Vintage PKD Read Online Free PDF Page B

tree-shrub-flower-gardener ones . . . he had his categories. And the young ones, who were to him not like Japanese at all. Mr. Tagomi’s client would probably be portly, a businessman, smoking a Philippine cigar.
    And then, standing before the Nippon Times Building, with his bags on the sidewalk beside him, Childan suddenly thought with a chill: Suppose his client isn’t Japanese! Everything in the bags had been selected with them in mind, their tastes—
    But the man had to be Japanese. A Civil War recruiting poster had been Mr. Tagomi’s original order; surely only a Japanese would care about such debris. Typical of their mania for the trivial, their legalistic fascination with documents, proclamations, ads. He remembered one who had devoted his leisure time to collecting newspaper ads of American patent medicines of the 1900s.
    There were other problems to face. Immediate problems. Through the high doors of the Nippon Times Building men and women hurried, all of them well-dressed; their voices reached Childan’s ears, and he started into motion. A glance upward at the towering edifice, the highest building in San Francisco. Wall of offices, windows, the fabulous design of the Japanese architects—and the surrounding gardens of dwarf evergreens, rocks, the karesansui landscape, sand imitating a dried-up stream winding past roots, among simple, irregular flat stones . . .
    He saw a black who had carried baggage, now free. At once Childan called, “Porter!”
    The black trotted toward him, smiling.
    “To the twentieth floor,” Childan said in his harshest voice. “Suite B. At once.” He indicated the bags and then strode on toward the doors of the building. Naturally he did not look back.
    A moment later he found himself being crowded into one of the express elevators; mostly Japanese around him, their clean faces shining slightly in the brilliant light of the elevator. Then the nauseating upward thrust of the elevator, the rapid click of floors passing; he shut his eyes, planted his feet firmly, prayed for the flight to end. The black, of course, had taken the bags up on a service elevator. It would not have been within the realm of reason to permit him here. In fact—Childan opened his eyes and looked momentarily—he was one of the few whites in the elevator.
    When the elevator let him off on the twentieth floor, Childan was already bowing mentally, preparing himself for the encounter in Mr. Tagomi’s offices.

THE DAYS OF PERKY PAT
    At ten in the morning a terrific horn, familiar to him, hooted Sam Regan out of his sleep, and he cursed the careboy upstairs; he knew the racket was deliberate. The careboy, circling, wanted to be certain that flukers—and not merely wild animals—got the care parcels that were to be dropped.
    We’ll get them, we’ll get them, Sam Regan said to himself as he zipped his dust-proof overalls, put his feet into boots, and then grumpily sauntered as slowly as possible toward the ramp. Several other flukers joined him, all showing similar irritation.
    “He’s early today,” Tod Morrison complained. “And I’ll bet it’s all staples, sugar and flour and lard—nothing interesting like say candy.”
    “We ought to be grateful,” Norman Schein said.
    “Grateful!” Tod halted to stare at him. “GRATEFUL?”
    “Yes,” Schein said. “What do you think we’d be eating without them: If they hadn’t seen the clouds ten years ago.”
    “Well,” Tod said sullenly, “I just don’t like them to come
early
; I actually don’t exactly mind their coming, as such.”
    As he put his shoulders against the lid at the top of the ramp, Schein said genially, “That’s mighty tolerant of you, Tod boy. I’m sure the careboys would be pleased to hear your sentiments.”
    Of the three of them, Sam Regan was the last to reach the surface; he did not like the upstairs at all, and he did not care who knew it. And anyhow, no one could compel him to leave the safety of the Pinole Fluke-pit;