan responded immediately, taking the proffered hand and finding the shake to be firm, friendly and perhaps just a little professional.
“Sorry about that,” the preacher smiled and his teeth were as perfect as the toothpaste models on the TV and white enough to make Shakira switch brands. “Still, if I’d gotten it right my own wife might have started asking questions.”
Jordan echoed the smile, though somewhat uncertainly as he wasn’t quite sure that he had properly understood the joke, if in fact it had been meant as such.
“So, what have you got that’s causing you so much concern?” Talbert moved on both smoothly and swiftly, glossing over his audience’s hesitancy.
“It’s right here,” Jordan said, as eager to move on as the preacher had seemed. He guided Talbert over to a corner of the room behind the counter where he had fixed up a makeshift ‘nest’ of old, shredded newspaper stuffed inside a cut-down Twinkies carton (and wasn’t he glad those were back on the market after Hostess Bakeries filed for bankruptcy?). He’d also set up a low wattage bulb above the box to keep the egg warm. He’d seen something similar, though a lot more professionally put together, online.
“OK,” Talbert mused as he looked at the egg lying in the middle of the past week’s news headlines from a number of angles. “I’m just going to turn it over, but I’ll be real careful.”
The other side of the egg produced much the same amount of examination as had the first. Finally, Talbert straightened his back and admitted, “Nope, I’ve no idea what that is.”
“None at all?” Jordan asked disappointedly.
“It’s nothing that you’d find around here normally,” the preacher suggested, “and not any of the obvious contenders from the rare egg catalogues. Would you mind if I took a photograph and had a look through my books at home?”
Jordan didn’t have time to voice any possible objection before Talbert pulled out one of the latest model fruit-flavoured cell phones and took a couple of snaps.
“I don’t want to be no bother,” Jordan said belatedly.
“It’s no bother at all,” Talbert denied effusively. “I’m not one for a mystery, other than the Divine ones of course, and this has got me curious. I’ll give you a call and let you know what I find out.”
“Sure, thanks.”
Talbert spun around on the heel of his hand-stitched boots and strode back out to his Frankenstein car on the forecourt before Jordan had time to realise that the man hadn’t even considered buying anything in the store.
“Well that just about sums it up,” he muttered and, on a whim, turned the egg back over into its original position.
The phone rang at about seven o’clock, surprising the hell out of Jordan and causing Marcie to swear in a very unladylike manner as it was interrupting one of her favourite early evening soaps. Jordan could never quite believe that it was possible for there to be so many such shows, but then some of them claimed to be ‘dramas’ and pretended that they were something more than soaps with a bigger budget. Not wanting to put up with a grouchy wife all evening (and possibly quite far into tomorrow), Jordan jumped up and grabbed the handset, silencing the ringer.
“Hello,” he said, as quietly as he thought he could so as to not further annoy Marcie but still be heard by the unusual caller.
“Hello, Jordan,” the caller greeted him and then paused for a second. “Is something wrong?”
“Reverend Talbert,” Jordan recognised the voice. “No, why should there be anything wrong?”
“You’re sounding kinda quiet,” the preacher explained. “Something the matter with your throat?”
“No, no,” Jordan allayed the other man’s concerns. “Marcie’s just watching... TV.”
Most people would have just wandered out the room with their cordless handset, but Jordan’s phone was firmly connected by wires.
“And you don’t want to disturb her; I quite understand. I won’t keep you long. I’ve been researching this egg of yours all day long,” the preacher revealed. “It’s fascinating. The simple truth of it is that I can’t find a thing that looks anything like it. The colouration is quite unique.”
“Oh,” Jordan felt both disappointed and excited at the same time. He was now very keen to find out what had laid the egg, but the rarer it was the more chance there might be of it being valuable.
“I hope that you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of calling a friend of mine, a very important collector in this part of the world. If he doesn’t know what it is, then it doesn’t exist. He might even be willing to represent you.”
“Represent me?” Jordan was immediately concerned that finding the egg was somehow going to land him in court, possibly on a charge of rare breed egg poaching.
“Well, if it’s as rare as it appears to be there’s sure to be a lot of interest in any auction,” Talbert revealed, “and Eddie, that’s my friend, Eddie Collins, knows all the right people to get interested. He’ll charge a fee, of course, but it will surely be modest in comparison to whatever he can get for the egg.”
“People pay a lot for eggs?” Jordan asked in wonder at the idea.
