Westlake, Donald E - Sara and Jack 01 Read Online Free

good news, wouldn’t it?”
                 “Amen
to that, sir,” Harsch said, in his bloodless voice, as the assembled editors
feebly chuckled.
                 Massa swigged beer, then pointed the bottle at
Jack. “Can you give me a positive yes?”
                 “I’ll
do my best, sir,” Jack said.
                 “Don’t
do your best, boy. Do my best.” His head lowered once more,
and he read, “ ‘The Galaxy Clones a
Human Being.’ ” Awed, he looked down the table at Jack. “We do? We could do
that?”
                 “I’d
need help from the science staff, of course,” Jack said. “It might—”
                 “Which
human being?” Massa asked. “Man or woman?”
                 “Well,
I was thinking of a man originally—”
                 “Where’s
the cheesecake?”
                 “We
could do a woman, of course,” Jack conceded. “But remember, sir, it’s going to
be a baby for—”
                 “A
what?” Massa glowered. “You mean we don’t start with a
person?”
                 “No,
sir,” Jack said, with every appearance of calm. “Clones have to be bom like
anybody—”
                 “You
mean we got a baby around here for
twenty years?”
                 “Well,
we don’t have to—”
                 Binx,
who at odd moments tried to help other people, even though no one ever tried to
help him, said, “It might be a mascot, sir.”
                 “Oh,
no,” Massa said, with a negative wag of the beer
bottle. “We had that goat that time, and it didn’t work out. A baby isn’t gonna
be better than a goat.”
                 Jack
gave Binx a quick expressionless look as Massa redlined the clone. Binx smiled like a
poison victim.
                 Massa read, “ There Are Alligators in New York City .’ ”
                 “Sewers!”
Jack cried.
                 Potentially
offended, Massa glared down the table. “What?”
                 “ New York City sewers,” Jack explained. “That’s where the
alligators are.”
                 “Bushwah,”
muttered an editor to Jack’s right.
                 Massa waved Jack’s paper. “Not what it says
here.”
                 “My
secretary must have—”
                 “Sewers.” Massa wrote it in, using a black pen, then picked
up the red again, held it poised, read aloud: “ There Are Alligators in New York City Sewers.’ ” An infinitesimal pause,
and the decision: “No.” The red pencil drew the lines. “That’s anti-Florida,” Massa said. “Also, there’s nobody in New York .” It was well known that Massa had stayed completely away from the Greater
New York Area for the last seventeen years mostly because three of his cousins
in the garbage and jukebox industry would put several bullets in his head if he
ever did go back. Before the move to Florida , the Galaxy had been published out of New Brunswick , New Jersey .
                 “Can
I help you, young lady?”
                 Everybody
looked up at the cold sound of Harsch’s voice, to see him looking at an
attractive but apparently nervous young woman dawdling near the table and
fiddling with her shoulder bag. She was, Jack noted, the girl he had seen from
the window, and she looked better close up.
                 Though
nervous. “Oh,” she said, tripping over herself by trying to back up without appearing
to back up. “Mr. Harsch? I’m a new employee, I’m Sara—”
                 “All
right,” Harsch said. “Fine.” To Massa he said, “What have we got left?”
                 “Just
Boy Cartwright,” Massa said, rifing papers. “He’s no trouble, you go on.”
                 Across
the table from Jack, Boy Cartwright, a