Counterfeit World Read Online Free PDF

urge to cough. Another draft or two and I was past the hump that invariably betrays an infrequent smoker. Then came the pleasant giddiness, the sharp but satisfying assault on nostril and palate.
    A moment later, my euphoria was helped along by the soothing taste of Scotch. I sipped appreciatively, glancing out over the almost filled room. The light was subdued, the smokers restrained in conversation, so that a droning susurrus commingled with the archaic music.
    Another period song was flowing from the speakers—“Two Cigarettes in the Dark.” And I found myself wondering how Jinx felt about the Thirty-third, how it would be to relax with her in a roof garden and watch the glow of a cigarette cast crimson highlights on the satin smoothness of her face.
    For the hundredth time I assured myself that she could have had nothing to do with the disappearance of Fuller’s cryptic drawing. I went over it clearly in my mind. I had seen the sketch while walking her to the door. When I had returned to the desk, it was gone.
    But, if she wasn’t somehow involved, then why had she denied knowing Morton Lynch?
    I swallowed the rest of the Scotch, ordered another and smoked the cigarette awhile. How simple it would all be if I could only convince myself there was no Morton Lynch—had never been any! In that case, Fuller’s death wouldn’t be under suspicion and Jinx would have been on solid ground in denying she had known him. But, still, that wouldn’t explain the missing drawing.
    Someone climbed onto the stool next to mine and a stout, gentle hand descended on my shoulder. “Damned busy-bodies!”
    I glanced up at Avery Collingsworth. “Got you too?”
    “Four of them. One hit me with a Medical Association personal habits survey. I’d rather have a tooth pulled.”
    Limpy brought over Collingsworth’s pipe, its bowl filled with the house’s special mixture, and took his order for a straight whiskey.
    “Avery ” I said thoughtfully while he lit up, “I’d like to toss you a picture puzzle. There’s this drawing. It shows a Grecian warrior with a spear, facing right and taking a step. Ahead is a turtle, moving in the same direction. One: What would it suggest to you? Two: Have you seen anything like it recently?”
    “No. I—say, what is this? By now I could have been home having a hot shower.”
    “Dr. Fuller left just such a drawing for me. Let’s start off with the assumption it was significant. Only, I can’t figure out what it means.”
    “Oddball, if you ask me.”
    “So, it’s oddball. But does it suggest anything?”
    He mulled over it, sucking pensively on his pipe. “Perhaps.”
    In the face of his continued silence, I asked, “Well, what? ”
    “ Zeno. ”
    “ Zeno? ”
    “Zeno’s Paradox. Achilles and the tortoise.”
    I snapped my fingers with a mental “But of course!” Achilles in pursuit of the tortoise, never able to overtake it because each time he covers half the gap, the turtle will move ahead by a proportionate distance.
    “Can you think of any application the paradox might have in our work?” I asked excitedly.
    Eventually he shrugged. “Not offhand. But then, I’m only responsible for the psychoprogramming end of the operation. I wouldn’t be able to speak authoritatively for the other phases.”
    “The upshot of the paradox, as I recall, is the assumption that all motion is an illusion.”
    “Basically.”
    “But that doesn’t have any application at all, as far as I’m concerned.” Evidently Zeno’s Paradox wasn’t what Fuller’s drawing had been meant to suggest.
    I reached for my drink, but Collingsworth stayed my arm. “I wouldn’t attach seriousness to anything Fuller did during those last couple of weeks. He was acting rather peculiar, you know.”
    “Maybe he had a reason.”
    “No single reason could explain all the peculiarities.”
    “For instance?”
    He pursed his lips. “I played chess with him two nights before he got killed. He hit the bottle the