“The really rare ones, yes they do,” Talbert confirmed. “A lot. Anyway, Eddie’s promised to come down tomorrow and we’ll swing by and find out what laid that thing once and for all. Keep it safe, OK?”
“I will,” Jordan promised, still rather stunned by the fact that people were willing to pay out big money for such small, fragile things as birds’ eggs.
“And what was that all about?” Marcie asked as Jordan replaced the handset into the cradle, not even bothering to undo the kinks in the cord. “Who pays a lot for what, now?”
Of course she had picked up on that, enough to have muted the sound on whatever show it was that she had been watching.
“That egg I found,” there was no point trying to lie to her; he hadn’t been able to do that since the day that he met her. “The Rev Talbert thinks that it might be rare, really rare. He’s got some big-time collector coming down tomorrow to see it. He thinks that there might be some money in selling it.”
“How much money?” was the predictable response.
“A lot, he said. A lot.”
“Enough for a vacation?” she asked excitedly, “Maybe somewhere with water.”
“He said that there might be interest from all over,” Jordan said, ignoring her.
“Hawaii maybe.”
“Probably make the news, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Or maybe we could go shopping,” Marcie changed her tack.
“Maybe even the national news.”
“I’ve always wanted to do one of those supermarket sweeps.”
“Might even get onto one of the talk shows,” Jordan mused, thinking of the scenes that seemed to endlessly play out on the television.
“Or go to Hollywood and make a tour of Rodeo Drive,” Marcie dreamed.
“Maybe if they liked me they’d give me my own talk show,” Jordan said with a sigh.
“Just like in Pretty Woman,” Marcie also said with a sigh.
It was mid-morning when the preacher’s hated hybrid swept onto the apron of the gas station. Jordan might even have considered getting one for himself now had the wait for it not seemed interminable and driven him to the very edge of the cliffs of insanity. He’d rearranged virtually every single stock display in the store, only to find that when he stepped back the overall impression was the same. Marcie had paid three impromptu visits (three more than in the past six years) and on two of them had brought him a cup of undrinkable coffee. It was instant coffee for heaven’s sake; how could she make a mess of instant coffee? Her presence had merely pushed the impatience he felt through the frustration barrier. Twice, he had picked up the phone to dial the Reverend’s number and twice he had put it back down again.
Despite her keenness, Marcie didn’t notice the arrival of the car because it was running on its near-silent electric motor. Jordan reined in the desire to go rushing out to greet the new arrivals, but it was a close-run thing all the same.
The stranger who exited the passenger side of the vehicle was almost as impeccably dressed as the preacher, but sported a string tie around the neck of his patterned shirt, very expensive designer shoes (as opposed to Talbert’s very expensive boots) and a pristine white cowboy hat that reflected the sunlight with a glare that was difficult to look at. He held himself the way that a man who is confident in his own importance does and the way that the Reverend followed him like a pet, reinforced the image. Talbert was an important figure in this community, but he trailed behind the other man like a puppy on a lead, trying to keep up.
The preacher did catch up just before the wearer of the cowboy hat reached the door and opened it for him. Jordan thought with a start that he really ought to have been there to open the door and welcome them both inside, but he had been so transfixed by the sight of Talbert as sycophant that he had not moved from the spot.
“Hi there,” the newcomer crossed to the counter in a couple of steps, “the name’s Eddie. I understand you’ve got something to show me?”
Jordan reached the box holding the egg and didn’t even consider that the man hadn’t asked for his name, or offered his hand for a shake.
“So this is the big mystery, eh?” Eddie said, leaning down to examine the egg very closely. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and brought out an eyepiece that Jordan had seen jewellers use in TV shows. “You want to turn it over?”
“Uh, OK,” Jordan agreed, wondering why he didn’t do it himself. Then again, if the egg was something special, something rare and expensive, then he wasn’t going to want to risk breaking it and having to pay out whatever it was worth himself. That idea excited Jordan even more about his find and his fingers were trembling as he gently rolled the egg over.
Eddie leaned down over the box again, peering through the eyeglass intently once more. After what seemed like halfway to the end of time, he stood up and allowed the eyeglass to fall from his eye into his hand. As he stowed it away in the jacket pocket from whence it had come.
“Well, what do you think?” Talbert demanded, apparently as excited as Jordan was.
“I think...”
Eddie’s hand shot out and grabbed up the egg from the box, tossing it carelessly to the gas station owner. Jordan was certain that he was having a heart attack, the thought of all that money getting smashed on the stained linoleum floor enough to stop his breathing, even though he caught it instinctively.
“... that you’ve been had.”
“What?” Jordan and Talbert spoke in unison.
“It’s a fake,” Eddie told them, “and not a very good one at that. No wonder you couldn’t identify it. It’s been painted. Really George, I’m surprised at you, being taken in so easily.”
“But I found it,” Jordan objected, his world collapsing around his ears.
“Don’t make it real, son,” Eddie said condescendingly, not least because Jordan was easily a couple of years older than him.
“But it’s warm,” Jordan continued in a muted voice, but Eddie had already turned away and was opening the door to go back out into the baking sunlight. Talbert gave Jordan a sympathetic sort of a shrug and hurried after him.
As the hybrid eased silently away, Jordan considered the egg in his hand. Dismay was turned to anger in the way that strong emotions do. The egg was at fault. The egg had made him believe. The egg had made promises that it had failed to live up to.
He stormed suddenly out of the store, anger frothing over into fury. He strode intently across to the mobile home and slammed the door open hard enough to rock the whole structure.
“What’s going on? Are they here?” Marcie asked, alarm barely getting the better of her excitement.
“Been and gone,” Jordan told her savagely. “Barely stayed a minute.”
He hunted around in the cupboards, banging and crashing much more than his search could possibly have required.
“Why? What did you do?” his wife demanded.
“Didn’t have time to do nothing,” he replied. How like her to assume that it was something he had done, “but the egg’s a fake.”
“A fake?” Jordan was too busy hunting in the cupboards to notice his wife take a step back and place a hand over her heart as though she had been shot.
“Uhuh,” he confirmed, “but it’s still an egg and I’m gonna fry and eat the bastard.”
He came back out of the cupboard with a frying pan held triumphantly in his hand. He slammed it down on the one ring stove, which he lit with a brutal twist of the knob. Had he been less angry, he would have been suprised that the knob didn't come off in his hand.
He cracked the egg down hard on the edge of the pan's rim. It just bounced off.
“Huh?” This last indignity was the final straw. Jordan slammed the egg down harder.
“We interrupt your regular programming with this emergency breaking news story; a suspected nuclear explosion in the heartland of Nevada, wiping a small town completely off the map with a complete loss of life. We go directly to our affiliate reporter some 18 miles from the affected area...”
Lottery Ticket, Lottery Ticket
Pavel glanced over the side of his rack to check that the one below wasn’t projecting out and climbed down onto the floor, slipping the sleeping cuff off his arm with practised ease. The underheating made the floor’s smooth surface warm against his skin. He squeezed his way down to the end of the rack and out through the sliding door into the corridor. The door squeaked slightly on its runners. He would have to get maintenance to fix that before it started disturbing the people sleeping closest to it at the end of the rack. The queue for the shower was only twenty or so people this morning, so he was able to walk through it at a slightly slower pace and rev
el in the few extra seconds of soothing water. At the far end, he towelled himself dry and took the freshly laundered and pressed suit out of his locker. It was the older of the pair and was starting to fray in a few places, but it was barely noticeable and he wasn’t due a replacement for three months.
Once he was ready, he stepped into the drop chute and fell the thirteen storeys until the deceleration burst slowed his descent and deposited him on the cafeteria floor with barely a discernible jolt. He exited the chute, patting his hair back into place, and joined the queue for breakfast. He waited patiently for his place in front of the biometric scanner and was relieved to see that his readout didn’t automatically choose the contents of his plate for him. He signalled his order to the server and read his seating assignment before taking his place. He didn’t know any of his table partners, though he recognised their faces of course, so he nodded and smiled non-commitally and ate silently. He even plugged in his headset to avoid overhearing anybody else’s conversation.
Once finished, he joined the queue to deposit his tray into the disposal and followed the others out onto the street, making sure that the picked the right line far enough in advance that he would find himself on the right walkway when he exited the dorm building. He could see from the blue sky so far above that it was going to be a beautiful day. Of course, it was going to be a few hours before the sun was high enough for the light to fall directly down to street level. The street level lighting had transitioned to morning ambience and the number of people on the walkway was low enough that he had no trouble breathing and could even flex his arms a little without bothering those around him.
The headset beeped to let him know that it had detected a paired device and Pavel knew immediately who it was.
“Alex,” he greeted his friend.
“Morning Pavel,” Alex responded heartily through the headset. Pavel winced at the sound and lowered the volume with an inclination of his head.
Taking the Tube to the Outer Limits Page 7